[GameSpot] - Halo Infinite Multiplayer Will Bring Jeff Steitzer's Voice To Big Team Battle

[343iBot]

Halo Infinite developer 343 Industries has published a ridiculously in-depth and technical blog post that runs through some of the changes coming to the game's multiplayer at launch based on feedback from the beta. The full post is stacked with insight, and you should read the full thing to get a more complete understanding of what's changing and why. But here we're rounding up some of the top-level items that are changing for launch. Some of the big changes include the addition of Jeff Steitzer's voice for Big Team Battle and how players will not be able to move the flag in Capture the Flag with vehicles, because that was a bug not a feature.

Starting off, 343 acknowledged that people are asking for a progression system beyond the Battle Pass alone. The studio wants to deliver this, but it's going to take some time and seemingly won't be there at launch.

"We want this too and it's our team’s top priority, but doing it right will take time and that may mean it won’t come as quickly as many of you would like. As we look at what our team needs to build, adding an entirely new progression system on top of everything else is a lot," 343 said. "Building a progression system with solid design, good implementation, top-tier UXUI presentation, thorough testing, and time for polish will take some time and we want to do it right."

Additionally, 343 said it understands people didn't love the Motion Tracker in Halo Infinite and want the "legacy" version of it from past games. It added a new combat sensor for the Big Team Battle beta, but 343 admitted that there is still more work to do.

"We did see people say that they still felt like they were being caught off guard due to the radius size of the Combat Sensor, with the majority of these reports coming from Big Team Battle," 343 said. "For Arena's social settings, we didn't see enough feedback to want to make a fundamental change here ahead of launch but we will continue to monitor it when we launch. For Big Team Battle, we agree and plan on getting this updated from 18m to 22m shortly after launch. So while you may not see it on launch day, please know that it’s absolutely on the way."

Halo Infinite is almost here

Also in the blog post, 343 said players will not be able to push the flag with vehicles in Capture the Flag modes. Videos of this emerged from the Big Team Battle beta test, and some seemed to enjoy being able to push the flag with a vehicle. However, this was actually a bug, and it won't be available in the game at launch.

"We agree that pushing the flag with vehicles, while very sandbox-y, is too easy and removes too much of the teamwork aspect we want to see in CTF matches. That was a bug and it has already been fixed for launch," 343 said.

For Big Team Battle specifically, 343 it hears the concerns about stronger vehicles landing on the map later, and in some cases it was too late. "We understand the desire for better vehicles more often (who doesn't want more chances to jump in the Scorpion?) but we believe the progression of power as better and better vehicles spawn in allows for the end of matches to feel like bigger moments," 343 said.

"It's also worth mentioning that there were vehicles, such as the Chopper and Wraith, that weren't available in the flight that will help further flesh out this vehicle story in each match."

And in very good news, 343 confirmed that Jeff Steitzer--the multiplayer announcer from Arena--will be added to Big Team Battle. It won't be available at launch on December 8, but 343 said, "We are looking forward to bringing his voice back in all its glory as soon as we can."

The blog post also addresses the issues some people had with performance and other reported problems for the PC edition of Halo Infinite. 343 confirmed that performance optimizations are coming.

"Improving performance is always a focus of ours, and we're happy to say there's a number of performance optimizations that will be in our final release that were not available in the previews," 343 said. "We work closely with our Graphics and Core Game Systems teams to improve the game’s performance all around, and while most performance optimizations benefit both console and PC, there are specific optimizations we have implemented on PC to improve overall framerate, improve framerate consistency, reduce hitching, reduce video memory usage, and more. The optimizations we've made since the last preview should be quite noticeable and will help the game run and feel better on whatever hardware you have."

Additionally, 343 talked about the feedback surrounding aiming in Halo Infinite. The company said the reason aiming might not have felt perfect in the beta was that the game is not fully optimized.

"When we started work on Halo Infinite, we did want aiming to require more skill but we also didn't want it to feel 'bad' for anyone," 343 said. "There was a strong focus on raising the skill ceiling without removing the fun, natural aiming feel that you expect from a Halo game. The response from this flight has made us take a closer look at aiming, but we needed to make sure we took a measured approach--especially knowing that performance optimizations will also improve its 'feel' in-game."

In response to the feedback, 343 is making some changes to the "cone angle" of aim assist on some weapons for launch to help making aiming feel "more natural." Here are the changes:

• Pulse Carbine: 4 to 6 degrees
• VK78 Commando: 5 to 5.5 degrees
• BR75: 5 to 5.75 degrees
• Heatwave: 5 to 6.25 degrees
• Ravager: 6 to 6.75
• Mk50 Sidekick: 5 to 6.25 degrees
• Skewer: 4.2 to 5.6 degrees
• S7 Sniper: 3 to 4 degrees
• Shock Rifle: Turned on hip magnetism

In regards to feedback surrounding weapons, 343 confirmed there are changes coming to the Plasma Pistol to help make it deadlier against Spartans. "We can't guarantee these changes will make launch, but they are in-progress and will make their way to the game soon," 343 said.

343 also discussed weapon bloom and other balancing issues. The VK78 weapon was performing too well, so 343 is changing it so it requires one more bullet to get a kill.

In terms of player movement, 343 said the feedback about player collision in Halo Infinite--which is not a thing--is split amongst players. But 343 said it's going to keep player collision as is for launch, which is to say, there will be no player collision.

"We recognize that there are fun moments that can come from having it enabled, but we see far more benefits to the core gameplay loop for the majority of our players when teammates aren't bumping one another," 343 said. "Running into a teammate at the start of a match, during normal gameplay, while trying to back down because you’re weak, when running the flag and trying to get around a corner, and more--these are common pain points that we've eliminated with this one decision."

"It does mean losing the ability to buddy jump and stack on top of your friends, but we believe removing the frustration of not being able to move where you want, when you want, is worth that change. That said, since we understand its use cases and value in some situations, we aren't going to ignore this and will ensure that we monitor it closely and collect more data."

For vehicles, 343 said Ghosts were "crazy fun to use," but they are too durable. As such, 343 is planning some changes to make the Ghosts easier to shoot down by either reducing how much damage they can take or how much they protect the driver.

The Banshee, on the other hand, wasn't powerful enough, so 343 is making some changes to make it more durable and deadlier. The Scorpion, meanwhile, will get some changes to make it easier to drive. "The Scorpion is a meant to be a slow-moving tank, but that doesn't mean we want its movement to feel unintuitive. It should still feel good, smooth, and go where you intend to go. We’re investigating a way to tighten the turn radius without reducing the turn rate," 343 said.

Again, this is just a small sampling of the changes that 343 is making for Halo Infinite. Check out the full blog post to learn more. Halo Infinite releases on December 8.

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