The following is a series of ideas, critiques, and overall feedback for Halo Infinite’s multiplayer gamemodes, sandbox, and features. What I’m describing below is undoubtedly a lot, and it would likely take a very long time for all of this to be developed, tested, and implemented, and while I of course hope that it all one day can be, I by no means expect any of this to happen any time soon. I know that the 343i team worked their butts off leading up to the Holidays, and that they needed that well deserved break, so this list just serves as my suggestions and ideas coming from my first month spent with the game. I hope that my suggestions, critiques, and ideas can help improve this great game down the line.
MP (gamemodes, gameplay, sandbox, features etc.):
- Add in a BTB Heavies mode where anti-vehicle weapons, Scorpions, Wraiths, Wasps, and Banshees are either much more frequent spawns and/or both teams spawn with them at their bases (the current BTB should stay, because it’s good, there should just be a ‘heavies’ variant as well to give more consistent heavy vehicle/weapon gameplay like in previous titles and add variety to BTB)
- Add in a BTB Fiesta and BTB Super Fiesta mode where teams spawn with random vehicles and players spawn with random weapons (including weapon variants from campaign) like in Halo 5
- Putting the weapon variants from campaign into Fiesta and making a new Fiesta variant called “Super Fiesta” like what Halo 5 had
- Infinite should have its own Firefight or Spartan Ops-style mode where you have to assault and defend locations such as the campaign FOBs and Banished bases like the Tower - these locations would be amazing holdout positions for Firefight’s wave-based survival
- The Chopper needs to be buffed to be able to destroy warthogs, ghosts, Mongeese, and Gungeese when it hits them at full boost, and should still deal damage to heavier vehicles as well like it did in Halo 3 and ODST
- In BTB we should always be in the same squad as the fireteam we search with, that’s why we’re searching with our own fireteam and not just solo-queuing. We shouldn’t be randomly placed with other players and only sometimes get to be in the same squad as the people we queue with
- All PvP matches should have free-cam death cam
- Perfect kills should have a unique insignia/symbol in the kill feed like they did in Halo 5 - bring back the “star” in the feed when someone achieves a perfect. You highlight multikills, ninjas, etc. - you should also highlight perfect kills too, that kill feed highlight was part of what made them special - knowing that everyone could see when you outgun someone
- Fusion Coils should be added to more maps in BTB - a few on Deadlock, maybe a few on that other BTB map, some on certain Arena maps like recharge
- Adding a stats page like previous Halo titles - for campaign, customs, academy, and multiplayer
- Multikill medals beyond overkill should have unique color combinations as they did in previous Halo titles, rather than just being all red, they should also have all of their stars showing as in previous Halo titles, rather than having some stars be hidden or combined into a larger star
- Bring back Halo Reach/Halo 4 style pre-game lobbies - let us see our enemies and allies’ Spartans shown off before each game, let us see the map we’re playing on in the lobby itself, let us see the exact mode we’re playing in the lobby itself, and add a map voting or veto system - there are times where you just get the same map over and over like with MCC and a vote/veto would help alleviate this (I’ve gotten Deadlock in BTB 3-4 times in a row on occasion, and I barely get Behemoth in Arena)
- Several weapons in the Sandbox need to be buffed back to where they were in the flights, because the nerfs they received makes them effectively useless in MP currently:
- VK78 Commando - buff damage across the board - it already had the recoil and bloom to make it difficult to use, now it takes too many shots for head or body and is weaker than the assault rifle for body-shot damage and TTK, not only makes the gun much harder to use, but just doesn’t make sense to me - return it to where it was in the flights
- Ravager - buff damage for primary fire back to where it was in the flight and buff the secondary fire AoE damage- the projectile bursts are hard enough to aim as is, but making them do less damage combined with how weak the second fire AoE is means this weapon is a hard pass every time. AoE needs to do a bit more than just tickle enemies that walk through it…
- Shock Rifle - return the ammo capacity to what it was in the flights - the whole point of the gun is to body people to chain the electricity, but with less ammo and less damage it’s much harder to kill anyone this way, meaning you just go for the headshots, making this thing just another Sniper Rifle. The weapon doesn’t really have a good ‘shock’ effect - the effect feels too weak to me to make going for body shots a viable strategy - it’s basically just a different Sniper Rifle, because it takes so many more shots to the body to kill, and the ‘shock’ effect just isn’t as good as the Dynamo grenades or the Shock Pistol. I think the shock chaining and damage between players should be increased for body shots and perhaps it could be given the Shock Pistol’s Damage over time effect to make it more effective and different from the sniper rifle
- CQS48 Bulldog - return its damage and rate of fire to what it was in the flights - this thing is meant to be a CQC beast, it wasn’t OP before, and the sword and hammer would still beat it when used properly, nerfing it just leaves more room for other weapons that shouldn’t be usable as well at very close range to outshine it like the Mangler, Sidekick, and AR.
- Other Weapon Feedback:
- Mangler - remove its ability to one-hit melee kill after only a single shot - why use the bulldog when the Mangler can do this? It makes the Mangler way too capable up-close in my opinion
- Sidekick - reduce or remove the bloom - I shouldn’t have to rely on RNG to get a headshot when my reticle is red and on the enemy’s head
- Pulse Carbine - increase homing ability slightly and RRR - it just feels too useless right now, like the exact scenario where it would shine almost never comes up, and I’m just left wanting another gun instead that’s more useful
- S7 Sniper Rifle - remove bloom after a shot - we shouldn’t have RNG on the most precise weapon in the entire game
- Plasma Pistol - Buff the tracking on the charged shot - this weapon is largely useless now because it’s tracking is so poor, I can barely ever hit someone with it. It need not be un-dodgeable, but some kind of improvement to make it more effective at what it’s supposed to do (don’t give it back the ability to EMP vehicles though, I like that change personally)
- Heat Wave - buff if to have the ability for its projectiles to track targets after ricocheting like the Halo 5 Scattershot and its variants - while the weapon does feel better now, it still feels too similar to the Bulldog, with the ricochets being little more than an RNG gimmick and its range advantage being limited by having to lead shots outside of very close range - giving it ricochet tracking would make it more usable at slightly longer ranges while also giving it a more unique role and purpose compared to the Bulldog - it would also actually allow us to potentially pull off that shot we saw in the MP reveal trailer lol.
- Gravity Hammer - the melee should be changed to be faster and do less damage as it did in the previous Halo titles - we should be flipping the hammer around and swinging the blade portion or hitting with the blunt end of the handle faster for a 2-hit melee, not just going through the same normal long animation for half the damage. The sound the hammer makes when swung could also use some additional reverb or distorted qualities to it like it had in previous Halo titles
- Needler - its explosion sound needs to have the volume increased in-game and it needs to sound more like glass shattering, with more sharpness to it like it had in previous Halo games
- Vehicle Feedback:
- Banshee - the Banshee Bomb should reliably one shot within a certain radius as in previous Halo titles, and the bomb should travel a bit faster, right now the bomb is just too weak, travels too slowly, and you have to get too close to use it effectively
- Warthogs, Razorback, Mongoose, Gungoose, any vehicles with a passenger seat: having an optional first person mode when in the passenger seats of vehicles would be a nice additional option to third person and a nice throwback to Halo CE.
- Equipment Feedback:
- Drop Wall - the time to deploy as well as the health of the wall need to be increased - you can apply both of these buffs and still the wall won’t be as bad as the bubble shield in terms of slowing down the game, right now it’s just too weak to be very useful and takes too long to deploy - even when trying to deploy it proactively