One Phrase has been constantly buzzing around in my head since Infinite came out and the complaints started: "Content Locusts"

Games Halo Infinite
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(Note: This is NOT a topic about technical issues. I will not be discussing them. We all know about them, and 343 has directly and thoroughly addressed the majority of them at this point.)

And no, it isn’t a Gears of War reference. I first experienced it in MMOs, and I believe it originated there as well. But it is a term primarily used derogatorily towards World of Warcraft players - sometimes from other members of the WoW community.

It used to describe players essentially ripping apart and devouring any content, no matter how big or small, like a swarm of locusts and then complaining that it wasn’t enough, or wasn’t good enough or that they want more, no matter the quality or intended lifespan of the content in question. Like releasing an entirely new raid tier, only for the player base to be complaining it wasn’t enough or they’re done with it two weeks/a month later.

I’ve noticed this mindset and behavior starting to spread to other games and genres, and with Infinite I’ve noticed it pretty hardcore.

Multiplayer has been out for three months now. The campaign for about two months. The cost was $0 to $25 for the complete gameplay package and Season 1 of MP. To that end:

  • Infinite has a full 6-10-ish hour Campaign

  • Infinite has more launch maps (10) than Reach, 4 and 5 (8/9 each) and one less than Halo 3 (11)

  • Infinite is tied with the highest number of launch weapons in the franchise (Halo 5 obviously had more after all the updates, but that took a while)

  • Infinite has 4 Core gamtypes and 1 unique rotational gametype (thus far), tying 4 and 5 (though losing to the rest of the series)

  • Infinite is, with not even a close contest, the most customizable Halo for appearance except for Halo Reach, even if you only bought Season Pass 1. In only 1 Season. (MCC does not count because it is over 5 years old and the combination 6 different games)

The only major thing missing is Forge (which have been explicitly promised is coming and leaks have given hope that it will be absolutely insane compared to even H5 Forge) and a few fan-favorite gametypes (namely Infection and KotH).

The biggest comparison I constantly see is to Call of Duty - namely that CoD has gotten 3 new maps and multiple new maps and weapons in the same three month time frame. Which is true, they have. I would point out a few key differences though - namely that Vanguard is legitimately just reskinned Modern Warfare 2019, the point where the game can glitch out and executions are done with modern weapons/items instead of WW2 items and weapons are just tweaked and reskinned MW2019 weapons; meanwhile Infinite is using a heavily modified to the point of practically being new engine with in Slipspace. You can’t simply just take and port things from older Halos - not mention they might not work at all with Infinite’s design changes.

On the topic of gametypes; I’ll say the same thing that gets said about them in CoD - outside of Infection (for Halo), gametypes outside the core three (Slayer, CTF, Oddball for Halo; TDM, SnD and Domination for CoD) must seem like a waste of time to the devs considering how rarely they get played and how quickly you either have to remove them from MM or roll them into another playlist.

Y’all are screaming for VIP and Juggernaut and Race…except they’ll just wind up those gametypes in every other Halo where after the first month they’re relegated to Custom Games and the odd rotational playlist.

Not to mention that I’d level the same charge at CoD players too; both fanbases have become Content Locusts consuming and discarding otherwise meaty content in mere weeks that should last much longer. Always searching for that “new” thing just so they can devour and chew through it just as fast.

I think it leads to the same issue that WoW had; even when the devs DO make good content (which was rarer and rarer in WoW, TBF) people will not be satisfied by it because they just want more more more NOW!

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Quickly put in a few cents
The delay, though needed, really had the locusts starving, not just for content…but to finally be able to play.
There isnt pve in infinite. Its usually pretty chill.
So the gameplay, minus campaign of course, is pretty frenzied and games arent as long.
With pve you get to just relax and level, grind.
So you could mix pve and pvp and get the best experience.
Theres no coop campaign. So for a halo games campaign, it feels empty, id guess. Still chill.
The solo campaign doesnt really add replay value. And solo campaign still has its bugs.
Pushing people to multiplayer.
Having a ridiculously long commendation xp experience thats free and not tied to the battlepass would all around chill the playerbase. Get us comfy
There are a lot of xp issues in infinite, and the challenges were broken, leading to impatience to just get it over with.

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I’m too lazy to read all of that. I agree with what I did read though.

