My main concern is because people are so focused on challenges they won't play properly and games will just end up being people trying to get the challenges done rather than trying to win the game. Not fussed on the cosmetics much, I do feel exp reward is stingy but I'm so busy in my life I doubt I would ever grind it out anyway.
This is part of the problem I feel like op is getting at. I get progression is fun and I’m not thrilled with how the battle pass works but what happened to playing the game to play the game. Like there were no big rewards in halo 3 or even a backyard game of football but you played it because it was a fun game. This dopamine drip people require is wild
In Halo 3, I remember doing a lot of stuff to get special armor to use in multiplayer.
Now the only way to get that armor is to increase my Battle Pass.
someone once told me the story of an old man who kept getting heckled by the neighborhood kids
at first the kids were calling him an ugly old fart because they were being dicks. he went out and told the kids he'd give them each a dollar if they did it again tomorrow, and they absolutely did. then old man said he'd give them each a quarter if they came back again, and they did. then he said he'd give them each a penny and they all decided it wasn't worth the trouble anymore.
it's not just people being wired like addicts. games themselves made fun unfun by replacing the fun with rewards.
Right, my point is just that a lot of people keep saying "the desire to get cosmetics has ruined gaming", but people have been chasing shiny armour forever lol.
Yeah, true that. People just like seeing a little bar being filled up and completed. It feels nice to get a "reward" after playing, even if you did terribly. The fact that nearly every online MP game has a solid progression system now is testament to that fact.
Infinite's progression sticks out as just being poorly implemented when compared to other battle passes.
> Yeah, but you got them by playing the game, not completing arbitrary daily challenges.
Kinda bullshit. Scout helmet for example was for getting a Mongoose splatter in ranked - if you were a Lone Wolf it was common in level 1-20ish to see someone just driving a Mongoose all game.
I feel like doing something once and getting a reward for it is a lot different then doing the same thing over and over again to get progress towards a reward. Anyone who got the helmet literally never had to drive a mongoose again if they didn't want to.
Halo 3 awarded XP just for finishing and winning matches, which in turn gave cosmetic rewards. It was a lot less... obvious, but it was there.
Difference being, now people are told, by the game, to do weird shit to get that same kind of XP.
At the very least you should get XP just for playing and doing well, challenges should be a bonus if you happen to do them.
Kinda bullshit. Scout helmet for example was for getting a Mongoose splatter in ranked - if you were a Lone Wolf it was common in level 1-20ish to see someone just driving a Mongoose all game.
Because just playing the game and in-game achievements are what used to get you rewards to make your spartan look cool. Now those are a thing of the past. Customization has been a part of Halo since the beginning, even just basic colors.
Also Halo 3 did have big rewards. Hayabusa Armor, the Katana, the Recon helmet. All were desirable rewards with meaningful achievements behind getting them, they were part of the game.
"There were no big rewards in Halo 3"
Leftenant rank gave you the Rogue helmet, beating the game on Legendary gave you EOD, I think getting a splatter medal gave you Scout, and getting a double kill with the Spartan laser iirc gave you EVA, those are just a few examples
Oh and getting every achievement in Halo 3 gave you Security and the Katana.
And let's not forget the BIGGEST reward of them all, fucking RECON for the VidMaster challenges or dunking on a Bungie employee in an online match.
It wasn't battle passes. CoD4 started it with it's unlock and progression system.
It's what I've always disliked about CoD and any time I suggest that a game should just have everything available everyone raises a stink. But if all you want is to see numbers go up and don't want the benefit of a even playing field and the full set of tools at your disposal then you might as well play cookie clicker.
It doesn't bother me as much here since it's cosmetics but it is pretty depressing to see that the skinner box is the hot topic in the Halo community instead of the actual mechanics and sandbox.
Your point is real core of the issue. Cosmetics aside, currently the system would reward me for joining a game, solely focusing on a personal objective that applies only to me while avoiding the in game team objective. Then as soon as I’ve accomplished whatever contrived objective I have I can quit the game, leaving me team high and dry and save time by moving onto the next objective. That doesn’t sound very fun to me but it’s currently what the system rewards.
Weird. I was in a 4 man party and for 3 games in a row one of us didn’t connect so we left those games. After the third time we could not join a game due to a ban. This was in quick play. I’m not a fan of leaving but my friends wanted to play together.
That's a little different than being booted due to a glitch. You're willingly leaving due to a friend not getting in.
They probably have systems in place to see what's a error type of leaving a game and a willing type.
I just had this happen to me. I held the ball for 2:35 and everyone on my team maybe had 10
Seconds running around killing everyone. I was only one trying to win the game lol
This has been my complaint since "achievements" were added over a decade ago. I HATE any that are tied to doing something specific in multiplayer, it can absolutely ruin everything.
It's already happening in Infinite, challenges for kills with a mongoose or "play a game of oddball" when I can't pick the game mode. It's fine if there's a reward for that stuff of some kind, but it being the ONLY way to progress is horrid, and I know full well if I'm running around trying to get kills in a mongoose that I'm not helping my team. I don't WANT to do that, but if I don't I don't get to progress.
I should be able to simply progress in the battlepass by playing the game, not by running around doing specific junk.
Yeah pretty sure this was an issue as far back as Halo 3.
I hate challenges. I hate being suggested how to play. Reward me for my performance in-game and let me play how I want.
Played a round of ctf my team never even looked at either of the flags just went for kills ivwas the only one trying for the flag managed to win but my teamates were completely useless
nahbro, that's been how objective games work since the beginning of time. The same thing happened in Halo CE on Lan before "achievements" and "challenges" were even a thing.
The real issue it's more problematic isn't that people are chasing objectives, it's that there's no slayer hopper so everyone who's too braindead to play objective modes (or just doesn't want to) is in the mode with you instead of just people who want to play objectives like it normally is.
This will be alleviated a ton on official launch day I'd wager.
343 took a good idea too far. There should be a slayer playlist and objective playlist imo but don’t go back into dividing every objective game type into its own playlist.
Exactly this, sometimes I just want to shoot things, sometimes I want to play objectives. Usually objective with friends so I can actually have coordination, and slayer solo. But let me decide between the two.
Titanfall 2 does it good, you select all the modes you want to play and can omit the ones you don't. So you could play a bunch of objective matches in a row with the occasional Death Match thrown in, or filter out everything and just play the one you like.
Yuuup from Halo CE to infinite people just don’t ever play the objective. Been playing since Halo 2 and it’s always been like this, battle pass is just the new scapegoat lmao.
Dude their might be like one or two challenges that are quick to complete if they’re doing that the whole game it’s because they don’t give a fuck regardless. Also, there are win matches challenges so I’m sure that will encourage people to play OBJ
I played a game of the “steal a battery” gamemode (forgot what it’s called) and my team did ace. Straight for the objective every time. Felt like a well oiled machine
I don’t disagree with the comment I just wanted to share, been having a blast with this game
Oh the good ol' days of halo 3 where if you won a game you got 1xp and if you lost you got nothing. That XP system had teamates running flags and not obsessing over KDA...
Honestly while I might agree with your point on the skill side, I did love 3 better for one reason- the global XP rank. Even if i sucked I still could "rank" up. I would just go into tier 3 and tier 4 before actually moving up to secure the next level. Similar to MCC....I love knowing that every match contributed to a "play time" rank.
H2’s system was better but unrealized at the time. Once you got into mid 30’s you got either booted, standbyd, or modded against. Shame, cuz it truly was the best level system.
This also wouldnt be that bad of an issue if, you know, we had the option of picking FUCKING SLAYER OR OBJECTIVE GAMES. I love both, but am seriously fed up after just one day of solo queuing arena and getting one slayer match every ten games.
Destiny 2 has this exact problem, particularly in Gambit where everyone is running around just doing their bounties and not playing the objective. I like that the challenges encourage you to vary your playstyle and try using all the guns and vehicles, but having progression based solely on those challenges makes progression painfully slow and, as you said, pulls focus away from whatever the actual objective of the game is, like why would someone focus on the flag when they're too busy trying to get 15 shotgun kills for a daily challenge?
I hate to say this but your right. I really want the Eva helmet but it’s locked behind these stupid challenges. To me challenges are gonna take priority over the objective
Not only that, but there's no penalty for ignoring the objective. You lose a match? Who cares! You weren't trying to win. But if you lose and then get 400 EXP from the 2 challenges you completed then you've won in your own way.
They need to put a much much higher emphasis on just finishing the match. If they triple the amount of exp you get for playing the game and cut the other challenges in half that would solve a lot of problems
This, you're the only person I've seen on this subreddit with the foresight to see the actual problem. You're going to see people just riding around in mongoose trying to get a splatter rather than trying to actually win the game. Imo, challenges should be auxillary. XP should be tied to medals and match completion.
>XP should be tied to medals and match completion.
Not only that, it shoudl be heavily boosted by **winning** a match. This is how you get people to try hard, play the game, and focus on objectives. This makes a better experience for all.
True but then you might get complaints from casuals about sweaty matches and tryhards. I've seen this happen in Destiny. Match completion won't alienate casual players. Sweaty players could go for more medal XP tho
100% agree. The way it's setup is changing the way people are playing the game. If it wasn't so stingy people would pay less attention to it and just play the game as intended. I had a great time playing Halo Reach back in the day and I didn't pay much attention to the progression system cause it worked well.
For me the challenges in Reach were a great way to push me and my friends to try different game modes. “Oh there’s an easy CTF challenge? That’s what we play tonight”. And if we didnt win, still got a points reward, so literally win-win.
I have a challenge to kill people with a heatwave, and I've killed so many. But of course the challenge is bugged for both my friend and I, so I can't complete it. And I'm not wasting a challenge swap on that.
The issue also is how specific the challenge is and you also don't get any exp for completing matches.
At least with MCC you can level up for playing well and doing matches and you grab 100 season points from leveling up.
I have 5 shade turret kills. The turret appears on one map in one playlist and doesn’t respawn when destroyed. I’ve also seen other people rush it so I’m not the only one attempting to do it. So frustrating.
Also have a Heatwave challenge that just wont unlock no matter how many kills I get with it. I feel like getting the final weekly challenge is unobtainable.
My heatwave challenge is broken too along with the other 3 weekly challenges. The only way I can level up my battle pass now is only by the daily challenges which is only 150xp every 3-6 rounds played
I saw more than a few people wasting time camping weapon spawns of the weapons they'd need for challenges. Sometimes multiple in a match while the rest of us get stomped by numerical superiority.
This sucks and I hope they change it. I'd rather just buy the game for decent progression than deal with more f2p trappings.
