Infinite Tech Preview – Big Team Battle

Games Halo Infinite
622

I was so happy to participate!

Yeah, that’s about it.
Just so you know, I’ve played Halo since the first day of the original X-box. And I’ve been in a Beta or two.

It is pretty. It looks great. And I do love the harpoon function. And I Found a few of the new guns nice. The BMR is still a bummer to me. The replacement for the DMR is really nice!

Can you hear the BUT comming?
I hate what they did to the Warthog. Too wimpy.
And I could never find where stuff was…(power drops, vehicles),.
And I was disappointed in how easy it is to die, but hard to kill …
And the intro was nice…
Sort of an aside, I have been waiting for this game, & I waited forever for the console. Which I can’t get.
After waiting five years…
Thanks

623

The ghost’s damage state is a little ambiguous. The other vehicles have very obvious health states, but the ghost remains mostly unchanged until it hits its doomed state. It can even be hard to tell if a ghost is destroyed or still operable.

624

The issues i have with Halo Infinite (maybe some are just original xbox one issues from being less optimized?)

  1. the menu system and navigating home screens are far too complicated, they are all over the place

  2. the post game report should just have one page that shows ALL players like older titles. not MORE menus

  3. the hud is way too small, both equipment and grenades should be easily seen, not tiny specs in the corner.

  4. the in game sound is muffled and does not give directional awareness, it all blends together, cant tell if things are coming from 2 steps behind me or across the map in front

  5. the weight and feel of impact while being shot, half the time i didnt even “feel” or notice i was being shot at unless i was looking at the person shooting me. Id die from shots across the map and barely notice till it was too late i was even taking damage.

>>>>and these are my biggest issues<<<<<

  1. weapon balance is all over the place “power weapons” and other pickups like br felt week, AR and pistol felt op, seemed to have little point in grabbing anything other than starting weapons (loses the halo map/weapon control)

  2. TTK is WAY too short, the strafing gun battles halo is known for feels non existent, feels more like a who saw who first gets the kill run n gun (loses halo feel)

  3. no matter what setting are used aim feels wrong, inconsistent and janky, despite all setting combinations. if i dial in the hipfire the ADS feels way off, if i get the ADS setting down for one gun the hip fire is off. trying to make small aim movements felt like i was fighting the reticle as it wanted to move in large fast chunks, if i want langer quick movements it felt sluggish. nothing felt smooth.

625

El gameplay esta bien me gusto el time to kill.
Al terminar la partida se ponia medio rara la pantalla como que si se fuese a crashear, esto en Series x

626

It was really fun didn’t get to use any special vehicles what were in the middle but I like the door hack to get weapon. The ga.e didn’t lag while playing big team battle so it was great

627

Things I liked:

  • The general chaos of it - Gameplay is fun too - The Ghost is awesome - The map is gorgeous and well-designed, if a bit tight at times - Grappling people/vehicles - Cute wildlife - Fusion coils - Varied spawn locations for flags - Weapon drop pods and vehicle deliveries by Pelican (more on that later) - Dynamo grenades and the shock rifle - The numerous little details - (So, so many more positives that I’m not going to bother listing)Things I didn’t like:

