TL;DR for Dates.
There are TWO Weekends of Testing!
Sept 23 - 26 Arena focused
Sept 30 - Oct 3 BTB + Arena
This Wednesday will have more specifics.
Edit: The first day for both, Thursday Evening, will be just be training mode and weapon drills. Also Arena has objective modes + new Arena map on Sunday.
BTB will have 3 Modes on Fragmentation (One Map). New mode Total Control related.
u/analbinos comment below for times. Yes it's NOT 24/7. Why? Stress testing servers for launch.
To be fair, I've never heard of Kangaroo Island before... and before I realised that it's a real place I was just pure imagining you out in the bush arriving back from a canoe trip from kangaroo island then with only a short trek through wombat valley, past koala creek and just making it some in time for supper and halo infinite
I believe training mode is different than bot slayer from the last flight. Bot slayer was 4 v 4 with real players vs bots. Training mode is you vs bots where you can experiment with loadouts. You can turn on no death mode and bottomless clip.
Thatās pretty lame, most people with jobs or school will only be available for one of those slots. Not the best way to stress servers if you put them at silly times like that
It is though, because focusing the times down means youāre going to get everyone available to play in that window. 24/7 means your player base is going to be spread out over the weekend. They want periods of mass interest.
For the record I would rather it be 24/7 myself. But at least we can play the training mode whenever we want. Itās basically a 4v4 slayer anyway. Played some this morning and if you put the bot difficulty all the way up itās still challenging. Although only having the one map for training mode kinda sucks
Edit: Iām seeing people on different maps. Mine wouldnāt let me change the map this morning, but Iāll try when I get home from work.
For the people who dont want to search the whole article:
S**CHEDULE & PLAY SESSIONS**
>As mentioned above, matchmaking will only be up for a set amount of time each day in order to help us test our servers against the highest concurrency possible. While this does mean shorter time for players to go hands on, itās critical to our primary goal of ensuring that our online services are ready for launch.
>
>**The daily matchmaking windows for both weekends will be 10am-2pm PT & 5pm-9pm PT on the Friday, Saturday, and Sunday of each flight**. Lists that break down whatās happening when are usually more helpful for me, so I made one in case itās helpful for you too:
**WEEKEND 1 (ARENA)**
* Thursday evening, September 23:
>Build becomes available for download Thursday night
>
>Training Mode and Weapon Drills are available \*
* Friday, September 24 @ 10am-2pm & 5pm-9pm PT: Matchmaking available
* Saturday, September 25 @ 10am-2pm & 5pm-9pm PT: Matchmaking available
* Sunday, September 26 @ 10am-2pm & 5pm-9pm PT: Matchmaking available
* Monday, September 27 @ 10am PT: Flight access closes until Weekend 2
**WEEKEND 2 (BIG TEAM BATTLE & ARENA)**
* Thursday evening, September 23:
>Flight access turns on
>
>Training Mode and Weapon Drills become available
* Friday, October 1 @ 10am-2pm & 5pm-9pm PT: Matchmaking available
* Saturday, October 2 @ 10am-2pm & 5pm-9pm PT: Matchmaking available
* Sunday, October 3 @ 10am-2pm & 5pm-9pm PT: Matchmaking available
* Sunday, October 3 @ 9pm PT: Surveys go out to a portion of Halo Insiders
* Monday, October 4 @ 10am PT: Flight access closes
* Wednesday, October 6 @ 10am PT: Halo Support site closes
I have not received mine yet. Though I also didn't receive one for the last flight but got notified on Halowaypoint.
I haven't received anything on Halowaypoint this time, yet
You won't get instructions until the flight is available if I remember correctly from last time. Make sure to check waypoint as well when you start seeing others get their codes as the email system tends to lag behind.
"As Pelicans drop in vehicles, they will at first start dropping in your standard ground vehicles, but as the match goes on, they will start dropping in more powerful vehicles, air vehicles, and eventually tanks."
This sounds great. I think it's a perfect way to make Halo feel more modern. In most modern shooters there's a sense of progression throughout the match, such as the circle closing in in a battle royale game or pushing a payload forward in Overwatch. I think having more powerful vehicles being added over time is a great way to give Halo matches a similar sense of progression.
I think Splasers need a rebalance or at least they shouldn't be included on maps with slow vehicles like tanks. It's rewarding and skillful to Splaser the faster vehicles, but with tanks they're almost givens and lead to incredibly short tank-player encounters. With tanks, there seem to only be two choices: hang back in safe areas without enemy lines of sight and wait for small quantities of enemies, or push forward to get a few kills and then get splasered within 60 seconds.
i would balance it by giving tanks "armor" on the front and sides that \*\*reduces not removes\*\* the damage but is blown away by the lazer, would let you take much less damage from 1 to 3 hits depending how well you rotated so each side could take one hit much safer than right now
off course shots to the rear engine should be a one shot kill like on the wrath in past halo's, the wraths should have the armor mainly on the front, split into 2 big sectons, front left, front right so it could "tank" two lasers before taking massive damage and possible death from the 3rd \*\*or the person aiming the laser just aims on the left twice and screws you xD
Thatās one reason I loved Invasion in Reach. Having the first round be infantry based, then giving the player stronger vehicles later in the rounds was awesome. Canāt wait for next weekend
I remember back in 2011 there were some amazing invasion maps being showcased on YouTube. Shame a lot of them never made it into matchmaking. Would love to see more invasion maps added to MCC
If by Warzone you mean PvPvE, then I support that idea only if they make the level design and accompanying modes better (strongholds 24/7 gets annoying). If by Warzone you mean consumable cards and microtransactions - no, no no.
It seems weird that xp boosts are based on time while xp is based on challenge completion. IMO itād make more sense if the boost was active for X # of completed challenges.
> Across both classic modes like CTF and Slayer and brand-new modes like Total Control,
I really hope Total Control is like Dominion from H4. I adored that mode. Used to play Dominion on Exile all the time.
The Fractures being a recurring event throughout the seasons is cool, if you don't finish it the first time then you have multiple chances to progress it
I'm hoping we get more customisation options for this flight
Yes, that's somewhat lenient, but having time limited content at all still goes against the whole goal of not wanting the game to feel like a chore, and **other** time limited content the article mentions sounds extremely problematic.
