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Everybody is missing the main problem in Halo Infinite

the_master

Member
The gameplay.
Completely unepic, small scale combat.

The Mc is walking arround killing randomly scattered groups of enemies, gets onto a warthog for a short ride to kill some more randomly scattered enemies. Goes up an elevatror ro kill another brute...

All of it happens in an area smaller than the silent carrographer map.

Sure we can see mountains far away, but the area he traverses, the area that seems playable is just small. Meaning they didn't even have the wow factor in here.

Compare this with the xbox gameplay of Galo ce: Epic, immersive landing on the beach, fight alongside the marines, riding a vehicle all around the island (at the time, impressive), going underground inside some structures... That felt very open world at the rime, and even today it is a very tight experience.
Then remember how incredibly epic the first Halo 2 gameplay was. City full of enemies, ships bombing giant turrets, massive battle against enemy land vehicles...

And we fot a sloooow linear moving grappling hook... Nobody was wowed with the gameplay either.

Enemy ai seemed like in halo 4 and 5. Independent and scattered, does not seem to affect them how you kill the others, not a single grunt running away. Yeah somebody throwed a grunt at us, seems even a hack behavior compared with the rest.

I still hope for a miracle and have great gameplay feel, and I see that damage reactions are better than 5.

One thing I really liked was how he makes a brute stumble by shooting at his legs. I hope we see more of it.

I will be satisfied if the gameplay ends up being excellent. Even id the visuals did not improve, I would be happy with a gameplay king halo.
 

bender

What time is it?
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Deleted member 775630

Unconfirmed Member
And they choosed this one uneventful, insignificant, generic mission to present the game to the world???
They must have nothing better
Yeah I don't get that either. Just like the rumours that it might've been a 6 month old build? Seriously wtf... You hype Halo through the roof the past few weeks to then show us an old demo. I liked what I saw gameplay wise, and really looking forward to an open world Halo, but marketing wise it's going to be really hard coming back from this. And even though I would like an open-world GaaS approach to Halo, I don't want it to be empty with no players and just me... :pie_grinning_sweat:
 

Eliciel

Member
I watched the show with a friend who is a big fan of the Halo Franchise and he went from: "okay, now I am really hyped up" to "really?".
The combat looked static and that is a shame. There was no real interaction on the battlefield, no tactics visible, no real feel to being within an epic war. Basically, enemy A run in front from Catacomb A and started shooting and Masterchief started shooting or grappling, but if you look the overall feel of the battlefield, everyone is just standing there with no movement whatsoever and is shooting and nothing is happening, no explosions are really impacting the environment, I didn't see any volumetric effects, particles? Not really a lot of them.... Everything was happening without a lot of interaction. The effects looked very underwhelming for a 12.1 TF opportunity and to be honest and yeah, the grappling hook? Seen that, done that....No news here to be honest and especially I find it very hard to believe as such that this hundreds of kilogram Veteran, Masterchief, is actually flying around with a grappling hook...I don't know....it just seems ODD.

If that was the true vision of how Halo Infinite should PLAY than it was even more underwhelming than its graphical shortcomings.
It is really a very tough moment to be in the shoes of 343 as I do believe they love their product and they really are happy and confident about their outcome.

I hope that they can work on the game and maybe RT also changes dynamics a little bit.
However, I don't know if that is even possible in the remaining time frame.
 

godhandiscen

There are millions of whiny 5-year olds on Earth, and I AM THEIR KING.
I can’t criticize the gameplay. I don’t think it looks bad, and sometimes what looks good on screen doesn’t end up being good gameplay after hours of playing the game.
In fact, right now all of my eggs are on the gameplay basket. I am buying an XSX because what they showed looked like Halo1/3, and I am okay with that.

Edit: In fact, as someone who hasn’t played a single player campaign with a grappling hook mechanic yet, I am looking forward to that ability. The addition of weapon upgrades could be good too as long as they don’t end up making you overpowered.
 
