Where are all the Sandbox purists now?

Games Halo Infinite
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62

The entire game is undercooked let alone the sandbox and they didn’t even achieve the variety goal. For every interesting idea they have another aspect of the design undermines. Take the Cindershot, a player guided weapon is something I’ve always wanted to see but it is immediately undermind by its lower than necesary damage. Similarly the Heatwave is interesting in concept with the swapping horizontal/vertical spread and banking projectiles, but its damage is so low that the wide shot is pointless and the bounce is only worthwhile if another player has a sliver of health.

Meanwhile redundancy is still an issue with the Mangler simply being a better Sidekick and other weapons like the Disruptor just feel like it stole the EMP from the Plasma Pistol and called it a day.

Oh and we now know that Infinite has something in common with Halo 5 in that many of the more interesting mechanics and better versions of weapons are once again held hostage by “variants”

The Infinite sandbox is just 343 making the same mistakes they made with Halo 5’s sandbox and failing to retain the good aspects of Halo 5 such as most weapons having relatively fast TTK’s and weapons based around precision generally shot straight.

Infinite has an absolutely pitiful amount of content across nearly every aspect of the game, blame 343 not the folks who want a decent sandbox. Despite many of Halo 5’s weapons objectively outperforming the Magnum we still ended up with a bunch of chuds pretending the Magnum was the only gun to use. So sorry you don’t get to use whatever reskinned weapon was your favorite, but you take it up with those actually responsible instead of treating 343 like they were just a bystander.

Its incredibly tiresome to see people continually blame the community for 343’s decisions.

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63

You have google.

Wow, how childish. Egregiously childish. They are both require a singular strike but so does a rocket launcher. The energy sword and shotgun are both different, why - because they afford different playstyles. I’m talking specifically H3 here.

The shotgun in H3’s effective combat range is about half or a third of the swords. Not only that, but it also has a faster fire rate and allows for more defensive play. In a bubble shield, you have a better chance of killing 3 or 4 guys due to the range and fire rate than that of a sword that affords a more aggressive playstyles more for taking out one person at a time.

They are completely different - thats why Infection works. The sword and shotgun are both mobile, killing machines but they facilitate completely different playstyles.

The bulldog is great cause its kind of an inbetween. If you don’t get how they’re different, then you’re calling the kettle black.

I’m gonna skip the ‘no u are’ -Yoink!-. I’ve explained well enough the differences between two obviously distinct weapons. Hammer and Sword, similar weapons but again fill very different roles. They are more similar than others but again - different playstyles.

The SMG, different range, different Dmg, different everything. Closer range, ect. It could be better. The SMG could be to the AR what the Sidekick would be to the Magnum.

More to the point - Halo has repeatedly made redundant weapons but they don’t HAVE to be. Furthermore, if you don’t get that then you’re beyond help. xD

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Honestly I think the current sandbox is pretty solid, though a couple guns need some buffs. I’d rather they keep the current weapons and tweak them than just force in old weapons. Weapons feel distinct, and I like how the UNSC/Banished/Forerunner arsenals don’t feel like mirrors of eachother.

The bulldog is a bit baffling though, the classic shotgun would be perfect for this current sandbox. Not because its ‘classic’ but because the TTK is so fast, and every other gun has vastly superior range, that it needs to be useful up close (or have its effective range further increased). Every time I get it i’d rather just have an AR and melee, and the number of bulldog users i’ve melee’d to death is hilarious.

The Disruptor/Plasma Pistol situation is also a bit odd. The Plasma Pistol’s overcharge isn’t particularly great, leaving the plasma pistol largely a trap choice. It lost the EMP ability to vehicles so the Disruptor could be the EMP pistol, but the disruptor itself doesn’t feel particularly great either, unlike the Shock Rifle, which feels unique and fun.

The Heatwave’s actual shotgun mode is pretty bad, I wish I could just default it to the horizontal fire. Once its vertical I actually rather enjoy it.

