The August ‘Drop Pod’ update for Halo Infinite is now rolling out to players, making a smattering of quality of life improvements, loosening some of the restrictions on customisation and laying the groundwork for more.
Opening up cross-core customisation has been a long-standing player request, from even before the game’s launch! Originally Halo Infinite has locked specific cosmetic unlocks to specific in-game armour types, even though it was demonstrated that cross-core customisation was actually feasible in-game. After plenty of fan complaints 343 Industries has taken the first step. Now the visors that can be applied to helmets will work on any core.
Additionally, Mark VII helmet attachments will now work across more of the helmets – this has required the art team to go back and ensure there 3D models line up properly and don’t clip. This desire to make sure the 3D models don’t look janky will likely make further customisation a slow process.
Personally the biggest change will be the ability to view your active Challenges from the pause menu when in a match, this will give you a quick reminder of what you need to do. However, this list will not update during a match, as Challenges are currently only updated at the end of a match. For this reason the lists won’t show your progress, but that’s a feature for the future as well.
Two weeks from now, additional Ranked playlists will be added with Ranked Doubles, and this Drop Pod also adds the backend changes to enable region selection to allow for better pings with local multiplayer or faster search times with global matchmaking.
All of this is rather incremental, but then that’s exactly what 343 has said that Drop Pod updates will be. We expect a more significant update later this month or perhaps into September for the full launch of Halo Infinite Co-op Campaign, and once that’s out in the wild, we expect 343’s network team to start making headway on the desync issues that have played multiplayer. Eventually, there will be the ramp up to Season 3’s launch in November.
Halo Infinite August Drop Pod Patch Notes
Multiplayer
- The volume of a nearby player’s shield recharging has been lowered, especially when the recharging player is out of the line of sight.
- Choppers will no longer continue boosting after being disabled by a Dynamo Grenade’s EMP effect.
- The M41 SPNKR’s damage radius has been improved and now more consistently damages enemies.
- A fully charged shot from the Plasma Pistol will now correctly deplete all Shields, including active Overshields.
- Mark Assists and medals related to the Mark system will now appear correctly when the Superintendent AI is equipped.
- Players can no longer mark enemies who are obscured behind waist high cover.
- Headshots more consistently register on enemies without shields when using precision weapons such as the Mk50 Sidekick or the Stalker Rifle.
- In Custom Games, King of the Hill now goes to Overtime when both teams have the same score as time runs out.
- In Free-For-All King of the Hill matches, the mini scoreboard near the bottom of the screen no longer shows unused meters and the full scoreboard shows the following stats:
- Points
- Score
- Kills
- Deaths
- In Custom Games, Attrition rounds now consistently end when a team is fully eliminated.
- While spectating a player in Observer Mode on PC, player weapons will no longer shake when the camera moves up or down.
- Resolved an issue where dropped Equipment could not be picked up near the lower light bridge on Catalyst.
- Observers will no longer be counted as a member of the enemy team in Attrition Custom Games.
- The outline of the Danger Zone’s final circle will no longer appear early in Last Spartan Standing Custom Games.
- Dropped weapons will no longer accumulate during Tactical Slayer matches.
Menus
- The fourth Challenge slot will now always be enabled when a Premium Battle Pass is equipped.
- Visor colors will now appear correctly when using the following helmet and attachment combinations:
- Cambion helmet with the UA/Februus attachment
- AKIS II-GRD helmet with the TAS/Lantifrid attachment
- Land Grab and Last Spartan Standing now have unique Game Mode icons in various menus.
- In the Ranked Arena playlist menu, changing the Ranked Queue type now correctly updates the Estimated Wait tooltip.
- Error messages now consistently appear in matchmaking playlist menus.
Balance Changes
Grappleshot
To maintain multiplayer balance, players will no longer be able to exit a vehicle to cancel an enemy’s Grapplejack.
Developer Notes
Vehicle conversion, trading from one team to another, is critical to balance in Big Team Battle and Arena. If we can encourage vehicles swapping teams at least once per match we can safely make vehicles strong. The Grappleshot plays an important role in the Sandbox to cause vehicle conversions. There was an unintended mechanic where exiting a vehicle would stop a Grapplejack, we fixed that unintended mechanic so the Grappleshot can better play its role and vehicle conversion is more frequent.
light & Medium Vehicles
Non-tank vehicles, such as the Ghost or Warthog, are now more resistant to small arms fire. All of these changes apply to Multiplayer and a few apply to Campaign as well. See the Developer Notes for a full breakdown of the changes in each mode.
Developer Notes
Feedback has been consistent that small arms fire is too effective at taking down vehicles (outside of tanks). To provide a significant buff against most infantry weapons, we made the following changes to light and medium vehicle armor:
Global (Campaign and Multiplayer)
- Reduced damage from High Impact on Light Vehicles from 160% to 155%
- Reduced damage from High Impact on Medium Vehicles from 128% to 125%
- Reduced damage from Shock on Light Vehicles from 30% to 25%
- Reduced damage from the Disruptor’s Super Combine and the Dynamo Grenade on Light Vehicles from 75% to 30%
- Reduced damage from the Disruptor’s Super Combine and the Dynamo Grenade on Medium Vehicles from 50% to 20%
- Reduced damage from the Disruptor’s Super Combine and the Dynamo Grenade on Heavy Vehicles from 20% to 10%
Multiplayer only
- Reduced damage from Bullet on Light Vehicles from 35% to 30%
- Reduced damage from Bullet on Medium Vehicles from 20% to 15%
- Reduced damage from Explosion on Light Vehicles from 80% to 50%
- Reduced damage from Explosion on Medium Vehicles from 45% to 30%
- Reduced damage from Hardlight on Light Vehicles from 100% to 75%
- Reduced damage from Hardlight on Medium Vehicles from 100% to 70%
Warthog
The Warthog can now be knocked around more easily by players using weapons such as the M41 SPNKR or the Repulsor Equipment.
Developer Notes
Players were feeling bummed they couldn’t knock the Warthog around as much as they expected. It has been a part of their core competency for decades now so we wanted to give players more pushing power against the Warthog.
- Increased horizontal impulse from 0.65 to 0.7
- Increased vertical impulse from 0.9 to 1
- Increased angular impulse from 0.65 to 0.7