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Compsiox

Banned
Yeah I don't get that either. Just like the rumours that it might've been a 6 month old build? Seriously wtf... You hype Halo through the roof the past few weeks to then show us an old demo. I liked what I saw gameplay wise, and really looking forward to an open world Halo, but marketing wise it's going to be really hard coming back from this. And even though I would like an open-world GaaS approach to Halo, I don't want it to be empty with no players and just me... :pie_grinning_sweat:
Covid. They have people working remotely. They probably just used the most recent stable build. When you have people committing their work remotely at all times of day it's probably more difficult to find a build without issues.

We literally got a precovid build.
 
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Dontero

Banned
Yeah it was show killer.

I don't think it is fault of game though. Just someone terrible at making trailers decided to put some boring af gameplay section. Basic combat and shooting looks fun.

Graphics are bigger problem. It honestly looked pretty bad for AAA first party title.
 

AllyITA

Member
to me it was just a vertical slice to show in less than 10 minutes what might happen in the game.

in 8 minutes they showed you a bunch of different guns, enemies, vehicle driving... (and pop-ups that shouldn't exist in a 2020 game)
 

Nickolaidas

Member
You know what? Let's give the benefit of the doubt and say they hiding stuff.

Now my question is.. Why would they hide "cool" and unique stuff on their first reveal, which we all know IS WHERE IT COUNTS
Imagine God of War being revealed. With a gameplay demo. Of Kratos killing three draugr. From afar with his axe. And the gameplay demo ends.

Imagine Horizon being revealed. With a gameplay demo. Of Alloy shooting down thee seeker from afar with her bow with two-three shots. And the demo ends.

You see the problem?
 

jigglet

Banned
I prefer smaller, more initimate battles, like the ones we saw in the trailer. The huge sprawling wars in COD always gave me this sensation of shell shock. Then again I'm a PvP guy so I don't really have much to say about campaign.
 

Kokoloko85

Member
Man I dont know if I can trust 343 and its not even the graphics.
Yes I like the appraoch to be honest, Im loving it if they do campaign missions properly.

But to be honet 343 hasnt done great gameplay this gen. Halo 5 was ok. Im not sure if Halo Infinite has the same energy.

And with Zen 2 CPU and its 52 CU’s and RDNA 2... 12tfps everyone bragged about along with 1/2 a billion dollars budget should make better graphics too.
Especially for your main title....
 

Compsiox

Banned
I have a theory. This game was never meant for the next gen. But with delays and Covid 19, they turned it into a cross gen title.
They announced it was launching with Xbox Series X last E3. Lmao. And they probably had some idea it would take this long because they built a brand new engine from the ground up.
 

FireFly

Member
And they choosed this one uneventful, insignificant, generic mission to present the game to the world???
They must have nothing better
It looks like the beginning mission where you first get on the ring. Notice that as amazing as CE looked at the time, when you get off the Pillar of Autumn for the first time, you are just fighting scattered groups of enemies.

So I guess they want to show that their game is going back to basics. But every Halo game ever made has had large scale vehicular combat. So I just can't believe they have cut that. It's as core to Halo as the grenades and melee are.
 
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Deleted member 775630

Unconfirmed Member
Why not show a mission then? If this game is whatever scale bigger than previous games combined then it wouldn’t hurt to show one mission.
I don't know... I have a feeling they wanted to show too much and keep the showcase within an hour. Showing 10-15 min of Halo might've been too long. Not sure what the reason was. That they also showed a 6 month old build doesn't make sense to me
 

hemo memo

Member
I don't know... I have a feeling they wanted to show too much and keep the showcase within an hour. Showing 10-15 min of Halo might've been too long. Not sure what the reason was. That they also showed a 6 month old build doesn't make sense to me

After show then. People will still watch it.
 

the_master

Member
Halo fans: The gameplay and feel of halo 4 and 5 sucks, give us back old school halo feeling, enviroments and enemys!

*343 goes back to old school*

Halo fans: This sucks! Where is the innovation?
Well, old school does not mean old school tech and different school gameplay.
I am really hoping that killing enemies is fun and addictive, this would be ENOUGH for me, if the rest of the game is ok.