Pulse Carbine needs a lock-on range increase and I think it’d be fine. Anyone at long range should be able to dodge it anyway

Ravager mostly just needs buffs. Conceptually I think its a great gun. I wish more covy/banished guns had overcharge options. I prefer it to the red bullet hose the brute plasma rifle was. But right now its kinda awkward to aim with and even when you hit the damage just feels like nothing.

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By this logic you believe that every weapon is unique then, which is fine, but I see how things are alike and you see how they are different. Different interpretations of the same thing essentially.

We’re basically arguing semantics more than anything if that makes sense. If you seriously think SMG is a unique gun then again, you believe every single weapon ever made is a unique weapon, and that’s not bad but obviously others see it differently.

This is a horrible argument. Best infection mode by far was Alpha Zombies, and what made it great was the pistol in that game. There are others ways of creating distance then creating a weapon with slightly more range than another lol.

Edit: Zombies is an interesting mode, tons of variations possible. Shotgun isn’t a necessary aspect of it in my opinion.

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This isn’t a pure sandbox. They’re still using “weapon categories” for power weapons. AND most pickups are not worth picking up next to an AR or a BR. I don’t think you can make a compelling case for the Bulldog over the AR. Nor the Heatwave. The Hydra is a 4-shot missile launcher. Why would you EVER drop a BR for that? The Ravager? This is the most muddled sandbox we’ve ever had probably, if you exclude the mess of dual-wielding.

Halo games ranked in order of weapon sandbox purity:

  1. CE
  2. Reach
  3. 5

5 might rank higher if not for the confused precision rifle lineup.

In Infinite, I might pick up a Cindershot. A Commando if I can’t find a BR. But there is very little case made for most of the weapons in the sandbox for general gameplay.

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Hyperbolic nonsense thats calling me a moron, essentially. Is what I can surmise from this.

You’re not worth my time.

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“Just add weapons” yeah you mean like Warzone and others out there where you have to know what the weekly/monthly meta is and the endless adjustments because you have 600 variables to figure out.

Yeah, every time you add something into live production you create upkeep and increase the ripple effect of global adjustments. The less BS the better regardless if it’s in a sandbox or not.

Yes with other IPs having different mashups and almost endless options in weaponry makes sense, but that doesn’t make sense with Halo. The options are in the action, case in point is Halo 3 ( I strongly recommend CircleToonsHD’s Halo 3 summary).

There was plenty of junk in Forge that wasn’t in the base game modes (Looking at the 7 Wood)
All the chaos and creativity was in Forge, which isn’t here yet because reasons. Which most certainly will come packaged with some weapons of some sort.

Have you been on the internet? It’s not uncommon for people talking about it playing like a rebooted classic Halo, especially for those of us that know about Quake and Unreal.

Nobody was like “Wow I love Halo 4/5 for the robust arms selection” in fact, despite it being fun in it’s own right it just had extra stuff just thrown on top of it. I honestly can’t even recall anything noteworthy in said selection either.

What? Every player is an agent of chaos and in my initial 50 hours of gameplay, I’m consistently seeing chaos, creativity, and close match ups/unpredictability.

This is WITHOUT Forge and not even getting into the customs (albeit they’re broken as hell right now).

So if we want to look at the base MP sandbox, yeah this start we have is pretty impressive. It’s got some rough edges and I’m a bit concerned about the Halo 5/343i effect of seemingly not having quality project management skills, but otherwise we have a strong core and even the 2042 community is making fun of Waypoint & r/halo for being as extra as possible.

Theory crafting is one thing, but like I’m not seeing constructive feedback on the game here. I’m just hearing basement theory.

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The sandbox is just that, a sandbox. It’s not our fault 343 doesn’t want to make tools for the sandbox and curate maps. Having random weapons spawn in the weapon lockers is terrible. Make your map, place the weapons in a deliberate way, and bam, you don’t have to include everything in the sandbox. Balancing is a matter of planning. Why does it matter if the there is a sniper and a covenant sniper if you’ll only ever see one or the other on any given map? (Despite filling the same role they both act very different in regards to ammo management.)

