When we get an armor toggle this is how it should work

Games Halo Infinite
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Halo had an artistic tone that was pretty consistent from CE-Reach. It was a bit more tough and anything that wasn’t cannon was at least “cool” and not “cute” and fit the theme of Halo. H4 and H5 strayed from the path and received due criticism. Infinite promised a return to form in many ways and the art style was one of them. Many armors added to Infinite don’t fit the classic Halo art style as they either are “cute”, look like H4 or H5 armor, or look like Fallout power armor. The below toggle would allow for everyone to see the stuff they want while also allowing those that want a more consistent art style to have what 343 promised with Infinite in the return to the classic Halo art style.

I will call it a “Silly Slider” for lack of a better term. It will have 3 (or 4) states:

  1. Only Cannon Armor
  • nothing silly like cat ears, no fracture armors,
    still have armors that may not fit the classic
    Halo art style but are considered cannon by
    343
  • no kill effects
  • second most consistent art direction and by
    definition most cannon
  1. Classic Halo Art Style
  • fractures like Yoroi are okay, no armors like.
    EagleStrike or some over designed Rakshasa helmets, no armor effects
    outside of maybe a flaming helmet, no cat ears
  • basically anything similar to H3s original MP
    armor
  • no kill effects
  • most consistent art direction
  1. Anything And Everything
  • anything 343 wants to make goes
  • least consistent art style, most freedom
  1. Just Disable Kill Effects, Everything Else Included

If you were able to choose what toggle option would you go with?

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3

0 voters

  • 4
  • already chose 1, 2, or 3

0 voters

*Sorry option 4 was added after the allowed time to change a poll.

I think there are really 3 camps here and just a simple toggle of cannon or not wouldn’t satisfy all 3. I personally want option 2 that i stated above. Bungie had a pretty cohesive art style even when things were a bit goofy like Hayabusa. 343 ruined that trying to completely change it for no other reason than to just separate themselves from Bungie’s work and Infinite finally being mostly back to that is great but seeing as I’m in camp 2 you can guess the issues i have with some armors.

The “Silly Slider” i am proposing would allow you to choose 1 of the 3 states above for the armor that is visible by you. (And we know 343 most likely won’t ever do any of this because people might not see something they want to buy/might not buy something they can’t force everyone to see. This is just a wish list if 343 is listening and willing to make changes the community might want even if it’s not the best business decision)

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Wearing armors that clearly don’t fit the tone and style of Halo is like going to a 70’s costume party and wearing closes from the early 2000’s.

Even if the host of the party (343) says its okay everyone else came expecting a certain look and now that people have indulged themselves in armors that don’t fit it kind of ruins the party for everyone else because it is distracting and just simply doesn’t belong.

This slider would let people wear what they want while allowing those of us that want a cohesive art style to have better immersion.

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H3 had the best armors in the series and it would be nice to be able to return to something akin to that without having stuff like cat ears and Fallout power armor but i guess i do get why people like them even though they don’t fit the classic Halo tone and style.

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Only thing I could see toggle-able is armor effects, nothing else. But even then, unlike other Halo’s, people purchased these items to showcase themselves to other people, or grind-ed for specific ones for the same reason. People will be pissed if you take the reason they picked up those items away, to the point they may never touch sales again because they know now that at any time, the reason they obtained those items can be taken away from them.

This would also be really bad for 343i’s business model for Halo, having people stream the game and showcase the skins in game, if people just turned it off, then they’d lose out on all the free advertising, which could mean more sales to the game.

You’d also have a lot of conflict for what people consider silly and what’s not. An easy one many would consider silly, but is in fact very canon with the game is the Mark VII Teddy Bear chest piece. Why? You notice the name of the chest piece, it’s actually based off an event that is canon with the franchise of a Spartan getting a Teddy Bear from a clone that she kept on her.

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I agree with almost all of that but if others are correct the teddy bear was smashed inside the armor from the event you are talking about and not on the outside.

343 has no reason beyond artistic integrity to allow players who want the classic Halo art style to be preserved to be able to enjoy Halo with the art style and tone that we originally fell in love with.

That said all the stuff you mentioned is just another reason i really hate it when a franchise spans multiple mediums. If it is not carefully parsed through then you end up with basically different universes that have the same veneer.

Like how some people liked Halo 4s story because it showed the “Book Chief”. But many people like me hate Halo 4 because the “Book Chief” is not the same as “Game Chief”. Same thing goes for Cortana and the Forerunners. Even if all the other reasons i hate Halo 4s campaign were fixed that one just ruins the experience and thats what is happening even if the teddy bear is cannon. That is from too many people being able to add stuff that just doesn’t fit the tone and art style of Halo’s games into it because it was also in a Halo book which also didn’t match the games tone.

