My concerns with Infinite and its future

Games Halo Infinite
1

I’ve been a longtime Halo fan since virtually the very beginning, and I have pre-ordered every single Halo game to date (with the exception of Halo: CE, Halo 2, Spartan Assault, Spartan Strike, and Fireteam Raven). But with Halo Infinite, I haven’t pre-ordered it yet because I’m still concerned and worried about it. In addition, with the Halo games that I have pre-ordered in the past it’s always been the highest edition available, and it’s only the standard edition so far available for pre-order.

My concerns are the lack of playable Elites despite the fact that there’s a long running thread (see here) requesting them, the Warthog sounding like a riced-out Honda in the campaign gameplay reveal demo last summer, and the armor coating controversy that apparently everyone has forgotten about already. I know these are just petty things, and I don’t expect perfection but if I’m shelling-out my hard-earned money for a game, I’d like to have the very best game possible to the general public. I also know that this is real-life, and not every single person can be pleased or made happy. It is what it is and I totally get that.

I would – at the very least – appreciate my concerns noted and understood by 343 so they can make positive adjustments to Infinite before launch. I genuinely have a very difficult time trusting 343 because of the very botched initial release of MCC, all of Halo 5’s problems (which are too numerous to state, but see here), and charging even more money for Awakening The Nightmare in Halo Wars 2 despite the fact I had the Season Pass. I’m very cautiously optimistic for Infinite. I’d like to pre-order it if there’s more positive change.

2

The Elites not being playable is a bummer, but it’s whatever, the Warthog sounds great though, so I’m not sure what your complaint is. Is it not supposed to sound like a strong, durable vehicle? It’s an off-road vehicle made like 500 years in the future, what’s it supposed to sound like? The armor coating though, I’m not too sure how happy I am about that, I’ll have to see it in action before I cast any judgment, still leaning more to ‘not gonna like it’, because I hate that Warframe makes you pay for color palettes, I’d hate it if Halo did it too.

> I genuinely have a very difficult time trusting 343 because of the very botched initial release of MCC

I am not sure of the specifics, but I am fairly certain its awful debut to the world was mostly in part to Microsoft rushing it off the production line. It was an ambitious project, it was all of the games plus a remaster of 2 in one game so to speak. Working with Bungie’s mess of spaghetti code was already troublesome enough, but to have to make all the components cooperate without breaking something and being given a short deadline to complete it? That’s like asking one company to make 3 triple A title games in the span of 2 years. It can be done, but the end result will not be pretty.

> all of Halo 5’s problems

Personally, I am not the biggest fan of Halo 5, but I think people give it too much -Yoink-. It’s not that bad of a game, but it does have a number of faults, the story was a 180 from what we were expecting for sure. Could have been much better, not nearly as bad as everyone likes to make it seem.

> charging even more money for Awakening The Nightmare in Halo Wars 2 despite the fact I had the Season Pass

This was actually a bug I believe, it wasn’t supposed to recharge you to play it if you had the season pass. I believe most people called in about it, but others said if you uninstalled ATN and reinstalled it, you should have been able to use it. It did this with Colony and several other Leaders as well iirc. It was later fixed from what I heard.

3

> 2533274879757912;2:
> > all of Halo 5’s problems
>
> Personally, I am not the biggest fan of Halo 5, but I think people give it too much -Yoink-. It’s not that bad of a game, but it does have a number of faults, the story was a 180 from what we were expecting for sure. Could have been much better, not nearly as bad as everyone likes to make it seem.

I used to collect every piece of halo media i could get my hands on. After halo 5 i just check them out on the wiki, if that.

> 2533274879757912;2:
> This was actually a bug I believe, it wasn’t supposed to recharge you to play it if you had the season pass. I believe most people called in about it, but others said if you uninstalled ATN and reinstalled it, you should have been able to use it. It did this with Colony and several other Leaders as well iirc. It was later fixed from what I heard.

You have some very weird memory with this. The season pass actually had its expiration date changed (or rather, set, as it wasnt given one originally) to conveniently exclude the DLC.

You can even still buy the season pass on the microsoft store, where it explictly says it doesnt include the expansion.

4

> 2533274818575073;1:
> My concerns are the lack of playable Elites despite the fact that there’s a long running thread (see here) requesting them…

Disappointing… but understandable. They would take a lot of time and effort to implement, and while the fans are vocal I suspect the numbers aren’t high enough to justify.

Still, would be the perfect future DLC to fill out content in between Campaign stories.

> 2533274818575073;1:
> , the Warthog sounding like a riced-out Honda in the campaign gameplay reveal demo last summer,

Have you seen the Inside Infinite with the audio team? If they are putting the same care into vehicle noises that they are with weapon sounds… we are in safe hands.

> 2533274818575073;1:
> and the armor coating controversy that apparently everyone has forgotten about already.

