I loved Halo Infinite and Enjoyed my time during the flight. My only issue is as of September 26th my PC starting running at 100% CPU Utilization which caused the temps to go into a critical state ending my time with Halo infinite. Upon launching the game all threads of my CPU were being utilized to its maximum and my CPU temps would jump 25-30 degrees. When I would exit the game all temps would reduce and I would then take a break and play one game every hour as to not melt my CPU.
Overall the game was amazing and I loved it but this one experience crippled my flight.
There’s a great game beneath it all but so far I’m already encountering some aspects of the game that greatly sour the experience, along with many areas that could see some improvement.
TTK is very low especially on some guns, commando is too dominant - UNSC guns are laser accurate due to hitscan and tight crosshairs. I think they could afford to loosen up some of the crosshairs on weapons a bit. - Headshot multipliers on everything (even vehicles I think) - Strafe speed is uncontrolled to the point that it resembles stutter stepping more than strafing, crouch strafing is just impossible to deal with. We havent seen much of it so far but I have a feeling this’ll become a major point of discussion post launch when people catch on - I think one we can all get behind is the radar in this game is a steaming hot pile of garbage, need 25m bad. When the number one complaint so far is getting killed out of nowhere, the results speak for themselves. The radar dance is a dynamic this game is sorely missing. - The current method for vehicle delivery in BTB is underwhelming. For it being BTB there is a distinct lack of vehicle combat. I think if we knew way back that getting pelican drops meant losing timed vehicle spawns people wouldn’t have been as thrilled. - Really a minor nitpick but while I understand the utility in random weapon spawns I feel it takes away from a map’s identity. It was cool how you knew Construct as the flamethrower map, The Pit with the sword in the middle, Snowbound had the ghost and the beam rifles, etc - Outlines need work, and options. But tbh I think the game would be better off if they ditched enemy outlines and just kept friendly ones. - Banshee and ghost firing sounds are wimpy, wouldn’t hurt to mix in the classic sounds - While I imagine the neutering of physics is in an effort to justify the role of equipment in the sandbox. This is one of those cases where they can afford some overlap. The game feels a bit sterile in the absence of some of the fun factor mechanics like collision and physics
I’m cool with not having collision with teammates, I actually find it pretty handy in big fights in small environments or in the center hall - I really wish there would be proper collision with enemies, it happens way too often that I’ll go to punch an enemy and they’ll go to punch me and we go through each other or our punches miss and then we go through each other and it’s incredibly confusing. UI
I love that I’m able to edit if my teammates names show up on my screen and that it’s different from my specific fireteam, I turned it off for my teammates to reduce the screen clutter but was still able to see where my friends were, I do wish I was able to further turn off the threat / death indicator that shows up above my teammates because it is still a bit of clutter, and to reduce the strength of the player outlines on friendlies. General
I found the way vehicles and weapons delivered in the map via Pelican drops or drop pods was really, really fun, I didn’t expect to think much of it and thought it was an unnecessary touch but seeing it in-game I fell in love instantly with it and loved watching them flying in from outside of the map - This is probably the most fun I’ve had in BTB ever, when you have a proper team who will play objectives anyways - It would be nice to see weapons swap occasionally throughout the match, rather than always having a Skewer or a Sniper spawn in the ‘Sniper’ spawn point, have it be a 50/50 chance to be a Skewer or Sniper, same with all the other spawn locations to keep gameplay fresh not just match to match but in the same match itself
Give a little about my btb experience so you know what kind of background I am coming from. Have played all the halos, competed in almost all of them, and started to play competitive BTB since halo reach. Was on a variety of BTB squads in Halo 5 that played all the way through the life cycle of H5.
Played on both PC and Sereis X.
