Microsoft Halo Infinite - Information Thread, update (01/15/24): Certain Affinity's battle royale project reportedly cancelled, UE5-based campaign project in development since 2022

[JPDunks4]

 

[silentbob]

7 minutes ago, JPDunks4 said:

 

I was wondering when they would CoD up my multiplayer, and that’s not backhanded remark. I liked how you could earn credits for playing CoD and apply for gun skins and stuff. Glad to see this coming to Halo, gotta get my cat ears somehow.

[JPDunks4]

23 minutes ago, silentbob said:

I was wondering when they would CoD up my multiplayer, and that’s not backhanded remark. I liked how you could earn credits for playing CoD and apply for gun skins and stuff. Glad to see this coming to Halo, gotta get my cat ears somehow.

 

Fortnite and Apex Battle Passes both had this as well, its pretty standard and was pretty surprising they didn't have it Day 1 for the Premium Battle Pass.

[The def star]

1 minute ago, JPDunks4 said:

 

Fortnite and Apex Battle Passes both had this as well, its pretty standard and was pretty surprising they didn't have it Day 1 for the Premium Battle Pass.

I'm curious to see how they plan to do this. Since currently season passes don't run out. Usually in $10 battle passes that expire they have about $5-10 worth of in game credits that can go towards the next battle pass. Usually they can do this since most people don't finish the season and never get the full amount of credits in the battle pass back. Or could this mean they will eventually expire as well?

[JPDunks4]

6 minutes ago, The def star said:

I'm curious to see how they plan to do this. Since currently season passes don't run out. Usually in $10 battle passes that expire they have about $5-10 worth of in game credits that can go towards the next battle pass. Usually they can do this since most people don't finish the season and never get the full amount of credits in the battle pass back. Or could this mean they will eventually expire as well?

 

I think Apex and Fortnite, you spend $10, then earn $15 back.  $10 for next season and $5 extra spending money.  I'd assume they do at least $10 back, but will prob follow the other big players and do $15 worth in rewards.

 

I doubt they will have them expire.   You want player engagement in these F2P games, and keeping players happy and feeling rewarded goes a long way to helping that.  The ill will having stuff expire just cause of digital currency wouldn't be worth the hit.

[Spork3245]

I don’t remember if I posted this already, but my one complaint in SP is that the vehicles all feel like they’re made of paper mache. I get why they did this, considering how much easier it is to “get” a vehicle, but sheesh.

[skillzdadirecta]

1 hour ago, Spork3245 said:

I don’t remember if I posted this already, but my one complaint in SP is that the vehicles all feel like they’re made of paper mache. I get why they did this, considering how much easier it is to “get” a vehicle, but sheesh.

The vehicles are terrible in this game to be honest.

[JPDunks4]

3 hours ago, Spork3245 said:

I don’t remember if I posted this already, but my one complaint in SP is that the vehicles all feel like they’re made of paper mache. I get why they did this, considering how much easier it is to “get” a vehicle, but sheesh.

 

Ya the wheeled vehicles have little weight to them, its odd.  They flip far too easy, and the Warthog themselves feel to weak and blow up too easy.  The Ghost on the other hand is nearly indestructible. 

 

The terrain isn't very vehicle friendly either, meaning you have to often leave your Marine friends behind, who don't know how to navigate a small climb or drop down at all.

[ARZ]

1 hour ago, skillzdadirecta said:

The vehicles are terrible in this game to be honest.

 

Ghost is the best by far, I snag it whenever I get a chance

[JPDunks4]

 

[best3444]

22 minutes ago, JPDunks4 said:

 

 

Well deserved! 

[Guest]

Attrition is fun if you have a good team. Hard with randos.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

343i believes that they might have finally fixed the game's BTB problems:

 

Halo Infinite Update - Jan 28

FORUMS.HALOWAYPOINT.COM

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Hey all – we’re back with another weekly update! This time we wanted to provide more info on Big Team Battle, continue our conversations around the Shop, and more. Let’s get to it! Big Team Battle Status Update Using the telemetry we received from the hotfix on January 19, we were able to make a new build with an update that we believe should address the core issue impacting the BTB playlist. The studio ran a successful playtest today and plans to...

 

[silentbob]

Thank god it was an issue on their end for BTB, because I would lose connection like crazy at the :01secs when loading the map. I thought my system was having issues because it happen with my One X with BTB on the MCC too, but that was months ago. 
 

just had a Halo night for the first in a long time. Had to start with the MCC because of my buddies brother not use to Infinite. We did ok but I sucked for most of the games, but jumped to Infinite after his brother left. This was my time to shine and we played 4-5 rounds and won every one of them. Plus I had a great Spider-Man grapple hook swing away to safety moment the night before, which I still proud of. It would be chaotic but I would love to see a BTB Fiesta playlist happen

[Guest]

The tragic failure of BTB the last month and a half is really brutal and took a lot of the wind out of the sails on MP for my crew. We were regularly getting 8-12 people on to run BTB together, and the connection issues killed the desire to try. It has gotten better, but still inexcusable how often it either fails to load or randomly one person from our fireteam won’t make it into the game.

