Infinite Tech Preview – Social Arena

Right, so. Here’s my positives and negatives. (Negatives are things that I wish to be changed obviously)

Positives…

Graphics, game looks great even in its lowest settings, and the art style is much better than last titles. Although explosions (particularly plasma and fire) still look pretty bad in contrast to Halo Reaches.

BR is in a good place: Although it kills in one less body shot than it used to, this making it less punishing for missing the head it’s still good. It doesn’t need a buff, the AR needs a nerf (I will address this in the negatives)

Behemoth: One of the best maps you’ve made, aesthetically and gameplay wise. Quality map.

Shock rifle: Love the premise and creativity behind this one.

Grapple hook : Thought I’d hate it, but I actually think it’s a great armor ability pickup and is pretty good how it is with its limited range etc. It’s helped me out of a jam several times.

Negatives

NO FRIENDLY FIRE: Put it back please, and not just in ranked, in social aswell. Since BTB will be social I still want FF to be a thing. Nothing worse than people shelling their teammates with a tank to kill enemies on top of them with no penalty because they can’t betray teammates. Not only does FF at skill and risk calculation to the game, it helps fix issues like grenade and explosive spam. It also prevents issues like the current one in CTF. People bulldozing the flag carrier to the other end of the map in a those in about 10 seconds.

GRENADE SELECTION: Make it one press please

INCREASE THE TTK ACROSS THE BOARD: The old 2v1 possibility in Halo is now gone. Halo used to be a game where if a bad player got the jump on a good player the good player had a chance to turn around and delete the bad player through the BR/DMR dance. You can’t do that anymore to one player let alone multiple.

SCOPE GLINT: Remove the giant torch from players heads when they zoom in, it’s a stupid mechanic in any shooter but even worse in Halo. It just -Yoink!- bad players and promotes quick scoping. You already have the penalty of losing your motion sensor while scoped, we don’t need another.

AR: The AR should he a viable weapon I agree, but only up close, it needs it’s headshot multiplier removed and maybe an increase in spread so it isn’t mentally easy out to 50m. It has pushed the BR out of the sandbox on 4v4 arena maps unless they’re large maps like behemoth. Which isn’t a good thing, it’s the same problem but in reverse.

AI VOICE: Allow the option to turn down the frequency or even eliminate Spartan chatter and ai input.

MANTLE: Not every jump and map has to be built around the mantling mechanic, it’s not impressive or enabling to get to new areas if you design those areas around it?

“HOLD” TO SEE SCOREBOARD: Please make it hold to see not toggle

CARNAGE REPORT: The carnage report is really lackluster, they pretty much should have copy pasted reaches and them added some extra stats, not taken half away and added accuracy. It’s also much harder to compare each team.

PLASMA PISTOL EMP: Add it back please it’s not really a viable gun now.

REMOVE MEDALS FOR POINTLESS THINGS: They just seem pointless and take away from the satisfaction of getting actual decent medals. They didn’t just add new medals they changed pre-existing ones to make them easier. Why is getting a body shot with a sniper in any way impressive?Medals usually denoted something noteworthy, like a kill from the grave or something. Now you get one for everything. Kind of makes them redundant doesn’t it?I didn’t dislike all of them, as I said I like a few. But a lot just seem overboard.

POWER WEAPON/AA SPAWNS: While I don’t particularly like the fact that there’s a timer hanging over the power weapons to aid bad players, I can live with it. What I don’t like is that they all spawn at the same time basically. It used to be they spawned in relation to when they were picked up/dropped. Making it slightly less routine than it is currently. And up to the player to know when they could go and get it back.

VEHICLES: Great to them back even in 4v4, but the physics aren’t right. They’re extremely hard to flip and the hog is quite weak.

I made a post today stating how it’s almost impossible to flip over by accident and the skill of maneuvering the hog is gone. That’s been a staple of 343’s vehicles, I assume it’s so noobs can use it, they put in on rails like battlefield. I reckon Reach had it pretty good. You could shoot it over when it was in the air (I know it makes no sense realistically but it’s for gameplay purposes) and it was tough as nails.

The old trade off was covenant vehicles tended to sacrifice passengers and health, for mobility and driving ease (example ghost and revenant) but human vehicles were traditionally sturdier and could carry more players but were more difficult to keep on all 4 wheels.

343 seems to think making vehicles out of tissue paper is fun and balanced somehow. Also 343 really disappointed me in Halo 4 onwards with the lack of wreckage, it just disappears in 2 seconds, what’s the point of even having it.It was great in previous titles hiding behind a charred tank chassis for a minute or so and using it as cover before it despawned. Not end of the world stuff, but it sure would be nice to see it addressed.

Few things here but I think if they were addressed the game would be in a much better state and would still appeal to a wide audience.

Not going to go into super deep detail but let’s get started on some criticisms that I think need addressed from this weekend:

  1. BXB. I heard they’ve already fixes this for the final build so no worries. Just annoying as hell when you have the upper hand in a battle and it’s closing in on a melee fest to only get BXBed.

