I understand not being personally nasty to any individual dev or anything like that. As people and professionals, they probably take personal pride in the work they do like anyone would. And for a lot of what they’ve done with the core gameplay as far as we’ve experienced it, they deserve it.
But let’s get real; 343 is inept in general as a development studio, particularly when it comes to launching a game. For the same price as any previous release (or $10 more if you count the battle pass), you’re getting a single player campaign and a multiplayer mode with three playlists. No co-op, no Forge, no horde mode, not even a Slayer playlist at launch. That’s just about as bad as you can get in terms of cut content and features at launch, which will have to be dribbled out over the course of the next year.
This isn’t even talking about the store or monetization scheme, which incidentally are the only things in the game that appear to be completed.
343 and Microsoft deserve every bit of criticism they’re getting as companies putting out a product.
In your opinion, as 343 are the devs and the ones ultimately responsible for the game in it’s current sad state, who’s chops should we be busting. At the end of the day the blame lies at their feet, and no one else’s. If you don’t complete a project at work on time and say to your boss that you need another 9 months, they’re gonna have your stuff packed up and sitting in a box at the front door waiting for you.
Likewise on the Bungie point, I think you’re missing the point. Sure Bungie and it’s implementation of Destiny was atrocious. That was atrocious all around. However, I gave never once advocated for Bungie to come back. They should not come back to this franchise at all. That being said, 343 has flat out ruined the 2 previous Halo games, as well as made MCC practically unplayable for what the first 6 months at minimum of it’s life? They’re 0 for 3 in my eyes, and are about to go 0 for 4. That’s not a good success rate any way you slice it.
I don’t agree with 343 staff being “attacked” but the negative feedback is entirely justified.
The feedback they’re getting from the community is the same feedback that was consistently shared from the technical flights.
They declined to incorporate that feedback. They thought they knew better, and they were wrong.
Additionally, if one of my employees was given an extra year and more funding to complete a project only to deliver an incomplete product, they should expect to be told they did a bad job.
Glad they’re going to try and fix it, but the ideal time for that posture was during and after the flights.
Yeah it happens. Certain Affinity made the H2 map pack too, can’t remember what it was called. Came on a freaking disc, the one that was like 5 bucks and had 2 maps on it lol. Tombstone was one and I can’t remember the other one.
Well looking at this it is kinda sad that they are facing serious difficulties. I mean they only have 700 employees + outsourced contractors (those contractors are way more in number than 343 employees) for making campaign, forge, networking, mp.etc. Like game development kinda became complex, reports of troubled development and pandemic screwing over everyone’s productivity. It’s a tough situation.
Things could have been much worse and sure could be better. I just hope it keeps on being better from now.
I understand they need monetization since the multiplayer is F2P, and I don’t really have a problem with that. I don’t mind paying for cosmetics if they aren’t outrageously priced, and I don’t even mind battle passes that much if they’re generous and not overly grindy. But they implemented this in worst pay possible.
If you want to implement a battle pass, that’s fine. But making challenges the main way to get experience is just a bad idea. Not only does it feel like a chore list, but the rotation is so lopsided that a lot of challenges are too specific to be feasible (thus the suspicion behind challenge swaps). Even if the rotation was fine, it still makes things feel more like homework. I’m not a fan of CTF (in any game) and I really don’t like being forced to play it.
What really gets me is they KNEW people wouldn’t like it. They were warned in the Flights that this wouldn’t go over well, and despite being open to other critiques, they ignored it. They brought this on themselves. That being said, I do think people need to be a bit more practical with their rage. You can call the current system trash all you want, but you need to give suggestions on how to improve it. Bring back regular progression from MCC, where the better you perform the more experience you get. Make challenges a thing that awards extra experience toward the battle pass, or something for special cosmetics.
This is another cop out for a broken and downright awful development group. I don’t care where you work, deadlines are deadlines no matter what. If you don’t do a good job you deserve scrutiny and to get called out for it. Game development has always been complex. If you can’t overcome and adapt to the challenges that you face, are you really a worthwhile worker? The pandemic excuse is laughable at best, and is just another excuse thrown out there by sycophants to muddy the waters. The issue is 343 is clearly incompetent as an entire monolithic group. Individual workers for 343 may be brilliant, but when you’re rolling out a half finished game after getting an additional 13 months lead time, there is no excuse for it.
This is the crux of the matter for me. They asked for feedback, and when they got feedback they didn’t like, they threw the baby out with the bath water and said “welp guess they liked it all, 100% positive!” Or at least that’s how the response from 343 in terms of what they put out on 11/15 says.
In my eyes it comes down to one of two reasons for the subpar response:
willfully disregarding the negative feedback and plowing forward, which is borderline criminal. (Figure of speech not actual criminality )
Or
they don’t know how to fix the issues because they never expected them to be brought up, which falls into the sheer incompetence category.
Not necessarily. Contracts can be renegotiated if both parties agree. It might mean less money for 343i in the long run, but it’s always an option. Contracts are binding between the parties, but they don’t mean what is written will be permanent.
I’d bet my house that Microsoft would never, ever, ever renegotiate with their flagship franchise due to the devs screwing up so badly they have to cut and run. Did EA renegotiate with DICE to let them off the hook during Battlefront 2’s lootbox debacle?
I don’t think those are the same thing really. It feels like that was a long time in the works not something they jumped into after a less than spectacular launch.