Halo Infinite (XB/PC/Cloud/Game Pass) - Big Update on Tuesday.

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PostRe: Halo Infinite (XB1/XSX|S/Win 10/Steam) - Out late 2021. New trailers, F2P MP info/pics (p27)
by Garth » Tue Jun 15, 2021 1:47 pm

Tafdolphin wrote:the story is often told through weapon descriptions and lore books.

I'm out.

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PostRe: Halo Infinite (XB1/XSX|S/Win 10/Steam) - Out late 2021. New trailers, F2P MP info/pics (p27)
by Peter Crisp » Tue Jun 15, 2021 1:50 pm

Having never played a Halo multiplayer game I expect to be instantly world-class.

My headless chicken tactic never fails and cover is for pansies.
What's the highest killstreak available as I'm going to be getting that day 1.

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PostRe: Halo Infinite (XB1/XSX|S/Win 10/Steam) - Out late 2021. New trailers, F2P MP info/pics (p27)
by Monkey Man » Sat Jun 19, 2021 6:51 pm

twitter.com/halo/status/1406227764873547777


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PostRe: Halo Infinite (XB1/XSX|S/Win 10/Steam) - Out late 2021. New trailers, F2P MP info/pics (p27)
by Parksey » Sun Jun 20, 2021 7:32 am

Well the MMO nature of Destiny makes stuff like "I've played 20 hours or D1 and D2" a bit hard to judge. What did you play? What were you doing?

It's not a linear game, and it's an ongoing story. If you're playing strikes and crucible, you're probably not getting that much story. If you're doing the current seasonal activity at the moment, you're about a 1/3 of the way through a season so it's not finished yet.

It's hard to quantify what story you've crossed paths with, and there's no real way of saying, "well you've played 20 hours, you should have got X amounts of story".

D1's initial story was a bit of a mess due to being cobbled together. If you've played the original D2 campaign, I'd find it hard to imagine not following that story as it's linear and fairly straightforward (as a lot of the "campaign" stories are).

But yes, the fact it's an MMO is going to change how the story is presented. There are quite a few threads running at once, and it's not always presented in a linear fashion.

For me, Halo's story has always been a thin tale stretched too wide, and the result is that it doesn't really have the depth. I think it also tends to err towards bad sci-fi writing. I think recent Destiny stuff is a lot more nuanced and interesting.

I think it's a bit of a misnomer to say it's all in lore books and weapon entries, though undoubtedly there is a lot of additional stuff there. It's not as bad as D1 where it was all in those codex entry things - you get the meat of the story still in gameplay and cutscenes. I don't

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PostRe: Halo Infinite (XB1/XSX|S/Win 10/Steam) - Out late 2021. New trailers, F2P MP info/pics (p27)
by Tafdolphin » Sun Jun 20, 2021 8:43 am

Tafdolphin wrote:the story is often told through weapon descriptions and lore books.


Just pointing out I didn't say it was all in the weapons and books, I said it often is. Which...it is.

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PostRe: Halo Infinite (XB1/XSX|S/Win 10/Steam) - Out late 2021. New trailers, F2P MP info/pics (p27)
by Photek » Mon Jun 21, 2021 9:26 am

Peter Crisp wrote:Having never played a Halo multiplayer game I expect to be instantly world-class.

My headless chicken tactic never fails and cover is for pansies.
What's the highest killstreak available as I'm going to be getting that day 1.


Well the biggest difference you'll find is the TTK (Time To Kill) which is rather large as everyone has shields that recharge, of course, a rocket/grenade/sniper headshot will kill instantly or you can play SWAT which removes shields and is more like your CoD/Battlefields. No Kill streak rewards in Halo, it's all skilled based.

I like Halo's lore and I'm really interested in what the new Cortana (The Weapon) will be like.

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PostRe: Halo Infinite (XB1/XSX|S/Win 10/Steam) - Out late 2021. New trailers, F2P MP info/pics (p27)
by Peter Crisp » Mon Jun 21, 2021 11:49 am

Photek wrote:
Peter Crisp wrote:Having never played a Halo multiplayer game I expect to be instantly world-class.

My headless chicken tactic never fails and cover is for pansies.
What's the highest killstreak available as I'm going to be getting that day 1.


Well the biggest difference you'll find is the TTK (Time To Kill) which is rather large as everyone has shields that recharge, of course, a rocket/grenade/sniper headshot will kill instantly or you can play SWAT which removes shields and is more like your CoD/Battlefields. No Kill streak rewards in Halo, it's all skilled based.

