What is so bad about slipspace?

Community General Discussion
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Does anyone actually know what is so bad about the Slipspace engine? A lot of the reports coming out are just dumping generic terms like ‘technical debt’ and ‘barrier to entry for new developers’, etc etc

All of this news of 343 potentially jumping ship to UE5 would be disastrous for Halo as an IP, Halo Infinite itself, the Halo Infinite road map, future DLC and much more - it would literally be years before we got to see another bit of story content…

Are we really back to the point of waiting for the next Halo? So soon?

Can anybody give specific cases of why the slip space engine is so “bad”? It does not seem realistic to change engines after pouring years into it’s development

We need a statement from 343 to calm the panic in the community right now

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Its difficult to explain to your average reader which is why they aren’t getting into specifics.

But to summarize what we’ve heard from them:

  • The UI is hard to modify
  • Assassinations require a total overhaul of the player rig
  • Difficult to bring back classic game modes (which should be easy given its based on the engine that they were created in)
  • Desync issues that occur even on LAN. This was experience in h5 and seems to have simply gotten worse in Infinite.
  • Collisions already seem kind of broken when enabled, and the disabling of ally colision (and the wonky enemy collision) are possibly related to this.

We don’t have actual specifics. But given how slow updates have been, it seems likely that the overhaul of BLAM into Slipspace may have caused as much trouble as it fixed.

Given the high turnover rate at 343 there’s likely few people who know the true ins and outs of BLAM, as well as whatever happened with Slipspace.

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The development of the inhouse engine was outsourced to timely limited contractors, which means theres nobody who really knows how the code works etc, which makes it really difficult to work with the engine, fixing bugs and debugging errors that may occur while adding new content etc

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Yes this is the truth, it probably takes another 3-6 months just to learn the coding.
And with that many people who left 343 its almost impossible to get it in a good shape again.

The best thing I think is to make Halo in UE5, make the multiplayer first and then you can work on a story for a new game. Multiplayer doesnt really need a story.

I think the next step is to seperate the story from multiplayer.
A story take another 2-3 years to write and frankly MS dont have that time now.

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Well the game launched in late 2021, 6 years after H5, I personally dunno what, why people expected anything more from SP campaign, like, that’s the story this installment introduces, take it or leave it, and once you’re done you do have to wait for the next one, that’s how things akways work with SP games, like, nobody wants anything more from GoW Ragnarok fir example, people will just patiently wait for Santa Monica’s next game. I understand the disappointment, but like I said, take it or leave. If we’re at it, it should be obvious by now that 343 doesn’t know where to go with the franchise and they:ve messed up the story beyond repair and will never be able to satisfy the fans, the only chance would be to reboot the story all the way back to where Bungie left and start all over again with continuing from there on, but that won’t happen.

As for the MP part, the game is pretty much dead, S2 didn’t save it, Forge didn’t, Winter Update didn’t, S3 and whatever comes next won’t, the game is just broken at the basics like controls, netcode, matchmaking, non-expandable, rotational playlist, locked, unavailable store items, lobby system or should I say lack of it, the list just goes on and on and throwing content doesn’t solve anything at all, it’s just smoke and mirrors that fade away within a week or two, so many things have to be implemented all over again from scratch basically that it is indeed just better to truly start from scratch, except with something that’s actually working and reliable like UE.

Which still, I’m confident 343 will screw up anyway, but at least the game will look good, Infinite is just so empty, bland, H5 had sooo much better artistic direction, the lightning was superb, just sooo good, and the overall design of everything, especially the guns, take the BR alone which really looked like something from the future, while in Infinite we have something that was used during the Vietnam War… I get that they’ve tried to ride on the nostalgia of the old-time fans, but the overall, end result is something so uninspiring, so dull, so it’s really good to read they’re switching to UE5.

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Because SlipSpace is simply a HardFork of the BLAM engine, and was never anything new. This was done in the interest of saving time more than likely.

BLAM is conjugation of code, including C, C++ and C#, as well as LUA, which is a very legacy coding language. Mainly SlipSpace is C++ & LUA.

Finding devs that know LUA in today’s age is like finding someone fluent in Navajo compared to English.

Also, because the engine is running off that 30+ year old code, the people that originally worked on that code are no longer around. Because of the complexities of the engine, 343i had a revolving door of contractors. This meant that one software engineer had to pick off where the last one left off. When you let a ton of your engineers go, you let go of the Intectual Property because they’re the people the know how the engine works (because they built it). This led to a recipe for disaster.

