Before I discuss my personal opinion about the aiming itself, here are the fundamentals I think all will agree on:
Aiming should feel great to veteran Halo controller players without any setting tweaks. A skilled Halo player using a controller shouldn’t feel like they suddenly are much worse at Halo Infinite than they have been in prior Halo games. I’m supposed to feel like a bad-Yoink- super-soldier, not a new marine recruit. - Without tweaking any settings, aiming should feel great for both controllers and M&K setups. I never tweak aiming in other FPS games that feel great, and settings should only enhance what is already great (like in prior Halo games I would slightly increase sensitivity). Additionally, if 343 is going for a large player base and making the game accessible, the vast majority of players do not know how to tweak input settings to get the desired results, nor do they have the patience to experiment with it - they will simply stop playing the game. - Players having a great experience on all platforms is more important than balancing skill levels across controller and M&K. Input-based matchmaking exists for this reason and even skill-based matchmaking should help mitigate the balance issues for players across input methods. - Halo needs to be focused on the main player-base, not eSports. 343 can offer custom game settings to make aiming more difficult for pro players. Don’t make pro player opinions more important than casuals.My personal opinions:
Controller aiming is far too difficult in Infinite. It just isn’t fun and doesn’t feel good. I’ve played all the Halo games - a lot - and this just isn’t right… I am not THIS bad. - While aiming skill should, and always will, be a critical part of success in Halo MP, the real fun of Halo MP is the tactics and use of the sandbox: learning how/where to engage or disengage, what weapons to use, what equipment to use, etc. The current setup takes that away because even with great tactics I will lose just because somebody is a little better at aiming than me. That’s not fun.
This is a damn good post OP. Your 4 points are exceptional, especially when talking about how the game should be accessible to new players without having to spend even 10 minutes adjusting aiming settings, and how the game should not be balanced around pro players. The pros have used custom settings for a long time, and they should continue to do so. (I also heavily agree with your personal opinions).
Whenever I play MCC or Halo 5, (provided I’m not playing against a pre-made) I’m usually 1st or 2nd place on my team - whether it’s a 4v4 or 8v8.
Playing Infinite though, I absolutely suck. I didn’t enjoy the 2nd flight so I didn’t play that many games - I’d typically come 3rd, though I know there were a few last places in there - and I’m by no means a bad player (usually!)
I’m not the type of person to complain about something without at least trying to think of a solution, but I’ve got nothing. I can’t really explain it. The controls on an Xbox controller just feel… off.
Short to medium range with AR and pistol with a controller feels fine, I can get 20+ kills. Anything longer than that (BR, Commando, Sniper) and I can’t hit anything.
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> Short to medium range with AR and pistol with a controller feels fine, I can get 20+ kills. Anything longer than that (BR, Commando, Sniper) and I can’t hit anything.
Yea, I can (mostly…) swap to the sidekick for a quick final headshot on someone, but the long range fights are just a no go.
> 2535422090176972;6:
> Short to medium range with AR and pistol with a controller feels fine, I can get 20+ kills. Anything longer than that (BR, Commando, Sniper) and I can’t hit anything.
It’s not just about what you can or cannot hit though, it’s how it feels and how fun it is to play.
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> > 2535422090176972;6:
> > Short to medium range with AR and pistol with a controller feels fine, I can get 20+ kills. Anything longer than that (BR, Commando, Sniper) and I can’t hit anything.
>
> Yea, I can (mostly…) swap to the sidekick for a quick final headshot on someone, but the long range fights are just a no go.
Same, I just stopped picking up anything besides a few of the power weapons because I would get smoked by a pistol and AR. Especially on Bazzar when your on the second floor shooting across the gap. As a test, go play training grounds on Behmoth against bots on spartan level and give yourself a BR. They will absolute destroy you with a pistol and AR. They cause you descope so often and with no aim assist you are basically guaranteed to lose. I have no trouble fighting them with the AR, it’s only when I pick up a longer range weapon that I get absolutely destroyed.
