Having played both the flights and putting in a fair few hours on the new Halo Infinite beta, I have some thoughta I would like to share (not all badl. I will try to organize them as best as I can.
-Weapon Balancing (subject to my opinion, please share your thoughts on this)-
The AR feels way too strong at close range. I find myself getting melted by it consistently, and it kind of feels way too good/too easy to use for a starting weapon. (keep in mind I am a Halo 5 player so I am used to the AR being a mid-tier weapon)
Bloom on precision weapons is annoying. It was in the flights, and it is now. I find myself walking away from gunfights thinking “huh, I just got bloom’d” by someone rapid-firing the Sidekick… meanwhile I try to pace my shots with the Sidekick and I still miss because of random chance. Not to mention the Commando feels out of place because its bloom is so drastic that it struggles to kill targets at range… I totally understand why they went with BR starts for competitive modes.
Sniper actually feels pretty good now that I am getting used to it. I disagree with the decision to add hipfire bloom, but oh well.
-Weapon Feel-
Not to re-iterate too much from the last section, but bloom makes weapons feel weak and inconsistent. The AR/Sidekick combo mostly seems to cause engagements where both players are spamming as hard as possible and hoping for the best.
Also, one thing I have noticed: hitmarkers on fast-firing weapons like the AR and the chaingun seem to be out of sync. When you full-auto, you will get hitmarkers every 3 or 4 bullets instead of every single bullet, even if you are hitting all of them. This makes it difficult to tell whether your full-auto spray is actually hitting or if you are just missing some shots due to bloom. (Tap firing seems to give you hit markers every bullet, as do precision weapons, but the full-auto meta of the AR makes this hitmarker inconsistency annoying)
-Progression-
I am going to be straight up and say the progression system stinks. I have seen a number of others on this forum that share this opinion. There seems to be 2 sides to the problem:
- Progression is based solely from challenges. No matter how well you do, you will never be rewarded for your performance. This could be remedied by giving XP per kill or per objective capture or something like that. [edit: there is another reason to add performance-based XP. If a hardcore player finishes their weekly challenges right away, then they are essentially stuck progression-wise until the next challenges come out. That discourages those people from continuing to play]
- The challenges are a real pain in the side to get done. Some are super easy, like getting 5 AR kills, but some are unnecessarily time-consuming or entirely luck based,
2a.For example, “Capture 3 Flags;” Ok, let’s queue up and HOPE to get a CTF game. Then, I have to play selfishly to get my challenge done. Sometimes, to win a CTF match, it is better to throw the flag to teammate and let him capture it instead of yourself taking the risk of running the flag all the way. These challenges make it so players will always choose the selfish route and not focus on the fun of the match itself.
2b.Another example (my own experience), “Get a kill with the Wasp’s rockets.” Ok, let’s queue BTB (no option to get this done in Arena by the way) and HOPE to get a map where Wasps spawn. Now, I have to camp in the back of the map until a Wasp spawns instead of, you know, having fun and playing the game normally.
Either challenges need to be more universal/more natural to normal gameplay, or Challenge Swaps need to be WAYYYYY easier to get. Maybe give out a free Challenge Swap every 5 games or so, that way people will always have an option to switch it if they are struggling with a particular challenge.
-Customization-
I think the Armor Core system is flawed. You are able to interchange armor pieces from different generations in MCC, so why not here? If I spend money on a cosmetic item, I want to be able to use it as much as I want. Otherwise, I am just never going to buy items that don’t fit with my favorite Armor Core.
I have to say though, navigating the menus feels much more responsive than it did in the flight. There are noticeable improvements to the UI, so good job there.
-Visuals-
The game looks BEAUTIFUL. I could just walk around an empty map all day and take in the atmosphere. No complaints, good job 343! Same with the music!