  • Occasional lag spikes - Rubber-banding - No Jeff Steitzer? Not only is he great in general, but it feels infinitely more rewarding to hear his sultry voice announcing all your achievements than to just have the medals pop up at the edge of your screen. - It’s difficult to visually gauge the level of damage a Banshee or Ghost has sustained. The warning system often isn’t timely enough to get me to disembark on time, and when destroyed, the entity lingers, appearing undamaged when it is totally wrecked. Please add more dents and scrapes, as well as flames, smoke, and individual pieces of metal plating falling off. - Vehicles don’t blow to pieces. I love the dynamic destructibility, but the main chassis of the vehicles are still single entities that end up looking oddly intact when it is supposed to be in smithereens. Please further partition the parts so they would be flung in all directions when the vehicles blow up (and make the explosion more dramatic). - My experience with Total Control has been short and unrewarding. It looks fun from the videos I’ve watched, but the few games I played of it have been a letdown. I feel like the match has hardly begun when one team already captured all the zones. I’m not sure how this could be fixed, seeing as everyone else apparently likes it. Maybe I just bad luck with unbalanced matchmaking? - Tanks and other heavy armor drop so late in the game that I’ve only seen a Banshee two or three times and never so much as caught a whiff of a Scorpion before the match was over. Either extend match times or spawn them earlier in the match. - Further adding on, I think heavy armor should be the sole payload of an incoming Pelican. Don’t know about anyone else, but I get a bit of a rush whenever I see/hear them arriving, only to realized that’s its just a Warthog, which already spawn on metal platforms across the map and don’t feel all that special. Air deliveries are such a cool idea, and you should them feel rewarding as well. - The EMPs in BTB are a bit ludicrous. From what I’ve seen, a Scorpion could be rendered totally useless seconds into being dropped when it’s supposed to be a power-weapon. This is detrimental to both the shock rifle and dynamo grenade as well, turning them into tools that require little to no skill to use. Maybe make it so the grenades have to hit the target directly? Or that the rifle’s beam has to strike a certain point on the vehicle to EMP? Anything to make them more difficult to use. - On that point, I just have to say that the flashing, bright-blue EMP effect looks ridiculous. Maybe do something subtler. - I seem to be the only one who feels this ways, but the loot cave are a bit underwhelming. Besides the Gravity Hammer, everything else you could find in there could be acquired elsewhere on the map. - The gun on the Warthog has a tiny reticle and I find it hard to aim at players, especially with the characteristic atrocious driving of the average Halo player. - The Wasp looks like it’s made of paper from the way it moves in the air. It doesn’t feel like a thousand-pound warcraft. This is a more minor complaint and I‘d to see it changed only if it doesn’t ruin gameplay (I’ve never actually been on the Wasp). - Another nitpick, but the flags in CTF look a bit weird and un-holographic up close. More blood. Also, we don’t have legs. - But most important of all…FIX THE FRUITS 343!!!Other suggestions/comments:

  • Please program the bots to drive vehicles on maps like Behemoth. - Make it so we could catch fusion coils. If we could successfully grapple them without blowing them up, then we should be able to catch them. - Make it so we could drop both our weapons and just box each other. - Make it so we could lock/otherwise manipulate doors and force people to hack them with their AIs. This could be expanded to include other mechanical devices that necessitate the help of our little buddies to operate, like platforms, walls, or maybe a giant shredder. It would also change the map as the match goes on, keeping things fresh and unpredictable.

628

BTB REPLY
Hi BTB Feels amazing, but it can be improve a lot, here are my personal toughts on this:

  1. AR feels to powerful at long range sometimes br feels week against them, it sould be like halo reach balance
  2. Ai voice preview in the menu, and options to custom wich info the Ai gives
  3. drop wall needs to be stronger or be changed to bubble shield from halo 3
  4. Heavy vehicles from the start like old halo or in a shorter time
  5. more fusion coils across the map not only in bases
  6. sniper accurassy needs to be improved for the second shot
  7. Total control and CTF feels
  8. bring the old carbine from halo 2, it was memorable the actual carbine its too bad and br has no opposite gun at long range
  9. long range weapon start with BR,how is possible that in a big team battle the spartans begin with sidekick guns
  10. The game needs player colissions
  11. close combat hammer feels weak, very often the hammer only threw the opponent away instead of killing him giving a huge disadvantage
  12. BTB slayer need to have higher kills per match like 120 to 150 kills, because it ends too fast.
629

> 2533274798463845;556:
> 6. Giving the losing team better vehicle drops isn’t a good idea. You can steamroll with a tank, and the other team would have few to no options to counter it. Stop it with the comeback mechanics.

Oh, please, they just spam dynamo grenades and hop aboard your scorpion and kill you within 30 seconds. Vehicles are easy kills in this game.

630

Big team is really fun, I think you guys have done w great job, a few things I feel should be improved:

Warthog chaingun/ chain gun don’t feel “meaty” enough, they feel quite flat in terms of screen vibration and sound

Skewer should focus on launching vehicles rather than instantly blowing them up, it was far to easy to destroy a hog with just one shot for example. Not sure if the hog is too weak though

Needler needs to sound louder and fire bigger, pinker crystals

total control matches are often over very quickly so maybe have it where a team must hold all 3 for a certain time before getting a point

Xp based solely on challenges gives the player no reward for winning matches/ getting a higher score which is disappointing

631

So, firstly, I want to reiterate on my previous post.

Vehicles:
In all the games I’ve played (and probably not as many as most but still equally relevant) the non-warthog/mongoose spawns sucked.

There’s so many wrongs with seeing a banshee or tank being delivered to the ‘already’ winning team and you getting nothing at all.
Also BTB used to be about that chaos of people and vehicles crashing into each other but all I saw was an Arena mode on a bigger map - too much focus on Infantry with the occasional dude going around in a mongoose with no objective in mind.

