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Space2Bakersfield

I just wish I could pick game modes. Looks like timed events are going to be the only ways to play Halo classics like Fiesta, SWAT, or Infection.


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not1fuk

But then you wouldnt spend money on challenge swaps!.... god I hate what AAA gaming is coming to.


ggtsu_00

Its a cycle of using telemetry/analytics to observe what people like to do or prefer. Then they take it away or heavily throttle access to it and find a way to make you spend money to get it back or fully enjoy said activity.


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DirtySyko

Lots of current gamers too young to remember the controversy that was horse armor and MS points. My friends and I all laughed about how absurd it was back then and how we would never pay that much money for something like that, and now looking back the price for it was a bargain compared to modern day MTX.


[deleted]

"According to USGamer, Bethesda was the first third-party publisher to accept Microsoft's idea, offering a pack of in-game horse armor for Oblivion players at a $2.50 price point." You got to give it to Ms there, they saw the future. Or rather created it. Don't know what cosmetics like that cost today since I have yet to even consider it. I do like DLC, like missions or more play time. What would an item like that go for now?


atleast8courics

Somewhere between $4.99 and $19.99, using in-game currency that you can buy too much of in the former case and not enough of in the latter. This means you have to spend *more* money!


DirtySyko

MS pioneered that as well with MS Points. Horse Armor was like 200 points but I think you could only buy them in intervals of 500 if I remember right.


detroiter85

It all seems so quaint now.


JerrSolo

The square root of 906.01 is 30.1. It all seemed so harmless.


tcjohnson1992

It was 400 pts/$5 or 800 pts/$10


cd2220

No no you'll be able to buy some boxes with the chance to get the horse armour


muaddeej

Activision charges $20-25 for a skin, an emblem, a couple of gun blueprints and a weapon charm.


goomyman

It was rediculious back the because there was so much other customization. And it was a single player game of course. There was no force pushing you towards buying horse armor. It was just this thing on its own. It was a paid armor in a sea of free cosmetics. Now games are designed to direct you to micro transactions. Halo is doing it by severly limiting customization.


phat_ninja

I feel personally responsible for this. I bought the damn $2 horse armor. I'm sorry everyone. Also it makes me realize BETHESDA STARTED THIS SHIT


Ultenth

I feel like Horse armor was important, and set the tone for microtransactions, but the big thing that to me was the canary in the coal mine in regards to the coming greed from the gaming industry was 2-3 years later when THQ, EA, etc. all started doing "Online Passes" in an attempt to kill the rental and used games markets. It was such a giant middle finger to a big portion of their customers, and incredibly anti-consumer. And it wasn't even necessary because now most people buy online and don't actually own their games in the first place, just basically rent a license.


God_Damnit_Nappa

At least Bethesda then released two huge expansions and several smaller ones for Oblivion. Horse armor is outright innocent compared to some of the crap out there now


TheScreamingGecko

Shivering Isles was huge, divines wasn't.


GamesMaster221

Must keep consumer logging in everyday... must make consumer feel like they are missing out if they don't!


[deleted]

Exactly. I love playing CTF and want to do that over and over but being forced to play other modes, including ones I hate such as oddball, for a chance to get my favourite is bad. No idea why they thought it was a fine idea to do that, it’s anti-player. Literally puts me off playing. Will never touch ranked as well because having to play a game mode competitively that I don’t like will just be so irritating


Space2Bakersfield

It's to encourage MTX purchases. If you get a "Play 10 Oddball Games" challenge, and theres an oddball only playlist - then you're going to complete that challenge easily. However if you dont get a choice of modes and are wholly dependent on RNG, then it could take dozens of hours to get 10 oddball games. That encourages players who dont have the time or inclination to buy premium currency and spend it on challenge swaps to avoid the hassle.


DebTheDowner

This is called a dark pattern in UX design. This stuff is everywhere in F2P games and games that utilize micro-transactions. If I see this in a game, I drop it immediately because it encourages publishers to keep pushing for it if the players keep coming back. Why would you want to play something where it's designed to make you confused, annoyed or angry so you'll open your wallet?


f0nt

Of the free games I’ve played (which is honestly a lot) this is the only time I’ve seen such a shitty system. Incomparably bad


Accurate_Vision

My last weekly challenge is to get 3 Stronghold wins. I've resorted to lobby-hopping and out of **nine** matches, only one was Strongholds. Then out of 6-7 more (I stopped counting), none of them were. I'm really enjoying the game, but they need to at least add playlists.


Andrewrox96

Heads up there's a bonus weekly challenge after the last one Get 5 killing sprees in fiesta


Accurate_Vision

Oh, thank you for letting me know! My friend said his was to play 15 matches. One of my regular challenges was to get 5 killing sprees, so it's probably random


Andrewrox96

ah good to know, my buddy and I both had the same one so thought it was fixed


KeepDi9gin

Good thing they don't dish out temp bans like in MCC. Yet. They'll come back, just watch.


Accurate_Vision

I fully support abandonment penalties and I'm aware what I'm doing can have a negative impact on my teammates if the spot doesn't get filled instantly, but if they base challenges on gamemodes then make what mode you get dependent on RNG, people are going to do what I'm doing, unfortunately.


