OG Bungie Dev Comments on Halo Infinite

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[Jarekthegamingdragon]

I don't think it's the difference between bungie and 343. I think it's the difference between old games and new entirely. SBMM has become a massive problem in almost every MP shooter over the last 5 years or so. It makes partying up with friends impossible. My friends don't have jobs where they can play as much as I do. My friends haven't played halo or cod most their life. Of course they're not going to be as good. So in what sense does strict sbmm make sense? It just means they get stomped while I have to tryhard and still lose. It removes all fun and makes me miss the 360 era's casual play.

[taudvore]

I think that the differences between the Bungie era and the 343 era is a microcosm of gaming across the board. Gaming in the old days was for entertainment, sometimes for groups, sometimes alone, but games were almost always designed for having fun. Nowadays gaming is a profession (or at least developers think so) and games are designed so that the 5% of people who take a game beyond a way to kill time can showcase their skill. It leaves the casual players in the dust and that’s probably why games don’t have as mich staying power anymore.

Thank you for listening to my TED Talk.

[SierraS]

At this rate Halo Infinite is going to need a Launch Day 2.0 if it plans on getting any players back.

[jamiiiedee]

Sbmm / trueskill has always irked me in every game. I feel like i’m never actually rewarded for becoming better at the game because i just get moved up to the next tier instantly. Keep it for ranked modes.

[JessEMasteR]

what you said at the end hits home. I primarily play with my wife, brother, and friends. None of them are at my level, so when we play, I basically have to play sweaty just to win games half the time. Sometimes it would be nice to just relax in games, and let my teammates get more kill instead of die constantly

[Chiwalker]

I think it's clear that 343 has prioritized competitive over social with Halo. Each game they've made has been more and more competitive with higher and higher skill gaps while having less and less social features. If you look at a lot of what's missing currently in Infinite, it's pretty much all social features. I mean, even on release, they didn't plan on having it's most social mode (Fiesta) as a permanent playlist. It's a mistake of having a population base that developed because of the social features and then basically abandon them because the competitive scene gets you sponsorships and whatnot.

[skillfulgecko]

that clip at the end with the fusion coil had me rolling! great vid mint.

[trevoredris]

That very last kill in the background vid was hilarious haha

[Rebelord]

This is the exact problem I had recently while playing Halo Infinite with my kids, and my dad. The minute I joined the party the games became way too intense for my kids and one became very frustrated, even though we were still winning some matches. The level of skill required became overwhelming. I was pushed to my limits of skill and my kids were getting demolished.

My dad and I even dated moving me to a smurf or spare account with no history to level the playing field. Joining a party with my friends or family shouldn't have such a negative experience on what was something we normally always did in past Halo games.

[JorjammyHD]

I genuinely feel worse each week because of how much I complain about this game. I love the gameplay and art style just like most of the fan base, but this is becoming a joke. I understand that Microsoft may be holding 343 back with what they can say and do at times, but it’s gotten to the point where it feels as if they don’t care what happens to the game by this point as they’ve already had a successful launch. Maybe I’m very wrong and I hope I am but it saddens me to see what the best gaming franchise of all time has become

[ajackass]

So bungie wants players to have fun and 343 wants players to be stressed. Everything makes sense now.

[AJMarraffa]

I agree with Max's stance on variety being the spice of matchmaking, I miss just hopping into a social game and feeling like I can take it easy and enjoy Halo. If we win, we win. If we lose, we lose. Some games are good, some games are bad, but just do your best and you'll have fun. That's why they're called social games, not ranked. Now, because they clearly want Halo to be a mainstream Esport competing with the likes of Overwatch and Fortnite, I feel like I always have to have my sweaty gamer guard™ up and ready so that my reaction time and accuracy are as good as they can be to compete. This is what makes the challenges so frustrating to complete too, the challenges have sweaty goals like getting multiple triple kills. They're really force-feeding the MLG Halo mentality into the mainstream. Having to step up to match that has made me get better at playing Halo for sure, but has also taken away my casual enjoyment of a fun FPS sandbox with goofy ragdoll physics and fun community-made content.

[ChriseyJames]

I'd kinda felt this without being able to really put my finger on why - the older games were just more fun and I was able to relax playing them but the newer ones feel much more sweaty. I'd though this was something about the game, but it being the SBMM actually makes a lot more sense. I wish this looser SBMM was in the newer games - I'm a decent player, but I've never really enjoyed ranked or competative play. The strict SBMM makes every game feel like its ranked, which is not why I play games...

[miccalam]

You're doing a real good thing with all this halo content you're putting out Mint. I think your belief in the game and what you want it to be resonates with so many others who are long term fans of 'Games that are Fun' and really want to see Halo survive and become a thing we all want it to be.
Keep up the great work in and behind the scenes buddy!
Hopefully you can land a career in game Dev or something. I know there's a few people here at least that would support!

