How to adjust the shop for the better

Games Halo Infinite
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1

STEP ONE -
Divide the Shop into Tabs.

The shop system should be divided into tabs as follows -

  • Storefront
  • Universal Cosmetics
  • Weapon Cosmetics
  • Vehicle Cosmetics
  • Personalization Cosmetics
  • Mark VII Cosmetics
  • Mark V Bravo Cosmetics
  • Lone Wolves Cosmetics
  • Yoroi Cosmetics
  • Entrenched Cosmetics
  • HCS Cosmetics

This would allow for players to be able to obtain cosmetics regardless of what is in the featured section of the shop, the Storefront tab; as these tabs are PERMENANTLY available.

ALSO Cosmetics such as Visor Colors, Armor Coatings, and Gloves should ALL be Universal Cosmetics.
Helmets, Helmet Attachments, Shoulders, and Knee-Guards should be universal across armor main armor cores. The exception would be fractures armor cores.

STEP TWO -
There will of course be weekly and daily items that rotate around the Storefront Tab. These items will be offered on a reduced cost and will rotate in and out.
Example - Firefall Helmet is normally 700 Credits. Now it will be 500 Credits.

And during Events, the Storefront Tab will focus on items themed with said event (Tenrai, Iron Eagle, Tactical Ops, Cyperpunk Showdown, etc.).

Certain events, such as holiday themed events will have the Storefront Shop taken up by items that are only available for said holiday.

STEP THREE -
Do what Rainbow Six Siege is doing.
By playing games, you earn one set of in-game currency that players can play games to grind for (Spartan Credits).
By spending money, you can earn the other set of in-game currency to just outright buy items with (ONI Credits.)

Allow players to play and earn ALL the cosmetics that aren’t included in the Battlepass by grinding for Spartan Credits.
Perhaps buying the Battle Pass gives you a 50% boost to how many SC you generate after each match?

And then the company still gets its microtransaction money from those that are impatient and spend money on ONI Credits.

STEP FOUR -
Armor Cores are FREE as default upon release in-game.
It was infuriating in Week 1 of Tenrai when my challenges weren’t registering and I was unable to actually get the Yoroi Armor Core until the second week of Tenrai, when challenges FINALLY began to register more consistently.

This will do two things - Guarantee that players get the new armor cores fresh out the bat and that even if they don’t get the Battle-Pass, they can still unlock cosmetics via the shops with Spartan Credits or ONI Credits to customize their Spartans with.

Thoughts anyone?

7 Likes
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There have been loads of great ideas and suggestions for the store, such as this one, that the community have come up with…but I just wonder if anyone at 343 even considers any of the ideas that people post on this forum?

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Nothing personal, but I didn’t read your post. Do you really think 343 needs advice or anyone on how to fix a shop that a game was built around?

There is nothing to fix, it is working as intended. As the devs were literally told to design it.

1 Like
4

I still feel like it would just be better for them to go through, look what armor pieces fit on what core, if it doesn’t fit, just deny it access to that core, that way, if something doesn’t clip, it isn’t locked to its core just because others clip. They can even have a special reporting button to let people report a clipping issue if it is that big of a deal to them.

That would be perfect imho.
It works for other games very well.
I mean, besides RSS, look at EA’s sports games.
They obviously make a lot of money off of just the MTX from those games and it is a similar system to RSS.

I think a BP should just be trashed altogether. Let players unlock what they want.
There could be a separate tab maybe called “Season cosmetics” with all the new cosmetic content from the new season. They could also have a “season event cosmetics” tab as well.

Also, another form of MTX could be a “premium” account, that could take the place of BP.
They would double your Spartan credit gain from each battle, but it costs money.

1 Like
5

Yes, because the shop is currently -Yoink!- and doesn’t show nearly enough of the available cosmetics which will only grow worse as more are added to the game.

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And you think 343 doesn’t know this?

I don’t think you understood my original reply.

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Frankly I doubt 343 will ever allow f2p players to earn free credits beyond whatever paltry amount they hand out in the S2 battlepass and beyond. And I’m sure those credits will replace actual cosmetics/items and just be resold back to players anyways.

However, I do think there is a way to appease both players and 343’s coffers.

Another user had suggested “Double XP weekends”. And I had gone a step further and suggested “Free Credit Weekends” where any weekend, designated by 343, would allow players to earn a small amount of credits per match during that period of time. Naturally it should be performance based to discourage AFK-ing. But this would at least boost population numbers during weekends.

Another option could be an occasional free 200 cR login bonus at the start of a new week.

2 Likes
8

Honestly, the current setup would work fine if they let all cosmetics be purchasable at all times at some base price from the customization menu, and reserved the shop only for “discounted” rotating bundles (where the bundle itself might be a hefty price, but still cheaper than buying each part separately).

But I’ve never run any business, let alone a game dev studio, so I’m not qualified to make this sort of call.

9

Yup.

