Is there proof anywhere that we in this community are making an impact?

It breaks my heart to scroll through these forums and skip over any post detailing “suggestion for (blank)” or “how we can fix (blank)” “my suggestion/feedback on (blank)” because I think to myself… no matter how cool or reasonable this person’s idea and post and other’s comments are, there’s so many hundreds of issues foundationally that need to be addressed first that there’s no point in even investing time or excitement in prospective ideas.

I can’t find any proof or support or quote from the devs that we here on the forum and Insiders especially actually have an impact on changes, balances, updates, or the cadence or priority of those things.

Well, if I’m honest, I wouldn’t blame 343 if what’s said on here doesn’t make an impact.

The amount of contrasting opinions on here and the way those opinions are conveyed and explained, it’s a total shot show. Some complaints/“feedback” really just boil down to, like “I don’t like this mode”, or, “I don’t like this map” . Like, okay? What’s 343 supposed to do about that? That’s just your opinion without pointing out any real flaw about that thing you don’t like, on top of there being a plethora of people that DO like it.

I think Halo Infinite absolutely could use some improvements, but I also think it’s our responsibility to be clear, coherent and thorough with our feedback as a community. There’s much room for improvement across the board, on both sides.

I think Infinite as it currently is is proof that people spoke with their wallets over the last 2 343 games. I personally hate Halo 4s story so much i wish the entirety of 4 and 5 would have just been retconned. The art style of Infinite finally returned to classic Bungie too along with the weapon sandbox mindset of CE (every weapon has its place, no utility precision weapon, the magnum was buffed in secret by one dev so the whole sandbox was not designed around the utility weapon like 2-5 ended up). The prometheans are finally gone as i just thought they werent fun to fight.

I know many people agree with a lot of the sentiments above and Infinte seems to come from them. I am not sure how much they listen to the forums but they do listen when people close their wallets.

Would you argue that there’s not one post here in Waypoint that is written in a constructive, polite, and thoughtful manner? That every post is just some sore gamer who’s mad that the game isn’t made the way they want being whiny, negative, and unconstructive about a mechanic missing or map that’s bad. Nobody in the forum has ever said something negative without offering a solution?

I don’t want to be argumentative but I don’t understand why you’d defend that kind of attitude from any developers toward their fanbase in general. Yeah there’s some ppl who are exactly like you described but the majority of posts and activity here in Waypoint is real conversations where people spend a great deal of their free time sharing their ideas on how they would improve the progression system or a game/weapon balance they think are important and they’re written in a thorough and thoughtful way. The majority of threads that gain the most traction here are fan-fiction styles of “if I ran the company I would do [blank] because I think it’s the first priority because [reasons] and the second thing I would do is [blank] because [reasons]”
I hate it for you that you see the community the way you do, I wonder why you’re here at all or why any of us are here at all if what you’re saying is true. This whole website was made with the intent on collaborating with the community and bouncing ideas off eachother and stuff. My issue is that only one member of the meeting showed up to the discussion, we might as well just be writing in a microsoft word document and saving it on our computer is what I’m sad about man.

And btw in the defense of the people you’re mocking in your response, even those negative and whiny posts 90% of them come from a place of passion, nobody goes out of their way to write a thread post on a website where nobody is gonna see it to complain about a map being crappy without having alot of love for the game franchise.

343 responds to the community, they love community feedback, they’ve acted on community feedback in the community’s favour despite spending resources on a concious change like returning skilljumps and tank gun back into the game after hearing community feedback. This website was made with the intent on being the centralized hub for that kind of thing. Your response supports my original point that there’s nothing to gain here by pouring our thoughts and seeking engagement; both from fellow gamers and the developers, why waste an hour of your day pitching your idea for how you’d structure the gamepass if you’ll only be getting the kind of people who dismiss this whole website with blanket statements like “everyone here just bitches about the game”

There’s a ton of really thoughtful and constructive posts on this site, I’m a dog trainer in real life and I often find myself telling people “We can make a good dog better, we don’t just train bad dogs” because people take this position that you can’t have ideas on something that’s good and how you’d make something better at the same time.

And my final point, is that whether the posts you see are dismissive and negative and short or if they’re long and thoughtful and constructive… we’re all fans, 343 is outspoken about their love of community engagement, and everyone deserves acknowledgment or recognition for reaching out and being heard about what they consider to be important, most of us here would be happy with a simple “hey that’s a good idea and thanks for sharing this! Unfortunately we can’t do this because [blank[” Some of us just want to know that 343 sees the problems and solutions that we think are obvious and explain that it’s not as easy as it seems or whatever.

Anyway, yeah man I hate it that you see things in such a pessimistic way but I appreciate you for being part of it despite things.

I hate that Infinite is my favourite Halo in 21 yrs of playing it. I even tested that opinion by going to MCC and playing all the games with my friends and really genuinely trying to forget about Inifinite and get back into one of the older games, but yeah, I love Infinite. It’s awesome, just don’t wanna see it struggle the way it is,

No, of course I think there are people that give feedback the proper way.

I don’t mean to defend 343 in case they don’t listen, I more so mean to say that I can understand getting tired of sifting through the toxicity and redundancy to find the posts that have well-constructed, valuable feedback.

You asked why I’m here, I’m here because I love Halo, and because I want to see it do better. I love Halo, I used to love the community too but from what I’ve seen it’s been in such a state of hate and disarray lately that I can’t proudly say I’m part of it anymore. Maybe I’m fixating on the negatives too much, but that’s been my experience with it lately.

My hope is that the community grows with the game as we give 343 the feedback they need.