Infinites flight feedback disappointing response

Games Halo Infinite
1

So 343 just put out a blog on the flight preview outcomes and it seems most of the impactful feedback is not coming until as you guessed after launch.

The blog talked about most feedback players gave from the flight. Some of the larger things being medals, ui, menus, HUD, and the outlines. Of course some more big things are talked about but I feel like these things were pretty big points in the community.

Now some news is great. New medals. Better needler sound, better shield fx, and random other stuff. But I’m pretty disappointed personally that stuff like the player outlines are practically getting no change for launch even though it seems many people didn’t like them. The menus as well will have no change for launch. No HUD changes either.

Some of these like the HUD customization maybe can be understandable but having the option to disable outlines or changing the menus to a better layout are too difficult to get in by launch. I’m no game developer but like really. 3 months and you can’t do something as small as those. I understand they are trying to just get those bugs fixed but like how far behind are they if some simple stuff like that can’t be fit in until after launch.

I personally feel like the outlines will not be changed for people who dislike them. It seems like many in the community thinks they are ugly and too intrusive and rather just have friendly player waypoints and the names above the heads of enemy’s. People do not like the look of the outlines but I do not think they will go anywhere because 343 doesn’t want people saying the game has a visibility problem. There are many more creative ways to fix player visibility other than making people glow but I doubt anything will change. If 343 was serious about taking feedback from the community then they should try disabling outlines in the next flight and see how people react. I know they are there for accessibility but you shouldn’t keep something that only benefits a few when the majority doesn’t like it. And if they have to stay just give us a toggle I know that is not that difficult to do in 3 months.

Thank you for reading.

2

It seems like they are rushing to the finish line. They have had to cut features until months after launch. And can’t do even minor improvements as they are too busy.

This just speaks disaster for launch. Wonder how bad the quality of the campaign is…

3

I want to know who they listened to about the HUD being okay. It was by far the worst HUD in Halo’s history. They counted the HUD as a positive which is just beyond my comprehension. They stated “Positive: HUD clean/streamline approach was appreciated”. Like huh?

4

Again with the “disaster launch” for Infinite. I’ve wonder what really cross your minds when think about this.
They said again and again that the campaign is over. Whatever you might think about it, it’s done and if they pull things is just to not give a “broken game” at launch. The things that they boarded are the essential ones that were on the flight as a problem or a suggestion and most of the “problems” people spoke on social media felt like a whim and not like a real thing.
It’s funny how some people talk about “just a few like”, or “majority doesn’t like”. I mean, they manage stadistics to due with this things. The feedback on media, Support and Forums is through stadistics. And even if you might saw a couple of dudes that share the same opinion as you, there’s too a couple dudes that doesn’t. So, why keep thinking about a disaster realese? If you think that Infinite will fail, it’s obvious that for you, gonna do it.

5

> 2533274953382404;4:
> Again with the “disaster launch” for Infinite. I’ve wonder what really cross your minds when think about this.
> They said again and again that the campaign is over. Whatever you might think about it, it’s done and if they pull things is just to not give a “broken game” at launch. The things that they boarded are the essential ones that were on the flight as a problem or a suggestion and most of the “problems” people spoke on social media felt like a whim and not like a real thing.
> It’s funny how some people talk about “just a few like”, or “majority doesn’t like”. I mean, they manage stadistics to due with this things. The feedback on media, Support and Forums is through stadistics. And even if you might saw a couple of dudes that share the same opinion as you, there’s too a couple dudes that doesn’t. So, why keep thinking about a disaster realese? If you think that Infinite will fail, it’s obvious that for you, gonna do it.

Whoa there bro if you are responding to me then I didn’t say anything about campaign or the game being a disaster at launch. If you are responding to Danumis then respond to him directly. If you are responding to us both then don’t talk like one person said two different things. I don’t personally think the release will be a disaster but nobody knows for sure if it will be or won’t be. So his worries are justified. And yes you may be right the feedback I saw was not the option of the majority but It was still a opinion of many. If the game has absolutely no room in the rest of the development for the next 3 months to change the layout of some menus then I’m pretty sure they are in some trouble. But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe you are wrong. Maybe we all are wrong who knows.