You could have it set up in a way that the grind was so bad that we would get less than what we get now and 343 wouldn’t go for it.
They see “free credits” and think," Well how are we gonna make money?!?!"

10

Getting paid to play a game cheapens the experience and just comes across as entitled.

Kinda like Rambo suggested, alternate grind-able currency could be introduced separate from the purchasable variety. Bright Dust or Overwatch coins are other good examples of this in practice.

Purchases made with this currency could be limited to certain parts of the game like swaps/boosts, rotational items, and maybe even the Season Pass, but could be barred for use on expansions, esports items, or other tertiary aspects.

1 Like
11

I agree. I understand that they need a cosmetics shop to sustain a F2P model, and stuff like eSports skins definitely should be paid only, but at least a few additional grindable cosmetics to earn with a secondary currency would be a nice way to have something to earn and a few additional cosmetics. I’d love to be able to earn a couple of the store bundles somehow through gameplay, whether that be through a limited supply of unlockable credits or something else.

12

Are we being paid real life money?

That would be the best way to have a f2p model. You earn currency simply by playing the game and then spend it on what you want. It provides the “foot in the door” mentality.
Let’s say you’ve played for some time and you have accumulated 2000 credits.
You see a bundle of armor that you really like for 1500 credits, so you decide to buy it.
You then see a weapon skin bundle that you like for 300 credits.

This leaves you with 200 credits, but then a little while later, you see another bundle on sale for (whatever, you think it looks cool, that’s all we need to know. Maybe it’s an AI or something)
You don’t have enough to purchase it but you really want it and you don’t know when it will be on sale again, so you decide," Eh, it’s only $X"
So you buy some paid currency and get that bundle.
Purchases like that would build up over time, generating way more income for them than the current monetization model is.
Not to mention, most people prefer to skip a grind if possible, and the whales will be spending hundreds, if not thousands on the store.

13

They should have just done what Ghost recon Breakpoint did

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Armor Cores as a system should be reworked. Cores should only ever exist if the form or shape of the character actually changes drastically.

Between Mk7, Mk5B and Yoroi, it all keeps a rough Spartan humanoid shape, and that’s why it’s OKAY to consolidate them onto a single core.

Before you argue that each core has different base armor, remember how previous Halos dealt with this : Chest armor. What Infinite basically sold to us is each Chest armor as a Core, and having attachments as “Chest attachments”

If you have a base Spartan Core, slap on Yoroi Chest then slap on Attachments on that Yoroi chest, it fulfils the same intention without having an extra Core. Core system only serves to do one thing : sell you multiple Coatings for no reason.

The only “Cores” that should exist is Spartan Core and Sangheili Core. Or Brute Core. Whatever.

2 Likes
15

I have also said this about a month prior.

TWO SHOPS
One in game with earnable currency
And another one with IRL money.

We get things through gameplay, and we get other things through money play.

2 Likes
16

Cores exist because they had to make a comprimise.

Classic Halo had armor that you just applied attachments to the base armor.
Halo 4 and Halo 5 had armor that had only one thing in common - the undersuit you wore.

They made a decent compromise here.
The issue is that some things should be cross-core, while others should remain exclusive (chest pieces tend to be shaped to the geometry of the chest piece of the armor core; so if they were cross-core it would have clipping geometry)

17

But if you just lifted the Yoroi Chest “shell” and slapped it onto the base model of the Spartan in Mk7, it would have worked just fine. And that’s basically Cross Core, but more cohesive in design because you aren’t lifting Yoroi’s bulky padded torso along with it.

H3 did this just fine, H Reach did this just fine as well. A great example is Reach’s Collar Chest armor variant which is nothing more than a piece slapped over the original Mk5B armor, but it’s the most transformative because it changes the look of the collar, the front chest as well as abit of the back.

18

But there is also art style to consider.
Some objects will clash with the art design of the armor cores.
Just because you can mix and match doesn’t mean it looks good.

Take Halo 4 for example. Using Enforcer helmet, Warrior Shoulders, Soldier Chest, and Mark V Gauntlets looks great… … but suddenly have the Prefect Legs on the armor and it looks out of place and ruins the style of it all.

19

If something clashes with the artstyle of Halo, then does it belong in Halo? Ryu Hayabusa would have never made sense in Halo 3, but Bungie cleverly redesigned the important parts of the character and turned it into armor pieces which fit together with the rest.

Heck, MCC also did the same with Season 8 and managed to make some medieval armor fit on Reach and H3 armors, so why must Yoroi be drastically different? Can’t they just mold the Samurai aesthetic to fit the Mk7 instead?

1 Like
20

I would prefer they had lots of single items. Even to the point of having a daily option for everything; a daily visor, a daily helmet, coating, shoulder set, etc.

And then you made your own bundles. A small discount for getting two items, and progressively more for three, four, etc.

I’m not that fussed about credits in the battle pass - but I think a weekly discount on a purchase attached to the weekly challenge would be an awesome incentive to play regularly.