I’ve revised my topic and re-posted:
https://forums.halowaypoint.com/t/how-343-can-fix-the-challenge-system-revised-less-salty/511412
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This won’t fix anything and would even make it worse in some cases, since you want to make more cumulative challenges for the current playlists and make them much higher. Almost all playlist are non-friendly to casual players.
For example: the playlists FFA and Tactical players are dominated with higher skilled players, because casual players simply do not like them and don’t want to play them. The current highest cumulative scores for those (basicly about 75 kills) already prevent casual players from even going for the challenges, because that would make them have to play a lot of matches in those playlist they hate and also against more skilled players (wich obviously increases the amount of matches they need to complete) and therefore leaves them with little time left to play matches they like.
And now you want to put them even longer in matches they absolutely hate? That will either stop a lot more players from trying to go for the challenges (and missing out of the content they can earn from it) or stop them from playing the game in its entirety.
One of the major problems and complaints with the current challenge system was that players are forced to play a lot of matches in gamemodes they don’t like and therefore do not want to play. That was also a major complaint about the event challenges, because people didn’t want to play fiesta or tac slayer for that amount of time.
Challenges should be made so that everybody can do that in a natural way for them, that means also in playlists they like to play. You are just trying to force them to play more in hated gamemodes and therefore they can play less gamemodes they like. This will only hurt the game.
How 343 Can Fix the Challenge System
By replacing it with a standard rank up system and ditching the challenges in its entirety.
Edit: If I were to fix it without taking the step above, I’d start by removing killjoy challenges. That killed the Tactical Slayer event.
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i’d be somewhat ok with them if they actually tracked 100% of the time
except killjoy ones
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You are right , ditch the challenges entirely.
Straight up XP for completing matches and a weekly featured playlist with double XP.
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I agree, but this is a bandaid which doesn’t require extensive changes which will take months to implement.
It can take as long as it needs. Not sure the community is as patient as I am but if they dropped updates outlining what they have on the drawing board, I’m sure they’d be less pissed.
Not exactly. The challenge on its own becomes less (although i don’t see 343 giving score for completing, since the challenge only tracks if you complete the match to start with), but since you propose doing more of them, it will still become worse.
My friend was just here to play some Halo and he already had 7 out of the 20 challenges forcing him to play FFA or tac slayer, wich he hates, so he was already frustrated and is not gonna complete his challenges simply because of that.
I have opened my account when he was finished (only to look at my challenges not to play yet). I didn’t get as much playlist specific ones, but i did get the 7500 one for tac slayer. I am already doubting if just like last week i even want to play it, since i absolutely hate tac slayer. And as casual player i often play against better skilled players, so i can only get 5-8 kills per match and i don’t feel like playing tac slayer for half the week just for that lousy challlenge only to get a ugly armour emblem.
It won’t. As said above, the challenges are already cluttered with challenges like that and it still a problem. Casual players just don’t like to play it, they rather skip going after the challenges then being forced to play a gametype they don’t like for multiple matches in a row just to complete 1 challenge. Especially since those players often play less time per day, so they don’t even know if they are able to complete the challenges anyway, so why would they then waist time on gametypes they hate for nothing?
The event challenge last 2 weeks was different, because there you got a ‘prize’ per challenge you completed, so that makes it interesting for casual players who don’t play as much as the higher skilled players (on average), but the normal challenges don’t create that, since you MUST complete them all. There is just no incentive for them to spent a lot of time in gamemodes they hate, since the chance of not completing all challenges (and therefore getting the ‘prize’) is just to big.
Ranked is way less sweaty in my opinion then tac slayer and FFA, simply because ranked has more even matches, while tac slayer (outside the event) and FFA often are againt more skilled players for casual players like me.
For that amount of challenges? (you already have 1 in 3 challenges being playlist dependend) And then just to not know what you get, so you could even get worse ones? I don’t think a lot of people would do that. They rather don’t go for the challenges,. Both (either them using swaps or them not playing the challenges at all) ofcourse also beats the purpose you mentioned earlier of forcibly filling playlists.
And it’s also not how it works, people don’t tend to spent money on thing they don’t like. If they don’t like the challenge system, they are not gonna spent money on it, but just complete ignore it and don’t play it.
I never said i didn’t get why they did it. I said there are a lot of complaints about it. So why then outside of those events still force people into playlists if they don’t even like it during events, even though that gets you more unlockables… It only shows how hated that is by the playerbase.
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It doesn’t need to be fixed. It needs ripping out of the game completely, and replaced with a genuine career progression system.
Challenges should never be the basis for a progression system that is linked to XP. The only time challenges should be associated to XP is as a bonus in addition to an actual career progression system which rewards you for your in game performance. The whole challenge system and foundation to this game is flawed.
ps. sorry I haven’t read this thread in it’s entirety but some of the posts are just simply too long.