  2. Radar. 18 meters is ridiculously low. Increase to 25 meters please.

  3. Aiming. Playing on controller and Series S, I was able to get it somewhat decent by setting deadzones close to 0. But the AA needs fixed to get it closer to H3.

  4. Guns like sniper, sidekick, commando and skewer are all difficult to use. Spraodic aiming for me. AR seems a little too OP. BR seems pretty decent but maybe rate of fire increased slightly. Needler fires and tracks well but needs OG sounds. Grenade spamming needs addressed somehow. Slower rate of fire between back to back throws. Get rid of the tails behind them.

  5. Please please please give us the ability to cycle grenade types by just pressing left on D pad. So simple. Make it happen.

  6. Drop shield is underwhelming. Just give us a bubble shield. Repulser and grappler are the 2 best equipment hands down. OS is OS and camo is camp. Nothing else to be said about those.These are the things that come to my mind immediately although I’m sure there are more small things I noticed during gameplay that have escaped me at the moment. Excited to see what the final product will be. Would be nice if all these immediate concerns could be addressed since alot of forum members here have similar thoughts.

What I have problems with:

  • My biggest concern is how gameplay feels with controller. Gunplay to me doesn’t feel satisfying anymore. The reduced aim assist/bullet magnetism is concerning because those are staples of halos multiplayer experience. The gameplay feels a lot more competitive at the moment. I would like it to feel more causal like other Halo games.

  • I don’t understand the use of the plasma pistol. It has bad tracking, it doesn’t disable vehicles, and it doesn’t feel like there is any reason to use it. - Plasma weapons in general seem underrated. - The melee glitch needs to be gone. - Sniper rifle sounds very underwhelming now. A beefier sounding shot would do it some good. - Some effects on the ghost don’t seem done, or should show some kind of movement when in use. - Shock rifle felt underwhelming for me. Maybe I didn’t use it enough but it felt weak. The spreading shock effect is really cool though. - Needler needles are really easy to dodge. A better/bigger supercombine effect would be cool.What I like:

  • Behemoth is an amazing map. - Vehicles feel really good/fun to use. - Training mode is something I never thought of but is greatly welcomed. - Dynamo grenade is now my favorite grenade. Very enjoyable to use.

AR/Sidekick is such a genuinely awful starting weapon combo. Its such a disappointing regression after Halo 5, which for all its faults, ultimately still spawned players with a decent utility weapon without any spread or bloom in the form of the H5 Magnum(and even then it still had its issues).

Why do we have to relearn this lesson over and over and over again? A versatile skill based utility weapon is necessary for keeping matches from devolving into one sided snowballs where fresh spawns can’t effectively fight back against any ranged weapons or close range power weapons. The fact that these weapons have a fast minimum TTK is irrelevant you can’t reliably deal damage at any meaningful range. The AR is about as close as you get, but its still a brainless bullet hose that is too powerful for what it asks of the player, which is virtually nothing.

Casual players enjoy starting with utility weapons like the CE Pistol, the BR, DMR, and Halo 5 Magnum. Literally from the beginning of the franchise until now casual players have been enjoying spawning with versatile weapons in both 4v4 and BTB. Every time a developer has tried to move away from utility weapons they have always come back with a vengeance. AR(or SMG) starts give or take a underpowered Pistol have never, ever, “worked” in any meaningful capacity when the players involved have even the most rudimentary understanding of how Halo works or even a basic understanding about how distance works. Exploiting a player who only spawns with close range weapons is easy for virtually anyone to do, it isn’t brain surgery.

BR starts are absolutely necessary, especially in BTB, BTB is going to be such a disaster with AR starts. If BR starts(or something similar) is all it takes to “invalidate parts of the sandbox” you never had a good sandbox to begin with.

Bloom: Why on Earth is Reach class bloom back for a vengeance? Its just such a awful skill flattening mechanic just why? Its especially frustrating to see bloom back in such a way when 343’s first big change after taking the reigns for Halo was to give us reduced/no bloom settings. As seen in the clip, the Commando is pretty bad and the Sidekick is even worse. Even the bloody sniper rifle has bloom which is something not even Bungie did with Reach. No weapon should be having significant accuracy penalties when not using the scope, let alone the sniper rifle.

Weapon Racks/Pads: Limiting all item spawns on the map to racks/pads has resulted in maps feeling incredibly barren and its even worse that non-power weapons are on plodding dynamic timers. There just isn’t a good reason for there to be dynamic spawns on anything aside from vehicles. X weapon spawns at Y location every Z seconds, its simple, easy and fair for everyone involved. It seems easier to find multiple rockets in play than BRs from one rack or other basic weapons which makes no sense.

While we are on the subject why are plasma grenades the only grenade capable of bouncing around items? Given how often certain parts of the Halo community complain about “grenade spam” its seems to make sense to give people another use for basic frags. CE got this right nearly 20 years ago.