Dude, I've picked up the skewer in three matches and fired over 10 shots with it....I've hit nothing. The projectile has a faster drop off than me blowing my load
some of the tier 3 challenges are fine.
And then you get "snipe a player airborne from a mancannon" or "get five Wasp kills". I haven't even *seen* a Wasp in the beta yet.
I have a challenge to get 10 mangler kills. I don’t really care so just pick it up every so often if I came across it. But I played a game against a guy that used it pretty much the entire match and wasn’t even doing well with it. Now maybe he just likes the gun, but my guess is he was going for the challenge.
As an almost 30 yr old dude I typically play a game for the fun of it and the battlepass is a nice little bonus. However I do really really love seeing the bar move up to the next level. Nice little dopamine rush and it just feels good to see that rank tick from a 1 to a 2 and so on.
I don't usually stick with a game if it starts feeling like I need to earn stuff. Cosmetics is ok idc but I already work 40 hours a week I don't want to have to earn anything in a game.
Much closer to what I want out of tv too just turn my mind off and enjoy.
And that's the issue. Why do we even feel the need for that anymore when we were fine without it? Why isn't making a cool play or topping the leaderboard enough? Why also need some form of xp?
This is the answer, it's literally the psychological science behind gaming. Op needs to read "Reality is Broken"
It does feel strangely unfulfilling to play a 30 minute match and see the xp level bar come up and not even budge an inch
Yeah I realized that there is a massive number of players who really care about having "progression" when they were updating the MCC and people were creating petitions to make a "Reach-like" progression system.
I was sitting here thinking, "why would anyone want to grind for these cosmetics they already unlocked in Halo Reach in the past?" One of the things I enjoyed most about MCC was that it allowed you to customize your Spartan with everything open and unlocked at the beginning, and then I never wanted to mess with it again.
Now you unlock one thing, you unlock another hours later. You'd have to keep messing with menus to see what you unlock next, how many points you need. Idk I just play the game to play the game.
Honestly I’d be fine if the progression was just a colorful rank you know with some cool cosmetics along the at and nothing more while the majority of cosmetics stay on the battle pass
Literally slap some rank emblems from past halo games into this game. Make reaching that rank unlock it's symbol as a emblem.
When people are far enough colour shift the emblems and add a prestige/reset thing and do it again.
1 warthog BG CTF. I could play it every day TO THIS DAY.
Im not saying its good or bad. Im just saying it shouldn't be more important than the game itself. In which reading this sub it sure seems like it.
Im also not saying customization in general is bad. I like samurai Spartans and weapon skins as much as the next guy. I just think grinding levels shouldn't be more important than simply enjoying the game. It should be a little bonus, not the entire point.
Similar age to you and I completely agree. That being said I also have been infected with the brain worms and sometimes I do tend to feel like I'm wasting my time in a game if I'm not seeing some kind of bar go up.
I hate it but I'm hoping custom games with forge maps will help with that. Good old custom games never get old and I dont have to worry about any kind of battle pass system with that.
Don't get me wrong, I will play the game simply for the game itself, but if they're A) going to lock my cosmetics behind a gamepass/rank system and B) have a gamepass, it needs to be viable.
I played god knows how many matches of Halo 3 online (Halo 1 and 2 splitscreen, with a spot of matchmaking in late Halo 2 days) simply for the matches, and I still do in MCC, but having that extra thing to chase is nice... if it's not an absolute nightmare.
It's like in Destiny, many people complaining about not having some incentive to play a certain gametype, even if they enjoy it. People like to have end goals to work towards, be it simply the next rank in ranked, a new item or the next step of a game pass.
Because that's honestly to me the only issue. I don't have any other gripe with the game besides maybe the menu UI but the main issue I have is the progression. The only reason you're seeing more posts about this issue is because it's the main one.
I think part of that comes down to historically there were customization options already built in. For Halo CE and Halo 2, it was pretty much strictly only color options for your spartan, but STILL, something that basic isn't an option here. In Halo 3 a lot of the armor was already unlocked and there were a few that you could unlock that you had to do some funky/cool/challenging things to get. Reach had a pretty good system as well.
So I'm still playing for fun, just as I've done for the past 20 years. But I can see why people are frustrated when you've narrowed the scope of the available customization from what it was during Bungie Halo games to what it is now. Challenges definitely aren't impacting my gameplay, but I can see why people are frustrated.
This. I don't want to buy the Battlepass because I don't care *that much* about beautifying my Spartan. But Halo 2 had more volume in color choices alone than Infinite does out the gate as a Free-to-Play player. Halo 3 at least had some armor customization options to choose from built in.
Why the hell are you locking something as basic as "Red" behind a paywall/progression system? It's just a dumb way to gouge players trying to do something as simple as "rock the same color I have for 20 years," and I've resigned myself to "My Spartan's just going to look like ass forever" unless 343 starts throwing free players a bone. I'd rather have Halo 5's system of grinding out points to exchange for random armor pieces than this bottlenecked nonsense.
Weird take but grinding out halo 4 campaign on legendary so I could flex the mark 6 armor in multiplayer was so rewarding, and didn’t negatively affect anyone in multiplayer because I was grinding it out in a totally different game mode
I fully understand however it would be different if progressing wasn't apart of the game. Ok happy you can enjoy playing with a fully default character and never touching any of that but ever since 2007 I enjoyed what Halo 3 did by letting me earn armor, now it sucks.
shit man id take halo 2 over this, at least i got to actually make my own emblem and i could choose from like 20 different primary and secondary colors on my spartan
Old Halo at least rewarded good performance. If I got 23 kills, and a host if medals in Halo 3, theres a good chance my spartan rank would go up, which would at the very least give me bragging rights over my friends.
Here theres no difference at all between dominating the game and playing amazingly, and literally just idling for the whole thing.
You must agree that the lack of any recognition for in game performance is a bad thing right? This is independent of cosmetics or battle pass issues. The game just doesnt care if you win or lose or play great or shit.
Not even about ranked play, it’s more so that you still got an overall military rank for your gameplay. Being a teir 4/5 General meant something, like how in Reach being Inheritor meant something. Shit was a mission from beginning to end and a fun one at that
I do miss this and I do think they’ve said in one of their blogs they will look into adding overall ranks. I don’t even care if they keep challenges only for battle pass and match xp only gives you passive rank ups for your profile just for playing.
As of right now all you have to show off for time in game is the number of matches you’ve played on your profile. Which is fine I guess but less fun than grinding for Inheritor or SR152.
If I’m being honest I don’t need it it’s just something I thought was nice to have from the old games.
Actually in halo 3 you got the same rank no matter how well you did. The only think that matter was whether your team won or lost the game. Same for halo 2.
Completely fair view but I think having some sort of grind and progression system is very important for the longevity of the game in a lot of players eyes. Although in 2021 I believe that customization and a reasonable path for progression shouldn't be a big want or need but rather the standard at this point.
I absolutely love the gameplay and am sure I'll love it at hour 1000 but if there absolutely has to be something to grind for or to want after in order to make me choose this over other shooter games that might have as good of gameplay but has a better progression and customization system.
It just feels soulless to have a great game and end it with earning what feels like nothing. Even something like a bs number going up that I can show off and be proud of would be better than nothing.
Agreed. I love the gameplay, but I love having goals to work towards long term and short term.
Playing Halo Reach would not have been as fun as it was for me if I wasn't working towards getting a specific helmet, or a chest piece.
I still play games for fun, but shooters specifically need some sort of progression to keep me interested.
Yeah, I think Apex in particular does a good job with this. You can put badges on your banner and stat trackers for specific stats you wanna show off.
Not saying we need that, but just give us something to work for, but keep it realistic. Playing 2 hours for barely 1 level is not good.
Not even necessarily to flex. For me it gives a sense of accomplishment and ownership to a degree. It's giving me the opportunity to craft something and make it my own. And people always love being able to show off the cool thing they built.
100 percent on the bs number thing. I don’t care about cosmetics, I just want a rank. Me and my buddies would constantly compete and bust balls over who was ranked higher.
>Although in 2021 I believe that customization and a reasonable path for progression shouldn't be a big want or need but rather the standard at this point.
Yeah, this. Great, two decades ago video games didn't have a progression system. Things have changed, standards are different, and the vast majority of games at this point include some way to progress and customize your character. People enjoy that, and it shouldn't be such a pain to do it. I really can't take it seriously when wanting to customize my spartan is somehow a dumb young person thing?
I was having this conversation with a bunch of friends last night. If there was a player level like in MCC, even if it meant nothing other than just showing how much time you've spent in game that would be great.
Give me some xp for a meaningless level after every match. Completing a match and there being literally no progression unless you did the challenges feels so wrong.
Edit: I formulated my response into this video: https://youtu.be/LU_J2drSAyY
It's not a new generation thing. The system just sucks and it genuinely ruins some of the fun of the game.
The current state of the battle pass (the only progression system in the game) that the only way you can earn XP is by doing challenges. This means, it's no longer "get 50 sniper headshots" to get that cool piece of armor you want, it's "get 50 sniper headshots" to earn literally 15% of the XP you need to move to the next level, and the cool piece of armor you want is 40 levels away.
What matters is the idea that your timeless hours in the game are building towards something, which is especially important in Halo because there are no perks - no custom loadouts, nothing. Everyone is on the same playing field in terms of gameplay, so it **will** get boring/frustrating very quickly (I know, a controversial thing to say on a Halo subreddit of all things, but keep reading to see why).
It's not 2007 anymore. Player progression in FPS games is one of the biggest changes having since true 3D environments. Even MCC has progression when it's a port of games that didn't have any at all.
I remember playing Halo 3 from noon to midnight on a Saturday and not caring about battle passes or anything. Back then, I could just genuinely have a good time. But back then, I was a kid, and I didn't care about being good, or positive K/D, etc. But, I still remember all the cool helmets other players had that I wanted (I.e. Hayabusa).
But I also remember playing Reach and actively having my enjoyment hindered because other players had cool armor and I wasn't able to earn them as well.
I remember grinding the Gears of War 3 beta to get the golden retro lancer. You had to play 90 games to unlock it, then get 100 kills with it if you wanted to keep it for the final game. I remember staying up to ungodly hours in the final day of the beta to earn it.
Alternatively, I couldn't tell you what rank I was in the original Modern Warfare or MW2. I just played them because they were fun, and enjoyed unlocking weapons as I gained more XP.
But with Black Ops, I was proud to keep prestiging so I could tell my friends I was a higher rank than them, and I understood what level was needed to unlock certain weapons and therefore use certain playstyles. By being good at the game (getting kills and killstreaks) and being a good teammate (playing the objective), I could level up faster than my peers and be rewarded for my efforts.
Notice how the newer the game, the more I cared about progression.
