Sandbox Overview | CU32
Our preview of Halo Infinite’s next content update continues with a closer look at the sandbox tunings, mode
and playlist updates, and additional gameplay improvements ahead of Operation: Banished Honor’s arrival on April
30.
[/hr]
Halo Infinite’s sandbox is getting some tuning updates based on community feedback and overall player usage, so let’s kick things off with some exciting news that’ll make your Plasma Pistol hum!
The return of the king! We’ve heard your feedback, desiring the Plasma Pistol’s ability to temporarily EMP (“Oh, you mean an emp!”) vehicles with its overcharged bolt, and we are giving you just that.
We know the rapid-fire functionality feels great and is core to the identity of the weapon, but we wanted to address player feedback on the time-to-kill when on the receiving end of a Sidekick encounter.
A common theme in feedback from the community has been that the sniper’s ready-up time after being picked up felt a tad too lengthy. To help the sniper feel snappier, we wanted to address this by decreasing its ready-up time. We hope this will allow for more sniper highlights that we can’t wait to watch.
The Cindershot is a fun and powerful weapon to use, but we acknowledge it can be frustrating to be redirected by the impulse of the explosion. To eliminate that frustration and address player feedback, we eliminated the gravity effect that would pull players around and slightly reduced the rate of fire. We hope this will improve both sides of the combat experience while still maintaining the Cindershot’s effectiveness as a power weapon.
We felt the range in which the Gravity Hammer can fully eliminate an enemy was too far, so we wanted to address this in the slightest of ways.
Spike Grenades have been underperforming in the core gameplay loop, and we felt a change in detonation behavior may improve its viability. The first step we took was to ensure the Spike Grenade reached its intended target by preventing its detonation midair. Additionally, once the Spike Grenade does reach its intended target it will detonate more quickly—similar to other grenades in the sandbox.
[/hr]
In addition to the above, further adjustments have been made to Firefight, Ranked, Custom Games, and more.
Folks have been loving Firefight: King of the Hill and we have been looking to identify places to continue improving that experience as we review player feedback. A particular area we focused on for this update centers around Personal Score—if you’re driving a Warthog while your gunner mows down enemies, or you’ve been putting in the work to bring down an enemy’s health bar but don’t necessarily get the final shot, your contributions should be honored.
As a result, we have made the following additions to Personal Score and Medals:
Along with the launch of Banished Honor, Ranks will be reset as we enter a new ranked season.
Additionally, with this update, we’ll be implementing a new feature to improve the Ranked experience. Starting on April 30, if you load into a match and the server detects that there are uneven teams at the start of the match, the game will automatically end and send everybody straight back into matchmaking so players can get a back into a quality match.
Neither team is rewarded nor punished for matches that automatically end as a result of this, your CSR will remain the same—you will jump straight into the matchmaking menu so you can queue for a new, fair match and keep the good times rolling!
Match Score Override is a new feature where, in the event of a game crash or disconnect during—for example—a tournament event, the match can be restarted and its previous state recreated with a set score and timer.
Also, if you’re jumping into some customs and want to give your friends an advantage, you can simply give them whatever number of points you want rather than having to suffer the timely indignity of having to find each other on the map to get killed multiple times over.
After our latest update to respawn cameras, we saw feedback around how we could improve them even more. Now, when you swap between your teammates while waiting to respawn, the camera will always start pointed at where they are looking. When you fall in battle after the update, you will also be able to rotate around your own body. Additionally, the speed that you can rotate your camera has also been increased to help provide even more control over what you’re able to see as well.
Added the Bandit EVO to the standard Bandit weapon drills, which should help players who want to warm up using the weapon.
Players gave us feedback that the Pelican vehicle drops on Deadlock did not feel good when dropping off Scorpions and Wraiths. We liked the focus on tanks, but agreed that the power of the Scorpion was too much and noticed it could dominate matches. To help address this, we’ve updated to vehicle drops on Deadlock to only bring in Wraiths, while the rest of the vehicle pads still spawn in their normal vehicles.
The following bugs across networks, modes, and Forge have been addressed in this update:
[/hr]
Back in February, the Big Team Battle playlist was refreshed with some amazing new community maps. After that update, many asked to see those maps expand to other BTB offerings, and we’re pleased to confirm that the next time you see BTB Heavies (later this Operation), the map pool will have increased as we’re adding all the BTB refresh maps! You’ll be able to experience:
Expect more chaos thanks to increased vehicular carnage and heavy weapon spawns.
Additionally, the fan-favorite One Flag CTF mode has been added to Heavies so you’ll be able to play tug of war while you try to capture the flag.
The fun will arrive during Operation: Banished Honor so get those reflexes primed and ready to jump into the fray!
[/hr]
That wraps up our look at the gameplay sandbox, playlists, bug fixes, and additions coming with the arrival of Operation: Banished Honor on April 30!
To learn more about what’s coming in this update, be sure to check out these other blogs:
[/hr]
Sandbox Updates
Halo Infinite’s sandbox is getting some tuning updates based on community feedback and overall player usage, so let’s kick things off with some exciting news that’ll make your Plasma Pistol hum!
Plasma Pistol
The return of the king! We’ve heard your feedback, desiring the Plasma Pistol’s ability to temporarily EMP (“Oh, you mean an emp!”) vehicles with its overcharged bolt, and we are giving you just that.
- Restored EMP functionality on vehicles
Mk50 Sidekick
We know the rapid-fire functionality feels great and is core to the identity of the weapon, but we wanted to address player feedback on the time-to-kill when on the receiving end of a Sidekick encounter.