Some other notes:
*Why does the plasma pistol do more damage to health than shields?
*Gravity hammer’s swing is too powerful, while at the same time the slow swing speed and lack of physics makes it very unsatisfying to use
*Why is the BR’s TTK so slow(relatively speaking) compared to other weapons with more random bloom and recoil(like the Commando or Sidekick?)
*Why is the game seemingly still hitscan? Why can’t we have skill based projectiles for most weapons rather than random bloom or spread?
*Something feels wrong with the aiming on PC, I noticed a remarkable difference in feel after going back to MCC.
*Vehicles still seem like they disintegrate with any sustained small arms fire. Still seems like we are dealing with a variation on the Reach chip damage system which ruined vehicle combat.
*Objectives should not be affected by grapple or repulsor, its going to some flag runs guaranteed caps without any real possibility to stop it once you get to a certain point. Vehicles seem to have a similar issue.
*Sprint is superfluous, why even bother?
*Clamber feels clunky and also detrimental to map design. It it forces maps to be designed around it in the same way sprint does.
*Why does nearly every weapon need a scope?
*Why is the slayer respawn time still so long? Long respawn spawn make sense in an objective game where kills are not everything, but in slayer where everyone’s focus is on kills it has always felt to easy to stagger spawns.

If I’m going to give credit where its due, seat switching is still a great addition.

343 finally implemented the “fourth leg of fun” as it always should have been with equipment/armor abilities being limited use items that spawn on the map.

When all is said and done I would probably be feeling a lot better about this game if this was a beta we played last year like Halo 5’s proper beta and I don’t hold much hope that much will change from here to release.

The grapple hook indicator needs to be more noticeable… I initially had a rough time figuring out the grapple distance and then I noticed the yellow indicator in the middle of the reticle. I asked a couple people on the flight test and they said they didn’t even notice the grapple hook indicator until I mentioned it to them. I would recommend highlighting the outside of the reticle light green to make it more noticeable.

I consider myself a pretty competitive player, but even I think player acceleration when strafing left and right is a little too fast. Faster than H3’s 110% speed in comp settings or any halo to date for that matter. I get it needs to feel good for KBM but there should be a compromise.

The game has so much potential I just feel like it lacks performance. I have a 3080 ti and a 5950x and I could barely get 130 FPS and the game felt extremely choppy. Aiming feels very clunky and slow. My sensitivity was 8.5 and it felt like i could barely move and aim, not to mention aim assist is pretty much non existent it seems. With better performance and updated aiming the game has a lot of potential. Also, here’s my two cents on progression post launch. After reading the recent blog I wanted to further discuss player progression post launch. The dev team mentioned the community wanting “an entirely separate, incremental system along the lines of earning SR152 in Halo 5: Guardians.” While I agree the h5 progression system was extremely challenging in the sense that it took forever to hit 152, can we please steer clear of the bland, boring SR1-152 progression system. I would love to see one similar to Halo 3, Reach or even MCC. Give us a visually appealing, legacy feeling system. Please and thanks!

Plasma pistol charge, too long
The running slide is delayed by a second
every gun sounds like it has a silencer on it. Like the old sounds better. more realistic.
sniping is horrible
stablization is missing and needs to return
outlines make the game seem as if I’m in a Tron simulation. Not a Halo battlefield.
grenade splash damage is too wide
power ups like overshield and camo should be activated when obtained, not at will.
Not enough prominent indication of when an opponent is shot.
a lot of information at the bottom of the screen especially when the captions pop up.
Flag juggling is non existent and needs to return
Flag illuminance gives away position even when not shot. Takes away from the competitive aspect. A small glow is fine but the current one is too exposed.
Drop wall is useless

Green line flickers
auto press to crouch enabled by default. Should be other way around.
Shotgun (Bulldog) isn’t 1 hit kill when right in front
Radar doesn’t distinguish between levels. on top, below, etc.
No indicator on when the camo is depleted
Restart for overtime is dumb

Hi 343, let me just say that I really appreciate that you guys are taking the time to listen to your community. Community feedback is crucial to making a great game, and I’m glad you realize the importance of it. Halo 5 was my first Halo game, I started playing it a couple months ago, and then tried the MCC. I don’t have much experience with the franchise, but I plan on playing Halo Infinite. I played the Halo Infinite flight as much as I could from September 25-26.

As a fairly new player, there are some things this game could improve upon. Certain things need to change before launch to avoid driving new players away (both new and returning players are important to the game’s longevity). Here are some pros and cons I found during my time with this weekend’s flight

PROS: The Voice-To-Text setting works flawlessly. I could read everything my teammates said with perfect clarity

You guys did a great job on the assault rifle. It’s finally a usable primary weapon. It’s great to see Halo’s most iconic weapon get the love it deserves

The Warthog is well designed. The machine gun is super fun to use, but maybe a bit overpowered.

