So, I played Infinite for a while today, and I’m pretty impressed with the overall gameplay design; it’s really fun, and a good mix of more classic and more modern gameplay.
That said, I do have some concerns; primarily with the Storefront/Battlepass system, but also with smaller issues.
First, I really wish the cleanup timer for destroyed vehicles/bodies was longer. As it stands, warthogs, ghosts, and presumably others disappear almost instantly. I feel it’s immersion breaking when you die, and your body/hog disappear before you even respawn. I noticed that shade turret debris seem to have a much longer timer, and feel that vehicles should have a similar length before they are cleaned.
Next, player collision. I miss bumping into people; jumping off heads, etc. I’m not going to go huge into depth here, because I already saw a ton of posts from other people beating me to it.
Finally, the micro transaction elements. While I feel Halo actually has the best out of the current combined Battlepass/storefront systems (for example, reducing FoMO by having passes not expire), I feel the overall pricing is very far off, with items largely overvalued in the store. Further, I wish there were opportunities to earn CR in game; perhaps as an incentive for weekly capstone challenges, or as an additional part of the Battlepass. This would likely not cut into profit too heavily; a great many other games do this, even ones with outright predatory monitization like CoD. I feel this would also give players an additional incentive to grind.
I also feel that progression is too slow, but I’ve seen enough posts on here to know you’ve already heard that feedback.
On a lighter, more optimistic note, I noticed several bots with items mixed from various cores. I think expanding this to players would be really cool, and allow us greater expression within the customization system. The same applies to kits; I feel buying a kit should give you the armor, or at least the coating, within. You could sell way more eSports kits if people could pull the coating off them and use it with their own armor (especially sans team emblem).
I also dislike the way coatings and pre-set emblem colors take away from player expression. I understand it’s likely too late for the former, as you guys seemed pretty dead-set on selling color patterns. That said, since you tried a similar system with Halo 5 emblems, and eventually changed it, I’m optimistic that you guys could do the same here, for the emblems at least.
To conclude, I’m going to talk a bit about things I noticed you already changed, and things I’m really impressed with. I noticed that players had far more physics effects on each other than in the flight, with tools like the gravity hammer sending people flying. I also really like the way the Chopper handles; I would say it’s honestly even better than the Halo 3 version, and immensely satisfying when you destroy another vehicle by ramming it. The weapons all handle great as well, and the matches I end up in feel rather balanced, often neck and neck right until the end. You guys really knocked it out of the park with gameplay, and I hope customization/monitization can be improved to a similar quality.
Thanks,
-Flavaflavius