Yea you’re not wrong, it seemed extremely difficult to aim with most guns and aiming with a controller felt like an absolute chore to do. Halo never was a game for where aiming was such a heavy factor, enjoying yourself with friends was where it was at. No frustrating menu scrolling fine tuning settings. I leave that for the pros, for me I usually just play default with a minor tweak to my sensitivity, not trying to adjust dead zones and everything, takes too long and by then it gets tedious when it still doesn’t feel right after hours of adjustment.
> 2535422090176972;9:
> > 2533274802341352;7:
> > > 2535422090176972;6:
> > > Short to medium range with AR and pistol with a controller feels fine, I can get 20+ kills. Anything longer than that (BR, Commando, Sniper) and I can’t hit anything.
> >
> > Yea, I can (mostly…) swap to the sidekick for a quick final headshot on someone, but the long range fights are just a no go.
>
> Same, I just stopped picking up anything besides a few of the power weapons because I would get smoked by a pistol and AR. Especially on Bazzar when your on the second floor shooting across the gap. As a test, go play training grounds on Behmoth against bots on spartan level and give yourself a BR. They will absolute destroy you with a pistol and AR. They cause you descope so often and with no aim assist you are basically guaranteed to lose. I have no trouble fighting them with the AR, it’s only when I pick up a longer range weapon that I get absolutely destroyed.
Yea, I did probably over 2 hours of training on Behemoth against spartan bots. While the aiming definitely feels a bit better in training mode, Long range fights are still insanely difficult when a single sidekick shot from across the map can descope you. These scenarios are what makes me laugh when M&K guys say that controller has such an advantage.
> 2533274873747595;10:
> Yea you’re not wrong, it seemed extremely difficult to aim with most guns and aiming with a controller felt like an absolute chore to do. Halo never was a game for where aiming was such a heavy factor, enjoying yourself with friends was where it was at. No frustrating menu scrolling fine tuning settings. I leave that for the pros, for me I usually just play default with a minor tweak to my sensitivity, not trying to adjust dead zones and everything, takes too long and by then it gets tedious when it still doesn’t feel right after hours of adjustment.
It should absolutely feel great at default settings. I’m a veteran Halo player that’s aware of the controller settings and I have zero interest or patience to try to make it feel good (like it should out of the box).
If most players #1 focus is on trying to aim better, the potential and fun of the Halo sandbox is wasted.
I’m not advocating that Infinite must have as much auto-aim, bullet magnetism, etc as prior Halos, but it HAS to feel good and be fun such that we can enjoy the sandbox and not feel like we’re fighting the controls to aim where we want.
Agree with OP. Aiming right now is a big turn off to new players and old players re-visiting the Halo games after a long hiatus. My brother stopped playing around H3/Reach and came back to his first halo since and the only thing he said to me when I asked him what he thought was “I had no fun playing it. Aiming was so bad that I couldn’t enjoy it and got off to play something else.”
I have been nonstop playing for years and it took me a couple hours of tweaking setting before I could aim the way my brain wanted to.
> 2533274873747595;10:
> Yea you’re not wrong, it seemed extremely difficult to aim with most guns and aiming with a controller felt like an absolute chore to do. Halo never was a game for where aiming was such a heavy factor, enjoying yourself with friends was where it was at. No frustrating menu scrolling fine tuning settings. I leave that for the pros, for me I usually just play default with a minor tweak to my sensitivity, not trying to adjust dead zones and everything, takes too long and by then it gets tedious when it still doesn’t feel right after hours of adjustment.
Completely agree. It is so exhausting to see 343 and random people in these forums trying to make Halo into yet another super sweaty esports game that no one asked for. Even worse, these people think that the people who just wanna have fun with their friends and not take things so seriously should just “get with the times”. Such a shame.
> 2696128169785407;12:
> > 2533274873747595;10:
> > Yea you’re not wrong, it seemed extremely difficult to aim with most guns and aiming with a controller felt like an absolute chore to do. Halo never was a game for where aiming was such a heavy factor, enjoying yourself with friends was where it was at. No frustrating menu scrolling fine tuning settings. I leave that for the pros, for me I usually just play default with a minor tweak to my sensitivity, not trying to adjust dead zones and everything, takes too long and by then it gets tedious when it still doesn’t feel right after hours of adjustment.
