Thoughts on Infinites future

Games Halo Infinite
24

I stopped playing infinite in january and came back in may. The multiplayer was more reliable.
The last 2 weeks i experienced more and more issues. Unreliable hit registration, desync, lag, input delay, grenades vanishing and of top, the match making system that puts one sided teams together.

Thats the reason why i decided to stop again playing infinite.
Im staying on the forum, to get some news.

To get me back playing infinite it would need:

  • PVE modes
  • a big improvement of the netcode
  • less lag
  • less desync
  • better hit registration
  • dont connect me to servers where my ping has +100ms
  • team option after a ranked match
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25

Unless split screen shows up on PC wether mp or co-op I won’t be back save for story dlc. Store really put me off. If they did a hard relaunch if story dlc ever came out and eliminated the store I’d be back. I’m fine with dlc. I’m not fine with $1000 microtransaction hell. I’m a completionist and this is a game I can’t complete. That and if I can’t play split screen with my kid I’m not gonna bother playing at all.

26

If they want to fix Halo Infinite, they need to:

  • Change/reduce the scuffed SBMM in social playlists
  • Fix the aiming to make it like the Modern Aiming in MCC
  • Fix the vehicle physics and add player collision
  • Add a match composer so people can play the games they want to play

That would be a good start.

༼ づ ಠ_ಠ ༽づ Summon Collision

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27

I think there will be a large push at the end of 2023 to essentially re-launch the game. By then the long-rumored Battle Royale should be ready and maybe even Campaign DLC. They might even have a Firefight mode added as well by then. Also don’t forget about all of the Forge content that the community will cook up between now and then.

Above is mostly speculation on my part but I think there’s reason to be optimistic. Things certainly shouldn’t get any worse. It’s important to remember what a dumpster fire Halo MCC was when it first launched and look what it’s become now. Will Infinite ever draw the same # of people as it first did at launch, probably not but with hard work and it being a AAA F2P title it stands a chance.

/EDIT
I’m also secretly hoping by the end of 2023 they’ll drop Xbox One support. It’s undoubtedly held the game back in significant ways and I’m sure is why local co-op was canned. If 343 really wants Infinite to serve as a platform for Halo for the next decade it’s imperative that they drop last-gen support imo.

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28

343 has always planned for the long term. In fact when they took over in 2011, they announced they had a 30+ year plan for the franchise.
They have a 10 year plan for Infinite and we are on year 1. There’s going to be a lot of change in the gaming industry during this time. So I think we’ll reach a point where 343 is just 1 good seasonal update from leaping back to the top.
over 20 million people have played Infinite. When tatanka and all other big projects are finished/polished, people will flock back to Halo. people always flock back to Halo, it’s the most passionate gaming community you’re going to find.

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29

100%

I’m a big Destiny addict because I love the gameplay and co-op. I know that Destiny was an evolution of what started as Halo. What I don’t like though is Destiny PvP at all because of poor map design, ability spam and weapon + armor perk combos. TLDR; I don’t want to have to spend time building a loadout just to try and be competitive in PvP.

When Infinite first came out and I started playing Halo again I was immediately reminded of why I like it so much more. The map designs are generally very good, lots of verticality and traversal tricks. Every player has access to the same weapons and equipment. It’s not about who is “specced out” the best but making good tactical plays.

Anyway, I didn’t realize how much I missed playing Halo until Infinite launched and pulled me away from Destiny 2. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll always like Destiny but Halo campaign co-op & LAN parties with my buddies back in the day is what really lit my passion.

Infinite obviously isn’t perfect by any means but it’s shown me enough that I know it’s potential as a next-gen Halo title which is why I, and I think many others, want it to get better and are just frustrated with waiting. It’s tough when you get a taste of what could/can be but you know you have to wait. It is what it is at this point and I’m tired of being mad over it and will just try to take breaks as needed until Infinite is in full stride.

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30

OP

No, because the issues are too systemic and are almost all technical in nature. Plus it’s never a good thing in the short term if you have lots of corporate politics and finger pointing. That would just make everything grind to a halt. But beyond that I don’t really know as regards how you put together a games company and get the product out the door.

My personal concern would be that the dramatic turnover in staff is going to mean future Halo games will be even more disconnected narratively from prior titles; even Halo Infinite. There will be a desire to start over. It could also lead to a Halo Wars 2 situation where we get a side story whilst they figure out the new direction for the narrative.

For me the big narrative questions are:

  1. To what extent are they going to airbrush the events of Halo 5 out of the narrative. Because it presents big world building issues if they continue to try this. For example, let’s say you introduce an AI character, it would be extremely bad writing not to address that you just had a big AI rebellion. But then that wouldn’t be in keeping with “classic Halo” and getting on with telling the story they want to tell.

