it’s to where you said the armor needs adjustments and i think they should just leave it in 5, they want to distance themselves so much from 4 and 5 why bother bringing armor back.
Ah.
Let me explain what I mean by adjustments.
Nearly half of the helmets of Halo Infinite are ones that are design tweaks of Gen-2 Helmets from Halo 4, Halo Online, and Halo 5.
They could easily continue this trend with all helmets and such, redesigning it when necessary to make it better fit in. For example, what if 343i wanted to actually bring the Seeker helmet into Halo Infinite? If they adjust the design to be like the picture below, they could easily apply the Seeker helmet to either the Mark V [B] or Rakshasa armor cores and no one would bat an eye because it now looks like it belongs in Halo and not some sort of other sci-fi game.
- https://external-preview.redd.it/ouJzVEU2ZHyyDixT4nHtlAPlijg82O3M_IPSxmgEig4.jpg?auto=webp&s=3992eb1a6fc72dca7a6599ff63c5408f8ab71c4b
i think they really shouldn’t concern themselves with trying to make old/new armor fit into this new/old art style, cosmetics and mtx is whole n’other problem that needs be dealt with before they add more.
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I would disagree.
It is a lot easier to try and redesign something that exists into a new form of medium.
It is more time consuming and resource draining to have to make something brand new from scratch.
For example, the Rakshasa armor core is based off of early ODST concept art from Halo CE’s early production and Season 3 is giving us SPI-style armor.
They are getting the pre-existing stuff out of the way first and then might go for more ambitious designs of armor cores afterwards once some trial-and-error is done in concept art and rendering.
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Nah dude.
It is entirely a staffing issue.
They have a problem with staff members leaving, new hires replacing them, and the new hires leaving. Production overall is quite a mess.
Plus the reason they are charging so much is because Halo Infinite had a reported budget of around $500 Million USD. So Microsoft is expecting a return of probably around $600 Million in profits from Halo Infinite AND the company has to also repay the corporate investors.
It is expensive BECAUSE of the promises to pay-back on allotted budget and investors who want to see some profits. Its basically a loan of sorts and they are indebted to repay it.
H3 Scout for me. Keep your clown suits away please lol
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Honestly, if they do eventually give us Mark VI Gen-3 as an armor core, that is just a perfect excuse to remaster the Mark VI variants of armor we had in Halo 3. Perhaps they can even revive the armor concept art to implement even more options, such as Air Assault Mark VI and call the helmet “Airborne” or something?
- “Airborne” is what i would call the armor in the background of this image —
https://preview.redd.it/53unltuksrk71.png?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=81d5918dcc85b9c40c358bbde57cd3f7b380c039
it sounds like they want us to pay more for their incredibly stupid mistakes.
Their stupid mistakes were Halo 4 and Halo 5.
When it came to Halo Infinite, they were working on reportedly four separate builds for the game until one was selected to be the final build. Which means all the development time for the other builds was essentially a waste of time for a majority of the development staff. It is honestly no surprise how Infinite had a budget of $500 Million when you hear this. And it is further not a surprise as to their staffing issues because -
A - Triple-A Devs get extremely overworked.
B - Roughly 3/4 of the staff didn’t have the version of the game become the final one which meant that they quit either out of spite or out of disappointment that their vision of what the next Halo game was to be would not come to fruition.
Add in the development hurdles that Covid put in and then it becomes all the more understandable as to why Halo Infinite launched in that messy state. We were essentially playing what in all rights was just an Alpha build of the game that had become heavily polished to appear as the final build. If Infinite could be delayed for another year or two, we would have far less of an issue.
But it COULD NOT be delayed any further BECAUSE of the circumstances of their investment deals.
Corporate investors want their investments guaranteed by a certain date.
C.I.s and developers will sign a contract stating that if “$ x” is donated, then when the game launches and profits start rolling in, we expect “$ x * 0.2” is the amount we would desire to receive as repayment for us helping to fund your company, and we expect $ x0.2 back by “y” date.
But Halo Infinite was delayed.
And delayed.
And delayed.
And delayed.
Which results in them going past that deadline date of “y”.
Which if they overextend their expected date as noted in the contract details, then the developers are expected to pay bonus interest on those investments.
So the contract would say something along the following lines -
For failure of securing $ x0.2 to the investment benefactor by y date, then as a penalty you now owe $ x * 0.4 to the investor and the due date is now “yz”. If the benefactor does not receive $ x0.4 by the day of yz, then the recipient can be expected to be seen in claims court to settle the matter.
