Halo Infinite [Fall 2021] [XO, XBSX|S, PC, XGP]

[BRiT]

Now maybe after I destroy the three AA Guns it opens fast travel back up again,

It does, once you get out of that island. But if you dive into the next mission (or the mission after that?) you might be locked into it, but I can't remember exactly. There are some points where you're locked in.

I didn't dive straight into the main story missions because it was so much fun loading up marines with various weapons and hauling them around in the razorback. I thought it was so easy to not do main story missions. I don't know how you missed the opportunities to explore instead.

No worries though, after you complete the campaign you're out in the open again and can explore the ring islands. However you can not re-enter the storyline structures.

 

[Clukos]

Finished the campaign, that was good fun, really felt like Halo of old in a good way. I found the all the different gadgets useful by the end and I was constantly swapping during fights, so I don’t get the complaints that only the grappling hook is useful.

I wasn’t a huge fan of the second part but I still enjoyed the game as a whole. I feel like the main issue is because the gameplay is so good and you can approach enemies in many different ways, the moment they narrow down the playable area you are forced to play a certain way and that detracts from the experience.

I think 343i have finally found their stride with this, I’m glad to be playing Halo again

 

[AzBat]

I don't agree with that at all. Seems to me that the first story mission I did led me directly down the rabbit hole of the main mission, with no opportunity to go back out into the open world. It spring boards you directly to the tower and then the AA guns and fast travel is locked down. The only open world missions can you do are the ones you do before you investigate the very first story mission. Now maybe after I destroy the three AA Guns it opens fast travel back up again, or maybe I can force my way back to the open world without using fast travel, but the game certainly isn't encouraging it.

Once I did the very first story mission I got on a slide with no discernable way off. This is very different to most open world games that continually try to point you back to the open world and is even the case in most games pretending to be open world when they aren't. Halo Infinite is very much doing the opposite of what most open world games do.

The first story missions are linear & not open world. They're not even on the Zeta ring. When you finally get to Zeta Ring you have to complete that first mission & then the Pilot transports to your first island. Each of the island regions on the ring are locked off & allow exploring & finding collectibles. Finish the main mission & another island is unlocked. Anyway, when you get to your first island you don't need to go straight to the Tower. You can secure other FOBs, rescue squads, take down mini bosses etc. FOBs & some of the secondary missions opened up fast travel. You can't fast travel to locations you haven't unlocked. BTW you can travel back to the original location where you first landed on the ring & there are new areas opened up that wasn't initially. It's not your standard open world game for sure, but it does give you enough that you can get lost in the world & not have to go straight into each of the main story missions.

BTW I finished the Tower & all the side missions & collectibles on the first island. Finished all the side missions surrounding the next story mission(dig site) & I'm currently on that mission. At this pace I've got a long way to go.

Tommy McClain

 

[cheapchips]

I've exhausted all the optional stuff in each area, pretty much, before doing the campaign missions. Outside larking about is the best Halo. Inside Halo is fine, but on Heroic or above it's just not relaxing enough for dad gaming.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

I don't agree with that at all. Seems to me that the first story mission I did led me directly down the rabbit hole of the main mission, with no opportunity to go back out into the open world. It spring boards you directly to the tower and then the AA guns and fast travel is locked down. The only open world missions can you do are the ones you do before you investigate the very first story mission. Now maybe after I destroy the three AA Guns it opens fast travel back up again, or maybe I can force my way back to the open world without using fast travel, but the game certainly isn't encouraging it.

Once I did the very first story mission I got on a slide with no discernable way off. This is very different to most open world games that continually try to point you back to the open world and is even the case in most games pretending to be open world when they aren't. Halo Infinite is very much doing the opposite of what most open world games do.

As soon as you exit from the mine/cave/whatever onto the first island you can go and start doing open world stuff. You don't have to get on the Pelican and continue the main mission. However, it's advisable to follow the main mission at this point as you unlock more things and the game explains some about the open world if you do.

