List of weapon balance changes coming to the game:
https://twitter.com/Halo/status/1587884616073236480
The Winter Update will bring improvements to Halo Infinite’s gameplay through sandbox balancing. Arm yourself with knowledge before shipping out on Nov. 8
This message board is so damn frustrating to use lol. I’ll update this post to try and get everything in.
Plasma Pistol
Sandbox Team Dev Note: Many players reported that the Plasma Pistol was underperforming against Spartans, especially when using its overcharged shot. To help the overcharged shot track as expected at mid-to-close range, we’ve updated its values slightly in the Winter Update. We also noticed the base shot was not seeing much use, so we’ve increased the damage of the base shot to make it a more viable option for players.
Tuning details:
- Increased base shot damage from 20 to 28
- Increased charge shot angular velocity from 20 to 35 degrees per second
- Increased charged shot guided angular velocity at rest from 50 to 70 degrees per second
Pulse Carbine
Sandbox Team Dev Note: Even as players have gotten more proficient with the Pulse Carbine, it has not been as successful in short-to-mid range as we would like. To help with this, we’ve updated the tracking to help it out in shorter range. To help balance out its power though, we’ll be reducing its tracking at longer range. These changes should help player land shots more consistently in short to mid-range while slightly reducing the effectiveness at longer ranges.
Tuning details:
- Increased guided angular velocity at rest from 25 to 35 degrees per second
- Decreased angular velocity from 50 to 30 degrees per second
- Increased targeted leading fraction from 0.35 to 1
- Increased guided projectile error radius from 0.2 to 0.22 degrees
VK78 Commando
Sandbox Team Dev Note: One of the most common pieces of feedback we’ve seen is that aiming with the VK78 Commando felt loose, especially at shorter range. To help increase its effectiveness up close, we’ve slightly increased the bullet magnetism and slightly reduced the high minimum error. We’ve seen this help players finish off targets at closer range during internal playtests, so we’re eager to see how this plays out in the wild.
Tuning details:
- Increased Headshot Prioritization Angle from 0 to 0.1 degrees
- Increased Bullet Magnetism Angle from 1.25 to 1.3 degrees
- Increased Aim Assist Angle from 5 to 6.25 degrees
- Decreased minimum error angle max from 0.8 to 0.6 degrees
BR75
Sandbox Team Dev Note: We want the BR75 to remain the versatile weapon we know and love, but also have noticed it has been performing a bit too well – making it not feel as rewarding as it should. In the Winter Update, we wanted to raise the skill ceiling on landing the final kill shot as well as reduce its effectiveness at range from the hip. These changes should help make kills with the BR75 feel even more rewarding.
Tuning details:
- Headshot Prioritization Angle reduced from 0.25 to 0.2 degrees
- Bullet Magnetism Angle reduced from 2.4 to 2.2 degrees
- Bullet Magnetism Range reduced from 20wus to 18wus
- Bullet Magnetism Falloff Range reduced from 12wus to 10wus
Frag Grenade
Sandbox Team Dev Note: The Frag Grenade has received feedback that it’s a bit too effective and that throwing one just before dying results in easier trades than intended. In order to help address these issues, we have increased the detonation time slightly. This will give players a little bit more time to react to a grenade that has landed near them. It will also reward players for better placed grenades.
Tuning details:
- Increased detonation timer by 0.2 seconds
“Snap Slide”
Sandbox Team Dev Note: Movement is always tricky to balance. We want to allow players to express their movement skill in matches, but we also don’t want that movement tech to completely break maps or create unpredictable gameplay flow. For example, “Curb sliding” and its current uses have been fun to watch and hasn’t been interrupting gameplay flow too much. On the other hand, “snap sliding” allows players to make jumps that could truly break the game flow, including having players jump from Top Mid to the bases on Aquarius.
Tuning details:
- Fixed a physics bug that allowed “snap sliding”
Disruptor
Sandbox Team Dev Note: The Disruptor has started to see more use as we’ve gotten further into Halo Infinite’s lifespan, but it still isn’t doing as well as we’d hoped. To help with this, we’re updating the ammo count to help players close out kills a little more easily. We’ve also spotted reports of the DoT effect being inconsistent and will be working to get an improvement out in a future update.
Tuning details:
- Increased magazine ammo count from 10 to 12
We’ll be watching the data and community feedback closely when these changes land with the Winter Update, so be sure to let us know what you think once you’ve had a chance to give them a go.
PC & M&K Input Improvements
Aiming Improvements
Sandbox Team Dev Note: As players have gotten more hands on time with the game, we’ve seen feedback emerge around how aiming and tracking players feels on M&K. We know there’s room for improvement and some updates are on the way.
Red Reticle on PCSandbox Team Dev Note: Red reticle has been a common piece of feedback since flighting and we’re happy to be bringing it online in the future. While turning this on for PC does open the game up to new cheating vectors, we want to enable this and better support our PC players. If a plethora of cheats pop up because of this we may need to reconsider, but until then we’re excited to see how this feels for PC players.
