What Halo Infinite needs to bounce back

Games Halo Infinite
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This will be a comprehensive list of things that need to come back/be changed in order for people to come back. Some suggestions have been made by friends who I met thru Halo, played 10 games with, and then they uninstalled because there was missing content/features.

  1. Forge/Customs Browser/File Share
    This NEEDS to be launched together. Customs browser is not enough of a pull to get people back into the game like Forge is. Ideally, this should be launched once we have infection, race, VIP, and a few more maps launched. Delay Forge again if need be because as much as we hate waiting, this will be overall better for the game’s population. Imagine hopping back on Halo Infinite once Forge drops and seeing pages and pages of custom lobbies running games like Indiana Jones, Ghostbusters, Jenga, etc. File share needs to be launched with these three things as well, and it needs to work like it did in Halo Reach. MCC’s and Halo 5’s file share system is terrible. There should be a spot for devs to highlight favorite clips/game modes/maps/pictures, and people should be able to filter using tags/downloads.

  2. Better custom games options/UI
    I don’t know who thought this UI was better than MCC’s when it came to options, but even MCC’s wasn’t that good and I prefer that over this. It’s incredibly confusing, and it’s a nightmare to deal with. Especially with how game options resort to default when changing maps. Needs to be fixed before Forge. While we’re at it, add a loadout option for those that want to mess around with it. Do not add loadouts to normal social/ranked unless a specific game mode calls for it.

  3. CSR/MMR controversy
    Social MMR should absolutely NOT affect Ranked, and CSR should be weighed more heavily towards obj/wins instead of just K/D ratio. This has been talked about to death, but I just wanted to add this for posterity. The focus should be about winning your ranked matches, not running around and padding your stats. On top of that, the way this game balances teams is terrible and punishes players for doing well by giving them bad teammates to carry.

  4. Better communication/Road Map for content
    We have no idea what we’re getting down the pipeline. I understand the devs are under a lot of stress with deadlines and the like, but the community NEEDS something to look forward to for both the short and the long term. This SWAT event came out of nowhere, had no hype behind it, and the only people who are playing it were the ones who were already in the know to begin with.

  5. Better XP progression system
    Having XP solely tied to the challenge system makes it so new/returning players get confused when they play matches but their battle pass level isn’t increasing. Challenges should be a bonus on top of the match XP you gain. The gold standard for Battle Pass progression is Call of Duty’s. It feels rewarding seeing your XP bar go up after every match, and doesn’t focus on challenges. Challenges are used to unlock emblems/other cosmetics on top of XP, and this game should take notes on that. If a challenge is put back into rotation that has an emblem the player already unlocked, it still gives XP for completing it. Stop being so stingy with unlocks.

  6. Game stability
    I have made SEVERAL posts about unstable this game is and no fix has been announced. I have been hard crashed countless times during social and ranked matches, and it’s unacceptable. This should’ve been addressed and fixed months ago. Desync is coming back harder than ever, and also needs to be worked on. Very upsetting that MCC is nowhere near as bad as this game, and the game is over 6 years old on Xbox, 3 on PC. There’s also issues with my HUD flickering randomly when someone comes online and this needs to be fixed as well.

  7. New/Returning weapons
    Very happy with the sandbox, but the current shotgun feels weak to new players who are used to the old style, and does not work well with makeshift infection. With no shields, the gun absolutely maps players. Would like to see some new weapons, but am more concerned with the shotgun over anything for the sake of infection.

  8. Firefight/PvE activity
    There is NOTHING for people who just want to go out and kill AI outside of campaign, and you are unable to play with your friends on campaign currently anyways. The BEST thing that could happen for PvE is the return of Firefight and the ability to make your own Firefight maps via Forge. If the game was stable enough, 24 player all out war against PvE enemies would be epic, complete with the ability to add Scarabs and other big enemies/bosses and objectives. Warzone was a cool idea in Halo 5 and would be welcome as well, but there should be something for people who just want to go ham on AI and not have to worry about enemy players. Battlefield 2042 had the right idea, but poor execution. This would be a huge thing that would definitely get players hyped and brought back into this game, especially if there were cool unlockables tied to it.