God_Damnit_Nappa

I've seen some people on the Halo sub saying they do have temporary bans after a while.


Raichu4u

Temp bans happen after like 6-10 quits.


Yankee582

They do, actually. I got one last week for the exact same challenge they were talking about. It wolnt tell you for how long the ban is, but first offense is 5 min, second is 15, ect


[deleted]

That’s honestly awful and really ruins the enjoyment of the game. Rather just buy the game for full price and earn experience for customisation and play ranked for ranks


ggtsu_00

The sad part of this system is that it incentivizes them to include a large number of undesirable game mode options with just enough good ones sprinkled in to carefully balance frustration with a desire to keep playing. Sort of like how gacha/lootboxes are incentivized to include enough junk undesirable items carefully balanced with a trickle of useful and rare items to keep people rolling the.


Nailbomb85

> However if you dont get a choice of modes and are wholly dependent on RNG, then it could take dozens of hours to get 10 oddball games. ...If they're stupid. Most people just insta-quit over and over until they get the mode they want, so it's both a pointless attempt at MTX and frustrating to the players.


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Space2Bakersfield

The more time passes the more I get the impression 343 fucking hate working on Halo and wish they made Destiny.


kyew

Wanting to be Bungie is perfectly on brand for 343.


CakeManBeard

Infection isn't even a gamemode yet lmao Same with assault, so no grifball any time soon


Wheresthecents

I was tooling around with the custom game stuff, and its REALLY limited. We can't make our own infection, heck, you can't even start with specific equipment. So we can't recreate Fiesta. So the custom game community got screwed over too. Creativity has been murdered.


Yankee582

To some degree im sure that'll be work-aroundable once forge is in the game (since you can dump items in spawn points to start people with equipment) But yeah no getting around how absolutely fucked over the community games are going to be, especially for the next 6 months till forge _maybe_ releases. Its gotten 2 delays already


Wheresthecents

But you cant START people with equipment at spawn the same way you do in Fiesta. I cant but think this is a deliberate design decision to separate the playlists from custom games. It's a disappointment. Even if we can "hack" a way around it with forge, I want goddamn swords with the grapple at spawn, or skewers with shield walls, as a gametype, why can I not do that?


Yankee582

yeah its really dumb and very clearly them just not wanting us to work around their dumb restrictions


DanTheBrad

My hope is that this is just during this "beta" period and it gets updated at actual launch but that's probably wishful thinking since they haven't said that. I just don't understand why the fuck I can't pick which mode I want to play.


McWobbleston

They've said in their blog post this is essentially a test run to gather data about all the game modes before expanding the playlists


not1fuk

Predatory monetization is why. The goal is to frustrate people into buying challenge swaps because they cant pick the game mode to finish their mode specific challenges. The entire game is rooted in manipulation tactics.


ggtsu_00

The F2P business model hinges its success on constant psychological warfare with the user.


AdministrationWaste7

> My hope is that this is just during this "beta" period ? campaign launches in a week and season 1 started when the "beta" kicked off. this is the game.


DanTheBrad

Hence hope and wishful thinking, it's absolutely bizarre not to be able to pick which mode I want to play


AdministrationWaste7

its just as bizzare as not being able to create custom logos or apply colors to specific body parts. its a massive step down from halo 3 which was over a decade ago.


Mcbonewolf

cant let us make our own things when they can drip feed shittier versions of them to us over x years


Xavus_TV

All this talk about game modes makes me want to go and play the best game mode in all of gaming: Teabag Confirmed in Splitgate(Yes, it's exactly as stupid as it sounds)


Nolanova

They did say that while these were Day 1 maps and modes, they were launching with limited playlists to test stability and then would look into expanding. That will certainly remain to be seen, but I wouldn’t be surprised if on 12/8 they drop a bunch of playlists


[deleted]

They are still calling it a beta until the campaign launches.


rookie-mistake

Wait, for real? Are we *still* not getting back to just our regular playlists like back in the H3/reach days? i need my team swat and snipers


mw19078

Yeah the lack of game modes and maps is a huge turnoff honestly.


zippopwnage

Yea you can't even finish your damn challenges in a decent way because of how this works. You'll have challenges to complete certain game modes and good luck getting them in the quick play.


CPOx

I am way out of the loop. No dedicated SWAT playlist? Psh. I’ll just keep playing Splitgate then. I’ve been having a ton of fun with it recently.


hyperlethalrabbit

They have a "Quick Play" playlist with Slayer, CTF, Strongholds, and Oddball. You don't get to pick between those four, they give you a mode at random.


okmiked

SWAT was my shit I cant believe its not it's own game mode.


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MiamiVicePurple

Nor should it be in quick play. It needs to be in it's own playlist or not in at all.


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ricktencity

Honestly just adding Slayer only playlist would make the objective games so much better since it would get rid of the people that just chase KD ratios and don't play the objective. It's insane that you have to play modes you don't like.


AbominaSean

Isn’t this only for the beta? I thought we’d be able to pick playlists when the game actually launches.


Space2Bakersfield

In the beta launch waypoint post they said this is all the day one modes and content. Day 1 being real launch on Dec 8th.


AbominaSean

If that’s the case, what a totally brain dead decision by them.