As soon as you land on the 2nd island, that's when it's advisable to start the open world stuff. At this point you can ignore the main mission and do whatever the heck you want (which is what I did). I didn't get to the island with the AA guns until something like 20-25 hours into the game. By the time you get to the island with the AA guns, you'll have done roughly half the open world content if you weren't just going straight to the main mission all the time.

Basically it's your choice whether to do the main mission or not once you hit the 2nd island. Doing the 2nd island will then open up the 1st island to open world stuff. It isn't until AFTER 2 explorable island have been available for you to explore that the main mission takes you to the AA mission. BTW - you gain fast travel WAY before you get taken to the AA mission island.

And yes, open world stuff opens up again once you finish the AA mission. And doesn't close down again until you're on the final campaign missions (which I noted in a spoiler in a previous post when that happens). Basically, what happened is you focused on the main mission and ignored all the open world stuff.

I can see how this is easy to do if you're used to open world games that hold your hand and tell you that side stuff is available. Halo: Infinite doesn't do that. It just says, "Here you go, these are things you can do, have fun!" and then never mentions that you can do open world stuff again after that. Although if you travel near some open world POIs, your AI might make note that something is happening nearby depending on what type of POI it is.

Regards,
SB

 

[Rangers]

I've exhausted all the optional stuff in each area, pretty much, before doing the campaign missions. Outside larking about is the best Halo. Inside Halo is fine, but on Heroic or above it's just not relaxing enough for dad gaming.

That was my strat. The only thing I didn't bother finding were the skulls cus as mentioned I have never cared about skulls in Halo. I also was not obsessive about audio logs. If I came across them fine. Usually I'd search around each area somewhat, but not go crazy with it.

Once I got enough Spartan Cores to fully upgrade all my abilities I also stopped doing those. I also did not seek out all propaganda towers once they were not on the map, or artifacts. Again these were on a do if I saw them basis. Except I think when prop towers were on the map in the first area (IIRC?), I did them all.

So basically I 100%'d Spartan Cores until abilities maxed, all "targets", all purple enemy bases (I think of them as dungeons in my head), all mjolnir armory cosmetics (I am not sure how much I'll stick with the MP since Destiny is my main, but I wanted them for completions sake), all FOB's, all stranded troops. That was plenty to do. A lot of these were TBH not particularly rewarding, getting a little valor points for rescuing stranded troops for example. This leads to just more opened up on the FOB track, but most of that stuff is little used anyway, if nothing else because whatever weapons you leave the FOB with quickly runs out of ammo. I wasn't even a huge fan of the vehicles as using them for travel saves little to no time IMO since many missions require scaling cliffs etc anyway. Except the WASP once I got it, since I used it a lot to travel once acquired. But most of the missions is fun enough in it's own right I didn't mind.

I did same with clearing out all the optional stuff in an area before tackling the yellow missions. I wanted to savor the game anyway and had plenty of time.

I will say if one just mainlined the game and went straight for each yellow mission, Bungie might have been worried it was too short. This may have led to them lengthening the final mission which I personally believe dragged on too long. They probably wanted to hit some 8 hour or whatever target if a player avoided all side content. But for a player like me and I assume most who did a lot of side content, it led to the final missions feeling padded IMO Just a thought.

A podcast I listen too characterized Infinite as "open world lite" or something, compared to the infamous Ubi games mostly I believe. If so I love it, I don't even play ubi games but they sound so dreadful the way people describe them packing on tons of filler. Assuming Halo is not going full linear again for a good while, I think if they stick with this approach for a few games it will be OK with me.

 

[orangpelupa]

I just hope the story dlc will have awesome set pieces... Its very lacking in infinite.

Btw playing infinite open world makes me miss destiny auto matchmaking on the open world.

Playing destiny, makes me miss the freedom to explore the world in infinite. As there's too many invisible walls in Destiny

 

[iceberg187]

Beat the game, fun time with it. Some padding in the end with some nice set pieces in the game. I'm excited to see what 343 does next.

