Let's Fix Infinity, Not Trash It.

Games Halo 5: Guardians
1

I know there’s a lot of controversy among the community surrounding the Infinity mode. And I’ve seen a lot of posts asking it to be removed completely (which is understandable). Many claim that the Infinity mode goes against everything Halo is about and that it ruined Halo 4. That’s not true. The fact that Infinity was introduced in Halo 4 isnt what ruined it. It was the fact that Infinity was the main mode being supported, rather than traditional, or Legendary as many are calling it now. Not to mention that 343 introduced “new” gameplay systems that just don’t work in Halo: flinch, instant respawn, etc. These are NOT specific to just the Infinity mode. I think Infinity can work in Halo, not as an entirely separate playlist, but just as it’s own gametype (maybe Infinity and Big Team Infinity?). Legendary should still be the main mode supported. And, of course, there need to be some major tweaks to Infinity. If you have any ideas to fix it, post below. If you have good (and unbiased) reasons why it should just disappear, feel free to post, too. Here are my ideas on how to fix it:

The selectable items in the loadouts should be restricted to primary weapon, armor ability, and ONE armor mod (yes, I think armor mods can work, if balanced). The default secondary weapon is always the magnum, and the default grenade is frag.
(NOTE: I have a new idea on how equipment/armor abilities can work this time. Here’s the link: https://forums.halowaypoint.com/yaf_postst225409_Why-Not-Equipment-AND-Armor-Abilities.aspx )

Map ordnance should never be random. Just like traditional Halo, map movement and control should still be key elements to success. Personal ordnance should never give power weapons like the rocket launcher or shotgun. It should be restricted to equipment, loadout ammo, grenades (plasma, incendiary, etc.), and powerups, with the more powerful variants being rarer. This would still ensure battles over power weapon positions.

Those are my ideas. I stress again, Infinity doesn’t need to be its own mode; it could just be a couple gametypes: Infinity Slayer and Objective and Big Team Infinity Slayer and Objective.

2

I don’t think anyone would resent Infinity having its own play list. I don’t think anyone would resent infinity having its own hopper if there was a reasonable confidence that it wouldn’t impact the quality of hte rest of the multiplayer.

3

> I don’t think anyone would resent Infinity having its own play list. I don’t think anyone would resent infinity having its own hopper if there was a reasonable confidence that it wouldn’t impact the quality of hte rest of the multiplayer.

Many also want ranked and social playlists. In combination with separate Legendary and Infinity modes, the population would be too divided.

4

> > I don’t think anyone would resent Infinity having its own play list. I don’t think anyone would resent infinity having its own hopper if there was a reasonable confidence that it wouldn’t impact the quality of hte rest of the multiplayer.
>
> Many also want ranked and social playlists. In combination with separate Legendary and Infinity modes, the population would be too divided.

Ranked and Social is what we want. Personally if Microsoft would allow 343i the time and let them delay the game a year 343 can make Ranked with traditional and Social with some or all Infinity modes with some tweaks.

5

> > I don’t think anyone would resent Infinity having its own play list. I don’t think anyone would resent infinity having its own hopper if there was a reasonable confidence that it wouldn’t impact the quality of hte rest of the multiplayer.
>
> Many also want ranked and social playlists. In combination with separate Legendary and Infinity modes, the population would be too divided.

I know. It certainly wouldn’t be a problem at all to throw infinity slayer in the social hopper though. Could even make team regicide an alternate game type for it.

6

Today I thought that it may be a good idea to combine perks and ordnance drops for Infinity modes by being able to select a perk after earning it, such as Dexterity. It’s still a work in progress, but I think it has potential.

7

I think reverting back to how Halo was in Halo 3 would be a mistake. Many players will see it as too retro and not want to play it.

343i just needs to carefully balance the perks, and ordnance to ensure that its still got a nice pace.

343i had some good ideas, they just need to be more careful about it next time.

8

> Map ordnance should never be random. Just like traditional Halo, map movement and control should still be key elements to success. Personal ordnance should never give power weapons like the rocket launcher or shotgun. It should be restricted to equipment, loadout ammo, grenades (plasma, incendiary, etc.), and powerups, with the more powerful variants being rarer. This would still ensure battles over power weapon positions.

Map orndnace could keep all the randomness and still play like the previous Halos.

See, the point of Ordnanc as I see it is to change how the match plays out. Instead of spawning the same weapon at the same location at a set intervall it’d mix things up.