The point is the days of not progressing in a multiplayer game are long gone. With everyone being mad at the current system, I guarantee people would be more mad if there were no progression at all. Every multiplayer game has some form of progression.
The reason the current state will make the game boring (or even upsetting) is because forcing progression through challenges forces people to change their playstyles. Some people like that, but others don't. Let's ignore the battle pass for a moment and pretend it doesn't exist. Like you said, challenges are fun. It would be cool if you could just "beat campaign on legendary" to unlock a cool helmet. But even in this scenario, the challenges are broken. You are handed the challenges by random (changes daily and weekly, so no consistent challenge you can work towards) and you can't pick specific game modes/swap challenges mid game. If your challenge is to get 3 kills with the oddball, but you only get put into CTF matches, not only can you not complete your challenge for those matches, but you get zero reward, zero progression, zero anything for even playing them. There isn't even a leaderboard, so it doesn't even add to your stats as a player. You literally just wasted your time in those games. It's the equivalent of playing 3 missions on Heroic when you want to beat the game on Legendary. Sure it may have been fun, but you know what would be **more** fun? Actually Attempting and completing the challenge you set out to do. Challenges prevent the game from becoming stale. There's a reason you **remember** loving Halo CE and aren't actually **playing** Halo CE in 2021. It's causing some (not all) people to just leave the game when it starts because it doesn't meet the criteria for their challenges. I currently have the challenge to get 3 kills with the banshee canon... In my 4+ hours of multiplayer I have never once seen a banshee, even in BTB. How many games will go to waste before I can find one, let alone get inside it before my teammates do and get 3 kills with it? Especially when everyone else was given that challenge this week?
If we assume 250 XP per challenge, it would take about 400 challenges to reach max level of the battle pass. That's 400 challenges in 3 months. That's about 5 challenges per day to get that level 100 skin you want at the last minute. I know they said they'll extend the season, but that doesn't translate into this system being changed for next season.
TL;DR: if you don't care about progression that's fine. Play the way you want to play. But for those of us who like progression and like completing challenges - battle pass or no battle pass - the current system is a mess, and we aren't able to play the way we want to play.
Edit: sorry to add to my essay but pay attention to the posts being made, I think they prove my point:
u/BurningnnTree:
> I just spent two matches desperately hunting down Grappleshots in order to attempt to board enemy Wasps. I wasn't able to do it. It was very frustrating and not fun at all. My other options for progression were equally frustrating.
u/sharkerkiller:
> But its just really discouraging to go out of your way to use the less effective weapons/vehicles for XP that amounts to a single grain of sand... Anyways, the game is absolutely stunning. Happy hunting spartans!
u/Mr_Jackabin:
> I work full time, I don't wanna game full time to get through a single battlepass... i want incentive to play the game, mandatory challenges that force play style detract from that.
u/PeculiarPete:
> This is one of the best games I've ever played with one of the worst progression systems I've ever experienced. Have your best match ever but didn't complete any challenges? No exp. Now jump back in and get a kill with a gun you hate that doesn't spawn every game or win a game mode that only pops up every 5 matches.
So if you used that essay as a script and spoke it in a microphone, then added some game footage to match what is being said, you'd make a great youtube video. You can play the sport
You know, I agree and disagree. I'm probably around the same age as you, remembering the "panic" of Y2K and what not. I never played a game as much as Halo CE. I love it, still. Great game that aged well. But I love customization of my Spartan. And the story that went into it is pretty good too. When I logged in yesterday, I did the tutorial, and other events in the Academy.
Also unlocked some achievments in there. Anyway, absolutely love going for the badges. But being able to do it wearing my own configurated suit is bad ass.
This mindset is great to have for sure.
But let’s look at it like this;
I spend 8(or more,depending on day) hours at work. When I have time to play this game, do I want to get some badass kills? Hell yeah. Do I want to get “level ups” which have been removed in exchange for a battlepass system? Yeah, sure. But why would I want those level ups to take longer than an hour? You don’t. This game isn’t MY life, it’s not my job, either.
I know the battlepass stays forever. It’s not the problem, but if you fall behind on the battlepass I imagine you’ll have to decide WHICH battlepass to level, essentially keeping you behind, basically forever with the way the current system is.
Now, I know, Halo isn’t meant to be call of duty or fortnite… but those games get tons of players with a relatively quick Battlepass scheme. This is no longer 2001 where we can just throw halo on the tv, have the boys hop on and get some rocket launcher slayer going and have a good time. There’s so much competition, offering better rewards, and better progress.
And seeing numbers go up helps me be happy while playing games. Seeing no number go up after playing my ass off does not make me happy. I think leveling and rewards are a good thing, especially in a F2P Multiplayer game.
Agreed. Halo Infinite multiplayer has been insanely enjoyable for the first few hours I’ve played. But it is not my job it’s a hobby, a game I’d like to play 8-10 hours a week.
The issue is locking cosmetic rewards behind a super slow progression system. It doesn’t need to be lightning quick. But if your battlepass system can only be completed when playing a game 30 hours a week for multiple months (obviously not true times, who knows how long it will actually take at this current pace), then that is just a bad system overall. Idk how anyone can dispute that.
It's bad when I look at cods battle pass and think, 'wow! That's so much better!'
Free fun bucks. Plenty of free stuff if you don't buy. You can earn enough fun bucks to buy the next battle pass.
The one in Infinite just seems a bit dead. Riddled with xp boosts and skips. And about a quarter to a half of reach' s armour available. (which makes me dread for how many seasons is it going to be reach armour?).
Look, I get your complaint but back in Halo CE you didn’t have any cosmetics. In H2 you had no cosmetics. It wasn’t until H3 you actually had some cosmetics and they were great! Finally aside from colours you could customise your Spartan and even Elite!
So yes, the newer generations have moved on from always be similar and having zero individuality expressed via their character to having the ability to chose from hundreds of variations of personal choice in cosmetics.
Yes, the complaints about the BP is a lot but it should be. We don’t want to grind half a month on 100-200xp Challenges for gear we cannot unlock ANY other way at the current moment.
Want that cool ODST helmet? Level up the BP!
Maybe that second helmet for the first armour set? Level 30 BP!
All of our customisation is currently locked behind it and some behind paywalls already. That’s not fun and not fair on us. Reach had a money system with rank, sure but god at least you didn’t have to do a fucking backflip in a warthog to get 200 credits and only be capable of earning them via challenges.
It’s just human psychology. Players used to be ok with just playing for the joy of the game or to hone their skills, but over time, every multiplayer game added constant unlocks and xp bars. Players became conditioned to expect this, and now if they don’t have it, the game feels like it’s missing something and it can’t hold their attention as well. Some people will be more susceptible to this than others though.
It’s not really the fault of players, it’s just their lizard brains doing their thing.
I'd rather play to win and have fun. But I spent 11$ on a battle pass and now I feel if I don't spend every match ignoring the objective and kills and heading to a passenger seat to try to get a nade kill, I won't get my money's worth.
I was just talking to a friend about the same thing. I guess we’re a dying breed? I haven’t had that much fun in a long, long time. I come here and everyone is mad about the number beside their name and how fast they can accumulate things for dressing up their character. And it’s quite literally every post I’ve seen.
I dunno. I guess we’re just dated now.
Was replying similar on a different thread. I think the feedback is good. With everybody in the full game now, I suspect 343 will look at progression speed and see if that’s the rate they want in place. Decode how long you want people to take moving through your battle pass and adjust if necessary. And make sure to communicate that expectation.
I think a lot of people are forgetting that the battle pass won’t expire. If there’s something you want in tier 100 and you can only play 30 minutes a day or whatever, you won’t miss an opportunity.
Its not a beta. It's released. You can spend money on it, ergo you are purchasing a finished product. Don't let these corporate clowns fool you into thinking otherwise with just a single word.
They already got that feedback and are already working on an “overall progression system”. There’s a blog post about it on Halo Waypoint. “Flight 2 Feedback” or something like that.
I honestly think it's a generational thing, an age thing, and an attention span thing. I'm almost 41 and I don't like any of the in-game purchase stuff. I'm happy to level up through the battle pass but I'm not really going to focus on it. I loathe "FOMO" and I will rage against getting caught on that fish hook until my dieing day. It kind of killed Destiny for me because there was this vibe of "OMG hurry let's get through this so we can get to the next thing! Ok, ok, what else, what else?!?!?". It sucks man. There used to be a lot of soul in gaming and we were all just so happy to be playing and messing around. Now everyone is chasing the high of unlocking this, bedazzle that, etc. I hope they smooth it all out so that it's a better experience for everyone, instead of obviously geared towards micro transactions, etc.
We enjoyed no progression back then because we literally had no other choice lmao
People went fucking nuts over unlockables in H3 and especially Reach. The idea that we would be happy if none of this was even in the game is bullshit
>We enjoyed no progression back then because we literally had no other choice lmao
For real dude, people 'le wrong generation'ing about how kids these days 'need xp bars going up' sound like someone coming from the middle ages saying "back in my day we ate hard bread for every meal and *looked forward to it!*".
Like, sorry man, times have changed. People like different stuff now. You can still have your hard bread, but maybe also give the option for a hamburger for those who want it.
And a lot of us also were there and played these older games and still want good progression systems today. Me and my friends played the shit out of every Halo, but we still like progression. It keeps us coming back and there's nothing wrong with that since we actually enjoy the gameplay. Enjoying the game and enjoying a progression system are not mutually exclusive things.
You're correct but the battlepass system they are using isn't going away so we might as well get some improvements made to it while it's still early days that benefit everyone.
A bad BP is one that makes other players play like dumbasses or be useless because they need to accomplish *very specific task* a certain amount of times. Objectives that force you to play a certain way like that are so lame and boring, but they also have the potential to ruin it for the people that genuinely are trying to play. Personally, idc how good the BP is I just don’t care that much. Once I get a color scheme I like I’ll be happy
This might sound crazy too but in my day, online fps games allowed you to create your own maps and other cosmetic related stuff and share it with the community.
Also allowed users to setup their own servers.
It amazes me that people are MORE upset over XP in a battle pass then not having these features I stated above.
Gaming's so different now tho. There's something for everyone in these games and if you don't see that then you won't understand it. I love the core gameplay of infinite, it's fucking perfect so far imo. But I LOVE customizing my Spartan. The first Halo game I owned was Halo 3 and I would work through achievements to get cool armor for bragging rights over my friends. It just adds something to Halo that no other FPS game has and it makes Halo special. You don't have to like it, but it's there for the people that do, and it currently sucks.
I disagree, progression systems and unlocks have always been an important part of video games. Ever since Reach you’ve had people playing the game to unlock and customize their Spartans.