My thoughts about the BTB Experience in Infinite so far:
The Map looked great and played pretty well. Was worried at first with the size of the map vs the amount of players. Never really felt like I was ever put into a 12v1, or a situation that it felt un-balanced. - In CTF I loved that the flag progressively moved deeper into the base and changed the pace of the game. You had to adapt as a team. I hope to see more gametypes like this in Infinite. Could only imagine the possibilities of maps that you get deeper and deeper into enemy defenses to have to pull the flag. - The new game mode (Total Control) was pretty cool. I like the gametype and how it changes as well, the only issues I feel is some of the plot points seemed one sided and favored one team over the other. - The weapons felt powerful, The nades felt powerful, the equipment worked like it should, but the vehicles kinda let me down. I felt the vehicle time to kill vs Being destroyed was off. Everytime we ran a hog or something we either got grappled jack or dynamo naded within seconds of pushing and its over at that point. We need to balance that out for sure. Either a button to disconnect the grapple or make it so the grapple pulls you to the vehicle then you have to hi-jack it. - Weapons felt great, I do feel BR or Commando starts would be best suited for BTB. You can reduce the starting ammo out of the starting weapon so the player has to hunt down ammo before attacking. I just feel the pistol/AR is very difficult to push out off spawn in say Total Control deep in the game and attack a Hill spawn point against BRs/Commandos/Power Weapons. - I really liked the Loot Locker/Hurt Locker lol, it was cool to interact with the map and access some power weapons/power ups. Would like to see some other options of this. Maybe just one spawn/access instead of two. Would of been cool if were the OS/Camo spawned in middle was the loot locker. That way once it is opened its fair game but until then its closed and limits movement. - Some of the loading screens was out of scale and got cut off as you loaded into the match. - The aiming felt better then the last flight but still wasn’t perfect. Almost felt like the guns had different sens and some felt heavier compared to others. - The audio ques were over the top. Felt like there was always something going on and i was getting overloaded with noise. I would hear a pod drop and couldn’t find it. Not sure if some of the ques were directional and some are not or what. Needs to be looked at forsure. - Optimization could be better and i suspect that going from a flight to final product. Just ran into issues were my rockets shot through the floor or i got a melee that didn’t land. - My DVR Clips seemed to record jumpy/ skittish, not sure if this is a issue with xbox or the game. - With 12v12 games seemed to go quick for Slayer. Maybe push the kill count to 150 or so. - One major issue I saw was joining with a fireteam, weather it was a 4, 6, or just 1 other player. You were not always on the same fireteam which kinda sucked when trying to react to their callouts/work together. Overall i enjoyed the chance to test out the game. I am excited about the future but we need to do some polishing for sure. I feel once we get the settings dialed in, the maps/gametypes dialed in, This is going to be one of the best Halos if not the BEST EVER MADE.
Can check out my clips/highlights from my experience on my channel. Gamer DVR - Xbox clips, Twitch clips and streams, Xbox screenshots, Xbox videos, Xbox DVR and more on Gamer DVR! Twitch
The big team battle match search was extremely glitchy, and often threw many (10+) error messages sequentially. After backing out of a failed search it would often continue to search, and throw error messages. It seemed to get marginally better as the weekend progressed. The blue match search banner would often stay up long after leaving the search.
Also, there were a few occasions where the post match data wouldn’t load.
Overall, I really enjoyed playing big team battle, and can’t wait to play the release version.
Feedback - Played on Xbox Series X, Xbox wireless controller, display LG CX hdmi 2.1, HDR10, infinite video mode set to performance mostly, sometimes quality.