The problem is however that there’s no fighting for the Map drops, they just turn up randomly and no one is the wiser.

So, make the weapon waypoint spawn some 30 seconds before the weapon actually drops, like the Engineer perk, but global, then also show it to everyone, not just those in range. Everyone knows what weapon will come in, everyone knows when, provided they can look at the timer and work it out and they know where.

Put in a system to prevent ordnances to come into allready controlled areas.

Power weapons should though be removed completely from Personal Ordnance and instead be replaced by loadout weapons and ammo refills. Grenades stays.

Other things like AA’s and Power Ups should also be put into the Map Ordnance.

Now perks, drop them completely, as well as sprint. Make AA’s map pickups and we’ll have a good start.

9

I dont see the overall problem in a player divide.

Infinity is the new Social. No matter what way you look at it, you cannot make Infinity fit into competitive play such as Ranked without heavily modifying its base traits such as PODs and RODs and customizable loadouts.

The best way to go about this is reintroduce the Ranked/Social divide with Ranked focusing on primarily traditional game play and Social more towards Infinity settings with a few classic modes in the mix.

I’m all for Infinity staying. I dont want to alienate its population/fan base. I just want the best outcome for all which would be to cater for both.

10

I agree with the idea of making the infinity mode the social playlist and then legendary the ranked. I also agree with the idea of having ordinance not drop power weapons like the launcher but maybe just something like a shoty ammo and maybe a powerup. They need to get things like jet pack and invis out of the AA list and make them power ups or they need to fix them to make them work correctly. I do think they should keep sprint as a non power up for the simple fact is that we are playing as a super soldier and moving like a turtle is rather idiotic. Also, the jump needs to be made higher for the same reasons, it made some sense in Reach to the fact the we were playing the disposable model but now it doesn’t, truthfully it didn’t make sense then either.

11

Classic with ranked and social is clearly what the people want.

When Halo was good, even the least popular playlist had 3 times as many people as the current H4 population.

You can’t please everyone, so It only makes sense to scrap infinity permanently to please the masses.

12

Lets not and never speak of infinity again…

Which would be terribly ironic.

13

The only thing HALO 5 needs is to take forge away from multiplayer completely.

14

> The only thing HALO 5 needs is to take forge away from multiplayer completely.

Yea because that won’t piss off the entire forge community. half of the really good maps the last few games have had have been forged. Getting rid of that would be the worst thing they could do in the game.

15

If Infinity is to survive it needs to become competitively viable. If Infinity has to be relegated to social it has failed. That’s my opinion on the matter.

You don’t need identical starts for games to be competitive. The most popular competitive games on the circuit right now, SC2, LOL aren’t exactly identical starts. If we are to go into fixing iSlayer we can’t go in with the mindset that we should all have the same weapons and equipment. Loadouts need to be treated like an added tactical layer. Infinity Slayer still needs to feel like Halo, it should try not to detract from Halo strengths but build from it.

Halo has quite a few lower/ medium tier weapon pickups. Weapons that with the old formula are unnecessary on the most part. We have weapons like the Carbine on the map, but they are not really worth picking up when you have a BR off spawn. Weapons like the Carbine and now the LR exists so that players can use utility weapons in the campaign and pick up ammo regularly despite being for example on a alien ship where it wouldn’t make sense for there to be BRs laying around. But they don’t serve much of a purpose in multiplayer. Loadouts bring these weapons to the forefront of gameplay.

If I was to go a about fixing iSlayer I would 1) Disable Instant respawn. This goes without saying. How are you supposed to make map control pushes if you are constantly clashing with wave after wave of respawners. It shouldn’t be 3 seconds either it should be 5. Maybe social could have instant. Maybe social could have friendly fire disabled but ranked shouldn’t.

  1. I would completely remove random and personal ordinance. The fact that power weapons are contestable is one of the defining factors of Halo, it allows weapons to be slightly OP without being unfair. It provides an organised game structure that encourages map movement and playing aggressive. It’s just all round better. I don’t think PODs should even be kept for ammo resupplies and grenades etc. I think these game elements would better serve gameplay as minor secondary objectives.

  2. Have universal base player traits. No perks. Every Spartan should be a jack of all trades and have the same base abilities. Resupply should be universal, all vehicles should have an appropriate damage resistance, grenades should be equally effective on everyone… The only difference should be the equipment they bring into the battle field.

  3. It should be additionally possible to pick up everything equipped in your loadouts up off the map. So that players can change tactics without having to die in order to do so.