[silentbob]

I’d love to play more BTB with friends, but they’re a bit bitter because of connection/teammates issues and being too far in the hole with no other players from past Halo games. I will admit that this game does a pretty good job of filling in the gaps when that happens, but we are usually a team of 4 anyways. I think once Forge is finally ready, you will see more jump on. I wanna do a infinite amount of grapple shots, floating platforms with shield holes with a one way shield. Plus make it rockets and sticky grenades only, but I’ll make plenty of cover points to hide/grapple too. 
 

 

so if I may for the Forge release 

 

 

[JPDunks4]

 

He said think of it as a Bigger Big Team Battle, like a BF Conquest Mode

[silentbob]

19 hours ago, JPDunks4 said:

 

He said think of it as a Bigger Big Team Battle, like a BF Conquest Mode

I would love to see them go back to the format they had in ODST with the Horde like mode. If they can make it something bigger with the same progression and limiting the lives per round sort of thing, but with health packs. I would be a very very happy gamer

[TwinIon]

After finally finding a fix that worked for me, I was able to get the campaign working on PC gamepass, and I had a good number of hours to put into it over the weekend.

 

While Combat Evolved will always have a very special place in my heart, I think this is the best single player Halo to date by a wide margin. Halo has always been at it's best when you're given a bigger combat arena to play around in, and Infinite offers so much more of that. Besides simply having more open areas, each open area feels like it offers so many real options. You can often go through some caves, approach from above, storm the front gate, or just do anything you like. I love going into an area and feeling like I can approach it however I want also knowing that there are probably other options if I look around a bit.

 

The combat loop is different from previous games thanks to the equipment, but I think the changes are generally for the better. The game feels really excellent, so it doesn't matter that I'm not killing enemies for XP or loot, because the combat is just fun. Obviously the stand out is the grappling hook. Infinite is far from the first to implement it, but the execution is really wonderful. Between traversal around the map, movement during combat, going in for a melee stun, and taking over vehicles, it's just the best. It was very easy to spend all my upgrades points in it before anything else.

 

I think there are legitimate criticisms that could be made as to how Infinite uses its open world. The story structure doesn't really encourage exploration, the in game benefits for clearing everything on the map often feel limited, and there just isn't all that much to do. Also, while I think the map is well designed, it's not all that big. Overall though, I just enjoy the combat so much that none of that is too much of a probleml. I don't need significant incentives to do much in this game, because I just enjoy doing stuff in it.

 

I do wish I could bind each piece of equipment to a different key. I pretty much never use half of the equipment because swapping between them is annoying and the grapple is so good. I often throw the tracking puck into an area, but other than that it's right back to the grapple. If I could press one button to dodge or throw down cover, I might, but as is I've hardly used them.

 

A few other very minor improvements I think they could make involve the FOBS. I wish FOBs all had ammo boxes (which themselves are a great addition) or automatically refilled your ammo, so I didn't have to go and select my two weapons again if I just want a refill. I also wish that you could set default weapons at the FOBs, so I could show up, have my 4 favorite weapons available, but still select a different one if I wanted.

 

Overall though, I'm enjoying it much more than I expected, even having put a few hours into the multiplayer. I'll definitely be looking to replay this in co-op.

 

 

[TwinIon]

I forgot to mention that I’ve also had some technical issues. As I mentioned, I couldn’t get the game to log me in with PC Gamepass. It seems I still have to delete some random token folder every time I reboot my PC, which is great. I’ve also fallen through the floor a few times, had some crazy graphical glitch (that might have been solved by driver updates?), and even had a pair of complete game crashes. It seems to run smoothly most of the time, but still not the most technically solid game I’ve played lately.

 

It also really wanted to force my Bose headphones into speakerphone mode, despite my having disabled a bunch of settings to prevent that in basically every other program and game. I finally found a fix to disable that in one more place and got it working. 

[TwinIon]

Finished the campaign and have collected most things, but not all. Loved the gunplay all the way through, very happy with how the game continuously leaned in to larger combat areas, even during the more linear missions. Definitely the high point for Halo single player gameplay.

 

Even as someone that tends to praise short, well made games, I wish there was more in Infinite. More missions, bigger map, more things to do, co-op, a few areas of polish or a more in depth progression system. This is a game with an enormous dev team, that has been making Halo games for a decade, given their longest timeline yet, but in many ways it doesn't feel like it. The graphics are fine, but never amaze. The open world is cool, but in a world of open world games, it fails to impress.

 

Still, I'll cut them plenty of slack because I think it's the best 343i game to date, and by a wide margin. They finally got the fundamentals right, and if we take them at their word, they've built a base upon which they can continue building solid Halo content for years to come. Lets just hope that future additions to infinite don't take too long.

[TheLeon]

Whenever Forge gets added, do we know if it’ll allow for single player/co-op level creation? That’s honestly all I need, just a series of outposts and bases to take over.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

1 hour ago, TheLeon said:

Whenever Forge gets added, do we know if it’ll allow for single player/co-op level creation? That’s honestly all I need, just a series of outposts and bases to take over.

