Alright, so here’s the deal: I actually don’t mind the power-ups. In fact I’d rather have a lot of drops than very few. At least everyone had access to the drops instead of only 1 or 2 players who were lucky enough to be nearby. That said, the system still needs a lot of work or a complete overhaul.
OS and Camo need to be marked on the HUD. EVERYONE should know when it’s dropping, where and if someone just grabbed it (it disappears off the HUD). This is no different than how the extra XP orbs function. Maybe they can even make it so you have to “hold and hack” the power-up before you can take it (H4 did this when stealing ordinance drops).
We could use more types of power-ups. OS and Camo give direct buff to survivability. OS make you unkillable (except for an Achilles’ Spine) and Camo makes it harder for enemies to attack you. I recommend adding Speed Boost, Damage Boost and maybe even the Custom Power-Up.
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Speed Boost is naturally the weakest of the power-ups. It makes you faster, but that isn’t always useful in a gunfight.
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Damage Boost makes you stronger, but damage is useless if you can deal it. It still requires you to aim, or be in effective range of your guns (melees, however would be very powerful).
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The Custom Power-Up could be anything, but a temporary Motion Tracker could be fair. And remember the Radar can still have a limited range like 12m or something. But again the custom-power up could be anything, even jump height for all I care.
Power-Up orbs. Most of these problems come from the fact that you can carry OS and Camo with you. So you end up with like 90 second Camo or the dreaded Double Overshield. Forcing players to use the power-up then and there would solve this as well as make final circles more fair. Nothing is worse than dying, respawning in the danger zone (and get weakened) only to see your opponent pop double HP or wait for you while cloaked.
We need more equipment. I don’t understand why only a single, random equipment spawn is on the map. Why not more? I wouldn’t mind using a grapple to get away from an OS user or pushing them into the lava with the repulsor. Also it would make fights more interesting.
I expected more from the update especially after seeing the file size. I get that 343 is trying to stand apart from the Bungie titles, but I thought there’d be some classic multiplayer maps by now. There is so much to build off of from the past 20 years and we don’t even have a BG remake? There’s nothing wrong or lazy about reskinning an old map that’s tried and true. There should have really been 20 maps at launch given the vast library of the past titles.
That all being said, this season feels like more of the same from season 1, which was underwhelming given the hype. This is coming from a grizzled ancient. Fan since day 1, bnet forum member that still remembers Frankie’s weekly updates for halo 2.
And still no robust game stat tracking? We still can’t see our medal collection? Heatmaps? Weapon specific kill counts? This is pretty basic stuff, stuff Halo has done well in the past and even made it open source with the old rss feeds to be used by 3rd parties.
Don’t forget that in the last six days, we have had the same daily items looping in the shop.
BTLR Icon & Nameplate Pack - 3 days this week
FRET Icon & Nameplate Pack - 2 days this week.
We have had 6 days and only three items in the daily rotations. What will tomorrow provide? The FRET pack?
This is bad business if you are trying to get money from people, since if the shop contains nothing new; what are they going to do?
Battlepass: 20-something levels until I get an armour coat - not great. That said - i like some of the coatings.
Maps: not enough, but the 4v4 map is great. Breaker is big and empty and boring.
New modes: LSS is frustratingly boring. KOTH is as rubbish as I remembered - why this is in ranked or its own playlist when attrition isn’t I’ll never know.
Challenges: frustrating. Especially LSS ones clogging up my weeklies so that I can’t progress.
Bugs: that gun jam, and all the above, makes this season unplayable for me. I’ll literally be playing with my girls…otherwise I am back on rogue company for at least two weeks until this challenge is done with and the gun jam bug is fixed.
Last night me and my friend talked about how bad the game feels now, we play i EU, the servers are so bad.
One game can be fine and the next you cant do anything that you are planning to.
Its desync every other game, somtimes you cant even fire the gun, you have to press 2-3 times.
That is incredibly funny and good advice right there. I’m going to keep that in mind for future ‘cap challenges’. They will 100% change that I’m sure where it’ll be like as long as you win that hill or something dumb.
I kinda agree with this. I’m impartial to the game mode, I don’t hate it, nor do I overly like it, but if there’s one thing that I could change about this game mode, it’s the random spawning of OS/Camo. Being able to grab one of these powerups is simply based on luck.
I do have to say that I feel like the loadouts for each level feel pretty balanced and I don’t feel like the use of equipment is overbearing either, but OS/Camo definitely have to go. I myself have been able to grab two OS powerups back to back and that didn’t feel right in terms of balance.
But most of all, it doesn’t help that people are forced to play this mode to progress in the event. This has to stop. Progression shouldn’t be tied solely to event participation. If people want to play the new content, they will. Having rewards tied only to the participation in an event just to get people to play new content is never a good idea.