I used to have fun in Halo 3 fighting over the Tank/Banshee spawn that would happen at the start and regularly throughout the match but now I’ll be lucky if I see any of those spawn in a game… this isn’t the BTB I knew and it isn’t an improvement - at least on this point it isn’t.

It felt good driving the Ghost and the Mongoose but the Warthog felt like it could take off at any moment.
The Banshee felt somewhat “heavy”, not as light as I recall and it’s heavy weapon also looked weaker but since I only had it for 1min or 2 because of the Escalation system I can’t really provide more feedback.
The Tank felt like an extreme opposite to everything else, so heavy that I felt like Son Goku doing gravity training with weights on. Again, only had it for about 1 minute so not much to say other than the fact that 3 guys with ARs were overpowering me.
Never had the chance to play the Wasp.

Regarding the above I can only suggest that you return to the old formula in having heavies spawn in the base like the Warthogs and Mongoose but keep the Escalation system for the occasional surprise.

BTB:
Again, it felt like a bigger Arena, I can’t stress this point enough.
“Loot Vaults” need to have bigger cooldowns and not have weapons that already spawn in the map in it.
Weapon drops need to be easier to locate, a ping on the radar or something.

Teams:
There’s no need for the Arena intro to be in BTB, either remove it or just make it show all the players but without going 1 by 1.
It’s pretty weird for me to join a game with a friend in my party and end in different squads. Please fix that.

PS: It’s still weird seeing pelicans with their landing gear out flying around.
I think I saw Unyshek quoting someone, I want to be quoted too, I wanna feel special.

632

Overall I had a fun time playing BTB. I’m not the best at this mode, but I have always enjoyed the larger maps and vehicles. I have a few points of feedback from the flight.

  • When I first tried to load it up on a One X, the game would load me into a match and then give me a few errors about being disconnected from the local network (my wifi was still connected), then disconnected from the server, then search time out. After having this happen a couple times, with a game crash thrown in, I loaded up with a friend and tried to join a match on his fireteam. Apparently I was banned for several minutes because of the disconnects. This happened a few times over the weekend when trying to play by myself, but I had no problems loading in a fireteam. I get having bans for multiple infractions, but these were all game disconnects. I’d like some indication that I’ve been banned or put in time out (my friend had to tell me I was banned when he tried to load in), a way to see how long the ban is, and a way to distinguish between a game-forced disconnect and a player-initiated disconnect. - Footstep audio was atrocious. I could not hear anyone walking or moving around, leading to getting flanked and killed from behind without warning. Coupled with the very short radar distance and it’s very difficult to know someone is coming up on you. I had several times where this happened as I was engaged in a 1 v 1, then got ninja’d or killed from someone who didn’t appear on radar until just before I died. They were not crouching or using active camo, just straight up no footsteps. - Had a Total Control match bug out on one of the objectives. The B objective that spawns on one of the terraced hills in front of the middle structure would not let anyone capture it, so the match timed out at a 2-1 score. This is gamebreaking for this mode. - Vehicles need to be able to either knock over the small trees, or clip through them. Several times in a warthog or ghost, I was driving or riding and ran into a super skinny, tall tree on the map. This shoots the vehicle straight up leaving you exposed to literally everything. I get having some awareness, but these trees are difficult to notice with the other map elements. - I like the idea of the pelicans dropping progressively stronger vehicles. As others have pointed out, this leaves really limited time for people to be able to use things like Scorpions or Wraiths. I think this could lead to a small number of players consistently getting the stronger vehicles, just like Battlefield has people who sit in the spawn screen waiting for a jet or tank to be available. Maybe having some of these vehicles spawn at the base or spawn more frequently might be a way to address this. - I like the idea of having a squad, but what’s the point? You can’t do anything with them and there don’t seem to be any benefits to having a squad. Maybe if there were extra XP or something for squad actions, like squad assists or squad weapon shares, it would be more meaningful. - The map was gorgeous, the ambient sounds were amazing, and the layout was great. I love the lived-in touches around the map, like the chairs, busted sentinels and warthogs, the ashes from campfires, etc. Very cool immersion.I had a lot of fun, some moments of frustration, but overall a good return to form for BTB.
633

Overall, BTB was fantastic. First time in awhile that I enjoyed fighting against vehicles, as they tend to be overturned in other games I’ve played.
My biggest issue was the lack of jeff steitzer for the double kills, overkills, running riot, no scope, etc. These voice lines already are recorded and can be re-used, so I would love to have those included in BTB.

keep up the superb work.