The Battle Rifle’s reticle is a huge improvement over H5

The weapon sounds are good for the most part. They’re loud and impactful

Kill Hitmarkers are really satisfying and make the gunplay a bit more fun

The overall art style of the game is amazingI loved the AIs. I literally couldn’t get enough of them. It was really heartwarming when they spoke, but surprisingly, my AI (BUTLR) barely talked throughout most games, even when I would get a triple kill or hammer kill or something like that. I hope to see the AIs expanded upon when the game releases.

CONS:
The aiming on controller feels awful. I’ve had much more trouble in this game than any other Halo game I’ve played (H5 or any MCC game). It’s almost uncontrollable, with my reticle never going where I want it to go, usually being way too sensitive, even on low sensitivity, or sometimes too slow. It’s really inconsistent and frustrating, and is a major problem that hurts the gameplay.

The progression system needs work. It felt like an absolute slog getting through 13 tiers of the battle pass. Since challenges are the only way to make progress, matches where you aren’t completing at least one challenge don’t count for anything. It doesn’t matter how well you do in a match, because you’re either getting barely any XP or none at all. This is perhaps the game’s biggest setback. Only a few rewards can be unlocked without the use of premium currency.further worsening this issue. A frustrating, grindy, and slow progression system with only one way to move forward will make many players quit soon after launch day.

The weapon balancing needs a bit of tuning. While the AR feels good, the Battle Rifle is extremely difficult to use effectively. It could either use a slightly quicker TTK (closer to Halo 5’s H2 BR) or increased bullet magnetism, because with the game’s current aiming issues, it’s almost unusable unless you are at extremely long ranges and has noticeable recoil. The bulldog is quite underpowered as a shotgun. It usually takes 3 to 4 shots to kill an enemy, who will have meleed you to death before you can get the kill. The sidekick just feels inconsistent, especially with it’s annoying reticle bloom. When I use it, it can’t hit moving targets or anything past point-blank range, but when enemies use it, I get shredded. I think all of the weapons (except for the AR) could use a Red Reticle Range Buff.

Bullet Delay. When using precision weapons, I found that when you fire your gun, there is a noticeable delay before the bullets actually hit your target. The BR takes about half a second for your bullets to register, severely limiting its capabilities. If you shoot at a moving target or get off a burst right before you die, your shots will not register. This is another frustrating issue that will hopefully be fixed before launch.

Thanks for listening, it means a lot to me

Cordial saludo
1.en mi Xbox one fat se siente bastante pesado.
2.apuntar es bastante difícil cuando se juega con 30 fps eso no le sienta bien al juego.
3.la pistola tiene mucho poder al igual que el Rifle de asalto deberían bajar el poder a esas armas.
4.la posición del hud del equipamiento en la parte de abajo me hace perder orientación cuando miro el número de granadas y balas, es mejor en la parte superior
5.no hay sistema de votación para elegir el mapa en que vamos a jugar solo aparece el mapa al azar.
6. No hay opción para elegir el spartan masculino o femenino.
7. No me gusto el doble cuerpo a cuerpo pero asumo que lo arreglaran, me gusto que el cuerpo a cuerpo no tenga magnetismo y avance.
8. El cuerpo cuerpo deberían bajarle poder me parece que bajarle el escudo con un solo golpe de arma es un poco irracional, sería bueno bajar el escudo con 2 golpes de armas.
9 la sniper tiene mucho magnetismo debería ser más difícil usarla.
10. no me gusta la presentación al inicio de la partida, parece como si los spartan se prepararan para un combate de lucha libre y no de armas.
11. la pistola de plasma no paraliza vehiculos

Overall the gameplay feels really good and fun but there are a few things that would make the game feel more immersive and more similar to previous Halos while still keeping the more modern feel the game is going for. These points are in order of importance for me personally.

  1. Betrayals need to be on in all basic modes other than infection. The main reason for this is grenade spam. The grenade spam in this flight was crazy because there was no reason to not throw grenades in every situation. There is no risk to throwing a grenade into a close range battle as your allies will magically walk away unharmed. The same goes for rockets and other explosives. Lack of friendly fire lowers overall skill and unbalances the risk/reward. It also caused me to kill myself or waste ammo since teammates wouldn’t think about blocking my grenade throws/rocket shots as there is no risk of them being damaged. I expect the lack of friendly fire will become even more apparent in big team next week when there are 24 people spamming explosives all over the place.

  2. player collision should be on. It feels really strange and immersion breaking having teammates pass through each other. It looks bad and is bad for gameplay, I had people walk through me as I was throwing grenades or shooting weapons which resulted in wasted ammo or me killing my self. Not to mention buddy jumping and other fun mechanics are not possible without collision.

3.Quickly disappearing assets makes the map feel empty and like a battle isn’t happening. Dead bodies seems to disappear in about ten seconds leading to there barely ever being bodies anywhere except immediately after someone dies. Destroyed vehicles also seem to disappear in about ten seconds. This also changes gameplay and not just immersion since in previous Halos you were able to take cover behind vehicles which changes up encounters and adds combat options. Bullet holes and explosion marks disappear very quickly as well and blood splatter doesn’t exist. This leads to the map looking like new almost all the time rather than a map that you affect and have an impact on like in previous Halos. I can’t see a gameplay reason for things disappearing quickly so I’m assuming it’s the engine not allowing for it or older hardware not being able to handle it but either way it’s pretty big step backwards.