 

[Scott_Arm]

Halo Infinite multiplayer is dying incredibly fast. They just put out a patch to fix big-team matchmaking, but from the description it doesn't sound like they're confident they fixed it. 343 is really dogshit at multiplayer. Their quality control is just plain bad. The event skins are hilarious. Even if they weren't poorly made, they'd be hideous anyway. I sunk some time into quick play and ranked and it was fairly fun, but the netcode is absolutely horrendous and the player base is vanishing quickly.

 

[zed]

Halo Infinite multiplayer is dying incredibly fast. They just put out a patch to fix big-team matchmaking, but from the description it doesn't sound like they're confident they fixed it. 343 is really dogshit at multiplayer. Their quality control is just plain bad. The event skins are hilarious. Even if they weren't poorly made, they'd be hideous anyway. I sunk some time into quick play and ranked and it was fairly fun, but the netcode is absolutely horrendous and the player base is vanishing quickly.

View attachment 6217

thats the character you made, nice not understanding why theres a mowhawk at the back, yet a 'delta (from startrek)' glasses at the front, but no mind.
Yeah I saw the numbers on steam(*) aint hot for a new free game (I actually might download it myself this weekend and have a look), which is a bit strange cause lots of ppl saiz its fun to play, but somehow they are not playing it.
My prediction is, 343 goodbye you are not gonna make halo again, you have been banished forever for even looking at that franchise, hello activision COD guys, make halo good, and Halo 9 is a smash hit, perhaps this was the reason for the activision buyout j/k but I wonder in the back of the mind maybe

(*)Perhaps its possible, asking, is there some what on steam spy, steamdb etc that in the top 100 most played you can also at the same time, see the cost, date of launch, multiplayer etc as little icons next to the titles
like at the moment I see on the charts just above halo 8 (infinite, I assumed thats why they called it infinte cause its 8? or is that not the reason) a game called brawlhalla, but I have no idea is this also free to play, is it MP (I assume it is with that title)

 

[Scott_Arm]

thats the character you made, nice not understanding why theres a mowhawk at the back, yet a 'delta (from startrek)' glasses at the front, but no mind.

What are you even saying? These are two different cosmetics they offer in the new event. i don't have them. Those are the preview images and they're both misaligned on the models by default ... FOR EVERYONE. They are also ugly and aligning them would only correct the hilarious lack of attention to detail.

 

[zed]

What are you even saying? These are two different cosmetics they offer in the new event. i don't have them.

Sorry I thought this was you customizing your player as in player art with the ingame customization, OK I think I understand you are saying this is a halo upgrade where you can have a mohawk OR cyber glasses and you have to pay for this? Hilarious, and the funny thing is ppl will pay. Well 434 they are maintaining their super high standards.
Definitly gonna download this game and try it out this weekend, if I cant play as this guy I will be disappointed

 

[Scott_Arm]

Sorry I thought this was you customizing your player as in player art with the ingame customization, OK I think I understand you are saying this is a halo upgrade where you can have a mohawk OR cyber glasses and you have to pay for this? Hilarious, and the funny thing is ppl will pay. Well 434 they are maintaining their super high standards.
Definitly gonna download this game and try it out this weekend, if I cant play as this guy I will be disappointed

No, you don't have to pay for them. Do you not see that the glasses and the mohawk are crooked? It's super obvious.

 

[zed]

No, you don't have to pay for them. Do you not see that the glasses and the mohawk are crooked? It's super obvious.

mate it could just be an optical illusion, whos glasses are on straight anyways. Though in saying that it does look a bit too high on the guys left shoulder, the mohawk looks ok, its tilted to thri right, but their right shoulder is a lot higher.
Mate this is very minor, OK its sloppy but its just an indication of the joys you can unlock. FWIW I never understood the point of customization in stuff like this, its like sony recently came out with new color plates on the ps5, WTF would you want this, OK my PS5 is now neon green, I spent $50 on this. maybe I just live my life different to other ppl but man I have to say, time to reassess your life if this is something meaningful in your life that your PS5 is now neon green. Life is a gift, you only get one.
Not saying my life is total excitement mind, in fact its mostly drudgery

 

[orangpelupa]

Infinite has a lot of vanity items with bad QC. Not just those misaligned examples. There were items with incomplete texture, with completely wrong position, etc.

