@RamboBambiBambo let’s just agree to disagree and move on. You’re clearly living inside Halo bubble whereas everyone else moved on, I could’ve put like a dozen of people in front of you saying straight to your face what they don’t like, why, why they’re not playing the game anymore and why they won’t be coming back ever again, but you’d deny everything, that’s how blind, delusional and attached to the franchise you are. And like some reasonable people here kept saying, you won’t find those people’s feedback here l, they’ll just say the game is garbage and move onto something else, nobody’s gonna buy this crap about sandbox, rock/paper/scissors concept or whatever excuse you’ll come up with, it just doesn’t cut it anymore, nit when thete is so much competition and alternatives to choose from.
These are the exact reasons I play Halo instead of other games and I’m sure I’m not the only one. Not saying this type of game will be the most popular online FPS anytime soon but that doesn’t mean there aren’t enough players who enjoy these things for the game to maintain a healthy player base.
It’s pretty hard to tell when most of the players leave for a multitude of other reasons. Maybe there aren’t enough players and us old school players really are a dying breed but unless Infinite gets a successful re-launch or another Halo comes out without a whole heap of launch issues we can’t know for sure.
I prefer to compare it to being you talking to a brick wall, however as a subversion of the normal meaning of the phrase.
You are a guy talking to a wall in an attempt to convince it to breach and possibly crumble before you. And yet, nothing happens. You lack the tools needed to even begin to chip away at the wall. You continue to say this “wall” is obsolete, and yet the surveys (the links I provided earlier to showcase the playercount statistics) show that the wall is still up-to-code.
And yet you still insist on the costly renovation of a perfectly good brick wall that serves its purpose well, all for the reason of you seeming to prefer a different aesthetic design preference to said wall.
You want loadouts (a wood and plaster wall) to replace this brick wall.
But doing so would ruin the entire structure of the building as the brick wall is load-bearing, is up to code, and is just in need of some fresh paintwork.
And despite the words of those who know the structure of the building in-and-out telling you it is a bad idea, you instead continue to insist the change that would make the rooms that use this wall more aesthetically pleasing by your standards for the short-term but would ultimate cause the building long-term structural damage as a consequence.
Not deny.
Scrutinize
Person 1 has a problem with the game because the game is no longer in the Halo 4/5 Guardians art style.
Person 2 has a problem with the game because the shotgun is now mid-tier instead of top-tier.
Person 3 has a problem because the game no longer has Ground Pound as one of the Spartan Equipment you can pick up in the game.
Person 4 has a problem because this game doesn’t have the Grenade Launcher from Halo Reach and Halo 5.
Person 5 has a problem because this game doesn’t have loadouts.
Person 6 has a problem because the splash damage seems to be randomized.
Person 7 has a problem because this game’s story decided to veer off in a different direction from where we left-off from in Halo 5’s Legendary Ending.
Person 8 has a problem because there is no Zombies mode in the game.
Person 9 has a problem because the networking of the game seems to be where the budget was spent the least.
Person 10 has a problem because the game lacks War Zone or Firefight or War Zone Firefight.
Person 11 has a problem because the game doesn’t have med-kits or other survival mechanics that they believe should be enforced in every open-world experience.
Person 12 has a problem because the game has no battle royale mode despite Master Chief being in Fortnite.
Just because someone has a complaint doesn’t mean it is a valid complaint.
Person 1 is arguing for a style that many fans despise and other fans enjoy. This is a topic that can be debated.
Person 2, 3, 4, 6, 7,. 8, 9, and 10 have legitimate feedback complaints as they feel that Halo Infinite is a less-promising game because it lacks or has fundementally altered something that was standard in the games before.
Meanwhile Person 5, 11, and 12 are not making valid complaints. They are upset because the game isn’t doing what the other games they play are doing.
Not every shooter needs a loadout system.
Not every open-world game needs a survival aspect just because Jonny Dorbert likes to play games with “realism”.