I would have said a full reboot was required if you were serious about getting away from that; which 343 seem to be in denial about.

  1. Are they going to use the death of Cortana as an excuse to pivot the story away from the love story angle which has been pretty central to the last few games?. Or is the Weapon just intended to step into that role?
31

I think the whole point of Infinits’s narrative was to airbrush over H5’s story. It’s the whole reason The Weapon essentially becomes Cortana reincarnated in the end. Now that they’ve patched that over I think you’ll see future campaign DLC try to actually move the story ahead as a fight for humanity’s survival in the greater universe.

Also, I used to think there was some kind of love angle between Chief & Cortana but it’s much more subtle than that. Cortana, built in Halsey’s image, is much more of a motherly figure to Chief but also she’s his best friend, someone he can actually confide in. I feel like their relationship is much more about them holding a mirror up to each other that allows us as a 3rd party observer to understand more about their personalities & character.

32

Yes it is! The game is fun and super enjoyable in regards to playing. Sure the player base is down, but match loading times are super fast (under 1 minute) and that’s what I like seeing in the game.

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33

It was too big a plot point to airbrush over and in some ways Infinite doubled down on it by destroying Doisac. Ostensibly that is a motivation for the Banished and baked into their backstory. It should be something that heavily informs the story, especially anything to do with AI. Especially if they plan to bring Offensive Bias and the Logic Plague into the story.

You have a massive AI rebellion. My expectation was that you would have to do some sort of Geth/Quarian thing where there’s a reconciliation between the two. I am not sold that Chief being okay with fake Cortana is going to cut it if that’s their intent.

You would also have to address the consequences of most of the Galaxy being occupied by AI for a year. If they want to act like it didn’t happen then I’d want to know why the UNSC hasn’t exterminated the Brutes; the Banished shouldn’t be as powerful as humanity.

Basically it was too big a plot point to airbrush over and leads to the universe coming across as non sensical. Like why are our multi Spartans stuck on base when they should be out purging Xenos?

Love story or not, the narrative tension was sustained on the question of will the Chief save Cortana. In Infinite we’re told no. I am all for this being about vengeance on the Xenos and purging them from the Galaxy. But 343 waver on that during Infinite. To be honest I felt the Chief/Cortana thing was a fairly novel part of the story. I am not convinced they’ve got any other story worth telling.

Plus, “humanities survival”? It’s a lot like the sequel trilogy where they pretended the New Republic didn’t exist and just tried to hammer the story to fit the little guy punching up. the stories should follow on logically from eachother. The UNSC shouldn’t be having trouble with a few thousand angry barbarians who think swinging hammers is a good way to wage war and whose only achievement is killing unarmed civilians.

Also they spent six years on a cliff hanger just to airbrush it and kill off Cortana. Why should I be taken in after that? What stops them upending this nonsense on the Endless because it’s not getting the hype or interest they want? It does not fill you with confidence for the quality of the series and it’s narrative.

34

lets focus on the things that really matter, like Mark VI Mjolnir VR helmets so we can forge in VR.

edit: if you ask me about future campaign ideas, i think we need plentiful lore about the flood organisms. there has to be more than one planet terraformed entirely by the flood. it probably has its own grave mind. it was probably a forerunner planet at one point, and there was a halo ring built in proximity to this flood consumed planet. this planet was probably very far away from the rest of the universe, or otherwise was caught up in a black hole and was gravity slingshotted much farther away from earth or reach or other forerunner galaxies with their own halo ring installations.

in exploring zeta halo, there is probably forerunner artefacts that the banished ai dug up, but could not decode. then probably the weapon trapped the banished ai and learned more about a forerunner catastrophe in which one of their brethren and sistren constellations were ripped through time and space in a way that slipspace engines of covenant and human design are not yet technologically advanced enough to utilize. zeta halo archaeological artefacts and forerunner lore of black hole catastrophe led to this particular planet and halo ring being consumed entirely by the flood. the outbreak was uncontrolled by the forerunner and the halo ring was too far away to be activated and so it was just left to drift in the universe supra-naturally out of reach of most forerunner resources capable of providing any sort of aid to their lost (and one of their most beloved) homeworld planets.

by the time halo infinite 2 comes around, on zeta halo the unsc fleet is rebuilt eventually to the capacity of being able to project its power onto this flood homeplanet as a demonstration of good will in order to gain the trust of rogue forerunner factions and their treasure trove of artificial intelligence and history of the universe.
all of this revealed through DLC packs in the process of fortifying zeta halo and rebuilding of the unsc and allied covenant fleets.

