Little things 5 got wrong and 6 needs to get right

Games Halo Infinite
1

For the record, I know it’s Infinite. I only referred to it as 6 because of the character limit.Ok so what are some of the little things that Halo 5 got wrong or did poorly in that Infinite really needs to get right? These little things are certainly by no means a make or break type deal, things that’ll make you say “this is pretty neat” or “Im not exactly a fan of this”, but won’t necessarily have any impact on your decision to play—or not play—the game.

To start off, I’m gonna have to say the pregame lobby. I don’t speak for everyone but I think this is one of the few things we all can agree on that H4 got spot on. In H5, it’s just boring to only be able to look at each other’s emblems. Sure, the full screen picture of the map is pretty cool, but I wouldn’t hesitate to sacrifice that just to be able to look at everyone’s armor and stance. Back in H4, having a cool armor set and a nice stance was a bit of a status symbol. Now it means nothing because very few people will actually see it.

Next, I’d have to say commendation rewards. In H5, all you get is just a req pack that could contain anything. Not very rewarding and practically no incentive to complete that commendation. Locking certain customization items behind commendations not only provides you with a nice incentive if the reward is something you want, but also gives you something you can show off. Slap on the Verdant visor to show the world you’ve splattered many people or equip Venator to let the world know you have assassinated a lot of people. It’s so much more rewarding to get a specific item like this that can only be rewarded with that commendation than just getting a random item that you could get anywhere else. I’m honestly not too worried about this because I’m pretty sure 343 knows. Their release of the Targetmaster commendation is exactly what the rest of the commendations need to be like.

Thats all I can think of off the top of my head. What little things do you think Infinite needs to get right this time?

2

I miss commendation armor and achievement armor. It’s was arguably one of the highest statuses to have venator in halo 4 because of how many assassinations it required in matchmaking. Also some halo 3 achievements were pretty fun and hard that was rewarding when you got a dope armor piece. I miss those things and it would be much appreciated to have some real challenge for armor to show your hierarchy to other players.

the loading menu is whatever. I’d like it to be more flushed out where you can see other people’s armor and stats pregame. I sometimes did it to target people. Not gonna lie. Just for the reward of killing people who were superior to me on stats.

a small detail halo 5 left out to me was having your emblem on your armor. It’s not a deal breaker but should definitely have a toggle so people can see you’re thought out emblem. Also with this coincides having a more flushed out emblem maker. I don’t like the preset color thing and preset emblems. I like making my own and having my background and foreground colors. And toggling what is invisible. It’s a feature I miss

3

Enemy diversity, especially in the same unit type. All Grunts, Elites, Hunters, and others all are functionally identical with the exception of minor roles that, in combat, rarely ever actually matter. You never see ‘fluff’ ranks such as the Brute Chieftain’s bodyguards (Captains with blue armor and red underclothes), you rarely if ever saw actual dedicated ranks outside of Prometheans, and all rank ever was was a durability increase.

On top of that, AI behavior, numbers, and cooperation should be improved significantly, but that problably falls outside the scope of ‘little things’. Just look at the bipolar balancing of Firefight.

4

I wholeheartedly agree with the points above. I honestly forgot that your emblem is no longer on your armor. My emblem has been the same for I think 2 years now, and I never look at the shoulder pieces because I don’t have preferences for body armor. When I customize my spartan, all I care about is the helmet, visor, and colors. So I always just use the matching set of body armor after I pick my helmet.

EDIT: It would also be pretty awesome if we could put our spartan company emblem on our armor aswell. Maybe on the opposite shoulder as our personal emblem.

The statement about the AI reminded me of something else very important that I forgot to add: the ragdoll physics. Halo 5 by far has the absolute worst ragdoll physics in the entire franchise. It’s so bad it’s almost comical. The game acts like bodies only weigh like 3 pounds and that their bones and joints are made of jelly. On top of that, the game acts like the acceleration due to gravity is the equivalent of being on Mars or Mercury, and this brings me onto my next point.

