Halo Infinite’s sandbox, balanced yes, fun no

Games Halo Infinite
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Preface, I am not a 343 hater or apologist. With that out of the way here we go.

I’ve been playing a lot of Infinite, mainly BTB, fiesta and a blitz of LSS (which I don’t enjoy as much)

I recently went back and did a mix of MCC and Halo 5 and it got me thinking.

The weapons and by extension sandbox in Infinite just is not…fun.

Weapon balance in Infinite has been praised for how everything has a use and role. The gameplay is tight.

Yet the weapons themselves aren’t fun or really useful outside of their roles.

This is extremely prominent in fiesta, where getting half the weapons or weapons combinations means you’re screwed. The amount of times I’ve gotten a commando and PP, disruptive and skewer the list goes on. I know in fiesta you tend to notice bad weapon combos than good ones, but the bad ones leave you nearly helpless in matches.

If you get a support/niche weapon outside of what they are good for you’re screwed.

I honestly believe the weapon sandbox itself is to blame. From previous game such as H5-and to a lesser extent Halo 2-3-4 all have a level of redundancy with weapons. Plasma rifle for AR, DMR and battle rifle so on and so forth. Yet with niche differences, such as the plasma rifle with the ability to strip shields or forerunner weapons (I might be wrong here) which are effective on shields and un-shielded targets.

It both gives variety and allows more multi role uses. I prefer as a player and someone who loves forge to have more choices. Not (for example) I have a commando and a red to know where’s the closet Battle rifle, or sidekick for mangler and so forth.

I would rather more side-graded weapons to the way infinite works with weapons that just work better than others. IE nearly all the support weapons, Disruptor, shock rifle (which is fun) ravager and the hydra ETC. They all have set roles but outside of that they’re nearly useless and rather frustrating to use outside of their roles.

Another example is the needler, it’s straight up (in my opinion) better than the sentinel beam. (Why is there a reload and range limiter on a beam weapon)

Personally I would like to see more multi role weapons and less set in being used a certain way weapon. Give me a DMR, SMG, Boltshot, light rifle so on and so forth. And if you want to get crazy bring back unique REQ weapons with tweaks. Embrace the craziness that usual defines Halo and -Yoink!- in variety.

More is definitely more.

I’m aware, pros/more ranked players might not like this. (And I hold nothing against them and their opinions) But seeing as the weapons could simply be omitted I’m not going to go that far into balancing them. Or do it like the battle rifle for ranked, different weapons and stats.

(TLDR) Weapons and the amount of weapons are boring. This is a poorly disguised wishlist for new (old) weapons.

Also 343 please bring back the Halo 5 hydra as a new/different weapon, the new one in Infinite isn’t fun and falls into the niche spot that makes the sandbox feel stifling.

Thanks for reading this far!

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I’m convinced Forge will bring back the catalogue of old weapons.

And maybe even scripting of new combinations of weapons.

And from there they will leak back out to fill niche spots. eg. the classic shotgun for Infection. And to make Fiesta “super” again.

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I hope forge brings more variants and options, this is supposedly the next ten years of halo. I want to see it reflected in the weapon sandbox and in choices of weapon. Alas we will see.

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I’ve always thought the only “sandbox” that needs to be balanced is at the game / map level. It doesn’t matter how many different types of guns, equipment, or vehicles there are available - as long as each individual game has the right balance.

Forge will be the saviour…

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FaZe bound agrees lol. Look it up on youtube.

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While I wouldn’t say these weapons aren’t fun, I think its absolutely fair to say we need more. I love concept of making every weapon feel unique and for the most part 343 did a great job (the Bulldog is a notable exception I feel like it is less unique than the classic shotgun considering we have the Heatwave… also maybe the Commando, while the idea is unique it has basically lost its identiy because it is trying to be balanced between the Sidekick, the AR and the BR).

We could definitely use more though.

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They really stripped the gun sandbox due to competitive play

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I’m all for competitive balance but they’ve kinda hindered more causal players and variety of weapons.

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“Balanced Sandbox”

*Sniper Rifle is now capable of firing a Banshee out of the sky without having to have precision aiming to weak points

*BTB Maps are built to allow Spartans to easily close in on a Scorpion or Wraith to board it and easily eliminate it without the assistance of a Grapple Shot

*Some teams spawn closer to the power-weapon spawn (Sword & Hammer spawn anyone?) which allows someone to acquire a power weapon and immediately turn around to take out any of the enemies on the other team that had another thirty meters to travel and obtain said power weapon.

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I meant in weapon balance, not sandbox problems. And I’m well aware BTB and others have massive problems, on top of BTB being unplayable for nearly a month.

The maps are a whole other bag of stuff, I find all of the BTB maps especially are way too cramped.

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The Sniper is wild… the Spartan Laser was criticized for it’s ability to annihilate vehicles but at least that’s what it’s function was.

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Probably not the best expanse it would’ve been better to say like a spiker splaser or something but the point still stands.

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I mean, I agree that Fiesta is a terrible, completely un-fun experience. But I’ve always thought that to be true about Fiesta in every Halo game it’s been in.

I don’t think sandbox issues are this game’s problem. And good grief… look how badly 343 bungles even a small change to “fix” the needler… I really don’t think we want to be telling 343 “please make changes to the weapon roles and balance in your game”…

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I don’t understand why the rockets are so weak. I can shoot them next to someone’s foot and they do not die. The game feels very inconsistent but its hard to tell what is design and what is the insane amount of lag/desync I frequently experience (and many others) that hasn’t been able to be fixed via any solution.

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Unfortunately that seems to the case for everyone. Did I not kill that guy because of my aim, the weapons or because the server decided I didn’t.

It’s incredibly frustrating and needs to be fixed before literally anything else.

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I would rather the weapons have their role AND be good at general purpose too.
The problem with previous games isn’t that it made weapons redundant, its that some were objectively better than others. Why have an SMG when a shotgun is better? Why AR when the BR is better. Why the magnum at all. Why use the spiker when plasma rifle does shields and the AR is just better? Why use the Plasma Rifle when the Pistol does the same and has the EMP? Why DMR, Light Rifle, or Carbine when the BR is better? The issue kept getting worse with every Halo game.

Infinite on the other hand has each weapon with specific roles, but still can’t manage the general purpose role. Which to me this problem would be solved with a straight buff to most weapons. Commando, disruptor, Plasma Carbine, all of them.

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Is 12 a bit too many players for the breaker map

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Season two and pushing the LSS game type is ridiculous. Can’t even swap the challenge for regular gameplay. Don’t care for the game type and game tries to force play after charging in game currency to have season 2 rewards. Go back to limiting the seasonal game type to only taking 2/4 challenge slots or game will start losing more of the veteran gamers