Scroll WheelSandbox Team Dev Note: We’ve felt this one too. When using a scroll wheel to swap weapons, sometimes it would double-swap (essentially YYing). We’ll be updating how the game reads scroll wheel inputs to help reduce how often this happens.
Walk KeySandbox Team Dev Note: Right now, walking on M&K has two modes: full walking speed or crouch walking. On controller, you can choose to walk slowly, and avoid radar detection, just by how much you move the thumbstick. Since keyboards only have the walk forward at full speed option, we’ll be introducing a way for them to walk at a slower speed (without needing to fully crouch walk) in a future update.
These input improvements will also carry over to players who use M&K on Xbox consoles.
Networking “Desync” Improvements
To go after networking improvements (including “desync”), we needed to identify all the various ways the issues could present themself. As covered in our “Closer Look” blog covering the topic, there isn’t a single issue causing all of the problems many classify as desync. Each issue is its own individual bug that we have to find, investigate, reproduce, fix, test, and implement.
In the case of networking and “desync,” we focused in on a few key areas:
- Desync: When the server says you’re in one place on the map while your client shows you in a different spot.
- Blank Shots: You fire shots at a player and see them connect, but the bullets deal no damage.
- Getting shot around walls/corners: You think you’re safely around the corner, but you are dealt a fatal blow from a player who no longer has line-of-sight on you.
- Ghosts Melees: When you melee a player and hear the hit, but no damage is dealt.
To add to the complexity, sometimes there are multiple ways to encounter the same issue, which means we need to include multiple fixes to truly help reduce how often players experience it. For example, many reports of blank shots we’ve seen are the result of a fake reload bug. A player’s client shows that they have completed the reload, but the server never received that final reload confirmation – likely due to the reload being interrupted – so it thinks their weapon is still empty. The player’s client lets them fire a full barrage of shots, but the server sees this trigger input as if it was happening on an empty magazine, so it reads it as no bullets being fired at all. While it appears as “blank shots” to the player, finding and addressing the root cause is typically more complicated.
With that said, we do have desync related improvements planned to land in the next few updates.
Ghost MeleesSandbox Team Dev Note: Hitting a player and seeing them walk away unscathed, or worse, hitting you back and killing you, is extremely frustrating. We focused on this one due to how un-fun it can be, but we’re happy to say that we’re testing some improvements for a few different bugs that were resulting in melee registration issues.
Blank ShotsSandbox Team Dev Note: We mentioned it a bit above, but the fake reload issue is one reason contributing to why players could have blank shots. We know there are other instances of shots not counting aside from fake reloads, and we’ll be going after those too, but we’re happy to be bringing this out first.
Vehicle DesyncSandbox Team Dev Note: Since we’ve seen that players are more likely to experience full desyncs when operating a vehicle than moving around as a Spartan, we set our sights on crushing bugs in this space. You can expect some targeted vehicle desync improvements in the next update.
There will still be more work to do on networking and desync – on the specific issues above and others that may arise – but we’re making it a priority and you should see a steady flow of improvements in future updates.
Balance Updates
Drop Shot
Sandbox Team Dev Note: The “drop shot” (or drop weapon) meta, which allowed players to pull up their secondary weapon faster by dropping their primary weapon, was interesting at first - but ultimately became problematic during normal gameplay. We kept an eye on it, especially in high-level matches, and agreed with community feedback that it is just too strong for how easy it is to pull off. As a result, we are planning to bring the drop shot time in line with the speed of just swapping weapons in a future update.
ThrusterSandbox Team Dev Note: While we do want equipment to tip the scales of a fight, we’ve started to see Thruster come out on top of 1v1 engagements more than we intended. We plan on adjusting this a bit to make sure it’s no longer tipping the scales too far in one direction.
Energy Sword
Sandbox Team Dev Note: We’ve noticed that the Energy Sword can be a little too effective on maps with tighter corners. To help bring it in line with where we’d like, we’ll be updating the melee trade logic on the Energy Sword. Right now, if both players are no shields and they melee each other, the player with the Energy Sword will survive with a sliver of health. This upcoming update will update the melee logic so both players trade melees and die, which should help prevent the Energy Sword from just tearing through teams without trading.
Competitive Weapon Respawn TimersSandbox Team Dev Note: Throughout Halo Infinite’s first HCS season, the amount of power (through on-map pickups like weapons) on each Arena map became a common discussion point. Most competitors felt like there was too much power on the map for pickup, which allowed the matches to snowball. To help address this, we’ll be reducing how quickly weapons respawn as well as how many of each weapon can be on the map at any given time in Ranked Arena. We’ll share full details around these changes before they land in a future update.
Ah ya beat me to it.
I’m not sure I like the BR changes. Nerfs to its aim assist? Fine. I can live with that, but the reduction of its effective red reticle range seems a bit harsh.
I swear that this is the most frustrating board to use that I’ve had to deal with in 20-25 years lol. What should take me 2 seconds to do takes me like 30 minutes to an hour here lol.