I like Halo's lore and I'm really interested in what the new Cortana (The Weapon) will be like.


I bloody hate CoD and while I played Fortnite and had some success at the start as soon as people started being able to build fortresses in half a second and the Sunday team stopped playing I gave up.
The only FPS multiplayer I've put any time into is R6 Siege.

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PostRe: Halo Infinite (XB1/XSX|S/Win 10/Steam) - Out late 2021. New trailers, F2P MP info/pics (p27)
by Photek » Mon Jun 21, 2021 12:29 pm

Infinite has bots and match making plus a training area with each weapon so it should help new players get into it. Personally, Battlefield and Halo are above other online mp shooters by some distance. Battlefield just seems to suit my play style, and although I'm not as good on Halo online the objective maps and game types are excellent. Both games play so different that I can happily switch between them.

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PostRe: Halo Infinite (XB1/XSX|S/Win 10/Steam) - Out late 2021. New trailers, F2P MP info/pics (p27)
by Peter Crisp » Mon Jun 21, 2021 12:41 pm

I forgot about Battlefield which I've put hundreds of hours into :slol:
Battlefield 4 was my favourite but I did enjoy 1 and 5.
I always play as a medic or engineer for the revives or sitting in a littlebird with the blowtorch.
It did upset me greatly when they nerfed it so you couldn't have the stinger in the littlebird as that was a brutal combo.

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PostRe: Halo Infinite (XB1/XSX|S/Win 10/Steam) - Out late 2021. New trailers, F2P MP info/pics (p27)
by Monkey Man » Fri Jun 25, 2021 9:03 am

The team also mentioned Seasons a few times before, including our recent Halo Infinite Multiplayer Overview video. How will Halo Infinite function as a live game and what role will Seasons have as part of that?

Ryan Paradis: Seasons are the core container or framework for the content we’ll be delivering to our players. It’s a concept they should be familiar with in MCC already, but for our new players, it’s pretty simple: roughly every three months, we’re going to kick-off a new season. This comes with a ton of updates, new gameplay content, new events, new systems, new customizations, new progressions, new new new… And, as you’ll see in this blog, we’re really excited by the work the Halo Waypoint team is doing to bring your Spartan’s seasonal journey to the web and mobile app.

Chris Blohm: We are focused on adding to the player experience every season. We will look at what worked and see if we want to do more of it. If something did not work, we will learn from it and do better in the future. We want to experiment, learn, and listen with every release and make the game better for everybody.
Also, it should be noted that along with progression and customization pieces, seasons will also debut big (and small) features that make the game a larger, more fun experience.

There’s quite a bit to unpack there, but before we dive into specifics for events, customization, and progression, I wanted to discuss the quarterly model with you first. Why did we decide on this time period between larger updates and, the obvious question from a Community Manager, do we have to wait 3 months to fix issues that may arise?

Ryan Paradis: So, we decided on roughly 3 months because it gives players a good amount of time to experience and explore the Seasonal content, without it getting tiresome and without constantly pulling the rug from under players. We want to ensure that there’s always a fresh and fun reason to be playing Halo Infinite, but that the things they know and love will be around for more than a heartbeat.

And you absolutely do not need to wait 3 months for bug fixes! We’re going to have to prioritize fixes on our end of course – not everything will be fixed immediately – but we have the infrastructure to deploy fixes pretty rapidly, once we solve them on our end. And of course, player feedback will continue to play a key role in identifying opportunities and shaping our priorities as Halo Infinite grows and evolves over time.

Chris Blohm: There’s one note from Ryan in regard to Seasons that I’d like to jump in on. We want players to have cool content, activities, events, and rewards over the course of the season, but we do not want to demand that players play a ton of hours every week of the season to complete everything. We want players having fun in Halo, not grind it like it’s a job.

Gotcha, that’s really good context to have. Now, let’s dive into another part of your earlier answer, which touched on Events. What kind of events, and how many events, will players be able to expect per season?

Chris Blohm: For Season 1 think of events as fun things for the players to experience and get rewarded. Almost every week will mix up the activities that are presented to the player. Certain big weeks will feature events that have new activities and specific reward tracks– free reward tracks. We will provide more details on specific events before launch but be on the lookout for a special event type with specific thematic rewards called a “Fracture.” The Battle Pass and other main vectors will supply canon customization. The Fracture and some events will at times lean into things further afield - like the Yoroi armor shown in the multiplayer trailer.