  4. AAs if included need tweaking. They need to appear on the player as visible armour attachment so that players can know that they have them. They should be limited use and you should be able to pick them up off the map and from fallen players.

  5. Infinity needs to encourage a bit more combat cross over with many of its loadout weapons. So that gun fights are decided by tactics and skill more often than range on conflict. As an example this means the DMR kill time should be a bit closer to that of the BR but as an offset it should have less RRR. The BR should be accurate enough to fight back out side of it’s RRR and we should bring back descoping. We should encourage loadout diversity. People should want to use pulse grenades and frags in BTB because they have diverse applications. Pulses could be the best grenades for taking out stationary vehicles only taking 2 nades to destroy a warthog if all 4 detonations hit. Frags could be the best tool for flipping vehicles and should only take 3/4 grenades to destroy a warthog. But then the Plasma pistol and plasma grenade combo should be a little less effective. Maybe it should take 3 plasma grenades to take out a warthog for example and the emp ability of the PP should be nerfed. Less homing and everyone should have wheelman as default. Power weapons still should be the main counter to vehicles.

16

Not that I want to put your ideas down, but there is a glaring problem with a part of what you’re saying.

From the view of the average Infinity hater, fixing Infinity would basically mean turning it almost completely into Traditional Halo.
From the view of the average Infinity fan, it barely needs fixing at all and is basically fine as it is.

If the approach of “fixing” Infinity is going to be taken, then from whose point of view are they supposed to be fixing it?

As for the rest of your ideas, I am mostly in agreement with the fixes you have suggested, but in reality I can’t see Infinity fans being ok with them.
For example, you talk about taking power weapons out of Personal Ordnance (which I fully agree with), but the power weapons are most likely what is appealing about Personal Ordnance to the fans of Infinity in the first place.
What one side loves, the other hates. There is no real compromise in my opinion.

We are in a situation where we can’t realistically expect 343 to be able to fully please both sides equally with future Halo games.
Some tough decisions are going to have to be made, and one side of the community (in general of course) is probably going to be a lot more disappointed than the other.
I wish I was wrong about that, but I’m not the type to believe what feels good over what makes sense.
If I could wave a magic wand and make it so that Halo 5 will please everyone and bring world peace, I would.

In my opinion, if Infinity is to stay then it will probably be most at home in Action Sack. Again, I can’t see the actual Infinity fans being ok with that.

17

I think 343 are testing what settings are the most popular with including Team Slayer and Legendary BRs in Infinity. It will have heavily warped results potentially in favour of Infinity simply because of population, but I’m sure 343 would know this. But if Team Slayer or Legendary turned out to be more popular, the message is clear. I suspect Team Slayer may have a shot in. Providing the weapon layouts are good. Haven’t had a chance to find out yet myself though.

18

At this point in time the only thing separating the Infinity playlist from most everything else is Personal Ordnance (Random Ordnance resupplies are gone.)

And Personal Ordnance should go.

The entire concept of rewarding winning players with devices that allow them to continue to win creates a vicious cycle. Worse yet is that the reward is nearly impossible to predict, and thus random, because there are too many variables to be accurately tracked.

With Personal Ordnance gone, so goes Infinity.

19

I honestly think the main selling point of Infinity is the loadouts. That and Sprint. I don’t think we can remove them completely or else there might be an uproar from the Infinity fans. Tweak maybe but not remove, the rest I think is up for game.

I think 343 should take out Instant respawn and PODs and then build from there. Bring back the Plasma rifle, Brute spiker and SMG. They could even include ODST silenced SMGs and Pistols. Bring back the Brute Chopper and UNSC flying vehicles. Maybe increase BTB to 12v12 or something. More weapon skins, more stances. Things that would attract the casual gamer without detracting from the competitive merit of the gametype.

20

Each game has it’s own niche.

Battlefield has the giant engagements, large-scaled vehicle combat, and it’s own class based gameplay.

Call of Duty (though I hate to say it) nails the small engagements and has class based gameplay.

Minecraft is a building survival game.

Assassins Creed is a stealth/free running game.

Halo is, at it’s core, a game where players start equally.

There was no need for Halo to ever stray into a class based shooter (though I’d completely support per-set classes if Invasion returned) or include perks like COD or make vehicles absolute crap.

Halo needs to return to it’s Classic core. Go back to Halo 3 and expand from there.

I agree with an idea said above. Include both Infinity and Classic.

Then we’ll see what the community really wants.

Hey, it’s better to have your population split on your actual game then not having anybody play at all.