Explaining The XP System

Games Halo Infinite
#1

“Wait, what? You don’t get any XP for completing matches? This is horrible, how am I supposed to level up?”

Well you see, that’s the thing. In past Halo game you were rewarded with XP after completing a match, it was always a static amount of XP (not counting things like boosters or how some modes gave more like Mythic Firefight in H5) that you would get after each match played, win or lose. Alot of folks seem to be in the impression that getting XP only through challenges = less XP than before, or you would have to try really hard to get any XP.

Not at all true.

The new system is designed to reward players who are devoting more time into the game, while rewarding players who do spend alot of time in the game with Capstone rewards, while also allowing anyone to feel accomplished after completing a match. The new system is designed to match the same amount of XP as the per-match system and more.

If you played Halo infinite for an hour and were rewarded with xp every match within that hour, you would get the same amount of xp as if you played for an hour and were rewarded via challenge completion every match, and that’s a fact.

The only time it would be even slightly difficult to level is when you’ve hit the average mark of xp that most players get within a day. Once most of you reach that point, your challenges become more difficult to complete, but you are rewarded with additional xp. Therefore the “I’m a good player” bonus kicks in for people who put in the time to get more xp. The longer you play, the more opportunities there are to level faster.

I will also note that most of the daily and weekly challenges are extraordinarily simple until you reach the extra xp stage.

So there. The per-match system and challenge system offer the same amount of xp for a casual player, and the challenge system offers more than average xp for players who put alot of time into the game, as it should be.

#2

One thing is clear, if the XP system is going to be based exclusively on challenges it is very important that this part is done well, and personally I think it is not being done well at all.

There are several points that I think should be changed:

  • The challenges must be universal: This means that there cannot be exclusive challenges of a game mode, nor exclusive challenges of the PVP mode against real players.

Having challenges focused exclusively on PVP can cause a big obstacle to a high percentage of the game community, since it may be the case of finding themselves before walls that cannot be saved unless they wait for the challenges to be renewed, or discard them. We must also add the problem of having weapon challenges that could only be achieved in PVP, it would cause people to focus exclusively on achieving those challenges instead of playing the game, harming the rest of the team.

There should be no challenges that can only be achieved in PVP against real players, it has no benefit and would only bring problems.

  • More daily challenges: I do not know if it is only exclusive to the technical test but having only one daily challenge to be able to achieve at the same time I see a problem. There should be multiple daily challenges at once just like there are weekly challenges.

  • The campaign and the PVE modes MUST have challenges: I don’t know where I read it but they denied that they were going to have them and this is a very serious mistake. Having challenges in the campaign and the PVE mode apart from encouraging their replayability help those players who are not interested in multiplayer have their own means to be able to complete the battle pass.

#3

> 2533274882898126;1:
> “Wait, what? You don’t get any XP for completing matches? This is horrible, how am I supposed to level up?”

It’s less about gaining XP and more about how it affects the game in general. When I was playing the flight and started focusing on doing challenges, I let my team down. I had two grapple challenges and I felt that getting kills was unnecessary, so I just camped near the grapple spawn and did only what I needed to do for those challenges. I also shamelessly idled a bit of a match so I can finish my last challenge of just completing matches. I may just be a terrible person and a bad player but I’m under the impression this is going to be the meta for the game. No incentive or pride in getting kills. Players will just ignore objectives or certain parts of the game to advance their battlepass. I had gotten 20 kills one match and was fairly excited, only to remember that those kills would’ve been almost meaningless in the full release of the game. I don’t think it would hurt anyone to add at least 10 XP per kill to give some crumb of incentive to do anything other than challenges.

#4

> 2533274842428280;2:
> One thing is clear, if the XP system is going to be based exclusively on challenges it is very important that this part is done well, and personally I think it is not being done well at all.
>
> There are several points that I think should be changed:
>
> - The challenges must be universal: This means that there cannot be exclusive challenges of a game mode, nor exclusive challenges of the PVP mode against real players.
>
> Having challenges focused exclusively on PVP can cause a big obstacle to a high percentage of the game community, since it may be the case of finding themselves before walls that cannot be saved unless they wait for the challenges to be renewed, or discard them. We must also add the problem of having weapon challenges that could only be achieved in PVP, it would cause people to focus exclusively on achieving those challenges instead of playing the game, harming the rest of the team.
>
> There should be no challenges that can only be achieved in PVP against real players, it has no benefit and would only bring problems.
>
> - More daily challenges: I do not know if it is only exclusive to the technical test but having only one daily challenge to be able to achieve at the same time I see a problem. There should be multiple daily challenges at once just like there are weekly challenges.
>
> - The campaign and the PVE modes MUST have challenges: I don’t know where I read it but they denied that they were going to have them and this is a very serious mistake. Having challenges in the campaign and the PVE mode apart from encouraging their replayability help those players who are not interested in multiplayer have their own means to be able to complete the battle pass.