I know you touched on it in our Multiplayer Overview video, but can you elaborate a little more on why our Battle Pass is going to be different, and dare I say better, than most out there right now?

Ryan Paradis: First and foremost, we’re working hard to ensure that the Battle Pass isn’t a ‘grind’ for players. We want it to be a supplemental reward stream for the time you were already putting into the game. I for one can’t stand it when I’m playing a game JUST to complete the Battle Pass – it feels like a chore to me.

On how we’re going to be different... We’re going player-first with our Battle Passes: All Battle Passes will be permanent. This means that the Season 1 Battle Pass will be around forever; you can always go back, select that as your active Battle Pass and continue to earn progress in it. If you decided to take a Season off, or you simply didn’t have time to play, that’s fine. You can always go back and purchase any prior Battle Pass as well. Additionally, our passes will always include various free rewards in addition to the premium track. This goes back to a few pillars of ours: Provide unambiguous value and maintain that player-first focus.

We looked at other titles, where you buy something that provides time-limited access to the pass, and now you feel obligated to play… That’s not fun, and it’s not player-first. If you put the trust in us, and purchase something from us, it’s yours. No strings attached.

Chris Blohm: This has been part of our plan for a long time, I am so glad we are finally able to talk about it publicly.

During the Halo Infinite section of the Xbox and Bethesda Games Showcase, I said the Master Chief is “the heart of Halo.” This is true, and we can’t wait for all of you to play the latest epic and intimate chapter of the Chief’s story. But it isn’t the whole truth… There’s another hero standing beside Master Chief at the very heart of the Halo universe. Some of you may have met this hero way back in 2001 with the launch of Halo: Combat Evolved. Some of you will meet this hero for the first time this holiday.

Because this hero is you.

Or rather, they are the character you become every time you step into a Halo Multiplayer match. And the next step of their journey begins with the launch of Halo Infinite’s first Multiplayer Season, which we’re calling “Heroes of Reach.” Customizing your character, making your Spartan look and sound exactly the way you want, is a huge part of the journey. So is tracking your triumphs and setbacks or interacting with your friends and foes on a new-and-improved Halo Waypoint. But your journey is more than that.

At the center of our plans is a goal to deeply root your Multiplayer character in the larger Halo universe and give them a vital, active role in the Halo story moving forward. How exactly we’re going to do this in the Seasons and years ahead… Well, we’re not ready to share details yet. But I can share that we picked “Heroes of Reach” as a Seasonal theme for very specific reasons: Reach has a rich history; it’s a key location for Spartans of old and a focal point for a new generation of Spartans preparing to wrestle with the perils and mysteries of a galaxy that has fundamentally changed after the events of Halo 5.

Indeed, Halo Infinite’s first Multiplayer Season takes place at a transformational moment in Halo history—at the pivot point from one generation of heroes to the next. In this moment, your Multiplayer hero is waiting just offstage, geared up for battle and ready to spring into action.

And their epic story has yet to be told.

—Joseph Staten, Head of Creative for Halo Infinite

More at the link inc Waypoint info - https://www.halowaypoint.com/en-us/news ... -june-2021

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PostRe: Halo Infinite (XB1/XSX|S/Win 10/Steam) - Out late 2021. New trailers, F2P MP info/pics (p27)
by Parksey » Fri Jun 25, 2021 9:12 am

What the hell is that samurai-stylw armour? Looks horrendous and completely out of place with the usual Halo style.

I don't mind them implementing some of the in-favour live service requisites like Battle Passes and stuff - and of course armour cosmetics are always going to fit Halo - but I hope they don't make it as jarring as that set.

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PostRe: Halo Infinite (XB1/XSX|S/Win 10/Steam) - Out late 2021. New trailers, F2P MP info/pics (p27)
by Photek » Fri Jun 25, 2021 9:30 am

Parksey wrote:What the hell is that samurai-stylw armour? Looks horrendous and completely out of place with the usual Halo style.

I don't mind them implementing some of the in-favour live service requisites like Battle Passes and stuff - and of course armour cosmetics are always going to fit Halo - but I hope they don't make it as jarring as that set.


It's an evolution of the Hyabusa Armour from Halo 3's mp.