 

 

[Guest]

19 hours ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

 

 

I can appreciate this. My policy for announcements regarding business stuff is we announce when we are ready, not when everybody wants it. Been burned too many times by unexpected issues.

[Stickey]

15 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

I can appreciate this. My policy for announcements regarding business stuff is we announce when we are ready, not when everybody wants it. Been burned too many times by unexpected issues.

Like releasing a game

[TwinIon]

2 hours ago, sblfilms said:

I can appreciate this. My policy for announcements regarding business stuff is we announce when we are ready, not when everybody wants it. Been burned too many times by unexpected issues.

 

While I generally agree with you, I do think there is something to setting expectations if you want to keep a player base active. Blizzard wasn't very good at it with WoW back when I played, and they've gotten better over time with Hearthstone, but the best among games I've played is Bungie with Destiny 2. They have weekly blog posts, set timelines both shorter and longer term, and even if they don't make every date, it's still appreciated that we have some idea where things are on the priority list and some idea as to when we'll get them.

 

If 343 doesn't have a timeline they feel comfortable releasing, they shouldn't release it, but if they want Infinite to be a game that people are playing over the long term, they'll need to get better at telling players what is coming and when.

[The def star]

Halo BTB fix update is out now. Gonna hop on in a bit to test it out. BTB has been fun but the stability issues ruined it for me and my friends. Let's hope this fixes it for good. 

 

https://www.pcgamesn.com/halo-infinite/btb-fix-february

 

[JPDunks4]

 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Halo Infinite's lead multiplayer designer leaves 343 Industries | PC Gamer

WWW.PCGAMER.COM

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Halo, goodbye.

 

Quote

 

Halo Infinite's lead multiplayer designer has announced his departure from 343 Industries.

 

Andrew Witts had joined the developer in 2019, overseeing the development of Halo Infinite's free multiplayer mode. In a short but sweet tweet, Witts thanked fans and 343 for his three years spent with the company. "It's been an honor leading the MP design team over these years," he wrote. "Thank you to all Halo fans for your feedback over the years. We made this game for you." Witts didn't announce where he was off to next but said he was "going to take some time off to relax and recharge" first.

 

It marks yet another exit for one of Halo Infinite's senior developers. Earlier this year saw the game's lead narrative designer Aaron Linde leave for Riot Games, while creative director Tim Longo and project director Chris Lee stepped down from their roles in 2019 and 2020 respectively. Xbox boss Phil Spencer assured fans in 2020 that turnover was a natural part of development, saying "as an industry, we're always going to see turnover. I don't have any specific concern about 343. I think in the long run, turnover is a healthy thing because we want people who are really motivated by the things that they're working on."

 

 

[JPDunks4]

https://www.halowaypoint.com/news/season-1-outcomes-report-live

 

Some highlights - 

 

Working to make Armor Coatings and Visors usable on all Armor Coatings

Working to make all customizable items across all armor coatings but can't guarantee all will work.

 

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 In short, our goal is that we will be incrementally moving to a model that has coatings and visors working across all cores; with helmets and chest gear working across canon cores as our first focused changes to make in the system.

 

The Kits, like the Noble Team Skins, and the E-Sport Team skins, will be able to be  used as interchangeable parts.

 

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In a future update, we’ll be changing the Kit system so that it will allow players to sport individual items from their Kits to use on their own personal Spartans.

 

Acknowledge players are asking for the ability to use multiple vehicle, weapon, and armor customization options at once.  Said its not a top priority right now as they are focused on the Armor Core stuff, but will look into it.

 

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A Career Progression system is in the design phase right now. We want to nail it out of the gate and that’s going to take some time. 

 

Additionally, we know there’s a desire for per-match, which also leverages performance, to plug into this system as well as the Battle Pass. Per-match XP is on the way and will land this year. 

 

- Improved Season 2 Battle Pass Rewards, 1000 Credits, better Event and Weekly Ultimate Rewards.

 

Quote

 

First 5 Weeks of Ultimate Rewards

 

Week 1: Sentry Stance 
Week 2: Battleship Haze MA40 AR Coating  
Week 3: Alabaster Cognac Razorback Coating  
Week 4: Amber Yesterday Visor 
Week 5: Spring Mountain Stance 

 

 

Some other stuff but thats some of the big stuff, a lot of positive changes.  I don't play all that much anymore cause I finished the Battle Pass, I do get on to do some Weekly Challenges.  I still love the gameplay but too much backlog to tackle so taking a break until they address more stuff and get more content.  Can't wait to see whats to come though as I love the core gameplay a lot.

[Keyser_Soze]

 

[Spawn_of_Apathy]

Cool cool cool. So didn’t they promise no BR mode. Cool cool and they still can’t deliver co-op, a feature that was promised and has been a Halo staple since day freaking 1. 

[Stickey]

So did 343 finally make a video game or are they still working on that? 

[ARZ]

Still waiting for co-op, but thankfully the MP is tons of fun to keep me occupied until it's finally out!

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

On 4/9/2022 at 7:56 PM, Stickey said:

So did 343 finally make a video game or are they still working on that? 

 

They handed it off to Certain Affinity: