Halo Infinite has crucial MP balance issues that are driving the matchmaking population down

Games Halo Infinite
#1

I’ll be quite frank, Infinite has core gameplay issues due to very questionable balancing choices. Those balancing choices come from listening to pros instead of taking input from average Halo players, which make the game sweaty and unplayable for everyone who isn’t a turbo-sweatlord.

*The strafe acceleration is too high. Halo is not Overwatch or Apex Legends. With its high TTK, it was never meant to be. There needs to be inertia so you can actually track people. Spartans are not supposed to be KovaaK’s targets. They’re supposed to have mass. You are supposed to be able to anticipate direction changes in a BR duel. Compare the strafe acceleration in Infinite to the strafe acceleration in Reach or Halo 3. In Halo 3 and Reach, there is a brief pause before you switch directions. You can change directions instantly in Infinite. It looks almost like an animation glitch. Escape From Tarkov actually added inertia because players were abusing repetitious peeking from behind cover. It’s depressing to watch Halo go backwards in that regard. Noscopes and consistent precision weapon hits are too hard to get. Because of its lower rate of fire than the Carbine and its slow projectile, the Stalker Rifle is practically useless. Who is hitting anything with these weapons, and how?
*Because the strafe acceleration is too high, mouse and keyboard players are at a strict disadvantage next to gamepad players who have autoaim that tracks player movement.
*The weapon pickup/switch time is way too long for the pacing of the game. With movement this fast, there should be no reason why you can’t almost instantly prepare a weapon.
*The movement-centric equipment abilities make the game feel like Titanfall but with a long TTK, which is horrible and sweaty.
*Even with the FOV set to maximum, it’s too easy to lose track of someone who’s right next to you and have them waltz right off your screen. Because of the extremely fast strafe acceleration, close combat in Infinite is an exercise in meleeing empty air while seeing brief flashes of the enemy.
*Most of the weapons are projectile-based instead of hitscan, with desync and sketchy physics exacerbating the tracking issues.
*The grenade trajectory and bounce is unpredictable. It’s too easy to overshoot someone. It’s really infuriating when you watch a grenade explode right under their feet and their shields aren’t even stripped because of desync.
*Too many gimmick weapons that aren’t useful for getting consistent kills.

I’ve actually gotten to the point where I prefer playing Fiesta to anything else. Why? Because I don’t get my face instantly melted off by a Sidekick in the hands of a complete ADAD-strafing tryhard, over and over and over again, and I actually have a chance of starting with a weapon that does AOE damage and maybe, just maybe, getting a kill.

11 Likes
#2

Sounds like you need to just get better at the game

7 Likes
#3

No, it’s broken. The strafe acceleration is too fast and jittery. There’s no reason why you should be able to ADAD faster than the average human reaction time. It doesn’t even look right from an animation perspective. It looks like the characters are practically vibrating in front of you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhMvQIyQG3A

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFJfKEyd59Y

6 Likes
#4

As a M&kb player100%
Game already has modifiers in custom settings for strafe speed, so its not hard to tune, 343i should have had this dialled in months ago, but they are inept/lazy at balancing, least people are getting cross core visors cos that’s more important than balance tweaking

Prolly controller players with aim assist lol

5 Likes
#5

I agree 100% about strafing, even as a console players I’d love to see the strafing turned down & more neutral equipment like the bubble shield.

But, the stalker rifle is fine as is. Just don’t use it like a carbine or anything such.

2 Likes
#6

It, and most other precision weapons, are really hard to use on PC. I’m not talking in terms of “skill issue,” I’m talking in terms of “I feel like 50% of the shots I make with this thing kill the air”

This is due to a wide variety of factors, but I’m going to say that controller Aim Assist is the biggest one in terms of skill gap, and then there’s the lack of Red Reticle. The former because it’s really strong Halo Infinite (too strong) and the latter because it prevents you from knowing when you’re most likely to get a hit.

Playing on PC is just playing an inferior version of Halo Infinite. It sucks, but that seems to be intentional by design, per 343.

