So as many are aware, the armor coatings are a new addition to Halo Infinite that is set to replace that past color schemes. 343i claims it will allow them to introduce more customization options than ever. This information all came out as long ago as 2020. What upsets me is that during the time 343i is taking to improve the game, nobody with a higher presence than the unknown fans such as myself haven’t spoken out against this. The armor coatings are best summed up in a comment I once read, “Hey guys we’re improving customization with coatings and allowing you even more uniqueness and expression, just choose one of our preset made coatings that you have no control over.”
343i has done a very poor job of explaining them even AFTER they released a statement explaining them. Armor coatings are not innovative from the sounds of it. They are literally just Destiny shaders. They will have preset colors with preset textures and preset combinations on your entire body of armor. This would easily allow 343i to create a battlepass or monetization plan to get people to buy even more armor coatings that hardly change anything other than the preset pattern and colors of the armor pieces you have equipped. You’ll most certainly get to change each minor piece of armor but that is ALREADY what you could do in Reach. How is this better than Reach’s customization?
It’s absolutely predatory in my opinion. I have firmly stood by Infinite but the more I’m seeing of this particular part of it the more I am losing faith that 343i/Microsoft is truly there to care about the fanbase. When has paying $5 for a COLOR or coating ever been okay in a Bungie-era Halo game besides Recon? It’s disgusting. I’ve seen many say they don’t care or don’t mind such a system but that’s the EXACT reason why companies like EA, Valve, and Ubisoft are consecutively getting away with all the bad things they do. I understand they need to make money but Halo Reach did just fine on day one sales alone without ever adding insane DLC. With that in mind I once came up with my own armor customization idea that 343i could replace armor coatings with…
It’s as simple as launching the game with a base amount of colors. I mean the bare minimum primary colors and secondary colors. Literally we’d have a handful of colors to choose from and that’s it. Through gameplay or purchasing (to appease the money gods of 343i/Microsoft) we’d get different shades (not shaders) and hues of those specific colors or even colors not on the primary/secondary scales. Example: Instead of the base blue you could get emerald or sky blue. Simple. As. That. Now, armor coatings could still be a thing technically. And by that I mean they only apply to textures. We could launch with a default armor coating. Through gameplay or purchasing we could get something like rustic, glossy, matte, weathered, combat worn, and SO much more. There’s an insane plethora of coatings they could had come up with and lock behind microtransactions that would have at least given us the OPTION to get. Furthermore, there could have been a third layer which would be ‘patterns’ that we could have chosen. Like digital, woodland, basic, or whatever to overlay on top of the already intricate system so far. They wouldn’t even have to go as far as to let us customize every individual piece of armor with different settings. But if they did we could have a Spartan with a woodland camouflage chest piece that is colored red, green, and black. Then each shoulder pad is red or black with a carbon fiber texture applied. Each thigh piece could have just matte black applied. The left leg piece could be digital maroon, blue, and lavender. The right leg piece could be glossy off-white. And the helmet could be a weathered orange with some badass visor color. It’d look goofy and mix-matched but THAT is the level of customization I wanted to see. Nobody really would run around looking like that but that would go to show that I either grinded or paid to have those extra colors/textures/patterns on my personal Spartan. Seeing as how we won’t get playable Elites they could have at least given us something like this in return. 343i, you’re doing a lot right but you’re doing a lot wrong. Maybe you should have asked what kind of customization we wanted to see instead of copying Destiny. Last I heard, shaders were one of the greatest complaints with Destiny. Halo is supposed to pioneer things. If it was the first shooter to have THAT level of customization then it’d be a flagship series like it is supposed to be. But even DOOM (or Anthem of all games) have more intricate customization than the supposedly revolutionary Halo: Infinite will.
tl;dr: I think armor coatings are a bad idea and I stand by my idea about what level of customization we should get including how 343i/Microsoft can potentially monetize it. (Sad I had to incorporate that but it is what it is).
So how could I get this message across them? Do they even care? Is it too late to throw away their system and make something like mine which would have MORE options that what they are presenting?