I know right? Until recently, the little box you use to type stuff in on mobile was cropped very small. Seems to be fixed but still.
its ok but not much.
I also dont really see the problem with snapslide. Their reasoning about aquarious doesnt hold up. snap slides are challenging and flying across the map is risky.
edit- also i just learnt that aquarius jump is not even a snap slide but a curbslide thrust. I’m not looking forward to further future changes because it just seems lazy and takes too long.
i really think the drop shield needed a buff as atm it’s near useless. the br feels perfect so idk why you would mess with that it is so satisfying. and the plasma at close range is a killing machine. it’s literally pop shields and one shot so why would it need a buff at close range a mid buff is ok. but until i play it this is all just conjecture.
Halo 3 has the best BR.
Infinites is too good at range. Hopefully this raises the skill ceiling of the weapon as needed.
I’ve been exprimenting with the Drop Shield as of late and feel it’s better then people make it out to be. For starters it’s insanely useful when fighting against snipers, as you can shoot them but have shields to keep you from being hit in return. It’s also very useful in 1 vs 1 situations. Even if you stand still after dropping it gives you a few bullets advantage before their shots will connect, but if you move around from shield to shield while fighting you’ll get a lot of protection out of it before they can get to you.
There’s also a few tricks you can use to your advantage, as it auto-detonates grenades that stick to it instead of waiting for their timers.
Worse situation is when your fighting groups of people, as all the shields will deplete super quickly to make much of a difference. But realistically, your fighting multiple people. It’s not suppose to give you that much of an advantage.
The supposed “feedback” they claim to be listening to about frag grenades is literally the opposite of any feedback I have seen. You know what happens more often when you throw a grenade close to death? It just disappears into the abyss of desync.
What’s the point of trying to fine tune the balance of something like the BR when the desync is a much bigger problem with the weapon balance problem?
in a 1v1 or even 1v2 it’s great but you put your finger on the pulse here
Worse situation is when your fighting groups of people, as all the shields will deplete super quickly to make much of a difference. But realistically, your fighting multiple people. It’s not suppose to give you that much of an advantage.
specifically a koth or land grab situation it feels as if the setup penalty or risk is far greater than the reward. it’s also a very different beast depending on mode too. i guess i can’t exactly pinpoint where i would want it buffed but it does feel like there is room for improvement to me at least.
I’m really excited to get some balance changes in the game, and I’m hoping they’ve gotten it to where they can make faster changes.
Edit: The sword did receive balance changes. My browser failed to load the entire article on my first viewing for some reason, so I didn’t originally see these balance changes. /edit
No change to the sword sounds like a huge L for HCS and ranked. I’m really upset that we had a World Championships that included GA’s. Not a good look imo.
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The extra info about some of the desync issues is shocking to me. Infinite’s server/client handshake is so rocky that the two can’t even agree on the status of a players weapon reload? I’ve been saying it for months now. Infinite’s networking config is broken at such a foundational level it needs a complete overhaul from top to bottom 
(Aim assist mechanic set is in the same boat imo)
fun fact, the red reticle doesn’t show in the original games if you disable aim assist for controller play (via modding) as it’s there to show you have the enemy in your sights.
Doesn’t the change in sword vs melee logic help?
That, plus the dropping weapon exploit fix - removes a few of the GA’s?
Not that I ever have to worry about them at my level.
But overall, this is the sort of communication and feedback we need from 343.
Regular updates and changes based on a combination of feedback and real world data.
Everyone will have their own personal wins and losses - but it’s about balancing the sandbox overall.
And seeing them actually acknowledge and discuss some of the desync issues is great. We know it’s multifactorial - and we know the fix is going to be piece meal. But fingers crossed we can start to see some change in this space.
Lol wow, the first time I opened the article the whole article didn’t load 
. The “blank shots” was the last paragraph that loaded when I first read through lol.
Guess I have to read the rest of these balance changes now 
If the disruptor was plagued by not putting the Dot on people, I feel they should have addressed that first, before buffing the weapon. It’s possible that fixing the bug if it is a bug, would have possibly addressed it’s problem of not being used as much as they had hoped.
The Sword change makes me question why I would ever use it again? The fact that it has absolutely no range is already a huge downside as is… Now it feels like I can be just as effective with just about any other gun as I could with a sword.
I thought the sword was suppose to be a Power Weapon on top of things…
I just hope they’ve got it right this time.
Can someone help explain what is meant by the two different angular velocity changes to both the plasma pistol and pulse carbine? I understand when it says that they are increasing the guided angular velocity, that means the homing shots will be more effective. But then what is meant by the second bullet point for each gun where they also mention another adjustment to angular velocity?
It’s been a while since I played Infinite, but pretty much all of the balance changes are in line with what I thought the game needed. And about the Battle Rifle nerf, it was already needed before, but now that we know the DMR is in, the BR really needs its effective ranged reduced to allow the DMR to shine in certain situations. You always have to think about the big picture when talking about weapon balance.