4.Explosive kills don’t feel satisfying and lack impact. When you kill someone with explosives or the gravity hammer they just fall to the ground as though the were shot. It would feel much better and impactful if players get blown back a ways when killed by explosives.

5.The plasma pistol not having an emp effect against vehicles is pretty strange. It is now exclusively a noob combo machine, which is pretty lame for a once multi use weapon. I get that they are trying to move the emp role to shock weapons but the plasma pistol is now a useless gun for anyone who doesn’t want to be a cheesy noob combo-er.

  1. I hope there is a toggle for input based matchmaking in social as mnk and controller will never be even and I’d like matches to be as fair as possible.

Edit -7. The flag should be one melee hit to kill.

Overall really enjoyed the flight. The gunplay seems solid. Spartans, weapons and maps are visually great and vehicles seem fun. If the changes I’ve mentioned are made it would be pretty much the perfect Halo game for me but if these things don’t change I’m not sure if Infinite will feel truly legendary to me.

HUD: I really dislike the cramped nature of the equipment/grenades. It makes it hard to tell at a glance what/how much you have.
Clarity: The area of effect range for the Dynamo grenade, as well as the chaining from all electric based weapons, both are barely telegraphed.
Motion Tracker: The range really needs to be upped to 25m, by the time someone is in range of the motion tracker you’re already within optimal TTK range, around 1.4 seconds if you’re jumped is no chance to fight back. The tiny motion tracker also makes 2v1 flanks pretty much guaranteed regardless of skill.
TTK Range: I think the faster TTK compared to a typical Halo game is fine, but the general range to hit that TTK is way too far. The AR and Sidekick both can drop a player within 1.4-2 seconds at a lengthy mid range (like across the central gap in Bazaar). All it does is raise the skill floor which was an issue with Halo 5 arena to some extent. Halo used to have a unique niche of ‘you can see the enemy but you can still choose to engage them or not’ while it seems like Halo Infinite is pushing into the ‘see first to win’ which leads to more camping behaviours.
Reactive Sprint: For ‘press to sprint’, dropping down into a sprint doesn’t work half the time, I’ll end up just spamming the sprint button until it starts, if I press it as I hit the ground it’d be great if it would go straight into a sprint.
Forced Slide: Starting a slide somewhat locks you into it; whereas if I turn and want to move in a perpendicular direction I feel the game should unlock the slide action early, otherwise it just feels clunky.
Overcharging: Plasma pistol charge time i think is ok, but there’s a brief pause where no effect is played at the start of a charge - some visual effects would be great charging feedback. Similarly the Ravager’s overcharge could have a more noticeable effect when the charge is finished.
Also the PP overcharge should EMP vehicles - idk if that was just a bug or not.
Drop Wall: Drop Wall is useless, the shields drop from any amount of damage.
Vehicles: Due to the lower TTK, there’s zero counterplay to a vehicle if you happen to be caught without rocket launcher or something similar. In past games you can survive at least a little bit in hopes to land a lucky grenade. And while I understand that shock weapons are the new antivehicle tool, but I found it rare to spawn near a shock weapon and therefore had no real means to counter a ghost or a two-manned warthog. Vehicles just ended up making it too easy to control the map.

SMALL BITS OF FEEDBACK

  • hello… the flight went more than swell for me !! just a couple small little things here and there that i felt like commenting on.

  • almost EVERY weapon felt great to shoot. i do wish the turrets on the warthog felt heavier and more impactful when fired.

  • i loved the player outlines !! but wish that you had the option to turn down/off the opacity on friendly outlines.

  • the gravity hammer felt great. i wish it was a tinyyyy bit quicker to swing though. i also wish it made dead bad guys and objects rag-doll/fly a little farther when killed.

  • i wish grenades offset players a little more when going off next to them. they make vehicles bounce all around (great) but don’t even make players move an inch

  • other than that not much i can think of right now… definitely a LOT more good than bad. i loved this preview and absolutely cannot wait for the next one. the biggest pro’s in my opinion had to be the animation work and sound design. the animations felt so smooth yet impactful when need be. yes there were some complaints… some. but one complaint next to 50 compliments is pretty good. and the sound design, from the music to the punches, sounded more than perfect. great work by everyone at 343i and thank you so much for giving me the game i always wanted !!!

I believe that the sliding mechanic should be a bit improved? I haven’t played the first beta but in my opinion the sliding mechanic seems that it is just there and not used as much for feels like it doesn’t as much mobility as it should. I feel it would be fun to experiment with the sliding mechanic if it provided more mobility, and in which it is used by more players.