At least from the posts people made on halo subreddit.

 

[AzBat]

Finally finished the Halo Infinite campaign. It was awesome! I really loved the open-world. And looks like that design will allow more stories to be told on the ring. So I'm ready for more.

Tommy McClain

 

[AzBat]

Oh forgot to mention this. I didn't play Halo Infinite campaign once on my Series X, only the One X in my bedroom. Put that in your pipe & smoke it. LOL

I did however play a couple missions on my phone via xCloud. That was a great experience.

Tommy McClain

 

[Remij]

I'm still just waiting for them to fix the campaign issues such as the 30fps animations and camera stuttering.. among other things. I think John from DF said that they were going to address that in a patch... but since the MP has been all messed up, it's likely been pushed way down the priority list

 

[Scott_Arm]

So there's a post up on waypoint exploring netcode issues in Halo Infinite. Honestly the netcode experience has been relatively poor. It's my main issue with the game.

https://www.halowaypoint.com/news/closer-look-halo-infinite-online-experience

On the issue of being shot around corners, they need to put a limit on lag compensation. Sorry, people with bad internet, but if you're playing ranked on 100ms ping, you shouldn't be favoured as the shooter.

On the issue of melee and shot registration issues they say they are some simulation bugs they can fix, and that's good. Then they say this:

I’d also advise all PC players to set Simulation Quality to Ultra in the settings. This setting drives a few of our game systems but, most importantly for this discussion, it controls the amount of time we give to our system that corrects determinism errors on the client. Setting this to Ultra should result in better determinism between client and server. The CPU cost of this is also quite low, so it should be manageable on most PCs.

Why would you ever let players turn down a setting that breaks determinism between the simulation running on the client vs the server. Also, why would you give that setting the following description in the "Video" settings.


I had it set to low, because I don't care about the detail about cosmetic stuff like the vehicle suspension. Just want max frames for ranked. Well, too bad it breaks bullet registration, lol. This is so dumb. Not only is it not a video setting, they should be fully aware of how common it is for PC players to hit the low preset for competitive gaming.

Anyway, they also talk about weird collision issues, and they're entirely related latency or bugs. They can fix bugs, but they really should impose a limit for favouring the shooter with lag compensation. It should be 80-100ms cap, and anyone playing above that because they have a bad connection or are using a vpn to play in a different region should basically just get cut off.

 

[iroboto]

So there's a post up on waypoint exploring netcode issues in Halo Infinite. Honestly the netcode experience has been relatively poor. It's my main issue with the game.

https://www.halowaypoint.com/news/closer-look-halo-infinite-online-experience

On the issue of being shot around corners, they need to put a limit on lag compensation. Sorry, people with bad internet, but if you're playing ranked on 100ms ping, you shouldn't be favoured as the shooter.

On the issue of melee and shot registration issues they say they are some simulation bugs they can fix, and that's good. Then they say this:



Why would you ever let players turn down a setting that breaks determinism between the simulation running on the client vs the server. Also, why would you give that setting the following description in the "Video" settings.
View attachment 6270

I had it set to low, because I don't care about the detail about cosmetic stuff like the vehicle suspension. Just want max frames for ranked. Well, too bad it breaks bullet registration, lol. This is so dumb. Not only is it not a video setting, they should be fully aware of how common it is for PC players to hit the low preset for competitive gaming.

Anyway, they also talk about weird collision issues, and they're entirely related latency or bugs. They can fix bugs, but they really should impose a limit for favouring the shooter with lag compensation. It should be 80-100ms cap, and anyone playing above that because they have a bad connection or are using a vpn to play in a different region should basically just get cut off.

One of the reasons I didn’t feel the pull of returning to Halo when I took a break. Dealing with desycn, hit registration and cheaters; just turned me off whenever I lost. There wasn’t any consistency as to why I lost that bout, so the lack of consistency turns you off from playing. Imagine trying to text message someone but it only worked 80% of the time. You’d switch apps.