634

I have some major concerns for BTB. I’ll try to list them out below as constructively as possible.

Vehicles
Vehicle Damage: The damage system is a bit odd. In Halo 3 Vehicle damage was only taken after the Player’s shields were diminished. The only weapons that could truly counter vehicles were heavy/explosive/anti-vehicle-specific weapons. Alongside hijacking of course. This provided really enjoyable vehicle longevity with the downside of major vehicle domination in BTB. Halo Infinite seems to switch the damage system so that the player takes very little damage while in the vehicle unless directly shot, but the vehicle’s health is constantly taking damage. Due to this system, it seems vehicles have oddly large health values causing things like the SPNKR to have to use about 4 rockets to blow up a warthog, while something like the heatwave can take out the vehicle faster due to higher DPS. However, if an entire team aims their ARs at the vehicle, it can be destroyed with relative ease making vehicle use have to be defensive over offensive in BTB Not only that but the SPNKR, if it hits the warthog and not the players directly, won’t kill anyone in the warthog because of the damage reduction given to player shields. I feel like the system is over complicated. Halo 3 had an excellent vehicle damage system and with the addition of a grapple jacking, and extra EMP weaponry, I feel the cons to Halo 3’s system will be gone. Not to mention in Halo 3 Anti-vehicle weapons alongside explosives felt like they are more effective as they can kill the player inside easier.

Vehicle spawns: Simply put, there are too many Ghost spawns, and Warthog spawns, and not enough Wasps/Banshees and especially scorpions. The Pelican drop-off system is cool, but I feel BTB would be more “BTB” if things like Tanks/Wasps/Wraiths, etc naturally spawned on the maps. I am sure if there is a “Heavies Mode” they will. I hope at launch the pelican drop-off system is used additively and not subtractively. What I mean by that is, have the maps have natural “super vehicles” (Tanks, Wasps, Etc) spawns alongside basic vehicles (Warthog, mongoose, etc) alongside the cool Pelican drops. Instead of having Pelican drops be the only way to get super vehicles in BTB. To the player it could be super cool to have your team’s scorpion tank doing work, then another scorpion flies in to just hammer down on the other team. Or for example, your team’s scorpion is destroyed immediately and the enemy’s scorpion is dominating but you’re just in luck because the pelicans are about to drop your team a new scorpion and an ally was able to steal the enemies pelican drop so you can now turn the tables. Since the pelicans seem to produce the type of vehicle randomly, I think this can be balanced well given enough tweaking.

Vehicle Physics: this is a simple one, I think explosions need more knockback in general. Throwing a grenade causing a Warthog to barrel roll through the sky made the sandbox super silly and enjoyable. However, grenades now feel like they do nothing… please bring back the knockback from the older games…

BTB MAP
BTB Map Design: Artistically it’s great! I do love the design and layout. However, this particular map is very narrow, it’s large but it feels teams are still only funneled in one direction and a large amount of detail, rock formation, clutter, makes vehicle use super strict. There is not a lot of free range and it feels a bit claustrophobic. I think this is in part due to the new team size. Lone-wolfing feels very much discouraged, and there are not too many secret side paths to take through the map to effectively sneak around. While detail and places to perch your spartan up for sniping are super cool, I wish it had more open areas for free-roaming vehicles rather than the two-lane highway it currently feels like.

Invisible Walls: Having a flying vehicle is hard on this map because the invisible ceiling is too low. You can’t go over rock formations in the middle of the map, and it very much feels like I have to fly within the two-lane highway I was speaking of earlier. I really hope these are raised at launch because currently, you have to fly pretty low and are pretty vulnerable to ground fire. My biggest issue is you can’t have a fun air-to-air fight without the entire enemy team shooting you. As I mentioned previously, due to vehicle health it ends up being that whatever side the air-to-air fight is taking place will determine usually who wins. because everyone will just fire their AR at the air vehicles

BTB Visuals
BTB Player Outlines: I originally did not care about the highlighted outlines for the arena. However, I now found what the major issue is with this style of enemy identification. It is way too easy to see enemies. This outline system makes sneaking around a nightmare because you can easily see enemy glowing outlines through bushes and across the map. I saw the stream with one of the Devs talking about how he likes to be sneaky in BTB. I love to too, but I think the outlines make it way too easy for people to see me sneaking around. I literally picked off over 20 people trying to hide, in bushes, around corners, etc, but they were given away by the bright shiny glow. I think the 343 team needs to really think about how they do enemy identifications. At the moment the lone wolf aspect of Halo BTB I loved is virtually non-existent and it feels like people can just beam you across the map because every player stands out a lot.