There is no reason they can’t have double the guns IF they were willing to actually put in the work and deliberately design their maps and weapon spawns accordingly, but 343 is taking too many shortcuts for a large sandbox to work.

It’s not that a large or small sandbox is good or bad, it’s that smaller sandboxes are easier to balance WHEN spawns are randomized. The reason Bungie Halo was so beautiful is because you could pick and choose what you give your players and each map became it’s own style and cadence from the rest. Favyn has a video on this you all need to watch instead of trying to insult people you disagree with.

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70

I totally agree that each faction must have its own arsenal. But Bungie always built the gameplay first, and then justified it with lore. The problem with having too many similar weapons is that they become less memorable, and it’s a waste of resources that could have been spent trying to make something more unique, adding more depth and replayability.

This is why I think Promethean weapons in H4 were not interesting, and why Infinite’s Forerunner weapons are an improvement. For Halo 2, as much as it makes sense lore-wise for the Brutes to have a unique Plasma Rifle (and I loved it), it wasn’t really interesting. And even the Spiker was just an SMG, but I think that if given enough time, Bungie would have made it stand out a little more.

Plus there are many missed opportunities. We know the Covenant Carbine shot radioactive projectiles (to justify the green trail so PvE players could see snipers), but it would have been a great opportunity to give it damage over time, hence making less like a simple “alien BR”. Same thing with HCE’s Plasma Rifle and its stun/slowing ability.

As for variants… I’m conflicted. If it’s just a simple stat change, then it’s not really interesting. If it’s the same weapon, but with its gimmick twisted in an interesting way, then I’m okay with that. I would love to have a unique Plasma Pistol with a charged shot that regen allies’ shields.

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What’s really odd is that Halo 5 had variants for 1 specific reason, and that was to bolster the REQ pack system (Halo 5’s microtransaction system for anyone unaware) and so its really weird that they’d still keep it as a concept in Halo Infinite. Does this mean they’ll bring back Warzone? Does this mean we’ll see more variants over time? idk.

I think the benefit of variants is huge for Campaign because (at least in terms of how it seems in Infinite) it makes each boss fight a bit different, and it gives the players a reward for doing side missions. So overall its probably just as important for Campaign in Infinite as it was for PvP in Halo 5, so its weird. Also would be surprised if they don’t roll out a Firefight mode within the first year, all them cool bosses and no Firefight mode would just be sad.

I agree with you that the more unusual a variant the better, but I do think that’s a bit easier said than done. At some point you have to wonder why not just make a completely different weapon altogether right? its a bit odd but I think the variant system will stick around for a long time.

Edit: also we’ve only seen like 2 Forerunner weapons IIRC, Sentinel Beam/Cindershot, so pretty small sample size compared to promethean weapons which was far more comparatively.

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72

That’s an excellent point. I would say that as long as it shares the same core principle, it’s still the same weapon.

And the Heatwave. I would like the Incineration Cannon to be back tho, because it was the only Promethean weapon that really felt unique.

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Agreed.

I think that Halo is at its best when they make awesome, lore-based weapons that feel good to use in the campaign, then balance them in MP through their spawn locations etc.

Working so hard to carefully balance the sandbox will not only make the MP more boring, but will have a very negative impact on the campaign as well. I will be sorely missing the SMG and DMR!

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Because 343 didn’t make a very diverse sandbox, everything in Infinite is based around lethality ( save for Plasma Pistol ) and as such everything feels bland.
No weapon in Infinite is good as a shield shredder tool or an HP shredder, everything is everything.
Where’s the Plasma Rifle with it’s stun? where’s the classic shotgun to counter the sword? where’s the carbine ( a better version of the commando )?

343’s sandbox is nothing but kill kill kill, so it feels shallow. CE and H3 stand above the rest in that their sandbox isn’t perfect ( H3 at least ) but has a huge amount of variety that stands out.

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be careful criticizing the community.

they don’t like that.

rip.