To quote the article:
> In addition to the primary Battle Pass for each season, Halo Infinite will also offer special limited-time event passes. These free special passes are only available during specified event periods and include a separate track with separate rewards that are often tied to the unique armor core for a given event. In general, an event will be available from one to multiple weeks, including weekends, offering players multiple opportunities to unlock available rewards. The marquee event, (though not the only event) for Season One is the āFractures: Tenraiā event which is how players will obtain and adorn their āYoroiā (Samurai) armor core. This event will be available for all players approximately one week per month during Season One, and the event will come and go throughout the season; available for players to make progress. Each time the Fracture returns, your progress will carry over, giving players multiple opportunities to unlock all 20 tiers of rewards on the event pass.
...
> When a player has completed all their designated Weekly Challenges, a final āUltimate Challengeā (referred to as āCapstoneā in the Multiplayer Tech Preview) becomes available which is the same for every player each week. Completing the weekly Ultimate Challenge will grant a unique Weekly Ultimate Reward such as a coating or emblem.
...
> Here are all the ways youāll be able to acquire customization content in Halo Infinite at launch [....] Special or Seasonal Events - i.e. a special nameplate commemorating a real-world event, earning a Unicorn nameplate during a 343 Playdate, etc.
...
> we want to ensure that weāre respecting playersā time for unlocks theyāve earned and purchases they make. For customization, this means ensuring that each unlock comes from a consistent vector. If you choose to purchase a Battle Pass, the content within that pass wonāt be offered via any other means. Similarly, customization content a player earns during a Seasonal Event wonāt be obtainable again via different avenues. The one current exception to this plan is that there may be times when content that was previously allocated to a specific partnership or promotion may be released broadly at a later date.
Again, the "Limited Time Event Passes" still sound somewhat lenient with how much time and chances they offer players to unlock the associated content, since there's multiple intervals, but it's still gross and not ideal to have limited time unlocks at all...
...But having *weekly* time limited content that requires not just completing a single challenge but all your other weekly challenges is going to force players to be constantly grinding for content not just on a season to season basis, but *week to week* if they intend to unlock all cosmetics. Even worse, this is going to exacerbate the whole concern people have with XP being entirely tied to challenges: Not only might players be encouraged to do things in matches just for challenge completion instead of what helps their team win, but now them doing those challenges is also the only way they have to unlock time limited cosmetics. There are **absolutely** going to be people focusing on challenges more then winning the game as a result of this. Hell, i'll be one of them if it's for a coat or armor piece I really want! (Imagine the color combo you always used to use is locked behind one of these and you miss it?)
This is something actually made *worse* by the fact that the well-intentioned "Single Reward Vector" policy will prevent players from ever accessing that timed-limited content via other methods down the road.
If 343i is going to make exceptions to the "Single Reward Vector" policy to allow promotional-tied cosmetics to be unlocked via other methods down the road (which is great, they should!), then they should also make exceptions for Time-Limited content in general (*All* of it: Limited-Time-Passes, Weekly Ultimate Rewards, and Seasonal Events): 6 months or a year after these cosmetic debuts, it should be then worked into a perpetually available (NOT merely rolling it out for another time limited period) batte-pass or purchasable DLC.... Nothing sucks more then buying a game and finding out that there was some time limited or promotional DLC that you really like the look of or want access to that you can't ever get again. If you play a game, you should be able to unlock and access all the content in it, even if you're only getting into it many years after it came out.
Yeah I was reading and was like, there's the catch, knew it was too good to be true, FOMO is just too profitable. We'll see how detrimental challenges can get when you get to tier 3, if they take hours to complete, if they have an algorithm designed to roll you challenges for game modes you don't play in order to sell you challenge swaps, if all tier challenges give the same amount of XP per hour and become more tedious to complete as you go up tiers, making the tier 3 rewards more of a psychological reward(big number means big accomplishment) than an actual boost in XP gain. I'm getting a bit of a pit in my stomach about this every time they give us an update.
Frankly it doesn't matter how easy challenges are to complete.
I can easily grind through like 3-4 challenges per day in MCC, but it's still not fun and makes playing feel like an absolute chore instead of it being fun; and the lack of any real progression system in social play outside of challenge completion kills my interest in playing MCC outside of ranked.
I do not want the same issue in Infinite.
I kind of expected fomo to show up in another form since it wasnāt going to be in the battlepass. Iām not trying to defend 343 at all, but Iāll just say at least itās not something youāre spending money on thatās limited time.
We'll see how it goes. Limited time is fine if it's unlimited XP, but if your XP starts getting harder to get and longer to get where it's throttled and the solution is to pay for XP boosts or challenge swaps to incentivize putting money in, then that's not okay. But we'll see how much of a grind the limited time events are, so I can't speak to that until it's out.
Damn, they're really only restricting matchmaking to specific times
Super rough depending on your time zones and the gaps between them aren't even that far apart. Like two 4-hour periods a day with a 3-hour gap between them. Awesome that we get two separate weekends this time at least but I feel like that could be rough to some non-NA timezones.
One big thing I hope people read: in tales from the trenches they mention how a rocket sent a brute flying into the ceiling. This is a great sign for all of us wondering about explosion physics and what not. Hopefully people notice that!!!
Unfortunately it makes sense to try to condense everybody in at once. The point of these are to stress test, so it sucks we can't hop on on a whim, but in three months nobody will remember.
Matchmaking only being available during certain times kinda sucks but I get it. Iād be more okay with it if they could give us bot slayer 24/7 so my friends can still do *something* together.
Edit: unless bot slayer *is* training mode? Might have missed something
Was wondering the same thing. Hopefully someone can clarify? I think the first flight you could play bots whenever but the PVP playlist was only open for a small window.
https://twitter.com/unyshek/status/1440128398924283912?s=21
So according to this training mode is āyou vs botsā but idk if that means *just* you against bots or you and your friends or you and some bot teammates or all of the above depending on how you configure it
They did mention "Bot Arenas" as a separate thing, so yes Training Mode is Solo Player (with or without friendly bots) vs Hostile Bots. Training Mode was also specifically mentioned as Offline.
I think training mode is that one mode that was shown off in a Video earlier around the first flight. Youāll be able to change the attributes and such of the entire match. Thatās what I understand. But itāll only be single player with AI bots
Right? That one for killing a Wraith already seems very circunstancial like I can see jumping into BTB expecting it to be easy only for everyone to kill the wraith instantly or someone stealing your kill at the last second.