Needler feels like it shoots slower or has more spread than the first preview, I kinda thought it was perfect in the first one so that’s kind of a bummer - Gravity hammer sounds like a loud thud, would like more halo 3 sounding hammer, there’s hardly any gravity physics on enemy players when they die, also if you aim at the ground to launch yourself by hitting the ground with it there is no effect on gravity/physics. Also not sure why but now the swing looks choppy and jagged, not like someone swinging something. Melee speed of weapon when just meleeing (not swinging the hammer) is way too slow, there’s no reward for the speed of this action, I kinda get from a balancing perspective why slowing down the actual use makes sense but not for just meleeing with it. - Awesome melee physics on enemy’s from the first preview are gone. enemy’s killed with melees now just kinda slump over, I really preferred it the way it was in the first flight. - Overshield outline made enemy Spartans look like they had a cylinder of white energy around them, making them too noticeable and really standing out. By this I mean it made them easier to spot than should be possible. I do like using white for overshield rather than just a brighter outline. - Shock rifle should have some spread if you just miss the target, not enough to completely take down shields but something along the lines of dynamo grenades, kinda like if you miss just slightly enemy’s still get hit with the slight arks of the beam - Skewer needs to impale enemy’s to things behind them - Using the repulser to launch yourself should give you more height. I didn’t find much use for the repulser other than pushing people off the map. I like what it does to an incoming vehicle but wish it had the same effect if no one was in the vehicle (i.e. two players are in a shootout with a warthog in the middle, one player repulses the warthog at the enemy and the impact of that wins the fight) - Dynamo grenades should last longer, I like that they aren’t super damaging and they can ark to multiple enemy’s but they disappear so fast that it doesn’t require enemy player adjustment, for instance someone could throw one and whoever gets hit by it could just stay there and take minimal damage, idk If this is because they bounce and roll away but something could possibly use improvement here, it feels mandatory to throw 2 every time they are used. - Warthog and mongoose were a little too bouncy and easy to flip, relative to their slower steering and faster speed. I’d like to see what they are like with the same bounciness but they steer and react faster - Lighting on ghost may be bugged, it looked very dull and flat, if its just meant to look more matte, I think a very minimal reflective quality would make it feel more deliberate - Warthog horn, I do not like the new horn, it doesn’t sound like a warthog horn, it just sounds like any older car. I wish the classic warthog horn or the one in forza h4 was used. - Weapon drops, I really liked this and found it to be a great twist in the gameplay rhythm, I do think it would help if people had a better idea of where they were doing to land. I would hear the call out but have no clue where it was unless I spotted the green light. - pelican vehicle drops - I like and hate this. I like that it changes up the rhythm of combat and gameplay. I hate that it makes everyone immediately fight over the one tank or wasp that would show up. I managed to drive and use 1 tank and was immediately killed because everyone was right there waiting to either get it for themselves, steal it or blow it up. One of my favorite parts of BTB is the fact that there’s a lot of vehicles, as someone whos not great it allowed me to actually pull off some multi kills and not get taken out immediately. Or be sneaky and try to steal or take out an enemy vehicle to help my team. Now it feels like good vehicles are so hard to come by that you never try to destroy it but rather only steal it. Its also difficult to tell where the pelican is going to drop it because of the massive pillars on the map. Overall I think it really hurts the unique/lovely craziness of BTB. It forces people to use vehicles in a way they wouldn’t normally, makes getting any vehicle, other than a ghost or warthog/mongoose incredibly rare - and worse - disappointing if you are killed immediately (it feels like you let down your entire team and wasted it). If this drop system stays in the game there should absolutely be more regular/frequent, heavy/air vehicle drops and not just at the end of the match. - banshee bomb needs a desperate buff - wasp should be able to aim lower than it can currently - team sizes, I’m not sure if this was because everyone in this flight was very skilled but i found it impossible to capture the flag, by the time I’d get to the enemy flag there was like 9 people waiting for me. - active camo, It would be great if this lasted longer due to the significant size increase of the maps in BTB, I love using it right before grabbing the enemy team flag but literally every time I would be slowly walking past like 5 enemy’s who were looking for the carrier and my camo would expire, resulting in immediate death.
Overall I absolutely LOVED Big Team Battle, but I’ll start with the negative feedback first:
Cons:
On Xbox One X, I was experiencing input lag and stuttering when in “Quality” settings. Switching to “Performance” mode cleared this issue. If this is simply due to the capabilities of the One X, then obviously this is expected. It still looked great, but some textures were a hair slow, and the frame rate on animations such as running was bad in “Performance” mode. Not enough to interfere with my enjoyment, but enough to notice when I had a quiet moment.