Gravity. One of H5’s big advertisements was that you will get to explore many different worlds. However, this was nowhere near as exciting as we were lead on because they all felt the same. Different terrain and different skybox, but we were doing the same stuff. Killing the same enemies. Using the same weapons. Etc. One way 343 could substantially improve the “new planet” feel while upping the realism is by unique values for gravity for each planet. Sangheilios, Meridian, and Genesis are all different sizes and have different masses, so they should have different gravities. This wouldn’t make much of an impact on gameplay, just increase or decrease fall damage, jump height, and projectile drop, but it would have a huge impact on how the planet feels. Sangheilios is quite a bit larger than Earth (I’m pretty sure), so increasing the gravity a bit would truly make it feel like you’re on a new alien world.

I also think fall damage needs to come back, but since that would have quite an impact on gameplay I’m not so sure that it qualifies as a “little thing.”

5

The whole, master chief is human thing. I get that yes, he’s human. But the fist fight between him and lock was kinda disappointing. We’ve seen chief literally return a bomb by jumping out into space and still survived that. And then he loses a fist fight with Locke. He’s a soldier, a hunk of armor with a brain to think. That’s what bungie got right in their games.

6

> 2533274983112058;5:
> The whole, master chief is human thing. I get that yes, he’s human. But the fist fight between him and lock was kinda disappointing. We’ve seen chief literally return a bomb by jumping out into space and still survived that. And then he loses a fist fight with Locke. He’s a soldier, a hunk of armor with a brain to think. That’s what bungie got right in their games.

While I agree with you, and that fight was incredibly disappointing for anyone familiar with the Master Chief from the games and books, I just have to point out that the Chief didn’t lose the fight. I’d also like to mention that the Spartan-IIs are very intelligent, but John and the rest of Blue Team felt dumb as hell in Halo 5.

7

> 2533274983112058;5:
> The whole, master chief is human thing. I get that yes, he’s human. But the fist fight between him and lock was kinda disappointing. We’ve seen chief literally return a bomb by jumping out into space and still survived that. And then he loses a fist fight with Locke. He’s a soldier, a hunk of armor with a brain to think. That’s what bungie got right in their games.

And I would like to point out , John was playing with him until he became an actual threat. You know , one of those “show me what you can do rookie” kind of moments. As soon as Locke pulls out the immobilizer , all bets are off and John quickly ends the engagement. John wasn’t trying to hurt Locke , just assess his skills.

As far as the actual topic goes , I don’t remember much about Halo 4 and 5 , didn’t play either very much , but I would agree with the assessment so far , except for the lobby screen from Halo 4. When the game is new , having the map displayed before every match is invaluable , just for learning the map.

8

> 2533274847627340;7:
> > 2533274983112058;5:
> > The whole, master chief is human thing. I get that yes, he’s human. But the fist fight between him and lock was kinda disappointing. We’ve seen chief literally return a bomb by jumping out into space and still survived that. And then he loses a fist fight with Locke. He’s a soldier, a hunk of armor with a brain to think. That’s what bungie got right in their games.
>
> And I would like to point out , John was playing with him until he became an actual threat. You know , one of those “show me what you can do rookie” kind of moments. As soon as Locke pulls out the immobilizer , all bets are off and John quickly ends the engagement. John wasn’t trying to hurt Locke , just assess his skills.
>
> As far as the actual topic goes , I don’t remember much about Halo 4 and 5 , didn’t play either very much , but I would agree with the assessment so far , except for the lobby screen from Halo 4. When the game is new , having the map displayed before every match is invaluable , just for learning the map.

I always hated that excuse. While I get that Spartan IVs as a whole are not equals to Spartan IIs as a whole, I feel like that fight should’ve been more visibly a stalemate instead of ‘one-sided to “Totally just playing with him ggez”’.

That excuse just does both John and Locke a disservice for a fight scene they should’ve both shined in, or never gotten into in the first place.

