My thoughts on LSS so far

Games Halo Infinite
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SO… I decided to try the new event game mode Last Spartan Standing, despite really hating Battle Royale like gamemodes (which this very much is, not gonna beat around the bush…) just to give it a fair shake.

First of all, who’s bright idea was it to start everyone off with the sidekick? Even in the arms race game mode in MCC, you don’t start off with the magnum off the bat because of how strong it is… the thing is so ridiculous in this mode that most people are literally not even bothering to level up to higher tier weapons because you can easily get a triple kill with a grenade or two and spamming the sidekick with overpowered aim assist zoning straight to people’s foreheads (one guy I spectated even won a match using only the sidekick which says a lot…) which brings me to my next point…

Why would you even give players the option to manually level up at all, you know for a fact this would very much lead to people just staying at a certain tier because the loadout for it is too good (especially after the universal melee nerf, making every gun suddenly feel weaker). You could’ve at the very least made it to where it forces level ups when you get kills so players cannot camp with certain loadout tiers and then mass level up once they get enough kills so they can insta get Battle Rifle and bullpoop… Heck, I would’ve been happier if everyone started with one weapon and it was like traditional arms race where you get one weapon per level instead of two, would be a lot less cheesy for an elimination based game mode…

Another thing, random drops being Overshields and Active Camo, are you out of your mind 343i?.. they’re not only poorly telegraphed but 100% luck based whether one drops near you or not, and they also make a stupid difference to turn the tide to anyone who happens to get one uncontested… If you’re gonna have these items in this mode, the very least you can do is make it so they are telegraphed to every player in the map which would at the very least force people to engage rather than camp and pray to the RNG. People didn’t like random map ordinance in Halo 4, what makes you think they will suddenly like it now?.. It’s bad enough that the map grenades and equipment are randomized too, but you also have to randomly drop OS and Camo in the map on top of that, this isn’t really more accessible, it’s just more annoying, campy and frankly boring…

Lastly, why 5 lives?.. are you so stubborn and refusing to admit you lied about working on a Battle Royale that you are trying really hard to make it seem like you’re not, 343i?.. I can see it now “he-hey guys, we didn’t lie about not putting a BR in Halo Infinite, this game mode is totally different, it’s basically Super Spartan Smash Bros with 5 Stock in Final Desert nation! Other Battle Royale’s have no lives or the ability to level your weapons, so this DEFINITELY not a Battle Royale gamemode, trust us guys…” Yea, ok…

The fact that this mode has lives really shows how poorly the mode works once the Danger Zone gets triggered, because even if you play your best, don’t die and have a good stack of items and lives, the other person left alive just needs to get lucky and kill you once in the small danger zone field at the end, and whoops!, you spawn outside of the Danger Zone where you’re constantly taking damage, so by the time you get back to the danger zone, you’re either gonna quickly die to a short burst or grenade, or get killed before even getting to the safe zone… suddenly the person who only has zero lives beat the guy out with a full stack of lives because they got lucky once and the game refused to spawn them in the circle. At that point why even have the lives at all, you are literally wasting the player’s time at that point, speaking of wasting time…

Due to the challenges not registering properly if you leave a LSS game you can only see the progress towards your current challenge if you either play and finish another mode, play another LSS game to completion (spectate the entire match if you run out of lives) or quit the game and restart… Because of this I decided to stay and spectate one game so I wouldn’t have to restart my game. Unfortunately this game also ended up lasting 20 mins because one guy was camping in a very tiny safe spot below the other guy and neither moved to each other for like 15 whole minutes, even after both knew where each other were, effectively wasting my time and anyone else’s who stayed spectating…

Why the Danger Zone doesn’t continue to Shrink until it completely disappears so as to prevent this is probably either an oversight or just something else… Either way, the one good thing I can say about this game mode is you can at least quit it once you fully lose all lives with no penalty, and it’s an event based gamemode which means it probably won’t come back in awhile, and even if it does I will probably just not bother with doing any weeklies at all for the duration of the event, because I just don’t find LSS fun at all… It’s the most boring game mode 343i has come up with yet, hell it’s not even original… it’s just a Lite Battle Royale combined with Arms Race in a very poorly implemented way…

This game mode would probably actually be more enjoyable AS an actual traditional Battle Royale with weapons, ammo and powerups scattered on the battlefield, but as things are, I have to give it a hard pass…

P.S: one more thing… WHY DOES THIS GAME MODE HAVE INFINITE AMMO ENABLED FOR?! you trying to encourage people to camp forever?.. FFS man…

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LSS is much less of a BR mode than it’s actually gungame, except it’s balanced poorly nor does the design work. Sure you “scavenge” equipment but that’s really about it, it’s more or less picking up powerups and those give you a distinct advantage which makes the entire experience just meh.