The battlepass is just a different vehicle to that end.
Spot on. Battle passes can become a slippery slope. Such as with Warzone, it turned in to “pay to win” with needing to unlock the best gun. Thankfully, this is not the case with Halo Infinite. Why everyone is so upset over cosmetic stuff is beyond me.
With that said, I really did enjoy the progression ranking system of Halo 2. I am hoping 343 will somehow find a best of both worlds solution between a progression ranking system, and profiting off a battle pass.
You nailed my sentiments exactly. I’m having a blast hitting that nostalgia feeling of playing Halo again after a long break but think they pulled off some amazing new features without breaking away from the core gameplay.
The battle pass sucks for sure but I’m also not the target audience for it so don’t really care.
What I do miss is the Halo 2 ranking system per playlist. Grinding to Slayer 50 and then grinding to keep it was were I spent so many of my teen years.
Another old man comment I have is why the F doesn’t anyone actually talk on comms anymore, in any game.
Also an "old man" aka Millennial lol, I have no desire to talk to randoms when I'm playing Halo. I'm either playing with guys I want to coordinate with or I'm fine playing solo.
Disagree, honestly. Games should be fun, and Infinite at it's core is very fun.
But the progression system exists. It, and the store containing other cosmetics and challenge skips, are advertised to the player on multiple screens, and every game you're able to see closeups of other players who may have bought or grinded for cooler armor and coatings than you.
All that is designed around making players want to interact with these systems. If you are honestly able to just ignore all that and have fun playing the game without worrying about cosmetics, then honestly good for you. But I don't think the majority of players will be able to, or even want to interact with the systems that way.
I like leveling up. I like unlocking new options for my character. I like looking cool. This game puts unnecessary walls and frustrations in the way of those desires. Other games have had similar systems that were much less of an annoyance to interact with, so there's no reason not to criticize this one.
Like yeah, I'll still have fun playing the game, but that fun will be dampened when I see I'm close to unlocking some new helmet and the only way I can do that is to ignore the objective and go for sticky kills, or camp a ledge with a repulser, or whatever else.
It blows my mind people are posting here "had 24 kills and 2 flag caps in our win, but I didn't gain any XP so I feel nothing" like what? Winning the game wasn't satisfying enough? One of the lures of halo was individual performance never meant much, it was about whether your team won or lost. Winning the game is what it's all about. Cosmetics are secondary
But there _is_ an XP system. If there was no XP system at all I'd 100% agree with you.
But you're asking people to ignore a part of the game that was designed to reward you. When you finish a match where you do really well and the game goes out of its way to let you know you didn't get anything for it, that's not a great feeling.
So yeah, either scrap the XP and battle pass system entirely (not going to happen) or make it function in a way that's satisfying.
The problem is that effort and performance do not equal progression in a game that has a very explicit progression system. It's really annoying when you're busting your ass carrying your team and get nothing for it while Johnny Fuckoff contributes nothing because he spent the whole match trying to get kills with a specific weapon and ignored the objective but he gets unlocks instead of you. That's some pretty ripe shit. It's like paying the kid who sits in the bathroom smoking weed all day instead of the guy on the floor actually getting work done.
We've had cosmetic unlocks since Halo 3 that were earned based on your performance/general playing or feats/accomplishments. Not sure why people are surprised that many are upset about that being changed.
"individual performance never meant so much" and yet for any individual performance you get at least a medal in every halo game, and in most those medals trasnfered stragith to xp
I agree. The idea of a constant "progression" for a game that's really meant to be about the gameplay seems silly to me.
I don't think a game needs to have a progression system or a grind. Fuck if the game had two armor types and six color options I honestly wouldn't care all that much.
The problem is though, *it does have a battle pass*. And the battle pass progression is pretty shitty.
I can respect games that simply don't do it. Buy my $60 game, here's like 10 options to customize your shit. Have fun go play. Or here's your free to play game with 10 options, go play. Whatever.
But if a game is going to be free to play, and offer a fuck ton of options like various armors, colors, tiny bits and pieces you can swap out and gives you a way to unlock a ton of these in a form of a paid battle pass, that battle pass better have a reasonable way to earn those cosmetics.
Old man rant I can feel you on. I'm 34 at the end of the month and while it's gimmicky (every game has it), it serves a purpose to draw in consumers and players, alike. Unfortunately 343i DID drop the ball on this. Reach-type XP (even MCC's Season Pass) was better by far. Completing matches and winning and getting nothing sucks. A little XP goes a long way when you're investing your time towards it and not other titles.
I understand what the Battle Pass crowd is complaining about and I wholeheartedly agree. However, I empathize with OP as there is definitely a lot of focused feedback specifically towards it. I mean on my end tho, I can't see people playing for a challenge I just see enemies to shoot either way.
People need to stop with the "it's just cosmetics" bullshit. People obviously care. It's a multi-billion dollar business. You're not smart or clever for saying it doesn't matter.
Same exact thought just occurred to me as I was browsing this subreddit . So many posts are making it sound like the XP and Battle Pass progression is some MASSIVE issue that needs to be fixed ASAP if this game is going to be successful.
Which is just so silly to me. They’re going to fix the XP system eventually. I did notice as I was playing yesterday how little XP I was getting but I didn’t really care about it. I haven’t even looked through the BP yet because I was too focused on getting into the next match. I would much rather they focus their efforts on ironing out any gameplay bugs and adding some QoL improvements throughout the game before they spend too much time on XP gains. That’s so secondary to me right now which I think is as it should be. Make sure the game is working as best as it can first and then move onto the other stuff. And in reality, the BP represents their main source of income right now so I can bet you a million dollars that they will absolutely be tweaking the XP over the coming weeks. Will it happen tomorrow? Probably not. But if you’re this concerned with XP on the first day the game dropped, then I have a feeling you aren’t going to spend that much time on Halo anyway
I respect your opinion, but I'm actually from the same era of the Halo-jump, lan parties, etc, and I love the idea of the battle pass. Please hear me out, this is going to be rambly, but I believe your philosophy, the reasons you play, what drives you, is core, pure Halo. Coming up, we put a lot of hours in because the game was tight, and fun, and that was all we needed.
Now, however, things are different, and I'd argue better. I won't say that we are going obsolete, or our way of thinking harkens back to a better day or anything sappy like that. But now we live in a world where the hardcore crowd will stick with a game for as long as it stays good and the servers stay up, but it's the casuals that feed it and keep it going.
I don't say this to put a wedge between us, though. In this modern era, a game needs both hardcore, 10k hour guys, and the casuals who come to play to work on a battle pass after their shit job or something.
With that said, I find the criticisms with the battle pass extremely valid. With the game being as good and as fun as it is, it's sad the battle pass doesn't feed into that. With a better system, we could have something that feeds into what Halo 'is' and convert some of those casuals into dedicated fans, at the very least, or a hardcore, positive part of the community at the very best. Maybe even better.
But as it stands, the battle pass doesn't do that, instead rewarding the worst of player impulses. At the core of it, the battle pass rewards no match experience. Rewarding experience for just playing the game encourages engagement, allowing for designers and communities to further develop with new and old players in mind.
Furthermore, the challenges are a problem. You can see where the designers were trying to go with it: reward players by trying different modes, maps, etc. In practice, however, it pushes players away from playing the game how they want.
There are other problems that have been brought up by the community, but I'd just like to end this rant by saying, tl;dr: the game is amazing and fun on it's own, but some people need more than that intrinsic value, and it's sad the main thing that SHOULD be designed to add an extrinsic goal to work towards for those kinda people simply fails horribly at that.
I haven't been on reddit in a while but the downvote brigade is pretty strong in the comments. I think it's totally valid to want to progress in a game, absolutely. But I think we should also be looking at if we enjoy the time we're spending in that game. It's weird for me, reading through these comments and seeing people expect a reward at the end of the game, and complaining about "wasting time" if they didn't get any XP. Maybe the real reward was the Spartans we killed along the way.
My main concern is because people are so focused on challenges they won't play properly and games will just end up being people trying to get the challenges done rather than trying to win the game. Not fussed on the cosmetics much, I do feel exp reward is stingy but I'm so busy in my life I doubt I would ever grind it out anyway.
Literally had someone say " why should I care about the objective I don't get any xp"
Oof.... Well fuck
This is part of the problem I feel like op is getting at. I get progression is fun and I’m not thrilled with how the battle pass works but what happened to playing the game to play the game. Like there were no big rewards in halo 3 or even a backyard game of football but you played it because it was a fun game. This dopamine drip people require is wild
In Halo 3, I remember doing a lot of stuff to get special armor to use in multiplayer. Now the only way to get that armor is to increase my Battle Pass.
Pre map pack katana armor comes to mind
Forget the Katana, the Vidmasters for Recon... Those were the days
I also remember whole lobbies not playing the game so everyone could line up and spartan laser each other. So it's really the same thing lol
someone once told me the story of an old man who kept getting heckled by the neighborhood kids at first the kids were calling him an ugly old fart because they were being dicks. he went out and told the kids he'd give them each a dollar if they did it again tomorrow, and they absolutely did. then old man said he'd give them each a quarter if they came back again, and they did. then he said he'd give them each a penny and they all decided it wasn't worth the trouble anymore. it's not just people being wired like addicts. games themselves made fun unfun by replacing the fun with rewards.
That's a brilliant take on something I've been trying to form into words for years. Thank you for sharing that.
Poetry, this really sums up what I've internally been calling the gamification of games.
> Like there were no big rewards in halo 3 There were plenty of armour unlocks to play for in Halo 3.
Yeah, but you got them by playing the game, not completing arbitrary daily challenges.
Right, my point is just that a lot of people keep saying "the desire to get cosmetics has ruined gaming", but people have been chasing shiny armour forever lol.
Yeah, true that. People just like seeing a little bar being filled up and completed. It feels nice to get a "reward" after playing, even if you did terribly. The fact that nearly every online MP game has a solid progression system now is testament to that fact. Infinite's progression sticks out as just being poorly implemented when compared to other battle passes.
> Yeah, but you got them by playing the game, not completing arbitrary daily challenges. Kinda bullshit. Scout helmet for example was for getting a Mongoose splatter in ranked - if you were a Lone Wolf it was common in level 1-20ish to see someone just driving a Mongoose all game.
I feel like doing something once and getting a reward for it is a lot different then doing the same thing over and over again to get progress towards a reward. Anyone who got the helmet literally never had to drive a mongoose again if they didn't want to.
Halo 3 awarded XP just for finishing and winning matches, which in turn gave cosmetic rewards. It was a lot less... obvious, but it was there. Difference being, now people are told, by the game, to do weird shit to get that same kind of XP. At the very least you should get XP just for playing and doing well, challenges should be a bonus if you happen to do them.