6

idk why people honestly thought the massive changes some feedback requested would be able to be implemented before launch when they are in test and polish mode for the launch product. Its just very ignorent. No one should be surprised by this and the fact somethings are being changed before launch (such as medals) is in itself, shocking.

7

Yeah, 3 months is NOT a long time when it comes to coding, creation of any new elements it might require, ensuring everything works as intended and doesn’t break things.

But more than that, for 343 to fit this in, they’d have to have the capacity within their team. A business doesn’t often have people sat around waiting for work: you use your staff, or they’re not generating income and therefore, are just a drain.

Scheduling in the work, if they’re even going to deem it worth their time, means it might be a while before they have the chance to get to it.

Additionally, a bunch of voices online is not the same as a reasonable proportion of the player base - it might have sounded like a lot of people didn’t like shield colours/outlines, but I suspect this was a relatively low number concern.

Personally, while I liked the outlines, if it were doable for 343 (and I can certainly see how, being this far along it wouldn’t be a simple thing at all) to offer people the option, that would be great. They do seem very keen to offer people a very flexible experience.

8

I’m very happy about the Plasma Pistol single fire and Needler getting some more work, and there were other things that made me happy.
But also there were so many new things to ad to the “not for launch” list, which was annoying.
I also agree with one of the above comments about the feedback on the HUD, it’s been mostly negative in my experience.
Obviously I don’t like the outlines either, but I didn’t expect them to change it, because coatings and money.

9

> 2533274839700417;1:
> But I’m pretty disappointed personally that stuff like the player outlines are practically getting no change for launch even though it seems many people didn’t like them.

This is the one that makes me think 343 themselves don’t browse the forums, I saw alot of post even a few from color blind people about how the outline system was worse then the old RvB system. If 343 is just gonna start making things up claiming everyone loved it then why should I trust them about anything.

10

> 2533274947805189;8:
> I’m very happy about the Plasma Pistol single fire and Needler getting some more work, and there were other things that made me happy.
> But also there were so many new things to ad to the “not for launch” list, which was annoying.
> I also agree with one of the above comments about the feedback on the HUD, it’s been mostly negative in my experience.
> Obviously I don’t like the outlines either, but I didn’t expect them to change it, because coatings and money.

They dont even need to get rid of coatings. Simply just put visible service tags over your teammates names and anyone without a service tag is clearly an enemy. Requires no color or outlines. I dont know why they considered the outlines a “positive”. It distracts too much from the coatings and armor

11

I actually like the HUD, it is simple and clean. Like my desktop. I guess there only thing I want them to improve or change is the ammo counter too classic style and to see second grenade type. But having a HUD customization options is a win for all of us.

The outlines for me are a great accessibility feature, I don’t mind it. But the outline is kinda bright, so I hope they tone it down a bit.

Regardless, I do think 343i does take serious about taking feedback from the community, but everyone has a different opinion. And thing does take times, even a small bug or change of codes.

12

> 2533274847845259;9:
> > 2533274839700417;1:
> > But I’m pretty disappointed personally that stuff like the player outlines are practically getting no change for launch even though it seems many people didn’t like them.
>
> This is the one that makes me think 343 themselves don’t browse the forums, I saw alot of post even a few from color blind people about how the outline system was worse then the old RvB system. If 343 is just gonna start making things up claiming everyone loved it then why should I trust them about anything.

The thing that I am confused about is how exactly does the outlines help color blind people. If outlines were disabled then wouldn’t a color blind person be at the same disadvantage as a non color blind person. It’s not like they are blind entirely they just see colors different. If the colors of the names above the enemy head could be changed then they would have no disadvantage and have the same information. I can see being able to change the colors of the classic red v blue system to help a color blind person. Or changing the shield colors to help. But being able to change the color of the outlines is the thing that helps color blind people. The system itself should not be any different for someone color blind or non color blind. The only people the outline system would help would be people who have vision problems. Which in my opinion you shouldn’t design a game for people who well are visually impaired.

