This is actually really good advice if you ask me. I tell my friends who are upper platinum and lower diamond that being alive and putting shots on opponents is better than being in the respawn screen.
Staying alive is such an under appreciated art form of playing halo and really any fps game.
Agree fully on the importance of staying alive. I’ve played roughly 1,000 matches on halo infinite and it took me 950 matches to figure that out and a ton of them were just wasted because i wasn’t learning anything. backing down and not trading kills is more important than risking being killed and spending half the match in the reapawn screen. After a 15 year hiatus from halo I had a ton to learn about this game I wish I would have spent the time to learn a lot of these things sooner. I though about making a post for noobs for the top 10 things to learn and do if you want to improve in infinite. Prob save people way more time than I wasted.
I might just have to! Great idea thank you!
Halo Infinite’s Battle Rifle is surprisingly well made.
The issue is that the networking for the game often leads to terrible hit-registration, which affects all weapons across the board.
ESPECIALLY splash damage weapons.
I started messing around with my FOV a lot after seeing a correlation between hit registration loss and a lower FOV it could be bs but a lot of pro players seem to think it’s factual. seems like if you’re up around 108-110+ You get more perfects in general with all things else being equal. I can’t go much higher than 110 or it starts to get uncomfortable to play even on a large monitor
Snowballing may happen less but I despise when I’m
At a distance(medium) and my opponent only wins because I have a sidekick. This happens a lot in BTB . You enjoy the Wrong kind of variety. Variety you want is FORCED. Variety I want is optional while possibly being beneficial.
A few things to note.
Both with Utility Weapon and Non Utility Weapon starts a certain level of forced mechanics are going to be present.
A Utility Weapon start forces a certain play style on everyone. That play style means certain weapons and play styles are not viable. For example:In ranked i almost never pick up an AR (nor do i see pros do it often) because when everyone starts with such an easy to use hitscan long range weapon you don’t really need an AR. The needler is in the same boat because its so easy to outrange it with a BR.
But with a non Utility Weapon start it allows for more diversity in gameplay. If i want to use an AR i can. If i want to mount a turret i can be a bit more confident not everyone will instantly beam me in the head. If i want to cross open space i am more likely to do so.
You say a Utility Weapon allows variety but what really happens is everyone just ends up using the same weapon >90% of the time. There really isn’t variety there.
Not spawning with a Utility Weapon means you have to know how to effectively use each weapon and yes once you have a weapon you are forced into trying to use it in its intended usecases if you want success.
Part of the problem is even if you don’t spawn with it the BR is still a Utility Weapon so picking it up will instantly put you at much more of an advantage than picking up any other map weapon. Thats why i argue for a BR hipfire bloom addition to move it into a smaller role more in line with the rest of the sandbox.
Auto start stans are terminally shallow. Variety in weapon use is an admirable goal, but variety in and of itself does not make any given game appreciably better.
“Knowing how to use a variety of weapons” sounds like good skill to have until you realize than many of those weapons have no discernable skillgap to begin with or room to grow as a player.
There are of course things that could be done to give some more inherently niche weapons some degree of skill or depth to make them more desirable over a utility weapon, but Auto stans never advocate for this. They also refuse to entertain the idea of raising the skillgap on utility weapons to better balance them, nope best they can do is more random chance.
Nope, the community has to use these shallow boring weapons as is because apparently the only way they can get enjoyment is via a arbitrary number of shiny weapon models and effects and the super deep cerebral strategy of rock paper scissors.
They have no solutions for actually trying to change the “meta”(aka Halo gameplay) of precision weapons or make underperforming weapons more interesting. The only things they advocate for are more RNG and trying to hide the precision weapons the Halo community has enjoyed for 20 years under the rug.
Just a bizarre hostility to the notion of depth in Halo. The whole idea of “casual” Halo has been weaponized by this vocal minority to rail against anything remotely connected to skill or depth. We’re at the point where Fromsoft games can sell more than any single Halo game ever has, but god forbid we have settings and weapon balance that offer any sort of depth for player to sink their teeth into.
No what people really kept coming back for were shallow bullet hoses and lock on weapons/s
If you want “variety” devoid of depth there is already the perfect gametype for you, its called Fiesta.
I am all down for raising the skill gap on precision weapons without using RNG but the Halo community is not willing to actually accept that.
Predictable recoil would be great but on a BR that really just helps the user.
Slower bullet velocity really only helps one OP aspect of the Utility Weapon and thats its absolute dominance at range. That still leaves it incredibly easy to use at short range where it eats up much of the use cases that would otherwise belong to other weapons.