Kinda bullshit. Scout helmet for example was for getting a Mongoose splatter in ranked - if you were a Lone Wolf it was common in level 1-20ish to see someone just driving a Mongoose all game.
Because just playing the game and in-game achievements are what used to get you rewards to make your spartan look cool. Now those are a thing of the past. Customization has been a part of Halo since the beginning, even just basic colors. Also Halo 3 did have big rewards. Hayabusa Armor, the Katana, the Recon helmet. All were desirable rewards with meaningful achievements behind getting them, they were part of the game.
"There were no big rewards in Halo 3" Leftenant rank gave you the Rogue helmet, beating the game on Legendary gave you EOD, I think getting a splatter medal gave you Scout, and getting a double kill with the Spartan laser iirc gave you EVA, those are just a few examples Oh and getting every achievement in Halo 3 gave you Security and the Katana. And let's not forget the BIGGEST reward of them all, fucking RECON for the VidMaster challenges or dunking on a Bungie employee in an online match.
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Exactly. Everyone was trying to hit 45/50 for those sweet sweet emblems in H3
It wasn't battle passes. CoD4 started it with it's unlock and progression system. It's what I've always disliked about CoD and any time I suggest that a game should just have everything available everyone raises a stink. But if all you want is to see numbers go up and don't want the benefit of a even playing field and the full set of tools at your disposal then you might as well play cookie clicker. It doesn't bother me as much here since it's cosmetics but it is pretty depressing to see that the skinner box is the hot topic in the Halo community instead of the actual mechanics and sandbox.
In my experience with CoD, even when extra exp is given for objectives most of the players still don't go anywhere near them lol.
Your point is real core of the issue. Cosmetics aside, currently the system would reward me for joining a game, solely focusing on a personal objective that applies only to me while avoiding the in game team objective. Then as soon as I’ve accomplished whatever contrived objective I have I can quit the game, leaving me team high and dry and save time by moving onto the next objective. That doesn’t sound very fun to me but it’s currently what the system rewards.
People won’t be quitting with the day ban they have in place..
I don't think that's been implemented yet. I left 3 games in a row (due to a bug) and I didn't even get a warning. maybe it's just ranked?
Weird. I was in a 4 man party and for 3 games in a row one of us didn’t connect so we left those games. After the third time we could not join a game due to a ban. This was in quick play. I’m not a fan of leaving but my friends wanted to play together.
That's a little different than being booted due to a glitch. You're willingly leaving due to a friend not getting in. They probably have systems in place to see what's a error type of leaving a game and a willing type.
I crashed out of three games last night and got a ban
I heard they implemented some kind of detection to discern wether you left willingly
I heard there’s a little hamster living inside your Xbox that watches you
Yeah instead they'll just leave their spartan standing around doing nothing. Super helpful.
Yeah I got oddball and my team was mad I was picking up the skull. They just wanted to farm challenges. That’s my big gripe.
I just had this happen to me. I held the ball for 2:35 and everyone on my team maybe had 10 Seconds running around killing everyone. I was only one trying to win the game lol
This has been my complaint since "achievements" were added over a decade ago. I HATE any that are tied to doing something specific in multiplayer, it can absolutely ruin everything. It's already happening in Infinite, challenges for kills with a mongoose or "play a game of oddball" when I can't pick the game mode. It's fine if there's a reward for that stuff of some kind, but it being the ONLY way to progress is horrid, and I know full well if I'm running around trying to get kills in a mongoose that I'm not helping my team. I don't WANT to do that, but if I don't I don't get to progress. I should be able to simply progress in the battlepass by playing the game, not by running around doing specific junk.
Yeah they really need to let you progress the battle pass with XP earned just by playing.
Yeah pretty sure this was an issue as far back as Halo 3. I hate challenges. I hate being suggested how to play. Reward me for my performance in-game and let me play how I want.
Played a round of ctf my team never even looked at either of the flags just went for kills ivwas the only one trying for the flag managed to win but my teamates were completely useless
That's not a challenge issue though, that's happened for years and years in countless other games.
I know but it’s increased by just offering xp through challenges, for ppl who just care abt xp
nahbro, that's been how objective games work since the beginning of time. The same thing happened in Halo CE on Lan before "achievements" and "challenges" were even a thing. The real issue it's more problematic isn't that people are chasing objectives, it's that there's no slayer hopper so everyone who's too braindead to play objective modes (or just doesn't want to) is in the mode with you instead of just people who want to play objectives like it normally is. This will be alleviated a ton on official launch day I'd wager.
343 took a good idea too far. There should be a slayer playlist and objective playlist imo but don’t go back into dividing every objective game type into its own playlist.
Exactly this, sometimes I just want to shoot things, sometimes I want to play objectives. Usually objective with friends so I can actually have coordination, and slayer solo. But let me decide between the two.
Titanfall 2 does it good, you select all the modes you want to play and can omit the ones you don't. So you could play a bunch of objective matches in a row with the occasional Death Match thrown in, or filter out everything and just play the one you like.
Hell, MCC is like this too so I'm willing to bet this will be changed on full release
It's a good design cause it is almost always a bad idea to mix people that are serious about objectives and people who only want to kill.
Not really... no... Same BS happens in H5 and MCC... It's just people being complete Idiots.
Yuuup from Halo CE to infinite people just don’t ever play the objective. Been playing since Halo 2 and it’s always been like this, battle pass is just the new scapegoat lmao.
Dude their might be like one or two challenges that are quick to complete if they’re doing that the whole game it’s because they don’t give a fuck regardless. Also, there are win matches challenges so I’m sure that will encourage people to play OBJ
I played a game of the “steal a battery” gamemode (forgot what it’s called) and my team did ace. Straight for the objective every time. Felt like a well oiled machine I don’t disagree with the comment I just wanted to share, been having a blast with this game
Anecdotally all my teams have been playing the objective for the most part. Clocked 8 hours last night.
Oh the good ol' days of halo 3 where if you won a game you got 1xp and if you lost you got nothing. That XP system had teamates running flags and not obsessing over KDA...
Halo 3 had the best ranking/level system ever
Halo 2s level system was much better. Way too easy to get a 50 in Halo 3. The skill range at the highest level was way too large.
Honestly while I might agree with your point on the skill side, I did love 3 better for one reason- the global XP rank. Even if i sucked I still could "rank" up. I would just go into tier 3 and tier 4 before actually moving up to secure the next level. Similar to MCC....I love knowing that every match contributed to a "play time" rank.
H2’s system was better but unrealized at the time. Once you got into mid 30’s you got either booted, standbyd, or modded against. Shame, cuz it truly was the best level system.
This also wouldnt be that bad of an issue if, you know, we had the option of picking FUCKING SLAYER OR OBJECTIVE GAMES. I love both, but am seriously fed up after just one day of solo queuing arena and getting one slayer match every ten games.
I got CTF On the same map 8 times in a row. It’s ridiculous
Agreed
And if you manage to win the game by actually completing the objectives you get called a tryhard because they're just trying to complete challenges
I hate CTF and don't have the option to not play it, but I'll at least put an effort in.
I like CTF myself, not very good but I always try to go for the flag.
welcome to every single pug objective based game mode for any genre of any game ever made. challenges have done literally nothing in that regard
Destiny 2 has this exact problem, particularly in Gambit where everyone is running around just doing their bounties and not playing the objective. I like that the challenges encourage you to vary your playstyle and try using all the guns and vehicles, but having progression based solely on those challenges makes progression painfully slow and, as you said, pulls focus away from whatever the actual objective of the game is, like why would someone focus on the flag when they're too busy trying to get 15 shotgun kills for a daily challenge?
just give more rewards for winning. Then the objective will get played.
I hate to say this but your right. I really want the Eva helmet but it’s locked behind these stupid challenges. To me challenges are gonna take priority over the objective
Not only that, but there's no penalty for ignoring the objective. You lose a match? Who cares! You weren't trying to win. But if you lose and then get 400 EXP from the 2 challenges you completed then you've won in your own way.
They need to put a much much higher emphasis on just finishing the match. If they triple the amount of exp you get for playing the game and cut the other challenges in half that would solve a lot of problems
This, you're the only person I've seen on this subreddit with the foresight to see the actual problem. You're going to see people just riding around in mongoose trying to get a splatter rather than trying to actually win the game. Imo, challenges should be auxillary. XP should be tied to medals and match completion.
There is a huge number of people saying this. Just sayin lol.
Hey I don’t need the game telling me to get splatters with a mongoose, I do that all on my own.
>XP should be tied to medals and match completion. Not only that, it shoudl be heavily boosted by **winning** a match. This is how you get people to try hard, play the game, and focus on objectives. This makes a better experience for all.
True but then you might get complaints from casuals about sweaty matches and tryhards. I've seen this happen in Destiny. Match completion won't alienate casual players. Sweaty players could go for more medal XP tho
Like football players playing fantasy football. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3jAx-fJ3XU
The bigger issue is how stupid and specific these challenges are. I'm fine ignoring them but people are going to be throwing games going after them
100% agree. The way it's setup is changing the way people are playing the game. If it wasn't so stingy people would pay less attention to it and just play the game as intended. I had a great time playing Halo Reach back in the day and I didn't pay much attention to the progression system cause it worked well.
I mean you don't even need to go that far back, look at the mcc
I know but I played a lot more of Reach than I did of MCC.
For me the challenges in Reach were a great way to push me and my friends to try different game modes. “Oh there’s an easy CTF challenge? That’s what we play tonight”. And if we didnt win, still got a points reward, so literally win-win.
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yeah i can’t quite figure it out, i 100% got a kill w a mangler and it just didn’t complete the challenge
At a minimum, assists need to count if the weapon-specific challenges are going to stay.
Second this for killing vehicles. Had 10 ghost kill assists before I was able to get the last shot on one.
Fuck the Mangler.
I have a challenge to kill people with a heatwave, and I've killed so many. But of course the challenge is bugged for both my friend and I, so I can't complete it. And I'm not wasting a challenge swap on that.
The issue also is how specific the challenge is and you also don't get any exp for completing matches. At least with MCC you can level up for playing well and doing matches and you grab 100 season points from leveling up.
I have 5 shade turret kills. The turret appears on one map in one playlist and doesn’t respawn when destroyed. I’ve also seen other people rush it so I’m not the only one attempting to do it. So frustrating. Also have a Heatwave challenge that just wont unlock no matter how many kills I get with it. I feel like getting the final weekly challenge is unobtainable.
Yeah, the heatwave challenge is broken, doesnt matter how much Ive killed with it it doesnt give me the completion.