13

> 2570804787293416;7:
> Yeah, 3 months is NOT a long time when it comes to coding, creation of any new elements it might require, ensuring everything works as intended and doesn’t break things.
>
> But more than that, for 343 to fit this in, they’d have to have the capacity within their team. A business doesn’t often have people sat around waiting for work: you use your staff, or they’re not generating income and therefore, are just a drain.
>
> Scheduling in the work, if they’re even going to deem it worth their time, means it might be a while before they have the chance to get to it.
>
> Additionally, a bunch of voices online is not the same as a reasonable proportion of the player base - it might have sounded like a lot of people didn’t like shield colours/outlines, but I suspect this was a relatively low number concern.
>
> Personally, while I liked the outlines, if it were doable for 343 (and I can certainly see how, being this far along it wouldn’t be a simple thing at all) to offer people the option, that would be great. They do seem very keen to offer people a very flexible experience.

I can see where you are coming from. And yeah I understand that they might be just unable to get stuff like this in by launch. I personally think If these features are that hard to work around then that’s kinda a poor design on their part. I would imagine they already internally have a toggle for something like outlines. I really hope 343 isn’t so tied down they couldn’t change basic things like that but who knows. I did see alot of people disliking this feature by the way. Plenty enough that they saw the feedback on it and commented on it. Just because I saw the feedback doesn’t mean it was big but just because you didn’t notice the feedback doesn’t mean it wasn’t big. But I imagine the reality is somewhere between our opinions.

I would like to know what do you personally like about the outline system? Not to disrespect but I haven’t really heard a sound reason for liking the system. I have heard plenty of people say they are indifferent but I’m curious what about it you like.

14

> 2533274839700417;13:
> > 2570804787293416;7:
> > Yeah, 3 months is NOT a long time when it comes to coding, creation of any new elements it might require, ensuring everything works as intended and doesn’t break things.
> >
> > But more than that, for 343 to fit this in, they’d have to have the capacity within their team. A business doesn’t often have people sat around waiting for work: you use your staff, or they’re not generating income and therefore, are just a drain.
> >
> > Scheduling in the work, if they’re even going to deem it worth their time, means it might be a while before they have the chance to get to it.
> >
> > Additionally, a bunch of voices online is not the same as a reasonable proportion of the player base - it might have sounded like a lot of people didn’t like shield colours/outlines, but I suspect this was a relatively low number concern.
> >
> > Personally, while I liked the outlines, if it were doable for 343 (and I can certainly see how, being this far along it wouldn’t be a simple thing at all) to offer people the option, that would be great. They do seem very keen to offer people a very flexible experience.
>
> I can see where you are coming from. And yeah I understand that they might be just unable to get stuff like this in by launch. I personally think If these features are that hard to work around then that’s kinda a poor design on their part. I would imagine they already internally have a toggle for something like outlines. I really hope 343 isn’t so tied down they couldn’t change basic things like that but who knows. I did see alot of people disliking this feature by the way. Plenty enough that they saw the feedback on it and commented on it. Just because I saw the feedback doesn’t mean it was big but just because you didn’t notice the feedback doesn’t mean it wasn’t big. But I imagine the reality is somewhere between our opinions.
>
> I would like to know what do you personally like about the outline system? Not to disrespect but I haven’t really heard a sound reason for liking the system. I have heard plenty of people say they are indifferent but I’m curious what about it you like.

Appreciate your reasonable, amicable reply :blush:

I did see a lot of folks complaining about it, I also saw about as many who were into it. But that’s on here and Reddit and is by its nature a limited pool. Not even a fraction of the folks in the Flight itself - I’ve noticed over the years that people communicate more what they don’t like than what they do.

But you’re totally right, the truth lies between the two points.

As for myself and what I liked…

I have never had a problem with RvB (but then I stopped watching after I thought it ended at season 13 or so - sorry, bad joke), it’s worked for Halo for 20 years.

But, I’m very much on the side of not just doing things because that’s how they’ve always been. I like to see innovation, but of course, it doesn’t always pan out.

I felt the outlines/shield colours did work though.