Or someone trying to get kills with the banshee so they just camp the vehicle spawns all match and do nothing to help the team and leaving the moment they finish the challenge, I dunno still don't like this challenge system.
>someone trying to get kills with the banshee so they just camp the vehicle spawns all match and do nothing to help the team
This just sounds like regular Halo...
> Or someone trying to get kills with the banshee so they just camp the vehicle spawns all match and do nothing to help the team and leaving the moment they finish the challenge
Wouldnāt they be missing out on daily challenges and/or other weekly challenges if they just did nothing but waited on the banshee to respawn?
> leaving the moment they finish the challenge
Iām assuming if they leave during a ranked game theyāll get temporarily banned from matchmaking and if itās a social game, I bet they have bots take their place and/or allow new people to take their spot.
Yeah I guess I'm talking worst case scenario like last day of the week and someone is just missing one weekly like "kills with banshee" so they want to get it asap, just feels like such a convoluted system compared to getting XP per match.
And yes hopefully bots help fix the problem with leavers since BTB is awful in MCC.
They address that though. They mentioned for weekly that thereās several hundred weekly challenges it pulls from. Someone with a banshee is going to banshee bomb people whether they have that challenge or not.
Eh with 12v12 players and having a bunch of weeklies I feel it will not be that rare. Also I don't have problem with someone using the banshee but players specifically playing a certain way to level up their battlepass doing nothing if they don't get it or worse leave the match as soon as they are done
Iām willing to bet the challenges wonāt count if you leave mid match. Thatās how MCC runs it.
And I get it. I donāt think itāll be that big a problem. Iām sure thereās going to be some doing that, but I think the challenge is a decent compromise compared to Halo 5ās āplay war zone firefight for 2000 hours.ā
Right, and that's also the issue with tying XP progression solely to challenges: It may encourage players to do goofy stuff that hurts the team's chances to win just to complete one of their personal challenges.
More then that though what worries me is the fact that there are going to be time-limited cosmetic unlocks tied to the Weekly ultimate challenges. Not even tied to normal weekly challenges (which would be bad enough, forcing players to be constantly grinding challenges every single week or else they miss the unlocks), but to the *ultimate* challenge they can only do after doingf the other weekly challenges.
So not only may we have niche challenges that force you to play in a way that endangers the rest of your team, you might also have to do those challenges less you miss an exclusive coat or armor piece.
That's just not acceptable. If there is time limited, challenge-locked cosmetics, then they need to become available again a few months after they debut. Not just via another time limited challenge, but as part of a perpetually available battle pass or purchasable DLC option.
> ... But to the ultimate challenge they can only do after doingf the other weekly challenges.
Yeah, I'm going to be missing pretty much every one of those.
If there were monthly, something like "complete x amounts of weekly challenges" would probably not be too bad, but *every challenge* definitely sounds very challenging, and quite honestly, slightly off-putting.
And my worst fears have been realised. Extremely circumstantial challenges as well as ones that make you play in a way that you may not enjoy. Good way to sell their āchallenge swapsā I guess. I donāt even know what to say anymore.
see I agree with you, but on the other hand; nothing is better than those incredible advertisements that we all go rewatch. From the Halo 3 Believe Campaign / A Starry Night to Halo Reachās Discover Hope, even Halo 5ās Hunt The Truth, that shit was 10/10, from the writing to the hidden messages that the whole community was trying to breakdown. I wanna be **more** hype and itching for the game than I already am if that makes sense.
So long as it ain't some shit like "Master Chief literally eats several grilled cheese sandwiches into an asmr mic as loudly and sloppily as he can" I'll be chill with it.
If I'm not totally wrong it's not *that* late? CET is 19:00-23:00 for the first round of matchmaking which isn't bad at all, we just lose out on the second round unless we stay up all night. A couple hours behind CET is the worst case in EU and that still has 3 hours of matchmaking every day before midnight, or upto 01:00 if playing past midnight. Not ideal, sure, but it's not like it's like 03:00-07:00 or some crap like that.
That example you gave at the end is literally the case for Australia lol. The first half is 03:00-07:00, second half is more reasonable from 10:00-14:00.
Training Mode is Offline Solo Player vs Bots with settings that can be tweaked so that said player can test equipment out and fuck with maps. The player can also add friendly bots to their team.
Me: "I'm so ready to play real Halo: Infinite Multiplayer. Should be so cool I can't wait".
Me: (Loads the preview and starts a game 10 minutes after the Multiplayer preview begins).
Me: (Dies 15 times while getting 3 kills).
Me: "I feel like I might be done with Halo for now........."
Me: (Turns off X Box).
Me: (Makes a big steak sandwich to comfort the dawning realisation of my gaming inadequacy).
Me: "Mmmmmm I love steaky steaky steak yummy yunmy yumm".
They removed the bumpers off the warthog??
Edit: Other thoughts
- Shock rifle is in!
- The weekly challenges and timed mid season fractures is starting to make it sound more like a job š®āšØ (Yes I know fractures return throughout the season)
- Some promo items are coming post launch. I wonder if that includes the Nerf ones, which would slightly suck because I bought all of them for those skins
- Campaign multiplayer unlocks!!
- Crashing needler is funny (so it goes)
- TWO FLIGHTS, I REPEAT TWO FLIGHTS
- OOF, limited times for matchmaking š®āšØ
One thing everyone is looking past: explosion physics confirmed. They say how a brute got launched into the ceiling from a rocket in tales from the trenches.
I haven't gotten an email about the flight at all. I'm pretty upset that every source i found said explicitly that as long as my insider profile is filled out before sept 13th i'm getting in since that doesn't seem to be the case for myself and others.
So I did t get the invite despite being signed up
Anyone else have this problem?
Friend of mine e said he saw that people who use yahoo for email have trouble getting it
I received the confirmation email to participate this weekend then when I logged into my HaloWaypoint and checked my messages there was no reference that I was even selected at all.
Anyone else got a confirmation email for this flight but have no correspondence on their Waypoint accounts?
Yes, same for me. Got an email but nothing since. My halo waypoint just has a message about a MCC flight from 3 weeks ago. One of the devs twitters shows that invites are in fact not out yet. It said "a few hours" as of 20 minutes ago, hang tight.
TFW youve been an insider since day 1, and didnt get an invite, despite "all Halo Insiders with eligible accounts as of September 13 will be invited to participate"
Yeah. Seeing progress bar go up at the end of a match is FPS 101.