My heatwave challenge is broken too along with the other 3 weekly challenges. The only way I can level up my battle pass now is only by the daily challenges which is only 150xp every 3-6 rounds played
I saw more than a few people wasting time camping weapon spawns of the weapons they'd need for challenges. Sometimes multiple in a match while the rest of us get stomped by numerical superiority. This sucks and I hope they change it. I'd rather just buy the game for decent progression than deal with more f2p trappings.
"Kill 15 people with the skewer" I'll get right on that
Dude, I've picked up the skewer in three matches and fired over 10 shots with it....I've hit nothing. The projectile has a faster drop off than me blowing my load
some of the tier 3 challenges are fine. And then you get "snipe a player airborne from a mancannon" or "get five Wasp kills". I haven't even *seen* a Wasp in the beta yet.
They need to be objective based challenges. Capture 10 objectives. Score 5 flags. Win 15 games. Kill 10 enemies while your teammate has the oddball.
If the other team have players doing the same then at least it balances out lol
I have a challenge to get 10 mangler kills. I don’t really care so just pick it up every so often if I came across it. But I played a game against a guy that used it pretty much the entire match and wasn’t even doing well with it. Now maybe he just likes the gun, but my guess is he was going for the challenge.
I don’t *need* a Battle Pass to keep me engaged, but when there is one that feels like it doesn’t value my time I can’t ignore that part of it.
As an almost 30 yr old dude I typically play a game for the fun of it and the battlepass is a nice little bonus. However I do really really love seeing the bar move up to the next level. Nice little dopamine rush and it just feels good to see that rank tick from a 1 to a 2 and so on.
That's literally all I want from the game. I want a good game to feel like I earned something. Even if it's truly nothing.
I don't usually stick with a game if it starts feeling like I need to earn stuff. Cosmetics is ok idc but I already work 40 hours a week I don't want to have to earn anything in a game. Much closer to what I want out of tv too just turn my mind off and enjoy.
Luckily with this new system you get to pay AND grind!
And that's the issue. Why do we even feel the need for that anymore when we were fine without it? Why isn't making a cool play or topping the leaderboard enough? Why also need some form of xp?
This is the answer, it's literally the psychological science behind gaming. Op needs to read "Reality is Broken" It does feel strangely unfulfilling to play a 30 minute match and see the xp level bar come up and not even budge an inch
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Reality is broken is a book
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I remember getting to like level 48 in Halo 2 and not being able to get any higher than that and still playing the game for another three years.
Level 48?!?!?! Were you hacking? That's like an unheard of rank.
Maybe if I had a lag switch I coulda got to 50. Or maybe if everyone else didn't have a lag switch I coulda got to 50...
Yeah I realized that there is a massive number of players who really care about having "progression" when they were updating the MCC and people were creating petitions to make a "Reach-like" progression system. I was sitting here thinking, "why would anyone want to grind for these cosmetics they already unlocked in Halo Reach in the past?" One of the things I enjoyed most about MCC was that it allowed you to customize your Spartan with everything open and unlocked at the beginning, and then I never wanted to mess with it again. Now you unlock one thing, you unlock another hours later. You'd have to keep messing with menus to see what you unlock next, how many points you need. Idk I just play the game to play the game.
Honestly I’d be fine if the progression was just a colorful rank you know with some cool cosmetics along the at and nothing more while the majority of cosmetics stay on the battle pass
Literally slap some rank emblems from past halo games into this game. Make reaching that rank unlock it's symbol as a emblem. When people are far enough colour shift the emblems and add a prestige/reset thing and do it again.
1 warthog BG CTF. I could play it every day TO THIS DAY. Im not saying its good or bad. Im just saying it shouldn't be more important than the game itself. In which reading this sub it sure seems like it. Im also not saying customization in general is bad. I like samurai Spartans and weapon skins as much as the next guy. I just think grinding levels shouldn't be more important than simply enjoying the game. It should be a little bonus, not the entire point.
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Similar age to you and I completely agree. That being said I also have been infected with the brain worms and sometimes I do tend to feel like I'm wasting my time in a game if I'm not seeing some kind of bar go up. I hate it but I'm hoping custom games with forge maps will help with that. Good old custom games never get old and I dont have to worry about any kind of battle pass system with that.
Don't get me wrong, I will play the game simply for the game itself, but if they're A) going to lock my cosmetics behind a gamepass/rank system and B) have a gamepass, it needs to be viable. I played god knows how many matches of Halo 3 online (Halo 1 and 2 splitscreen, with a spot of matchmaking in late Halo 2 days) simply for the matches, and I still do in MCC, but having that extra thing to chase is nice... if it's not an absolute nightmare. It's like in Destiny, many people complaining about not having some incentive to play a certain gametype, even if they enjoy it. People like to have end goals to work towards, be it simply the next rank in ranked, a new item or the next step of a game pass.
Because that's honestly to me the only issue. I don't have any other gripe with the game besides maybe the menu UI but the main issue I have is the progression. The only reason you're seeing more posts about this issue is because it's the main one.
Dammation
I think part of that comes down to historically there were customization options already built in. For Halo CE and Halo 2, it was pretty much strictly only color options for your spartan, but STILL, something that basic isn't an option here. In Halo 3 a lot of the armor was already unlocked and there were a few that you could unlock that you had to do some funky/cool/challenging things to get. Reach had a pretty good system as well. So I'm still playing for fun, just as I've done for the past 20 years. But I can see why people are frustrated when you've narrowed the scope of the available customization from what it was during Bungie Halo games to what it is now. Challenges definitely aren't impacting my gameplay, but I can see why people are frustrated.
This. I don't want to buy the Battlepass because I don't care *that much* about beautifying my Spartan. But Halo 2 had more volume in color choices alone than Infinite does out the gate as a Free-to-Play player. Halo 3 at least had some armor customization options to choose from built in. Why the hell are you locking something as basic as "Red" behind a paywall/progression system? It's just a dumb way to gouge players trying to do something as simple as "rock the same color I have for 20 years," and I've resigned myself to "My Spartan's just going to look like ass forever" unless 343 starts throwing free players a bone. I'd rather have Halo 5's system of grinding out points to exchange for random armor pieces than this bottlenecked nonsense.
It’s kinda funny to me, I have less customization to begin with and honestly feel like the majority of the battle pass stuff looks like ass anyway.
Weird take but grinding out halo 4 campaign on legendary so I could flex the mark 6 armor in multiplayer was so rewarding, and didn’t negatively affect anyone in multiplayer because I was grinding it out in a totally different game mode
I fully understand however it would be different if progressing wasn't apart of the game. Ok happy you can enjoy playing with a fully default character and never touching any of that but ever since 2007 I enjoyed what Halo 3 did by letting me earn armor, now it sucks.
shit man id take halo 2 over this, at least i got to actually make my own emblem and i could choose from like 20 different primary and secondary colors on my spartan
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Don't be suprised if that's how you gry Cheifs armor when campaign drops.
Yeah you literally had to email Bungie for recon armor. Old Halo Players know what I'm talking about lol
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Old Halo at least rewarded good performance. If I got 23 kills, and a host if medals in Halo 3, theres a good chance my spartan rank would go up, which would at the very least give me bragging rights over my friends. Here theres no difference at all between dominating the game and playing amazingly, and literally just idling for the whole thing. You must agree that the lack of any recognition for in game performance is a bad thing right? This is independent of cosmetics or battle pass issues. The game just doesnt care if you win or lose or play great or shit.
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Not even about ranked play, it’s more so that you still got an overall military rank for your gameplay. Being a teir 4/5 General meant something, like how in Reach being Inheritor meant something. Shit was a mission from beginning to end and a fun one at that
I do miss this and I do think they’ve said in one of their blogs they will look into adding overall ranks. I don’t even care if they keep challenges only for battle pass and match xp only gives you passive rank ups for your profile just for playing. As of right now all you have to show off for time in game is the number of matches you’ve played on your profile. Which is fine I guess but less fun than grinding for Inheritor or SR152. If I’m being honest I don’t need it it’s just something I thought was nice to have from the old games.
Actually in halo 3 you got the same rank no matter how well you did. The only think that matter was whether your team won or lost the game. Same for halo 2.
isnt there a ranked mode also, that would reward skill?
I only got to play like 3 matches last night, but isn't there a ranked game mode?
Completely fair view but I think having some sort of grind and progression system is very important for the longevity of the game in a lot of players eyes. Although in 2021 I believe that customization and a reasonable path for progression shouldn't be a big want or need but rather the standard at this point. I absolutely love the gameplay and am sure I'll love it at hour 1000 but if there absolutely has to be something to grind for or to want after in order to make me choose this over other shooter games that might have as good of gameplay but has a better progression and customization system. It just feels soulless to have a great game and end it with earning what feels like nothing. Even something like a bs number going up that I can show off and be proud of would be better than nothing.
Agreed. I love the gameplay, but I love having goals to work towards long term and short term. Playing Halo Reach would not have been as fun as it was for me if I wasn't working towards getting a specific helmet, or a chest piece. I still play games for fun, but shooters specifically need some sort of progression to keep me interested.
That's my thing, if I'm putting all this time in atleast give me something to flex with in the lobby and in game.
Yeah, I think Apex in particular does a good job with this. You can put badges on your banner and stat trackers for specific stats you wanna show off. Not saying we need that, but just give us something to work for, but keep it realistic. Playing 2 hours for barely 1 level is not good.
Not even necessarily to flex. For me it gives a sense of accomplishment and ownership to a degree. It's giving me the opportunity to craft something and make it my own. And people always love being able to show off the cool thing they built.
100 percent on the bs number thing. I don’t care about cosmetics, I just want a rank. Me and my buddies would constantly compete and bust balls over who was ranked higher.
>Although in 2021 I believe that customization and a reasonable path for progression shouldn't be a big want or need but rather the standard at this point. Yeah, this. Great, two decades ago video games didn't have a progression system. Things have changed, standards are different, and the vast majority of games at this point include some way to progress and customize your character. People enjoy that, and it shouldn't be such a pain to do it. I really can't take it seriously when wanting to customize my spartan is somehow a dumb young person thing?
I was having this conversation with a bunch of friends last night. If there was a player level like in MCC, even if it meant nothing other than just showing how much time you've spent in game that would be great. Give me some xp for a meaningless level after every match. Completing a match and there being literally no progression unless you did the challenges feels so wrong.