I 100% agree. Also, I will say that it’s inevitable they we will be getting a PvE mode at some point and i"m willing to bet they’ll include challenges for it at that point. As far as the daily challenges go, Idk if i’d say we need more than one at a time because of how easy they are to complete but one more wouldn’t hurt. keep in mind these Battlepasses will last us 2-3 months! I don’t wanna be burnt out and finished three weeks in, y’know? But I agree with you for sure

#5

> 2535463263896395;3:
> > 2533274882898126;1:
> > “Wait, what? You don’t get any XP for completing matches? This is horrible, how am I supposed to level up?”
>
> It’s less about gaining XP and more about how it affects the game in general. When I was playing the flight and started focusing on doing challenges, I let my team down. I had two grapple challenges and I felt that getting kills was unnecessary, so I just camped near the grapple spawn and did only what I needed to do for those challenges. I also shamelessly idled a bit of a match so I can finish my last challenge of just completing matches. I may just be a terrible person and a bad player but I’m under the impression this is going to be the meta for the game. No incentive or pride in getting kills. Players will just ignore objectives or certain parts of the game to advance their battlepass. I had gotten 20 kills one match and was fairly excited, only to remember that those kills would’ve been almost meaningless in the full release of the game. I don’t think it would hurt anyone to add at least 10 XP per kill to give some crumb of incentive to do anything other than challenges.

That’s a good idea, add some incentive so people don’t just XP farm in matches which would indeed ruin alot of experiences. 10 xp per kill would be awesome, or even 5 xp per kill or something like that.

#6

I would genuinely prefer a more traditional unlock system in addition to the battle pass but throw in some Halo 3 style unlocks too. You know have spartan rank with unlocks tied to certain ranks. Then have unlocks tied to special challenges like beating the campaign on legendary or finding skulls.

#7

> 2535450599186235;6:
> I would genuinely prefer a more traditional unlock system in addition to the battle pass but throw in some Halo 3 style unlocks too. You know have spartan rank with unlocks tied to certain ranks. Then have unlocks tied to special challenges like beating the campaign on legendary or finding skulls.

I completely agree

#8

I don’t really like the challenge system, but what I dislike more is that there is no rank. Why don’t the battle pass xp also count towards a rank of some sort? There is won’t be an Inheritor rank, no SR152, nothing. I’m not planning on achieving any of these ridiculous goals, I just want a -Yoink!- number to tell how much someone played the game, without digging through stats.

Tangent about challenges: Of course there won’t be any more or less xp earned, challenges or not, 343 is in complete control of the xp ‘economy’. But it does reduce player agency on how to earn xp. No matter how general, there will be always challenges that don’t fit someones playstyle. For example, I hate playing firefight. It’s kinda fun in couch coop, but alone and especially in matchmaking with randos I despise it (because boring IMO). However to complete the “Complete 10 PvE challenges” challenge, which grants the most xp of all challenges by far, I HAVE to also complete one of the firefight challenges. It’s especially annoying because all the other challenges are campaign only and can be completed in singleplayer.

> The only time it would be even slightly difficult to level is when you’ve hit the average mark of xp that most players get within a day. Once most of you reach that point, your challenges become more difficult to complete, but you are rewarded with additional xp. Therefore the “I’m a good player” bonus kicks in for people who put in the time to get more xp. The longer you play, the more opportunities there are to level faster.

> the “I’m a good player” bonus

But there’s a problem with that. Players can be good at the game in different ways. Someone might pop off with precision weapons while someone else is great at driving a ghost or juggling the flag. If you do great in a game with the ghost, but don’t happen to have a vehicle kill challenge of some kind, you’re not rewarded for that, or as least not as much.
Additionally, and this is the most important part, if the challenge is “complete any game” there is no difference between idle farming and carrying your whole team.
The challenge system does not reward skill, it rewards putting in time.
It’s all about how much free time you’re willing to sacrifice. This ties in with the sentiment that often comes up with microtransactions, the “time savers”. For people who want to enjoy nice cosmetics but are just too busy. I said before that 343 is in complete control of the xp ‘economy’ and it’s in their direct finacial interest to make this one hell of a grind for pros and noobs alike, to sell people tier skips and challgenge swaps. I think the challenge system is a key part in homogonizing the amount of xp people can earn. It’s a lot sneakier than a daily xp cap. I’m not saying that 343 employees are sitting at their desks, maliciously planning how much money they can squeeze out of the playerbase. They’re good people and want to make a good game, but ultimately there is a conflict of interest that shouldn’t be overlooked. That’s why I fundamentally don’t like the challenge system in Halo Infinite. For MCC it’s a little different, there it’s just an icing on top and it’s not monetized of course (but seriously, screw firefight challenges!).

I was only planning to write the first paragraph, sorry for the long ramble.

#9

> 2533274882898126;1:
> “Wait, what? You don’t get any XP for completing matches? This is horrible, how am I supposed to level up?”
>
> Well you see, that’s the thing. In past Halo game you were rewarded with XP after completing a match, it was always a static amount of XP (not counting things like boosters or how some modes gave more like Mythic Firefight in H5) that you would get after each match played, win or lose. Alot of folks seem to be in the impression that getting XP only through challenges = less XP than before, or you would have to try really hard to get any XP.
>
> Not at all true.
>
> The new system is designed to reward players who are devoting more time into the game, while rewarding players who do spend alot of time in the game with Capstone rewards, while also allowing anyone to feel accomplished after completing a match. The new system is designed to match the same amount of XP as the per-match system and more.
>
> If you played Halo infinite for an hour and were rewarded with xp every match within that hour, you would get the same amount of xp as if you played for an hour and were rewarded via challenge completion every match, and that’s a fact.
>
> The only time it would be even slightly difficult to level is when you’ve hit the average mark of xp that most players get within a day. Once most of you reach that point, your challenges become more difficult to complete, but you are rewarded with additional xp. Therefore the “I’m a good player” bonus kicks in for people who put in the time to get more xp. The longer you play, the more opportunities there are to level faster.
>
> I will also note that most of the daily and weekly challenges are extraordinarily simple until you reach the extra xp stage.
>
> So there. The per-match system and challenge system offer the same amount of xp for a casual player, and the challenge system offers more than average xp for players who put alot of time into the game, as it should be.

Personally I disagree. The system as it is doesn’t award players for being talented. If you aren’t working on a challenge for kills, then killing more enemies in a match doesn’t reward you any more. I had no interest in letting my team down to chase challenges and run around trying to get specific needler kills or something, so I quickly lost interest when I found I was no longer getting xp from each match.

Generally speaking, tying everything to the battlepass means that we have no metric for our progression overall, just how far we are in a specific battlepass. I don’t feel like I have anything to work towards, since every few months more crap will come out and I won’t have any “rank” to show for my work.

#10

What if the challenges add more xp for wining in the same game as well? :thinking:

#11

> 2533275019576354;8:
> I don’t really like the challenge system, but what I dislike more is that there is no rank. Why don’t the battle pass xp also count towards a rank of some sort? There is won’t be an Inheritor rank, no SR152, nothing. I’m not planning on achieving any of these ridiculous goals, I just want a -Yoink!- number to tell how much someone played the game, without digging through stats.
>
> Tangent about challenges: Of course there won’t be any more or less xp earned, challenges or not, 343 is in complete control of the xp ‘economy’. But it does reduce player agency on how to earn xp. No matter how general, there will be always challenges that don’t fit someones playstyle. For example, I hate playing firefight. It’s kinda fun in couch coop, but alone and especially in matchmaking with randos I despise it (because boring IMO). However to complete the “Complete 10 PvE challenges” challenge, which grants the most xp of all challenges by far, I HAVE to also complete one of the firefight challenges. It’s especially annoying because all the other challenges are campaign only and can be completed in singleplayer.
>
>
> > The only time it would be even slightly difficult to level is when you’ve hit the average mark of xp that most players get within a day. Once most of you reach that point, your challenges become more difficult to complete, but you are rewarded with additional xp. Therefore the “I’m a good player” bonus kicks in for people who put in the time to get more xp. The longer you play, the more opportunities there are to level faster.
>
>
>
> > the “I’m a good player” bonus
>
> But there’s a problem with that. Players can be good at the game in different ways. Someone might pop off with precision weapons while someone else is great at driving a ghost or juggling the flag. If you do great in a game with the ghost, but don’t happen to have a vehicle kill challenge of some kind, you’re not rewarded for that, or as least not as much.
> Additionally, and this is the most important part, if the challenge is “complete any game” there is no difference between idle farming and carrying your whole team.
> **The challenge system does not reward skill, it rewards putting in time.**It’s all about how much free time you’re willing to sacrifice. This ties in with the sentiment that often comes up with microtransactions, the “time savers”. For people who want to enjoy nice cosmetics but are just too busy. I said before that 343 is in complete control of the xp ‘economy’ and it’s in their direct finacial interest to make this one hell of a grind for pros and noobs alike, to sell people tier skips and challgenge swaps. I think the challenge system is a key part in homogonizing the amount of xp people can earn. It’s a lot sneakier than a daily xp cap. I’m not saying that 343 employees are sitting at their desks, maliciously planning how much money they can squeeze out of the playerbase. They’re good people and want to make a good game, but ultimately there is a conflict of interest that shouldn’t be overlooked. That’s why I fundamentally don’t like the challenge system in Halo Infinite. For MCC it’s a little different, there it’s just an icing on top and it’s not monetized of course (but seriously, screw firefight challenges!).
>
> I was only planning to write the first paragraph, sorry for the long ramble.