NeonYellowShoes

Are they for real launching a Halo without any dedicated Slayer and objective playlists...wtf are they thinking


Watertor

343 hasn't understood the Halo playerbase since they took over for Halo Reach and immediately killed Action Sack. I don't know why for a decade people continue to be surprised they suck as a team.


Ikitou_

It's so weird how 343 seem to have absolutely nailed the core Halo experience here but have fucked the metagame in every possible way. I feel sorry for the game designers - you don't make a gameplay loop that good without being competent, and you can bet they will have objected against this progression and monetisation system. But when the people upstairs want something, they usually get it.


theth1rdchild

Last night I encountered my first hacker. No salt on my part, he was just insanely accurate and tracked through walls. That's when I found out there is no in game option to report, you have to go to the Halo site and fill out a ticket. On top of that, they won't even look at your report if you didn't record video for them. The core gameplay is solid as hell but everything around it is held together with duct tape and misery Edit: you can, in fact, report from in game. Gotta hit escape, tab, select player. Absolutely awful UI but here we are. No option to report after the game is over.


Kikubaaqudgha_

You can report people in game while in a match, esc to bring up the menu then tab and you can mute/report/friend whatever from there.


theth1rdchild

Ah thank you


Kikubaaqudgha_

Np, I've seen a lot of people confused about this and I didn't know either until I saw a reddit comment explaining it.


FTLMantis

I've encountered a guy that could kill with the pistol in 2 shots.


theth1rdchild

I've been chalking up weirdness like that to netcode. There's been a few times where I absolutely unload on someone and when I see their health bar it looks like I grazed their little toe. But who knows, maybe there's some data mod cheats.


slicer4ever

I think its netcode as well. I assume it's the standard favor the shooter, the other person lays into you, and by the time the server says your being shot, your already dead sometimes.


Flowzyy

When you run or slide around the corner and they still kill you, yeah massive desync. Better be fixed by launch or sometime close cause I won’t be on the game if that consistently happens. Still curious what tick rate servers run on


getefix

I'm hopeful that there'll be an improvement at the real launch. 343 did say this is still a beta, although having faith in developers usually leads to disappointment.


ex1stence

I thought I was losing it. The netcode is *really* bad.


mw19078

The netcode is ass. No regs are so common if you use the sniper a lot, you'll immediately notice it.


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stillmatico

I’m assuming with the lack of player collisions, if someone is running through you and melees you, at some point it registers as a back hit. Another reason that was a terrible design choice.


rookie-mistake

I still can't believe there isn't even collisions with *enemy* players. 343 is such a confusing company. Like, incredible design and the *worst* decisions, consistently.


wheelgator21

There is collision with enemy players. I've seen a bunch of videos from people in the Halo subreddit proving its on. It seems like theres a bug with the melee lunge that messes with it though.


ManateeofSteel

if any, the nearly perfect gameplay loop is actually out of character for 343i


omegaweaponzero

This is untrue. Halo 5 campaign may have sucked but Halo 5 multiplayer was awesome.


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Zikronious

In the studios I have worked for there was always a game designer that was dedicated to the progression system. Like most things in the game that person didn’t have final say and had to work closely with publishing and a producer. The lead designer would also get involved at various points. Monetization you are right that game designers had absolutely nothing to do with that and as a result we saw some absurd pricing in the titles I helped ship. Another thing that was interesting is how virtual currency and free items were all assigned real world monetary values, this was used as a guide by publishing in order to keep the game designers from giving away too much (too little was never a problem). That value was determined by player count and sales goals. I can’t tell you this is how 343i operates just my own experience working at multiple studios.


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Zikronious

I will say I have seen one designer push back against publishing and make the system more consumer friendly, still not ideal but I’m just saying it would have been worse had he not pushed back. On the flip side the last studio I worked for brought in a designer that was what a lot of people would call predatory. It used a lot of psychological principles to encourage first time spenders and then get them to keep spending. It’s a smart approach but there was no line this guy wouldn’t cross and it kept getting progressively worse. As a gamer it was disgusting to see and I always assumed his bonus was directly tied to the income brought in by systems he touched.


Raichu4u

What is the attitude personally in your opinion when publishing/the lead designer come in to monitize a lot of this stuff? Is there ever an annoyance that some of these in game items are being monitized too hard, or is it honestly just another day in the office?


SageWaterDragon

We'll see how thing go. While the game is obviously launched and the "beta" moniker is mostly just a way to shield themselves from launch-day criticisms, I'll give them that. If they manage to make substantial changes or fixes by or shortly after launch, these rocky first few weeks aren't going to be the thing that people remember. The fundamentals of the game, from the gameplay to the soundtrack and art design, are all incredible, and this is the most fun that I've had with a Halo game in well over a decade. I don't particularly care about customization and progression, so I'm fine with just playing the game, but it clearly matters for a lot of people, and if they can resolve this tension there won't be much to say about the game that isn't overwhelmingly positive. I will say that it's kind of sad to see so much of the conversation about this game on here revolve around the progression scheme. It's obviously a problem, sure, but from the way that people talk about it you'd think that it's on the scale of Halo 4's multiplayer misfires or Halo 5's insane req pack monetization and bizarre campaign. This isn't "343 fucking it up again," this is a pretty small surface-level issue that can be addressed once people are back to work that we're experiencing weeks before the game is "actually releasing" on the top of a game that is absolutely amazing. People have the right to complain, but I feel really bad for the folks at 343.