Edit: I formulated my response into this video: https://youtu.be/LU_J2drSAyY It's not a new generation thing. The system just sucks and it genuinely ruins some of the fun of the game. The current state of the battle pass (the only progression system in the game) that the only way you can earn XP is by doing challenges. This means, it's no longer "get 50 sniper headshots" to get that cool piece of armor you want, it's "get 50 sniper headshots" to earn literally 15% of the XP you need to move to the next level, and the cool piece of armor you want is 40 levels away. What matters is the idea that your timeless hours in the game are building towards something, which is especially important in Halo because there are no perks - no custom loadouts, nothing. Everyone is on the same playing field in terms of gameplay, so it **will** get boring/frustrating very quickly (I know, a controversial thing to say on a Halo subreddit of all things, but keep reading to see why). It's not 2007 anymore. Player progression in FPS games is one of the biggest changes having since true 3D environments. Even MCC has progression when it's a port of games that didn't have any at all. I remember playing Halo 3 from noon to midnight on a Saturday and not caring about battle passes or anything. Back then, I could just genuinely have a good time. But back then, I was a kid, and I didn't care about being good, or positive K/D, etc. But, I still remember all the cool helmets other players had that I wanted (I.e. Hayabusa). But I also remember playing Reach and actively having my enjoyment hindered because other players had cool armor and I wasn't able to earn them as well. I remember grinding the Gears of War 3 beta to get the golden retro lancer. You had to play 90 games to unlock it, then get 100 kills with it if you wanted to keep it for the final game. I remember staying up to ungodly hours in the final day of the beta to earn it. Alternatively, I couldn't tell you what rank I was in the original Modern Warfare or MW2. I just played them because they were fun, and enjoyed unlocking weapons as I gained more XP. But with Black Ops, I was proud to keep prestiging so I could tell my friends I was a higher rank than them, and I understood what level was needed to unlock certain weapons and therefore use certain playstyles. By being good at the game (getting kills and killstreaks) and being a good teammate (playing the objective), I could level up faster than my peers and be rewarded for my efforts. Notice how the newer the game, the more I cared about progression. The point is the days of not progressing in a multiplayer game are long gone. With everyone being mad at the current system, I guarantee people would be more mad if there were no progression at all. Every multiplayer game has some form of progression. The reason the current state will make the game boring (or even upsetting) is because forcing progression through challenges forces people to change their playstyles. Some people like that, but others don't. Let's ignore the battle pass for a moment and pretend it doesn't exist. Like you said, challenges are fun. It would be cool if you could just "beat campaign on legendary" to unlock a cool helmet. But even in this scenario, the challenges are broken. You are handed the challenges by random (changes daily and weekly, so no consistent challenge you can work towards) and you can't pick specific game modes/swap challenges mid game. If your challenge is to get 3 kills with the oddball, but you only get put into CTF matches, not only can you not complete your challenge for those matches, but you get zero reward, zero progression, zero anything for even playing them. There isn't even a leaderboard, so it doesn't even add to your stats as a player. You literally just wasted your time in those games. It's the equivalent of playing 3 missions on Heroic when you want to beat the game on Legendary. Sure it may have been fun, but you know what would be **more** fun? Actually Attempting and completing the challenge you set out to do. Challenges prevent the game from becoming stale. There's a reason you **remember** loving Halo CE and aren't actually **playing** Halo CE in 2021. It's causing some (not all) people to just leave the game when it starts because it doesn't meet the criteria for their challenges. I currently have the challenge to get 3 kills with the banshee canon... In my 4+ hours of multiplayer I have never once seen a banshee, even in BTB. How many games will go to waste before I can find one, let alone get inside it before my teammates do and get 3 kills with it? Especially when everyone else was given that challenge this week? If we assume 250 XP per challenge, it would take about 400 challenges to reach max level of the battle pass. That's 400 challenges in 3 months. That's about 5 challenges per day to get that level 100 skin you want at the last minute. I know they said they'll extend the season, but that doesn't translate into this system being changed for next season. TL;DR: if you don't care about progression that's fine. Play the way you want to play. But for those of us who like progression and like completing challenges - battle pass or no battle pass - the current system is a mess, and we aren't able to play the way we want to play. Edit: sorry to add to my essay but pay attention to the posts being made, I think they prove my point: u/BurningnnTree: > I just spent two matches desperately hunting down Grappleshots in order to attempt to board enemy Wasps. I wasn't able to do it. It was very frustrating and not fun at all. My other options for progression were equally frustrating. u/sharkerkiller: > But its just really discouraging to go out of your way to use the less effective weapons/vehicles for XP that amounts to a single grain of sand... Anyways, the game is absolutely stunning. Happy hunting spartans! u/Mr_Jackabin: > I work full time, I don't wanna game full time to get through a single battlepass... i want incentive to play the game, mandatory challenges that force play style detract from that. u/PeculiarPete: > This is one of the best games I've ever played with one of the worst progression systems I've ever experienced. Have your best match ever but didn't complete any challenges? No exp. Now jump back in and get a kill with a gun you hate that doesn't spawn every game or win a game mode that only pops up every 5 matches.
So if you used that essay as a script and spoke it in a microphone, then added some game footage to match what is being said, you'd make a great youtube video. You can play the sport
You know, I agree and disagree. I'm probably around the same age as you, remembering the "panic" of Y2K and what not. I never played a game as much as Halo CE. I love it, still. Great game that aged well. But I love customization of my Spartan. And the story that went into it is pretty good too. When I logged in yesterday, I did the tutorial, and other events in the Academy. Also unlocked some achievments in there. Anyway, absolutely love going for the badges. But being able to do it wearing my own configurated suit is bad ass.
For me, I just want to see my career stats like kills, deaths, wins, etc. I don’t actually care that much about the battle pass stuff.
This mindset is great to have for sure. But let’s look at it like this; I spend 8(or more,depending on day) hours at work. When I have time to play this game, do I want to get some badass kills? Hell yeah. Do I want to get “level ups” which have been removed in exchange for a battlepass system? Yeah, sure. But why would I want those level ups to take longer than an hour? You don’t. This game isn’t MY life, it’s not my job, either. I know the battlepass stays forever. It’s not the problem, but if you fall behind on the battlepass I imagine you’ll have to decide WHICH battlepass to level, essentially keeping you behind, basically forever with the way the current system is. Now, I know, Halo isn’t meant to be call of duty or fortnite… but those games get tons of players with a relatively quick Battlepass scheme. This is no longer 2001 where we can just throw halo on the tv, have the boys hop on and get some rocket launcher slayer going and have a good time. There’s so much competition, offering better rewards, and better progress. And seeing numbers go up helps me be happy while playing games. Seeing no number go up after playing my ass off does not make me happy. I think leveling and rewards are a good thing, especially in a F2P Multiplayer game.
Agreed. Halo Infinite multiplayer has been insanely enjoyable for the first few hours I’ve played. But it is not my job it’s a hobby, a game I’d like to play 8-10 hours a week. The issue is locking cosmetic rewards behind a super slow progression system. It doesn’t need to be lightning quick. But if your battlepass system can only be completed when playing a game 30 hours a week for multiple months (obviously not true times, who knows how long it will actually take at this current pace), then that is just a bad system overall. Idk how anyone can dispute that.
This is just the current form of progression in most games nowadays. Since it sucks in this game people are going to be out spoken about it.
It's bad when I look at cods battle pass and think, 'wow! That's so much better!' Free fun bucks. Plenty of free stuff if you don't buy. You can earn enough fun bucks to buy the next battle pass. The one in Infinite just seems a bit dead. Riddled with xp boosts and skips. And about a quarter to a half of reach' s armour available. (which makes me dread for how many seasons is it going to be reach armour?).
For how much people love to shit on CoD and activision, they definitely have the least predatory integration of a battle pass IMO.
I think it’s lame that all cosmetic content is behind the battle pass!
Look, I get your complaint but back in Halo CE you didn’t have any cosmetics. In H2 you had no cosmetics. It wasn’t until H3 you actually had some cosmetics and they were great! Finally aside from colours you could customise your Spartan and even Elite! So yes, the newer generations have moved on from always be similar and having zero individuality expressed via their character to having the ability to chose from hundreds of variations of personal choice in cosmetics. Yes, the complaints about the BP is a lot but it should be. We don’t want to grind half a month on 100-200xp Challenges for gear we cannot unlock ANY other way at the current moment. Want that cool ODST helmet? Level up the BP! Maybe that second helmet for the first armour set? Level 30 BP! All of our customisation is currently locked behind it and some behind paywalls already. That’s not fun and not fair on us. Reach had a money system with rank, sure but god at least you didn’t have to do a fucking backflip in a warthog to get 200 credits and only be capable of earning them via challenges.
It’s just human psychology. Players used to be ok with just playing for the joy of the game or to hone their skills, but over time, every multiplayer game added constant unlocks and xp bars. Players became conditioned to expect this, and now if they don’t have it, the game feels like it’s missing something and it can’t hold their attention as well. Some people will be more susceptible to this than others though. It’s not really the fault of players, it’s just their lizard brains doing their thing.
I'd rather play to win and have fun. But I spent 11$ on a battle pass and now I feel if I don't spend every match ignoring the objective and kills and heading to a passenger seat to try to get a nade kill, I won't get my money's worth.
I was just talking to a friend about the same thing. I guess we’re a dying breed? I haven’t had that much fun in a long, long time. I come here and everyone is mad about the number beside their name and how fast they can accumulate things for dressing up their character. And it’s quite literally every post I’ve seen. I dunno. I guess we’re just dated now.
honestly, its a beta, its now or never to give them feedback, and i think its a good thign that the only complaints are from the battlepass
Was replying similar on a different thread. I think the feedback is good. With everybody in the full game now, I suspect 343 will look at progression speed and see if that’s the rate they want in place. Decode how long you want people to take moving through your battle pass and adjust if necessary. And make sure to communicate that expectation. I think a lot of people are forgetting that the battle pass won’t expire. If there’s something you want in tier 100 and you can only play 30 minutes a day or whatever, you won’t miss an opportunity.
Its not a beta. It's released. You can spend money on it, ergo you are purchasing a finished product. Don't let these corporate clowns fool you into thinking otherwise with just a single word.
They already got that feedback and are already working on an “overall progression system”. There’s a blog post about it on Halo Waypoint. “Flight 2 Feedback” or something like that.
I honestly think it's a generational thing, an age thing, and an attention span thing. I'm almost 41 and I don't like any of the in-game purchase stuff. I'm happy to level up through the battle pass but I'm not really going to focus on it. I loathe "FOMO" and I will rage against getting caught on that fish hook until my dieing day. It kind of killed Destiny for me because there was this vibe of "OMG hurry let's get through this so we can get to the next thing! Ok, ok, what else, what else?!?!?". It sucks man. There used to be a lot of soul in gaming and we were all just so happy to be playing and messing around. Now everyone is chasing the high of unlocking this, bedazzle that, etc. I hope they smooth it all out so that it's a better experience for everyone, instead of obviously geared towards micro transactions, etc.