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I heard too from one of the 343 employees that were temporarily hired that there was so much disorganized code that coding language was hard to learn and it was hard not to entangle your code with other codes.

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Exactly and thats why it should be seperate from the Lore .

A place for new design/deep rich Mechanic’s where players can show of their MOds and customization.

Im tired of seeing Halo Multiplayer being held back by the Lore and story its just a bit of a burden i feel .

It would be great if the multiplayer had its own setting/storyline in the future where we make new tech and test them out the Arena battlefield should have its own story like a Spartan school where we form teams.

Somthing like ‘‘Spartan elite’’… school of spartans hahah would be awsome !

similar to
‘‘TOP GUN’’ :joy:

Yes i feel the same also.

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I think the halo community just like trolling with that reaction. Me and a guy had a thread about how some good things in Halo 5 and guy did that reaction/emoji to every single one.

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use an @ if you mean to call someone out @Desi_br, not doing so makes it appear as if your trying to dodge a response from whom your calling out.

with that out of the way, I gave you a :missed_the_point: medal because you happened to make a comment wherin you missed the point being raised while taking their statement wildly out of context. What they said was:

Implying that 343 should focus on making the actual game first with tight controls and good gameplay, before shifting gears post-release to craft a solid single-player experience. A method that supposedly worked in a bigger scale with Titanfall and its sequel.

They did not suggest that the multiplayer shouldn’t be grounded in the setting and its lore as it was during the Bungie Era, just that it should not be influenced by, directly influencing, nor sporting its own seperate Story elements as it has throughout 343’s tenure running the series.

Things you seem very keen to encourage 343 continue doing, while paradoxically claiming has been holding the series back with this string of comments:

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Soo Hogwarts Legacy recently released. Runs like janky trash if you’re interested. Very poor optimizations. But sure. Let’s go with UE5.

Never mind Slipspace with it’s buttery smoothness and no jank. Let’s make it easier for the blueprints devs to get into it. The power and precision of C++ is irrelevant

@UrbaneRocket495 mentioned at the end of their post that we don’t have real specifics. Specifics are important. Super important. Verifying the things this community claims is sort of a task itself.

@Omega399 you’re kinda cherry picking your responses to the guy. Responding to surface level rather than intent. Hes merely suggesting that if there’s gonna be lore, make it some fun unrelated to main game lore. It was certainly a very superior response though.

I would like to respond to @Berra myself since I’ve come this far. They did the exact same thing you are suggesting with halo infinite. This did not go over well apparently.

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I be honest i dont think im too interested in how i appear to you unforturnatly! as i do feel you misunderstood me alot!

I get it you dont want to see Halo to move on into a new space and players like me are just getting in your way with our new ideas.

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I think this is the main issue with the Slipspace engine. Too many contractors coming in and then being let go after 18 months. No one remained consistent and the game has issues because of it. It’s a mountain to climb coming in, picking up where people left off and then your contract ends, and another engineer takes over.

Bungie had the opposite, whereas Halo 1–Reach, was mostly comprised of the same people.

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Not really.

The clear implications of their response are that the multiplayer shouldn’t be burdened by lore in the context of setting and design, before suggesting it should have that very same lore already present through Halo Online/H3 MCC, H2A MP, Halo 4, and Halo 5’s multiplayers, just now under the justification of being a seperate continuity like the Fractures Infinite introduced.

They only raise one point thats different, and it’s largely irrelevant since its generally describing MCC post Season 8.

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Tbh I didn’t even realize infinite had lore for multiplayer

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People who have responded so far are completely correct. However, what if they were to open slipspace up to the community. Let people mess around with it, or even look for problems and how to fix them? There are so many people in the halo community and I’m sure plenty of those people would love not only to have that opportunity, but to help 343. I would love to try and help in any way I can. Also, programmers love trying out systems and exploring new things, and there would be so many people willing to help and give feedback. Sure they’d be exposing an asset they’ve built, but they’re planning on ditching it any way so whats the worst that can happen?

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There are plethora reasons as to why this wont happen that said. Shiuld they move to UE5 and ship a solid title this will give the community a solid chance to play with that title and perhaps make releasing slipspace to the community a possibility.

I could only imagine what we could do if we got an ALEPHONE esque release for slipspace.