Wanted to provide feedback in as many places as possible, so I wanted to share my surface level thoughts on the Infinite PvP Flight, specifically as a Mouse and Keyboard player on PC.
PERFORMANCE:
Generally good on my machine (3070, 5600x), with the very glaring and noticeable exception being Bazaar. That map would frequently go slideshow and hitch like nobodies business, making close quarters incredibly tedious. Every time Bazaar came up in rotation the amount of fun I was having would immediately drop because I never had a full game that actually ran well on it. It got so bad sometimes that getting killed by explosives would just freeze the screen for three seconds or so. Other maps performed much better and I seldom had any problems.
CONTROLS:
Aiming is not fun. I know a lot of discussions have been had about controller feel, but for me, Mouse feel wasn’t any good either. I know this varies from person to person, but I continually had issues tracking players, especially ADADAD spamming ones. Precision weapons were an exercise in frustration, especially the Sidekick. I suspect this is why a lot of people claim that the AR feels overpowered. It’s more forgiving and you can use it even when the aiming is feeling bad. This does not appear to be a universal experience, as some people have highly praised the MnK feel and there are times where even close range I’ll get absolutely shredded by the Sidekick, even if I’m using the AR, which makes me think that the larger problem is aim for part of the community as opposed to weapon balance. Quite often it felt as though my Sidekick was loaded with every other bullet as a blank, even firing at stationary or straight line targets. This problem may also be exacerbated by…
HIT REG:
Not good, at least, it didn’t feel very good for me. Grenades and melee usually felt fine, but there were a lot of times where I swear I had my reticle dead on and was still missing shots. No hitmarker, no shield shimmer, nothing. And this would happen even at close enough ranges that it reasonably would not be bloom. Between the poor aim feel and hit registration issues, there would be entire games where I just wouldn’t bother with the Sidekick at all and would strictly go with the AR and map pickups.
NOTE TO THE ABOVE: I blame hit reg a bit because despite not being particularly wonderful at Halo anymore, I still found myself doing much better and having a substantially easier time in training modes than pvp. I never experienced the sensation that my shots just plain weren’t striking the target when I would boot up training and go on a 30-40 minute Sidekick training session, but all of that training did nothing to improve the actual feel of using the gun in pvp.
ADDENDUM TO THE ABOVE TWO POINTS:
I feel as though the removal of red reticle is a big deal for why the game doesn’t feel good to aim in. Even if the same kind of aim assist is being provided, as 343 claims, the removal of the red reticle is bypassing a part of our brains that Halo has hardwired in in the past. Red reticle, hit target. With it gone, there’s a very large feeling of wrongness in aiming, like I’m shooting at things that aren’t there. The psychological feedback of aim at enemy, get visual feedback that you’re aiming at enemy, shoot enemy is sorely missed, even if you’re not actively noticing it in the moment.
MAPS:
Pretty good! The general design was great for all of them and I enjoyed the setting, placements and design very much. I do find it weird that Live Fire swaps Power Weapons though, when Bazaar and Recharge are static. Maybe they will have extra power weapons when more weapons are allowed, like the Sword on Recharge. If they can figure out how to make Bazaar not chug my machine I’m happy with the maps.
WEAPONS:
Other than the Sidekick and Sniper Rifle (which has a lot of clips demonstrating it’s problems, I’m not a great sniper on the best of circumstances and the aiming made sure I never really made a tremendous effort to grab the rifle unless I was trying to deny the enemy), the only other weapon that feels like it’s just not really worthwhile is the Plasma Pistol. And I noticed that even when it was being used against me. There would be a lot of instances where I felt for sure that the shot was about to hit me, and it exploded as if it did, but nothing even happened. I don’t mind stripping the vehicle EMP away, but it needs to be valuable in combat if that happens.
Only other complaint is that it feels like the Bulldog isn’t weighted nearly as much as the Heatwave, and c’mon man, I just wanna shoot the Bulldog more. It’s a fun gun. I wanna pom pom pom people.
BATTLE PASS AND PROGRESSION:
I’m neutral on it. The challenges seemed forgiving and simple and other than making sure I scooped up a Needler (and with the Sidekick feeling like it did, it never felt like a bad call) to get my 10 weekly kills, I never really had to adjust my playstyle to complete challenges. I did notice quite a few items still locked even when I had maxed out the pass, so that’s curious. The carrot tied to the end of the stick isn’t a huge deal to me, and the daily challenges ultimately just boiled down to “Play games” anyways, so it still felt like I was getting XP for matches played. I dunno, it’s a problem for some people, and a big one from the sounds of it, but I played Halo 2 for eight hours a day back in the day, and that had no progression what-so-ever beyond a little number next to your name, so it’s whatever to me.
CUSTOMIZATION:
A bit too limited to really get the feel for it at this current phase. It’s clear there will be a lot on offer, but how much of it will be fodder (I mean, -Yoink-, I never changed my helmet in the flights because the default one looks the best) that you just unlock and never look at again? Bloated cosmetic systems often feel like shopping the clearance aisle to me. Lot of stuff, most of it is on clearance for a reason.
VEHICLES:
Really fast and fun to drive, but their counters are insane now. Between Skewer, Grappleshot and Shock Rifle, I was surprised when I held on to a ghost long enough to get a Killing Spree.
MATCHMAKING:
I’d say about 65-70% of my games were close enough that a few won engagements for the other side at any point could have shifted the outcome. I had a bunch of Slayer games that were a kill or two off from a different winner. The other games were shut out stomps, especially on Strongholds, which more often than not felt like a foregone conclusion early on.
That’s all I can think of for right now. I’ll edit in more if I think of it. Big concerns are the aim feel and hit registration. Infinite is going to be F2P, which is a double edged sword. It means lots of fresh blood will be coming into the game, but also it means that they have no financial incentive to stick around, or no option to play the campaign to get some practice in and come back later, so 343 has to nail it perfectly or else they’ll shrug their shoulders and uninstall right away.