343 has basically told us to just deal with it in regards to them adding items that objectively don’t fit into Halo just for sales, which while i understand, it would be nice to be able to preserve the Halo art style that Bungie had set up and many fans want to see unblemished.

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From a player standpoint the only reason to not have a toggle is to force others to see the armor you bought/unlocked most likely knowing it doesn’t fit the art aesthetics.

But a toggle still allows this expression just not at the cost of damaging the experience for others. Plus they would never know who could and couldn’t see their armor and MCC has a toggle as well, which is not just a cannon toggle but actually more like my option 2 above.

:arrow_down: yes i do. It was 2 very different comments that paired together the second one might easily be skipped over by other readers.

7

You do know there’s an edit button correct? It’s the pencil in the lower right corner of your posts…

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Personally I just want an option to disable kill effects because they can be super distracting; I don’t mind seeing the diversity of character expression in Infinite. To me that is part and parcel of online games.

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I should have put that into both 1 and 2 already but didn’t so now it is there. I figuered saying cannon and then basically anything akin to H3, which had no kill effects, would have covered that issue.

Maybe there needs to be a 4th option that just disables kill effects🤔 i guess ill go back and add that

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Option 2 is extremely subjective though. Whatever they choose to be the “classic Halo Artstyle” is not going to please anyone. I don’t like how the plasma weapons now have stocks and a definite barrel. They can’t be replaced using a slider.
Or like Rakshasa. Most of the armor is based on various concept art. How is that not classic? SPI is supposed to be coming, but that was from the books. Does that count? Or is it only the games? Does it exclude Mk. 7 for being a mix of styles? What about Reach? Many felt that Reach was “too realistic”. What about coatings? If we want to be realistic, no way would they have Spartans with custom colors. Best they would do is paint them different to fit the mission. Or Maybe I want the real classic artstyle. No customization at all! Everyone stays defaut and you get 1 color in ffa Slayer!

I don’t have a problem with toggles like what is “canon” or maybe only fractures, or just armor effects/death effects. But trying to find a middle-ground between all of it in a series that already has extreme variance in artstyles and preferences is next to impossible. At most we would get a checklist where you just check what cores you can see, and on other player’s screens it swaps to that core. Like I like Rakshasa, that’s what I wear. But if you have that core unchecked, then you’ll see one of my other cores. But again, what about the coatings? Solid gold is obnoxious even for Halo, but I don’t want to unselect a checklist that already has way too many coatings. Same with armor effects too. That would be a hassle not just to program, but go and uncheck everything yourself. Regularly too if the game is updated consistently.

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So yeah option 2 would be only the style from the games, CE-Reach specifically. We got H4 and H5 and now many other armors because they didn’t respect the style so honestly they need a board of people dedicated to determining if it fits. How could CE-Reach be so consistent for the most part and now you are saying “well how would anyone know of it fits or not?” Clearly those games had people who made sure there was a consistent art direction and we need that to return.

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As I’ve said before, though a toggle would be nice, no doubt people would personally go to 343’s offices and evict them because they don’t like where the line was drawn.

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A line in the sand for a toggle has already been drawn. Everything 343 has listed as manufactured by FOTUS or 343 Industries within the game has clearly been categorised on purpose. Just as everything from Fractures themselves have been categorised.

The only exceptions here being fracture coatings & visors as they are intended to be cross-core. Unlike the rest of fracture cosmetics.

That is the only way a toggle does not get debated. Go by the logistical and reasonable separation that is already present.

Anything else is muddled and biased.

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Bungie era isn’t consistent either though. Even Halo 2 and 3 has its differences. And how Halo CE and Halo Reach can co-exist at the same time is just weird to me. Even Mark 7 is a mix of Halo 3 and Reach with some Halo 4/5 helmets. Halo Wars 2 mixed styles too, so if they ever did a Mk. 4 core, where would that land with your board. What if the board puts in something that you don’t like? Now you’re back to square one. We’re back to how you are seeing stuff that you don’t like with your subjective opinion despite a toggle being present. Do we add another toggle to the toggle?

Again, the only way everyone could be happy is to have a checklist system for every category. But then if cross-core comes along, that is going to be a nightmare.

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15

Halo’s art style under Bungie actually went through 3 major changes due not only to hardware budgets but art direction as well.

Just look at the marines for a simple example:

https://halo.wiki.gallery/images/thumb/8/87/Marine_Evolution.jpg/1200px-Marine_Evolution.jpg

Boiling it down to “tough” really doesn’t do the argument justice, the armor in 4 and 5 could be considered “tough” as well. Describing the differing aesthetics as “Alien” inspired, or “Stargate-esque” would be a better descriptor.

The art style really only changed twice once between CE and 2, and then from 3 to Reach. The latter was honestly a change that was almost as radical as from Reach to 4, but managed to reel in the direction a bit to prefer a reimagining of CE in a sense (as seen in CEA’s early release images and final product). It was far different from 2/3’s established visual identity though.