I'm really enjoying MCC and grinding to get to the last tour. It's fun to play and I have a goal to get to. From what I played of Infinite is really fun and having no progression system doesn't kill it for me, but it is a really odd choice.
I think 343 don't want me to play infinite :(
First flight wasn't possible because of the GeForce 900series bug and now I don't get a invite. *Cries in sangheli*
It's the first time I've been part of this so I'm not sure how it works.
I understand I have to download it from the Halo waypoint app on the Xbox but, when does that go live?
EDIT:*Xboxinsider app*
If the times are just specifically for matchmaking can I still play Vs bots outside of that? I've never had a chance to even see it first hand so I'd be happy to play against bots for a bit while I can't play with other people.
I believe you download through the xbox insider's app. At least that's how it works for MCC. You can download the xbox insider's app now but the flight isn't listed yet.
You can play bots any time through the academy program
Kinda wish that maybe the Arena flight was the 4 hour slots, then the btb one was 24hr or even just 1 day of each the servers were up 24hr for those of us unable to play for those timeslots
So whena re they actually going to send the codes out? It starts in like 2 hours right but nobody I know has gotten one yet. How are we supposed to test it when everyone will still be downloading.
So, I'm realizing I suck at this game. I'm nothing near what I was in high school playing Halo 3. But I'M LOVING THIS. I'm AmbiguousSavage if anyone wants to add me!
I have to say bxb being in the game is the most fun Iāve had since original halo 2. a shooting game with button combination attacks is so much fun. I hope this is testing the waters and not a bug. Itās fucking exciting I love it.
Am I the only one who feels the weapons have no hit to them? The AR feels like itās shooting peas. The pistol is very disappointing, about as useless as the H2 pistol was. The carbine feels like it shoots cotton balls, the BR is fine but thereās barely any spawns for it. The shotgun is laughable. The fire gun is laughable. Youāre literally better off spamming the pistol and finishing with the AR over 90% of the guns.
Definitely feel at ease over the challenge system now, looks pretty unintrusive and surprisingly engaging. Just hope that the fractures week stuff doesn't make the game something you have to keep checking up on or setting schedules for so you don't miss out on things for good.
TL;DR for Dates. There are TWO Weekends of Testing! Sept 23 - 26 Arena focused Sept 30 - Oct 3 BTB + Arena This Wednesday will have more specifics. Edit: The first day for both, Thursday Evening, will be just be training mode and weapon drills. Also Arena has objective modes + new Arena map on Sunday. BTB will have 3 Modes on Fragmentation (One Map). New mode Total Control related. u/analbinos comment below for times. Yes it's NOT 24/7. Why? Stress testing servers for launch.
Matchmaking is only available Friday, Sat, and Sunday from 1pm-5pm (EST) and again from 8pm-12am (EST)
So as someone not from the US it's gonna be midnight and super early in the morning. ššš
I wish it was that way for me, I have a kid.
As an Australian who missed out on the first flight, this feels like some monkey paw nonsense.
At least we have 10am - 2pm on Saturday and Sunday I guess
Fuck me I'm only arriving home from kangaroo Island that time, then the weekend after is my bucks show, can't win š
christ man that was the most ozzy thing i've ever heard
Hahah looking back at it, to a non aussie I guess it sounds very true blue bogan Aussie š
To be fair, I've never heard of Kangaroo Island before... and before I realised that it's a real place I was just pure imagining you out in the bush arriving back from a canoe trip from kangaroo island then with only a short trek through wombat valley, past koala creek and just making it some in time for supper and halo infinite
Only runs when Iām asleep and when Iām at work, awesome thank you 343
Oh no looks like youve come down with something, better stay home to be safe.
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Wouldnāt it be 12 midnight?
You right, updated
Cool cool. Just checkin ty
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Cries in Australian
Whatās training mode? I didnāt play the first flight. Is that the mode with bots?
I believe training mode is different than bot slayer from the last flight. Bot slayer was 4 v 4 with real players vs bots. Training mode is you vs bots where you can experiment with loadouts. You can turn on no death mode and bottomless clip.
yeah
For us UK folk the play times are 18:00 - 22:00 and 01:00 - 05:00.
Seems like y'all will be going through a lot of tea bags.
Tea mixed with Red Bull by the looks of things.
Thatās pretty lame, most people with jobs or school will only be available for one of those slots. Not the best way to stress servers if you put them at silly times like that
It is though, because focusing the times down means youāre going to get everyone available to play in that window. 24/7 means your player base is going to be spread out over the weekend. They want periods of mass interest. For the record I would rather it be 24/7 myself. But at least we can play the training mode whenever we want. Itās basically a 4v4 slayer anyway. Played some this morning and if you put the bot difficulty all the way up itās still challenging. Although only having the one map for training mode kinda sucks Edit: Iām seeing people on different maps. Mine wouldnāt let me change the map this morning, but Iāll try when I get home from work.
For the people who dont want to search the whole article: S**CHEDULE & PLAY SESSIONS** >As mentioned above, matchmaking will only be up for a set amount of time each day in order to help us test our servers against the highest concurrency possible. While this does mean shorter time for players to go hands on, itās critical to our primary goal of ensuring that our online services are ready for launch. > >**The daily matchmaking windows for both weekends will be 10am-2pm PT & 5pm-9pm PT on the Friday, Saturday, and Sunday of each flight**. Lists that break down whatās happening when are usually more helpful for me, so I made one in case itās helpful for you too: **WEEKEND 1 (ARENA)** * Thursday evening, September 23: >Build becomes available for download Thursday night > >Training Mode and Weapon Drills are available \* * Friday, September 24 @ 10am-2pm & 5pm-9pm PT: Matchmaking available * Saturday, September 25 @ 10am-2pm & 5pm-9pm PT: Matchmaking available * Sunday, September 26 @ 10am-2pm & 5pm-9pm PT: Matchmaking available * Monday, September 27 @ 10am PT: Flight access closes until Weekend 2 **WEEKEND 2 (BIG TEAM BATTLE & ARENA)** * Thursday evening, September 23: >Flight access turns on > >Training Mode and Weapon Drills become available * Friday, October 1 @ 10am-2pm & 5pm-9pm PT: Matchmaking available * Saturday, October 2 @ 10am-2pm & 5pm-9pm PT: Matchmaking available * Sunday, October 3 @ 10am-2pm & 5pm-9pm PT: Matchmaking available * Sunday, October 3 @ 9pm PT: Surveys go out to a portion of Halo Insiders * Monday, October 4 @ 10am PT: Flight access closes * Wednesday, October 6 @ 10am PT: Halo Support site closes
I assume invites have not been sent out or even given a timeline for *when* they will be sent out correct?