Not a free for all player myself, but I’ve come to really enjoy LSS. I usually play a couple of games to warm up before the squad gets on. It would be infinitely better though if we could join rumble pit and LSS as a squad. A few bad apples that boost shouldn’t ruin it for the vast majority of players. I agree completely though about the power-ups. They should drop less, and maybe not at all after the second circle starts closing forcing players to decide if they should use the one they have or try to survive with it to the end.
The two new maps are great, Breaker is very fun, especially on CTF and for whatever reason, the way the map works with vehicles reminds me of burial mounds from Halo 2 which I enjoy. It does need to be weighted more heavily in BTB though because it seems pretty rare to actually play on it. I love catalyst from its art style to how it plays. Only gripe is the two doors, I don’t like how thy break up the action at the top. The maps are the high point of the season for me.
The battle pass is pretty good. I like how the new armors look and that most of it are brand new designs. The Semi powered suit looks pretty cool. It still has a bit too much filler and shoulder pads should both be earned in the same tier. The event pass is also pretty good. I know it being locked to a game mode some people don’t like stinks, but the contents of the pass are solid. The leaked event passes look similar so at least we are seeing improvements to free items.
Overall I’d give the start of the season a 6. Hopefully, there will be more maps and game modes sooner rather than later because that is what the game desperately needs.
This tho, we’ve been dying for PvE modes and I know several friends that will be overjoyed for it. I wanted more modes to play with my friends in! More modes to make new friends with!! This is… well it feels like a kick in the head honestly. Yeah I’m having a little fun with LSS but it feels like work. Rumble pit feels lonely. What’s the point of the whole ‘lone wolves have to team up when the chips are down’ thing if they’re only going to give us FFA modes? there’s no teamwork there.
My rig might suck too but I’ve been noticing this update is especially bad for things not loading properly in especially breaker but all maps. I don’t know whether to chalk this up to graphical updates in the game my computer can’t handle, or something else went screwy. I’ve never had so many unloaded textures in a map before, I’ve even had walls straight up not load so I could see someone hiding behind it!! which is terrible tbh it makes me feel like I’m cheating, I hate it. Not to mention it’s just. Ugly. I want to see the good looking map they intended me to see not… whatever kindergarten art project that’s on my screen
LSS
I love that there’s such a variety of game modes in Halo Infinite. I’m happy that people who love FFA got a game mode to be excited about. What I can’t wrap my head around is why they chose to start Season 2 with a two-week long FFA event while the entire Halo multiplayer franchise and fan base is has been built around cooperative play/team work.
I truly think it’s cool and commendable that 343i include game modes that depart from the mainstream of the franchise’ history and community, but why make that the main focus of the start of Season 2? The season opener should be about re-engaging the fan base, noh? Clearly there are still higher-ups in 343i with their heads firmly up their -Yoink!-.
New map: Breaker
I like the many paths you can take on this map, but it feels like there might not be great options for vehicles in BtB. But I’ve not played BtB yet because I’ve not had any challenges for that yet. The coloring is pretty in certain places, but 90% of the time this map looks incredibly boring compared to the other maps.
New map: Catalyst
Haven’t played yet due to lack of challenges that use this map. So yeah, great way to introduce this map at the start of the season (something about heads up -Yoink!- again).
Gun nerfs
I’ve also learnt that Mangler, Shotgun and Commando were nerfed. I can’t say I’ve ever felt those particular guns were OP. In the right situation and in capable hands they were lethal, but they were less forgiving of mistakes than the AR, Sidekick and BR. To me this felt like a great balance so personally I don’t get why these guns were nerfed.
Let’s say a hill need 1 minute of capture time. Red Team lost with 3 captures while Blue Team won with 4.
Red Team (losers):
Hill 1 - 1 min (won)
Hill 2 - 1 min (won)
Hill 3 - 1 min (won)
Hill 4 - 50 sec (lost)
Hill 5 - 50 sec (lost)
Hill 6 - 50 sec (lost)
Hill 7 - 50 sec (lost)
Total time: 380 sec / 6 min 20 sec
Blue Team (winners):
Hill 1 - 20 sec (lost)
Hill 2 - 20 sec (lost)
Hill 3 - 20 sec (lost) 60
Hill 4 - 1 min (won)
Hill 5 - 1 min (won)
Hill 6 - 1 min (won)
Hill 7 - 1 min (won) 240
Total time: 300 sec / 5 min
Regardless of whether or not a team gets double points for being in the hill, Red Team still loses with more hill time. This wouldn’t happen in traditional KOTH. Blue has 1 minute of hill time and Red Team has 3 minutes and 20 seconds of hill time that amount to nothing.