Next week, the March update for Halo Infinite will be released with a suite of weapon balance adjustments. These tuning updates should address community feedback regarding the core gameplay experience, while also bringing notable improvements to the competitive settings used in Ranked.
We’ve also got an exciting new feature we’re testing for the highest level players in ranked – don’t miss it at the bottom of the article.
Be sure to check out the full description here to see everything being released in this update – for now, let’s jump straight to the juicy details.
Bandit EVO and M392 Bandit
We’ve been very pleased with the response and performance of the Bandit EVO since the launch of Season 5, but we wanted to make some initial changes based on early feedback and things we observed internally. We’re gathering more feedback and will continue to monitor feedback and performance after this weekend’s kickoff event on LAN to see where else Bandit EVO needs some fine tuning. Note that we made similar changes to the Bandit EVO and M392 Bandit because we believed that these changes were original to the Bandit and not a special edition, plus we wanted to maintain some level of consistency between variants Wanted.
- This change was to address feedback that the reload speed seemed slow and clunky.
Spawn impressive weapon cone change.
- Since the launch of Bandit EVO, there has been feedback that the spawn logic in Ranked Arena has changed. Players are reporting that sometimes they will move more often to advantageous or disadvantageous locations. This change is intended to align spawn behavior more closely with when the Battle Rifle was the starting weapon for Ranked Arena, following a more consistent logic with respect to how players influence spawn locations.
Bandit player fire volume reduced.
- There has been feedback that the first person firing audio of the Bandit EVO is lost and players are unable to hear the surroundings and player audio while firing the Bandit EVO. We’ve adjusted the Fire volume to give players more opportunity to hear other game sounds.
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As players have increased their proficiency with Halo Infinite since launch, Heatwave was one of the weapons that we saw players continue to have maximum impact in, especially in mid-to-long range scenarios where the highest level Precise timing and aiming can be achieved in the game. We’ve heard feedback that it’s still a bit over-performing, so we’ve made a small change that we believe will only impact play at the highest level, while maintaining the same experience that every player wants. Likes about weapons.
Auto aim angle reduction.
- Goal assist angle reduced from 5 >>4.
Reduction in auto aim range and falloff range.
- Goal assist limit reduced from 12 >> 11.
- Goal assist falloff range reduced from 7.5 >> 6.5.
plasma pistol
The Plasma Pistol plays an important role in not only rank but also the social experience. Our most recent change was designed to increase the intentionality and even planning required to use the Plasma Pistol. This is actually what we saw initially but as time went on players started using the gun mostly for single shots. With the upcoming changes, we intend to bring greater balance between the two functions and increase the utility of Charged Shot while maintaining the usability of Single Shot.
Decreased rate of fire for the single shot plasma pistol.
- Rate of fire reduced from 10 >> 6.75 rounds per second for single shot trigger.
- Overheat limit reduced by 1>>0.8.
- Time taken for trigger to fully charge reduced from 1.6 >> 1.2 seconds.
stalker rifle
In the hands of the highest skilled players, the Stalker Rifle is a close range and long range powerhouse, with no real counter on the map. Like Heatwave, the feedback was consistent, it was just a little easier to achieve maximum effectiveness with the gun at the highest level – and at the same time we wanted to have little to no impact on the rest of the players in the game.
Reduce the number of shots to avoid overheating.
Slow exhaust rate per second.
- This change will still allow players to achieve multiple kills in a row, but there will be less margin for error and it will take a little longer to get angry.
vk78 commando
Now with the Bandit EVO as the starting weapon, we’ve seen and heard that the Commando is struggling to find its place and reliable role on the map. To address this and make Commando more viable on the map, we’ve made some small changes to make weapon blooms reset faster to simplify weapon operation.
- The goal of this change was to provide better handling and more consistent damage output for the Commando Rifle to hold its own against the Bandit EVO and Battle Rifle.
As always we will continue to monitor feedback and performance for Ranked while keeping a close eye on the first HCS event this weekend to determine what balance updates are needed in the future.
Usage: Deterministic CSR Payment
For players at the highest levels of Ranked Arena (1800+), we’ve heard feedback and seen firsthand that the experience is becoming one where the work feels unrewarding. Players are reporting winning the majority of their games in a day, but overall CSR is still declining – making ranked up feel like more of a chore for them than anything else. To address this feedback we are using a feature called deterministic csr payment,
Today, for all players, how many CSR points you win or lose is based on a number of factors, including of course whether you won or lost, how you performed, and where you stand compared to the rest of the ranked population, including your opponents. Are. that match.
With deterministic CSR payouts, the only thing that matters is whether your team won or lost. As an experiment in any ranked playlist since March 19th, for all 1800 CSRs and above, you will gain 7 CSRs if you win a match, and lose 7 CSRs if you lose a match.
Why is this an experiment? This is an experiment as we feel there may be some unintended consequences as part of it and we want to not only monitor the CSR delivery at this stage but also see how players will react.
What are the risks? The biggest risk is CSR inflation and what that does to the overall perception of matchmaking at this stage. We’re expecting to see players reach new CSR levels that haven’t been achieved before in the game – possibly up to the 3,000s. Now, if you are the player who is achieving this – it will be a great feeling. But what does this mean for matchmaking and how do players understand it? Today we effectively “clamp” players’ CSRs at the highest level so they can still find matches and sometimes especially during off hours you can see 1700 matched at 2200. With this addition, you could see a 1700 matched with the same 2200, but that 2200 player could be at 3000 CSR due to the deterministic CSR payout. We believe players will report the same feedback when we were running matches on MMR instead of CSR before we made the change in winter 2023. Players may think that matchmaking is broken, when in reality this type of match is the result of interconnected systems. And some circumstances like population at that time, where we were in that season, etc.
Once this feature is released we will keep a close eye on CSR delivery and player experiences/feedback to determine if changes are needed in the future or if we need to remove this feature entirely.
We look forward to trying it out in the rankings next week. As you add reps during this experiment, please be sure to share your feedback with us!
Good luck to all the teams competing at the HCS Major Arlington hosted by OpTic Gaming. If you’re at the event, you’ll have the chance to be the first to play with the upcoming balance update and for those watching at home we’ll show you what it looks like so you know what to expect – Dawn Today Don’t miss it tonight on Twitch.tv/Halo and YouTube.com/@HCS.