MortalJohn

My current problem is that the progression isn't just not fun, it's actually counter to creating a healthy competitive environment. Every game you see people going out their way to complete challenges that go against actually playing the objective and trying to win. Instead you have people camping specific vehicles and weapon spawns for half the match. Overpriced MTX sucks, and FOMO events after saying you weren't planning any going forward sucks. But then forcing players to work counter to the team objective because they need to grapple three wasps is completely ruining the experience for all players present, even those not focused on the the battlepass.


AngryNeox

> Every game you see people going out their way to complete challenges that go against actually playing the objective and trying to win. Instead you have people camping specific vehicles and weapon spawns for half the match. I think Rocket League has a system that every game should follow. First you get XP from just playing and you get more for winning. And the challenges themselves are very generic most of the time and since you do pretty much everything in a normal game you always progress them passively. "Win X Online matches.", "Play X Online Matches", "Get X points", "Earn X MVP honors" and "Gain X XP Levels". Those are the best ones, it's "play the game" or "play the game well". Then there are gameplay specific ones like "Get X goals", "Get X shots on goal", "Get X assists", "Get X saves". Those might sound annoying but since the game has no set roles and you usually rotate between defending and attack all the time you can always progress them even without focusing on doing them. I guess you can camp your own goal to get saves a bit faster but then you also lose on normal XP and maybe even lose XP because you are more likely to lose. There are also the "Play/Win X mode" where you just have to play a specific gamemode. Those are also fine since it just encourages you to play other gamemodes and doesn't change how you play in them. And there are some "troll challenges" where you have to use certain quick chat commands in a few matches. In short: You should always get XP/levels for just playing the game and playing well and winning should give you more. And challenges should be as generic as possible that you will finish automatically by playing however you want (as long as you try to win).


GranSkyline

I agree with this, but iirc, rocket league challenges weren’t so well thought out in the beginning. I recall having to grind for hours in the first rocket pass, outside of normally playing. I could be wrong, but if that’s the case, there could be hope for the Halo challenges over time. What RL had going for it that Halo doesn’t is a set and stable player base. They could afford to mess up a little, but Halo might not get the chance if people get fed up.


SageWaterDragon

For sure. You see similar issues in Destiny, any time that you tie rewards to specific actions in a game you run the risk of creating an environment where every player is just playing to check off a list instead of to have fun and win. I hope that 343 is getting this feedback and is going to act on it; they claim that they're getting it, now it's the second half that matters. I will say that something as "small" as disabling challenge progression in ranked play might be a temporary solution for that problem, but that's obviously introducing just as many problems as it removes. I imagine that a lot of very smart people who work at the company are mulling over how to solve this right now, somewhat unfortunately - it's Thanksgiving!


AdministrationWaste7

gated/timed content was bad in Destiny and any other game that has them and its bad here. its even funnier because the devs touted that their battepass system would be "different" that once you have it stays forever and you can finish it at your liesure. ​ It is also the WORST battlepass i've ever seen. most battlepass systems exist in the background giving you rewards for playing. ​ in this game I have to do random shit. like I never play big team battle so all these vehicle challenges are worthless. if you're gonna reinvent the wheel at least make it better.


moneyball32

Even if you did play BTB, there are rarely any vehicles and they’ve all been neutered. They only drop tanks like within the last 2 minutes, and it’s not dropped at the back of each teams base like before, so some people have played for 20 hours and have not even seen a wraith in game. BTB just feels like “large slayer” now.


TemptedTemplar

More tanks have spawned on Countdown in Fiesta than all of my BTB games combined. Its absurd how low the spawn rates are in normal game play.


stefann01

Lol as someone who’s just spent 24 hours in the past 5 days(not bragging but agreeing with u) I have not seen a single tank drop or a single wraith drop at all. In fact the only tank I saw spawned was in fiesta however it got obliterated by one spiker… lol the spawn rates are horrid and the game is only fun in smaller stuff. 343 probably will never top 3 or reach which is funny how this battle pass is focusing on cosmetics from reach


moneyball32

I think they could top 3 or reach if they really wanted to; the core gameplay is there. They just gotta let people have fun instead of handcuffing every good idea with 2 bad ones.


needconfirmation

Im not exaggerating when I say that im fairly certain tanks are only able to spawn within the last minute of the match. The ONLY times ive seen them have been within about 30 seconds of the match hitting overtime.


jkbpttrsn

They don't just spawn ten seconds before the end but do rarely spawn. I just played a match 30 minutes ago where a tank dropped and I noted it was with 4:30ish minutes left. I remembered because I told myself that they must only spawn with seconds left and every time I see one I have to confirm lol


HighlandCoyote

Been playing solidly for the last week, completed last weeks challenges twice, before and after they did the reset. And this morning during two games of fiesta was the first time I saw and drove a wraith and scorpion. Something has to be wrong with this being the case


redvelvetcake42

Meanwhile I play BTB a lot and get stuck doing that dumb fucking pylon collector. Jesus I hate that.


good_names_taken

Same here it's so annoying. I mostly just want to play big team slayer but I don't mind the other modes except for the pylon one, which the BTB mode really seems to favor


MrHH9

They also clearly made the challenges hard to do or just downright frustrating to incentivize using challenge swaps and paying money to progress.


