Season 3 Periodic Review

Games Halo Infinite
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Halo Season 3 day 1 review

The Bandit
Bandit seems nice for the most part. The visual recoil makes the handling of the gun feel a bit off, especially considering the sound design and how little the actual recoil shifts your aim. Otherwise I feel like this could end up being a better version of the DMR with Recoil bloom instead of Reticle bloom.

The gun as of yet does not feel good to use my suggestion as to how to fix this would be to reduce its recoil but also reduce the speed at which the recoil resets, leaving it with the same net Recoil Bloom. But reducing the problem of the bouncing screen causing an unpleasant feel, it would also make it feel heavier which is a feeling this gun seems to be aiming for but it doesn’t quite have.

The VK Commando
The Commando Nerf is an annoying one, not because it’s a nerf, but because the nature of the nerf. The patch notes read:

“We got pretty consistent feedback after the Winter Update that the Commando felt better to use, people were able to keep on target and land their shots! But this new handling made it a little too easy to have a high damage output. Since the Commando was feeling good to shoot, we wanted to pursue a small nerf to its efficacy to keep it in line with other weapons in the Sandbox.
◦ Increased Shots to kill by 1
:black_small_square: Damage per bullet from 20 → 17.5 “

After a buff meant make the gun feel better to use goes a bit overboard the VK gets nerfed in a way that makes the gun feel worse to use than before the original buff. The Commando looses it’s oh so satisfying ability to kill in two, four round bursts at mid range, or an eight round burst at short range, and instead gets a 9 round kill. Leaving the optimum mid-range kill at an odd five round burst followed by a four round burst. This also reduces the effective ammo of the Commando (from 2.5 Spartans to 2.22 Spartans per reload).

My suggestion to achieve what this nerf is trying to do, without reverting pre-buff, but also keeping as much of the guns game-feel as possible is to lower the fire rate. This would reduce the damage output with less of an impact to the feel of the gun, and without reducing the effective ammo in the process. It would also keep the very nice 4 round burst thing the commando has had for a long time now.

Escalation Slayer
I don’t like Escalation Slayer, the mode generally keeps both teams neck and neck which is a good thing, but this ends up with both teams using the same weapons as each other the entire time, and I don’t like mirror matches. Also I’ve lost at least one game where two players mutually melee killed each other with the odd ball, and the game decided my team lost.

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I agree completely on the assessment of the new bandit. I admit, I personally don’t like it. Almost feels like it’s trying to be a close range DMR. And the weird recoil confuses me too.

From the standpoint of a player with not much skill at the game, I can say that for other players like me that don’t often get those perfect shot bursts on the commando anyway, the nerf actually kinda helps a bit. I’m not as easily taken out by a Commando when I don’t have one, and when I do, the difference isn’t too noticable since I miss about 1/4 of my shots (on a good day) anyways.

And sadly, having just played a match of escalation, I see what you mean. An enemy team member and I, both on the oddball, killed each other at the same time and, unfortunately, I took the loss. It’s a bummer, because my wife and I both love escalation on the MCC. Hopefully they’ll be able to figure out a system to combat that.

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3 Days later my opinion of the Bandit has risen, the bouncing screen issue is mitigated when you’re not standing still in weapon trials, and firing it on the move in an actual game. Still has issues when standing still, and scoping in increases the issue to the point where it is notable even when moving. I still like it.

The Commando is still has most of the attributes that made me fall in love with it when the game first released, but the current nerf has reduced more than just the damage per second. It has reduced it’s functional ammo meaning that for those who enjoy using the commando regardless of the nerfs, can only contribute so much before they run out of ammo, and have to switch to something else.

Above I referred to the nerf reducing the effective ammo of the Commando from 2.5 Spartans to 2.22 Spartans. I use Spartans as an ammo measurement because with various different firing modes of different weapons, the fact that the BR has 36 rounds and the Bandit has 15 rounds means less to balancing than the fact that both of them have enough ammo to kill 3 Spartans before they are forced to reload. Reloading being a time-frame that an enemy can get the drop on you while you can’t fire back without switching, which also takes time and cancels the reload. So while the damage nerf may be justified given the increased aim assist I would like to see an increase in ammo. Say to 22 rounds(2.44 Spartans) 23 rounds(2.55 Spartans) 24 rounds(2.66 Spartans).

I like the Shroud Screen. Mechanics-wise it’s a good concept, gameplay-wise it seems to be having all the positive effects that the bubble shield had with none of the downsides. Although when multiple shrouds are up it makes finding your way out of them a little confusing.

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