Radar still feels terrible to me. It feels like people who are moving full speed still continue to just appear near me without appearing on the radar in time.
The deathcam is a little frustrating. My personal preference is to be able to stay with my dead body and free-spin the camera.
I have absolutely no idea how to mute players in-game, and I could not figure it out. Nothing seemed to work and I gave up in frustration and listened to another player’s vacuum and chip eating for an entire game. It needs to be more dummy-proof for players like me to figure out in game so we can quickly mute and get back into the action.
Pros:
Easily the best Big Team Battle I’ve ever played since the OG days of halo 1 and 2. The map plays extremely well, and I found myself in a large variety of encounters. Verticality, close and personal “hallway” areas, open and large fields; this map is everything good about Halo.
The ordnance drops are a fun twist, although I could never see them drop in. If they are just appearing, they should have an animation of some sort. The pelicans dropping off vehicles was awesome.
I love the idea of my personal AI interacting with certain objectives and doors, and would love to see this expanded upon in new ways in the future.
Playing this BTB gave me a really warm and fuzzy feeling of excitement for the future of Halo.
They added new stuff for the battle pass for this 2 flights and for the first ever flight I was on tier 13 passed all the new rewards they added and I could not use them for this 2 flights because it said was locked over all it was good keep up the good work 343
The beta was good. Loaded games faster than previous versions, of course the amount of players was way less than the launch will be thou.
Noticed that game response was still based on host, some games ran smoothly other had some lag which as this date I thought this will had been fixed from previous Halo releases on MP.
Was happy overall with the beta and the experience, some bugs are still at it, hope these get fixed before the release.
My BTB feedback/ thoughts
Overall I had a great time on BTB not as much fun as arena but very close. I enjoyed the vehicle ordnance that would drop throughout the match adding variety to the game. However I was a little bit surprised by how many power weapons there were when I first started but it takes some adapting. I didn’t experience any glitches except my spartan double reloading sometimes and some climbing issues. Besides that I am excited for release.
-the skewer needs a nerf for vehicles or the vehicles need to be buffed. The spartan laser at least had a charge up time where this is just point,click, and destroyed. I think it should be two shots on aerial vehicles and the warthog and one shot on the ghost and mongoose. Or at the very least make it one shot only on very select areas of the vehicle.
(p.s. if skewers could impale players to objects, that would make for some hilarious fun)
I dislike the destroyed vehicle look as they often look unscratched. The torched look should be brought back and the vehicle skeletons should stay around longer before despawning. My favorite was in reach where you could use a downed wraith as cover for a bit.
I also feel like dynamo grenades should only effect players or a vehicle that is moving slowly or stopped.
There should be a counter to grapple jacking in either that if they hook onto the front of an oncoming vehicle they get splattered or like the roll mechanic on the banshee could shake them. Or ideally add a physics element where the person using the grapple dangles behind and the vehicle could potentially drag them into some of the geography to break the grapple.
-There are just too many vehicle counters on fragmentation.
-The invisible ceiling is too low on fragmentation.
I also wouldn’t mind the center cliff section that makes the map so narrow to be either removed or replaced with a rolling hill that can be driven and walked over.
Having played BTB for the majority of the flight, 70% of the matches I’ve played had massive internet latency and packet loss, US South based player too.
I had a great time with the beta, especially BTB. Here are my take-aways…
GOOD:
The visuals are gorgeous. Maps like Behemoth and Fragmentation are a chef’s kiss. They felt like Halo.
I love the crowded sightlines in Fragmentation, allowing the sniper rifle to be an important tool rather than a dominating force that everyone fights over. I also like the change made to the sniper rifle’s firing rate.
I’m so happy that player names appeared above our heads in this beta; in the first beta there were circles but no names, so I’m glad it was corrected in time for BTB.
I like all of the weapons shown so far; they all seem to have their uses within the sandbox.