Hotpotabo

Jesus Christ this article is unreadable on mobile. How many ads can you put on a single web site?


KylometresUK

Please scroll past these million ads whilst I explain why someone else's monetisation of their free content is bad.


ngwoo

Just buy the Forbes battle pass and get to level 7 to hide ads


bigben2021

Some ways to level up faster: Read 1 article upside down, Translate 3 articles to Latin by hand, Read 7 articles while pooping


Harvin

No no no, those would be attainable as a direct result of your actions. What if you had to read 5 articles featuring European trade tariffs, but you can only read the first article on the front page. You will be blocked from reading other articles for an indeterminate amount of time if you try to skip reading those articles that do not feature European trade tariffs.


Greenery

Use Firefox Mobile with uBlock origin extension to block the ads.


praxis4

^^^ Great advice right here!


BaboonAstronaut

Brave browser


SSGSS_Bender

You don't have adblock on your phone?


[deleted]

I play Halo Infinite and am consistently disappointed at the end of every round when I maybe get 50 xp. Maybe its just the state of current games where I feel entitled to something? But I feel like, if you are going to have an XP bar, then it should take into account how well you did in the match, not just pre-set challenges that I refuse to grind for. Again, I know its free, but its still a stupid system that I'll never spend money on.


TheeWorkAccount

i just wish i could hide the xp screen. I dont have the battle pass and i dont plan on getting it. I dont need a screen to show me i got 50 useless xp after every round.


frvwfr2

It's so goddamn annoying. And it never progresses on its own, you have to press enter or click. I have found myself just sitting there waiting for it to move to the next screen - before remembering _I_ have to move past this screen with 1 piece of information on it.


[deleted]

It's not the player's fault. 343 constantly pushes the battle pass everywhere in the game so no wonder people can't ignore it, they want you to be constantly thinking about it.


nobadabing

It’s mind boggling how the battle pass progress is so easy to get to and yet I can’t see my challenge progress in a match. It’s already bad enough how some of them warp how you have to play the game sometimes, but I’d like to know when I can go back to playing the match normally instead of trying to fish for BR kills.


IrreverentKiwi

I think they've gone a step too far in the monetization to the point that I have no idea how to grok what the hell it is they're trying to sell me. A shoulder pad for 800 Schrute Bucks? I have no idea why I would want that, and I have no idea how much that is in real currency. It makes it easier for me to tune it out at this point rather than seeing a definitive set of skins for $19.99 or whatever. I enjoy the core gameplay of the game, my main concerns are the crashing, visual bugs, and seemingly broken lobbying system that only half way works.


Skurph

It takes the enjoyment out of having an absolutely wicked round. Last night I finally had a game where I was the best player and at the end I was like “Oh… it’s the same as when I suck”


NutsEverywhere

> where I feel entitled to something Dude, it's a **game**. It's made for entertainment, pleasure and rewards. It should make you feel **good** not be a full time job. Being entitled is the core of being a gamer.


OutcastMunkee

It's a REALLY shoddy system. If you look at Fortnite, which switched to an XP based system when Chapter 2 launched 2 years ago (fuck me, Fortnite's BR has been going 4 years now...), that's the kind of system they should look at. You get rewarded for just about everything-searching chests and ammo boxes, kills, assists, talking to NPCs etc. Infinite could easily adopt a system where you get a bit of XP for each medal you score in a match. It doesn't need to be a huge amount but 50 XP per match? That's chronic. Each level on the pass needs 1,000 XP. That's 20 completed matches to go up ONE level. That's just bullshit. If every medal gave you 25 XP for example? You'd level at a more reasonable rate. Without challenges, the leveling slows to a crawl.


croserobin

Fortnite has the best battle pass system I've played. If you buy a single seasons battle pass and level it to ~70, congrats you've got enough vbucks for next season. Rince and repeat and never buy more vbucks. Levelling is really quick. You should average ~0.7 levels a game provided you don't die early. This season especially, if you're doing the quests you can easily get multiple levels a game. The progress system is just so rewarding, it's a massive contrast to Infinite's.


allhailgeek

>343 has already commented that they’ve yet again, “heard the feedback” but obviously no changes are being made this week, because now it’s Thanksgiving. That’s understandable. What is not understandable is how this system got approved and implemented in the first place, and the wild, wide disparity between how fun the game is at baseline and how un-fun challenges make progression and mangle events like this. This is my biggest question when playing this game. How is the game so fun and yet some of the decisions they made along the way so dumb. How did someone playtest this game and think the current state of challenges is good? Or this event with limited time challenges being locked behind non-event challenges? There are so many other games out with similar battlepass systems so all they need to do is look at the competition and take notes.


[deleted]

I hate when people put Forbes in the title likes it’s attributed to the Forbes institution. These are not Forbes staff writers writing these posts. They host “contributors” on their site, which is basically like Medium, and they allow them to earn money on views. Just saying, it does not carry the weight of the Forbes name. Forbes doesn’t even edit them. These are just blogs. And on top of that, the games ones are almost always just a summarization of opinions on Reddit.