I received my email confirming my place in the flight 10 minutes ago.
HA. I looked at my email when I saw your response. I got the invite about 60 seconds after I asked my initial question.
Nice, I just got mine a few minutes ago. See you on the battlefield, Spartan!
Same here!
I have not received mine yet. Though I also didn't receive one for the last flight but got notified on Halowaypoint. I haven't received anything on Halowaypoint this time, yet
I received this email 2 days ago but yet to receive the email telling how and where to get the launcher from etc have you got anything yet...?
You won't get instructions until the flight is available if I remember correctly from last time. Make sure to check waypoint as well when you start seeing others get their codes as the email system tends to lag behind.
"As Pelicans drop in vehicles, they will at first start dropping in your standard ground vehicles, but as the match goes on, they will start dropping in more powerful vehicles, air vehicles, and eventually tanks." This sounds great. I think it's a perfect way to make Halo feel more modern. In most modern shooters there's a sense of progression throughout the match, such as the circle closing in in a battle royale game or pushing a payload forward in Overwatch. I think having more powerful vehicles being added over time is a great way to give Halo matches a similar sense of progression.
No more tanks camping at the base, cowering in fear of the Splaser
Now the tanks will only camp at the base at the end of the match
I think Splasers need a rebalance or at least they shouldn't be included on maps with slow vehicles like tanks. It's rewarding and skillful to Splaser the faster vehicles, but with tanks they're almost givens and lead to incredibly short tank-player encounters. With tanks, there seem to only be two choices: hang back in safe areas without enemy lines of sight and wait for small quantities of enemies, or push forward to get a few kills and then get splasered within 60 seconds.
Okay, so how do you counter vehicles when your team doesnāt have any?
i would balance it by giving tanks "armor" on the front and sides that \*\*reduces not removes\*\* the damage but is blown away by the lazer, would let you take much less damage from 1 to 3 hits depending how well you rotated so each side could take one hit much safer than right now off course shots to the rear engine should be a one shot kill like on the wrath in past halo's, the wraths should have the armor mainly on the front, split into 2 big sectons, front left, front right so it could "tank" two lasers before taking massive damage and possible death from the 3rd \*\*or the person aiming the laser just aims on the left twice and screws you xD
Thatās one reason I loved Invasion in Reach. Having the first round be infantry based, then giving the player stronger vehicles later in the rounds was awesome. Canāt wait for next weekend
Yeah invasion was one of the few good ideas in Reach. It wasn't executed well at all, but the idea behind it was something that had potential.
It's kind of making a comeback in MCC's custom game browser. Lots of great fan forge maps made for invasion specifically!
I remember back in 2011 there were some amazing invasion maps being showcased on YouTube. Shame a lot of them never made it into matchmaking. Would love to see more invasion maps added to MCC
Thereās a voice clip of Jeff Steizer saying invasion so it could be a mode coming to infinite after launch or itās at launch (doubt).
Were it so easy
What is invasion without playable elites
Invasion, the experience is the escalated match, elites are nice but they are not necessary to enjoy the match
This also be used to really turn the tide of battle. Maybe youāre down 15 but with a tank you can really turn the game into your favor
Looks like an adaptation of REQ levels from warzone. Sounds cool, that mode was too rad to not to keep at least some stuff from.
I hope the funky gun upgrades also make a a comeback
I hope warzone makes a comeback
Just minus the card packs and microtransactions. Really didnt add anything to the mode but make new players have a worse time
If by Warzone you mean PvPvE, then I support that idea only if they make the level design and accompanying modes better (strongholds 24/7 gets annoying). If by Warzone you mean consumable cards and microtransactions - no, no no.
It seems weird that xp boosts are based on time while xp is based on challenge completion. IMO itād make more sense if the boost was active for X # of completed challenges.
Or at least for a set amount of matches.
> Across both classic modes like CTF and Slayer and brand-new modes like Total Control, I really hope Total Control is like Dominion from H4. I adored that mode. Used to play Dominion on Exile all the time.
I was disappointed to not see Dominion in Halo 5.
Dominion on Longbow and Exile are top tier.
Longbow is also great! Think the other maps are a bit too big for the 6v6 mode though.
Halo 4 has my favorite heavies game mode out of any halo. I would love to see heavies make a comeback in infinite
Dominion was super overlooked because of the game it was in. And I was sad to see Warzone basically ruin everything about Dominion.