>
> It should absolutely feel great at default settings. I’m a veteran Halo player that’s aware of the controller settings and I have zero interest or patience to try to make it feel good (like it should out of the box).
>
> If most players #1 focus is on trying to aim better, the potential and fun of the Halo sandbox is wasted.
>
> I’m not advocating that Infinite must have as much auto-aim, bullet magnetism, etc as prior Halos, but it HAS to feel good and be fun such that we can enjoy the sandbox and not feel like we’re fighting the controls to aim where we want.
I’m in the same boat with you there, been playing since 2007. Never once have I changed so many settings to make my aim feel good and still wasn’t satisfied. Obviously I have to give it a little leeway being a flight, but at the same time, this ain’t COD where whoever aims first and fires first wins. It’s Halo, how you handle gunfights and traverse the map was important rather than twitch shooting. I can’t count how many times I started a gunfight and immediately got my a s s kicked because someone whipped around and popped me 7 times perfectly with the sidekick. Now my aim could just be terrible, but those types of engagements where my ability to aim is garbage cause I’m on controller, but then someone with a mouse can easily whip around and pop my head off no big deal. And with crossplay being a big factor, I can’t see this game being enjoyable if that’s what we’re going to have to deal with. Hopefully with ranked play the games are toned down a few.
> 2533274802341352;14:
> > 2533274873747595;10:
> > Yea you’re not wrong, it seemed extremely difficult to aim with most guns and aiming with a controller felt like an absolute chore to do. Halo never was a game for where aiming was such a heavy factor, enjoying yourself with friends was where it was at. No frustrating menu scrolling fine tuning settings. I leave that for the pros, for me I usually just play default with a minor tweak to my sensitivity, not trying to adjust dead zones and everything, takes too long and by then it gets tedious when it still doesn’t feel right after hours of adjustment.
>
> Completely agree. It is so exhausting to see 343 and random people in these forums trying to make Halo into yet another super sweaty esports game that no one asked for. Even worse, these people think that the people who just wanna have fun with their friends and not take things so seriously should just “get with the times”. Such a shame.
I haven’t had that issue yet, most people agree with the fact that these games are best played with your friends. But, I have seen those posts where people are told to “cope” and to “get along with the times” like you said, never understood why people have to be like that, because it really isn’t needed and it goes to show what kind of crowd this game is going to bring. What 343i should focus on, and I think they already are hopefully, is really about making the game fun for both inputs, and right now M&K is having a better time with these types of settings than controller players it looks like.
> 2533274873747595;16:
> > 2533274802341352;14:
> > > 2533274873747595;10:
> > > Yea you’re not wrong, it seemed extremely difficult to aim with most guns and aiming with a controller felt like an absolute chore to do. Halo never was a game for where aiming was such a heavy factor, enjoying yourself with friends was where it was at. No frustrating menu scrolling fine tuning settings. I leave that for the pros, for me I usually just play default with a minor tweak to my sensitivity, not trying to adjust dead zones and everything, takes too long and by then it gets tedious when it still doesn’t feel right after hours of adjustment.
> >
> > Completely agree. It is so exhausting to see 343 and random people in these forums trying to make Halo into yet another super sweaty esports game that no one asked for. Even worse, these people think that the people who just wanna have fun with their friends and not take things so seriously should just “get with the times”. Such a shame.
>
> I haven’t had that issue yet, most people agree with the fact that these games are best played with your friends. But, I have seen those posts where people are told to “cope” and to “get along with the times” like you said, it isn’t even about that here, it’s really about making the game fun for both inputs and right now M&K is having a better time with these types of settings than controller players it looks like.
I think I personally have just been stuck in too many thread fights with individuals who really wanna see controller get nerfed harder so that the skill floor can get raised even higher since they want the game to be more competitive. They are definitely in the minority, but they sure do like to keep commenting over and over… I’m gonna go touch some grass lmao.
But yes, I and the vast majority of others don’t want the controller to be completely superior to M&K, we just want it to be fun to use, and that does not and should not come at the expense of M&K users having a bad time.
