"Exacerbating existing grenade spam issues"

Games Halo Infinite
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  • Feedback: Desire for increased physics impulses to help with grenade jumping, etc

Regarding the desire for increased physics impulses, that’s something that’s a sensitive
area between capturing the fun and legacy physics players expect in a Halo game, and balancing around a competitive shooter in a way that feels exciting but maintains consistency. Pushing it too far results in players being thrown around too much by enemy grenades, exacerbating existing grenade spam issues. We think we have a good middle ground between these two aspects but as always will continue to monitor and tune as needed.

~343i, Season 1 Outcomes Report, April 1, 2022

“…capturing the fun and legacy physics players expect in a Halo game, and balancing around a competitive shooter…”

Are you implying that “Fun” can’t be competitive and “Competitive” can’t be fun? If you truly believe that, stop it. Get some help.

343, focus on making the game fun. Make good decisions, and the rest will sort itself out. You shouldn’t be choosing between fun and competitiveness. That’s the player’s job. You don’t have to force competition. That is a natural consequence of players wanting to excel in your fun game. Halo CE wasn’t designed to be competitive, but a competitive scene grew around it because it was fun and people wanted to play it to its absolute peak.

Games should be fun. And if the pros (ya know the players) determine that “whacky grenade physics” isn’t competitive enough. Reduce physics in ranked ONLY. That’s why it’s a different playlist, to offer a different experience.

“Pushing it too far results in players being thrown around too much by enemy grenades…”

Getting displaced is the least of my worries if I get hit by a grenade. If a grenade sends me flying 50ft, personally I’d be glad that I’m no longer near the person that threw it.

All joking aside, this has never been an issue. Stop making things up.

“…exacerbating existing grenade spam issues…”

Yes, 343i, grenade spam is an issue in Halo Infinite. Do you want to know what’s causing it? Hint: It’s not grenade impulse. It’s:

  1. Lack of Friendly Fire
    People are spamming grenades because they don’t have to worry about the safety of their allies since they can’t hurt them. Turn it on. Please. After all, it’s more competitive since Ranked has friendly fire. So it must be the superior player experience. Right?

  2. The distance spartans can throw grenades.
    Maybe if we couldn’t fastball grenades all the way across Live Fire without the use of a significant arc, players might actually save their grenades for closer ranged fights. Reduce it. Please.

  3. Grenade Hitmarkers.
    Players are throwing a second grenade because they’re getting information about the location of unseen enemies. Again, if hitmarkers aren’t “competitive” enough for ranked, why is social stuck with them? Consider removing them. Please.

  4. Grenade Explosion Radius.
    Now hear me out, players might be spamming grenades because it’s really easy to catch enemies in the blast. Maybe make the Area of Effect smaller. Please.

  5. Grenade Damage
    Maybe, just maybe, grenades do too much damage and have become a too reliable method of killing enemies. Maybe make them weaker? Please.

  6. Number of Grenades on Maps.
    Consider placing less grenades on maps so players have things to throw. Do we really need two separate Frag Grenade spawns on Live Fire and a Plasma Grenade Spawn and a Spike Grenade Spawn AND any grenades dropped by dead spartans? Maybe just 1 Frag grenade spawn in a neutral location?

  7. Spawning with 2 Grenades.
    If the grenade spam is truly so awful that a quality physics experience has to be sacrificed, then maybe the nuclear option of reducing the number of grenades on spawn should be lowered to 1. I’m personally not a fan of this, but if something significant has to change in the name of “balancing around a competitive shooter in a way that feels exciting but maintains consistency”, then less grenades could be the answer.

“We think we have a good middle ground between these two aspects…”

You don’t.

The middle ground between “No Grenade Physics” and “Whacky Grenade Physics” isn’t “No Grenade Physics”. Just add them to social, pretty please.

“…but as always will continue to monitor and tune as needed.”

We’ll see.

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Lol. You voiced this concern better than I ever could have. This game is a joke.

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I agree 100%
20 characters

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Thanks. It’s a bit ranty, but seeing them say stuff like that really kills my hope for this game.