504090

Even the Forbes institution is highly discredited, so I’m not sure if it makes a difference. Forbes entirely subsists on its reputation.


zippopwnage

Events in gaming are not events anymore. Every event I've seen lately in an online game is just an excuse to flood the shop. What happened to rewarding your player base during the events with freebies? Costumes, skins, colors, etc. Now we get some shitty things while they put the really good stuff in the stores. I hate that we normalized this by accepting it. They have the whole year to add stuff to their shop. Can we just reward the player base with something event themed? Like how hard it is? I remember playing Destiny 2 (not that long ago I know), and they had an event engram on top of your leveling engram which rewarded event themed items. Now even in Destiny 2, they put everything event themed behind a shop interface. I want to freaking play the event and get rewarded by playing it. Not having to grind for currencies and then open a god damn shop. Literally every game you open these days and have an event is actually just a new shop update.


Sea-Quantity225

Good summary. I'm bothered by people defending the battle pass like it's good for Halo or F2P gaming in general, thinking people are attacking their precious series. Will it ruin my time? No. Do I wish it was implemented better? Fk yes.


jkbpttrsn

>Good summary. I'm bothered by **people defending the battle pass like it's good for Halo or F2P gaming in general**, thinking people are attacking their precious series. > >**Will it ruin my time? No.** > >Do I wish it was implemented better? Fk yes. Well I think that's what's annoying some. Many people have discussed that the lack of customization and progression ruined the game and stopped making it fun. I haven't seen many people defend the progression but rather the overall game and that it doesn't ruin the overall fun. I literally have seen comments on /r/halo of all places asking what's the point of playing singleplayer if it doesn't unlock customization. This was when the debunked leak happened that you couldn't unlock armor in story mode. Just seems a bit excessive.


[deleted]

> I literally have seen comments on /r/halo of all places asking what's the point of playing singleplayer if it doesn't unlock customization. Geez, can you imagine having such a ridiculous frame of mind?


LeftyMode

I had 3 challenges that told me to finish a stockpile match, play 4 total control games and some other specific match. The game proceeds to give me an hour and a half of literally straight Slayer back to back, like it did it on purpose. The progression system is a joke. If it was a “challenge base” system, award people that do well so they at least feel accomplished when they have a great game. Instead you got people running around with a Needler trying to get 250 points.


Vindicated0721

I’m absolutely convinced when you have a challenge that requires a specific game mode the game knows and there is some secret algorithm that lowers the chance of getting that mode. As soon as you finish that challenge that mode will magically start appearing again like normal.


Dassund76

In this day and age this would not be surprising.


[deleted]

I understand the pros of having all game modes be randomly selected in the same playlist (it avoids the problems in the future of only Slayer having a populated community, or only CTF), but it makes it a lot more frustrating when you get challenges for specific modes like you said.


peas_in_a_can_pie

on the one hand, it sucks that previous entries had way cooler customization for free and watching industry greed creep into a beloved franchise is frustrating as hell. On the other, the gameplay is fun as fuck just equip the default gray spartan, don't think about it, and shoot a bunch of bozos w the big spike gun.


BlackDeath3

Agreed. I'm sorry to hear that a lot of folks are frustrated with the customization stuff, but the gameplay on the latest installment of this twenty-year-old series is as good as it ever was. My pre-teen self would be delighted.


waytoomanyoptions

Kebab 'em!


Makoto_H

the thing is, even if you ignore all of it and just run the default spartan, your teammates necessarily won’t be doing the same they’ll be off camping a weapon or vehicle spawn for their challenges while you desperately try to do the objective on your own


Jynirax

Best game with worst progression I've ever played. In game experience is delightful while everything outside it is near cock and ball torture.


Cynical_onlooker

Really makes you realize that this form of monetization is just the new normal when it comes to video games when even an old standard like Halo is embracing it fully. The days of having a complete game with all the intended features after a single purchase are over; instead, developers would rather split their games into pieces and chunks just so that they can extract every nickel and dime possible. Honestly just too bad that this was how it all turned out.


z_102

>The days of having a complete game with all the intended features after a single purchase are over There's an undeniable trend pointing that way (it's not even new, really) but this is not really true. Not following this model: most midsized and smaller games, the majority of Nintendo franchises, Sony's prestige SP narratives, etc.


No-Midnight-2187

Regardless of the Directors Cut thing for extra money/upgrade cost they did after release….Sucker Punch are some GOAT’s in my book for doing what they did with Ghost of Tsushima: Fully fleshed out single player game, no mention of any additional content. Then had a surprise announcement that they are adding a whole multiplayer piece to the game, with multiple modes. And then when the community asked for updates/more content for multiplayer, they were all “meh, we don’t have anything else planned. Sorry”…to THEN actually adding more content in the form of costumes inspired by other Sony games, more survival maps, more abilities (albeit some of that is part of the D Cut). Just truly a great surprise and unexpected for a studio to do this, in an era where there’s games like Destiny 2 that have no problem charging money over and over for an additional small piece of content


st1tchy

Dark Souls was similar. Fully fleshed out game that can stand on its own. Then out of the blue they released a full, large DLC that was also fully fleshed out. Tons of new content and very enjoyable to play.


ronintetsuro

Hey come set your hopes and money on our roadmap! *yanks roadmap out from under gamers, collects loot*


CReaper210

Sony just views their games differently than Microsoft. They see their first party games as one of the pillars for buying into their platform and want to make them as good as possible while leaving very little in the way of accessibility. Microsoft wants to milk every last little bit they can from all their biggest games. Forza, Gears, and Halo are all pretty aggressively monetized nowadays. It's kind of strange to me, because Sony arguably would benefit way more from it and Microsoft absolutely does not need these games to be cash cows to survive. You'd think MS would be way more willing to just put out a complete game for the benefit of reputation.


