Overall, my experience with the flight was incredibly positive! Easily one of the most polished, and “launch ready” beta’s I’ve participated in.
However, I do feel that there is some massaging of numbers to be done. All related to the title.
Lets start with the radar. In it’s current state, mixed with very little “footstep noise” (that is essentially a staple of the series), I find that extending the range would be helpful. I felt that it was almost useless for enemy location. By the time you saw a blip, you were likely already engaged with the target.
The spawning felt the “worst” out of all the issues. Especially for capturing zones. It was frequent where you would have a 4v4 fight on a single point, it would drop down to a 1v1, yet based on RNG luck would quickly turn back into a 1v4, with one team spawning near the point, and the other across the map. And even outside of this, with how small the maps are, it rarely felt like a 4v4. There were many times I would get a triple kill, and still continue to be in constant combat. Making the enemy team feel far larger than a 4v4.
Weapon balance overall felt pretty good. However it does have me concerned for the casual player base. Which SHOULD be the core focus right now. As much as I want the game to be fun and competitive for the people in the top 20%, it NEEDS to be approachable for the people in the bottom 50%. This is what has made Halo as good as it is. The game NEEDS to be fun and playable for everybody.
With this said, I feel that weapon spawn rate feels too high. I already see the potential for matches to be completely tilted due to one team controlling the high frequency and quantity of “power” weapons on the map. Especially when there is any amount of imbalance from matchmaking. Power weapon kills should be more important for clutch plays, not make up any significant portion of any games kills.
Aim assistance also felt to be incredibly reduced. While this won’t be as impactful for the better players, I am seeing a lot of complaints from the more average player. This needs to be addressed! Even if it’s only enabled for more social/casual games.
The last tidbit that I think would help, is being able to give options to make team members names/locations stand out more. Especially for people that are in your party. Displaying their avatar, larger font size, clan tag, etc. would all be welcome additions. When playing on my monitor it wasn’t as much of a problem, but sitting back on the couch did make me focus more on searching for name tags more then I felt it should.
Overall, I feel that the flight proved at the very least that it has a ton of potential for top end players. But since I want to see Halo be back to its old self and DOMINATE the FPS scene, more focus for the average/new players needs to be focal. And with a little bit of quality of life changes, I feel that mark could easily be hit!
Looking forward to Big team battle next weekend!