You are correct. Even the flight was the full build (at the time), and this release is based on that build but with some patches.
I really wish I knew why the build seems so unfinished. I know there were politics at play, as I work in development, and there is always immense pressure to release a build regardless if they think it’s finished. So, they get what they have to a ready state as quickly as possible. Why it looks like an unfinished build is anyone’s guess.
Don’t forget broken aim assist.
I like how the bigger names all respect your time (the player) much more. This feels like the worst mobile game. If they decide to stay on their current course, I hope that the game dies within 6 months.
Insightful post, thanks for sharing. I love the gameplay loop, makes me want to play more. But the challenges and grind is taking the fun out of the game. Since I bought premium BP to support 343 I feel obligated to progress through the BP to get my money’s worth. Besides the unlocks aren’t amazing, a challenge swap here and a piece of visor there etc. Once I’m done with this BP I dont think I will be purchasing the next one.
Nice perspective - thank you for taking the time to input your views.
The monetization of this game - forces me to ignore challenges, forget about customisation and play custom games. Back to basics.
If you can buy a piece of armour the armour subsequently becomes worthless.
I would class this as an achievement if I still have the same practice and view 12 months from now… and maybe a skin for my effort!
Mayhaps their target audience is not the audience they received? Calculated decision or not, your product needs to fit the needs of the user or the user will trade the product for something else (thinking of going back to TF2 and Halo Reach, anybody?)
Who are these whiney babymen who are spending all their money on artificially progressing through the season? Maybe like 500 people, grand total. If you’re paying to get ahead of everybody else right now you are just a wimpy casual, not even worthy of my spartan’s fist against your shiny new helmet.
But to those who completed all their weeklies and are feeling disheartened because your hard work is not being recognized or properly rewarded? I see you, and I feel for you, and I believe you’re being dealt a bad hand by the corporate overlords who think of you as mere livestock. And I am among you.
For someone who placed in Platinum league right away I really don’t feel like that means anything right now… I don’t get anything for being better, and I’m certainly not about to buy my way to the top when I should be perfectly capable of earning it myself. The scrubs can pay for their cosmetics, but I want to earn them.
Maybe if I earn them, the rich scrubs will want them even more, and will be more likely to buy-in? Just a thought. Psychology at work, and all…
Absolutely my dude!
I’m seeing people all dressed up as Jun already and I think they’re just worthless scrubs, because it’s simply not possible to progress that far yet without paying. And honestly, their gameplay doesn’t back up their looks 90% of the time.
Buuut… if I knew it was possible to earn the skins so soon without paying for season stages… I might not be so harsh, and I might want those skins even more.
TL;DR: The game is designed to be frustrating at the expense of most players because players with more money will just pay to think they’re advancing.
You’re right, but it is really horrible. This, coming from someone who makes more money than I could ever spend working only 2 days a week, I would be considered a whale, and still find this absolutely gruesome. Particularly, I do not spend money on cosmetic advancement because there is nothing cosmetic about the characters in Halo Infinite. There is no female body type worth looking at so I have no incentive to spend money, even though I did get the battle pass because my friends told me to.
I really just want access to SWAT. If they make a nice female body type I’ll spend 60$ for that.
Don’t you think they’d be much more likely to pay if they were trying to catch up to the skilled players who earned their ranks? I think so.
Already encountered a teammate with the last pieces of armor. What does it cost if you outright buy the battlepass levels? $200 usd?
Thanks for sharing this post and explaining it so eloquently.
Did people really think 343 didn’t see their model is flawed at its core? It is entirely on purpose and they know exactly what they are doing.
At the end of the day Halo is a product and the ultimate goal of a product is profit. Fun and gameplay is a very important aspect of it and since 343 kinda nailed it again they have the “right” to make the progression system as heavily monetised as it can be.
People who can simply toss $100 to level up or on cosmetics will do it anyway until they move to the next new slot machine game.
Yeah but it’s dumb.
Is it better to charge $10 and have 10,000,000 people buy it?
Or is it better to charge $200 and have 4,521 people buy it?
I think we see the correct answer here.
Hit the nail square on the head. Well written. The business reasons detailed in this post is why I doubt our feedback will ever be heard/ even addressed. Welcome one and all to Halo as a service.
I did the same… I purchased the battlepass to support 343i for their work on Halo Infinite (which I actually really like so far) and to sweeten up my progression - I had no idea that I would have to spend months of grinding to get at-least half of my money worth back… And life is short, so I am done with the grind for now. My time is more valuable than $0.052 per hour as someone here nicely calculated. Fool me once, shame on me… wont happen again…
The math on point 6 is a bit off.