I think we are just waiting to see what the actual deal is. It’s all entwined with some loss of customisation (who knew how passionate some could be about their colours) an the controversy of microtransactions (but, hey nothing is ever truly free).

There will be plenty of time for people to get mad. Or not.

> 2533274818575073;1:
> I know these are just petty things, and I don’t expect perfection but if I’m shelling-out my hard-earned money for a game, I’d like to have the very best game possible to the general public. I also know that this is real-life, and not every single person can be pleased or made happy. It is what it is and I totally get that.

Halo is a lot of things to different people. Changes are always going to step on some toes. Hopefully there is (a lot) more better than good.

5

> 2533274879757912;2:
> The Elites not being playable is a bummer, but it’s whatever, the Warthog sounds great though, so I’m not sure what your complaint is. Is it not supposed to sound like a strong, durable vehicle? It’s an off-road vehicle made like 500 years in the future, what’s it supposed to sound like? The armor coating though, I’m not too sure how happy I am about that, I’ll have to see it in action before I cast any judgment, still leaning more to ‘not gonna like it’, because I hate that Warframe makes you pay for color palettes, I’d hate it if Halo did it too.
>
>
>
>
> > I genuinely have a very difficult time trusting 343 because of the very botched initial release of MCC
>
> I am not sure of the specifics, but I am fairly certain its awful debut to the world was mostly in part to Microsoft rushing it off the production line. It was an ambitious project, it was all of the games plus a remaster of 2 in one game so to speak. Working with Bungie’s mess of spaghetti code was already troublesome enough, but to have to make all the components cooperate without breaking something and being given a short deadline to complete it? That’s like asking one company to make 3 triple A title games in the span of 2 years. It can be done, but the end result will not be pretty.
>
>
>
>
> > all of Halo 5’s problems
>
> Personally, I am not the biggest fan of Halo 5, but I think people give it too much -Yoink-. It’s not that bad of a game, but it does have a number of faults, the story was a 180 from what we were expecting for sure. Could have been much better, not nearly as bad as everyone likes to make it seem.
>
>
>
>
> > charging even more money for Awakening The Nightmare in Halo Wars 2 despite the fact I had the Season Pass
>
> This was actually a bug I believe, it wasn’t supposed to recharge you to play it if you had the season pass. I believe most people called in about it, but others said if you uninstalled ATN and reinstalled it, you should have been able to use it. It did this with Colony and several other Leaders as well iirc. It was later fixed from what I heard.

For some reason I have no idea how to just quote only specific parts, but I’m a car guy personally. A Warthog is supposed to sound like a beefy, gruff military vehicle. If I showed up to fight the Banished in the same Warthog that was in the July 2020 gameplay reveal demo, I think they’d just drop their weapons and laugh at me. To me it just sounds wimpy.

6

I love Halo, huge fan, been playing as long as some fans are old and, I think, no, Im sure of it, I’m alone when I say; I don’t care all that much playing as an Elite, especially in multiplayer. I will now brace myself for the impact of the incoming stones being hurled my way. Please don’t send me hate mail, unless it’s funny. But then that would just be called funny mail right?

7

I have never met someone outside of the forums that enjoys playing against or with Elites from my exposure. Everything I have seen from 343i besides the lack of information of armor coatings has been good. I just think people just have unrealistic expectations for them which they are justified to have.

8

> 2533274795569076;6:
> I love Halo, huge fan, been playing as long as some fans are old and, I think, no, Im sure of it, I’m alone when I say; I don’t care all that much playing as an Elite, especially in multiplayer. I will now brace myself for the impact of the incoming stones being hurled my way. Please don’t send me hate mail, unless it’s funny. But then that would just be called funny mail right?

> 2533274792737987;7:
> I have never met someone outside of the forums that enjoys playing against or with Elites so from my exposure. Everything I have seen from 343i besides the lack of information of armor coatings has been good. I just think people just have unrealistic expectations for them which they are justified to have.

Yep, that’s pretty much where I sit.

9

> 2533274964189700;3:
> > 2533274879757912;2:
> > >

> You have some very weird memory with this. The season pass actually had its expiration date changed (or rather, set, as it wasnt given one originally) to conveniently exclude the DLC.
>
> You can even still buy the season pass on the microsoft store, where it explictly says it doesnt include the expansion.

I never said it was 100%, I said that I believed it was a bug, it’s what I was told a number of times, because when I asked around about it after hearing people complain about it, that’s what I was told. I at the time did not own the leaders directly (meaning I didn’t pay for them individually unless they weren’t included in the season pass), only the season pass, while it gave me issues about using them, I didn’t really think too much about it as it was an on and off thing. Restarting the game usually fixed it after uninstalling and reinstalling once.