Great points, and I can understand thine plight.
I will say first and foremost that 343 has already recognized the community’s desire for an overall rank progression like in the previous titles, and they have plans for it after launch since there’s no time to add it right now.

Also, I feel that if someone wants to purchase a ton of challenge skips or xp boosts because they don’t want to complete, say, “complete 3 CTF matches” then that to me just says they’re lazy. You get some from the battlepass as is, too. Plus even if you had a weekly challenge that you really just would rather not do, but didn’t have any challenge swaps, you could just focus on the unlimited Daily challenges and get your XP that way. Those are typically very simple and easy to complete too.

I think the best way to fix this situation to where everyone is happy is to provide some amount of XP for kills or match completion. Say, 1 xp per kill, bot or player (not counting Academy) and 100 XP for Match win, 50XP for match loss. That way even if you have challenges you don’t like, just playing matches will get you something worthwhile

#12

> 2533274812002202;9:
> > 2533274882898126;1:
> > “Wait, what? You don’t get any XP for completing matches? This is horrible, how am I supposed to level up?”
> >
> > Well you see, that’s the thing. In past Halo game you were rewarded with XP after completing a match, it was always a static amount of XP (not counting things like boosters or how some modes gave more like Mythic Firefight in H5) that you would get after each match played, win or lose. Alot of folks seem to be in the impression that getting XP only through challenges = less XP than before, or you would have to try really hard to get any XP.
> >
> > Not at all true.
> >
> > The new system is designed to reward players who are devoting more time into the game, while rewarding players who do spend alot of time in the game with Capstone rewards, while also allowing anyone to feel accomplished after completing a match. The new system is designed to match the same amount of XP as the per-match system and more.
> >
> > If you played Halo infinite for an hour and were rewarded with xp every match within that hour, you would get the same amount of xp as if you played for an hour and were rewarded via challenge completion every match, and that’s a fact.
> >
> > The only time it would be even slightly difficult to level is when you’ve hit the average mark of xp that most players get within a day. Once most of you reach that point, your challenges become more difficult to complete, but you are rewarded with additional xp. Therefore the “I’m a good player” bonus kicks in for people who put in the time to get more xp. The longer you play, the more opportunities there are to level faster.
> >
> > I will also note that most of the daily and weekly challenges are extraordinarily simple until you reach the extra xp stage.
> >
> > So there. The per-match system and challenge system offer the same amount of xp for a casual player, and the challenge system offers more than average xp for players who put alot of time into the game, as it should be.
>
> Personally I disagree. The system as it is doesn’t award players for being talented. If you aren’t working on a challenge for kills, then killing more enemies in a match doesn’t reward you any more. I had no interest in letting my team down to chase challenges and run around trying to get specific needler kills or something, so I quickly lost interest when I found I was no longer getting xp from each match.
>
> Generally speaking, tying everything to the battlepass means that we have no metric for our progression overall, just how far we are in a specific battlepass. I don’t feel like I have anything to work towards, since every few months more crap will come out and I won’t have any “rank” to show for my work.

That’s a great point bro!