9

Some other things that could use some tweaking imo OP:

  • Spartan Charge/Ground Pound: For majority vote, get 'em out of here/heavily nerf them. - I liked you’re pre-game lobby idea, but also add something else Halo 4 had that 5 didn’t: Map voting. I didn’t like how a map got automatically picked, so if a map came up you didn’t like, you wouldn’t know until the map was shown in the pre-game lobby. - Power Weapon spawns in Arena modes: Don’t add a robotic call out/icon on the map that says: “HEY THIS POWER WEAPON IS GONNA BE SPAWNING SOON, CAMP THE -yoink- OUT OF IT IF YOU WANNA WIN THE GAME!!!” That feature was one the reasons I frowned upon standard arena slayer…plus the commendation to go with it…what a nightmare to farm, managed to get it but still didn’t like that feature at all.All I can of atm honestly.
10

> 2535462145233570;8:
> > 2533274847627340;7:
> > > 2533274983112058;5:
> > > The whole, master chief is human thing. I get that yes, he’s human. But the fist fight between him and lock was kinda disappointing. We’ve seen chief literally return a bomb by jumping out into space and still survived that. And then he loses a fist fight with Locke. He’s a soldier, a hunk of armor with a brain to think. That’s what bungie got right in their games.
> >
> > And I would like to point out , John was playing with him until he became an actual threat. You know , one of those “show me what you can do rookie” kind of moments. As soon as Locke pulls out the immobilizer , all bets are off and John quickly ends the engagement. John wasn’t trying to hurt Locke , just assess his skills.
> >
> > As far as the actual topic goes , I don’t remember much about Halo 4 and 5 , didn’t play either very much , but I would agree with the assessment so far , except for the lobby screen from Halo 4. When the game is new , having the map displayed before every match is invaluable , just for learning the map.
>
> I always hated that excuse. While I get that Spartan IVs as a whole are not equals to Spartan IIs as a whole, I feel like that fight should’ve been more visibly a stalemate instead of ‘one-sided to “Totally just playing with him ggez”’.
>
> That excuse just does both John and Locke a disservice for a fight scene they should’ve both shined in, or never gotten into in the first place.

I’m sorry that you don’t like it , but facts are facts. It’s not an excuse , it’s what I saw when seeing the cut scene for the first time.
You say yourself that SIVs are not equivalent SIIs , but think the fight should have been more of a stalemate? How is that possible unless John allows it to be? If he overmatches Locke , then we should have gotten exactly what we got. And how exactly does it do a disservice to John? Any soldier is always interested to test themselves against who or what their superiors deem the soldiers better. This was John seeing if they were right…clearly they weren’t.

11

> 2533274847627340;10:
> > 2535462145233570;8:
> > > 2533274847627340;7:
> > > > 2533274983112058;5:
> > > > The whole, master chief is human thing. I get that yes, he’s human. But the fist fight between him and lock was kinda disappointing. We’ve seen chief literally return a bomb by jumping out into space and still survived that. And then he loses a fist fight with Locke. He’s a soldier, a hunk of armor with a brain to think. That’s what bungie got right in their games.
> > >
> > > And I would like to point out , John was playing with him until he became an actual threat. You know , one of those “show me what you can do rookie” kind of moments. As soon as Locke pulls out the immobilizer , all bets are off and John quickly ends the engagement. John wasn’t trying to hurt Locke , just assess his skills.
> > >
> > > As far as the actual topic goes , I don’t remember much about Halo 4 and 5 , didn’t play either very much , but I would agree with the assessment so far , except for the lobby screen from Halo 4. When the game is new , having the map displayed before every match is invaluable , just for learning the map.
> >
> > I always hated that excuse. While I get that Spartan IVs as a whole are not equals to Spartan IIs as a whole, I feel like that fight should’ve been more visibly a stalemate instead of ‘one-sided to “Totally just playing with him ggez”’.
> >
> > That excuse just does both John and Locke a disservice for a fight scene they should’ve both shined in, or never gotten into in the first place.
>
> I’m sorry that you don’t like it , but facts are facts. It’s not an excuse , it’s what I saw when seeing the cut scene for the first time.
> You say yourself that SIVs are not equivalent SIIs , but think the fight should have been more of a stalemate? How is that possible unless John allows it to be? If he overmatches Locke , then we should have gotten exactly what we got. And how exactly does it do a disservice to John? Any soldier is always interested to test themselves against who or what their superiors deem the soldiers better. This was John seeing if they were right…clearly they weren’t.

