343i live team's 'key pillars' - how do you think they're doing?

Games Halo Infinite
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I really want to approach these with nuance and try to find where 343 succeeded, but in the best possible faith I can muster when looking at these bullet points, I cannot for the life of me see how any of them are met.

The sheer randomness of everything (what challenges your get - even after a challenge swap, what maps/modes you get that may or may not fulfill your challenge requirements, what reward you get after all that grinding, what is in the store, etc.) really hinder most of those points. It’s like they got rid of lootboxes without fully understanding why lootboxes were bad to begin with. I could play a relatively bare-bones game if the primary loop is solid, (and it is!) But when a game is bare-bones, then solid player retention practices are key, and this frustrating challenge system with drip-fed rewards is just not doing it for my engagement.

As for the player-first focus, I cannot say it is great. Most of the systems simply feel like they are designed to eat away at my time, patience and wallet.

And the phrase “Provide unambiguous value” is, ironically, ambiguous in it of itself. No comment.

Finally, for the last point, 343 did good at fixing issues quickly and efficiently at first, but that no longer feels like the case. I am sure they are aware of our complaints, but they choose to barely communicate with us what the hot issues being worked on are. The reason why can only be assumed, but I am guessing it is because decisions need to be made through a huge corporate bureaucracy pipeline and it takes forever for plans to be finalized. That way, the community managers do not want to tell us what is being worked on because a.) the projected deadline is not finalized, b.) the actual solution is not finalized or c.) that complain should not be worked on because it is key to driving up profits. They cannot tell us what the solutions would be, because that may result if false promises. All of that is just armchair speculation though. Overall, with exceptions, I am disappointed in most of their communications and ability to act. I want to save my final judgement when roadmap is revealed.

2 Likes
22

The short answer? They aren’t.

23

I played some CE last night on MCC and had so much fun my god it was amazing especially having a shotgun and a pistol that worked. it was like the start of spring in the game of thrones universe so different and refreshing from the dark cold winter that is halo Infinite.

1 Like
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100% failure rate on all key pillars.

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To put it simply, 343 is all talk and no walk. These people have been doing this for a decade and still can’t get things to work properly or release on time in their games.

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I mean there is a very clear disconnect with a multi-billion dollar corporation claims to be taking a “player-first” focus. A player first focus wouldn’t be riddled with mtx.

Healthy engagement is a laughable pillar with a game where challenges ask you to compete in specific game modes that you can only get into randomly through a playlist.

The battle pass cerainly felt like ambiguous value to me. Calling it “heroes of reach,” and saying that it included noble teams armor was a shady way of putting it when it didn’t contain all of the armor from Reach, and a bunch of that armor was pulled from the battle pass to be sold in the store.

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So far so good, imo. I’m satisfied with the game so far and excited for its future. Going to be hilarious to see the flip.

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Do you have a fire team you que with? My friends stopped playing so every time I play it’s just with randoms, nobody talks and for the short time you do get to communicate with people isn’t long enough to warrant sending a friend request imo. If anything I think lobbies would go a long way with this game.