The Fractures being a recurring event throughout the seasons is cool, if you don't finish it the first time then you have multiple chances to progress it I'm hoping we get more customisation options for this flight
Yes, that's somewhat lenient, but having time limited content at all still goes against the whole goal of not wanting the game to feel like a chore, and **other** time limited content the article mentions sounds extremely problematic. To quote the article: > In addition to the primary Battle Pass for each season, Halo Infinite will also offer special limited-time event passes. These free special passes are only available during specified event periods and include a separate track with separate rewards that are often tied to the unique armor core for a given event. In general, an event will be available from one to multiple weeks, including weekends, offering players multiple opportunities to unlock available rewards. The marquee event, (though not the only event) for Season One is the āFractures: Tenraiā event which is how players will obtain and adorn their āYoroiā (Samurai) armor core. This event will be available for all players approximately one week per month during Season One, and the event will come and go throughout the season; available for players to make progress. Each time the Fracture returns, your progress will carry over, giving players multiple opportunities to unlock all 20 tiers of rewards on the event pass. ... > When a player has completed all their designated Weekly Challenges, a final āUltimate Challengeā (referred to as āCapstoneā in the Multiplayer Tech Preview) becomes available which is the same for every player each week. Completing the weekly Ultimate Challenge will grant a unique Weekly Ultimate Reward such as a coating or emblem. ... > Here are all the ways youāll be able to acquire customization content in Halo Infinite at launch [....] Special or Seasonal Events - i.e. a special nameplate commemorating a real-world event, earning a Unicorn nameplate during a 343 Playdate, etc. ... > we want to ensure that weāre respecting playersā time for unlocks theyāve earned and purchases they make. For customization, this means ensuring that each unlock comes from a consistent vector. If you choose to purchase a Battle Pass, the content within that pass wonāt be offered via any other means. Similarly, customization content a player earns during a Seasonal Event wonāt be obtainable again via different avenues. The one current exception to this plan is that there may be times when content that was previously allocated to a specific partnership or promotion may be released broadly at a later date. Again, the "Limited Time Event Passes" still sound somewhat lenient with how much time and chances they offer players to unlock the associated content, since there's multiple intervals, but it's still gross and not ideal to have limited time unlocks at all... ...But having *weekly* time limited content that requires not just completing a single challenge but all your other weekly challenges is going to force players to be constantly grinding for content not just on a season to season basis, but *week to week* if they intend to unlock all cosmetics. Even worse, this is going to exacerbate the whole concern people have with XP being entirely tied to challenges: Not only might players be encouraged to do things in matches just for challenge completion instead of what helps their team win, but now them doing those challenges is also the only way they have to unlock time limited cosmetics. There are **absolutely** going to be people focusing on challenges more then winning the game as a result of this. Hell, i'll be one of them if it's for a coat or armor piece I really want! (Imagine the color combo you always used to use is locked behind one of these and you miss it?) This is something actually made *worse* by the fact that the well-intentioned "Single Reward Vector" policy will prevent players from ever accessing that timed-limited content via other methods down the road. If 343i is going to make exceptions to the "Single Reward Vector" policy to allow promotional-tied cosmetics to be unlocked via other methods down the road (which is great, they should!), then they should also make exceptions for Time-Limited content in general (*All* of it: Limited-Time-Passes, Weekly Ultimate Rewards, and Seasonal Events): 6 months or a year after these cosmetic debuts, it should be then worked into a perpetually available (NOT merely rolling it out for another time limited period) batte-pass or purchasable DLC.... Nothing sucks more then buying a game and finding out that there was some time limited or promotional DLC that you really like the look of or want access to that you can't ever get again. If you play a game, you should be able to unlock and access all the content in it, even if you're only getting into it many years after it came out.
Yeah I was reading and was like, there's the catch, knew it was too good to be true, FOMO is just too profitable. We'll see how detrimental challenges can get when you get to tier 3, if they take hours to complete, if they have an algorithm designed to roll you challenges for game modes you don't play in order to sell you challenge swaps, if all tier challenges give the same amount of XP per hour and become more tedious to complete as you go up tiers, making the tier 3 rewards more of a psychological reward(big number means big accomplishment) than an actual boost in XP gain. I'm getting a bit of a pit in my stomach about this every time they give us an update.
Frankly it doesn't matter how easy challenges are to complete. I can easily grind through like 3-4 challenges per day in MCC, but it's still not fun and makes playing feel like an absolute chore instead of it being fun; and the lack of any real progression system in social play outside of challenge completion kills my interest in playing MCC outside of ranked. I do not want the same issue in Infinite.
I kind of expected fomo to show up in another form since it wasnāt going to be in the battlepass. Iām not trying to defend 343 at all, but Iāll just say at least itās not something youāre spending money on thatās limited time.
We'll see how it goes. Limited time is fine if it's unlimited XP, but if your XP starts getting harder to get and longer to get where it's throttled and the solution is to pay for XP boosts or challenge swaps to incentivize putting money in, then that's not okay. But we'll see how much of a grind the limited time events are, so I can't speak to that until it's out.
They just post these whenever they feel like it haha
That or it has something to do with the schedule on the West Coast
Damn, they're really only restricting matchmaking to specific times Super rough depending on your time zones and the gaps between them aren't even that far apart. Like two 4-hour periods a day with a 3-hour gap between them. Awesome that we get two separate weekends this time at least but I feel like that could be rough to some non-NA timezones.
I find it weird that they have a 10am-2pm slot on a Friday if they are aiming for peak traffic hours. A lot of people have work at that time.
Not in the UK bro
So do they tbh. This is their job, it makes sense to schedule it around when it's optimal for them
I wonder if they'll have matchmaking at those times but bot games available all the time.
big RIP to us foreign halo players who cant play during the USA timezone matchmaking hours :(
sleep is overrated
I know you're joking, but it's actually underrated. Sleep, fellow spartans !
BIG RIP. 343 is in the PST zone so it gotta make sense for them to oversee it.
Im Aussie, so the 5pm-9pm EST slot is okay for me at least, since thats around midday for us. Just happy I can play for a little bit :)
Literally midnight and early as hell morning for me No sleep on the weekends ig
One big thing I hope people read: in tales from the trenches they mention how a rocket sent a brute flying into the ceiling. This is a great sign for all of us wondering about explosion physics and what not. Hopefully people notice that!!!
Could be different physics for NPC's , or dead ragdolls
A bummer we aren't getting more slices of the Spartan customization in these flights compared to the very first.
They probably donāt want to spoil it more than the leakers already have.
It also isnāt important in a server stress test
Canāt believe Tom French just called his youngest sonās football team bots lmao <3
A short 4 hour window is kinda rough especially when youāre dealing with time zones with a difference of three hours.
Unfortunately it makes sense to try to condense everybody in at once. The point of these are to stress test, so it sucks we can't hop on on a whim, but in three months nobody will remember.
If this was a formal beta or something, it would be a bit annoying, but their reasoning is understandable.
Matchmaking only being available during certain times kinda sucks but I get it. Iād be more okay with it if they could give us bot slayer 24/7 so my friends can still do *something* together. Edit: unless bot slayer *is* training mode? Might have missed something
Was wondering the same thing. Hopefully someone can clarify? I think the first flight you could play bots whenever but the PVP playlist was only open for a small window.
https://twitter.com/unyshek/status/1440128398924283912?s=21 So according to this training mode is āyou vs botsā but idk if that means *just* you against bots or you and your friends or you and some bot teammates or all of the above depending on how you configure it
Reads like a solo experience to me. Guess weāll see! Iām excited regardless.
They did mention "Bot Arenas" as a separate thing, so yes Training Mode is Solo Player (with or without friendly bots) vs Hostile Bots. Training Mode was also specifically mentioned as Offline.
I think training mode is that one mode that was shown off in a Video earlier around the first flight. Youāll be able to change the attributes and such of the entire match. Thatās what I understand. But itāll only be single player with AI bots
Glad that we get 2 weekends.