I know its along shot for any of this to be added i just would love to see any of the things listed below as it would being in new people and grew and sub group of halo players

I cant post on the forums linked at the top, but here’s my feedback of the preview

NEED TO BE FIXED OR ADDED

  • Speed Punching (Please fix this as this makes the game unplayable, I did not play multiplayer for the first day as it was so annoying, because if you did not learn it or use it, u lose 90% of your fights)
  • add a button in the settings to have hold to slide as i don’t believe that the sliding is at par to other games like apex or call of duty cold war (adding this feature would make the movement much move smooth feel)
  • i would love to personally see Killcam’s being added to the game (NOT best play, but last kill)
    -When in a game i did find when looking at the scoreboard when u hit it go out of it it would come back on for a second and then go away making like a flash affect causing you to be unable to move to do any until it went away.
    -ADD XP WITH PERFORMANCE (as it takes like 20 games to level up once)

For future game modes and ideas
-DLCS with new maps, new exclusive armor, new game modes, the ideas are endless
- New games modes like (Grapple/Snipers Only grapples and Snipers)

I believe a lot of the sandbox is really well tuned however I’m still finding plasma weapons and the needler pretty inconsistent feeling, Plasma pistol is okay but sometimes it seems to pass through enemies and others it just doesn’t appear to register a hit, there also appears to be no hit markers or assists given when a charged up shot pops shield. The pulse carbine as a mid to long ranged weapon in PvP I found little to no utility for and always regreted picking it up, the range is too short and projectiles are so slow, against bots it has its uses. The heatwave is decent in some situations but I do believe it could use a slight damage buff aswell and sometimes it feels like shots from it don’t register hits.

In general I found most of the weapons were pretty well balanced and had specific roles outside of the ones listed above.

Played on the Series X

First off, I’m very happy I got the chance to play Halo Infinite early so thanks I343!

Ok so,

  1. AR is balanced well, however I feel like it’s a bit too accurate at longer distances.
  2. Radar is too small in my opinion, needs to be a bit bigger on hud and needs to reveal about maybe 1/3 more than it is now.
  3. Appearing on map unless crouched or standing still is perfect, keep as is please.
  4. Horizontal and Vertical sensitivities are TOO LOW on max settings. I was 10 on both and still felt too slow. Need that high sensitivity if we’re gonna be competing with PC players. I feel like aim assist on controller still needs work, commando is a fun weapon but hard to hip fire while getting shot at mid-long ranges.
  5. Melee system is very inconsistent. Sometimes I’m able to one hit assassinate an opponent one time, then next melee I have to hit them twice even though I’m behind them. Also speaking of melees, please fix the BXB combo, broken and shouldn’t be in the game.
  6. Needler is amazing and sounds amazing! However, the super combined sound still seems lacking in the “Glass breaking” explosion it used to have in old Legacy Halo.
  7. Pulse Carbine is still hard to use if not useless in PVP. Still haven’t gotten a kill with it yet. Almost never encountered an enemy using it this weekend either.
  8. Other weapons seem solid and should stay as is in terms of balancing and sounds.
  9. Had a glitch where after a training arena game or weapon drill, the game would crash my Series X.
  10. Ammo compacity felt perfect for multiplayer, but I feel like some weapons for the campaign could use a few more mags and battery power. AR, Commando, Sniper, Ravager, and Bulldog are some that I can think of that would do good with more ammo.
  11. Please let us get XP for just playing matches. I feel like we should get some XP for just playing matches, while Challenges give us more XP then normal. Example,
    Playing a match: 30-50 XP
    Challenge: 100-200 XP

I believe that are all my criticisms, now with all them said, time to praise I343 for the art style, maps, vehicles and more!

Ghost was so much fun to use and sounded fantastic!
Warthog was awesome and well balanced, love how you can still drive it with all the tires shot off!
Grapple shot is revolutionary in Halo! I had such a blast with it, utility wise, gameplay wise, and just swinging around having fun!
Repulser was just as fun as the grapple shot, loved hitting players off the map and using it to give me a boost to a ledge I’d have to climb, walk up a set of stairs, or mantle up.
Armor designs are great!
overall feel of the game, great!
Happy to see the Skewer knocks spartans a few meters back, but please increase this, let us send spartans flying with that thing!!!
Also happy to see physics given back to the Gravity hammer, though I’d prefer to have the glow changed from blue to red, because it’s a Banished weapon.

That’s my feedback. Can’t wait for BTB the coming weekend! Thanks again I343 for the invite and listening to the community’s feedback!

Feedback for Halo Infinite 2nd Flight, Week 1
Pt. I Post

Thank you Halo family for inviting me to test Halo Infinite for the second time. It’s a great pleasure to see what has been in the making for the past couple of years. And, despite the things that need to be fixed, it has still been an awesome experience so far. Below is my feedback as an Xbox One S player.

