I’ve been enjoying Halo Infinite, completed my 200th match made game this week! My perspective comes from a full time working, 30+yr old. The gameplay is solid, but unfortunately the challenge system is severely undermining my ability to enjoy the game fully at a psychological level. The system currently has a sense of FOMO and frustration that just feels bad. Often resulting in tilt/rage that means I have to stop, or avoid the game.
Challenges: Often its impossible to target and complete your challenges due to playlists being clumped together and random. This doesn’t respect my time, and gives me frustration later in the week when I’m on a lower challenge cap - this might improve naturally as more playlists are added. Is it desired yo have players saying something like " COME-ON TOTAL CONTROL, I JUST NEED 1 MORE WIN" for 10+ games in a row because of randomness?
Ultimate challenge: Having these hidden until you finish all challenges, to then they ask you do play 15+ more matches to finish it feels pretty bad! Progress towards the Ultimate challenge should occur in the background during normal play, but ONLY unlock, and notify the player after all regular weekly challenges are complete. This would respect my time more as a player and feel like an awesome bonus. Imagine all those sick killing spree during your 40+ matches of Fiesta counting towards the ultimate challenge once it unlocks! That would have been great, instead it promoted targeted degenerate play like camping with a sword, and being angry when you’re unlucky on a 4 kill spree…
XP boosts: Good improvement upping them from 30 to 60 mins, but these give a yucky sense of FOMO and there is no good time to use them if you can’t prediction when you will complete challenges. I propose that they give bonus XP for a set amount of XP - somewhere around 2000 so that the time spent grinding out challenges or just the 50xp per match has the same time - XP value, and doesn’t punish play sessions that don’t last a full 60 minutes.
I’d love to buy a xp pack, pop 2 and grind out 4k xp in my own time, and get amazing value for time.
Thanks for reading my feedback!
Anyone have thoughts on the above?
The atrocious challenge system combined with selling challenge swaps (which are in themselves the absolute worst form of loot box as there’s zero guarantee the swap will not be even worse) is such a gross middle finger to every player in the game. There is simply no rationale that can justify the challenge and swap system 343 put in place except to conclude that they simply do not have an ounce of respect for their players. It is about as anti-consumer as anything I’ve seen from a game. The system has zero redeeming value except to drive sales of loot boxes. And that’s the primary progression system they’ve put in place.
I was just going to post something very similar. I have finished a handful of challenges for this week (tonight after playing for 5 hours). but my next challenges are:
Get 1 kill with the Heatwave
Get 1 kill with the Needler
get 10 kills with the bulldog
These weapons cannot be found on any map or in any PVP mode available currently!!! This is frustrating!!! It makes me want to uninstill this game and go back to Apex.
My 4th challenge is to get 3 wins in slayer… and I have qued for CTF and Oddball for the last 5 hours!!!
An upcoming challenge is to get 15 kills with the gun goose!!! Can you get any more RNG than this?!
I love the game but I’m a grinder. That is my play style. I play the objective and I grind challenges to receive rare items. But when I can’t do that, (because it’s literally impossible to do so) I’m bored and just wasting my time playing the game.
You absolutely make a good point about the anti-consumer practice behind the challenge re-rolls.
I believe the challenge system is OK but it needs refinement, it should work as a complementary system to the overall rank/progression for the player - but its so exposed right now as the only viable way to progress. Re-rolls should be unlimited, or at least 1 re-roll credited to your account per completed PVP game. Difficult challenges should give way more XP, and re rolling a challenge should guarantee a new lowest tier easy challenge. This gives player agency to accept the difficult challenge and work towards it, or re-roll it for a easy but less rewarding one.
I feel you buddy, this is the essence of the worst case scenario! It’s compounded when applied to players who don’t even have the opportunity to drop 5+ hours into the game, they’re just going to ignore the system all together.
On your point for the Heatwave, Needler and Bulldog - they absolutely do spawn in the regular non-ranked PVP modes! A map will always have a heatwave, or a bulldog (they share spawn.) The needler shares a spawn with the sentinel beam IIRC.
No problem! It can be a little bit frustrating because it’s yet another layer of randomness on top
However, I wouldn’t consider this to be much of a problem, it’s just compounded because you’re already frustrated, and other systems are exacerbating it.
Personally I feel that is the biggest issue with the pass as it stands. A lot of people are harping on the prices, but a structure that triples down on a perceived need for microtransactions to simply progress the pass is very abrasive.
I’ve hit 25 since the beta launched (no swaps or boost used), so progress isn’t the nightmare it’s often made out to be in this ultra long season. But if you get a bad RNG roll on your challenges it can leave you feeling very “over the barrel” in terms of completing your weeklies. Doesn’t help that a lack of playlists creates its own set of unnecessary stress for the player, but hopefully that will be addressed at retail.
With this first season lasting as long as it is the slow pace isn’t the end of the world, but if this system remains as is going into regular, shorter seasons than I think 343i will have a very real issue on their hands.
All of it seems designed to create stress to funnel players to buy swaps. It makes no sense to me that 343 and MicroSoft would do this with their flagship IP. Maximizing short term profits at the cost of a ton of goodwill is bad business, especially with a game that is so important to their whole ecosystem. The game is really fun and players want to engage with it in a positive way so it stands to reason they would profit significantly more by having a player-friendly system. I’m sure they’ll get there eventually but this is a pretty rough start.
To 343, I have some issues overall with your game, but they are not as pressing as the one I want to address. I know everyone is talking about this, but I really hope my voice is heard. I LOVE your game. Infinite is great. You guys have done a great job. I DONT want you to fail. The customization, battlepass, and progression has to be fixed. Most of my points come from Hidden Experias latest video. I recommend you guys watch it.
This is how you guys should redo things.
Make the mark 7 core and armor the standard armor behind a normal XP based progression system like halo reach (also challenges and achievements). Complete with ranks.
The mark 5b (reach armor) heroes of reach armor (and every season to come) should be in a battlepass, we pay for it and unlock armor through not just challenges, but through gameplay XP.
You should give us all the armor coatings that are color combinations that we could have made in previous halo game color systems for free, while the more specific and complex coatings like camps and stuff are on the store.
AI should be purchased in stores as well, except for a few base AI that you get through battlepass or progression.
Emblems should also be customizable like older halo games, and we should have all the base emblems. Then as you add more, put them in the shop or battlepass.
Special armor effects and special charms and stuff should all be put in the store because they aren’t typical customization options you’d see in older halo games. Same with like the fractures events and stuff.
Also make the shop like a catalogue that you can go through and see every item in the shop instead of making it rotations that you have a limited time to get.
I really hope you guys change the current system for something like this that is more player friendly. Your game is so good, we want to see it thrive and be loved. This is a problem that will turn people away from your game. Please keep up the good work, but consider this post.