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I would say there are other factors, besides the physics, resulting in nade spam.

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I listed 7 other factors.

If you’d like an 8th one the size and CQC nature of the maps could have something to do with nade spam.

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Oh I wasn’t referring to your post. I was referring to 343’s claim.

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Oh my bad.

Carry on, soldier.

But real talk though, they could use some wider maps.

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oh! don’t forget that an issue of grenade spam is also desync!
two grenades could be tossed from the same distance, but due to the dysynce, once could be someone further and thus blocking off the opponents exit

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343 just continues to admit that they are no longer trying to make a game for legacy players that enjoyed just having fun in a wacky physics fun maps futuristic Halo game. We never cared about balance. We wanted fun. That’s what we all grew up knowing and loving. Now they want to get rid of it for a hypergeneric arena shooter with the name Halo in the title, but virtually nothing Halo about it. We are not 343s target audience anymore.

Halo Infinite should be renamed Halo Tournament.

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If they were concerned about players getting tossed around they’d tame the cindershot. I straight up hate this gun not because it’s too powerful or anything, but the way it throws you around and sucks you in is obnoxious as hell.

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Also it flashbangs the crap out of you so can’t even shoot back

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Yeah overtuning for comp. his how we got Halo 5 Magnums. Have you ever played H5 arena?
You spawn with a magnum and The only guns on the map are the BRs, DMR, and Carbines. It’s so sterile. Meanwhile H5 is home to some of the craziest guns in the franchise like the Plasma Caster or a literal blackhole gun.

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Sterile is a fantastic way to describe it. Fine tuned to the point of being completely controlled with no unexpected variables. Repetitive. Predictable. Dull. Halo Infinite is pretty sterile.

Actually, that makes me think of a similar word.

Rename Halo Infinite to Halo Impotent
“Unable to take effective action; helpless or powerless”

Really describes the development of the game.

Originally I was thinking Halo Infant since it’s clearly still a beta, but Halo Impotent better describes the weak and helpless state of the game’s instability and really gives off that impression that this game may never actually get better and grow. The devs clearly do not have this game under control, and are practically powerless to climb out of this abyss they’ve dug themselves into.

It’s all words, words, words, with 343. No action. Just words. No updates. Only empty promises and delays. Impotent.

Not gonna lie, Halo 5 had some really damn good Warzone and Fiesta with their massive arsenal of awesome weapons. I have no idea how Halo Infinite is such a massive downgrade from Halo 5. Besides campaign and REQ packs, I honestly don’t have any complaints about Halo 5, besides the very lacking customization for armor. I was really hoping Halo Infinite would be an upgrade from Halo 5, with more armor customization than ever before, more maps, more weapons, more modes, but man, how bare bones can you get?

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At least H5 had the spartan abilities (I know, heresy), but hear me out. H5 HCS was a snoozefest when it came to gun play. Just tap, tap punch with every cookie cutter weapon. However, what wasn’t boring was the combination of slide, thrust, sprint and hover (Eff spartan charge) to maneuver and outplay opponents. Titanfall might have been the only game with better movement options than H5 at the time.

Infinite doesn’t have that. Sure the grapple, repulsor and thrust are really cool and have some awesome applications, but you can only have about 3 charges at a time and usually only 1 player can have the item at once.

I also used sterile because these UNSC Military facility maps tend to look like hospitals (Aquarius).

I actually don’t blame Infinite for that one. Trying to compete with H5’s warzone sandbox is just not fair. Infinite has a better shot than most halos since it DOES have weapon variants, but none of them are available in the MP. I would LOVE to see Super Fiesta comeack with the Campaign HVT weapons AND the fully upgraded equipment cores (repulsor isn’t in campaign though, so idk what they could add to that).

Frankly some of effects of those warzone guns should have been taken and used as the basis of all new guns. Void’s Tear (the black hole gun) was a plasma pistol variant and kind of busted. But a gun that players, vehicles, explosives, etc into a condensed spot would be awesome in this game especially since the grapple would be a counter to it (see Titanfall 2’s Gravity Star). On top of that it would make sense, Brutes are the first faction we’ve seen that weaponizes gravity, so them have a gravity gun wouldn’t be too crazy.