You know what I saw when I saw that cutscene? Not what you did. Chief didn’t ‘throw off the kid gloves’ until Locke broke his faceplate, and I viewed his prior performance as “Man, I really don’t want to fight a friendly”-until he realized Locke might actually win*. I never saw a single part of it that I consider Chief ‘testing’ Locke. So when you say ‘facts’, what you really mean are ‘My opinions’, unless you can get me a quote where 343i clarifies that it was a ‘test’. As for Locke, he’s definitely above the average SIV, but they do a really poor job of showing exactly how much better outside of Osiris’ first cutscene.

Also, Really? A collapsing Cavern is not the time to be testing out your ‘descendant’, as it were. If that’s what he was doing, then Chief is way dumber than he should be in that scene. Literally glugging gallons of the stupid juice.

*Not that I actually think Locke would win, but his loss was as plot demanded regardless of how good he may or may not be. It’s just a shame the cutscene and excuse for the fight was just so… Awful. I’ve seen better fistfights in Skyrim.

12

For the UI, I personally think Reach had it best. I thought the Halo 4 lobby was a bit cluttered with all of the Spartans stacking on each other and the mode in the top. Reach had the the map and mode shown with the maps picture. I like how the Spartans were to the side and out of the way. You could look at them if you wanted, but they weren’t taking up large portions of the screen.

As for Halo 4 commendations, I agree 100% that they were the best. Reach was too grindy and Halo 3 had the armor connected to competitive ranking. I think a mix of Halo 4 commendations and Halo 3 achievements (like campaign) would be the best.

13

> 2535462145233570;11:
> > 2533274847627340;10:
> > > 2535462145233570;8:
> > > > 2533274847627340;7:
> > > > > 2533274983112058;5:
> > > > > The whole, master chief is human thing. I get that yes, he’s human. But the fist fight between him and lock was kinda disappointing. We’ve seen chief literally return a bomb by jumping out into space and still survived that. And then he loses a fist fight with Locke. He’s a soldier, a hunk of armor with a brain to think. That’s what bungie got right in their games.
> > > >
> > > > And I would like to point out , John was playing with him until he became an actual threat. You know , one of those “show me what you can do rookie” kind of moments. As soon as Locke pulls out the immobilizer , all bets are off and John quickly ends the engagement. John wasn’t trying to hurt Locke , just assess his skills.
> > > >
> > > > As far as the actual topic goes , I don’t remember much about Halo 4 and 5 , didn’t play either very much , but I would agree with the assessment so far , except for the lobby screen from Halo 4. When the game is new , having the map displayed before every match is invaluable , just for learning the map.
> > >
> > > I always hated that excuse. While I get that Spartan IVs as a whole are not equals to Spartan IIs as a whole, I feel like that fight should’ve been more visibly a stalemate instead of ‘one-sided to “Totally just playing with him ggez”’.
> > >
> > > That excuse just does both John and Locke a disservice for a fight scene they should’ve both shined in, or never gotten into in the first place.
> >
> > I’m sorry that you don’t like it , but facts are facts. It’s not an excuse , it’s what I saw when seeing the cut scene for the first time.
> > You say yourself that SIVs are not equivalent SIIs , but think the fight should have been more of a stalemate? How is that possible unless John allows it to be? If he overmatches Locke , then we should have gotten exactly what we got. And how exactly does it do a disservice to John? Any soldier is always interested to test themselves against who or what their superiors deem the soldiers better. This was John seeing if they were right…clearly they weren’t.
>
> You know what I saw when I saw that cutscene? Not what you did. Chief didn’t ‘throw off the kid gloves’ until Locke broke his faceplate, and I viewed his prior performance as “Man, I really don’t want to fight a friendly”-until he realized Locke might actually win*. I never saw a single part of it that I consider Chief ‘testing’ Locke. So when you say ‘facts’, what you really mean are ‘My opinions’, unless you can get me a quote where 343i clarifies that it was a ‘test’. As for Locke, he’s definitely above the average SIV, but they do a really poor job of showing exactly how much better outside of Osiris’ first cutscene.
>
> Also, Really? A collapsing Cavern is not the time to be testing out your ‘descendant’, as it were. If that’s what he was doing, then Chief is way dumber than he should be in that scene. Literally glugging gallons of the stupid juice.
>
> *Not that I actually think Locke would win, but his loss was as plot demanded regardless of how good he may or may not be. It’s just a shame the cutscene and excuse for the fight was just so… Awful. I’ve seen better fistfights in Skyrim.