Not every game that hosts player-vs-player needs a battle royale experience.
The point is not every complaint is valid because to give in to every complaint ever would lead to the game in question becoming far worse as a result. Imagine if a game company decided to listen and give in to every complaint someone has.
“Why does my vehicle not have a Nitro Booster button?” the guy who plays Burnout says when he gets into a Warthog.
Suddenly, if 343 decided to add a boost-button to the Warthog; the game becomes less about actual strategy because now the goal in every CTF game is to blitz the enemy flag back home with a boosting warthog.
“Why can’t I catch and throw back grenades like in Call of Duty?” another guy complains.
Suddenly Frag Grenades are the least effective in the game because they now have a timer-fuse instead of a bounce-fuse, meaning players will dump them in favor of Plasmas, Spike, and Dynamo grenades for a quicker fuse.
“How come I cannot go prone in this game? My sniper has a bipod so I can’t I use it?” another player asks after playing Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts 2.
Now suddenly 343 updates Halo to add this feature to the game. So now suddenly trying to shoot-back at the enemy sniper in the nest is very ineffective so now you have to focus most of your team in getting the sniper out of the nest.
“How come when I wear the bigger armor pieces I don’t move slower and gain more damage resistance or if I wear small armor pieces I get faster but have less damage resistance?”
Suddenly 343 adopts Rainbow Six’ Armor-Speed system to the game so players in heavy armor move slower but have more health while players wearing light armor move fast and have default health.
Not every complaint is valid.
Your opinion is valid because it is what you deem to hold as something with value.
But just because something has value doesn’t mean it is useful.
Like paying with Kroner at a McDonalds in Japan that only accepts Debit, Credit, or Yen.
Indeed.
on the topic of Microsoft going over 343 Industries and Halo Infinite, hopefully they can do something to improve the studio’s production and management in order to quickly fix this mess.
MCC took a little over half-a-decade to be 70% fixed.
Hopefully 343 can take in a few guys from CD Projeck Red and learn on how to fix a broken game quickly.
I don’t disagree with you that arena shooters have become niche, I said as much at the beginning of this thread, but I think there’s still plenty of room for them in modern gaming if the quality and content are there.
Halo, whether I’m playing Guardians, MCC, or Infinite, is still my ‘go to’ online game precisely because I know I’m starting on a level playing field, that everyone has the same gun as me and, as Rambo stated, the match relies on movement, teamwork, and control of the map’s assets.
… and to be honest I’m an older, console gamer that was around when arena shooters like Quake and Unreal Tournament were what you played when you jumped online, because that’s about all there was, so I guess I’m a bit partial to that genre.
(plus, I’m a rather poor sport that hates the idea of an opposing player having tooled together a better starting loadout than mine, I’d much rather have identical starting weapons, tiresome as they can become, so I can blame my poor performances on things like connection and my opponent being a dirty cheat. 
)
At this point, Battle Royale games and shooters like C.O.D…, which offers what appears to be an almost limitless amount of loadout customization and the ‘illusion’ of advantage, are going to retain vastly larger player-counts than an old-timey, arena shooter like Halo Infinite.
… but, the abysmal numbers at Infinite’s peak hours are definitely more a result of the game itself rather than it’s specific genre.
simply put, if it had fewer problems, it would have bigger numbers.
The biggest mistake 343/Microsoft made with Infinite was that they misread gaming trends and relied on Halo’s name rather than analyzing and adapting to data that was right in front of them.
If you’re going to tackle today’s market with an arena shooter, which by design restricts a gamer’s ability to uniquely individualize and outfit their ‘player’ with perceived advantages, than you better overwhelm the market with content right out of the gate, as in maps, game-types, immediately functioning amenities like integrated, custom creations and sharing.
For a myriad of reasons, Halo Infinite wasn’t able to do this.
I enjoy playing Infinite, but like you said, albeit for the wrong reason in my opinion, I get bored with it after a handful of games… because the content isn’t there, not because of the genre.