1 Like
#7

Imagine playing halo on a pc/mnk and complaining about how it feels. Yeah my dude you’re playing on the wrong system/ input. Play halo how it should be played, on Xbox, with a controller and it feels amazing.

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#8

This video breakdown is so good, Infinite does look ridiculous. Reminds me of the ridiculous bunny hopping in CoD now.

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#9

Aiming is pretty difficult on both platforms right now. But I do very much hope they fix/improve the experience for my KB&M brothers.

I really don’t know where PC players are getting the impression that aim assist is strong in this game. It’s the weakest of the entire franchise, and no using controller on PC isn’t the same. Aim assist is pretty non-existent and that is a consensus from our side. It’s actually not even well implemented as due to the settings on Xbox, it’s difficult to get in any kind of nuanced reticle movement without heavily overshooting your reticle tracking.

The aim assist only kicks in on red reticle, barely trying to slow your aim & assist you as your overshot movement just throws you off of it and doesn’t help at all.

I can’t even play with a standard Xbox controller, it just feels so unintuitive.

Aim assist isn’t strong in Infinite and aiming doesn’t even feel good.

What really needs to change is general aiming quality and a much slower strafe.

2 Likes
#10

Yes, the thing killing the game is definitely whatever the F you’re rambling about.

It’s definitely not because it’s an unpolished, rushed game with a slow AF update cycle, and can’t stop tripping over its MTX. :roll_eyes:

2 Likes
#11

Since we’re talking about balance, let’s talk about vehicle balance in Halo Infinite.

Fundamentally, the “Doomsday” state is a huge fail. I get that we are trying to move away from a Halo where vehicular death is designed to frequent less but this has in exchange put way too much power into vehicles itself. Then we have the Shock mechanic along with the various sandbox additions which support said mechanic, along with the fact each map is poorly balanced for vehicles to support Pelican Drops.

All of this needs to be significantly changed to bring back the vehicular balance we have enjoyed for the past 20 years.

Skewer needs to be able to kill any small vehicle and flying vehicle in 1 - 2 shots. It was developed and introduced because Spartan Laser in previous Halos was the be-all-end-all of Vehicular dominance, with the team having control over it deciding the match. But that’s also because older Halo maps have static Vehicle spawns and with the Spartan Laser placed in a very exposed location for players to fight over.

All of this sort of map consideration and design is missing in Halo Infinite, and BTB featuring vehicles will never feel “right” unless this is addressed once and for all.

Here are just some small changes we can do right now to make BTB Vehicular gameplay health much better:

  • Static vehicle spawns and removal of Pelican Drops
  • Lower the number of Dynamo Grenades per stack to 1
  • Increase Plasma Grenade static spawns
  • Skewer 1 shots Goose, Ghost or any Flying Vehicle. 2 shots if they hit an armored spot. As it stands, we cannot have things like Wasps surviving multiple Skewer shots.
  • Remove Shocking EMP from Shock Rifle, rework the Disruptor

Disruptor rework:
The Disruptor as it stands is a poor weapon with a very niche field of use. The weapon should be refocused into a purely utility weapon which retains its role while offering other uses for it.

  • Disruptor changed to something of a “Shock Sticky Detonator”
  • Shooting it at a surface or player sticks to it, and releasing the fire trigger will send an EMP through the target, either stripping shields entirely if a player is caught in the area or EMPing the vehicle.
  • As such, ammo is reduced to 1 shot and 5 reloads.

This expands its uses, for now players can use it set up traps where they can shock a passing vehicle and headshot its passengers. The reduced ammo will also want the user to be more careful with it, and its AoE effect will be extremely powerful when using it against an enemy team grouping up together.

3 Likes
#12

Pelican drops aren’t necessarily a bad thing, I don’t think they need to be removed entirely but maps should have better static vehicle spawns and less random pelican drops, I agree.

Grenades always spawn in stacks of 2, I think it would be odd to change this for the Dynamos. I think as long as map design has these spawn at a power position it shouldn’t be an issue, or maybe they spawn less frequently like a power weapon.