Now about Gungame: Gungame is a race to see who can get kills fastest with the game’s full arsenal of weapons, with each kill with the weapon promoting you to the next. The challenge, and the fun, here is that you are forced to use the weapon to make a kill, and that this definitely has more skill involved than simply grabbing two overshields and camping with the Bulldog.

So not only does LSS screw up BR, it also screws up Gungame as a concept. I really really wish 343 would FLIGHT THESE STUFF BEFORE RELEASING IT Are they so afraid of feedback now that they don’t even want us to test their gamemodes before they release them? It’s obviously not balanced and not fun, so why bother trying to sell us a broken unfun mode, never mind a new mode at all.

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LSS took some time to grow on me, but I actually like it. It’s not perfect (obviously), but at it’s core it is an enjoyable experience. This is my opinion if you don’t like LSS that’s fine.

The ordnance drops like you said, should be telegraphed to the entire player pool. It’s great that they make quite a bit of noise, but they should leave a more visible trail in their wake. The frequency in which they drop needs to be toned down a lot, and they need to spawn at predetermined, set locations such that they always spawn at the same time and place. Initially I think there should be four drops equally spaced around the map (one for every 3 players), and they should never spawn on the high ground. As more players get eliminated, there should be fewer drops. Once there are 4 Spartans remaining, the drop pods should spawn other equipment pieces that facilitate outplays rather than free kills.

As for loadouts, I’m not sure what the best option currently is. If there was an SMG in the sandbox, it may make for a great starting weapon. In the later rounds a BR spawn or two could help to even the playing field in matches where there is a large disparity between kill counts. These would have to be placed out in the open, as a risk/reward incentive.

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This is really great feedback, I enjoyed LSS but its FAR from perfect (I’m not going to play it unless a challenge makes me do it).

I only use the Sidekick until I get the Commando, so this is a valid point.

The OS and AC powerups make for some interesting moments if you have two players using powerups going head to head, but it breaks the combat system if a player wasn’t lucky enough to get a powerup, so another valid point.

I like having 5 lives because it gives you a chance to actually play a game rather than having to keep loading new ones after dying (it’s also crucial to the XP system) but you’re right it is meaningless once the Dead Zone moves in. One game I won against someone with 4 lives when I had none left (to be fair I had a lot of score they were likely hiding / playing safe). We were both invisible but I found them and managed to get the kill, then I just stood in the circle while he ran to me until I killed him every time.

The unlimited ammo is also a fair criticism. They introduced the ammo supplies in Campaign, why not just station those strategically around the map?

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This is a tough one. Ideally we only see modes added to the game that have been thoroughly play tested, but on the other hand there is such a content drought that I understand the push to get new modes into the game.

There is also the Halo Insider program available for 343. I’m not sure how much this is being utilized if at all for Halo Infinite. This stuff could have been tested by a small portion of the community during season 1. Even then, I don’t know how much difference it would ultimately make. LSS in particular, seems to function as intended. I haven’t seen too many players reporting major bugs tied to actual gameplay. Instead, we are dealing with the aftermath of some questionable decisions. It’s not the end of the world, but is not ideal either.

Then you get into transparency problems… The devs can’t show everything to the fan base or it will lose its flash before it even hits the game. So yeah idk, it’s a tough call and I don’t envy 343 in the least.

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This is nonsense because Flights = exposure = youtubers will get on it = they will hype the game for you. Additionally you will get feedback so the game mode will be improved before launching. If they were truly working on LSS over the course of 6 months season 1, they should have Flighted it once or twice to get people hyped as well as generate interest in the game instead of radio silence.

All in all, Flighting is never a bad thing because it lets them get a larger sample size of feedback so that they can better fine tune the experience. Not having any outsider samples is like saying a food chain like KFC releasing Impossible Nuggets right out of the blue and when people ate it as a product they’re like “wtf is this”

LSS reception is mixed, and this shows that there is plenty wrong with the mode. For one, 12 man on Breaker is too little players, and other youtubers and players have begun hosting 24 man LSS instead and those feel much better to play. Imagine if they had flighted and gotten this feedback ahead of launch.

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Flighting in general is better than not, but I think it’s a little more complicated than most realize including myself.

There are implications tied to every action (or lack of) good and bad.