343i clearly don’t want to create a currency system and I understand why the community would want it back, its the best version of a grind system we know that worked. But if 343i intends to make the grind by challenges in Infinite, they should redirect them to be personal challenges for specific armor pieces/cores.
How does this make grinding challenges better?
Having personal armor challenges instead of a general overall challenge system allows for a more diverse and intuitive way to actually feel like the armor you grinded for was rewarding. It also allows for armor rarity to still be relevant depending on how hard the challenges are for the armor you want to grind. All players overall can freely path their own progression without getting similar items as everyone else. Though this system alone is enough for players play consistently, I think the idea of FOMO can still make players more eager to play eventfully than casually.
How does FOMO support a challenge system and encourages players to play more?
It generally already does encourage you to play more, annoyingly. However in this case, armor challenges can consist on more than just specific kills or actions, they can be on what modes to play or on which maps.
Wouldn’t that just encourage players to leave more matches until finding the right match?
Not exactly, I assume map/mode creation will increase as soon as Forge comes out (It sure better). If 343i intends on increasing maps and modes, it would be hard to find what you need in a sack of many maps. My solution would be to have a 𝙧𝙤𝙩𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙢𝙖𝙥 𝙥𝙡𝙖𝙮𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙩. Specific maps on certain days that change to new maps the next day, randomizing the list weekly. I see this as a good passive way to include a FOMO to have players to log on and play without 343i worrying players will grind their whole cosmetics out in one 12 hours sitting, while also never actually being unable to gain something ever again. This also allows to stretch the grinding for 343i since they want this game to last 10 years. This would be including modes, but that should only be for more unique modes instead of the traditional. Though, that would mean they would need to produce a lot of maps/modes. So as I said, forge should be able to fix that once its released.
How will this affect ranked?
Well, ranked can just be what 343i wants to orient what map they choose. Obviously they don’t need to add every map into the mode, just what they feel is properly competitive. I feel like they been doing this already.
Will there be a mode where all maps are in
In my opinion, no. This would be any idea of the rotating maps as its supposed to encourage the grind of playing.
Will there still be a battle pass?
In my eyes, yes. There should still be a passive way to gain cosmetics without the feel the need to grind everything for casual players to effortlessly gain new content as well.
What if no maps or modes aren’t part of the challenges for the armor I want? What keeps me playing?
Well as I said, there should still be a Battlepass system to freely gain content by just playing for fun. How the pass is already is fine. Maybe change the challenge from “Complete a match” to “win a match” would be better. Additional kills per match would benefit if losing the match is inevitable. That way, it can stop intentional afk.
Can multiple armors be grinded for?
To me, they should be. But in my eyes, there isn’t enough diverse features in Infinite to do a lot, where a lot of those challenges can be repeatable.
What kind of challenges do you have in mind?
If a day comes when they have more features, better armors can have more unique challenges. Those would be such as post-match best players, honoring a player, achieving Onyx ranked 1, LASO, 100% the campaign map, join an ongoing losing match and snowball the win, drastically stand out as the top player in the scoreboard, etc. Not everything has to be specific kills or types of kills. and DEFINITELY not by chance like shutdown a player on a killing spree. Challenges should be by expressing skill and earnship.
Will the current shop currency still be around?
It sure can, 343i still want a shop. There should just be enough cosmetics to grind for in-game and not leave it all to buy. Maybe during events, they can sell an exclusive bundle with special challenges for the event’s armor. Those looking for Fractured armor sets, make them feel more meaningful to be an event.
What are the pros of this system?
- Removes to stress of playing each game like its a job. Players can enter each game without the feel to finish an objective in the match to receive an “All or nothing” reward.
- It can help path players to choose what they want without everyone having the same items.
- Any player playing that day would be actually playing directly for fun and trying to earn something. Everyone in the match would be investing in to gain progress on what they need to grind for instead of always leaving.
- The content for Infinite will always be rotating as the maps will not always be the same.
- A chance for community creations to have a play in rotation.
What are the cons of this system?
- This system relies on a large list of maps and the proper amount of modes to play. With the current version of Infinite, they would need to invest on them as soon as possible after Forge.
- There might currently not be enough content in the game to have a diverse challenge system for cosmetics, which some might just repeat.
- I can’t portray if the game’s population will bounce every day depending on what everyone wants. If each unique armor has a balanced-out challenge, players would play each day for a specific armor and another day to grind for another.
- Players will still leave the game. Unavoidable, but players who play will still feel encouraged to gain something.
The Biggest Issue of this system?
Maybe one day your mode or rotation never rotates back in. Sadly that’s the hard truth of games like these. Sometimes you just never get that cosmetic piece and be a completionist. I can’t help that FOMO is like that, but that’s the game direction of F2P games today. You aren’t supposed to have everything by next month. But if 343i want, they can create a way to gain it again that properly would be more grinding, to punish those that missed out.
Why did I think this system would work
I already know players would just want a system “win a match by skill, gain money, spend armor, happy” system. But as of today, many games don’t do that. They want to maximize the amount of time you will be spending on their game to play while having more chances to offer even more content. Finishing all content by buying it, then coming back months later when new content is out, then repeating, is not an intuitive progression system. At least my system can provide players to constantly come back and be offered something new. Overall, if you grind out any hard challenges for legendary armor, you can still flex your skill knowing that players know you got it by a number of kills or achieving great feats.
I know its a big read, but I invested time into something like this by playing how other games are. Though it isn’t perfect, I likely forgot a lot of things, I still thought it was a better idea than now.