On the one hand, I liked the canonicity and personalisation factor: people get to maintain their carefully crafted appearance, and we’re dealing with a crazy expensive future tech HUD. It could absolutely outline different threats, hell, it could probably tell you how fast they’re moving and what they had for breakfast if the armour leaked around the seams.

But. Canonicity is not what gameplay should be built around.

But but. I actually found outlines just as easy as RvB to work with. Now. I am privileged. My eyes remain mostly fine while the body around them does it’s very best to Thanos Dust itself due to age (it’s not that bad, but seriously, kids put miles on your joints), so I will definitely acknowledge that what is good for this goose might not be good for the gander.

But but but. In addition to it functioning just as well for me as RvB, supporting player customisation, feeling more “realistic” (again, not the measure of good gameplay, just a “nice to have”), I also just, liked it visually. I think the visuals of it can use some work, which it sounds like they’re doing, but I thought it looked pretty cool.

Now, the only thing that should actually matter is that it work the same or better than RvB. As it did, for me, all the other beneficial but non critical elements are fine to consider. But if it doesn’t work well for other folks, then that’s definitely a problem.

One last thing I’d say about the ease of adding in the RvB option: I’m not a game dev. But I can definitely see that, unless the core of the game was built allowing for both options, adding either one in at the “end” would be very non trivial: something I’ve noticed myself on digital projects: if you’re asked to add something later, it can mean rebuilding a good chunk of what you’ve already done.

That can be mitigated by thinking ahead at the start, but you also can’t always cover for all eventualities.

The “obvious” solution to me is to force an armour shader per team, which sounds doable, it might even already be in there if they’ve allowed for infection (though its likely that this would have been intended to be done by outlines too), but I can definitely see a problem when you get into making it only visible to those who’ve toggled it. The good news is that they’ve already got it so that you can specify your own outline colours, without affecting anyone elses… So maybe.

I can imagine it’s a lot to untangle either way though. Now, these people are a LOT smarter than me. So they’ve probably made things a lot easier on themselves from the foundations up, so maybe it’s just an issue of resource to throw at the problem right now.

But yeah. That’s my thinking on the challenges they might face.

The bit you really asked?

“If they smell good, and they remind me of me, I like em!”

Somewhat unrelated, but I started so I’ll finish…

"You can’t take a girl to the library!

It’s free? Ok, it’s not so bad."