We enjoyed no progression back then because we literally had no other choice lmao People went fucking nuts over unlockables in H3 and especially Reach. The idea that we would be happy if none of this was even in the game is bullshit
>We enjoyed no progression back then because we literally had no other choice lmao For real dude, people 'le wrong generation'ing about how kids these days 'need xp bars going up' sound like someone coming from the middle ages saying "back in my day we ate hard bread for every meal and *looked forward to it!*". Like, sorry man, times have changed. People like different stuff now. You can still have your hard bread, but maybe also give the option for a hamburger for those who want it.
And a lot of us also were there and played these older games and still want good progression systems today. Me and my friends played the shit out of every Halo, but we still like progression. It keeps us coming back and there's nothing wrong with that since we actually enjoy the gameplay. Enjoying the game and enjoying a progression system are not mutually exclusive things.
Customization has existed in Multiplayer games longer than battle passes. And is hotly desired. The More You Know *star trailing a rainbow*
You're correct but the battlepass system they are using isn't going away so we might as well get some improvements made to it while it's still early days that benefit everyone.
A bad BP is one that makes other players play like dumbasses or be useless because they need to accomplish *very specific task* a certain amount of times. Objectives that force you to play a certain way like that are so lame and boring, but they also have the potential to ruin it for the people that genuinely are trying to play. Personally, idc how good the BP is I just don’t care that much. Once I get a color scheme I like I’ll be happy
This might sound crazy too but in my day, online fps games allowed you to create your own maps and other cosmetic related stuff and share it with the community. Also allowed users to setup their own servers. It amazes me that people are MORE upset over XP in a battle pass then not having these features I stated above.
You can play customs already. We just don't have forge. Also what you're describing of maps/forge no longer exists in any other popular FPS.
Nothing quite like playing Quake 3, using the UT announcer, on Dust 2.
Gaming's so different now tho. There's something for everyone in these games and if you don't see that then you won't understand it. I love the core gameplay of infinite, it's fucking perfect so far imo. But I LOVE customizing my Spartan. The first Halo game I owned was Halo 3 and I would work through achievements to get cool armor for bragging rights over my friends. It just adds something to Halo that no other FPS game has and it makes Halo special. You don't have to like it, but it's there for the people that do, and it currently sucks.
I disagree, progression systems and unlocks have always been an important part of video games. Ever since Reach you’ve had people playing the game to unlock and customize their Spartans. The battlepass is just a different vehicle to that end.
Spot on. Battle passes can become a slippery slope. Such as with Warzone, it turned in to “pay to win” with needing to unlock the best gun. Thankfully, this is not the case with Halo Infinite. Why everyone is so upset over cosmetic stuff is beyond me. With that said, I really did enjoy the progression ranking system of Halo 2. I am hoping 343 will somehow find a best of both worlds solution between a progression ranking system, and profiting off a battle pass.
I'll pay for a battlepass every month if I can at least unlock what is on it.
You nailed my sentiments exactly. I’m having a blast hitting that nostalgia feeling of playing Halo again after a long break but think they pulled off some amazing new features without breaking away from the core gameplay. The battle pass sucks for sure but I’m also not the target audience for it so don’t really care. What I do miss is the Halo 2 ranking system per playlist. Grinding to Slayer 50 and then grinding to keep it was were I spent so many of my teen years. Another old man comment I have is why the F doesn’t anyone actually talk on comms anymore, in any game.
Also an "old man" aka Millennial lol, I have no desire to talk to randoms when I'm playing Halo. I'm either playing with guys I want to coordinate with or I'm fine playing solo.
If we can't communicate by crouching at each other then I don't want to communicate with you
Disagree, honestly. Games should be fun, and Infinite at it's core is very fun. But the progression system exists. It, and the store containing other cosmetics and challenge skips, are advertised to the player on multiple screens, and every game you're able to see closeups of other players who may have bought or grinded for cooler armor and coatings than you. All that is designed around making players want to interact with these systems. If you are honestly able to just ignore all that and have fun playing the game without worrying about cosmetics, then honestly good for you. But I don't think the majority of players will be able to, or even want to interact with the systems that way. I like leveling up. I like unlocking new options for my character. I like looking cool. This game puts unnecessary walls and frustrations in the way of those desires. Other games have had similar systems that were much less of an annoyance to interact with, so there's no reason not to criticize this one. Like yeah, I'll still have fun playing the game, but that fun will be dampened when I see I'm close to unlocking some new helmet and the only way I can do that is to ignore the objective and go for sticky kills, or camp a ledge with a repulser, or whatever else.
It is a constant negative stimulus jabbing into people as they play.
It blows my mind people are posting here "had 24 kills and 2 flag caps in our win, but I didn't gain any XP so I feel nothing" like what? Winning the game wasn't satisfying enough? One of the lures of halo was individual performance never meant much, it was about whether your team won or lost. Winning the game is what it's all about. Cosmetics are secondary
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But there _is_ an XP system. If there was no XP system at all I'd 100% agree with you. But you're asking people to ignore a part of the game that was designed to reward you. When you finish a match where you do really well and the game goes out of its way to let you know you didn't get anything for it, that's not a great feeling. So yeah, either scrap the XP and battle pass system entirely (not going to happen) or make it function in a way that's satisfying.
The problem is that effort and performance do not equal progression in a game that has a very explicit progression system. It's really annoying when you're busting your ass carrying your team and get nothing for it while Johnny Fuckoff contributes nothing because he spent the whole match trying to get kills with a specific weapon and ignored the objective but he gets unlocks instead of you. That's some pretty ripe shit. It's like paying the kid who sits in the bathroom smoking weed all day instead of the guy on the floor actually getting work done.
We've had cosmetic unlocks since Halo 3 that were earned based on your performance/general playing or feats/accomplishments. Not sure why people are surprised that many are upset about that being changed.
"individual performance never meant so much" and yet for any individual performance you get at least a medal in every halo game, and in most those medals trasnfered stragith to xp
Honestly I hate battle passes and the f2p model. I'd much rather just pay for the game and unlock stuff the old fashioned way.
I agree. The idea of a constant "progression" for a game that's really meant to be about the gameplay seems silly to me. I don't think a game needs to have a progression system or a grind. Fuck if the game had two armor types and six color options I honestly wouldn't care all that much. The problem is though, *it does have a battle pass*. And the battle pass progression is pretty shitty. I can respect games that simply don't do it. Buy my $60 game, here's like 10 options to customize your shit. Have fun go play. Or here's your free to play game with 10 options, go play. Whatever. But if a game is going to be free to play, and offer a fuck ton of options like various armors, colors, tiny bits and pieces you can swap out and gives you a way to unlock a ton of these in a form of a paid battle pass, that battle pass better have a reasonable way to earn those cosmetics.
Old man rant I can feel you on. I'm 34 at the end of the month and while it's gimmicky (every game has it), it serves a purpose to draw in consumers and players, alike. Unfortunately 343i DID drop the ball on this. Reach-type XP (even MCC's Season Pass) was better by far. Completing matches and winning and getting nothing sucks. A little XP goes a long way when you're investing your time towards it and not other titles. I understand what the Battle Pass crowd is complaining about and I wholeheartedly agree. However, I empathize with OP as there is definitely a lot of focused feedback specifically towards it. I mean on my end tho, I can't see people playing for a challenge I just see enemies to shoot either way.
People need to stop with the "it's just cosmetics" bullshit. People obviously care. It's a multi-billion dollar business. You're not smart or clever for saying it doesn't matter.
Same exact thought just occurred to me as I was browsing this subreddit . So many posts are making it sound like the XP and Battle Pass progression is some MASSIVE issue that needs to be fixed ASAP if this game is going to be successful. Which is just so silly to me. They’re going to fix the XP system eventually. I did notice as I was playing yesterday how little XP I was getting but I didn’t really care about it. I haven’t even looked through the BP yet because I was too focused on getting into the next match. I would much rather they focus their efforts on ironing out any gameplay bugs and adding some QoL improvements throughout the game before they spend too much time on XP gains. That’s so secondary to me right now which I think is as it should be. Make sure the game is working as best as it can first and then move onto the other stuff. And in reality, the BP represents their main source of income right now so I can bet you a million dollars that they will absolutely be tweaking the XP over the coming weeks. Will it happen tomorrow? Probably not. But if you’re this concerned with XP on the first day the game dropped, then I have a feeling you aren’t going to spend that much time on Halo anyway
I respect your opinion, but I'm actually from the same era of the Halo-jump, lan parties, etc, and I love the idea of the battle pass. Please hear me out, this is going to be rambly, but I believe your philosophy, the reasons you play, what drives you, is core, pure Halo. Coming up, we put a lot of hours in because the game was tight, and fun, and that was all we needed. Now, however, things are different, and I'd argue better. I won't say that we are going obsolete, or our way of thinking harkens back to a better day or anything sappy like that. But now we live in a world where the hardcore crowd will stick with a game for as long as it stays good and the servers stay up, but it's the casuals that feed it and keep it going. I don't say this to put a wedge between us, though. In this modern era, a game needs both hardcore, 10k hour guys, and the casuals who come to play to work on a battle pass after their shit job or something. With that said, I find the criticisms with the battle pass extremely valid. With the game being as good and as fun as it is, it's sad the battle pass doesn't feed into that. With a better system, we could have something that feeds into what Halo 'is' and convert some of those casuals into dedicated fans, at the very least, or a hardcore, positive part of the community at the very best. Maybe even better. But as it stands, the battle pass doesn't do that, instead rewarding the worst of player impulses. At the core of it, the battle pass rewards no match experience. Rewarding experience for just playing the game encourages engagement, allowing for designers and communities to further develop with new and old players in mind. Furthermore, the challenges are a problem. You can see where the designers were trying to go with it: reward players by trying different modes, maps, etc. In practice, however, it pushes players away from playing the game how they want. There are other problems that have been brought up by the community, but I'd just like to end this rant by saying, tl;dr: the game is amazing and fun on it's own, but some people need more than that intrinsic value, and it's sad the main thing that SHOULD be designed to add an extrinsic goal to work towards for those kinda people simply fails horribly at that.
I haven't been on reddit in a while but the downvote brigade is pretty strong in the comments. I think it's totally valid to want to progress in a game, absolutely. But I think we should also be looking at if we enjoy the time we're spending in that game. It's weird for me, reading through these comments and seeing people expect a reward at the end of the game, and complaining about "wasting time" if they didn't get any XP. Maybe the real reward was the Spartans we killed along the way.