I think, I might have a middle ground solution for 343 to get people more interested in the shop and have RVB and its lore accurate.
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Reach style lobby and menu with Infinite staging screen. Keep the same fireteam screen but have each team member lounging like they do. With the Reach lobby menu and every spartan comes front and center when inspecting them.
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Outlines - these should only be on for Threat Sensor and AI Scan. They could even show on enemies in view upon scanning.
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Lore accurate Red v Blue. In the newest book Blue team are equipped with the newest armor. It’s Mjolnir mixed with SPI camo plating. The camo plating is programmed to literally change colors for camouflage.
This could be used in the match roster lineup when all the spartan’s are showing off with their punchies or runway spins. They could be shown in their coating then have their armor coatings shift to red or blue. Even whatever color players could pick like they do outlines. -
Use play lists with Elites and PvE. You can keep coatings relevant, without outlines. Invasion, Firefight, Co-op (I know they are doing 4 chiefs, but they could add a narrative that the weapon sent mission logs to the unsc academy and they are using the chief’s experiences for training scenarios).
Most of these are rehashed arguments, I know. I however, don’t care about cross core customizations, rank, battle royales, or sbmm. I care about good gameplay features. Player Collision, Friendly Fire, the current OP Radar, Static weapon spawns in BTB objective modes (chaos in slayer is fine), no player outlines. 343i has done so much crap to make the game annoying to play. Once my challenges are done, what else is there to do than help the community? I know if I was happier with Halo Infinite I would spend money on it.