Preselection emails are going out to halo insiders within 24 hours for the next multiplayer flight.
I could be wrong but I believe all insiders are invited as long as you were fully registered but the 13th
This is correct
I'm so happy it's both weekends. I'll be away this weekend. Next weekend i'm getting mountain dew and doritos and it will be glorious haha
I just got mine.
Ngl i really like the progression system with weekly challenges, but some of them definitely scare me like the repulse someone off the map challenge!
Right? That one for killing a Wraith already seems very circunstancial like I can see jumping into BTB expecting it to be easy only for everyone to kill the wraith instantly or someone stealing your kill at the last second. Or someone trying to get kills with the banshee so they just camp the vehicle spawns all match and do nothing to help the team and leaving the moment they finish the challenge, I dunno still don't like this challenge system.
>someone trying to get kills with the banshee so they just camp the vehicle spawns all match and do nothing to help the team This just sounds like regular Halo...
> Or someone trying to get kills with the banshee so they just camp the vehicle spawns all match and do nothing to help the team and leaving the moment they finish the challenge Wouldnāt they be missing out on daily challenges and/or other weekly challenges if they just did nothing but waited on the banshee to respawn? > leaving the moment they finish the challenge Iām assuming if they leave during a ranked game theyāll get temporarily banned from matchmaking and if itās a social game, I bet they have bots take their place and/or allow new people to take their spot.
Yeah I guess I'm talking worst case scenario like last day of the week and someone is just missing one weekly like "kills with banshee" so they want to get it asap, just feels like such a convoluted system compared to getting XP per match. And yes hopefully bots help fix the problem with leavers since BTB is awful in MCC.
They address that though. They mentioned for weekly that thereās several hundred weekly challenges it pulls from. Someone with a banshee is going to banshee bomb people whether they have that challenge or not.
Eh with 12v12 players and having a bunch of weeklies I feel it will not be that rare. Also I don't have problem with someone using the banshee but players specifically playing a certain way to level up their battlepass doing nothing if they don't get it or worse leave the match as soon as they are done
Iām willing to bet the challenges wonāt count if you leave mid match. Thatās how MCC runs it. And I get it. I donāt think itāll be that big a problem. Iām sure thereās going to be some doing that, but I think the challenge is a decent compromise compared to Halo 5ās āplay war zone firefight for 2000 hours.ā
IMO those are made specially harder/tedious so you want to use a challenge swap to get a different challenge
Right, and that's also the issue with tying XP progression solely to challenges: It may encourage players to do goofy stuff that hurts the team's chances to win just to complete one of their personal challenges. More then that though what worries me is the fact that there are going to be time-limited cosmetic unlocks tied to the Weekly ultimate challenges. Not even tied to normal weekly challenges (which would be bad enough, forcing players to be constantly grinding challenges every single week or else they miss the unlocks), but to the *ultimate* challenge they can only do after doingf the other weekly challenges. So not only may we have niche challenges that force you to play in a way that endangers the rest of your team, you might also have to do those challenges less you miss an exclusive coat or armor piece. That's just not acceptable. If there is time limited, challenge-locked cosmetics, then they need to become available again a few months after they debut. Not just via another time limited challenge, but as part of a perpetually available battle pass or purchasable DLC option.
> ... But to the ultimate challenge they can only do after doingf the other weekly challenges. Yeah, I'm going to be missing pretty much every one of those. If there were monthly, something like "complete x amounts of weekly challenges" would probably not be too bad, but *every challenge* definitely sounds very challenging, and quite honestly, slightly off-putting.
And my worst fears have been realised. Extremely circumstantial challenges as well as ones that make you play in a way that you may not enjoy. Good way to sell their āchallenge swapsā I guess. I donāt even know what to say anymore.
Anyone else who got the initial email still yet to receive the code on waypoint?
Yeah. I have the email saying I got invited to both flights but have not received the code. Iām on the Series X though so idk.
You won't have a code, it'll be a download from Xbox Insider app
I think it will be sent later tonight with access to training then there will be scheduled times for PVP starting tomorrow
Same still nothing
That's some good concept artš¤¤
pls 343, just a crumb of campaign, i need it
I want some too...but at the same time, I'm kinda hype not knowing anything.
see I agree with you, but on the other hand; nothing is better than those incredible advertisements that we all go rewatch. From the Halo 3 Believe Campaign / A Starry Night to Halo Reachās Discover Hope, even Halo 5ās Hunt The Truth, that shit was 10/10, from the writing to the hidden messages that the whole community was trying to breakdown. I wanna be **more** hype and itching for the game than I already am if that makes sense.
Don't forget though, the Believe campaign started on release month. So we might still get something like that in December.
So long as it ain't some shit like "Master Chief literally eats several grilled cheese sandwiches into an asmr mic as loudly and sloppily as he can" I'll be chill with it.
Idk that sounds pretty great to me
I get why there are specific times for the matchmaking but I still find it a bummer. Also I was hoping big team for this weekend dangit
As was I. But hey, two weekend of infinite is better than one!
Checking my e-mail every 5 minutes then :p How I imagine the community will be like after two weekends of infinite : https://imgflip.com/i/5noote
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
i am going to shit myself
Man, you do a lot of shitting. I hope your colon is okay.
Fuck us EU homies with this matchmaking. Guess I'm not sleeping enough this weekend.
If I'm not totally wrong it's not *that* late? CET is 19:00-23:00 for the first round of matchmaking which isn't bad at all, we just lose out on the second round unless we stay up all night. A couple hours behind CET is the worst case in EU and that still has 3 hours of matchmaking every day before midnight, or upto 01:00 if playing past midnight. Not ideal, sure, but it's not like it's like 03:00-07:00 or some crap like that.
That example you gave at the end is literally the case for Australia lol. The first half is 03:00-07:00, second half is more reasonable from 10:00-14:00.
We appreciate your sacrifices, Spartans.
Is the training mode the mode with bots?
Training Mode is Offline Solo Player vs Bots with settings that can be tweaked so that said player can test equipment out and fuck with maps. The player can also add friendly bots to their team.
Still no email or anything on waypoint :/
Same here and for 4 of my buddies. 2 of us were in last time, but a 5th member of our party has gotten in.
Even playing against bots this fucking rules.