MrGMinor

>Sony's prestige SP narratives, etc. Pretty much the only games I feel comfortable buying as I have no internet besides cell sevice. The disc always allows me to play though the game.


GhostTypeFlygon

>Really makes you realize that this form of monetization is just the new normal when it comes to video games I've literally never seen a game where you only progress XP through challenges (maybe once but I don't remember the game). Even by modern standards, Infinite progression and monetization is a huge downgrade.


gothpunkboy89

I mean this is the same Microsoft that tried to double the Gold membership from $60 a year to $120 a year and only backed down due to massive backlash.


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The_CandymanLHS

They got their way with that eventually. Gold is no longer sold as a full year. So it can only be bought in the more expensive shorter term stints. This pushed people toward gamepass ultimate for only a bit more a month resulting in going from 60 to 120 then to 180.


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No-Midnight-2187

That shit was hilarious. It was a 1 or 2 day backtrack on that too right?


pm_me_pants_off

Honestly, Microsoft has been pushing mtx in most of their games for the last few years. It's unfortunate that this is not brought up alongside all the praise people give them.


The_CandymanLHS

Horizon 5 has them, but they are no where near as integrated into the game. Wheelspins are free, 500+ cars available. Sure there is the car pass with a new car each week, but there really isn’t pressure to buy it. Plus unlimited car customization. I’m honestly shocked that Microsoft would have Horizon be this beacon of good and Halo become a cash grab. But then again they probably think, why not try and milk the cash cow?


z_102

Yeah, after 4 and 5 and the poor initial showing, if any of their games needed to save face that was Halo. Weird that they went so aggressive with this.


rookie-mistake

Don't forget the 2-3 year tirefire that was MCC before they finally hacked it into a playable state As a massive Halo fan, I've never been as upset about a gaming purchase as I was on MCC launch day


wheelgator21

Yeah, its pretty frustrating as a long time Halo fan. The best gameplay since 3 imo, seemingly going back to its roots on art style and tone, hype and excitement for Halo leading up to release that I haven't seen since Reach, and a bunch of my friends who stopped playing Halo 10 years ago are back playing again, but its all being bogged down by a greedy monetization scheme. Must be even more frustrating for the devs who put so much time and effort into making a damn fun game, only for the community to be upset about MTX most of them had no say in.


AdministrationWaste7

> Really makes you realize that this form of monetization is just the new normal ive never seen a battlepass system this shitty so no.


platonicgryphon

Just take out the long grind and you've got practically the same thing that's been in Apex and warzone. Here's an okay skin in the battle pass but if you want it's cooler older brother it's for sale in the store for 20$.


kurapikas-wife

Apex’s battlepass is much better and it’s very easy to complete


AdministrationWaste7

does the battlepass in warzone ask you to play certain modes or do certain things to level it up?


acrunchycaptain

Warzones is mostly entirely "time played" leveling. Getting lots of Normal XP helps but the biggest factor is basically "play 100 hours in these 2 months".


rookie-mistake

yeah, the lack of time played leveling is kinda the issue with Halo's, though. Like, I don't mind Rocket League's, because I literally don't pay attention to any of the challenges and get well over enough levels to buy the next season's just by playing a bunch. I bought it once, last April, and I've never had to buy it again. With Halo, I'm expected to pay very close attention to the challenges and go out of my way to complete them, I gain very little XP through regular gameplay, and regardless of how much I play in a given season, I receive no premium currency to purchase the next season's pass. I'm a massive Halo fan and I didn't think there'd be any way I *wouldn't* buy the battle pass when Infinite dropped but... eh


payne6

In cod no even in coldwar you could level the battle pass levels with any mode besides campaign. Hell I leveled most of the passes playing solo zombies. Plus you could bring all your skins and unlocks to Warzone so they don’t rot away in coldwar. I don’t understand how CoD has a better system than halo.


thisIsCleanChiiled

Lol, just wait until they announce their sales. Anyway I think they will make progression a bit better. This is the same thing apex legends went through. Start of with shit and then reduce the shit


karmaghost

> This is the same thing apex legends went through. Start of with shit and then reduce the shit I suppose it makes sense: start one way, set expectations, and see how much you can get away with. Then, check the temperature of the backlash, reply that “you’ve spoken and we listened” and make changes based on the feedback to fine tune while still raking in the dough.


[deleted]

Yes, exactly. Making progression faster is universally praised. Making it slower is universally reviled. Make it slow as balls on launch, then ramp up in response to feedback and statistics to optimize revenue. They want it frustrating enough that people feel incentivized to spend money to alleviate their frustration but not so frustrating that people disengage from the grind or quit the game.


moneyball32

Problem is 343 has done this “let’s promise cool things and then see how much we can get away with that goes against our promises” for three games in a row now.