So whether it’s the same issue or a different one I can not say.

> For some reason I have no idea how to just quote only specific parts, but I’m a car guy personally. A Warthog is supposed to sound like a beefy, gruff military vehicle. If I showed up to fight the Banished in the same Warthog that was in the July 2020 gameplay reveal demo, I think they’d just drop their weapons and laugh at me. To me it just sounds wimpy.

You can copy what you want to point out in a post through click and drag over the sentence/paragraph, then click on the box with three lines in it in your reply box, it will bring up a lighter grey box where you can then paste it.

As for the reaction of the Banished, I doubt they care very much what your machine sounds like. They’re far more interested in the enemy behind the wheel/turret.

I suppose I just don’t understand because vehicles really aren’t my specialty, that’s my two friends zone that I am blissfully unaware of. So I can’t really argue too much there I suppose lol.

10

> 2533274818575073;1:
> I’ve been a longtime Halo fan since virtually the very beginning, and I have pre-ordered every single Halo game to date (with the exception of Halo: CE, Halo 2, Spartan Assault, Spartan Strike, and Fireteam Raven). But with Halo Infinite, I haven’t pre-ordered it yet because I’m still concerned and worried about it. In addition, with the Halo games that I have pre-ordered in the past it’s always been the highest edition available, and it’s only the standard edition so far available for pre-order.
>
> My concerns are the lack of playable Elites despite the fact that there’s a long running thread (see here) requesting them, the Warthog sounding like a riced-out Honda in the campaign gameplay reveal demo last summer, and the armor coating controversy that apparently everyone has forgotten about already. I know these are just petty things, and I don’t expect perfection but if I’m shelling-out my hard-earned money for a game, I’d like to have the very best game possible to the general public. I also know that this is real-life, and not every single person can be pleased or made happy. It is what it is and I totally get that.
>
> I would – at the very least – appreciate my concerns noted and understood by 343 so they can make positive adjustments to Infinite before launch. I genuinely have a very difficult time trusting 343 because of the very botched initial release of MCC, all of Halo 5’s problems (which are too numerous to state, but see here), and charging even more money for Awakening The Nightmare in Halo Wars 2 despite the fact I had the Season Pass. I’m very cautiously optimistic for Infinite. I’d like to pre-order it if there’s more positive change.

This concerns are ridiculous and I do hope 343 focus on what matters instead: Making a good game because of a great gameplay experience.

One enemy, faction, weapon, vehicle or particular mechanic are nothing more than a drop of water into the ocean. They can be nice to have and have an impact, but first the game needs to be good or everything else fails.

11

I think it’s ok that you are a little skeptical because you feel there is a lack of information around certain things that you feel are important to you. I think it’s always a good idea to wait to preorder until you feel like you’re confident enough in the game to pay money for it. I will say that Game Pass is a great way to try campaign and multiplayer will be free to play, although that could mean micro transactions that are not so great. I’m still willing to give 343 the benefit of the doubt that the micro transactions will be fair and not predatory until we see otherwise. Playable Elites not being there is a bit of a bummer I agree but for me personally it’s not too huge of a loss. Still I do hope they are added in a future update.

12

My main concern is Armour coatings.
Not that they don’t look cool (If the Fidelity shown is to be trusted) But the monetisation.

My next concern are launch features, Not that it would upset me personally, but the Halo Fan base is very often times toxic and will sooner shoot the franchise dead on launch for what is available at launch vs letting the game flourish and grow. This affects me because then me just playing and enjoying the game becomes threatened by brigading and angry fans, despite every Halo title getting really strong and prominent upgrades/attention. (I mean Halo 5: Forge is a great example. It was one of the BEST Halo Updates of ALL TIME, but the game was already seen as some sort of critical failure by most in-the-wild “Halo Fans”)

I don’t care about playable elites, sorry =/. I get it though, maybe some day.

13

Yeah, the Warthog didn’t sound powerful or “beefy” at all. It sounded like a Vespa scooter🤷🏻‍♂️

My other 2 concerns:

  • The fact that 343I says that the Campaign/Zeta HALO is “several times larger than Halo 4 & 5 combined”. Halo 4 & 5 weren’t very long games with “big” worlds to start with [HALO 4 only had 8 missions, for example]; so how does that give me confidence in HALO INFINITE having a huge world to explore? - The narrative. I am not looking forward to seeing the rampant Cortana nonsense, Spartan Locke, Team Osiris & Blue Team, The Created and The Prometheans make a return - even for just one cutscene. Those characters are forever lost in obscurity and embarrassment. To say that their inclusion in HALO INFINITE could ruin the experience is an understatement.
14

Honestly even if they made the changes you’re wanting before launch, I say don’t pre-order. Wait until the game is out and see what reviews/community is saying, then check it out fir yourself. That’s what I do anyway.