You can’t get rid of aim assist because Halo has its roots in how good it feels (or at least should feel) when playing with a controller. Bungie came up with the modern aim assist mechanics we take for granted in all FPS games now.
@WerepyreND you brought up From games. In them there is a huge variety because not only does each weapon class have unique properties but each weapon in each class is different. And in all that there is not one Jack of All trades weapon i.e. no Utility Weapon. That variety means you pick your weapons and fall into rolls where your positioning and tactics along with your weapon skill determine how successful you will be in a combat scenario.
Even in PvP you are trying to maneuver to get the enemy into the ideal position/situation to make use of your weapons. Each weapon class has pros and cons that can end up playing out like rock-paper-scissors when facing any other given weapon class.
The thing is its like 3D rock-paper-scissors where in one scenario your weapon lets you play rock and forces your opponent to play paper but in another it can be the opposite. This means its not just solely based on a player’s skill with the weapon but also knowing how to position themselves and analyze what weapon the enemy has in order to get yourself into the best scenario to use your weapon effectively.
This is what i would like out of Halo’s combat. There is still aiming skill involved but now you have to have much more intimate knowledge of when and where to use your current weapons. As it sits very little thought goes into positioning or assessing what other weapon the enemy has because with a Utility Weapon the strategy is always the same since at any range in any scenario it is always going to perform the exact same.
I’m glad to see you haven’t lost the ability to completely miss the point. I brought up Fromsoft in reference to their games being framed as difficult more “hardcore” games, yet still managing to outsell any single Halo game where people like yourself actively reject any attempt to add any level of actual depth to Halo itself.
You can’t seem to help but be disingenuous. “The Halo community won’t accept higher skillgap” to say citation needed just doesn’t quite cut it. We know Halo fans can accept lower levels of aim assist and we know they can accept to lower levels of aim assist. And just so we are clear, when I talk about adding depth and layers of skill to the game, I’m not just talking about the BR, but other parts of the sandbox.
No one is saying “get rid of aim assist” you just can’t help but misrepresent what others are saying.
“Knowing when to use a weapon” is not “intimate knowledge” it is the most fundamental basics, especially when we are talking about something like a bullet hose like the AR. Understanding “huh, I should use this close range weapons at close range or that weapon is meant for longer range* I should avoid fighting it at long range” is not “intimate knowledge”, it just means you’re not dead or an infant.
*The BR is not meant exclusively for long range no matter how you wish it was
I’ve said this before, but it really amazing to watch you and others like you desperately invent reasons why shooting skill shouldn’t be the main skill in a shooter. You continually demonstrate how shallow your position is. Still no actual solutions beyond trying to hide the precision weapons under the mattress or introduce more RNG.
It doesn’t matter how easy or difficult any given weapon is, all that matters is memorizing a basic Strength vs weakness chart and pretending that is somehow provides equivalent depth to weapons with a mechanical skill requirement in a shooter. If I wanted to play Pokemon I would play Pokemon(no offense to that franchise) when I play a shooter, especially(but not limited to) PVP I care about mechanical engagement.
But ultimately is painfully obvious all this stems from the fact that simply just have a personal issue with the BR(and other main utility weapons). Its obvious because as much as you rail against the BR and its versatility, you not only give a pass to the just as versatile Commando(which also has a lower TTK on top of being automatic), but even advocated for removing its bloom.
Not exactly what i said but sure lets take aim assist for a second. That is the only thing Utility Weapon fans seem to be willing to give up. Well the Halo community thought there was litterally zero aim assist in the flights and hated how it felt. Go look at any of the posts made around the launch of Halo Infinite flights talking about it. They only marginally increased them for the real game and it was still in question for some.
You can only lower the aim assist so much for a couple of reasons.
Halo has always had pretty high levels of aim assist even when compared to other shooters so the community is used to having those levels of aim assist.
Now that we have cross play with PC and can even use a mouse and keyboard on an Xbox, on e you lower aim assist down past a certain point the vast majority controller players will be getting dominated by mouse and keyboard.
You say you are fine with an increase to the skill gap but seem to only provide one answer (lowering aim assist) which can only go so far before it does more harm than good. To effectively nerf a Utility Weapon (to bring it in line with the rest of the sandbox) without RNG and only affect aim assist you would have to get rid of aim assist. That’s why i argue for other changes because they are more likely to accept those instead.
A great change that doesn’t have any RNG involved would be to significantly reduce the mag size so that missing shots matters a whole lot more because as it sits you can miss a lot of shots and still get kills because the BR has so much ammo in a single mag.
The Commando isn’t a Utility Weapon. It has heavy cons at close range and while being fired full auto. That is why i don’t have a problem with it.