[roblovvorn]

Ranked I think needs to have most games with balanced teams. If you don’t want to have to be focused and perform don’t queue ranked. However social should be a lot looser and allow for fun. Though some level of SBMM still needs to exist (though it can be very loose) just to keep new players from being farmed by high skilled players game after game and never having any fun themselves

[SlaaneshiChaplain]

Once upon a time there was a place called Ranked Games, this was a magical place where everyone who wanted to partake in a challenge, break a sweat or have experienced team mates went up against their equals in serious competitive play, shiny badges or numbers next to your name were the rewards for doing so well along with bragging statistics like K/D or W/L ratios. or achievements/armour pieces... [Overkill in Lonewolves etc]

Then there was Social play, everything from Casual but still competitive slayer games to Infection to brawling on multi-team King Of The Hill to racing mongooses with rockets launchers, the game types that you could simply meet up with an Xbox Live party of your friends go in with a few beers and banter about who had the worse driving skills, you could play them as serious as you want, you could go into a capture the flag game and try to pull off an amazing capture at the start of the game and frantically wait for that promised warthog to show up, the objective was to have fun, social or just relax and wind down whilst still being in a team of your friends or alone chilling out as you go up against random strangers.

And ofcourse there were custom games for when you only wanted to play with friends or do something dedicated like a match between just your inner group with more control over what you were doing like knocking Spartans off a floating bridge by launching fusion coils off a man cannon. etc.

Sometime after the release of Halo 3 the idea entered the mainstream consciousness that games weren't just for entertainment purposes or "Fun", games could be considered everything from Art, to an interactive story or journey to a recognised sport or playing them being a profession or career, these outlooks and beliefs have been around many years usually in niche circles but they weren't really shared with the majority of those who played or knew of them but have steadily become more popular and these attitudes and ideals have been reflected in the games themselves, more recently in gaming's history was the broadening awareness and legitimacy of E-Sports, there have been many attempts to create these ideal competitive games where every map is perfectly symmetrical, or 1-1 balanced in terms of weapon placement and it has affected everything from the ways that games have been designed themselves to even just the cosmetic and aesthetic, that stifles personality or creativity, you hear arguments about why playable elites shouldn't be added to the game because they would have a different hitbox or skeleton or perform animations differently and that would create an un-equalness or discrepancies in gameplay and disrupt balance despite they could be limited to just Social/custom playlists and modes and further add to the customisation and personalisation options, or how the Spartan Laser or classic Shotgun should also not be included because they would be overpowering despite being present in other titles. the mentality behind these limitations is that they disrupt not the enjoyment of the player but of how the game is meant to be played and where previously this care and consideration was directed mostly towards Ranked it somewhat encroached into Social games, in Halo Infinites case it happened because more people play social because of the more options available and its far easier to earn EXP completing challenges there whilst avoiding being de-ranked because you don't have a team stack etc.

TL:DR, social competitive gaming does not need to be 1-1 balanced, the maps don't to be 100% symmetrical or weapon options restricted or nerfed to provide some fantastical ideal of perfect balance, fun isn't achieved only through wining but can be achieved of just ongoing carnage or the hilarity of being splatted by a traffic cone, hell I go out on limb and say if there were game modes were you could play as grunts against Spartans you'd probably have higher player retention than if you added 3 new 100% Symmetrical Human base maps, Halo used to build upon foundations and expand [Infection, Rocket Race, Invasion, Firefight, Forge] now it just seems to reshine.

[commanderwyro]

how did 343 advertise this game as the most casual friendly halo yet? lmao

[reaIdeaIneaI]

Well I have said my goodbyes to this franchise for now. 343 has proven yet again how incompetent they really are. They market big promises but do not have the infrastructure to deliver on those promises. Release now, fix it later…or not at all, that’s how 343 handles their games. MCC suffered from the same mindset. It took almost 8 years for that game to actually deliver on the promises made back in 2014. Microsoft can’t wait around forever for 343 to make a game. 6 years of dev time should have been plenty to come up with a roadmap and game-plan on how to deliver a fantastic and complete Halo experience. Yet again we have been let down and told to keep waiting.

[markt]

I remember playing halo 3 ranked swat and I flew past 37, but after that it was agony. Slowly I crept up to like low/mid 40's, yet every match I played was stacked teams of 50's.

[vooyas.mp]

I feel that any game, which has a separate Ranked mode, regular matchmaking should have no SBMM whatsoever. If you want to sweat and play at "your level", you assemble a team and go into ranked or soloqueue. Casual matchmaking should be exactly that - casual. The whole playerbase matched based on their connections in a lobby to play and enjoy the sandbox.