I have been playing Halo since it has been out, I mainly play BTB so that is where the weight of my feedback will be applied. Any feedback, opinions, or criticism are openly welcome. My primary view when it comes to Halo is that skill and map control should determine almost everything. Randomness as a factor in winning needs to be eliminated as much as possible. The vast majority of this game is very balanced, fun, and rewarding. If I leave specific subjects out it is because I am satisfied with them and feel that they are adequately balanced. My feedback is as follows:
Radar – 18m is simply far too small. Way too often when I encounter enemy players, I had no idea they were there and I’m taken by complete surprise. Keep radar as it has always been. 25 meters.
Announcer – Jeff Steitzer should be the ONLY default announcer for all game types. There is zero reason to exclude him from BTB. Getting sprees, multikills, or interesting medals feels very lackluster without the traditional Halo announcer. There should at least be an option to disable/enable the default (Steitzer) announcer in BTB.
Communication – There is an extreme amount of over communication that takes place in most modes, but BTB especially. The personal AI, announcer, and spartan chatter are FAR too frequent. Spartan chatter should be removed completely and communication between individuals for information about what is happening in the match should be a personal player responsibility alone, not delegated to an automatic announcement that clutters game audio and removes team work from the equation. At least have the option to COMPLETELY disable spartan chatter (including the subtitles) or remove it completely.
Objectives – The map interaction (towers firing into the sky) and flags moving position in BTB is awesome, and should be kept, it adds a sense of reward and challenge. Vehicles being capable of pushing the flag absolutely needs to be removed. Many of the audio queues that take place during objective interaction (flag taken, territory captured, etc.) are extremely high pitched and ear piercing. Very unpleasant to hear. Simply either modify them to not be as high pitched, or better yet add Jeff Steitzer’s audio of “flag captured” “flag taken” etc. Objectives should not be able to be grappled, period.
Sprees – There are only very generic sprees, such as getting 5 kills with rockets/forerunner weapons/precision weapons, etc. There is no announcement for them and they feel weightless. Halo Reach’s weapon sprees should be the baseline (add on to, not take away from) the sprees from Halo Reach.
Sniper – Sniper spree, sharpshooter, Be the Bullet
Shotgun – Shotgun spree, Open Season, Buck Wild
Sword – Sword spree, Slice N’ Dice, Cutting Crew
Warthog Driver – Wheelman spree, Road Hog, Second Gunman
ETC.
Bring these back! And expand upon them!
Wheelman has been removed as a medal, and is given after your gunner kills 5 players. This completely removes the significance of the wheelman medal and makes the spree(s) feel worthless. Especially when there is no announcement by Jeff Steitzer.
Medal placement and size need to be adjusted. The medals are ridiculously small and obscure a critical part of the screen (The center). Mirror Halo 3/Reach medal size and placement. The new rarity system for medals (color coating) is very displeasing and makes all medals look identical. Remove this system and give traditional Halo 3/Reach medal colors. If rarity is necessary to keep, give a background or back light to the medals to emphasize this, but making many medals the same color looks incredibly bland.
Weapons – Weapons no longer appear on players back when operating turrets or vehicles, this was a small but nice attention to detail, and should be added.
Assault Rifle – Feels too powerful for multiplayer. Kills at medium/long range way too easily. This weapon needs more bullet spread or more shots to kill.
Sidekick – Quite balanced in terms of range and TTK. Needs actual reticle magnetism.
Shock Rifle – This weapon felt satisfying and balanced to use against infantry, but felt too powerful against vehicles. Two shots to EMP a vehicle from across the map is far too generous, either reduce the EMP allowance of the first shot (which is currently 10 seconds) or require more shots landed to EMP the vehicle.
Sniper – Reticle centering feels off, when zooming in the reticle seems to move slightly from where it was initially aimed at. Aim assist feels nonexistent, Halo 3 had perfect aim assist for the sniper and Halo 5 was far too generous. This is more of a personal aesthetic opinion, but I think the sniper view model in infinite is quite ugly. The scope is super small and the weapon is awkward looking. Halo CE/Halo 3/Reach nailed the view model.
Heatwave – Awesome weapon with enormous potential, should do slightly more damage to players. The TTK on this weapon at any range other than point blank is too long.
Skewer – Well balanced weapon. Far fairer than the Laser was. However, it does a bit too much damage against lighter vehicles. It’s damage and physics effects (while fun) should be given a slight nerf. The Skewer should be capable of penetrating players and allowing collateral shots (killing multiple players with one shot).
Vehicles
Vehicles
Random Vehicle Drops – Randomness as a factor needs to be removed 100%. Vehicle positions on maps should be set from the start of the map, and players should have to compete for/earn those vehicles. Random vehicle drops completely remove the necessity of map control and results in all players crowding vehicle drops and blowing them up the second they hit the ground.
Physics – Vehicles feel far too light and weightless, the warthog flips over incredibly easily and is repelled extremely far by the repulsor. Grenades have far too much of a flipping effect on even light vehicles.
Health – I have experimented with vehicle health in this game and cannot make any sense of it. In Halo Reach vehicle health was measured in stages, and would recover to the max health of that specific damage stage after 10 seconds. Not in Halo Infinite, in this game vehicles seem to have their own health (GTA style). Vehicle health should be reliant on the spartan inside the vehicle, and not necessarily independent of it. Halo 3 got this system perfected. Small arms should not be capable of damaging heavy vehicles at all. As of now, small arms inflict far too much damage on all vehicles, and this needs to be corrected. States of vehicle health are not readable or obvious at all. A warthog appears to catch on fire after a few BR shots, yet when one looks perfectly intact I’ll get in it and it will be blown up by one frag grenade.
Wasp – This vehicle was far too rare in the flight, and when this vehicle did drop it was destroyed almost immediately. I had the opportunity to use it once and the health on this vehicle felt far too low. Also, this vehicle should not have to switch weapons to fire missiles, left bumper should be the default button to fire missiles. If there is no boost function, there is no reason to not utilize that as a dedicated missile button.