Halo Infinite QoL issues and it's lack of identity

Games Halo Infinite
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There are some fantastic videos out there by YouTuber Hdiony going over the various downgrades present in Infinite. This has also been explored by other YouTubers in regards to the games seemingly broken physics. Something that I think, indirectly negatively impact the experience in Halo Infinite.

These Quality Of Life issues are small on their own but add up to a larger picture of a more shallow experience. I’ll try to quickly surmise them here in list form.

  • Lack of body permanence
  • Lack of blood and other battle decals
  • Lack of destroyed vehicle & dropped weapon permanence
  • Lack of Player collision
  • Lack of Friendly Fire in social
  • Poor SFX/VFX & visual feedback
  • Poor interactive physics
  • No cosmetic toggle

The lack of quality or just sheer absence of some of these QoL features take away from the experience Halo fans enjoyed during the franchise’s prime in the first three titles.

These issues can plague both PvE & PvP in some cases, and otherwise hamper the overall experience of the game day in and day out. Whether it’s by lessening the potential of the sandbox or by simply taking away characteristics of its visual presentation - both negatively impact the Halo identity and make for a more shallow experience.

Furthermore they compound onto the games existing issues by making it feel even more unfinished and broken.

- The Permanence & decal issue
I’m tackling the first three points here.
In PvE/P things feel far too simulated. You turn your back, the carnage disappears. I’m not here to discuss why it’s caused by why it’s an issue. Bodies, weapons, destroyed segments of vehicle? They all disappear far too quickly in both campaign and multiplayer. There is no story, no memories to be made of this blink and you miss it problem. It takes away from the feeling of being on a battle field, only reinforcing the idea that you’re playing a game at every second rather than just letting you enjoy it.

This also applies to the lack of blood in the game, it’s a visual information device. Blood splatters or sprays let you know you are in your environment, let’s you know you’re killing your enemy. Otherwise you’re just two pieces of code walking on a blocked out surface. It only serves to remind you that you’re playing a game. It takes you out of the experience. Especially in campaign.

One of the best visual moments in Infinite is coming upon the defeated Spartans, scanning the environment; the bodies, the battle damage and the blood. It reigns you in.

Unfortunately this is needlessly absent from the PvE/P experience. The game feels as though there’s an invisible janitor clearing up everything as you go. There’s no blood unless you really look for it, bullet holes disappear rapidly along with any bodies and destruction.

Imagine Halo 3s the Ark, you watch as the Dawn comes into atmosphere and instead of bodies and broken AA wraiths being sent flying, they just disappear.

That’d be lame.

- Collision and Friendly Fire
Actions have consequences. You can bump into your teammate and you can hurt them too, your buddy is right there beside you.

Nope. They’re jelly and you wobble and slide against them, and you don’t even have to think about spacing or putting a bit more thought into your shot or nades.

This again, only makes the game feel more unfinished. Like a fan project not even half made being shown off by eager YouTubers. Again, reminding you that you are playing a game. No escapism for you.

Hyperbolic but, you understand my point hopefully.

Short on time so, I’ll be updating this later to tackle the rest of the issues I listed. But you get the point, all these things compounded by Desync and whatnot just serves up a unfortunate shallow experience at times by comparison to what Infinite could and can be.

Thanks for reading.

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There is a very easy fix for the entirety of the issues you’ve presented. Simply rename HI into Lego Halo, and it’ll be the best Lego video game ever created.

I see your list of inferiority (I agree 100% with everything that you wrote), which I must say was very summarized and kind to the game, and I raise you the new discount vehicles from Lidl. Enjoy your warthogs and ghosts that cannot climb up small ledges/pavements, that cannot do stunts although they perfectly could 20 years ago, and your slower banshees that cannot fly in circles anymore or even take any tight turns without breaking.

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You are doing the lords work metachief.

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UPDATE:
I’ve added to my list and addition better named some of the categories. Gonna tackle one of them before I call it a night whilst I watch Worlds.

- Poor SFX/VFX & visual feedback
From vehicles to water and explosions, the overall special effects within the game feel incredibly lacklustre.

When a vehicle is destroyed, it glows red and pops. It doesn’t explode, not really. Leaving certain elements behind without much of a grand send off. The least offensive is the warthog, exploding into a firey husk where as by far the worst is the Banished phantom. Furthermore, interaction with other VFX such as water splatters are incredibly tame and lesser than a 15yr old title (H3).

The phantom has incredibly poor damage feedback. Most vehicles do. 343 lauded the visual feedback of damage on vehicles but unfortunately this is not the case, damage just appears on vehicles over time it doesn’t happen.

Previously the wings of the ghost would be violently destroyed where as vehicles how just lazily fall apart. Like the scorpion falling into megablocks pieces or the warthog shiny clean wheel removal. When you blow the wheels off of a hog, they’re should be signs of damage to the structure underneath, broken and burnt metal. Instead it looks like a disassembled version of the kid sized drivable hog.

They’re like toys being violently shaken rather than instruments of War being destroyed by bullets the size of a fist or bleeding hot plasma.

It does a disservice to the game and yet again simply reminds you that you are playing one. This is exacerbated by the oh so subtle red glow that radiates from vehicles of any kind.

I’m sorry, when did the Banished & UNSC share design philosophies and agree to build in this random visual system? It’s ridiculously off-putting and generic. If the visuals of destruction on vehicles were more pronounced, this ugly red glow wouldn’t be necessary.

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Id say the cosmetics are contributing to the loss of identity as well. Was thrilled by the classic halo look on launch, but its quickly been ruined by the overabundance of silly skins and weird historically themed spartans running around. More than enough classic halo armors to have a lot of cosmetics for their overpriced store that they arent tapping into.

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I agree with you here, but 343 has already said that this version of Infinite is their “vision for Halo.” They’ve even said they aren’t happy with how Infinite is going and yadda yadda, but then they straight up continued down the same path right after saying that, so who knows what they actually want to do besides make money.

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Imagine my constant shock having come mainly from the Halo Custom Edition multiplayer, and finding about each one of these issues in Infinite that you’re talking about, mostly one by one. I was like wtf, what, what? Really? No, this one can’t be, and that one can’t be, all the time.

Of course my first realization was about the entire experience of opening HI, navigating in the menus, and joining a game, and I wasn’t particularly happy about the feeling of the menus and the background forest scene or having to randomly pick a game from a playlist. The next thing I realized, in a game, and only subconsciously at the time (didn’t process it all until later), was the lack of plenty of visuals and effects, but it wasn’t until I had my first engagement with the enemy team that it all really hit me - that something was really off.

My first map was Launch Site, team slayer. So I hop in an almost familiar warthog’s driver seat and an enemy appears at the road’s corner and jumps on a short ledge and I am like “you’re so dead” while speeding towards him and… then I crashed and couldn’t climb up the ledge with my supposedly futuristic 4x4 vehicle that could once climb up whatever. I also remember my first moment when I cursed out loud, because I was a hurt gunner with a team mate driving and I thought I’d exit the gunner’s seat at an angle as per usual and as if I were Vin Diesel jumping out of a car, but no… I exited from the back, slooowly, because it appears that you can’t exit at any other angles, ate all the bullets, and died. My next realization was while wanting to ask the other players about certain mechanics of the game, and realizing that there was only a team chat and no one was using it or replied. Fun times.

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