The weapon spawns are random, pelican drops are random, drop pods with weapons in are random, loot caves are random… How can I make a plan in game when I don’t know what is even going to be in it?
On old Halo games if I saw an enemy tank I could use my map knowledge to find an anti vehicle weapon and deal with it. Now in Infinite I just have to hope that one will randomly drop next to me or randomly spawn at one of the spawn points.
Really ristricts tactics.
I feel like the loot caves and pelican drops are so gimicky and don’t actually add anything to the gameplay. Was much better the way it was in previous titles.
Very quickly people will get sick of the vehicle drops and not knowing which weapons they can find on the maps.
In Arena, maps need a single set weapon and equipment layout that only changes when they are updated gamewide to shake up a season or rebalance some spawns.
And for BTB that doesn’t mean they can’t change throughout a match. But the order and location everything spawns must be the same each time you load up a game. The Loot Cave should always provide the same weapon the first time it is opened in a match. Then it can be a different weapon the second time, third time etc. So long as the order those weapons change in is the same every time. Same for Pelican drops. Same for ordinance drops and locations.
Makes it more fun for me to have to scavenge the big team map to get a feel for it. Adds a layer of exploration that battle royale games have introduced many gamers to.
Realistically the big boy vehicles don’t come in until the end so you will know by then where everything is and what you need to do to take it down.
I also love the fact it gives players equal chance regardless of experience to get weapons and vehicles. If the Sniper always spawns in the same place, it’s always going to end up in the hands of a veteran.
Love the weapon pods and pelican drops, makes the big team map feel so epic. Music playing, explosions all around and then the Warthog is dropped in for you and a group of Spartans to jump in. It kind of feels like a campaign set piece at times.
I feel like the RNG drops should’ve been a minor addition to the old BTB formula rather than a huge portion of it. Old BTB gave you your base(s) with a few guns and a lot vehicles. Middle had some power weapons and maybe an extra vehicle to claim. New BTB largely reduces your vehicles at base and instead randomly diddles them onto the map. I would rather have less drops and more options consistently at the bases/spawns. A few drops are cool and add a twist to fight over but I don’t like that each team of 12 only has 1 warthog and 1 mongoose to start.
I wonder if the random weapons were merely ways for them to test in this flight how maps played with certain weapon combinations. I am also hoping for static weapon spawns on release, but I could totally see how random weapons could be very valuable in collecting data through the flight.
Yeah all the RNG in this game is extremely obnoxious.
Really hope they get rid of the random chance for different weapon spawns when you load into a map.
The weapons that are switched at least pair with each other, Commando/BR, Sniper/Skewer, etc. Never really had a problem with trying to take down an enemy vehicle or person with a power weapon. Even in past Halos, if I cant find the weapon, I just use the AR or Pistol to just chip away till they are done. Tends to work most times too.
Funny how because of “RNG” its hard to play now, when in the past if you didn’t have a weapon, no one cared or said that there has to be multiple rocket spawns or whatnot. This concern is null and void.
I bet it felt really good for the other team when the vehicle drops gave us a scorpion on the side we currently held while a ghost dropped on the theirs…
While I don’t think its all completely random(at least I can’t say with absolute certainty at this time), it is still inconsistent enough to cause issues. The ability to change up the item layout on the fly is an interesting feature, but it isn’t a substitute for building a proper map layout.
Either a map has scorpion/warthog/banshee/whatever spawn on it or it doesn’t, it is either appropriate to spawn on the map or it isn’t. For all the “immersive” fluff they’ve added, it sure doesn’t help gameplay when things are not consistent or even if they don’t feel consistent.
The game feels deliberately designed to keep things as mindless and chaotic as possible prevent success of players with skill or map control. You spawn players with close range RNG weapons that have faster potential killtimes meanwhie, more skill based weapons are uncommon and have incredibly slow killtimes by comparison. You have lots of weapons on map but they are spawned in such a way as to ensure that not everyone can get one without taking extensive detours(if they can get one at all). Even if you do control the power item locations and deny them to the enemy they might be gifted one anyway via loot cave or ordnance.