I don’t think anyone is arguing that it wasn’t a disappointment, but that he’s just trying to rationalize what we got. No amount of complaining or disliking that scene will change anything. It happened. That’s what we got. The best thing to do honestly is to try to find explanations to try to make these disappointments seem not so disappointing.

The campaign as a whole was extremely disappointing, and I would much rather 343 delay Infinite another year so they could completely remake Halo 5’s campaign. But since Halo 5 is almost 4 years old now, doing this would actually be the absolute worst business decision they have ever made. Honestly they should have remade it once the terrible ratings began pouring in and they realized “Oh crap. We done goofed.” But unfortunately that didn’t happen. M’dama is still dead. Cortana is still alive, and evil, and now pretty much owns the galaxy.

But either way, I wouldn’t really call anything campaign related a “little thing” as it is such a big part of the game. This is a good discussion, and one I think needs to be discussed, but I think it deserves its own thread.

14

> 2535429756019039;12:
> For the UI, I personally think Reach had it best. I thought the Halo 4 lobby was a bit cluttered with all of the Spartans stacking on each other and the mode in the top. Reach had the the map and mode shown with the maps picture. I like how the Spartans were to the side and out of the way. You could look at them if you wanted, but they weren’t taking up large portions of the screen.
>
> As for Halo 4 commendations, I agree 100% that they were the best. Reach was too grindy and Halo 3 had the armor connected to competitive ranking. I think a mix of Halo 4 commendations and Halo 3 achievements (like campaign) would be the best.

I personally never played Reach multiplayer. Campaign, Forge, customs, and Firefight was all I ever wanted to do when I loaded it up, so I don’t know what the Reach pregame lobby looks like.

With that said, I would still prefer a lobby like Halo 4’s. You could clearly see the map and gametype, and all the Spartans were available to look at if you wanted to. I think the player cards had the perfect balance between being small enough to be out of the way while being big enough to see in detail.

15

OP makes some really good points, unlocking cosmetics via random req packs is so much less rewarding than having to work for them. Plus they mean something when you see them on the battlefield, they can be symbols of accomplishment.

Also OP is right about the pregame lobby, it’s pretty bland in H5, actually pretty much the whole UI is disappointing imo.

Yeah, the fight scene is also pretty badly choreographed in my opinion, both Chief and Locke look so slow.

> 2533274912536998;9:
> Some other things that could use some tweaking imo OP:
> - Spartan Charge/Ground Pound: For majority vote, get 'em out of here/heavily nerf them. - I liked you’re pre-game lobby idea, but also add something else Halo 4 had that 5 didn’t: Map voting. I didn’t like how a map got automatically picked, so if a map came up you didn’t like, you wouldn’t know until the map was shown in the pre-game lobby. - Power Weapon spawns in Arena modes: Don’t add a robotic call out/icon on the map that says: “HEY THIS POWER WEAPON IS GONNA BE SPAWNING SOON, CAMP THE -yoink- OUT OF IT IF YOU WANNA WIN THE GAME!!!” That feature was one the reasons I frowned upon standard arena slayer…plus the commendation to go with it…what a nightmare to farm, managed to get it but still didn’t like that feature at all.All I can of atm honestly.

  1. Agree, Spartan Charge and Ground Pound don’t feel like they belong in Halo.

  2. BIG disagree, voting makes it so that you only play the most popular maps, and that gets stale. MCC ruined BTB for me when they had voting. 90% of the time H3 won so that was what I was stuck playing. Also it takes time and increases the wait from match to match. A veto system would be more palpable.