So then because of all the delays that 343 had to impose on Infinite thus far results in an ultimatum: either launch the game in a broken mess with overpriced cosmetics in the hopes that we get enough profits coming in to pay back on our budget and pay our investors… or we can pay more money in claims court by getting our lawyers involved, adding the cost of their fees to the amount we already owe to our C.I. benefactors. And by being taken to claims court, should our lawsuit be made public enough, it may result in some members of the team losing their jobs and stock to fall in both 343 Industries and Microsoft.
It is a lose-lose situation.
Which choice has you losing more?
The one where you discourage the consumer?
Or the one where you discourage your benefactors, your superiors, and tarnish your reputation?
Halo 4 and Halo 5 were low-mid by choices directly made without understanding the outcome of them.
Halo Infinite was a flop because of a combination of the above circumstances.
Had Infinite had a much more unified direction and not have to go through four separate builds before the final one was made, the budget would be far less for them to reimburse upon with interest involved and the game would be in a much more finished state after a while.
Unfortunately, the timeline we exist in is Timeline No.2919161724511 and not Timeline No.117649 where the Halo series never had a game under a metacritic score of 87.
And my time machine is broken so now we have to sit here and accept the fact that mistakes happened and 343 is learning from their mistakes but not everything ended up the ideal manner.
oh -Yoink!-, 4 and 5 weren’t as bad as this train wreck, honestly i don’t care about all the details all i know is infinite is a massive failure not worth the time or money, if people wanna blame microsoft too fine but 343 still had a part to play.
Personally between classic and reclaimer saga styles, I prefer classic. it had generally better design that actually fit a tactical style. there were some gen-2 armors that would work quite well with the classic style with only minor adjustments (Athlon, Defender, Warrior).
Halo Infinite’s art style is my personal favorite. It is a perfect mix of new and old. the halo 4/5 helmets done in a classic art style just looks fantastic! Now all I need is an classic style Defender helmet in Infinite. (maybe also one for halo 3 mcc)
in what way is Athlon outlandish?
UNSC design phlilosophy is to make it look like futuristic military hardware, machined metals with few curves, with the only major curves being subtle sich as how the Mark VII curves from the breastplate, over the shoulder, and into the power pack onto the armor’s backside.
Athllon looks llike it was designed for paintball or airsoft in space.
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Yeah athlon is super curvy and smooth. I honestly don’t think it has a single hard edge on the entire set and that’s what the problem is. It’s nothing but smooth curves and rounded edges and has no hard angles that are one of the key features in the classic Halo design.
Sure the hard angles could be a result of original limitations on graphics due to hardware, but there were still plenty of “round” edges. Although most of those round edges still looked fairly angular because of the graphics at the time. Actually a good example of this is the Mk. V helmet in CE, 3 and Reach. You can clearly see more hard angles in CE, but three and reach had a much rounder jawline on the helmet but still kept the angles on the top of the helmet and the visor.
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Yes. But even when Bungie got etter graphics, the kept the world consistent. Halo Reach and Halo 3 retained the idea of machined materials with subtle curves, where the only major curves were the helmet’s craniums.
Even Ensemble Studios made their game LOOK like Halo, their Marines are what we used in Halo Wars 2 and Halo 2 Anniversary, and their Mark IV design was phenominal… eventually. The early design was a bit odd.
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Halo fans wanted more Halo.
343 Industries decided to not provide Halo when they took over.
343 Industries had, and still currently has, a hiring philosophy of two barriers that constantly get in the way of proper development —
1 — “Do not hire fans of Halo. Instead hire people who either have never played Halo or dislike Halo.”
2 — “Do not hire former members of Bungie Studios.”
This first rule was put in place with the thought and intention of “We don’t want more of the same. We want new and fresh ideas from unlikely perspectives to help Halo evolve beyond its former limits.”
An admirable idea when you are seeking to innovate.
But innovation was not what Halo 4 was. H4 was instead an entire transformation into its own thing. Gameplay, Art Style, Soundtrack, everything was entirely changed to hardly resemble the source material with the exception of a few key assets in the game.
Honestly, it felt like an entirely new IP that was “inspired” by the most recognizable shooters at the time.
If I were to rename the game to “Requiem”, change Chief’s rank and name to “Sergeant James” and Cortana to “Cassandra”, it would actually IMPROVE Halo 4 as a game.
And why is that?
Because of the fact that the game was dubbed “Halo” meant that players would have the previous games in mind when it came to the story presented, the gameplay at hand, the visuals presented, and the music that played as they adventured.
If Halo 4 was not called “Halo” but instead was its own IP that advertised itself as inspired by the likes of Halo and CoD, then people would have a more accepting mindset and separate set of expectations.
As for the second rule?
I find it a bit ironic that 343 always contracts out Certain Affinity to help with game production.
Because Certain Affinity was started by eight former Bungie devs who still work and manage the third-party studio.
So in truth, the second rule was technically moot and ignored long before Joseph Staten returned.