The season runs till May and if you didn’t have ANY challenges, 2XP usage, special events, etc and literally only got the participation XP, that would be 260ish hours on a linear scale.
So when you factor in challenges, boosts, events, etc it could be anywhere between 60-120hrs of gameplay over months.
And the idea of “normal” is a little off putting. Most people don’t unlock the full BP in other games, free OR premium. This one sticks around and typically the ones hitting cap are playing enough to warrant them as more than a casual player, which is kind of the point.
I’m not saying it’s in a great place currently, but it’s also not as bad as people think given industry training of our greedy gamer brains. I think tiny XP rewards in the AAR would keep that junkie going so we all think we’re special little spartans 
Whales are just more consistent revenue. Low cost models you are mentioning have been tried but failed to deliver same or better results financially, because its far harder to make majority of free to play customers buy anything. Sale acquisition is much harder and less stabile, and thats what you dont want in F2P schemes, because nobody made the initial 60 buck investment. Thats why prices in those cash shops are what they are - people with lot of money pay for convenience and prestige. Oldest trick on the market. Any company would rather go path with least amount of resistance, with player friendly F2P model, but that doesn’t exist, so its kinda tricky to find good compromise between reliable financial gain and customer satisfaction. Thats where 343i failed miserably - they havent even tried to find some balance and just smeared mobile game level of busy work all over this game.
These systems are also testing ground at the beginning - they are always overpriced and draconian at games launch, to squeeze as much money from whales as possible and capitalize on novelty. They will eventually tone it down a little bit, I am sure, rubbing their nipp.lles while saying: “We listen, we are so sorry, we love your feedback, we will do better!”
But cash shop prizes are not the problem, they are bad, I agree, but problem is that currently implemented monetization system hurts everybody and impacts the gameplay itself. Whoever came up with these challenges being only good resource of progression, should be honestly demoted - if you dont care about progression thats fine, but others in your team do and they wont think twice to make these challenges priority during the match. For team based multiplayer game this implementation is absolutely baffling and poorly thought-out.
Uhhh… well I have bad news for you.
Fortnite did just fine with its relatively consumer-friendly revenue models (before it became kindergarten) Call of Duty Warzone was super popular for a hot minute but faded out just like all other Call of Duty games due to the same money-grubbing tactics we see here.
Planetside 2 struggled for a long time but now it’s doing okay while changing very little about its revenue model while instead reinvigorating their game with fresh ideas.
TF2 is still alive after 12 years and you pretty much just buy hats and keys there, even with a reasonably high drop chance for random items.
People are playing Dota2 and League Of Legends after all this time and I’ve never considered paying for anything in either of them.
Warframe… hoo boy, Warframe. Still going. Still free to play. I may have spent a grand total of $20 on it since it first released.
The examples I mentioned are games that quickly developed a highly loyal and highly motivated fanbase who provide consistently high revenue for many years. Halo already has this fanbase, all 343 needs to do is earn our trust and boom, millions of dollars in revenue for the foreseeable future as long as they don’t immediately burn us all out with scummy tactics like we see today.
All I’m saying is they could take a page out of Fortnite’s playbook and provide a big juicy reward for coming out on top of a match. It doesn’t need to be enormous, just enough that you’re clearing a BP stage every hour maybe.
That’s still 100 hours without weekly challenges. Which means about 3 months of work for the dedicated player putting in at least an hour every day.
And there’s a small group of people who actually think 50xp is adequate. Their opinion isn’t worth a dime since they tend to be the same folks who won’t pay a dime for any of this. So how much larger of a group would be placed into a state of buyer trust with 343 if they ease up on the progression chokehold a bit.
You are absolutely right there much more player friendly F2P systems around with better value for your purchases - again there needs to be a balance and sometimes its hard to find that balance with suits breathing on your neck. Also you have to figure out the costs and investments…some franchises cost less to develop, promote and maintain so less invasive micro-transactions are not and issue for leadership. Also brand fanboyism plays huge role on what company can get a way with… COD? Pokemon? Overall, I agree with you, this should have been done better and its not worthy of the Halo brand. Personally, I would be completely fine with front loaded seasons - buying battle passes and complete them within 1-2 months of casual playing, but I would lock some coolest armor and perks to performance and long term grind so the real dedication and mastery is shown…
Unfortunately Mobile gaming is making more money from free to play games than any traditional video game and they are going to borrow from that model, just be glad our hobby has not been totally abandoned and become no more than mobile casinos yet.