Reaction: Halo Infinite's New Playlist Feels Key To The Game's Future

It's certainly very fun. The trouble with Halo is that the games are now filled with people who have been playing non-stop since launch. I've played a few games this weekend, but nothing is as demotivating as being destroyed repeatedly. Compared to a year ago when I thought I was pretty decent at the game.

Halo Infinite is dead to me until there is new campaign content. As far as multiplayer shooters go there are too many better options out there.

@Serpentes420 I'm in the same boat. I basically gave up on Infinite after they pulled the "couch-co-op" rug right out from under my 9 year old son. I mean, he was devastated as we had played through all the campaigns in MCC in anticipation of Infinite....

Still, I scan Infinite news when it appears, seeing if any campaign expansions are mentioned. Then I move on. Sounds like campaign expansion was never a priority, wasn't even planned, and (with the entire game moving to a different engine) isn't going to happen anytime soon.

I'm a big team battle guy and this ain't it.

343 has always treated BTB poorly. Going so far to not include a ranked BTB game mode.

Even with this, they skipped it over again.

What happened to the days of Halo being about a full lobby of CTF on Coagulation or Waterworks?

I've honestly been having a better Halo experience playing the Halo mod for Contractors VR. No vehicles mind you, but full 16 player games with maps from all of them is amazing.

@pip_muzz Yeah I don't think I am even going to attempt to give it a go to just be destroyed by mostly jobless single people who live on the game haha

@StylesT it's the same problem for any multiplayer game that sees it's popularity dip. The remaining players get so good at the game that any attempt to "reignite" the game just ends up frustrating returning players and alienating new ones.

@pip_muzz I feel that. I went through a period of only playing once weekly for my challenges. The gap in skill can sometimes feel really rough.

I love the new maps but I’m not so big on Damnation. I love the fungal lockout remake. There are so many new jumps and climbs due to the overgrowth. It’s the best map in Infinite for me right now.

@GrizzledVeteran Grab a second Xbox Series S and drag another TV into the same room and co-op it up?!?

@Scummbuddy Ha! I like the way you think.

I hop on Halo Infinite once a week after I watch a movie on Sunday nights. Ironically that's today. I just choose quick play and do whatever until I'm about to fall asleep. I like it, but I don't get too technical with it, I just have fun. I have maxed out my level on the different updates and I was really happy when I unlocked the Christmas stuff. Like I said, I don't really get into it, I just mess around with it and I haven't even seen any of the new maps yet except for that one they came out with a few weeks ago. I guess I will see them tonight.

I do wonder if we’ve become a little entitled as gamers. Perfect Dark, Halo 2 and Call of Duty 4 didn’t have much by way of ongoing post-launch content bar some DLC and are are still very playable. N64 PD launched with so many options you’d struggle to ever get bored of it.

And yet we now demand these constant updates to keep things fresh when actually maybe the problem isn’t the game but us.

I played yesterday after 9 months.. And i enjoyed the modes and maps... But infinite still will get hated... Ps fans and journalists that sides with PS will always demolish anything xbox

@Scummbuddy
I have two TVs and two Series X in a gaming room.

But, it was a real downer when they announced they moved co-op off of launch. I played the campaign solo and thought it was pretty good, but traditionally play the campaign with my brother-in-law. We still haven't come back to do this campaign in co-op. And it really isn't a high priority now that the covid delayed games are starting to show up.

@RadioHedgeFund such a weird take to bring out for a game like Infinite. Where so many features were missing. If we were feature complete at launch or near launch then I'd be with you.

Despite the lack of series core features I've still put in 28 days worth of in game time.

I will however give you that the live service is terrible delivery model for features. I've seen it time and time again. The initial hype, the mid-season lull and then the complaints "this game is stale!" followed by rumours and leaks of what's coming for the next cycle. All in a, typically, 3 month period. I think this is as much to blame as anything as to why gamers expect features to refresh the game.

But yea, Infinite is a solid game in many ways now but complete? Not really close.

@pip_muzz I jumped back in for the first time in months last night. Played a few games and yes got mostly destroyed but by the end of my play session I was getting better. I think my biggest issue was not being familiar with the maps. Gonna jump back in tonight.

@themightyant Don't get me started on ranked match making. It's a joke. The only online shooter I play is Splatoon, but I'm hearing the same mess from Halo and OW2 players. For a skilled player not playing competitively in formal squads, it's just an exercise in infinite frustration fueled only by addiction. I have a theory they all use the same matchmaking middleware on their servers that all has the same problems. Nobody knows exactly how it works, and the problem seems to be at its worst in team-based games vs FFA DM (but nobody plays FFA DM games anymore.)

Mostly results are bad, where a player can be clearly the best player on their team, but no match, solo, for the best of the other team.

These systems rely on an Elo rating system, or a somewhat more modernized Glicko system (which is basically Elo but with a player consistency bias value added.) The problem is Elo is a system designed for rating Chess players. SOLO players. Not teams. You can apply Elo to a competitive team if it's the SAME team (I.E. W/L ratios of the same group of players as a unit.) It's TERRIBLE applying a solo player value as derived by team W/L metrics with random teams. A competition team of a fixed squad of players can be valued on an Elo score. But you can't generate a useful team value based on your results playing with hundreds of different players. It makes assumptions about your skill based on the combined results of the other players you get. The Elo bias, then creates MORE Elo bias as it boxes players into different team comps that are more or less likely to further skew the bias.

Team-based online gaming is quite frankly a joke and a scam unless you're playing competitive scene with real formal teams and practices, or playing ultra-casual to screw around every now and then. If you're vaguely serious playing into the mid and high ranks with randos against randos, all bets are off, and you mostly get total garbage matches you either curbstomp without a challenge, or get curbstomped without a chance. Every once in a blue moon you actually a get a fun, close competition. But it's rare. That's probably why battle royale is so popular now. It doesn't really get the total garbage matching team games do.

That doesn't even take into account intentional rigging like the patent Activision has for CoD where they actually pair you in easier match ups (thus ruining the game for others in the lobby) when you buy an mtx pack, thus convincing you rightfully that the more mtx you buy the easier the game gets/the better you are. I guess MS will own that patent soon.....(and people think the game will skip PS, lol!)

@RadioHedgeFund I don't think it's that "gamers got entitled " so much as the genre changed since then and the standard bearers are now huge ongoing service products. Any game that wants to enter the online mp arena needs to at least rival the leaders in that space, otherwise, why not just play one of those better games instead? It's less about gamers wanting more than is viable, it's about gamers not willing to change from a product that does all of that to one that does less unless there's a good reason to.

Curious, is all the new content just online multiplayer? As someone who enjoys single player content is this a one and done campaign? Did Microsoft go the route of GTA5 and RDR2?

@iplaygamesnstuff it looks like it! No campaign expansions have been confirmed to be in the works.

@ParsnipHero Thanks for the response. Hopefully someday they will understand that some players just like the single player experience. No waiting for other players or being dependent on other players, no issues with internet lag which could be from the other player even if you have a good connection, then there's matchmaking nightmares completely avoided.