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PostRe: Halo Infinite (XB1/XSX|S/Win 10/Steam) - Out late 2021. New trailers, F2P MP info/pics (p27)
by Jenuall » Fri Jun 25, 2021 9:31 am

All this focus on multiplayer is just killing any enthusiasm I was building for this. I'm sure it's popular with others but I really don't give a gooseberry fool about it myself and the fact that the only thing they seem to want to talk about is multiplayer and games as a service, ongoing seasons bollocks is not great

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PostRe: Halo Infinite (XB1/XSX|S/Win 10/Steam) - Out late 2021. New trailers, F2P MP info/pics (p27)
by Photek » Fri Jun 25, 2021 9:32 am

Jenuall wrote:All this focus on multiplayer is just killing any enthusiasm I was building for this. I'm sure it's popular with others but I really don't give a gooseberry fool about it myself and the fact that the only thing they seem to want to talk about is multiplayer and games as a service, ongoing seasons bollocks is not great


Well if you only care about the campaign this is a fair point, thankfully I dig both, like, a lot. Season passes with no time frame is literally different to every other gaas game out there plus the first Season is free and whether you like it or not, the MP is going to bigger than the campaign but it is getting updated with additional campaigns too over the years which is a plus.

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PostRe: Halo Infinite (XB1/XSX|S/Win 10/Steam) - Out late 2021. New trailers, F2P MP info/pics (p27)
by Tafdolphin » Fri Jun 25, 2021 10:11 am

I'm wondering if they're trying to bury the campaign now, or if they're hyping the MP so much as that's where they know the money is. F2P + microtransactions = bank, whereas the single player is going to inspire a bunch of Game Pass subs that'll be extremely hard to measure.

But still. Considering it's coming out in less than 6 months, the fact we've only seen one, badly received slice of SP gameplay is...concerning.

Parksey wrote:What the hell is that samurai-stylw armour? Looks horrendous and completely out of place with the usual Halo style.


As Photek mentions, it's been there since Halo 3. And yes, it's always looked gooseberry fool and out of place.

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PostRe: Halo Infinite (XB1/XSX|S/Win 10/Steam) - Out late 2021. New trailers, F2P MP info/pics (p27)
by Photek » Fri Jun 25, 2021 10:46 am

Tafdolphin wrote:I'm wondering if they're trying to bury the campaign now, or if they're hyping the MP so much as that's where they know the money is. F2P + microtransactions = bank, whereas the single player is going to inspire a bunch of Game Pass subs that'll be extremely hard to measure.


According to Jeff Grubb and other 'insiders' the campaign team are just flat out bug fixing and testing, they didn't show gameplay because that would take time and they don't want to crunch. The MP was essentially ready last year so its just much further along and has it's own dedicated team.

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PostRe: Halo Infinite (XB1/XSX|S/Win 10/Steam) - Out late 2021. New trailers, F2P MP info/pics (p27)
by Tafdolphin » Fri Jun 25, 2021 10:47 am

That makes sense. Like, I'd genuinely love a great Halo campaign. When that series was at its best (read: Reach and ODST) it was incredible, but it's been a long while since it was competing with the best of the rest.

Fingers crossed.

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PostRe: Halo Infinite (XB1/XSX|S/Win 10/Steam) - Out late 2021. New trailers, F2P MP info/pics (p27)
by Jenuall » Fri Jun 25, 2021 10:53 am

That's my hope, that we get a genuine return to form on the campaign front.

And don't get me wrong I've got no problem with them having a robust multiplayer aspect - it's always been part of the franchise and as pointed out is a space where considerable cash will no doubt be earned. I'm happy for others that they are seeing things they like about the way the multiplayer is shaping up. But as a solo fan myself it would just be nice to have heard more about the campaign side of things, especially as it seemed like that was the part of the game they were making a big deal about for a while!

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PostRe: Halo Infinite (XB1/XSX|S/Win 10/Steam) - Out late 2021. New trailers, F2P MP info/pics (p27)
by rinks » Fri Jun 25, 2021 8:55 pm

Monkey Man wrote:
I know you touched on it in our Multiplayer Overview video, but can you elaborate a little more on why our Battle Pass is going to be different, and dare I say better, than most out there right now?

Ryan Paradis: First and foremost, we’re working hard to ensure that the Battle Pass isn’t a ‘grind’ for players. We want it to be a supplemental reward stream for the time you were already putting into the game. I for one can’t stand it when I’m playing a game JUST to complete the Battle Pass – it feels like a chore to me.

