If we aren't going to be given the option to turn cross-play off, why not instead give us the option to join matches with players of the same control input?

Games Halo Infinite
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I recently got a challenge of “Win 2 Matches in Tactical Ops Tactical Slayer”.

And that isn’t going to happen anytime soon because the mode is overpopulated by M&K players, who have the advantage of easy-target-aiming thanks to a precise tool known as a Mouse.

I love barely rounding a corner and barely having time to notice the precise location of an enemy Spartan, and in the time it takes for me to get my crosshair half-way to where my target is… I am dead at an instant headshot.

Sure M&K players complain about controller aim-assist, but all it does is lightly drag our crosshair towards the target if it begins to move; which is supposedly supposed to help us get an edge on them. Keywords being “supposed to”.

Usually I keep aim-assist off because it will throw off my aim in games that don’t offer it as an option, such as R6 Siege… but I recently turned it on and have noticed that it does NOT give you an edge in an accuracy based game-mode like Tactical Slayer.

So…
Since 343 Industries is likely NOT going to allow us to disable cross-play on this game… why not do the next best thing?

Give us the option to turn off cross-input in match-making search parameters.

Make a setting in the options menus wherein players can select whether or not they wish to play with players that are using a separate form of control input.
I am a M&K player who doesn’t want to deal with the supposed BS that is Xbox Controller Aim Assist? With this option on, I will only be placed in matches where all other players connected are using M&K as well.
I am a Controller player who doesn’t want to deal with the unhindered camera x/y axis mobility that a Mouse provides a player? With this option on, I will only be placed in matches where all other players connected are using Xbox Controllers as well.

And in order to stomp-out any loopholes of players seeking to cause grief and trolling, make it so that if they cannot change control input mid-match. You started a match with Controller input and are trying to get an edge by switching to M&K mid-match? Have the system detect what input you are using, see the swap occur, and then ignore the input. Since the system is looking for joystick controls in this example, it will not register WASD as recognized inputs to move around. And vice-versa.
Or better yet, replace the attempted griefer with an ODST level bot, kick them from the match, and give them a half-hour matchmaking ban for trying to essentially cheat by breaking that match’s set equality rule.

With a setting like this in the game, we can finally have matches be truly as equal-start as possible, with player skill and a bit of luck being the determining factors over which player/team wins the match. Not “who has the most M&K players on a single team” be the factor that decides the victor.

This setting would of course have to be turned off if you are wanting to play with a friend who doesn’t have another control option. PC player doesn’t have a wired Xbox Controller or Xbox Player doesn’t have a M&K to jack in? Then turn the setting off if you want to play online PvP.

However; Custom Games, Forge Mode, Firefight, and the Campaign would be playable cross-input regardless of the setting being triggered. It will only be a setting that determines online PvP matchmaking.

Whaddya guys think of my idea on a fix for crossplay headaches?

TL;DR -
“Instead of allowing us to turn off cross play, instead just make it so match-making detects what control scheme we have and then just pair us with players that have the same control setup.”

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Agreed - there should be an easy way to do this.

However, you CAN disable cross-play from within the Xbox dashboard, if you want.

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That is a great step.

But Xbox players can still play with M&K, and there is a percentage of PC players who use controllers.

By having cross-input be able to be turned off and have all players in the match have to play with Xbox Controllers or M&K inputs, it is probably as close to true equal-starts and true balance as possible.

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It’s up to them ultimately so yeah…

I am kind of wondering how fast it’ll turn out like MCC did when they put in input preference matches and KBM only players were quickly bickering about how long it took to find matches because they didn’t seem to understand they were so vastly in the minority. Even went so far as to insist that if a KBM had it set to “mixed”, meaning they don’t care who they play against, controller or KBM, that it should prioritize KBM only matches before considering the rest.

Eh, Whatever…

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Yes, thats because aim assist shines when the mode has extended gun fights. Tac Slayer is about pre-aiming and movement - the person with better cross hair placement will on generally win a one shot gunfight engagement. Honestly one of the values of normal Tac Slayer is it forces you to focus on pre-aiming and macro positioning.

They’re the same sentence - “Because you won’t allow us to avoid matching with people using input x you should therefore give us the option to avoid matching with people of input x.” If the player base for PC was healthier this feature might not be an issue in theory. However with the steam charts average peak of 10k players this could be a death sentence for the casual community on PC. Especially if the majority of Xbox players decided to flip the switch and have a psuedo-Xbox exclusive.

This is literally ranked and if you start playing with controller you can’t switch to M&K and vice versa. If this is what you want, you should play ranked.

Honestly this reads like your frustrated you’re getting dunked on in casual crossplay and are misattributing the cause to input source rather than failure to pre-aim correctly and probably some general IG decision making.