I love the new Dynamo grenades!.
Loot Caves are amazing! PLEASE incorporate them or a similar mechanic in other BTB matches. The risk/reward aspect is too much fun.
NEEDS IMPROVEMENT:
I agree with a lot of others here; we need more Jeff Steitzer. Having his voice just makes MP feel more like Halo.
There needs to be an easy way to mute players on the fly.
I really dislike random weapon rack spawns in a Halo game. Random drop crates? Yes, please. Random loot in Loot Caves? Absolutely! But random weapon locations? That’s not Halo.
The radar is too tight.
The friends in my party would never end up in my actual fireteam.
The Drop Wall needs a buff; whatever protection it provided wasn’t worth carrying, so I always avoided picking it up at all cost.
-And as many people have stated, the Skewer NEEDS to impale Spartans to the environment. It just has to, lol.
Thanks for your hard work, 343. Your game looks very promising.
I really has been liked The First and The Second flight, i could see How promissor this game Will be when It launch, i liked The objectives modes on BTB too, and i wish to see a pve like spartan ops, can’t wait to play Halo infinite.
(Running on Xbox one x off an external SSD)
I really only have 2 points of issue.
1: rader is problematic. Especially in btb, I should be able to pick up an enemy before they’re directly in my face. Otherwise, what’s the point? If I don’t have the time to glance down at my radar before I have to engage, the radar is no better than a distraction. It’s also a tad small on the screen so ite harder to focus on it. Also sometimes it seemed the radar simply wouldn’t pick up enemies. This might also be a result of the radar distance being far too short.
Vehicles in btb don’t show up often and when they do, they don’t last long. Maybe more frequent drops? Or at least don’t drop in vehicles from pelicans if they have their own spawn pads. It’d free up space for more ghosts, choppers, tanks, and air vehicles. The latter two seemingly never show up during games unless you’ve been in a match for a good while, which is unfortunate in game modes not designed to last forever. Overall just seems like the demand for toys to play with isn’t being met as well as it could be.
Aside from these gripes, btb is an absolute blast! Massive potential is here and I think we all can feel it.
edit: I almost forgot my biggest issue. Player collision. Halo is about sandbox interaction, and making those interactions inconsistent really throws off the experience. We should be concerned about our team’s condition. I should be aware if the grenade I throw into a crowded area will kill my teammates as well as enemies. If I’m not, what’s stopping me and my team from grenade spamming the area (nothing, as we’ve started to see). Actions need consistent consequences across the board no matter what team you’re on.
> 2533274927293916;656:
> Why is their no friendly fire, it always brought some funny moments seems silly to remove it
I’m kinda glad it’s gone because one of the biggest headaches in past Halo’s would be teamkilling over weapons, or to a lesser degree accidently killing your teammates in Grifball.
first of all the squad system seemed to be bugged as my squad of friends I play with were never in my actual squad in BTB
The varied flag points on CTF was a neat idea on paper, but the result seemed to be 1-1 ties all the time. the first flag is meh, second flag is nearly impossible to cap, funneling down long halls into a room where weapons spawn becomes a camp and nade fest. third flag spot was the best and easiest to cap since it’s where it should be default near the man cannons. I also seemed to have games where newer players would bring the enemy flag to where our flag was at the time and not the main capture point in our base.
Fragmentation was maybe my biggest issue. I think the map needs some work, the map was “big” only in terms of square footage, it felt too tight and claustrophobic for 24 players. so many halo maps follow a left, right, and center path like Valhalla, Standoff, Rat’s Nest, Narrows. where this map is only two. to open the map up more and give more options to players I think the large rock feature in the center of the map could be removed entirely, all it really does is split the map into two paths while removing so much space for a center route. I think it would be closer to Valhalla if it were more of a hill you could walk on, all while retaining the tunnel underneath. imagine if the center cliff area on Valhalla wear the spartan laser spawns was just a huge mountain splitting the map into left and right paths, sounds like Fragmentation right? Additionally for the bases, there should be a second man cannon on each base launching to the other side the main one launches. and I think a lift in the bottom room where the second flag spawns up to the top where third flag spawns. So when you finally get in there you have a way to actually get out.