But in both Halo 1 and 2 and 3 had spectacular gameplay. It just looked awesome and incredible. Both Halo 1 and 2 reveals had close range and small scale encounters and big scale spectacular battles. Infinite only had uneventful battles where the AI does not seem to cooperate with eachoter and your actions don't seem to change the behavior of enemies.
 

the_master

Member
Covid. They have people working remotely. They probably just used the most recent stable build. When you have people committing their work remotely at all times of day it's probably more difficult to find a build without issues.

We literally got a precovid build.
I don't belive that. Most studios are fine with people working from home. Even working in the office they still submit their work through P4 and combine it. It has been liek this for decades. The only advantage of working from the office is personal comunication. There are tools to overcome this as well.

In any case, yesterday before the reveal MS where hyping up the game, to be about to blow our minds. It was a lie, they had seen the game and it is disappointing. Now they tell us that "Oh it was a PC build" "Oh it was an old bild" yeah sure, so why was this going to blow our minds???
 
Trust me Im so done with halo and I’m so dissapointed by the reveal but the actual gameplay looked great. The grappling hook is the perfect addition for the sandbox style gameplay, giving you the ability to change positions, hook into enemies, grab items to throw and blow up looked so fun.

The clip where chief grabbed a fusion cell, threw it, hijackdd the turret, turned it around and started shooting just looked so halo. The open world now that I’ve seen it also looks like a natural upgrade to the sandbox. I need to see more but so far the gun play and world looked amazing.

In some ways this reminded me a lot of BOTW, but the graphical quality and the addition of sprint still has me extremely cynical and jaded
 
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ZywyPL

Banned
The more I watch the gameplay the more I like it, it's growing up on me, it's IMO the strongest part of the presentation so far, at least the gunplay part, so the MP should be epic because of that, because for the rest of the aspects I fully agree with you OP.
 

Damigos

Member
I think it is another example of that cross gen thing holding the game back.
Or maybe 343 is just not competent enough to create something good.
The machine’s specs don’t justify what we be seen
 

Ellery

Member
I have got to be honest, when I turned on the stream (I came home a bit later) and I saw what was on it I genuinely didn't believe I was looking at actual next generation Halo Infinite gameplay. My second thought was that this might be the Xbox One X version and then they transition into the Series X version with a cool graphical effect, but that didn't happen.

The gameplay looked okay, but not worthy of a console seller and one of the most anticipated Xbox games since I don't know.
 

Men_in_Boxes

Snake Oil Salesman
You saw 5min, probably 0.1% of the whole map. I don't think every mission is just random opponents scattered over the map

I used to think this way. It's rational.

But developers/publisher like to lead with their best foot forward when they debut gameplay (especially when the game is close to finished).

Microsoft and 343 knew the world would be watching and they squirted out that gameplay for whatever reason.

It'll have more interesting map design and enemy layouts but not by much.

I do hope I'm wrong though.
 

MHubert

Member
While the gunplay looks pretty good, I think the game looks like a perfect example of a next-gen game that scales down to 7 year old hardware. Remember, this game is supposed to run on an XBO, and while I agree that it is rather easy to scale down resolution, textures etc., it becomes rather obvious to see that the game is designed for old technology.
 

Paasei

Member
Only played the first game for a short time, but I have no memories of it looking this cartoon and kiddy.
 
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TBiddy

Member
You saw 5min, probably 0.1% of the whole map. I don't think every mission is just random opponents scattered over the map

Even for an Xbox-fan like me the gameplay looked underwhelming. The graphics looked great and I assume most saying otherwise either has an agenda or hasn’t watched the 4K stream.
 
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Deleted member 775630

Unconfirmed Member
Even for an Xbox-fan like me the gameplay looked underwhelming. The graphics looked great and I assume most saying otherwise either has an agenda or hasn’t watched the 4K stream.
What were you hoping for gameplay wise? Faster paced or slower? More crouch, hide, shoot like GoW?
 
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