I thought the Skewer already did one hit these vehicles? But yes this should be a one shot kill. I’d like to see the Spartan Laser return as well, IMO having weapons that can obliterate vehicles is not a bad thing as long as you have good map design.

Removing the EMP from the Shock Rifle doesn’t make sense as it is the defining characteristic of a shock weapon. The Shock Rifle should just be reworked into a power weapon as it’s a better counterpart to the S7 Sniper than the Skewer. The Shock Rifle and S7 Sniper are both one shot headshots, the Shock Rifle takes an extra body shot to kill however it can do chain damage. While the Shock Rifle can EMP vehicles the S7 Sniper deals better damage vs vehicles. The Shock Rifle is probably my favourite weapon in Halo Infinite because it is so OP, but this is because it isn’t treated like a power weapon when it should be, not because the weapon itself is OP.

The Disruptor is currently my least favourite weapon in the game, so I agree it should be tweaked, however what you are suggesting is basically the M319 Grenade Launcher from Reach so why not just add this as a Tier 2 Weapon?

The end result would be three tiers of shock weapons:

  • Tier 1: Disruptor (Ideally tweaked)
  • Tier 2: M319 Grenade Launcher
  • Tier 3: Shock Rifle

My disruptor tweaks would be:

  • Remove DoT and just make it so enemies are slowed and shield recharge rate is delayed (I think DoT would lend itself better to fire damage types like the Ravager).
  • No chain damage, I think this should be the defining trait of the Shock Rifle.
1 Like
#13

H3 and reach differentiated the standard playlist settings from the tournament settings. Which included a 10% difference to strafe speed, among other changes between you playing slayer in h3 where BMS is at 100% vs you playing the MLG playlist where BMS is at 110%. This topic comes up time to time for this game, and I’ve said the same thing each time…so…I’m just assuming they’ll never change it. They’ve only changed the motion tracker from what I’ve seen.

My suggestion was to just replicate the settings so social and tournament settings feel very different. That’s why so many fans that came back to halo left because they expected a certain feel in the game and didn’t get it. Personally, I love the faster BMS, but there’s absolutely no harm in making social…FEEL…more social right?

#14

The base movement speed in Infinite is actually lower than in previous Halos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huiPzeowtoQ

The speed isn’t even the problem. it’s the acceleration. You have to turn down the strafe acceleration in Infinite to about 80% before it even slightly starts feeling like previous games in the franchise.

In Halo 3 and Reach, when you change directions, it’s like a pendulum swing. There is a bit of inertia where you start to slow down and then speed back up. That, plus the red reticle, makes it so that you can actually track Spartans (or Elites) when they reverse direction. This makes BR duels feel more consistent, and it emphasizes the need for cover, bunny hopping, and cautious tactics, because if you’re out of position, you can get killed very easily.

Infinite, especially on mouse and keyboard, on PC, with no red reticle, feels “slippery” in a way that MCC doesn’t. You know that feeling when you’re bending down and chasing a bar of soap in the shower, and it keeps slipping out of your hand multiple times before you finally get it? That’s what Infinite feels like on a mouse, and it’s because the tracking is too difficult for how long the TTK is. I don’t mind shooters where you have to track well. The thing is, most of them have very short TTK, so you don’t have to do it for very long. You just flick, kill, and go, like COD or Titanfall. In Infinite, that’s not the case.

The rapid strafe acceleration does a few horrible things to the game. One, it makes it unforgivably sweaty and frustrating. Two, it takes the already-long TTK and doubles or even triples it, allowing the enemy to perform cheap reversals or gain the aid of a teammate mid-firefight much more easily. Three, it de-emphasizes the need for cover, positioning, and map knowledge; if anyone can just ADAD anywhere they like, they don’t need to know the map or use cover or any of that. They may as well be fighting in a big, empty field.