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Its funny that bf2042 and halo are having such difficulty with this, Fortnite figuted out Input Based MM really quickly

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Halo copied Fortnite’s shop/battlepass/free-to-play PvP setup, why not copy another aspect of it as well (but dear christ keep the BattleRoyale plague away from Halo.)

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Not true.
There are a percentage of Xbox Players who are playing with M&K and there are also plenty of PC players who plug in an Xbox Controller.

Turning off cross-play would further limit the pool.
By turning off the ability for controller-input to be varied between players in the match; everyone gets to be on equal footing no matter if they are on PC or Xbox.

Ranked is missing a lot of game-modes that are offered AND it is full of sweats at all times. Some days I want to play ranked, while others I want to just have some fun… or at least try to.

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The point wasn’t infinite is fully kitted out with a diverse set of modes. (You’d have to be psychotic to take that stance with this game at this point.) The point is if you want a “truly as equal start as possible” - which apparently means homogenous input device - then ranked gives you that option.

Chief those ARE the same sentences. You’re saying 343 won’t give the option to turn off crossplay in casual so how about they go ahead and give you the option to avoid players of a certain input - those asks are equivalent.

What is this mysterious percentage of Xbox players who use a M&K? I’m not saying they don’t exist - I use Controller on PC - but “there are a percentage” is so vague its useless. Those numbers are - to my knowledge - something only 343 has.

The premise is fundamentally flawed. Heres a video I think breaks it down from a balanced perspective: h ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kNJpuS6xbo
The tl;dr M&K trades aim assist for precession. A fair trade imo.

Which is why this is an absolutely bad idea. From a business standpoint why smother the already fragile PC playerbase? The steam playerbase oscillates from 4k players to 10 - 13k players at peak. No idea what Xbox player count looks like but isolating those 4k players from matching with Xbox players is an easy way to drive players away due to wait times or poor matchmaking quality brought about by the reduced pool to draw from.

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(free-to-play) + PC = cheating
#DisableCrossPlay

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ive been saying this since day one but always get slated for even suggesting it, it seems alot of the console players seem to think ever pc play is a hacker.

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It’s not totally unreasonable if they’re used to only console players - if someone snaps to me faster then the controller would allow then it follows they’re cheating somehow. The problem is in crossplay this isn’t guaranteed to be the case. I think if Infinite had an anti-cheat we could trust this mindset/conversation wouldn’t be such a divisive topic.

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I don’t think cross play should get turned off as such. I play on PC but use controller because I played on Xbox since forever and M&K is hard for me to get used to.

However, I do think that there should be input detection and some kind of preference given to people using the same inputs as it would make things more balanced.

But before that is even considered, they have to work out MMR because that is straight up not functioning properly in this game at all.

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That mentality makes sense.

In the majority of shooters for the Xbox and PlayStation, it has been considered a bannable offense to be caught using M&K on the console versions of their games. A notable example is R6 Siege. This is mainly due to high accuracy and having more buttons to map controls into. Siege for example has the ability to lean without being ADS, but controllers lack the amount of buttons.

But recently games have been offering cross-play as an OPTION that players can turn on if they want to reduce the wait time for a match or play with friends cross-platform. Only from the experiences of my friends pool, most of the players I have talked to about this issue have it shut off as an option because it offers an unfair advantage overall.

Only recently are people not being banned for using M&K, and that is due to both a combination of Cross-Play and a legal issue when it comes to a third-party-product that allows players to connect a KBM setup to their console in order to bypass a section of code that blocks all inputs besides controller inputs on games that are multiplatform but are not cross-play for a good reason.

Again, looking at Siege; it has been an issue trying to ban M&K cheaters on Xbox due to the legal ramifications around the company making the third-party product. Meanwhile Sony has been able to crack down on this third-party company because unlike Microsoft, they have no investments in said company so it isn’t a conflict of business interests.

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I agree. Just give an option. Those who want to turn off cross play can. Those who dont want to, dont have too. Finally fed up enough i disabled cross play in the xbox settings because of how bad this game is with M&K. Hope this makes the game slightly more appealing to play, because im about to be done with Infinite and go back to H5 and MCC. This game has been a huge disappointment for so many reasons, forced crossplay being one of the many reasons.

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That feature doesn’t work for Halo. That only prevents you from crossplaying onto a different network. Halo PC is still part of xbox live so the system does nothing to prevent you from playing with PC players.

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Yeah… it’s even more frustrating that this isn’t a general feature because they already have it for duo q ranked.

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Half-true.

It would prevent cross-play from Xbox Live users to Steam Users.
We would still have PC users, it would just exclude those who play via Steam and still include the Xbox Live PC players.

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Id argue the problem is no input match making

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No, the steam version still goes through xbox live. When I play with friends who are on steam, they are playing on their xbox tag and joining via xbox live. If you disable cross play within the xbox settings those steam players can still join your group and can still play with you or match against you because the steam version of Halo is still part of xbox live service.