Again Utility Weapon defenders either offer only a couple of solutions (lowering aim assist which can only go so far, or adding slower projectiles but that doesn’t solve the problem of it being so usefulup close negatingthe need for most map weapons) or say “everything else is the problem: map design, other weapons are useless,” and sometimes even just the “you’re just bad” argument.
I would be interested in hearing if you had any other solutions because even pro Utility Weapon people say the sanbox is bad but then say its the fauot of everything but the BR. I would need a list of every single weapon and how to improve it to make the sanbox not “bad” before i could take this argument seriously. Otherwise its just a weak defense for an OP weapon.
(One other question: would you be willing to have maps like Blood Gulch that didn’t have Utility Weapon spawns to allow vehicle combat to shine on certain maps?)
What people “thought” and what actually occurred are two very different things. Plenty of players also thought they M&K players had a massive advantage over controller players and that claim was objectively false.
I also thought the aiming was questionable even on M&K and 343 only response was to crank up the aim assist. There is a fundamental difference people complaining about a bad aiming system vs complaining about low aim assist. Moreover 343’s responses to criticisms are not inherently representative of what players actually want or complained about(see also red reticle, collision).
I also don’t find Flights to be very compelling evidence in the face of having actual Halo games like CE to go off of for lower aim assist.
Gamepad vs M&K is not a valid reason to avoid lowering aim assist. If discrepencies are that severe via the nature of the input medium that is why we should always have the option for filtering both inputs and platform.
And no, I don’t think aim assist is the only option, I am also for slower projectiles which is another suggestion you dismiss out of hand despite the direct evidence we have for Halo players happily playing with slower projectiles. The underlying theme of my suggestions being balancing based on skill gap while you clearly prefer more RNG and rock paper scissors.
Its also important to note that my suggestions are fundamentally built around idea of both having a utility weapon and that a minority of underperforming niche weapons should be brought up rather than bring down the majority of weapons that are already good.
For example I don’t think there is any viable way to fix the Pulse Carbine as it exists now. A passive lock on weapon is doomed to be either useless or broken. But what if instead of being a passive lock on, it was player guided like Ad Victoriam or Cindershot. Suddenly a whole new world of possibilities for skilled player input to incentives its use without making it a mindless upgrade or trying to get players to pick up a bad weapon by playing keep away with weapons that are already good.
Reducing the mag size is pointless, The punishment for missing is that you die or your target escapes, If you are missing most of your mag dumps and still killing your target that indicates a flaw with map design not your weapon. This is also why raising the actual skillgap via lower aim assist is important, those types of features make you miss more often without artificially handicapping skilled players.
The commando isn’t a utility weapon because it would hurt your argument to admit that’s what it is. The biggest major con it has is the bloom, which again, is something you advocated for removing, and as Reach demonstrated bloom doesn’t actually prevent weapons from being versatile.
Utility weapons being useful up close is not a bug its a feature, which is why no one cares to address it and why these discussions go nowhere.
Utility players work within the framework of Halo as it actually exists, not the fantasy version of Halo auto stans have in their heads. Yes, other weapons are the problem because it has only ever been a minority of weapons that haven’t pulled their weight.
Do the majority of other useful weapons get as much use as the utility weapon? No, but that is the nature of certain weapons being more niche than other and only player always spawning with the same weapons. This is only a problem to auto stans who have this utterly inane idea that all weapons need to have more “balanced” use time regardless of context.
A weapon doesn’t need to get comparable use time to the resident utility weapon to have value in the sandbox.
Bad campy maps are still bad campy maps even if you remove utility spawns.
You just have a shallow notion of balance that makes you laser focus on the weapon that gets the most use regardless of context. To you that makes every actual flaw we point nothing more than a deflection or excuse, because how could we possibly ignore the elephant the room right?
Believe it or not I didn’t start out pro utility weapon. I made virtually the exact same arguments that you made, tried to veto or avoid utility starts whenever possible. But I slowly began to realize what actually frustrated me were the bad design and balance decisions around the weapons that didn’t work.
My desire to be able to run around with say a Plasma rifle or two wasn’t being stopped by the BR or it was being stopped by the Plasma Rifle, even deleting utility weapons entirely wasn’t going to make using the Halo 2 or 3 Plasma Rifle any more compelling, it wasn’t going to make it more than a shallow, blue, damage inverted SMG.
I see pros use it often and I do it myself. The AR is significantly easier to use than the BR, and it’s perfect ttk is faster than the br. I use it in close range a decent bit where I know you won’t be able to BR me in time and no amount of strafing will make me miss with the AR. And I can shoot+ melee faster than they can get a two plus beat down. I’ve seen pros use the AR in this way(hell some pros want the AR gone because of this advantage it gives)
I’m not interested in intended range roles.