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> > 2533274873747595;16:
> > > 2533274802341352;14:
> > > > 2533274873747595;10:
> > > > Yea you’re not wrong, it seemed extremely difficult to aim with most guns and aiming with a controller felt like an absolute chore to do. Halo never was a game for where aiming was such a heavy factor, enjoying yourself with friends was where it was at. No frustrating menu scrolling fine tuning settings. I leave that for the pros, for me I usually just play default with a minor tweak to my sensitivity, not trying to adjust dead zones and everything, takes too long and by then it gets tedious when it still doesn’t feel right after hours of adjustment.
> > >
> > > Completely agree. It is so exhausting to see 343 and random people in these forums trying to make Halo into yet another super sweaty esports game that no one asked for. Even worse, these people think that the people who just wanna have fun with their friends and not take things so seriously should just “get with the times”. Such a shame.
> >
> > I haven’t had that issue yet, most people agree with the fact that these games are best played with your friends. But, I have seen those posts where people are told to “cope” and to “get along with the times” like you said, it isn’t even about that here, it’s really about making the game fun for both inputs and right now M&K is having a better time with these types of settings than controller players it looks like.
>
> I think I personally have just been stuck in too many thread fights with individuals who really wanna see controller get nerfed harder so that the skill floor can get raised even higher since they want the game to be more competitive. They are definitely in the minority, but they sure do like to keep commenting over and over… I’m gonna go touch some grass lmao.
>
> But yes, I and the vast majority of others don’t want the controller to be completely superior to M&K, we just want it to be fun to use, and that does not and should not come at the expense of M&K users having a bad time.
Absolutely agree with ya there, I’ve read some of these threads and…yikes. Everyone who is saying it should get nerfed is probably just worried about how ranked is going to turn out for them if they make the AA better, but I’m pretty sure they’re doing input matchmaking for that mode so there really isn’t anything to worry about. Now if they did that for social games too that would be great, but so far that looks like it isn’t going to happen so really there has to be a balance otherwise this game is going to be popular with one group of players that is in the minority which is the absolute opposite way to go here if you want this game to go for 8-10 years like they have planned.
I’m a veteran myself, I’ve been playing Halo for 17 years, and have suffered a lot from the aiming system in Halo 5 and now in the Halo Infinite preview.
To 343 I would like to say one thing: A game should be fun, not frustrating. If I go to Destiny or Call of Duty, or TMCC, I have a natural feeling with weapons. Is it possible that you don’t understand that so, people will abandon him very soon?
you said that Infinite was meant to be a game where veteran players would feel at home. Well, that’s not it. Maybe HCS pro players (from H5) feel at home, but to feel at home i have to go back to TMCC.
> 2533274874453277;19:
> I’m a veteran myself, I’ve been playing Halo for 17 years, and have suffered a lot from the aiming system in Halo 5 and now in the Halo Infinite preview.
>
> To 343 I would like to say one thing: A game should be fun, not frustrating. If I go to Destiny or Call of Duty, or TMCC, I have a natural feeling with weapons. Is it possible that you don’t understand that so, people will abandon him very soon?
>
> you said that Infinite was meant to be a game where veteran players would feel at home. Well, that’s not it. Maybe HCS pro players (from H5) feel at home, but to feel at home i have to go back to TMCC.
Yea that’s true, most veterans are the ones that come from the MCC that are used to how the originals are played. H5 was designed mostly for the hardcore player, mostly in their arena modes, because I actually did very much enjoy warzone and BTB because that’s when the sandbox really gets expanded on, but for the most part it was nothing but hardcore players who were either practicing for their ranked games or people who didn’t want to risk loosing their ranks so instead were playing casual games as if they were ranked games in the 4v4 modes. Now those games are dominated by controller players, and if it was bad with just controller, imagine how bad it’s gonna be with M&K added into the mix. That’s also the downside of listening to the MLG pros that they have been taking the advice from, you only understand their playstyle. They are not the majority, because I bet they aren’t going to be playing social modes once the game comes out, they’re going immediately to ranked play. So it makes no sense to revolve your game around their playstyle if they’re only going to be in one mode. They’re worried about their rank it feels like before the game even comes out and that isn’t a good group of people to base your game on, I’m sorry but it’s true.