A word for 343i

Community General Discussion
1

I recently watched a YouTube video from readyuplive where he interviews Spartan, Ninja and a couple other Halo pros about the state of Halo and which direction they think would be best for the franchise when it comes to multiplayer. At the end of the video he asks them to sum up their thoughts and offer one piece of advice that they think 343 should consider going forward

It made me wonder what people who aren’t professional players would have to say if they could have an influence on the future of multilayer Halo.

So if you could give one idea or thought to 343 what would it be?

Mine would be “there is no Halo without the fans, listen to them”.

2

> 2535437232056320;1:
> So if you could give one idea or thought to 343 what would it be?

I would tell them this: Hi 343, thanks for adding Yabda the Merciless as an announcer and other cool things, like a robust Forge and seat switching in vehicles. But please, for Halo 6, remember vehicle play is important to Halo!!! Give more support to BTB and BTB Heavies (and also firefight). I know you want to make money from reqs and Warzone, but it can’t replace BTB. And I know it seems like BTB Heavies and Warzone both consist of “big teams, powerful weapons and vehicles on big maps” but trust me, they don’t play the same. Don’t do something silly like make a cool, badass Promethean flying vehicle called a Phaeton, and then not put it on any BTB maps!

One more quick thing: please stop with all the ugly helmets and identical visors and white paint. The quality of the cosmetics actually does affect people’s enjoyment of the game, even if it doesn’t affect gameplay. Thanks.

> 2535437232056320;1:
> Mine would be “there is no Halo without the fans, listen to them”.

I feel like this is obvious enough that 343 knows it already, even though it seems like they don’t, sometimes. I would add to this statement: “and not just the fans that post on Twitter and Reddit.” Remember you also have the official Waypoint forums!

But even outside of that, 343 needs to remember that the vast majority of people who play Halo don’t go to any of those websites. Some of them even buy the games exclusively for campaign and don’t touch multiplayer! It won’t be easy for them to listen to those fans, but they need to as much as they can. One way for them to do so would be to take into account the population numbers (even if we can’t, surely they can).

For example: did you deign to throw together a firefight mode out of pre-existing Warzone resources, and it turned out to be much more popular than you expected? Cool, maybe this is an indication that PvE is important to many Halo fans, so you shouldn’t treat it like some side thing. How about giving it more support during Halo 5’s lifespan, instead of choosing to nerf a bunch of weapons to cater to the tiny handful of top-level arena players? How about making PvE a much bigger focus during the development of Halo 6 (hopefully they are)? Don’t just look at Twitter and Reddit and call it a day; learn from where your population is. Don’t assume the core of Halo is 4v4 slayer, and everything else is extra.

One more thing. None of this will be easy when you launch the game with barely any playlists, and add them back over the course of the next year or two, after the population dwindles so much that a bigger variety of playlists can’t be supported. A wise person once said: the best time in a multiplayer game’s lifespan for having the most playlists is right at launch. If Halo 5 had launched with as many game modes as it has now, its population would have stayed healthier for longer, and it would have been easier for 343 to understand what’s popular with fans and what isn’t.

3

> 2533274904158628;2:
> > 2535437232056320;1:
> > So if you could give one idea or thought to 343 what would it be?
>
> I would tell them this: Hi 343, thanks for adding Yabda the Merciless as an announcer and other cool things, like a robust Forge and seat switching in vehicles. But please, for Halo 6, remember vehicle play is important to Halo!!! Give more support to BTB and BTB Heavies (and also firefight). I know you want to make money from reqs and Warzone, but it can’t replace BTB. And I know it seems like BTB Heavies and Warzone both consist of “big teams, powerful weapons and vehicles on big maps” but trust me, they don’t play the same. Don’t do something silly like make a cool, badass Promethean flying vehicle called a Phaeton, and then not put it on any BTB maps!
>
> One more quick thing: please stop with all the ugly helmets and identical visors and white paint. The quality of the cosmetics actually does affect people’s enjoyment of the game, even if it doesn’t affect gameplay. Thanks.
>
>
> > 2535437232056320;1:
> > Mine would be “there is no Halo without the fans, listen to them”.
>
> I feel like this is obvious enough that 343 knows it already, even though it seems like they don’t, sometimes. I would add to this statement: “and not just the fans that post on Twitter and Reddit.” Remember you also have the official Waypoint forums!
>
> But even outside of that, 343 needs to remember that the vast majority of people who play Halo don’t go to any of those websites. Some of them even buy the games exclusively for campaign and don’t touch multiplayer! It won’t be easy for them to listen to those fans, but they need to as much as they can. One way for them to do so would be to take into account the population numbers (even if we can’t, surely they can).
>
> For example: did you deign to throw together a firefight mode out of pre-existing Warzone resources, and it turned out to be much more popular than you expected? Cool, maybe this is an indication that PvE is important to many Halo fans, so you shouldn’t treat it like some side thing. How about giving it more support during Halo 5’s lifespan, instead of choosing to nerf a bunch of weapons to cater to the tiny handful of top-level arena players? How about making PvE a much bigger focus during the development of Halo 6 (hopefully they are)? Don’t just look at Twitter and Reddit and call it a day; learn from where your population is. _Don’t assume the core of Halo is 4v4 slayer, and everything else is extra._One more thing. None of this will be easy when you launch the game with barely any playlists, and add them back over the course of the next year or two, after the population dwindles so much that a bigger variety of playlists can’t be supported. A wise person once said: the best time in a multiplayer game’s lifespan for having the most playlists is right at launch. If Halo 5 had launched with as many game modes as it has now, its population would have stayed healthier for longer, and it would have been easier for 343 to understand what’s popular with fans and what isn’t.

