Halo Infinites incentives are antisocial

Games Halo Infinite
1

Halo Infinites degradation comes from false values corroding it from the inside out.

Over 90% of Halo multiplayer are team-based games. Team based games inherently require cooperation and a socially cohesive understanding of the rules.

However, Halo’s Challenges are inherently antisocial. Antisocial gameplay is Infinite’s first false value.

Antisocial is defined as “Hostile to or disruptive of the established social order; marked by or engaging in behavior that violates accepted mores.”

The challenge system actively encourages antisocial behavior. Players will NOT follow the established social game rules when their individual needs supersedes them. Why should they? Players are incentivized by 343’s system to be this way

Players are punished for other antisocial behaviors: Quitting, Idling, Betraying, Cheating, etc. Trying to get kills with specific weapons leads to player’s greedily hogging them, camping power weapon respawns, etc instead of trying to win (ie. capture a flag, hold a zone) are just as antisocial. Grinding antisocial challenges should be punished as well

Antisocial behavior being encouraged and rewarded is Halo Infinites first false value. This leads to Halo’s second false value: Greed/Scarcity:

Players are forced into antisocial play because they are pressured into it for fear of missing a reward.

It takes a long time to unlock a weekly reward. Players feel pressure to sink several hours into grinding anti-social challenges instead of actually playing the gametypes as they were designed and intended to be played.

If I may, I wish to suggest the following fixes to 343 to still achieve their own goals while satisfying those of the players:

1. All weekly challenges in social games MUST PROMOTE SOCIAL COOPERATION

Example of Socially Cohesive Challenges:

-10 Assists

-50 Kills with any weapon

-5 Victories in any Slayer playlist

-10 Marks/Sensors that lead to assists

*-5 victories in any Objective playlist

-Revive 3 teammates

-10 melee kills

-Destroy 5 vehicles

-Save 5 teammates with low health

-Achieve 5000 score in cumulative game types

Remove ALL gun specific and antisocial challenges

2. Remove the FOMO incentives from weekly rewards

Reintroduce The Exchange from MCC into infinite. Halo MCC’s The Exchange fixed this sense of urgency to unlock time exclusive events. May I suggest a model similar to this beimplemented.

Weeklies should feel fun to get. Not a slog. Turn weeklies into their own Event Battle Pass and tier them per season so they dont expire. Players who play less wont feel FOMO, and players who play more get rewards.

————————————————————————————-

Closing points:

In Halo 3, players were partied up if they remained in the post game lobby. Players could also talk in these lobbies. Both of these things are absent and they lead to many friendships. Halo used to foster friendship and socializing, but now it promotes the opposite.

343 should punish antisocial behavior, not encourage it.
They can still maintain their battlepass and credit sales objectives by making pro-social changes. In fact, strengthening bonds between players will encourage their sales. Players will work together to win, compete, grind battle passes, show off armor, help each other compete challenges/unlocks.

The bottom line for 343 is that making the game social again will make it more popular and they will make more money.

The bottom line for players is that making the game more social will make it more fun

26 Likes
2

I agree, but a few of these challenges could still be quite frustrating without a dedicated way to play specific game modes and will still lead to one of the highest forms of promoted antisocial game tendencies induced from the challenge system, that being players quitting to find those hyper specific game mdoes

4 Likes
3

I agree. I re-edited the post to forgo game specific modes to playlist specific challenges per your feedback

5 Likes
4

They wouldn’t necessarily be a problem if players had a way to choose their own game modes, like MCC.

6 Likes
5

True. Having written this out and having contemplated it, I realize the very nature of Challenge Swaps existing means 343 knows the Challenge system contains unfun elements. They should axe this and admit it was a mistake. Nobody wants to unlock or buy a challenge swap. Its an artificial way to drive engagement, hollow as it is

3 Likes
6

I think thats definitely true. They already had good templates for challenges prior to Infinite, but Infinite’s challenges were made extra irritating, and happened to contain a convenient solution immediately provided that also happened to be monetized

1 Like
7

You raise very good points, as well as articulating a growing frustration with how the game “rewards you”

3 Likes
8

Surely the feedback regarding the flawed challenge system and disincentivizing of team play has been heard loud and clear since launch. Very curious as to what the holdup is. I hope this is addressed quickly because the fixes do not appear difficult from either technical or monetization standpoints.