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Personal attacks… wow… Come on, you can do better then that.
And the topic is about fixing the challenges. And forcing people to play the majority of the week into playlist they don’t like is not good for the game. And it has also nothing to do with being challenged, but just about artificially populating impopular playlists. And it’s also not that they have to play just 2 games, but a lot of their time, so they don’t have time to play the modes they want to if they also want to complete the challenges. That is just not healthy. And claiming “but they can then sell swaps” is not an answer because:
- Then the current challenges didn’t even have to be ‘fixed’ right (you wanted the challenges out you don’t like, but you could already swap them out… ‘fixing’ those only undermines this argument)
- you would just probbably swap them for another challenge in that playlist you don’t like. That doesn’t even solve anymore and makes swaps useless.
A challenge doesn’t mean “play something you don’t like for a long time”. Not only is that just not what a challenge is, it’s also not what keeps games populated.
A challenge should ofcourse not be something that is super easy, but it should still be fun to do. A challenge system should always be designed so that players have fun going after them. If that is not the case, it will only hurt the game and would only lessen the sales of swaps, because people will just ignore the challenge system then.
And if 343i has problems getting some playlists populated, then forcing people to play those for long amounts of times doesn’t solve it, because:
- there is a reason they are not populated (people don’t like those gamemodes)
- it only hides the problem, so the real reason won’t be solved
- it only forces other gamemodes to be less populated and perhaps gets the same problem for those.
I’ll have to set aside a few hours to read your posts! Sorry but haven’t had time to read and comprehend any of what you have said on this subject…but at least it shows you’ve probably put more time and effort in to it than what 343i have done.
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I don’t think the nuclear option of removing these is necessary. What is necessary is a “Match Composer” like we have in MCC where we can pick and choose what games and modes we want. Suddenly, “Capture Enemy Flags” become much simpler. Just keep queuing in to CTF until you’re done.
That said, objective based medals need to be combined into one big group. Either:
- Perform Objective-based actions (Capture Zone/Flags, Kill Carriers, etc) X amount of times. This could also include Power Core steals and deposits for BTB’s Stockpile.
Or… assuming we have a match composer:
- CTF: Perform any CTF related objective X times (Capture/Steal/Return Flags, Prevent Flag Returns, Kill Flag Carriers, or Kill Spartans with the Flag). This allows players to just play CTF without having to worry about if they’ve returned enough flags.
-
Strongholds/Total Control: Capture, Attack, Defend, or Secure Zones. This is the natural flow of zone control modes, and players will naturally complete these in their quest to win those modes.
-
Oddball: Accumulate X seconds of total carrier time. Oddball kills add +10 seconds.
Side note: I’d consider adding +5 seconds for protecting the carrier since some players succeed in Oddball by keeping the enemy away from the carrier.
The first is a challenge that would encourage players to win Objective modes, actively play the objective, and it doesn’t force them into any specific mode, because ALL of the modes are suitable places to progress this challenge. Naturally, it would need to be updated when new objective modes are added like Assault.
The second (three) are all challenges that are specific to a mode, but allow players to just naturally play the game. They can choose to focus on the challenge or just play casually. Again, this is assuming 343 ever adds a match composer.
As for Coils, this is only a problem because 343 isn’t utilizing one of the few good piece of content it this already barren game. Coils only appear on 2 maps : Launch Site (4v4) and Fragmentation (BTB). It wouldn’t have killed them to put one or two some other maps like Behemoth or Streets. Also they could remedy this by either adding coils to Fiesta, an already crazy game mode or creating a new mode called “Team Coils” where the objective is… you guessed it!
Until 343 adds better playlist/map selection, yes, these are challenge that should be removed.
This should just be part of the “Kill enemy spartans with a vehicle” challenge. In fact, I’m pretty sure the postgame report track splatters as vehicle kills. And if it doesn’t, it should, since running someone over is more indicative of killing someone with a vehicle than killing someone with a gun that happens to be attached to a vehicle… in my humble opinion of course.
This challenge should simply be “Earn Equipment-based Medals” e.g. Pancake, Boom Block, Harpoon, etc. Halopedia has the full list.
Again this is only a problem when events have multiple modes, but we can’t choose which mode we want. I guess it does force players to play with a gun they don’t like, but at some point Halo players need to strive to excel with all of the guns in the sandbox, not just the powerful ones or the ones they like. That being said, players shouldn’t be asked to get kills with guns that weren’t meant to kill (Pulse Carbine, Plasma Pistol, Ravager).
This should be “Earn X Multikills” and it shouldn’t matter if a player achieves this by all double kills or single killionaire. Heck, I’d even say, if you manage to secure a Killionaire, it just auto completes the challenge whether you had enough multikills or not. Kind of like a Skullamanjaro from Reach’s Headhunter mode.