Amen!

4

Give us Halo on PC, 343. Not through the lousy windows store or anything, but through Steam or its own launcher.

5

My advice to 343I would be to continue doing their best to make the best Halo games they can for the constructive members of the community.

The squeaky wheel may get the grease, but the fully seized up wheel that doesn’t respond to grease gets replaced.

Try new things, keep what works, drop what doesn’t, don’t sweat the complaints of individuals who can’t be satisfied.

6

I would tell them to stop taking the corporate approach to making Halo with following gaming trends and listening to focus groups with people who probably never played Halo in their life. Take a good hard look at what made Halo great and focus on that.

7

> 2533274904158628;2:
> > 2535437232056320;1:
> >
>
>
>
> > 2535437232056320;1:
> >
>
> For example: did you deign to throw together a firefight mode out of pre-existing Warzone resources, and it turned out to be much more popular than you expected? Cool, maybe this is an indication that PvE is important to many Halo fans, so you shouldn’t treat it like some side thing. How about giving it more support during Halo 5’s lifespan, instead of choosing to nerf a bunch of weapons to cater to the tiny handful of top-level arena players? How about making PvE a much bigger focus during the development of Halo 6 (hopefully they are)? Don’t just look at Twitter and Reddit and call it a day; learn from where your population is. Don’t assume the core of Halo is 4v4 slayer, and everything else is extra.

I was going to use this thread as an opportunity to go off on yet another rant about the dangers of making the game too hard to play, but then I remembered that I’m the only person on the planet who thinks Halo 5 is too hard. And then I read the above and I realized for the millionth time that if this game had a solo PvE mode then the relative difficulty just wouldn’t matter any more. Team Slayer is so ten years ago. 2007 called - they want their equal starts and balanced game play back.

8

> 2533274873843883;7:
> I was going to use this thread as an opportunity to go off on yet another rant about the dangers of making the game too hard to play, but then I remembered that I’m the only person on the planet who thinks Halo 5 is too hard.

Maybe the only person on Waypoint, but probably not the planet, which is exactly my point. There are huge masses of Halo fans (and former Halo fans) that 343 won’t ever directly hear from.

> 2533274873843883;7:
> And then I read the above and I realized for the millionth time that if this game had a solo PvE mode then the relative difficulty just wouldn’t matter any more. Team Slayer is so ten years ago. 2007 called - they want their equal starts and balanced game play back.

Here’s hoping we get spawnable AI in Forge

9

What would my advice be? Ignore the casual audience I.E. those who buy halo, play it for a few weeks but then leave for the next shooter. I’d argue that audience is part of halos issues, doing enough to get the casual sales, but neglecting the more long term fans when it comes to a quality lasting game.

> 2727626560040591;6:
> I would tell them to stop taking the corporate approach to making Halo with following gaming trends and listening to focus groups with people who probably never played Halo in their life. Take a good hard look at what made Halo great and focus on that.

^^

10

> 2533274923562209;9:
> What would my advice be? Ignore the casual audience I.E. those who buy halo, play it for a few weeks but then leave for the next shooter. I’d argue that audience is part of halos issues, doing enough to get the casual sales, but neglecting the more long term fans when it comes to a quality lasting game.
>
>
> > 2727626560040591;6:
> > I would tell them to stop taking the corporate approach to making Halo with following gaming trends and listening to focus groups with people who probably never played Halo in their life. Take a good hard look at what made Halo great and focus on that.
>
> ^^

It worked for Halo 3 though.
But yes it would be good to have focus, minus the focus group.

11

To be honest, I don’t think there exists a one-liner that I could give which 1) wouldn’t be a glaringly obvious platitude, 2) they would immediately agree with, 3) wouldn’t be too vague to be open for interpretation, 4) would be conscious of the realities of game development, 5) wouldn’t be blatantly self-centered, and 6) wouldn’t be an immature jab at a portion of the community I happen to disagree with.

So, really, I’ve got nothing.

12

I would tell them “don’t let Microsoft push you around.”

Tell the story you want to tell, and don’t push aside things like couch co-op or offline multiplayer just because MS wants you to promote their policies (like Xbox Gold, or how originally Xbox One was supposed to be an online-always console).
Granted, this might be kind of hard since Microsoft owns 343i…

13

I would love 343 to stop using that auto tune garbage with the default announcers voice. I want to hear ‘FIRST STRIKE’ like I did with reach. Just because modern ‘rappers’ are using that crap, doesnt mean announcers have to…

14

I don’t care how 343i makes halo,the only thing that they need to do is listen to the halo community that is what going to keep halo alive

15

> 2535410036431775;14:
> I don’t care how 343i makes halo,the only thing that they need to do is listen to the halo community that is what going to keep halo alive

Well, they had their chance to listen to the community when everyone played halo, now their chance is gone. All of the og players are gone, and ofc the only players who play now are people who like the new style of halo, which is obviously a minority of players judging by how pathetic the population of halo is right now. Sadly though, I feel as if 343 being the company they are are listening to this minority of players who as they are the only players, will have influence over decisions made with Halo. An example of this is the sprint poll which was conducted, im pretty sure if all halo players who have ever played did the poll, the results would be a lot different.

16

I saw this thread this morning and I’ve been thinking about it all day.

There are hundreds of people working at 343I. There is nothing we could say, no ideas we could give that haven’t been discussed and decided upon. Assuming they never once considered the classic Halo formula in their decision making process is a serious insult to the intelligence of everyone working there. This is the path they’ve decided on, and so what I would say is this:

Focus on making Halo the best videogame it can be. Refine the concepts that Halo 5 brought to the table and place fun before everything else. Yes, even competitive play.