On how we’re going to be different... We’re going player-first with our Battle Passes: All Battle Passes will be permanent. This means that the Season 1 Battle Pass will be around forever; you can always go back, select that as your active Battle Pass and continue to earn progress in it. If you decided to take a Season off, or you simply didn’t have time to play, that’s fine. You can always go back and purchase any prior Battle Pass as well. Additionally, our passes will always include various free rewards in addition to the premium track. This goes back to a few pillars of ours: Provide unambiguous value and maintain that player-first focus.

We looked at other titles, where you buy something that provides time-limited access to the pass, and now you feel obligated to play… That’s not fun, and it’s not player-first. If you put the trust in us, and purchase something from us, it’s yours. No strings attached.

Chris Blohm: This has been part of our plan for a long time, I am so glad we are finally able to talk about it publicly.



This in particular is good to hear.

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PostRe: Halo Infinite (XB1/XSX|S/Win 10/Steam) - Out late 2021. New trailers, F2P MP info/pics (p27)
by Monkey Man » Fri Jul 23, 2021 9:49 pm

INSIDE INFINITE – JULY 2021

Welcome to our latest Inside Infinite, our monthly blog series that provides a closer look at the development of Halo Infinite. This month, we’re diving into efforts supporting the upcoming multiplayer technical preview, often referred to as “flighting”, to share insights into our goals, process, and what Insiders should expect. We’ll also take a closer look at the content and experiences included in this inaugural tech preview which will focus on Bots and Weapon Drills – two brand new additions to Halo.


TECHNICAL PREVIEWS, FLIGHTS, AND BETAS​
What’s in a name? Quite a lot, as it turns out. Different games across the industry, and even Halo games over the years, have had all sorts of pre-launch hands-on releases and tests that carry various official labels. Terms like “alpha” and “beta” often convey a certain expectation around polish and stability, breadth, marketing implications, and more. We’re further along than what would be truly considered an “alpha” but also not really at a level of overall completeness some expect in a “beta.”

We are specifically calling this a “technical preview” because we feel it best represents the goals we have, the build itself, and the experience that Insiders will have. As you’ll read below, our key driver and goal is truly technical in nature – we are looking to push our systems and services at a larger scale than we’ve been able to thus far as an important step towards ensuring we are as ready as possible when the flood gates fully open at launch this holiday. Feedback and other insights are certainly valuable, but first and foremost we are testing and stressing the technical side of Halo Infinite.

We also want to be very up front and transparent about the fact that we will certainly have some bumps and rough edges in this build. Our teams have been working hard to ensure that the build and experience is such that it can deliver on our goals, but this is very much still work-in-progress, and we expect some hiccups of varying degrees over the course of the technical preview. For further context, this technical preview is a couple months behind where the development team and ‘main’ game build currently is given the process and time it takes to go through all the gates and steps before releasing to the public.

All of our key known issues will be listed so participants will have a better understanding of what to expect and what to look out for. Of course, gathering support tickets on brand new issues is also immensely helpful at this scale – despite our team’s best efforts, nothing can truly substitute for true real-world large-scale testing, and we’re sure to find some new areas of opportunity over the course of the preview.

And lastly, we’ve already mentioned this a few times in the blog, but the word “flighting” is fairly new in a lot of circles so when you hear us mention a “flight” – we are simply referring to a work-in-progress, hands-on release on the road to launch. Flighting is the process by which pre-release builds are put out into the wild to pursue specific goals, review data and outcomes, iterate, and repeat – all with the overarching goal of delivering the best shipping experience come launch time.

With that nomenclature and expectation-setting out of the way, let’s take a closer look at the key goals the 343 Industries team has for the Halo Infinite technical preview.

GAME & SERVICES PERFORMANCE FOCUS AREAS​
Stability: How stable is the game across various hardware specs and platforms? Is the game freezing or crashing at a certain time or on specific hardware? Getting a large-scale sampling of real-world hardware profiles is something we can only really accomplish via a large flight of this nature and as we launch on PC for the first time, this is a critical focus for the team.
Online Services: Can all our interconnected online services function well at an immense scale? This is our largest bucket since it includes so many intertwined services that need to function in perfect harmony. Matchmaking, server scaling, playlists serving the proper content, challenges, stats (Post Game Carnage Report), Battle Pass progression & Store functionality, armor customization, partying up with friends, etc.
Halo Insider / Waypoint vNext: Can our Halo Insider communication systems and flighting tools function at scale? How do the Waypoint vNext app (iOS & Android) and web experiences feel and function as extensions of the game?