the loot caves are another neat idea on paper, but in game it seemed to be mostly ignored. I don’t know if it takes too long to open, the doors being finicky, or the juice not worth the squeeze so to speak. perhaps if it were more of a capture objective than zone control, as in to open the loot room you need to find a “key” nearby and bring it to the door. this could be a guilty spark looking ball. it could be quicker and a more diverse sub objective.
Had a match start with 3 on 2. I’m pretty sure we could have waited a few more minutes for a full roster before it started up. That was a bit awkward to play BTB with so few people.
The other really weird thing is when going in to wack someone, you sometimes go through their body. That’s just plain weird. I found out that was intentional but really should be fixed. That’s not a feature but a bug in my humble opinion. Having the Spartans with some physicality to them makes a difference. Being able to walk through your opponent is weird.
The radar is for the most part useless. Perhaps, you’re trying to get folks to use the new drop that enhances radars but it rarely seems to show up on the map?
Overall I enjoyed the weapon balance but I have a couple of complaints:
General Weapon Feedback
Plasma weapons seem under-powered/take too long to eat through shields - Audio design was excellent for human weapons, but covenant weapons seemed off. The Needler has improved, but still doesn’t sound quite ‘glassy’ enough. The plasma pistol also doesn’t have quite the distinctive zap sound it had in previous games. - Weapons without dedicated scopes do not cancel ADS when the player takes shots. This makes the AR capable of outclassing the BR in a lot of scenarios, even at range. - Vehicles did not seem tanky enough, and the plethora of counters from the throwable blue explosive containers, grenades, the skewer, and the ravager made most vehicles way too vulnerable.Assault Rifle
The assault rifle felt relatively balanced, although TTK felt a little fast. - The AR really should feel more like a “Jack of all trades, master of none” rather than where it sits currently rather powerful up close and at medium range. - General improvements such as reducing strafe speed and making the scope un-ADS when the player takes shots are probably enough on their own to reign this gun back in to where I feel it should be. VK78 Commando
The Commando feels under-powered compared to the AR - Slightly improved TTK and reduced bloom could really help it stand out as a hybrid between the BR and ARBattle Rifle
I feel like the BR is in a really healthy spot. It’s not consistently dominating at every range, while keeping its use up close. - Again, the disadvantage of having a dedicated scope means the AR can outclass it at moderate ranges where the BR should really shine. Plasma Pistol
Overall the charge shot felt balanced and destroyed shields quickly, generally making it useful for getting the jump on a player or disarming a vehicle - The regular fire didn’t deal nearly enough damage though, and makes the plasma pistol outclassed by the sidekick as a primary weapon. Improved shield damage would definitely help it outGravity Hammer
The gravity hammer felt rather weak in all honesty - It doesn’t quite have the same effect of launching to enemies, and the windup take just a little too long - I’m not yet aware of the state of the energy sword, but if its anything like what it was in the past the gravity hammer feels like the inferior option. I understand disabling the lock-on range for the sake of bringing value to the grapple, but the physics effects need to be turned up.Ravager
Overall I felt like the ravager was a little too strong. - Splash damage makes it too strong against enemy spartans, and I feel the effect should be turned down just a tiny bit to reward better accuracy. - Against enemy vehicles it felt solid and very effectiveVehicles
Vehicles didn’t feel tanky enough and died too quickly - The passenger seat of the warthog felt way too vulnerable - Vehicle destruction effects were quite mediocre. The warthog didn’t have nearly enough char/burns after destruction, with similar complaints with the ghost. - The glowing red effect before destruction would be better suited with larger, more visible flames/energy effects, and vehicles should be better split into pieces upon destruction. There were several times I tried to enter an already destroyed ghost because I thought it was functional.