Vehicle Doomsday: I noticed this a lot while playing BTB. When Doomsday starts it’s a glow visual around your vehicles. I guess this is my issue with the whole highlighting system as well. These bright glowing overcoats that you give everything very much takes away from any realism or immersion a player might get from playing this game. I think it looks way too “Gamey” and needs to change. For example, reach had flashing red error lights in the console of the vehicles when it was heavily damaged, maybe do something along those lines more, or show more destruction on vehicles like catching fire in more places, major dents across the body, etc, etc. Anything other than this off-putting neon UI overlay that makes it feel like rocket league.

Those are my major concerns with BTB. I hope this is constructive and the game has SO MUCH GREAT POTENTIAL it just needs some tweaks here and there to be a fantastic Halo game! Great work so far 343 and I hope the launch goes amazingly!

635

Bug: When you are in the warthog and get kicked out as the driver by the opposing team, it fails to spawn your spartan in smoothly. You glitch around more often than not and usually are killed by the other team before you can even look around.

636

I’d like to see better teammates indicators rather than outlines, way more open big team maps for better vehicle gameplay, more vehicles in general, I don’t mind the pelican drops but these could be here for having an extra tank or air vehicle rather than just being the only way to get one, AR needs a damage debuff at range, vehicles should take little to no damage from small arms weapons and sniper rifle in BTB, in arena it isn’t as bad because you don’t have so many people shooting at you at once, warthogs need more health and have more weight to them, they feel super bouncy and light when you hit something, controller layout need to be different from being passenger and driver so you can still use LT for grenades as passenger and for boost as driver, would like to see more realistic explosions and have blown up vehicles and dead bodies stay on the map for longer.

637

I feel the ghost is too strong, it takes sooo much damage to destroy. I think the warthog flips too easily. The mongoose seems to get stuck on small plants and rocks too easily and comes to a sudden stop which is jarring

638

This was more a technical issue, but for some reason the game would say I disconnected after my first couple matches of each session. Sometimes it would save my data from playing and I’d get the expected XP. sometimes I wouldn’t. Anyone else have this issue?

639

I really like:

  • Grappleshot, Drop Wall, & Threat Sensor
  • Sidekick, Bulldog, Commando, & Sniper
  • Fragmentation
  • The CtF flag spawning in a different place each time
  • Total Control
  • Weapon racks, weapon pods, & pelican drops
  • The lack of auto-aim

Suggestions:

  • Total Control only uses the middle of the map. It’d be great to see some zones in corners near the team bases, to show off those areas.
  • As a Warzone fan, i would be happy to see more Wasp, Banshee, & Scorpion gameplay. The flight felt very infantry-focused, and non-Mongoose vehicles felt very rare & short-lived.
640

BTB is pretty fun. The map is dynamic enough with the inclusion of the time gated doors the AI is needed to hack. I do however dislike the lack of vehicles on the map and how overall the map feels small. Having various vehicles “drop in” as time goes on is a bit lacking. I do wish it was more chaotic having 1 of every vehicle on the map. I haven’t seen the scorpion spawn during the live either. The games in BTB are too short to enjoy the other vehicles because it never lasts long enough for them to spawn in. Movement is also slow on the spartan as well. I feel the game would benefit if the movement speed was more like Halo 5. Right now in BTB it feels like it takes longer than it should to get from one point to another on foot and the lack of vehicles doesn’t improve the situation. It’s a fun game mode, I just wish it was a bit more fun. As it stands it feels more like a larger competitive arena rather than a social game mode played for fun.

641

A few quick complaints, overall I loved it and am much more inclined to pre-order now that I’ve played it!

Vehicles: I’d also agree the flying vehicles seemed a bit overpowered. They could too easily dodge heavy or energy weapon fire, and the weapons that could shut them down (shock rifle for instance) spawned too infrequently for it to be a functional alternative.

Challenges: I also found some of the challenges were, not necessarily too difficult, but unevenly matched with the other ones. For example, the ones that required flag captures or killing flag retrievers would take way too long, due to the fact I couldn’t pick which type of game I was playing. I found myself using the challenge swaps a lot, and that becomes worrisome when those are going to be paid later. Leveling up was really slow and more xp gain potential, as well as more even spaced challenges would be perferred.