2 Likes
9

I wouldn’t include this one. Protector Medals are well and good, but they rely on the performance of two people that at aren’t you. Your teammate, and worse, your enemy who actually has to be beating your teammate. Now, this is much better than Guardian Angel since it at least gets rid of the distance requirement. But it’s still a pretty poor challenge IMO.

I do like this one for Attrition, but I think Attrition needs a few tweaks to it “lives” system for this to be a truly great challenge. Because lives are shared amongst the team, the only way for players to revive friends is to either be in the final stages of a match (danger zone, which can make it impossible to revive someone after a point), or be losing the match (enemies still have lives). Also it punishes goo play. In games were you are dominating the other team, the opportunity to revive is simply impossible. If each player had their own 3 lives it would create situations where an ally can be revived mid-match instead of exclusively toward the end or in losing situations. How the current system stands, you can only revive someone when you have no lives left yourself.

Nothing wrong with this one, except the doom state mechanic would like screw this one up from time to time.

Otherwise a very solid list.

6 Likes
10

Here’s the problem, your list can still encourage bad behavior. I’m gonna play devil’s advocate.

When I have an assist challenge, I’m incentivized to NOT get the killing blow. So I might pop an enemy a few times and then let an ally melee them to death. This could lead to an ally’s death, or I might not play the objective correctly and chase assists.

During an objective playlist, I’ll chase kills instead of playing objective.

I will prioritize punching enemies over controlling power weapon spawns because those don’t lead to melee kills.

I’ll drive a vehicle up to an enemy, jump out, respawn, then destroy the vehicle if possible.

Honestly, the only challenges that won’t incentivize antisocial gameplay based on your definition are ones that require match score, winning games, or playing games. At which point, challenges should be eliminated entirely and match score should be the only thing that matters.

Which is whatever. Just saying.

7 Likes
11

No.

No.

No.

Gods No.

I don’t want people spamming marks, I want them to do it for good reason.

I don’t want someone to wait for me to be nearly dead to help me.

I don’t want to HAVE to play Attrition.

I don’t want to HAVE to play BTB.

2 Likes
12

As a note, you can report players that do this both on Xbox Live and via the Waypoint Support site, as Griefing on Xbox Live and Unsporting Conduct on Waypoint Support (though, Waypoint only lets you report idling and TK)

as it stands, i dont think theres a reliable way for an automatic punishment system for griefing to boost challenges - opposed to things like self-destructs, TK, idling, quitting, etc. you’d have to be reporting players that do not play the game as intended.

13

Hear, hear!

20 characters.

1 Like
14

I agree with everything, but not with these challenges. They are even more specific than some 343 challenges.

  • Marking enemies is easy if you have a controller with paddles or play on MnK, but on a regular controller many people cannot mark players, because they have it on th D-pad.
  • Revive 3 teammates forces you into playlists that have revives. Also you pretty much have to let your teammates die, in order for them to be revived.
  • Destroy 5 vehicles forces you into playlists with vehicles and makes the player only pay attention to enemy vehicles. He/she may even let the enemy take a vehicle to try to kill them. Also, does destroy an enemy vehicle mean you have to get the final shot, or just land shots on a vehicle that eventually gets taken down? The first is pretty hard, the latter is doable.
  • Save 5 teammates with low health. Is that the Guardian Angel medal? Because getting that is so random. This challenge also feels way to specific.

Other than that, great job!

1 Like
15

I really like the challenge ideas. This way players aren’t shoehorned into playing a playlist they don’t really want to be in (mostly, since it would be easier to destroy vehicles or get vehicle kills in BTB). In addition, they are easier to achieve through mostly normal gameplay flow and like you said don’t force players to be greedy or deviate from their play style, especially when the rewarding of customization options are tied to it.

1 Like
16

The whole of Season 2 is antisocial as it’s geared towards solo play :rofl:

4 Likes
17

One way to get around this is to play SWAT. When I play the mode I set my “Mark” button to LT. It makes marking super easy. SWAT doesn’t use grenades, so I’m not at a disadvantage.

1 Like
18

You’re 100% right, thank you. 343 should really be taking note. I am not having as much fun with the FFA modes as I did playing team games with my friends. Hell even the endless Fiesta weeks were more fun because, surprise! Playing with a team/friends is so much more fun

2 Likes
19

the Guardian Angel medal is ‘saving a teammate’s life from far away’ i’ve done this with a long range weapon but also a grenade/hail mary before

1 Like
20

I loved post game lobbies with random teammates. You link up and sometimes just go on crazy winning streaks. I miss those moments. Trying to find a recent player and have them join you is challenging.

3 Likes