This is a perfectly acceptable challenge, especially for SWAT. Every mode in this game (except fiesta, somtimes) spawns you with a headshot capable weapon. BR/Commandos spawn on every map, and the BR specifically is a very good weapon that players should be seeking out and using anyways. But it does technically entice player to for go more efficient methods of killing spartans (say, melee or Rockets) in favor of going for headshots. So I see your point.
Players should absolutely be trying to go on sprees.
I don’t necessarily think we need specifically 20 challenges each week, in fact I think that is part of the reason why the current system is so draining. Right now, if you want the weekly reward, you have to grind 21 challenges of varying difficulty. And the reward is often not representative of the effort/time it took to earn it. The only thing that really separate a Daily from a Weekly is how long 343 expects the average player to achieve it. Realistically, they could just say “complete 50 games”. That’s 7 games a day, 70 minutes of play per day, which is just over the 8hrs per week you suggested.
Part of the issue these challenges are so bad is because 343 seems to feel the need to add variety to the challenges which is likely how we got “Get Killjoys” and “Headshot spartans with a sniper, but only while zoomed in, because a No-Scope would be too cool”.
MCC tasks us with only 12* challenges per week (6 of which are Campaign/Firefight specific) and it does fine. In fact, MCC has far superior challenges. Many of them are quite similar to what you’ve described already. But their 2 best challenges are:
- Finish a match with 1.0 K/D or better (basically just do go negative, an objectively good goal for players to set for themselves)
- Finish a game in the top 3 on the leaderboard (self-explanatory)
*Note: By “12”, I mean only 12 challenges offer season points that can be spent toward the season pass.
This was a fantastic post, and I agree with everything else that I didn’t mention in my reply. I’ll likely make a second reply talking about the commendation system, but I’m too tired right now.
Also your pfp is amazing. Is that Zeus covered in p***y?
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How to fix Challenges:
- Make Challenges playlist based
- Challenges must be able to be progressed every time the player loads a match, and not have to RNG a specific mode to clear it
- Remove “Upcoming Challenges” feature which serves only to gate players
The sooner players Clear challenges, the sooner they go back to actually playing the game the way they like, strongly improving the player experience.
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Disagree, look at MCC. They have a pretty good challenge system that both gates and rewards players fairly without making the player feel abused. They could have lifted that right over but chose to make a new system that actively tortures players.
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(post deleted by author)
Well a rough description will be as such:
MCC Challenges come in two forms : Campaign focused and MP focused.
Campaigned Focused Challenges:
- Weapon Challenges
- Vehicle Challenges
- Kill Challenges
This works because Campaign is where you have free and unlimited access to the sandbox, making these Challenges rather accessible, yet makes the player play in a certain way to clear them.
MP Challenges:
- Objective Medals (gained by playing the Objective)
- Killing Sprees (gained by killing enemies)
- Wheelman (assisting players by driving them around)
- Life expectancy (dying less in MP will make your average life longer, and usually the challenge wants you to have an average life of 30s or more, aka not dying so much)
- Kills with generic weapon type (Automatics or Precisions only. NO SPECIFICATION)
These are all challenges that the player can control, and most importantly, attempt everytime they queue for their specific playlists. They also rely alot more on player skill than randomly needing to take advantage of a specific situation to clear.
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Yea but here’s what’s different as well:
MCC also has XP per match which fills a bar which then gives them a token as well. The Challenges either give XP or 1 Token, while levelling up in general gives you 1 Token.
See all these different ways to progress? Now compare that to Infinite forcing you to play Quickplay over and over for Strongholds only to award you with 1/8th of XP bar which don’t give you anything :^)
The main point is this:
343 intentionally ignored a functional Challenge system in order to make a bad one, and I don’t believe anything attempting to “fix” what 343 has currently made is gonna be better than straight up porting that working system over.
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You’re welcome. =)
Oh yeah, this system is effed from the inside-out.
Fair enough. I wouldn’t lose sleep over them being removed, although I do stand by that I think the game would be better off, even if marginally, if they stayed.
As for Sprees. We’re on the same page. I didn’t mention it before, but it did cross my mind that spree seeking players may be over-cautious. That’s totally fine in slayer since it’s arguably more important to preserve yourself and you teammates than it is to kill the enemy.
You’re right about team objective though. My sister, my favorite person to play CTF with, will have matches where she goes 7-20, but has 2 captures, 8 steals, 5 returns and a Flag Joust. So it really just depends on the sort of match I guess.
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1000%!
Incentivising playstyles which are congruent with the playlist is the best solution, provided it doesn’t risk team disharmony (capturing the flag could cause team killing in ranked, or flag-chasing)
Appreciate your feedback!
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