Tracking with a mouse in this game is painful. Infinite on PC feels like it was designed for UT Lightning Gun or Shock Rifle combo masters, not average people. Not to mention, the high strafe acceleration encourages people to lead with the Sidekick and follow up with the AR, instead of the reverse. I got into a duel recently where I led with the AR and followed up with the Sidekick, and by the time I had the pistol out, he was ADADing like a maniac, vibrating in front of me, and I missed with the entire magazine.

I’ve played Halo on Xbox and PC, gamepad and mouse and keyboard, over the years. I have MCC on both Xbox and PC, but for Infinite, I prefer playing on PC to take advantage of my ultrawide and my video card. Even plugging in a gamepad, with no red reticle (and no comprehension of red reticle range, as a result), it just doesn’t feel right. Even the autoaim isn’t quite right. Normal Halo autoaim kicks in just beyond the edge of a target. In Infinite, it only kicks in when you’re right on them.

#15

I’d honestly have to load up the games myself to compare. That video doesn’t give me enough information on what’s being used. Default strafe speed meaning actual base default? No comparison of the MLG to the current infinite settings or what? What are the settings for the look thumbstick in the infinite clips? Whats the threshold at?

All I can say, is that I’m 100% in the acknowledgement of players on Mnk at a disadvantage when it comes to tracking. On gamepad though, night and day difference even with players having jittery strafes. The RR gives a ton of aim assist, and you’ll only ever hit below 50% accuracy on gamepad if you’re using your right stick way too much, using certain weapons that arent precision weapons, or you like to pre fire peak spots.

The Trump card of great players isnt their strafe though. It’s still their decision making, IQ of in game moments like spawns, great positioning, timing of collapsing, baiting and switching etc etc. The current settings takes none of that away. Imo, its silly to say the strafe should change because its actually slower but the initial movement is faster…you want your strafe to count, so the initial movement should be faster. Thats the entire reason H3 had the 2 different settings. The only time you do long strafes are for longer distanced fights because your reticle on a smaller target thats hardly moving (using a short strafe) so the player has to take longer strafes. Mid to Up close, you utilze shorter strafes because you’re able to move out of the reticle easier since you’re not a small target painted by a big reticle.

#16

This is an issue that has become a major issue with a couple games. Destiny is a prime example of how a game has turned for the worst because of a select few that has more influence then the entire player base.

It’s part of the reason I don’t play certain games anymore, including Infinite until there is a major overhaul to actually improve the experience for the benefit of the player base, not just a select few.

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#17

There are other things I really, really don’t like about Infinite. The extra-long respawn time is horrible. The very long shield recharge delay makes you feel like you’re doing more hiding than shooting, and many fights devolve into people literally playing ring-around-the-rosie around an obstacle just to recharge their shields. The scope glare effect that gives away precision weapon users basically exists to do two things; blind people to headshots during sniper duels, and warn your quarry that they have to ADAD immediately to survive.

If they lowered strafe acceleration to 80%, brought red reticle back on PC, reduced shield recharge delay and respawn times by about 1 second each, removed the scope glare effects on all the precision weapons, sped up the projectiles a bit, flattened grenade trajectory and reduced bounce slightly, it would go a long way towards feeling like actual Halo.

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#18

Quite the wishlist. How much of that do you honestly believe is even feasible to believe would change in this game? Feedback is necessary of course, it doesn’t absolutely just go into the trash…but…what do you think?

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#19

There are drawbacks to everything. Reducing strafe acceleration to 80% would make all the one-hit-kill weapons stronger. Skewer body shots would be easier, for instance, and that’s not necessarily a good thing.

#20

I just honestly gotta say I see almost none of that changing man. I get you wish the game to be different…but when I read threads about this stuff with basically wishlists of ideas that is desired…like…man dude…i feel for you, but i also feel like you’re gonna end up spending so much energy when the people that actually matter (meaning not the random forum goers like me, but the actual dev team or whomever can utilize feedback) won’t even care about this let alone ever come here and chime in and give their perspective.

Of course…I would hope to be wrong. Like please 343. Soneone actually reply and make a statement on what people say here you know? I just don’t see it. Once in awhile a monitor/ mod speaks…but…they’re only forum mods. Not the same.

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