But because of a combination of these two rules, Halo 4 was something that no one was wanting.
When you want Halo, you expect Halo.
When you order chinese food, you expect chinese food.
Instead of getting what we wanted, we got something that only loosely fit the criteria.
Halo 4 was a sci-fi shooter that used the setting and characters of Halo.
Back in 2012, it was pretty much exactly what the Paramount+ Halo show was : a loose interpretation of the universe at hand.
To use an analogy I had done previously : We went to a chinese restaurant and ordered Tempura Chicken with a side of Rice. The kitchen staff cooked up and served us KFC Drumsticks and a side of Corn. And when we complained to the cooking staff, they were confused as to why were upset because we had received our order of Fried Chicken with a side of Common Grain.
Halo 5 was 343’s attempt at still having it their way while making whatever adjustments to appease their consumers.
Hence why the multiplayer went in a direction that was more like classic Halo by getting rid of the loadouts system while still insisting on making it like other shooters at the time, so Halo 5 became a borderline mobility shooter. Thank the rings that we do not have wallrunning in Halo 5.
But the major flaw of Halo 5 was the story.
While Halo 4 presented a narrative that very well fit in the style and presentation of the classic games, Halo 5 had the problem of all the creative leads of the project swapping out with new heads of development mid-way through production.
This caused the art style to become even stranger.
The music to deviate even further from the source material by now trying to sound less like generic sci-fi and instead put a “superhero movie” spin on many classic Halo soundtracks. (“The Trials” was very much a superhero action spin on “Finish The Fight / One Final Effort”).
And most importantly the story.
The script changed mid-way through the development of Halo 5, which had a catastrophic ripple effect.
Not only was the story now mostly centered on Fireteam Osiris instead of being more of a 50/50 split of missions for both Blue Team and Osiris, but there were now plenty of contradictions.
There was an image that was on Halo Waypoint as we approached the launch of Halo 5.
- https://news.xbox.com/en-us/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/SDCC-Halo5-Transmedia-Infographicjpg.jpg
The original script had intended for players to read 3 novels, play Spartan-Ops, read all 20+ issues of Halo Escalations, watch Halo Nightfall, watch Fall of Reach, play Halo 2 Anniversary to watch a few select cutscenes and terminals, watch the trailers for Halo 5, AND MOST IMPORTANTLY they expected you to listen to nearly SIX HOURS of the Hunt The Truth podcast in order to fully comprehend the story jump from Halo 4 to Halo 5.
Unfortunately, when they rewrote Halo 5 mid-development, the marketing team was still going off of the original script.
The novels still were leading up into the original script.
As a result, the events in Hunt The Truth are now a waste of time as they are non-canon to the main narrative while we were promised that the events of Hunt The Truth would tie into the events of Halo 5’s story.
A promise shattered with the force of a MAC round fired in atmosphere.
343 Industries has lacked consistency throughout the entirety of their story of the games.
Halo 4 had set up the Didact to make his return and Spartan-Ops introduced Jul 'Mdama as a major player in the game narrative… … … only to have the Didact killed off in a comic book and Jul be taken out like a pansy in the first 10 minutes of the final script of Halo 5.
Halo 5 ushered in Cortana as the new villain and set up the entire created conflict… … … only to make that now a background setup to what we have now in Halo Infinite and taking Cortana off the playing field as of the start of Halo Infinite.
Halo Wars 2 introduced the Banished… … … and surprisingly kept them around while introducing a new threat out of The Endless for Halo Infinite.
Halo 4 and Halo 5 were both train wrecks.
Halo Infinite is 343’s first attempt at actually making a Halo game, only for the development hell that it was to lead to this new train wreck. At least now they are dedicating this one to be a 10 year live service game, so perhaps by mid Year 2 or Year 3 this game can actually come back from the brink. You know like Fallout New Vegas.
Since the votes here had stagnated a little and @DERK_91 stated that this question would have better results if posted to another section of Halo Waypoint, I figured that I might just follow up with that.
The only issue is that Waypoint doesn’t want you repeating the same post over-and-over again in multiple threads; as that can be considered spam.
So I posted the same poll on Halo Wikia’s discussion forums…
You can see the results there once you vote, but so far out of the 30 votes in the poll, all votes have been made for Classic Bungie / Neo-Classic 343 style of Halo’s presentation.
- https://halo.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000000128914/r/4400000000000349220
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I still think you could post it on the Infinite page and it be fine. I’ve seen people post the same topic multiple times in the same area and not get punished. Not saying that’s okay or that spamming is good to do.
This topic does have merit on the infinite page where it certainly will get far more traction. And if they do try to do something I can easily point out at least 3 people who have spammed in the last month and nothing got done about it.
Maybe. Let’s give it a go.
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