we need to bring back the flood storyline even if it means halo infinite 2 has to be rated M

then we can have a straight up cinematic movie like campaign for halo infinite 2; 343 only needs to look at halo 3 as the perfection of this style of single player campaign. dont worry about how split screen storylines will accommodate other characters; just make it the regular halo 3 style campaign where if u have an extra player over xbox live or in split screen, they just spawn as master chief, player 2 arbiter, and player 3 could just be a souped-up elite commando on par with the arbiter, and player 4 could just be a gangster--Yoink!- marine odst with backup Mjolnir suit.

i’ll be honest: i never played spartan ops. i never played firefight. i cant handle extra characters and protagonists like emil and locke and… umm.

well i guess some other spartans could have already set up a base at the forerunner planet at the start of halo infinite 2 movie like campaign. by the time chief arrives everything is overrun by the flood. commence halo 3 style campaign with really good levels. level 1, level 2, level 3…

here are the most important things to me in a halo game

-a campaign that is like halo 3’s campaign
-custom games, ctf, koth, assault, oddball, slayer, team slayer, territories, infection, vip, attrition, stockpile, and the cream of the crop.
-matchmaking multiplayer 4v4, big team battle, rumble pit ffa, and silly spawn w/ random items game mode playlists. maybe one extra playlist that is only community made maps and gametypes that are voted into matchmaking which brings me to the next important feature of halo infinite 2
-halo infinite 2 forge with mark vi Mjolnir vr helmets to forge with
-theater mode
-[this list is subject to debate]

just focus on a mad good storyline with like 12 to 15 levels all graphically designed with cinematics. throw in some cool 360 degree video cutscenes in order to accomodate mark vi vr helmets with forge. maybe add some new flying vehicles that have vr interfaces that are sprinkled throughout campaign.

mainly just run and gun with dual wielded smgs and dual weild sentinel beams etc, complete level 1 and the next level is literally the beginning of level 2 forerunner planet that approached a black hole and was overrun by the flood

35

I think Infinite will tread water, retaining it’s current population, but will not see a major resurgence. I’m guessing that Infinite’s replacement is already underway with Joe Staten and his vision being the foundation of it.

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36

Sorry, the most important thing 343 should be working on is (desync) in halo infinite. I looked up where the servers are for halo infinite yesterday and they are all very far from me. I’m in Florida. I have 2 ping fiber internet and I am very tired of my shots not registering. Is a level battle field too much to expect ??? This is 2022 and it is ridiculous !
As long as (desync) is an issue in halo infinite, the ranking system is meaningless and the multiplayer is so lopsided that the joy of playing is being sucked out of it !!!

You just got lucky, being in the sweet spot in relationship to a server. For many there is no hope of ranking up much due to desync issues. I also had desync issues in Guardians.

Here is what my expereince on Halo Gaurdians and Infinite Ranked Doubles is:

1st Game: I get the first shot on his head and don’t miss him once after repeatedly firing on him, but he kills me in 2 shots. My partner says he can not hit anything ! We lose big time !
2nd Game: I am running around slaying everything that moves. They are shooting at me. I win every gunfight. I feel sorry for them. They are clearly at the disatvantage-very unfair!!!
3rd Game: Games starts and a player or both players on other team leave.
4th Game: I get a noob partner and we get distroyed. I can’t carry him.
5th Game: The game seams balanced and we bearly win.
Then it REPEATS.
I have been playing Halo for 22 years and have played champions in Gaurdians and beat them.
I am presently stuck in the ranking of silver due to the servers and the DESYNC !!!
This game is so screwed up for many people like me who are not in the right geographical location to the servers, I guess? THE FUN IS BEING TOTALLY SUCKED OUT, 343 !!!

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37

To late to blame anyone, just work on maps & game play.
If they can’t fix D sync - Say so
Can’t fix region MM - say so
Can’t fix ranked - Say so

………nah don’t bother it’s to late to save infinite
Not to late to make it better for those of us still playing

38

My opinion?
The game isn’t lacking content.
The gameplay is what is lacking. Halo Infinite is boring to play. Nothing about it’s gameplay excites people, it’s just boring, it’s lacking. It’s a down grade off of what we had with Halo 5 especially.

That’s why no one wants to play Infinite or even support it. The game is just boring, incredibly boring. They really need to go back to Halo 5’s gameplay style otherwise the Halo franchise as a whole is just going to die out.

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39

Not only that, I would also retcon Infinite’s terrible “story” into PERMANENT NON-CANON STATUS and actually complete the story that Halo 5 was leading us into.

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