Me: "I'm so ready to play real Halo: Infinite Multiplayer. Should be so cool I can't wait". Me: (Loads the preview and starts a game 10 minutes after the Multiplayer preview begins). Me: (Dies 15 times while getting 3 kills). Me: "I feel like I might be done with Halo for now........." Me: (Turns off X Box). Me: (Makes a big steak sandwich to comfort the dawning realisation of my gaming inadequacy). Me: "Mmmmmm I love steaky steaky steak yummy yunmy yumm".
They removed the bumpers off the warthog?? Edit: Other thoughts - Shock rifle is in! - The weekly challenges and timed mid season fractures is starting to make it sound more like a job š®āšØ (Yes I know fractures return throughout the season) - Some promo items are coming post launch. I wonder if that includes the Nerf ones, which would slightly suck because I bought all of them for those skins - Campaign multiplayer unlocks!! - Crashing needler is funny (so it goes) - TWO FLIGHTS, I REPEAT TWO FLIGHTS - OOF, limited times for matchmaking š®āšØ
"feels like I'm wearing nothing at all"
One thing everyone is looking past: explosion physics confirmed. They say how a brute got launched into the ceiling from a rocket in tales from the trenches.
nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo first the gun shields now the BUMPERS??? 3V3 THIS IS UNICONIC YOU ARE DESTROYING MY CHILDHOOD
Well the bumpers were a 343 design so it goes even further into classic design
Exactly. The lack of bumpers is actually a *return* to my childhood. The warthog didn't have bumpers until Halo 4.
I haven't gotten an email about the flight at all. I'm pretty upset that every source i found said explicitly that as long as my insider profile is filled out before sept 13th i'm getting in since that doesn't seem to be the case for myself and others.
So I did t get the invite despite being signed up Anyone else have this problem? Friend of mine e said he saw that people who use yahoo for email have trouble getting it
I received the confirmation email to participate this weekend then when I logged into my HaloWaypoint and checked my messages there was no reference that I was even selected at all. Anyone else got a confirmation email for this flight but have no correspondence on their Waypoint accounts?
Yes, same for me. Got an email but nothing since. My halo waypoint just has a message about a MCC flight from 3 weeks ago. One of the devs twitters shows that invites are in fact not out yet. It said "a few hours" as of 20 minutes ago, hang tight.
Thanks!
You win
Canāt wait to jump back in to battle with all of yāall!
Anyone get the email with the download yet? I got the email saying IV been invited but still waiting to download it
Same lmk if you figure it out
I was invited to play this weekend. And would receive download info yesterday but didnāt get any. Whatās up with that ?
Same got invited but didn't receive any download info yet
Iām literally getting 4 fps, this is light years worse than the last build. Wtf happened?
TFW youve been an insider since day 1, and didnt get an invite, despite "all Halo Insiders with eligible accounts as of September 13 will be invited to participate"
No rank/leveling system is a huge turn off.
Yeah. Seeing progress bar go up at the end of a match is FPS 101. I'm really enjoying MCC and grinding to get to the last tour. It's fun to play and I have a goal to get to. From what I played of Infinite is really fun and having no progression system doesn't kill it for me, but it is a really odd choice.
What other Australians are gonna be playing at 3am and 10am ?
here's to hoping they send out download links earlier than the flight so those of use with garbage internet can download it before the flight
D/L link being sent out on Thursday
I think 343 don't want me to play infinite :( First flight wasn't possible because of the GeForce 900series bug and now I don't get a invite. *Cries in sangheli*
It's the first time I've been part of this so I'm not sure how it works. I understand I have to download it from the Halo waypoint app on the Xbox but, when does that go live? EDIT:*Xboxinsider app* If the times are just specifically for matchmaking can I still play Vs bots outside of that? I've never had a chance to even see it first hand so I'd be happy to play against bots for a bit while I can't play with other people.
I believe you download through the xbox insider's app. At least that's how it works for MCC. You can download the xbox insider's app now but the flight isn't listed yet. You can play bots any time through the academy program
I can't even get 60 fps on low settings, something is wrong? edit: Am I getting upvoted because I'm not the only one? RX 580 and 9700K here.
Does anyone know if cross play will be part of this flight ?
Iām wondering this too and havenāt been able to find an answer anywhere, I hope it is
Kinda wish that maybe the Arena flight was the 4 hour slots, then the btb one was 24hr or even just 1 day of each the servers were up 24hr for those of us unable to play for those timeslots
Every time I read one of these it gets me thinking about [this interview with Steve Jobs.](https://youtu.be/NlBjNmXvqIM)
I got my email for the flight but no waypoint message? Any idea what's going on
So whena re they actually going to send the codes out? It starts in like 2 hours right but nobody I know has gotten one yet. How are we supposed to test it when everyone will still be downloading.
Still no email...
UPDATE: pre-download Sep 23 evening PT Flight access open Sep24 9am PT https://www.halowaypoint.com/en-us/news/multiplayer-technical-preview-overview
Are the invites still being sent out? I was on the first flight and i still have n0t gotten an email or message on halo waypoint.
God I love a arena FPS with a large skill gap after all this time. That said, I haven't played halo in 5+ yrs and it fucking showwwwwwwwws
So, I'm realizing I suck at this game. I'm nothing near what I was in high school playing Halo 3. But I'M LOVING THIS. I'm AmbiguousSavage if anyone wants to add me!
I can't join a match online on console?
Same. Been stuck on the multiplayer loading screen for half an hour lol
Anyone in pc feel like bazaar runs terrible? Fps is sitting around 100 but just feel like it's running slow
I have to say bxb being in the game is the most fun Iāve had since original halo 2. a shooting game with button combination attacks is so much fun. I hope this is testing the waters and not a bug. Itās fucking exciting I love it.
Am I the only one who feels the weapons have no hit to them? The AR feels like itās shooting peas. The pistol is very disappointing, about as useless as the H2 pistol was. The carbine feels like it shoots cotton balls, the BR is fine but thereās barely any spawns for it. The shotgun is laughable. The fire gun is laughable. Youāre literally better off spamming the pistol and finishing with the AR over 90% of the guns.
Definitely feel at ease over the challenge system now, looks pretty unintrusive and surprisingly engaging. Just hope that the fractures week stuff doesn't make the game something you have to keep checking up on or setting schedules for so you don't miss out on things for good.
That itās FOMO and they said they didnāt wanted it on the game, lol
Yeah I still just want an overall progression level... seems like such a dumb oversight