As someone who has been playing Halo literally since day 1 back in November 2001, I thought I would provide some feedback outside of the tickets for bug reports. (I fully understand none of what we see in this preview is final.)
-The menus look great, but could use a serious reorganization to make them more intuitive. Suggestion: the main categories of Play, Customize, etc should always be visible at the top with navigation possible with LB and RB. Also, some items are difficult to find, such as where to use XP boosts.
-Battlepass:
-If the ONLY method of gaining XP is to complete challenges, it will be monotonous and slow going to complete in a season.
-The consumables are difficult to take advantage of in this state. A 30 minute boost doesn’t provide much of a benefit if the only method of gaining XP is through challenges and those challenges are something like ‘Play 4 games’. The bonus can run out before the challenge is completed.
-Gameplay/Balance:
-Frag grenades feel slightly too strong. The blast radius feels as if they match H5, but without thrusters to boost away, I find myself getting killed when I think I am safely away from the explosion.
-The pulse carbine is nearly impossible to use. It is as if the plasma rounds move too slow to hit a moving target, but too fast for the strange and inconsistent homing to actually track a target before hitting an object.
-The commando has either too much recoil after the first 4 or 5 rounds, does not deal enough per round, is too inaccurate while ADS, or the 20 round mag size is too small (maybe a combination of several) for it to feel viable in the described role of mid-range. The sidekick can fire at a higher rate and be more accurate from a longer range. I find that when I do get a kill with the commando, it is always while hip firing, and I’ve used enough rounds that another enemy is sure to kill me while I reload.
-The bulldog, heatwave, and ravager feel too weak.
-Descoping is very disruptive with mapping to the left trigger, especially on the commando and sniper. VS the H3 sniper descope, with zoom being a right stick click, a descope with the left trigger pulled immediately tries to zoom again. After taking hits from a round or two it is extremely disorienting, and the fight is often over before an adjustment can be made. In H3, you would get descoped and then just regain control, move, adjust, and then zoom again when possible. Something about the zoom/ADS animation on those two guns in particular, and the descoping after feel janky. I would prefer/suggest no descope, but a significant flinch as the balance instead.
-Bots:
- As an overall observation, their rate of fire and accuracy with the pistol is obnoxious, but something I can deal with because they aren’t super smart.
-A second observation, as an Xbox player, the bots appear to be mimicking play more in line with a PC/M+K player with the strafe speed and ability to crouch strafe with ease.
-Final thoughts: You guys are absolutely on the right track. For an early build for a flight to feel this good with what amount to simple balance adjustments being my biggest issues, I am pleasantly surprised. The pace of the game is spot on. It feel more like halo than H4 or H5, but manages to increase the pace compared to H:CE-Reach.
Keep up the good work, and I can’t wait for release.