MEASURING GAME PERFORMANCE​
Our team has already put in the hard work developing the tools to measure and collect information about nearly every scenario imaginable, such as game crashes or matchmaking failures, so technical previews will give us a unique opportunity to compare our internal data to what we see show up in the wild. Measuring the game’s stability and performance, especially at scale, is an integral part of a game’s journey to launch.

Now, let’s hear from members of the Halo Infinite team to see what they’re monitoring and how they’re measuring it during our upcoming technical previews.

WHAT ARE YOU/YOUR TEAM MONITORING DURING FLIGHTS?​
Sam Hanshaw – Producer, Live Team: We’re always looking at the rates of matchmaking success and the availability of our servers, after all it’s hard for people to playtest the game if they’re unable to play matches. We also keep an eye on how many matches are getting played to completion, and we receive data about how many people crash while playing.

Brian Dunn – Multiplayer Test Lead & Brian Hughes – Live Test Lead: The test team monitors a large number of specific areas over the course of a flight. First, we are watching for overall crashes and stability. We analyze this data on a per-platform basis and identify specific things like most frequent crashes and differentiate between known and new crash instances. We use a metrics such as “MTTF” (Mean Time to Fail) or “crashes per 1,000 hours of gameplay” as a way of quantifying overall stability.

Next, we are also closely monitoring the overall quality of matchmaking which includes reliability, load times, and skill matching. In addition, the performance of our dedicated servers, performance of the game itself (particularly across different PC configurations) and our overall netcode quality are all under scrutiny. And with Halo Infinite's greater emphasis on player customization, we’re going to be paying close attention to progression, challenges, and which customization items people are unlocking and using.

Lastly, we partner with the Halo Support team to review tickets and bug reports to cross-reference against our telemetry and to help understand real-world player impact and scope of an issue. We also lurk in the Halo Waypoint forums, Reddit, Twitch, and social to keep an eye out for anecdotal reports.

Nate Jones – Engineering Lead, Services Lifecycle Team: If everything’s going well, I’m able to play some matches during a flight and I’m not glued to logs/monitoring. I keep the lobby service dashboards up to the side during the flight (watching backend service performance health, dedicated server usage, number of players connected, matchmaking ticket success rates, etc), and I’ll occasionally get pulled into a mid-flight investigation and have to dig into the logs. Most of my (and my team’s) flight monitoring takes place after the flight ends. Our normal post-flight plan is to thoroughly look over the lobby and skill service logs for errors, warnings, or ‘weird stuff’; that’s on top of any deeper dives into specific experiments we were running during a flight.

Jeff Guy – Producer, PC Team: I’m going to be monitoring Brian Dunn for cheating because he wipes the floor with me every time I play against him in a match. I’m only half joking. :P
We've built a TON of different player-controlled settings into Halo Infinite, as well as support for a vast array of player hardware and peripherals. The PC team will be monitoring how the game holds up across that matrix of player choices. We’ll be looking for things like drops in framerate and crashes that happen with specific hardware configurations. We’ll be combining that information with their graphics settings and peripherals – how many people are rocking ultrawide setups, who is pushing 4K or 8K resolution, who is playing with unlocked framerate versus locked at 144, what custom key bindings are players choosing, etc? Ensuring our PC players can play Infinite the way they want is everything to us, and we’ll be closely watching for any problems when they do.

PLAYER FEEDBACK​
Gathering input from our players during a technical preview is critical to our success at launch and beyond. The sooner we receive feedback, the sooner we can plan and action on that feedback. On that note, we want to clarify that with this technical preview we are entering the next step in what’s been a multi-year process and journey where the team has been regularly getting critical feedback via user research and private flights. Naturally, the scale of the technical preview is greater than anything we’ve done to date – and that brings unique value and opportunities to capture even more perspectives – but just know that community feedback has been at the core of development since the very beginning. And, it will continue to remain a critical pillar going forward beyond launch.

Now, let’s take a look at what areas of the game we’ll specifically be focusing on for feedback during the technical preview.