- Rounds per second decreased 6.6 >> 5.6
S7 Sniper Rifle
A common theme in feedback from the community has been that the sniper’s ready-up time after being picked up felt a tad too lengthy. To help the sniper feel snappier, we wanted to address this by decreasing its ready-up time. We hope this will allow for more sniper highlights that we can’t wait to watch.
- Ready initial playback speed scale 1 >> 1.2 (shorter ready-up time)
Cindershot
The Cindershot is a fun and powerful weapon to use, but we acknowledge it can be frustrating to be redirected by the impulse of the explosion. To eliminate that frustration and address player feedback, we eliminated the gravity effect that would pull players around and slightly reduced the rate of fire. We hope this will improve both sides of the combat experience while still maintaining the Cindershot’s effectiveness as a power weapon.
- Remove inverted impulse effect
- Rounds per second decreased 1.33 >> 1.1
Gravity Hammer
We felt the range in which the Gravity Hammer can fully eliminate an enemy was too far, so we wanted to address this in the slightest of ways.
- Slight decrease of elimination range
- Radius low 1.25 >> 1.75
- Radius high 2 >> 2.5
Spike Grenade
Spike Grenades have been underperforming in the core gameplay loop, and we felt a change in detonation behavior may improve its viability. The first step we took was to ensure the Spike Grenade reached its intended target by preventing its detonation midair. Additionally, once the Spike Grenade does reach its intended target it will detonate more quickly—similar to other grenades in the sandbox.
- Detonation timer starts changed from immediately >> when at rest
- Timer decreased (low & high) 1.8 >> 1.2 seconds
[/hr]
Modes
In addition to the above, further adjustments have been made to Firefight, Ranked, Custom Games, and more.
Firefight
Folks have been loving Firefight: King of the Hill and we have been looking to identify places to continue improving that experience as we review player feedback. A particular area we focused on for this update centers around Personal Score—if you’re driving a Warthog while your gunner mows down enemies, or you’ve been putting in the work to bring down an enemy’s health bar but don’t necessarily get the final shot, your contributions should be honored.
As a result, we have made the following additions to Personal Score and Medals:
- Regular assists on all AI units = 5 points
- Driver assists on AI units = 10 points
- Adding higher priority to Land Stand announcer voice over lines to make the feedback more reliable
- More Medal support when playing against AI Units
Ranked
Along with the launch of Banished Honor, Ranks will be reset as we enter a new ranked season.
Additionally, with this update, we’ll be implementing a new feature to improve the Ranked experience. Starting on April 30, if you load into a match and the server detects that there are uneven teams at the start of the match, the game will automatically end and send everybody straight back into matchmaking so players can get a back into a quality match.
Neither team is rewarded nor punished for matches that automatically end as a result of this, your CSR will remain the same—you will jump straight into the matchmaking menu so you can queue for a new, fair match and keep the good times rolling!
Custom Games
Match Score Override is a new feature where, in the event of a game crash or disconnect during—for example—a tournament event, the match can be restarted and its previous state recreated with a set score and timer.
Also, if you’re jumping into some customs and want to give your friends an advantage, you can simply give them whatever number of points you want rather than having to suffer the timely indignity of having to find each other on the map to get killed multiple times over.
Respawn Cameras
After our latest update to respawn cameras, we saw feedback around how we could improve them even more. Now, when you swap between your teammates while waiting to respawn, the camera will always start pointed at where they are looking. When you fall in battle after the update, you will also be able to rotate around your own body. Additionally, the speed that you can rotate your camera has also been increased to help provide even more control over what you’re able to see as well.
Weapon Drills
Added the Bandit EVO to the standard Bandit weapon drills, which should help players who want to warm up using the weapon.
Deadlock Pelican Drops
Players gave us feedback that the Pelican vehicle drops on Deadlock did not feel good when dropping off Scorpions and Wraiths. We liked the focus on tanks, but agreed that the power of the Scorpion was too much and noticed it could dominate matches. To help address this, we’ve updated to vehicle drops on Deadlock to only bring in Wraiths, while the rest of the vehicle pads still spawn in their normal vehicles.
Bug Fixes
The following bugs across networks, modes, and Forge have been addressed in this update:
- Weapon Dropping is faster than swapping to secondary weapon
- Skewer should feel more responsive during online gameplay
- Vehicles are able to play ‘Doom State’ audio without being in ‘Doom State’
[/hr]
BTB Heavies Refresh
Back in February, the Big Team Battle playlist was refreshed with some amazing new community maps. After that update, many asked to see those maps expand to other BTB offerings, and we’re pleased to confirm that the next time you see BTB Heavies (later this Operation), the map pool will have increased as we’re adding all the BTB refresh maps! You’ll be able to experience:
Expect more chaos thanks to increased vehicular carnage and heavy weapon spawns.
Additionally, the fan-favorite One Flag CTF mode has been added to Heavies so you’ll be able to play tug of war while you try to capture the flag.
The fun will arrive during Operation: Banished Honor so get those reflexes primed and ready to jump into the fray!
[/hr]
That wraps up our look at the gameplay sandbox, playlists, bug fixes, and additions coming with the arrival of Operation: Banished Honor on April 30!
To learn more about what’s coming in this update, be sure to check out these other blogs:
- UPDATE OVERVIEW: Catch up on our latest community livestream for an overview of what’s coming when Operation: Banished Honor arrives
- THE EXCHANGE: Take a deep dive into the new shop where customization items from the past return and can be purchased with free Spartan Points
- FORGE OVERVIEW: Explore the new Flood and Alien World-themed object palettes coming to Forge, alongside additional updates
- CUSTOMIZATION: Feast your eyes on the Banished-themed armor coming with a free new Operation Pass and further customization updates