In some respects it feels like a compilation of Halo’s worst hits with Reach bloom, inconsistent ordnance of Halo 4, Auto starts of games past, Halo 5’s wonky aiming. Reflecting on it now it is kind of amazing how much it feels like your typical F2P game even without any P2W mechanics. The inconsistent weapons and spawns seem to exist flatten the skill gap as much as possible to avoid scaring away new players. God forbid anyone actually have to learn anything about a new game, they just need those dopamine hits when they kill fresh spawns who had no reasonable expectation of fighting back or they win a gunfight after being blessed by the RNG gods. You need every last person to stay for as long as possible so they spend more and more money on battlepasses, boosts, and challenge swaps.
Idk I do like the random vehicle drops sometimes, but there is no clear indicator on where the vehicles will drop. Like for instance there has been a few times a single Tank will drop, but I never see it happen. I just hear it and see it in the killfeed. Maybe if there were landing pads or a marker pops up. A bigger marker lol.
Though, random weapons on 4v4 maps are crap. 4v4 is sweaty enough without having to search for a equalizer.
I think how it was in the flight was fine for social since it is more casual, random chaos and is easier for new players. But I do hope to see ranked btb that is more structured and less random like you have suggested.
It really did play similar to a Fiesta gametype, as you never knew what weapon your enemy was going to have when you entered a fight, and you would just randomly run over a good weapon which nobody cared to pick up.
I prefer this kind of randomized spawning. it keeps everything interesting and prevents the maps from feeling extremely stale, every encounter and match is different.
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> I prefer this kind of randomized spawning. it keeps everything interesting and prevents the maps from feeling extremely stale, every encounter and match is different.
I believe it’s all to promote a social experience. So the question is…does it provide the social experience intended? Or does the randomness cause everyone in the lobby to become up in arms because everyone decided to go for the same weapon pad off spawn thinking it had a certain weapon in it only to see it is now holding halo infinites number 1 weapon. The plasma pistol.
The biggest issues with randomness to me comes down to how ridiculously strong the grenades are, and how inconsistent spawning is. I died to more random grenades, and grenades on the other side of a room, than I think I ever have, it was ridiculous. And the spawns would either put me on the other side of the map, making me take what felt like an eternity to get back to the fight, or work just fine. In BTB, I really hated how the long respawn times, coupled with the long runs from respawning, made it seem like I would spend most of my time getting to the fight, rather than being in one.
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> The weapon spawns are random, pelican drops are random, drop pods with weapons in are random, loot caves are random… How can I make a plan in game when I don’t know what is even going to be in it?
> On old Halo games if I saw an enemy tank I could use my map knowledge to find an anti vehicle weapon and deal with it. Now in Infinite I just have to hope that one will randomly drop next to me or randomly spawn at one of the spawn points.
> Really ristricts tactics.
>
> I feel like the loot caves and pelican drops are so gimicky and don’t actually add anything to the gameplay. Was much better the way it was in previous titles.
> Very quickly people will get sick of the vehicle drops and not knowing which weapons they can find on the maps.
Weapon spawns arent random tho, there is a timer on weapon racks at the top, using a blue bar filling up to show how much time is left for the weapon to respawn, loot caves also have a timer, and loot in them are meant to be random. I dont really mind the random pelican drops, both teams usually get drops at the same time. Randomization keeps the game from being repetitive makes each match feel different from the other.
I think this is a focus group issue. Some of the most fun i’ve had playing BTB was when it was chaotic. However you don’t design the game to be chaotic. In H3 with the equipment, vehicles, heavy weapons, fusion coils etc the ‘toys’ of the sandbox interacted with one another which lead to fun moments. Players could still play the game though, as another commenter said you had agency to identify a problem and know exactly what you had to do with your movement and actions to deal with it.
The inconsistencies don’t elevate the gameplay, it robs potential interactions as there’s less likelihood to play as you intend, to grab what you need, to interact with other players more clearly, more often, since there’s less value placed on a sandbox (by the players) that’s up in the air.
I find it baffling that with each release you have to argue and drive home gameplay mechanics and features that were took for granted because they were so staple, it’s absurd. I really don’t know why bloom, random recoil, ordnance, inconsistent aim, OP autos and other majorly disliked errors Halo made in the past are front and centre in Infinite.