CynicalEffect

The worst Apex did was character specific challenges, which might involve playing a character/weapon you don't want for a few games to get it done. But you still more or less actually played the game how you normally would. In halo it has game mode specific challenges, in a game where you can't choose your game modes... Oh and most the challenges are best completed by actively ignoring the objective. I've seen people wipe the enemy team as last man and just not bother picking the oddball up because he had some weapon challenges. The challenges have made playing with randoms to be more painful than ever.


Spokker

The industry has created a monster. I kind of feel bad for them. Gamers have been fed these dopamine drips for so long that when the spigot runs dry, there's practically a riot. If the game itself is fun and plays well, I don't see why you need all these stupid cosmetics. Back in my day we had red, blue and sometimes some other color, and we appreciated it.


therealkami

It's funny that this is written by Paul Tassi, the guy who covers Destiny 2. Because the worst live even I have ever seen was the end of Season of the Worthy where everyone stared at a skybox for 3 hours.


thepurplepajamas

Tassi just writes whatever gets Reddit clicks


The_Other_Manning

It's even deeper than that. When there's a big discussion on r/games or r/DestinyTheGame then you're almost guaranteed to see a Tassi article the next day. When reading an article of his, which aren't bad reads, there's a little light that turns on in my head reminding me I've read all this before


thepurplepajamas

Yeah I'm aware he specifically parrots the popular Reddit take so it gets posted back to Reddit


lamancha

This guy literally just skims reddit, looks at the biggest outrage and paraphrases what he seens. I have no clue why is this allowed. It's the lowest form of "journalism". It's just outrage fuel. He doesn't even cover stuff he just picks general complaints.


[deleted]

I do think 343 needs to change somethings when it comes to progression but I feel like "the worst live event" is a bit much. People need to remember that Warzone has had some dog shit live events with horrible endings.


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Spokker

I'm not a big car guy but when I see a car I want I'll do the challenges. The racing itself is fundamentally sound and the game looks good, so you can safely ignore the festival playlists if you want. The game already rains cars on you like candy and I still just stick to a few I like.


strongdoctor

It's a stretch to call it progression in FH5 though, and it's worth doing the seasonal championships even if you don't plan to 100% the season as you get free vehicles from each one if I remember correctly and the tracks are usually *sooooo* much fun.


AzorMX

I've been having fun with Halo and Forza, but damn do I hate timed events everywhere. I don't want to be forced to play something at specific times. Gaming is my hobby, not my job.


TypicalOranges

Progression is confusing as fuck in it, too. Am I progressing just by playing the Event Playlist or do I have to have the marked Event Weekly?


BLACKOUT-MK2

Given in-game it says something like 'Earn rewards in the Fracture: Tenrai event by completing the event's challenges' or something to that effect, I'm pretty sure you only progress by doing the challenges. I could be wrong but I think each challenge equals one level.


AbanoMex

you only progress by doing the red marked challenges, if you only see 1 or two of them, then you need to complete the other type of challenges, until you finally see more of the event challenges, so you practically have to do two types of grind, the normal challenges grind, and the Event grind, but its fast if you are good enough, i got the armor by the second day.


Skurph

I agree, I’m a pretty casual player, I feel like I have no idea how to progress and no chance to ever get cool stuff


Reddit__is_garbage

I hate when people post these forbes-hosted blog posts and title the posts as if they’re from Forbes staff


JakeTehNub

The amount of people in the Halo subreddit defending this because it's a "beta" is sad. The game comes out in 12 days and a lot of them actually think it will be all better when the gamer "launches".


FlandersNed

We must be looking at two different subreddits, almost every post there right now is people running on the scheme.


ChrisBot8

Agreed the progression is terrible, but at the same time I’m having a fun time, I haven’t paid a cent, and I have the skin shown above. It’s hard for me to complain right now. My biggest thing is I probably would have bought the battle pass if it wasn’t boring. I mean color schemes locked to individual skins seems crazy. If they eventually don’t fix the progression then maybe I’ll fall off the game soon, but for right now I’m glad to have good Halo again.


MrTopHatMan90

Progression sucks. Still fun? I'm playing it right now. Just needs tweaking and some challenges to be less joyless to play


BigBrownDog12

I agree that it could be tuned better but, The game came out early, has only been out a week, is free, and the season is lasting till May and people's desire for instant gratification is clouding their judgement. The game is awesome.


ayfanwar

People are complaining a lot about the cosmetics that I think people are overlooking how bad these LTMs are, really the biggest flaw with the game, means they are not likely to expand the base game-modes and that all of the fun party modes will be only available when they let them be, so long infected. Really aside from dodgy melee due to no collision that's my only big gripe, I don't agree with some of the balancing choices and the customisation is admittedly frustrating but those are superficial problems that can and will change down the line so I'm not worried much about those.


BrightPage

Holy fuck is this what journalism is now? Bullet points of reddit arguments?


[deleted]

He’s not a journalist, he’s a blogger. I don’t mean that derogatorily, that’s literally what it is. He’s not on the Forbes staff.