Player outline is dumb

Games Halo Infinite
21

Player outlines are in the game because of color blindness AND selling armor coatings. Red vs blue or blue vs red maybe well visible for you, but that doesn’t go for every player. Plus red vs blue makes armor coatings 100% useless. In PvE you play as master chief and in PvP you will be either red or blue: nobody is going to pay for coatings.

It is true that outlines mess up your coatings, but only to a certain degree. You see your teammates coatings very well. Enemy coatings you can also see up close. Only in the distance outlines become sharper. Probably because of color blindness.

But I don’t get why you would want red vs blue to come back. If there is one system that completely makes all coatings 100% obsolete it is red vs blue.

Anyway, best thing you can do is make your own red vs blue or blue vs red. Depending if you want to be on team blue or team red.

Personally I really love the outline system. But hey, we’re all different. :wink:

3 Likes
22

“makes the game look ugly” Nah, that’s an opinion and a terrible one at that.

2 Likes
23

I’m fine with it if they appear outlined within a medium range. I have issues when ppl are across the map and see you stand out like a sore thumb because you light up like an emergency beacon.

It doesn’t help for sneaky plays or with someone being tactical at range. It’s way to easy to spot ppl

24

Totally agree with this.
Its ugly, and it makes it super easy to pick out enemies.
But I’d be ok if there was a range limit.
Right now it’s almost exactly like cyberpunk, and you can see enemies highlighted from a ridic distance

1 Like
25

I really agree. One thing I also don’t like is that in FFA games it’s the same color over every single player. I’m not looking for players, I’m looking for their outline. It’s basically the same as making every player glow whenever they are alive and on-screen.

An option in the gametype would be a good start. I would still like the option to disable it on my end just for the fun of it.

The system before this worked well enough. Waypoints above a teammate’s head. Halo: Infinite somehow does a bad job of this. It’s extremely difficult to figure out who is speaking unless I open up the scoreboard. Previous Halo games let me figure that out on the fly by looking at my teammates for a color or symbol that denotes they are talking. Halo Infinite technically has that but it’s a super small thin set of parentheses.

I’m up for new things but I don’t like this system. I like wearing the color blue but that’s going to confuse new players who have blue outlines for teammates by default. It’s also soured because the whole idea from the ground up is designed to allow 343i to sell colors.

26

Literally my only issue with the system is that sometimes depending on shield status it’s not obvious enough. Overall I like it as a system

Canonically it also makes a lot more sense… why repaint armours when an AI overlay can do the work instead

27

I wish you only had the outline on your teammates. That way, you see any movement that doesn’t have an outline dies gets a lead cloud in its direction

28

It disappears for me when I’m up close. This isn’t unreal tournament. It’s Halo

1 Like
29

I don’t mind it.
One thing I hated about old RvB system is that some map spawns heavily favoured one colour over the other.

An example is Halo Reach’s Breakpoint. Some Blue dingus running around in the Ghost spawn area of the map effectively blends right into the background.

2 Likes
30

I don;t have a personal problem with it but my eyes do. I struggle to tell teams apart at times or see the outline clearly especially at close combat. Would really appreciate a traditional style option.

2 Likes
31

Outlines are not going away.

They are too important business wise (same reason the store isn’t going away), and it has some cool uses viewership wise (there is a weird issue that makes anything besides Blue vs Red hard to read btw)

Don’t waste your time complaining about it. If 343i kept sprint after 10 years of complaints what makes you think they will do anything about outlines?

1 Like
32

Agreed, it ruins the aesthetics of an otherwise gorgeous game. I love the armor, not the player outlines. It also makes stealth pointless. Why not just team code player name tags and let us keep the colors we want? Or Red VS Blue for teams only?

1 Like
33

I honestly don’t notice it that much. Name tags would be fine I guess.

They shouldn’t go back to Red vs Blue. In Halo 5 there’s almost no point customising your Spartan as you all looked the same with garishly bright Red and Blue blobs that seemed to scrub all the detail.

34

I’ve considered the outlines to be a side-effect of Spartans having shields (at least that’s my headcanon).
I think it is a good way of showing who is who without painting over the cosmetics.
However, I think there should be an option to turn off the shield to make the outline disappear for the enemies (allies should still be able to see you - just like with active camo). This solution could allow people to hide while sniping or laying in wait for a melee attack, but at the same time, it’d make them more vulnerable balancing it out.

35

What does that even mean? You’re saying that because I want extra settings in the game? Lmao… I hope not.

36

You can make your own red vs blue or blue vs red if you want. :wink:

I really like blue vs yellow.

1 Like
37

I find the outline system to be an unforgivable change, one of the top reasons I refuse to touch [Derogatory name for Infinite].

A big part of it is that when the coating system leaked, and people were (rightfully) concerned, the 343 defense force said “oh it’s fine, you’ll be red or blue most of the time anyway”. When RvB was then removed to support the coating system… yeah, the hypocrisy and [nonsense] are a sticking point.

(Whoever flagged this can go step on a lego)

38

People, this is gonna be long-ish but it literally solves all of the problems.

Yes but if there were a range limit, you’d have to have some way of identifying the teams (see below)

Answering the above and LITERALLY EVERY argument going over this.

I gave 3 options in the other thread running at the same time as this (not annoying at all) and many other threads, as have many others. This whole situation is so easily solved. And I’ll expand more here to solve mentioned problems here.

  1. Leave your teammates outline exactly as it is now however separate the outline from the shield animation and remove enemy outlines.

The shield animation can return to as it was in previous titles.

Non-colour blind people will know to shoot anyone without an outline and the shield animation (as previous titles) would not cover anyone’s customisation.

Overshield, etc could return to look like previous titles too.

Colour blind people would be able to choose a colour for their team (most colour blind people only confuse a small number of colours but in any case, they can differentiate between a lit up outline and a flat armour colour AND the outlines can be made thicker as it is only on your own team)

The above solves everything BUT causes problems if gametypes such as 3v3v3 return so…

  1. (For two team game types) Remove all outlines for all players, have shield animations return to previous titles style, have a triangle marker over your team only.

Everyone, colour blind or not, can see a triangle shape over teammates and know to shoot everyone else, no-one will be highlighted close or cross map, no markers to expose enemy and everyone will look pretty.

This solves everything except 3v3v3 so use this for two team gametypes and use number 3 for 3v3v3…

  1. For two team game types use example number 2 and for more than two teams do the same except have a different shape and different colour markers over each team.

Example:
Teammates would still be triangle and colour of choice
Enemy one - circle marker, different colour of choice
Enemy two - square with another colour of choice

No-one gets lit up like a Christmas tree, everyone shows off their armour, no colour blindness disadvantage, people won’t be seen hiding, shields look like they used to, IT LITERALLY SOLVES EVERYTHING!

And in all options, tags/names can be shown only when you look directly at them

1 Like
39

It took me a while but I’m pretty much used it now.

I like having the team outline. I can see not only where my team-mates are - but I also get a fair idea of what they are doing.

As for the opponents… I’ve settled on yellow. They stand out like a beacon. And I like it that way. If you are going to hide you have to risk exposure if you want to take a peak (or a pot shot).

40

Player outline was done so that we can enjoy our skins and personalization without having team-colors forced upon us outside of free-for-all.

Granted, the outlines need to be less bold the further out you get.
I find it annoying that I was spotted from across the map in my tiny nook with my sniper rifle that I had yet to scope-in with; but the enemy saw a big red or whatever colored dot that glowed in the distance and thus targeted it.

2 Likes