Hey so I guess I didn’t receive a survey so I thought I might as well post my thoughts on the tech preview we saw last weekend. These notes were taken while I was playing through the game so these were fresh thoughts at the time. I also understand that with this being a two month old build that some of the things that I have as negative feedback/recommendations for change may have already been changed/fixed at this point. I’m ignoring more talked about problems like audio glitches when you join a game late or the problems with weapons that have been discussed a lot by content creators and others via social media that I have seen.
I just want to start off by saying thank you to all the developers who have put the time and effort into creating the game that we have been waiting so long for. While what we saw wasn’t perfect I think it has come a long way since the beginning with Halo 4 and definitely shows some improvements on the series as a whole. Bravo to the devs!
Just to give some reference I played on a PC with the following specs:
AMD Ryzen 7 3700x
16GB DDR3 3200
GTX 3070
Positive Feedback:
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The main menu of the game definitely works. If 343i is going to continue down this path of making sure the multiplayer can somehow tie into the lore then I like the idea of the Spartan Academy. - The menu system is fairly easy to navigate. I can find everything that I need fairly easily. When the game comes out of course we are going to get more moving parts added to these menus so I’ll be curious to see how well it holds up. - Sound Design in the menu and in the gun testing range is amazing. Battle Rifle Sounds so good. - Plasma Pistol is the best sounding in the game. I wanted to create a separate line for this because I never expected such a small weapon to produce such a beautiful set of sounds. Top Tier. - I love that the personal AI is present, definitely adds more to the customization and sounds kinda cool when they shout things out. - The little sequence at the start of a match is beautiful (when it works). - Bot matches feel pretty smooth overall. No real lag or stuttering is being experienced. (again this is subjective) - Gunplay feels really satisfying compared even to Halo 3. Weapons like the battle rifle, pulse carbine, and the sidekick feel really good to use. - Love the new shield recharge animation, it’s quick and simple. I hope that this is the same for the campaign side of things. - Grapple Hook feels really satisfying to use and doesn’t feel super overpowered due to it’s limited use and the gradual momentum gained over time. - Ravager Alternate Fire method is probably the best in all of Halo. Really innovative and definitely can be worth using in objective gameplay. - Gravity Hammer feels really weighted and a all around powerhouse of a weapon. - The bots are pretty sophisticated in most cases. Best bots I’ve seen in my gaming experience.Negative Feedback/Recommendations
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The voice acting of the base AI (I think Pyramid is the name) seems a bit forced to me and doesn’t seem natural at all. I would re-record those lines to make it seem less awkward. - I don’t like the audio cue when a team reaches the halfway point in a match. That guitar rift is too loud and takes away from the gameplay. I would suggest moving it and just having the announcer or AI announce that you or the enemy team are halfway to victory. - Clamber and Slide animations seem a bit rough. Clamber just looks blocky over all and there is a delay from when you press slide to when it actually slides. Not sure if that is intentional or not to make sure enhanced movement is not as prevalent but still feels weird. If this is intentional then definitely keep it just something I’d have to get used to. - Weapon Skins applied in customization appear to show on weapons that I spawn with and when I pick up spawned weapons throughout the map, however when I pickup a weapon from a dead enemy my weapon skins do not apply to those weapons. - Tone down the announcer/AI/spartan chatter. Too much is happening at once. Also when it comes to the AI please don’t have them say “S7 Sniper Rifle available” or “S7 Sniper Rifle acquired” just do “Sniper Rifle available” no one really cares about what model the weapons are. - Plasma grenade explosion is weak. The frag grenade was done well but the plasma animations needs some work to make it look truly deadly. - Add another part of customization in regards to starting animations for players when a game starts and your team is introduced. These can be quirky poses, but nothing too over the top. - Please revert the radar to how it functioned in the previous Halo games. The radar we saw in the tech demo mirrored that of Halo 5 HCS and ruins casual play in my opinion… Sometimes it can be fun to get the sneak up on someone but almost makes active camo far too overpowered and more than likely will encourage camping in casual play. - Live Fire seems a bit too small and lackluster even if we are going back to the times without relying on enhanced movement to build maps. I think of 4v4 maps like Sanctuary from Halo 2 or the Pit from Halo 3 and they just seemed a lot bigger with more locations in the map to explore. I’d like to see more medium sized maps like that when the final game launches or even after launch. I think having a mixture of small maps like Live Fire and medium size maps like the ones mentioned above definitely would help shape the 4v4 scene better.
Again these were just my immediate thought when playing the tech demo over the course of only 5 hours throughout the weekend. I hope everyone enjoyed their time playing Infinite and I look forward to more flights to come