15

> 2570804787293416;14:
> > 2533274839700417;13:
> > > 2570804787293416;7:
> > > Yeah, 3 months is NOT a long time when it comes to coding, creation of any new elements it might require, ensuring everything works as intended and doesn’t break things.
> > >
> > > But more than that, for 343 to fit this in, they’d have to have the capacity within their team. A business doesn’t often have people sat around waiting for work: you use your staff, or they’re not generating income and therefore, are just a drain.
> > >
> > > Scheduling in the work, if they’re even going to deem it worth their time, means it might be a while before they have the chance to get to it.
> > >
> > > Additionally, a bunch of voices online is not the same as a reasonable proportion of the player base - it might have sounded like a lot of people didn’t like shield colours/outlines, but I suspect this was a relatively low number concern.
> > >
> > > Personally, while I liked the outlines, if it were doable for 343 (and I can certainly see how, being this far along it wouldn’t be a simple thing at all) to offer people the option, that would be great. They do seem very keen to offer people a very flexible experience.
>
> Appreciate your reasonable, amicable reply :blush:
>
> I did see a lot of folks complaining about it, I also saw about as many who were into it. But that’s on here and Reddit and is by its nature a limited pool. Not even a fraction of the folks in the Flight itself - I’ve noticed over the years that people communicate more what they don’t like than what they do.
>
> But you’re totally right, the truth lies between the two points.
>
> As for myself and what I liked…
>
> I have never had a problem with RvB (but then I stopped watching after I thought it ended at season 13 or so - sorry, bad joke), it’s worked for Halo for 20 years.
>
> But, I’m very much on the side of not just doing things because that’s how they’ve always been. I like to see innovation, but of course, it doesn’t always pan out.
>
> I felt the outlines/shield colours did work though.
>
> On the one hand, I liked the canonicity and personalisation factor: people get to maintain their carefully crafted appearance, and we’re dealing with a crazy expensive future tech HUD. It could absolutely outline different threats, hell, it could probably tell you how fast they’re moving and what they had for breakfast if the armour leaked around the seams.
>
> But. Canonicity is not what gameplay should be built around.
>
> But but. I actually found outlines just as easy as RvB to work with. Now. I am privileged. My eyes remain mostly fine while the body around them does it’s very best to Thanos Dust itself due to age (it’s not that bad, but seriously, kids put miles on your joints), so I will definitely acknowledge that what is good for this goose might not be good for the gander.
>
> But but but. In addition to it functioning just as well for me as RvB, supporting player customisation, feeling more “realistic” (again, not the measure of good gameplay, just a “nice to have”), I also just, liked it visually. I think the visuals of it can use some work, which it sounds like they’re doing, but I thought it looked pretty cool.
>
> Now, the only thing that should actually matter is that it work the same or better than RvB. As it did, for me, all the other beneficial but non critical elements are fine to consider. But if it doesn’t work well for other folks, then that’s definitely a problem.
>
> One last thing I’d say about the ease of adding in the RvB option: I’m not a game dev. But I can definitely see that, unless the core of the game was built allowing for both options, adding either one in at the “end” would be very non trivial: something I’ve noticed myself on digital projects: if you’re asked to add something later, it can mean rebuilding a good chunk of what you’ve already done.
>
> That can be mitigated by thinking ahead at the start, but you also can’t always cover for all eventualities.
>
> The “obvious” solution to me is to force an armour shader per team, which sounds doable, it might even already be in there if they’ve allowed for infection (though its likely that this would have been intended to be done by outlines too), but I can definitely see a problem when you get into making it only visible to those who’ve toggled it. The good news is that they’ve already got it so that you can specify your own outline colours, without affecting anyone elses… So maybe.
>
> I can imagine it’s a lot to untangle either way though. Now, these people are a LOT smarter than me. So they’ve probably made things a lot easier on themselves from the foundations up, so maybe it’s just an issue of resource to throw at the problem right now.
>
> But yeah. That’s my thinking on the challenges they might face.
>
> The bit you really asked?
>
> “If they smell good, and they remind me of me, I like em!”
>
> Somewhat unrelated, but I started so I’ll finish…
>
> “You can’t take a girl to the library!
>
> It’s free? Ok, it’s not so bad.”

Yes likely the reality is somewhere in between. personally don’t think red vs blue should come back. I do like how your customization shines through and I think it’s foolish to think they would go back to red vs blue now. I do think however red vs blue should be a option in custom games. For people who want it for customs.

I do disagree the outline system helps with customization however. Human eyes are drawn to light. If you had an entire wall sized painting and there was a tiny dot of emitting light at the furthest corner of that painting you would immediately look at that dot. You may notice the primary color of the Spartan but you will not notice much detail without looking for long and closer up and of course noticing what armor in specific they have will be even harder to notice.

In my opinion something they could have done that would have worked for all issues and is canonical and even something that was in the franchise before is they could have just added armor lights to the armor. Specifically like halo 3. The lights glow making it possible to see someone in the dark without going too far. You wouldn’t have to have a backlight like halo 5 as well. The armor lights glow brighter until the shields pop then flash until the shields go up making the shield level easier to spot. And most of the armors in the game already have spots for armor lights just without the light. They said they will have most versions of the armor. Mk4, 5, 5b, 6, and 7. The locations for armor lights is already on most of those. But they are just nothing currently. You could even have the armor light colors customizable and the shield colors. Not only for accessibility but just because that’s cool.
Of course they would never do this and it would be hard to do now. Not impossible however. But it is a way more creative way to do it and it really didn’t take alot of thinking to come up with.

I also don’t understand the accessibility argument. Especially with colorblindness. It makes no real sense when it comes to the outlines as someone not color blind and someone colorblind have the same disadvantage if the outline is not there.