  3. Power weapon control has always been a big part of Halo, the weapon pads call-outs just make it easier to remember when they spawn. If they removed them but kept the static spawn times I would be cool with that, I don’t think it’s a big deal.

16

> 2533274952087199;15:
> OP makes some really good points, unlocking cosmetics via random req packs is so much less rewarding than having to work for them. Plus they mean something when you see them on the battlefield, they can be symbols of accomplishment.
>
> Also OP is right about the pregame lobby, it’s pretty bland in H5, actually pretty much the whole UI is disappointing imo.
>
> Yeah, the fight scene is also pretty badly choreographed in my opinion, both Chief and Locke look so slow.
>
>
>
>
> > 2533274912536998;9:
> > Some other things that could use some tweaking imo OP:
> > - Spartan Charge/Ground Pound: For majority vote, get 'em out of here/heavily nerf them. - I liked you’re pre-game lobby idea, but also add something else Halo 4 had that 5 didn’t: Map voting. I didn’t like how a map got automatically picked, so if a map came up you didn’t like, you wouldn’t know until the map was shown in the pre-game lobby. - Power Weapon spawns in Arena modes: Don’t add a robotic call out/icon on the map that says: “HEY THIS POWER WEAPON IS GONNA BE SPAWNING SOON, CAMP THE -yoink- OUT OF IT IF YOU WANNA WIN THE GAME!!!” That feature was one the reasons I frowned upon standard arena slayer…plus the commendation to go with it…what a nightmare to farm, managed to get it but still didn’t like that feature at all.All I can of atm honestly.
>
> 1. Agree, Spartan Charge and Ground Pound don’t feel like they belong in Halo.
>
> 2. BIG disagree, voting makes it so that you only play the most popular maps, and that gets stale. MCC ruined BTB for me when they had voting. 90% of the time H3 won so that was what I was stuck playing. Also it takes time and increases the wait from match to match. A veto system would be more palpable.
>
> 3. Power weapon control has always been a big part of Halo, the weapon pads call-outs just make it easier to remember when they spawn. If they removed them but kept the static spawn times I would be cool with that, I don’t think it’s a big deal.

I also agree that spartan charge and ground pound need to go. I would prefer a veto system because of the issues with voting like you stated and in playlists that have multiple gamemodes like action sack really need a veto system at least. I’m not a fan of weapon pad call outs and location markers because it is a huge get out of jail free card for those who lack map knowledge or strategy. These thinks take time and effort to learn and I feel you should be rewarded by having an advantage for power weapons.

17

Theater mode. Theater was very disappointing in Halo 5 and I really hope that Infinite has a well-designed and working theater. I also hope BTB gets more attention in development than it got in Halo 5.

18

If they stick with the REQ system and boosts, wasting a legendary boost on a game where someone quit and you get thrown in towards the end and get like two kills is not cool. Change that. Also, losing boosts because connection fails is not cool.

19

Said it in another thread already but I think it’s important: Do something against smurf accounts (you know, your level 3 Spartan who gets 30 kills in a Slayer match) and restrict social arena to solo players. Everything else is just unfair to the solo players and there are (potentially) a lot of them. I think many people quit multiplayer very quickly because they get frustrated by full fireteams that just destroy them and teammates quitting early or just standing around in the corner. Fix these issues and the community will become larger which can only be good for everyone.

20

> 2535412592406624;19:
> Said it in another thread already but I think it’s important: Do something against smurf accounts (you know, your level 3 Spartan who gets 30 kills in a Slayer match) and restrict social arena to solo players. Everything else is just unfair to the solo players and there are (potentially) a lot of them. I think many people quit multiplayer very quickly because they get frustrated by full fireteams that just destroy them and teammates quitting early or just standing around in the corner. Fix these issues and the community will become larger which can only be good for everyone.

I’m not sure how to enforce against smurf accounts. What if a new player is actually good? There is no way to truly differentiate between a genuine player and a smurf, and if you attempt to, you will end up banning new players for no reason and let smurfs continue.

I 100% disagree with restricting social arena to solo. The whole point of social is to kick back and have a good fun time playing Halo, and to most people this means playing with friends. Restricting to solo would be such a terrible choice.