Other notable options are:

  • Scales os Soirapt (spelling): a Brute Plasma Rifle that could 1 hit melee. I could have been used as the basis for a new Spiker since those double bayonets never saw much use.
  • White Scar: A plasma caster that could set long lasting proximity mines. Spiritual successor to the Sticky Detonator (rip)
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Yes!
The friendly fire and hit markers! Now, I don’t want to start the friendly fire debate, I can understand both sides of that argument, but there is no reason for hit markers. The question on if you hit somebody should be answered by the shield flair/response, not some little ticks on your screen.

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Campaign weapons have been usable in multiplayer offline customs since beta, so there’s no real reason to not have them in Fiesta, and more importantly, why don’t we have Big Team Super Fiesta? Why does nobody ever spawn with a chaingun, cloaking, or overshield? All these things would make a big difference in stopping people with sword/hammer thrust/grapple. I hate Fiesta because of the tiny generic maps, so we constantly have high traffic player deaths in the same few areas. There’s no variation or elevation to the maps. Too much running into someone and immediately dying. Not enough weapon and pickup variation to lessen the annoyance of swords being overpowered in Fiesta. 343 could fix that in seconds, but they are incompetent. These smaller maps are not even really designed for some of these vehicles. We need Big Team Super Fiesta.

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As far FF is concerned, both sides have their perks. I just wish it was consistent across social and Ranked.

I remember in Reach the shield would emit light and show that someone was hurt, also the blood would spatter a little bit and there was a grunting sound. A lot of visual and audio clues to let players know if a grenade was successful.

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This implies that we aren’t still in the beta =P

I’ve heard of the HVT weapons being in the offline multiplayer, but I haven’t really tried it myself yet. But frankly, I’m not really concerned with the offline portions of this game right now. Fiesta, as it is right now, is a mode that is being force fed to new and returning players, yet nothing is being done to keep it fresh or at least mix it up a bit.

Why couldn’t they update the maps to be more chaotic? Add a chaingun to the tower on Live Fire (for instance), or place some fusion coils around the map. Both of these would put a serious dampener in this Grapple-Sword bs, and the latter makes use of the new feature 343 bragged about but have rarely made use of. BTB fiesta would be fantastic since we would be able to play on bigger vehicle maps and take advantage of those random vehicle spawn pads (the best addition to BTB right now).

Honestly I wouldn’t want to be able to spawn with OS and AC, mainly because that’s just gonna lead to cloaked grapple-sworders. Maybe just placing the usual power-up spawn on the map could be enough.

As for the HVT weapons, I just want them in standard fiesta because they would massively help with challenges. The upgraded disruptor is one of the strongest guns in the game while the standard one isn’t much to look at. And just like that there’s a new weapon that people might actually bother with. As much as the grapple-sword/hammers and rockets annoy me, I can’t blame people for only using them. They’re the only weapons worth using.

Lastly, we need random starting grenades or at least nade spawns on maps. Why are we stuck with frags?

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Well they would only have one use of OS or AC and have not much time left on it when killing someone with cloaked sword, and they would reveal themselves, but more importantly, spawning with overshield or cloaking, but trash weapons, gives you an opportunity to back smack or melee someone with a good weapon, and catch up by stealing theirs. This includes potentially stopping the sword user. Much better than spawning with two trash weapons and just being a helpless free kill for the enemy.

I thought about this a lot too. Why 2 frags? Why never 2 random grenades? Why never 1 and 1 of two different grenades? Add more randomness to the Fiesta. Spawn me with one sticky and one shock grenade or something. Come on 343. Mix it up a bit.

Exactly. Spawn things not usually on that map. I mean damn, if 343 is suffering to make content, take 10 minutes to MIRROR some of the maps like Mario Kart and other games do. I mean, yeah, a handful of these generic arena maps are symmetrical, but not all of them are. Some could be mirrored for quick and easy free content. Think 343, think.

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