It looks like I didn’t get a feedback survey, but I have a lot of feedback. This game is really close to being the best Halo, but it’s not there. In fact, it’s making some big mistakes in my opinion, to the point where I doubt how long I will be able to play the game with interest. Again, as I said, there is so much that I find excellent here. But I’m not going to talk about what I’m liking because 343 could just do nothing to them and I’d be happy. But there’s three things that I think are big issues, things that truly worry me about the game and I really want to see improved because my own 20-year Halo fan level of enthusiasm is actually threatened. And then a few smaller issues.
The three big issues:
- Friendly Fire and Player Collision need to be ON. I honestly hope 343 is planning to make this be the default for matchmaking. At this point, I’m starting to feel like Padme in the Anakin and Padme meme… you’re going to turn on friendly fire, right? Friendly fire and player physicality are absolutely central to Halo’s core “physics sandbox” gameplay. The game is complex and has a lot of mechanics, but it’s all fairly easy to reason about because what happens in any given case is basically what you would physically expect. And this plays an important role in the gameplay: making it so you sometimes shouldn’t fire. Sometimes in Halo, firing or throwing a grenade or whatever would be counterproductive. And you can give yourself some measure of safety by using the enemy’s position to try to protect yourself from their teammates. That thoughtfulness and subtlety is what makes the game deep and interesting, and playable year after year. I have more to say about this below. - The aiming feels weird. I’m very glad to see this frequently commented on. I’ve played every Halo ever, and there’s been a remarkable through line of aiming feel through the entire series, across consoles and controllers. It’s been incredibly consistent. At most, I’d have to adjust the aim sensitivity up or down a tick for a given game, but I always felt right at home. This continued when the series jumped to MCC on the PC, I picked up my Xbox controller and it felt the same as ever. This is no longer the case, it feels strange and like I am playing some other game. I have messed with all of the look/aim settings, and perhaps I’ve made it worse, but I never made it better. If it were the case that this new aiming feel is better, I’d be all for it. But it feels worse, it feels harder to express my aim intention, and I haven’t been adjusting to it through my play time over the past 3 flights. - Midrange engagements are under-powered and under-skilled: Need BR starts or another fix. Another aspect of Halo’s gameplay is that you can choose to approach the game in many different styles, most of which are viable, winning styles. I have a friend who’s an artist with a spartan laser and the best warthog driver I’ve ever seen. Another friend is the sneakest, best shotgun-in-the-base style player ever. I’m a mid-long range specialist. But Halo Infinite has taken away most of my tools. I find it really hard to get a BR, which is the basic, all-around mid-range weapon. There is much competition for the BR spawns in my games, and the commando rifle and pulse carbine are not suitable replacements for the BR. The DMR and covenant carbines were suitable replacements for a BR, but these are not. This is also important because on many maps, the enemies that are alive are likely to be better equipped than the players just spawning, and it can be hard to make progress when they’re holding you down at range if you have a hard time getting an effective ranged weapon, because they’re scarce. Now, it could well be that there are more guns in the game that we haven’t seen yet, like carbines or lightrifles etc, and there will be more BR-style weapons and they will be more available on the map. I hope so. But I think this is an issue that a lot of people feel in the gameplay, but have a hard time tracing it to the source of the problem. One thing I have seen a lot of comments on both here and at Reddit is the gameplay feeling “spammier,” or “more chaotic,” “can’t live very long,” “die out of nowhere,” “too many grenades,” “TTK too low.” I totally understand all of these, I feel it too. I think this is all a way of experiencing the same root problem: lack of friendly fire. Friendly fire is what stays your hand. Without it, you should ALWAYS fire that rocket at a fight, you should ALWAYS throw that grenade, you should ALWAYS shoot at players fighting at melee range, and so on. And so people are doing that! There’s more damage flying at everyone at any given time, people are dying more, they return to the battlefield with more grenades, and so on. Friendly fire is back-pressure on the chaotic frenzy, and I don’t think people like the chaotic frenzy at this level. It might make some people to feel like it’s more fun for a few weekends, but it won’t keep the game interesting and will sap its longevity. To a lesser extent, player physicality has similar effects, requiring you to respect your teammates’ escape ability, and mind your own.
So those are the big ones for me. I’ve seen a lot of commentary to the same effect on all three, though as I said, I think people don’t always trace the issue they’re complaining about all the way to friendly fire; the other two issues people seem to flag often.
Some smaller but still important issues I see:
- The player outlines on enemies ruin stealth and long-range play. It’s like having a driver hack to highlight enemies. This removes a lot of interesting play from the game. I’d say this should move to highlighting your teammates in blue/green/whatever, and leaving enemies unhighlighted. I also think this will make the game look better and be less busy. - The sniper rifle is in a weird place. The scope glint draws so much attention that it is much harder to snipe, while at the same time it makes it hard to shoot the player. The balance on the sniper was always that you get a free shot if you’re being sneaky, but the contrail gives away your general location. It’s usually not that easy to make a long-range sniper shot! Now you don’t even get the first shot. And you can’t even no-scope, which was always a very high-risk/reward option for self-defense with a sniper, and produces some of the most electrifying pro-level play. I’d say leave the glint on shock rifle and skewer, but return the sniper rifle to something like its previous state. - The shotgun is also in a weird place. The shotgun used to be another weapon of subtlety and cunning, a one-shot kill if you could get yourself close enough to the target, and you probably wouldn’t get more than one shot if you weren’t point blank. Now it fires quickly and can kill at almost mid-range after a few shots, but doesn’t give you that one shot kill. It removes a part of the sandbox’s variety by making it closer to an AR in engagement range/kill time. - I think the AR is a little too strong at mid-range. I think the AR has always been a little weak and everyone is quick to drop it, so I’m fine with a buff. It can overpower mid-range rifles at surprisingly long range, though. Goes back to the missing mid-range I mentioned. - The radar radius. Again, much commentary on this, and I agree with it. It’s difficult to see the radar as a useful tool with its current range, usually informing you of the guy right in front of you. Thanks for reading.
- Shotgun was good but it (could just be me) should kill in 2 shot up close at least. also would mind a 1 shot shot gun up close like halo 3 close.UI-