Also what would be considered “cool” that wasn’t canon?

343 did the opposite of what Bungie did and evolved the look in the way Bungie devolved the art direction for Reach. It wasn’t a good look, but changing an art style doesn’t always mean bad (as seen with Bungie’s approach to Reach). They just took the ball and ran with it unfortunately, and really embraced the current popular hyper detailed art style of the gaming industry at the time.

Infinite did return to a more classic art style, that being a hybrid of Reach and 2/3. The armors that “don’t fit” are purposefully designed to look like they don’t belong in the universe (Fractures as really the only example based on your description). You misunderstand their inclusion as intrusive when they’re simply included for fun and 110% not as canon.

Suggesting “Fractures” actually takes away from the “return to form” art style shows that you misinterpreted the intended purpose of the armor in the first place: tertiary to the established “classic” art style, not in competition with it.

I can agree with fracture armors, as they’re officially non-canon. However, Cat Ears are yet to be proven as “non-canon”.

Kill effects/armor effects should have their own toggle as they’ve factually been around since Halo 3.

Give me some examples of what “may not fit Halo art style”, this gets thrown around a lot and is incredibly vague, and Halo fans en masse have made it overtly clear that “vague” statements aren’t acceptable.

Your last point doesn’t make much sense.

Why does Yoroi get a pass but Eagle Strike not? Yoroi doesn’t take inspiration from anything “classic”. And don’t say “Hayabusa” because that’s directly based off of Ninja Gaiden, not feudal Samurai.

Armor effects originated in Halo 3, getting rid of them conflicts with your second point. On that note no armor currently available actually fits your second point.

Rakshasa overtly takes inspiration from Marine designs in Halo 3 and Reach. Why would that be barred from this category?

Kill effects originated in Reach.

What is your actual definition for “Classic Halo Art Style”? For your last point being “ most consistent art direction” your guidelines are anything but.

So… “Default”?

Honestly I don’t know why overly complicated, conflicting, and specifically vague categories have to be tossed around.

  • Disable Fracture (y/n)
  • Disable Kill Effects (y/n)
  • Disable Armor Effects (y/n)
  • Disable Individual Manufactures (checkboxes)

That’s all that’s needed.

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Fair point. I think H4 and H5 took on a “Transformers” esk art style. Really over designed and looked robotic a lot of the time. Helioskrill was super well designed and i honestly would love to see it come back though.

I agree here.

So yeah Hayabusa is the inspiration but its not like a direct parent to Yoroi. Correct me if i am wrong but i thought it came from Gundam and not Ninja Gaiden. Either way Hayabusa has samurai style shoulder pads and a katana. Either one of the games it might have been inspired by were themselves inspired by older Japanese armors. So yeah Hayabusa is just 1 more step removed from being directly inspired by Samurai armor but still inspired by similar Japanese armors and Yoroi definitely feels like a spiritual successor.

I guess you are right for the most part. It is really just some helmets that are way over designed for it that throw it off so i will remove it from the list up there.

The Reach armor core, Yoroi, and the base armor core save a few helmets that look like they are from H4 or H5 would all fit into option 2 above and now i guess also Rakshasa minus a couple of helmets that are over designed like H4 and H5 armor.

I guess Bungie knew how to grow the art style without tainting it. 343 seems incapable or at the very least unwilling to do so. They just don’t seem to be able to stay on the path of consistency with the art direction and that may sound subjective but i would bet 90% of people would be able to argee if you started taking armors 1 by 1 and asking them whether it fit the art direction or not. Sure its not exact science but the armors do have a feel and i am sure you understand what i mean.

The reason the suggestions have to be complicated is because 343 has injected armor pieces that just don’t match the tone/style/aesthetic properly and the only way to keep a consistent tone/style/aesthetic is to have a decently complicated toggle since not just whole armor cores don’t fit but sometimes just individual pieces or even just attachments don’t fit.

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Honestly would love to have this toggle, and I think the only thing I would add is that it would be awesome to have a toggle to default everyone to gray armor or RVB.

I would particularly seeing this stuff as being valuable if they release more PVE content or something immersive and based on real combat in the canon/not based on war games.

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They’ve been categorised for the sake of lore, not for pre-empting an armor toggle that would require developing a whole new UI subsystem. Every single match a player loads into also means streaming toggle setting from up to 24 players. What could go wrong?

I think we need to tamper our expectation of what is possible. 343i have barely touched the shop design and that is central to its existence as a F2P.

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19

The sheer arrogance of “When” and not “if” is absolutely hilarious to me. This toggle isn’t coming.

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Since the free to play is the business plan, it would be really stupid to even consider it. They make money selling armor and cosmetics after all, turning this off would greatly hinder this, since people wearing armor is free advertising and trying to get people to make the push to purchase some themselves.

2 Likes