The utility should be good at close and medium and be decent at long range. You auto stans don’t understand anything about halo. Or how frustrating it is to lose a battle because that guy has the right weapon for his position. The AR and pistol are good but dying because I can’t properly fight back is so frustrating.
The subtle BR tuning 343 made a short while back was necessary. People will always prefer to beam over not being able to beam. This may surprise you but many of the pros who compete today feel that the BR is too easy to use and that is largely due to the assist values being over tuned. I did take a look at your stats and noticed you were onyx 1550+ (probably prior to nerf) and then the BR nerf settled you into a lower rank. The good thing about this update is it showed who had a good BR. Those who relied too much on the bullet magnetism/aim assist were suddenly punished and took to the forums to complain. The bullet mag and aim assist are still very much so intact. The headshot prioritization was reduced ever so slightly.
Overall, the nerf was so miniscule and it’s unfortunate you feel like you can’t keep up now. I recommend hopping into aim labs or shooting bots for 15 - 30 minutes a day to try and get your accuracy up. The game doesn’t feel bad, it’s just you needing to be able to hit shots.
Why ever make a new Halo game if all you are going to do is keep balancing each game around the same weapon? You can’t possibly have any huge variance between games different enough to warrant a whole new game instead of just DLC maps and modes (outside of a massive change in hardware that allows for more complexity and visual differences).
This means you just want to remaster the same game over and over again with slight differences in visuals and maybe some minor things like mantle and sprint in the mechanics.
If you say, each weapon should have a role and ideal use cases like some of use do then you can add a plethora of weapons that all feel useful and actually get used more than 3 seconds every few games.
This is where map knowledge and movement paths should come into more importance. Without the Utility Weapon you are forced to learn how to use each weapon and how to travers each map to use said weapon most effectively. If you always have a Utility Weapon then there is hardly ever a reason to go grab most map weapons.
If you are so concerned that someone beat you because they risked something and obtained a weapon more suited for the situation then this implies you hate power weapons like the rocket as well. Why should the guy who risked running in the middle of the map get an explosive weapon that is forgiving if i miss because the blast can still get the kill?
Utility Weapon fans seem to hate that Halo is an arena shooter and want to downplay the arena shooter aspects as much as they can.
That about sums up the entire argument. Just because you like something and are successful, doesn’t mean the game is balanced. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YJ53skc-k4&t=2670s
When all you need to do to win everywhere is use one weapon and the same handful of strategies, then what purpose does the rest of the game serve? Cannon fodder noobs for you to pad your K/D ratio? Random decoration around the maps?
There is more to this suggestion than just making missing shots more impactful. A smaller mag size would force you to need to compensate in longer battles or battles with multiple opponents by using other weapons.
Halo 3 is often quoted as being the ideal version of a Utility Weapon based sanbox. The claim is most of the weapons were still useful. This just isn’t the case.
The AR is actually useless in Halo 3. There isn’t a single situation where it is the best weapon to have. Don’t give me the “its good with grenade shield pop then shoot with the AR” scenario because the BR is better and you spawn with both the BR and AR. Its actually a handicap to use the AR.
Same thing with the spiker, sentinel beam, magnum, mauler, any turret, the carbine is weaker than the BR and you spawn with a BR so why ever even go for it, the beam rifle, snipers are very easy to descope and keep descoped so unless they land the first shot to the head or both in a surprise attack before the BR user can see them the BR user should win that fight or at least force the sniper to take cover or flee, plasma rifle as you could do better with a plasma pistol or nade and then instant BR to the head, even the shotgun, energy sword and grav hammer struggle because unless you hide behind a corner with it the BR user can just backpeddle and beam you with ease, brute shot, smg.
I am sure there might even be more that i am forgetting but litterally most of the sanbox is comepletly useless outside of 1 or 2 scenarios that are very easy to avoid if you just stuck with the BR the whole game.
If you are saying i just want to get a map weapon and be all powerful thats not what i am saying at all. (If not sorry for the misunderstanding) [i think you are agreeing with me but just wanted to be sure]
I am not saying everyone should spawn with useless weapons. What i am saying is that each weapon should have a set of ideal usecases and when used outside of those usecases it should not be near as effective.
I’m agreeing with you. Weapons should serve a purpose and you should have to be thinking more carefully before you go into a CQB section of a map with a BR out. Playing ODST on Legendary with a Brute Plasma Rifle and Automag really makes weapon roles shine. Avoid the Covenant Carbine (And Battle Rifle, now that it’s in Firefight) the next time you play ODST. It’s a fantastic, eye-opening experience.