  9. More campaign with varied level designs *
    Main complaint about the campaign is each level is a variation of a forest, forerunner construct, or a banished base. No snow/desert levels, no levels focused on aerial combat, lack of meaningful objectives (about the most exciting part of the campaign was rushing to disable the AA cannons. Everything else is “bring power cores to these destinations to open door, etc”) The last mission where you’re basically put through an endurance test was very boring and anti-climactic. Oh, and for the love of humanity, stop using holograms to explain what already happened. What a cop out to let us experience these events as players for the sake of cohesiveness, and considering this “open world” design was one of the reasons co-op was delayed, perhaps it wasn’t the best implementation. This game was given a 10 year lifespan, and I really hope this isn’t the last we see of any campaign updates.

  10. More Ranked Playlists/Rotating Social Playlists *
    Ranked is incredibly barebones right now, without even the option of a competitive FFA hopper. There should be doubles, lone wolves, and multi-team. In terms of rotating social playlists, we have fiesta, which is already a permanent playlist as is.

I’ve spent about a half hour typing this out and will add more in the future. Please leave any suggestions you have down in the comments below.

“*” denotes additions after initial post creation

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343 will never fix this game. Too much greed involved. This game is embarrassing.

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I think what you’re missing for me is campaign updates. The open world desperately needs to have its content flushed out, and more variety in the objectives. I played it on game pass but my game pass will expire soon and I figured I’d buy it to support the campaign. Sadly with the campaign not improving in the foreseeable future, I’ll be keeping my money for now.

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Just wanna say 100% yes, this, but sadly doesn’t sound like we’ll get half these things for another 6 months at least. Also I’d add Campaign coop to this list!

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What you have described is a complete game (I think it will take more than this to bring people back from the bad taste they had) The only exception being maybe PvE mode could be delayed from launch 3-6 months, but at this rate I would be surprised if we ever get anything.

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Definitely. 100%. And I know we have to wait for Season 3 - but there is no reason why they can’t start pumping the tyres in Season 2. Sneak peaks, blog posts, trailers, and maybe even a limited flight.

I’m comfy with the UI - but always happy with improvements.

Custom game options go hand in hand with Forge. I am hoping they are just limited at the moment because they were waiting for Forge/Scripting to finalise.

I particularly want Traits back. With the options to apply a Trait (or at least a scripting label to hook onto) from the pre-game lobby.

I think the influence of Social / Bots into Ranked is overblown (apart from the seeding MMR on a new account).

But I 100% agree on the Objective games.

It was very disappointing they didn’t touch on this in the recent blog. How do they do things differently in Objective vs Slayer?

And if TrueSkill2 only allows kill based weightings - then just allocate (internal) kills for playing the objective; eg. 1 kill for every ‘x’ seconds holding the oddball, or 1 kill for every ‘y’ flag returns, or a 1 kill for every ‘z’ strong holds taken. The key is to have a balanced number to reward playing the objective.

So important. I think deep down everyone knows the problems aren’t easy to fix. We just want acknowledgement that they exist and what they are doing about them.

Road Map for the win!

Also agree entirely. XP weighted to wins and medals/score.

Take the focus off the CSR as a grind. And if we had an XP rank you could take away the MMR number from the CSR as a double win.

Thankfully not a problem for me (XSX). Hopefully the recent patch helps!

Customs / Forge!

Not my cup of tea. but good luck.

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I didn’t add campaign co-op, mainly because we know it’s coming within the next 6 months. But yes, co-op campaign needs to happen as well.

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What I’m describing would take quite a bit of time to complete, but since they’re giving this game a supposed 10 year lifespan, it’s something that could be added in an expansion next year or after. I don’t expect it to be implemented at all, just a wild idea I had that thought would be cool.

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They could’ve added infinite equipment use without Forge.

I don’t know about the ranking systems, but I often run into players who have a similar skill level to me.
That said, sometimes I run into teams that seem way too good for my skill level, and about half the time or more, I’m the best or near being the best player on my team, while for the other half, I’m the worst player on my team, so something’s weird with the way they’re matching players.

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Added campaign updates to the post

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Honestly this is a pretty good list of necessities that most Halo fans could easily get behind and support.

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Actually, it needs a different developer. 343 doesn’t have what it takes to creat a Halo game.

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What halo needs to bounce back: A NEW DEVELOPER.
There I fixed it for you.

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More ranked playlists need to be added right away. Ranked doubles, FFA, SWAT, and team slayer. More rotational social playlists that are new like in h5. H5 had such fun rotating social playlists, like multi team and roaming king. Also there needs to be new maps. There should be a new map every month like h5.

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