~Alex

  • when pressing the Start button and going through the different selections (for example, in the Academy the options are Resume, Restart Drill, Settings, and Leave Game), the screen blinks here and there

  • under Shop, the bundles don’t display any images…only loading circles appear

  • after waiting about 2-3 minutes for a Social Arena match, I opted to cancel and I selected Yes on the next screen; however, I was just taken to the previous screen of waiting…estimated wait time was 0:00…I pressed B to go back to the home menu, but it seemed that for Multiplayer, it was stuck…I restarted the game, but I couldn’t find a match due to the following message: “An error occurred while searching for players. Please try again.”…after a couple of tries, I managed to not get the error and find a match…I noticed that this happened after I stopped playing social matches and was browsing and changing things in the Customize menu

  • usually when the loading screen [with tips at the bottom of the screen] begins, there seems to be a fast cut in and out of another display (it might have been the post-match scoreboard, but it was too fast to be certain) and then it reverts back to the loading screen

  • most of the times during and after a match, the scoreboard doesnt reflect the scores in order…from highest K/D ratio being at the top to the lowest K/D ratio being at the bottom

  • the Skip option (by pressing the Y button) during the post-match cutscene was available after the first few matches, but then it was no longer available

  • pressing the A button to skip the rewards and post-match stats doesn’t register right away…it takes a couple of seconds

  • there’s no option for inviting people from a past match to one’s current fireteam nor having options to view their gamercard/profile

  • seeing the color outlines of the opposite team defeats the purpose of combat games…it’s alright for one’s own team, but it’s not prolific in terms of great gameplay…there needs to be a sense of challenge…honestly, it takes away from Halo Infinite’s already realness feeling

  • sometimes after clambering to a ledge I was put back to the spot before the ledge on the floor…seemed like a glitchy lagged teleportation

  • when running close to a wall, my player moved in an unusual fast, distorted way…it looked like my player’s sprint was caught/stuck along the wall [while continuously moving] making some sort of speedy zig-zag

  • after dying, my player’s body looked as if it was having seizures…saw this with other players’ bodies laying around from time to time…one can hear the repetitive-like sound of the body armor hitting certain surfaces rapidly

  • also after dying, my player’s body was dropping to the ground, but it stayed stuck in the air

  • there is currently no body collision within teams…allowing this would instill creativity/entertainment…at its core, Halo has always been about having fun…enjoyment…laughter…there are of course serious moments within the Halo games where we all try to grasp the universe’s tough questions, but that kid-at-heart effect is what Halo ultimately offers…dopamine effect

  • like the first flight, while I sprinted, slided, and [right afterwards] target-zoomed in with the pistol, I saw something like the inner portion of my player’s helmet…I pressed the target-zoom button (RS) and it went away…it happens from time to time

  • some melees are distorted…others are one-hit-kills; although, it might be for getting hit on the head [I’m not sure how true that is]…that being said, regular melees to the body have been one-hit-kills

  • one time my player performed three melee actions (one to the player’s back and the other two to the player’s front after having been alerted) which ended in my opponent surviving it all and me dying by reversal shots…that player most likely received the Reversal Medal for that…most definitely a glitch

  • in Bazaar, as I came down from a high position to use melee on an unalerted player, I went right through the player and no damage was done…in other scenarios, melees sometimes don’t register

  • one time the intro cinematic scene of the Bazaar map kept replaying over about 5 times before match actually begun

  • Bazaar had a map glitch showing some kind of visual framework…it had a chrome and gold look with dark shades…seemed like that style of map look could have the potential to be some type of a training map, but right now it’s tough on one’s eyes affecting gameplay

  • also in Bazaar, the vent near the area where the rocket laucher spawns is glitchy…sometimes just going near that vent that has two entrances from opposite sides (this means that my player wasn’t on top of the vent nor crouching in the vent) automatically takes my player to the basement/dungeon/tunnel looking area beneath it…seemed like a glitchy lagged teleportation

  • are bullets supposed to go through walls?..this would be an interesting aspect of the game, but right now there are no motion graphics/visual effects to reflect this…this takes away from the good feeling of playing Halo Infinite…occurred plenty of times

  • gravity hammer’s slam isn’t consistent…at times it’s too slow and other times it’s too fast…the slam should be reasonably in the middle…moreover, its range of damage is too beefed up

  • rocket launcher needs to be tweaked for a lesser damage range…more than a couple of times my player died by it when the hits were clearly in other parts of buildings/rooms or about 10 feet away

  • shotgun bullets don’t register, at the very least from point-blank range

  • commando has a lot of room for error which creates imbalance and irritable gameplay…it already has a strong rate of fire and damage…I’ve gotten away with firefight wins that I should have lost

  • grappleshot seems inconsistent when aiming at different and same surfaces

  • after a couple of scenarios, it seems that plasma grenades don’t stick when thrown at my player…I haven’t noticed that glitch happening when I throw them at other players though…during those encounters of players throwing them at me (right in front of my player), nothing happens…there’s no explosion nor sound and also no damage towards me

  • pressing the X button to reload sometimes makes the player do the reload action twice