The battle pass complaint stands out the most to me. I’m a day-one player who’s only in the 40’s, yet the complaints from people who’ve completed it have been happening since… what? December? And people say I have a Halo addiction…

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I have to disagree with this. When a company actually communicates and is upfront with the player base, unlike 343 that was quite opposite. You will have a lot more players actually satisfied.

The “wantings more” is because the freaking game is literally barebone vs any other game out to date. Of course players are going to be unsatisfied knowing how poorly this game was released, and the shop being over priced that was shoved in the player base face.

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Half the maps weren’t even accessible for 2 months cause BTB was broken lmao.

Customization is the 2nd most limited after 5, and you need to PAY REAL MONEY TO GET 80% OF THE ARMOR.

5 or so weapons are useless, the Pulse rifle, commando, stalker rifle, plasma pistol, and hydra to name a few. They quite literally have no place in the sandbox with other guns similar to them that do anything they do better.

The campaign has 2 biomes aside from the first mission in the brute ship. Aside from that there’s no snow, tundra, beach, desert, Covenant, or metropolitan areas in this “6-8 hour campaign”. Even CE launched with all but the metropolitan biomes over 20 years ago and had a much more compelling and interesting world and story than Infinite’s soft reboot.

This game also has the least amount of gamemodes at launch with only 2 original game types that aren’t renames of pre existing ones cough SWAT. And also Stockpile, is by far either the worst or the most boring with how games can end in a literal minute if the enemy team has competent players.

So I’ve basically dismantled your entire argument by explaining your own points instead of just broadly putting them out there. Keep making my job easy son.

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Not everyone plays the campaign and that campaign is overpriced

Yes, the amount of maps is fine

Ok?

That’s the thing, you had to try and disguise the lack of modes with “core gametypes” to make it sound normal.
They have plenty of mode variants in offline mode, they just won’t give it to us.
Infinite has the least amount of modes at launch in any Halo.

Except for the fact that it still has limitations for literally no reason (why can I pick L and R shoulder but not L and R gloves or knee pads?? Why can bots crosscore customize but players can’t?? Why is there barely anything for free, you have to pay??

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I’m really tired of people saying it’s free, as if that justifies the bugs or lack of content.
They still get paid to make the game, and they had more time than many developers had to make their games.

Not only that, but they’re charging $60 for a dull and padded campaign, and $10-20 for old armor sets and for coatings.

A dull and short campaign that costs $60.
It’s open-world is bland and managed to have even less features and biomes than The Phantom Pain and Breath of the Wild.
It’s bases are also bland, as well as being human-like, even for the Banished.
The story events are mostly Master Chief talking to the Weapon and Echo 216.

The maps are simple and the layouts make them feel small.
Most of the maps are not good for vehicles (and the vehicles have issues), and most of them aren’t fun or interesting.

Most of the weapons aren’t much different from each other.

As you said, it’s losing to the rest of the series.

Maybe, but the color system is a huge step backwards, several items should be separate, and you can’t even color attachments.
The emblems are also a step backwards.

We’ll have to see how improved Forge is before knowing if it was worth the delay or not.
At this point, it may or may not have been.

That said, you also forgot co-op, Firefight and custom game browsing.
I’d also say casual modes are important as well, yet they’re also missing.
Fiesta’s the closest thing to a casual mode right now, but it’s still not close enough.

The engine’s not that new from what I’ve read.

Most of what’s in Infinite doesn’t work that well, and I’d say a lot of the maps and modes from previous games in the series would work just fine with the changes.

Infection is something that gets the most use in custom games.
However, as I said, Infinite’s missing casual modes, and those could be placed into a casual playlist while we wait for Forge and custom game browsing.
Infection, Rocket Race, Grifball, etc.

I won’t say that “content locusts” don’t exist, but I’d say there are a lot of people who are content with what we get, as long as we’re given enough content to mix things up a little, and what we have now isn’t much.

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Did it take 6-10 hours? Maybe if you took your time and collected every single item in the Campaign. As for actual missions, you can easily beat it in a couple hours, even especially on LASO. I probably beat Normal, Hard, and LASO, and collected all the skulls and armor lockers in under 10 hours, since I did most of that on my day off work, the week it came out. Grapple spamming to get around the map doesn’t mean the amount of time the Campaign takes was quality time enjoyed. The Campaign was a forgettable hassle at best.