I would imagine the outlines are not designed into the core of the game. I also have experience in digital design such as CAD design and Photoshop. It’s hard but also important to design things in a non destructive way. Meaning if you change something or get rid of something it shouldn’t break the entire project. If they didn’t designed in this way then that is a failure on their part.

Also no idea what you are refreshing at the end there haha sorry.

16

I’ll wait for the next flight to give an opinion

17

> 2535411476890278;16:
> I’ll wait for the next flight to give an opinion

I think this is the best way to explore what we can thought about the game.
I saw a comment below about how the game need to be and reminds me a lot a Halo CE to a Halo 3 and… that cannot be again. The franchise need to move on, not to live in the past; even if there’s a few things that not everybody like it.

18

> 2533274839700417;15:
> > 2570804787293416;14:
> > > 2533274839700417;13:
> > > > 2570804787293416;7:
> > > > Yeah, 3 months is NOT a long time when it comes to coding, creation of any new elements it might require, ensuring everything works as intended and doesn’t break things.
> > > >
> > > > But more than that, for 343 to fit this in, they’d have to have the capacity within their team. A business doesn’t often have people sat around waiting for work: you use your staff, or they’re not generating income and therefore, are just a drain.
> > > >
> > > > Scheduling in the work, if they’re even going to deem it worth their time, means it might be a while before they have the chance to get to it.
> > > >
> > > > Additionally, a bunch of voices online is not the same as a reasonable proportion of the player base - it might have sounded like a lot of people didn’t like shield colours/outlines, but I suspect this was a relatively low number concern.
> > > >
> > > > Personally, while I liked the outlines, if it were doable for 343 (and I can certainly see how, being this far along it wouldn’t be a simple thing at all) to offer people the option, that would be great. They do seem very keen to offer people a very flexible experience.
>
> Yes likely the reality is somewhere in between. personally don’t think red vs blue should come back. I do like how your customization shines through and I think it’s foolish to think they would go back to red vs blue now. I do think however red vs blue should be a option in custom games. For people who want it for customs.
>
> I do disagree the outline system helps with customization however. Human eyes are drawn to light. If you had an entire wall sized painting and there was a tiny dot of emitting light at the furthest corner of that painting you would immediately look at that dot. You may notice the primary color of the Spartan but you will not notice much detail without looking for long and closer up and of course noticing what armor in specific they have will be even harder to notice.
>
> In my opinion something they could have done that would have worked for all issues and is canonical and even something that was in the franchise before is they could have just added armor lights to the armor. Specifically like halo 3. The lights glow making it possible to see someone in the dark without going too far. You wouldn’t have to have a backlight like halo 5 as well. The armor lights glow brighter until the shields pop then flash until the shields go up making the shield level easier to spot. And most of the armors in the game already have spots for armor lights just without the light. They said they will have most versions of the armor. Mk4, 5, 5b, 6, and 7. The locations for armor lights is already on most of those. But they are just nothing currently. You could even have the armor light colors customizable and the shield colors. Not only for accessibility but just because that’s cool.
> Of course they would never do this and it would be hard to do now. Not impossible however. But it is a way more creative way to do it and it really didn’t take alot of thinking to come up with.
>
> I also don’t understand the accessibility argument. Especially with colorblindness. It makes no real sense when it comes to the outlines as someone not color blind and someone colorblind have the same disadvantage if the outline is not there.
>
> I would imagine the outlines are not designed into the core of the game. I also have experience in digital design such as CAD design and Photoshop. It’s hard but also important to design things in a non destructive way. Meaning if you change something or get rid of something it shouldn’t break the entire project. If they didn’t designed in this way then that is a failure on their part.
>
> Also no idea what you are refreshing at the end there haha sorry.

I think the thing with colour blindness, & any lived experience, is that I have NO context with which to have any insight into the experience of someone who is different to me in that regard. When I have spoken with colour-blind people (it comes up from time to time when you’re dealing with marine customers), it seemed to be not as simple as just changing a colour & fixing the problem.

But like I said; I’m very lucky with my eyesight, so, no horse in that race to be able to comment much.

As to what I was referencing, have a Youtube search for Sgt Johnson outtakes some time, if you fancy a giggle, those H2 days do make me smile.