  • the gameplay is not 100% smooth…it feels a bit shaky/laggy in general

  • if I could add anything to Halo Infinite’s current state which already presents a very promising outlook, it would be rendering maps with Halo-like war/battle animations in their backgrounds giving the notion of a true combat zone…because Halo is already known for its epic stories, visually experiencing it in multiplayer would put the icing on the cake

Feedback for Halo Infinite 2nd Flight, Week 1
Pt. II Post

Some things that were not expected, but are greatly appreciated are:

  • CTF equalizes the playing field by removing a player from one’s team if another player disconnects from the other team…the person that is removed can only view one teammate’s perspective…however, that person cannot scroll through the other teammates’ perspective…if this limiting factor can be updated to be able to select any of one’s teammates’ perspectives, that would be best

  • assault rifle is now where it needs to be…strong and lethal from point-blank to most importantly midrange…even from long range it is decent, but at a reasonably state…its rate of fire along with its recoil mesh naturally

  • battle rifle feels better than it ever has…the recoil is very well middle-grounded

  • pistol feels more modern because of its higher rate of fire, and because of it’s realistic recoil…it’s not supposed to be easy to shoot pistols from the get-go

  • both the repulsor and grappleshot add many interesting/creative ways to the Halo combat experience…it’s reminiscent of how H5 allowed for individual plays based on speed, movement, and capabilities


Overall, Halo Infinite has an old school feel to it, which is why I think all types of Halo players (veterans, TMCC players, H5 players) will enjoy it…but, most importantly it’s a great introduction for new types of players coming from other FPS games…it’s a great middle ground…one thing that I noticed is that the pistol isn’t as lethal as it is in H5…I think the reason for this is that the aim assist has been taken away or maybe lowered…either way, I most definitely like the realistic aiming mechanics…here the assault rifles reign…it’s refreshing and well-balanced…going from a recent few years of fast-paced movement type of game to a more calculated movement type of game shows that Halo is back to its old ways—its roots—sprinkled with modernization, which H5 influenced…it does take a bit to get used to for us H5 players and I say this having played the MCC and the originals on the past consoles…so, I believe this is a great game so far…I rate this a strong 7/10…with taking in the community’s feedback and fine-tuning the current state of Halo Infinite, this game can easily be 9/10 caliber

—Post Scriptum—

After having played Halo Infinite’s 2 flights so far…I think a Battle Royale long after the release date would be epic…before all of ya jump me, hear me out :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

first and foremost, BECAUSE the aiming mechanics have vastly improved; meaning less of that aim assist BS…the game feels to be somewhere in between H3/H3 ODST and H4 with movement characteristics being influenced from H5…it has a realistic feel while still being true to it’s futurism

that being said…HELLJUMPERS a.k.a. ORBITAL DROP SHOCK TROOPERS (Halo 3 Orbital Drop Shock Troopers O.D.S.T aka Helljumpers - YouTube)

ODST drop pods racing in to the battle to fight The Covenant, Prometheans, The Banished, Forerunners, etc. or even rogue UNSC forces…epic

yes, H5 had WarZone, but this never fully developed as it should have…in this case, SPARTANS could be called in via Pelicans after activating some sort of beacon or alert system on a certain part of the map that is randomized for every match…OR it could be switched that SPARTANS with their jetpacks dive into the combat zone from Pelicans and ODSTs are called in as a killstreak capability…no other Battle Royale game out there could have more uniqueness than if Halo did this…I used to think that Battle Royale didn’t make sense for Halo, but from this perspective I’ve changed my mind

that’s not even including how Forge would align within the Battle Royale scene…customizing Battle Royale matches would be a gamechanger…that would be an ill checkmate

I say this as a fan and as a integrity-based critic…moreover, Halo has helped me through some tough times and still is helping me manage through life’s tough battles to this day…it’s why I’ve introduced it to my now 7-year-old daughter (she was 6 then) and will introduce it to my little one as she grows…thus, Halo Infinite has extreme potential to go years without releasing another game by just rolling a co-op campaign update, DLCs, and epic multiplayer updates like the one that I’ve just mentioned…just the word ‘Infinite’ makes this much closer to sounding like an actual plan at 343 Industries

Full radar is awful. It is so restricting for everyone to have eyes on the back of their heads. It encourages camping, it eliminates some ‘wow!’ plays. It is especially bad on strongholds. Please return to ability radar for all modes.

Matches felt imbalanced. Some matches were close, but many were steamrolls one way or the other. Maybe this was intentional for the social mode, but having closer games would be beneficial I believe.

Time to kill feels a little bit too fast. I believe in the ‘dance’ and that any encounter should be able to be turned around, but with such a fast TTK there is sometimes no time to respond to incoming fire.

Melee range is a little too short. Last flight it was a little too long, we’ve almost found the middle ground! BXB is bad.

The repulsor feels great!
I like how ‘difficult’ it is to aim, against popular opinion. However, some sensitivities felt objectively worse than others, and a little too slow in general. Should be viable across the board.
The BR feels great!