Having more maps and weapons at launch, compared to games that took 2 years with less than 1/10 of the budget, while Infinite had what, 6 years and half a billion, to barely tie with games for the Xbox 360? My guy. Come on. Halo 4 had more content at launch iirc.

This isn’t a content locusts problem, it’s a content drought problem. The largest issue mainly being a lack of a progression system, which the other games at least gave you a feeling of accomplishment for playing the same maps and modes over and over and over and over. You don’t even unlock anything significant by playing more, doing milestones and achievements.

In Infinite, you’re not even rewarded for not having fun.

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factually wrong the main quest was about 5 hours, and not using game breaking speed run strats but an expert use of the grapple and on easy it takes less than 4 hours

reach launched with forge world, and PVE maps (that no one seems to be counting), H4 launched with 13 maps, 3 of which specifically for forge and had spartan ops, h5 had 22 (counting the various breakout, warzone, and warzone assault maps).

H4 launched with slayer, ctf, oddball, KotH, flood, extraction, regicide and dominion (8). reach launched with slayer, Ctf, ball, KotH, territories, assault, stockpile and headhunter (8). H5 had slayer, breakout, ctf, ball, and strongholds (5).

wrong again.
H4: BR, AR, mag, boltshot, supressor, railgun, rockets, lightrifle, incinerator cannon, binary rifle, storm rifle, plasma pistol, fuel rod cannon, sniper, beam rifle, spartan laser, SAW, needler, shotgun, scattershot, DMR plasma turret, human turret, covenant carbine, sword, hammer (26).

H5: binary, boltshot, supressor, lightrifle, carbine, sword, gauss turret, hydra, incineration cannon, needler, plasma caster, plasma pistol, plasma turret, rail, rocks, saw, rocket pod, scattershot, shotgun, sniper, laser, splinter turret, storm rifle, human turret, BR, AR, smg, dmr, mag, (29 and almost all of these had a legendary variant in warzone at launch so double that number)

Inf: BR, AR, sidekick, skewer, shock rifle, disruptor, plasma pistol, sentinel beam, needler, rockets, sniper, commando, bulldog, heatwave, mangler, pulse rifle, stalker rifle, cindershot, ravenger, hydra, plasma turret, human turret sword, hammer, (24)

H4 had 38 helmets, 17 visors, 34 shoulders, 34 chests, 9 forearms, 9 legs, at launch (this is not counting the different skins)

(i’m not even going to bother with H5)

Inf: 21 helmets (17 behind a paywall), 26 visors (20 behind a paywall) 22 chests (19 behind a paywall), 21 shoulder (18 behind a pay wall), 5 forearms (4 behind a paywall), 3 hands (1 behind a pay wall), 7 utility’s (6 behind a paywall), 8 knees (6 behind a paywall)

TLDR halo infinite has the least content of any halo to date

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These are far from useless, they just have niches that lots of players don’t understand. Pulse rifle and plasma pistol for example, are amazing shield strippers, they’re not intended to be great at finishing the kill.

And the stalker rifle is one of the best guns in the game for people that can get headshots. It’s a 3 shot perfect.

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The problem with the weapons in general is that you have multiple guns being used for mostly the same purpose in mostly the same way.

Mangler and Bulldog.
Plasma Pistol and Pulse Carbine.
Stalker Rifle and BR.

Also, the Hydra’s lock-on isn’t helpful, the Ravager’s charged attack doesn’t do enough, and the Commando has too much recoil.

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@xXx_Mhx_Air_xXx

On Normal, with all main missions and only a handful of side ones, and a little sightseeing, I beat the campaign in 11 hours. I still haven’t 100%'d it.

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Gotta spam that grapple, and unlock Wasp ASAP. That was my immediate first priority was maxing grapple out, and grapple sliding extremely fast and far across the barren wastelands of grass and rocks, or whipping over mountains. There is no sightseeing. It’s all rocks and grass. It’s not like Destiny where every little area has cool little details with hidden objects or lore. There’s nothing hidden and nothing to look at. The data pads beep when you’re in range, and the easter eggs like dolls, bananas, and burgers, aren’t important and do nothing. While the game gives the illusion of open world freedom, it’s actually extremely linear, since literally nothing matters outside of finding the fastest way from your location to the next mission, and 9/10 times, grapple spamming is far faster than any vehicle, besides Wasp or Banshee. You’d have to be a masochist to actually prefer to walk instead of grapple spamming, and vehicles are worthless at driving over any terrain that isn’t perfectly flat. It’s miserable travelling back and forth across that open wasteland. I hated the Campaign. I just wanted to get through it as fast as possible.