FEEDBACK FOCUS AREAS​
Core gameplay: We want to know how you feel about the core combat experience. How do you feel about player movement, weapon balance, equipment, etc.? How fun is it to engage in a battle in Halo Infinite?
Maps & Modes: How did you feel about the design and flow of the maps? Are the maps and mode both fun and fair?
Academy’s Weapon Drills: Did Weapon Drills give you a good understanding of how a weapon functions? How fun were the various Weapon Drills?
Menu & Battle Pass UI: How intuitive was the menu navigation? Were you able to understand your progression through the Battle Pass? Were you able to find and equip customization items easily?

UPCOMING TECHNICAL PREVIEW​
Now, with the foundation of flighting set, let’s talk about the content and goals of our first upcoming technical preview, which will focus on Bots and a slice of the new Academy experience.

This technical preview is intentionally focused on these specific areas to help us gather some scale data as we bring these new experiences to Halo for the first time. As we look further ahead, we plan for future flights to expand into more content including traditional PVP Arena and Big Team Battle.

With this and our higher-level feedback goals noted up above, we land on the following specific focal points. With this in mind, the focus areas for our technical preview are:

Arena gameplay vs. Bots
Arena Maps
Academy’s Weapon Drills
Menu & Battle Pass UI
New Waypoint experiences on web, iOS, and Android
To gather specific feedback on these areas, our first flight will contain the following content and experiences.

In this upcoming technical preview, we’re planning to include the following subset of Weapon Drills:

MA40 AR
BR75
MK50 Sidekick
CQS48 Bulldog
Needler
VK78 Commando
S7 Sniper
Plasma Pistol
Pulse Carbine
Ravager
Heatwave
Skewer
There have been times at the studio when people would compare their best scores in these Weapon Drills. It always leads to some fun and healthy competition - especially when it comes to the BR and Sniper. Share your best Weapon Drill scores with us by tweeting us @Halo!

BATTLE PASS, CHALLENGES, MENUS, CUSTOMIZATION​
On top of the gameplay-focused experiences above, we also want to make sure that the game’s menu navigation feels intuitive. We’re especially interested in seeing how players move through the UI to unlock their Battle Passes, check their Challenges, use the Store, and apply their earned customization elements in the Armor Hall.

In order to allow Halo Insiders to unlock their Battle Passes and unlock various customization options, we’ll be granting invited accounts a set amount of in-game credits (cR). Players will be free to use their cR how they see fit, but customization items unlocked during technical previews will not carry over when the game releases later this year.

Similar to how we’re only flighting with a subset of Arena maps and modes, this technical preview will feature a truncated Battle Pass and a small fraction of the Customization options planned for launch. The key focus is to ensure the Battle Pass and Challenge unlocking systems and customization equipping systems are both functioning properly, and hold up at scale. The reasoning for having these Battle Pass, Challenges, and Customization systems in the flight is purely technical, and isn’t meant to be a showcase of our launch content - so please don’t read into it that much.

Plus, wouldn’t you want us to save some of the super cool content for launch?

TAXIING TO THE TARMAC​
We know the largest question now is, “When is the technical preview!?” The release of this blog means we’re getting very close but flighting itself is a fluid process, we need to ensure we’ve successfully cleared our final gate before we’re officially a go. That said, we’ve been given the okay to say our first Bot-focused technical preview could happen as soon as next weekend. Prior to the flight starting, we’re planning a live stream where we’ll dive into the actual build and walk through nearly every facet of the technical preview. Stay tuned.

We’ll be hosting hundreds of thousands of Halo Insiders during the first technical preview and then, if all goes well, we’ll invite even more eligible Halo Insiders for the next flight. We want to start at a reasonable number of participants before potentially going to a much larger player pool, but our goal is to eventually get every eligible Halo Insider a chance to go hands-on and help us achieve our goals on the road to launch. Remember, if you don’t get in this time, please don’t despair – more opportunities will come.

The most important thing now is to make sure you’re a Halo Insider. You will need to be a verified Halo Insider (see instructions at the top of this article) to ensure you can be invited to any and all Halo Infinite flights.

And yes, the technical preview will be all good to stream and create content around. Feel free to share your experience with us and with others!

We’ll have even more specifics to share about the technical preview as soon as we’re locked, so be sure to follow @Halo on Twitter for the latest news and info. Until then, stay frosty and thank you for your continued support, we can’t wait to take this next step together!

https://www.halowaypoint.com/en-us/news ... -july-2021

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