After today’s changes to progression I couldn’t wait to get home from work to play multiplayer. I checked out my new weekly challenges (1 game of Slayer, 10 kills w/ the Commando, and 1 kill w/ the Heatwave). I popped an XP boost and got to work. The excitement quickly turned to annoyance when the 1st game of the day was a CTF game that went to overtime and eventually ended in a tie. Not only that but I only got the Commando once (0 kills, which hey that’s on me being bad) and didn’t see the Heatwave at all. I had some awesome moments in the game but I couldn’t shake how annoying it was that I was wasting the double xp on a match that went on for far too long.
Throughout my play session I played 5 or 6 games, I never queued into a game of Slayer, only got the Heatwave once and it was as a round of Oddball was seconds away from ending, and picked up the Commando 2-3 times across all the games. Similar to the 1st game there were some good moments that were close and fun but towards the end I noticed myself pressing more to try and find the guns I needed to do my weeklys. This fundamentally changed the way I played and definitely wasn’t helping my team as much.
It felt bad to not be rewarded at all for some of the really cool medals I earned but instead I was punished because I didn’t get lucky and get the right game mode or gun rotations that I needed for my weeklys. This wouldn’t of been as bad if I earned something for what I did in the game, which despite the progression changes + double xp I didn’t feel great after the matches, especially towards the end.
I know my post isn’t groundbreaking but I wanted to voice my negative experience playing Halo Infinite tonight, despite my initial excitement. Now, I’m debating on whether or not to even play again until more meaningful changes are made. Gating progression in such specific ways just doesn’t lead to a positive gameplay experience for not only myself but my teammates tonight that I let down by searching for a Heatwave instead of pushing the objective. Even if I could have at least picked a playlist that had Slayer it would have helped, but it still isn’t going to solve the root of the problem with Halo Infinites progression.
Challenges being the only way to earn anything in the game doesn’t lead to a positive gameplay experience and to be frank, I’m never going to spend money in a game where a bad progression system has such a negative impact on the experience I have in game. I should want to play a game more because of the progression system, not less.