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Infinite has the least content of any Halo game at launch, period. Infinite had the longest development time of any Halo game, period. Infinite has had less launch window support and slower overall post-launch support than either Halo 5, Halo Reach, or Halo 3.

I am wondering how much 343 is paying people to make threads like this.

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Instead of money they’re probably compensating them by giving them their choice of any one $10 armor color in the store. Void where prohibited.

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I love how you skipped the Hydra lol. And the Stalker Rifle is overshadowed by the faster killing Shock Rifle so I always skip it whenever the latter or my pistol is available, it doesn’t make sense to grab it over basically a Sniper with extra steps.

And if you can even get the Plasma weapons to even track then yeah they’re good at stripping shields but that’s it. Good luck killing or disabling with them especially when the Pistol lost its EMP ability for no reason.

The Commando is without a doubt, the worst ballistics based UNSC weapon ever made. In the “lore” it was made 70 or so years before the Covenant war and was quickly phased out, I can see why since its so awful I’d rather chance my life with my fists. In the flights it was an okay weapon that didn’t need a buff, it was just a medium between the BR and AR but after the nerf it serves no purpose than to complete annoying challenges.

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The Shock Rifle is basically a variant of the Sniper Rifle, while the Stalker Rifle is basically a variant of the BR.

I’ve actually been killed with what seemed like 2-3 bursts of the Pulse Carbine.
Also, it’s far more easy to use than the Plasma Pistol, even though it has tracking issues.

The Plasma Pistol seems like one of the worst guns in the game now though.
Its tracking is bad, charging takes too long, damage is too low, ability to disable vehicles was removed, etc.
Even though it’s always been sort of weak, the tracking and EMP effects made it viable.
Some other effect should have been added to it.

If they reduced the recoil and made it more consistent, I think it could be an okay gun.
As it is, sometimes it’ll aim right, and other times it’ll go all over the place.

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This game had a development cycle of more than HALF A DECADE, while Reach AND ODST were made from 2008-2010 and STILL had more features and good campaigns and firefight while being made on comparatively primitive tech on much more limited 360 horsepower

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Vanguard was made in like a third of the Dev time as Halo Infinite and still had 20 MAPS, One big Battle Royale Map and Zombies AND it’s second season added new weapons, maps, vehicles, abilities and more already

Not that it’s a great game, but at least they added a bunch of maps to make up for it being a rushed/flawed game

Even INDIE GAME, splitgate has more maps, modes, better weapon balance and better map quality than Infinite

AND Halo teased us with an amazing 2018 trailer while the final game wasn’t even CLOSE to being as good or compete with actual wavy grass, snowy mountains, wildlife diversity and the graphical fidelity and BIOME variety of the 2018 trailer

Instead we got Halo Minecraft with a bunch of Hexagons, save for some cool Forerunner themed levels

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Your idea of those weapons are just perspective. I pick up each of those weapons for many other purposes. Pulse rifle is great for shield supression, not dueling or killing. Plasma pistol became a better up close shield destroyer. Commano is absolute monster when used well. Hydra is actually broken, saved me so many times. Stalker rifle is actually devastating. More weapons in this game are damn right more useful situationally than games in Halo Reach and lower.

I think Infinites story is much richer than Halo 3’s. Halo 3 doesnt explain much as a game alone, you had to pick up terminals to understand things. The biomes were just there for visual diversity, they mostly served no purpose being different. And you cant compare Halo CE, since half of those missions biome is just an empty abyss.

Even though there definitely is less modes than past Halo games, OP is right that players dont go to unique modes traditionally. Meaning they only pick them when they feel like it. I remember in Reach, any objective mode had estimated 80% less player count if it wasn’t Slayer, BTB, or infection.

Most of your opinions are just based on you playing the game for a couple hours, or just watching videos analyzing the downfall of the game. You dont really have have hefty facts if its not about the store.