I’m 37, played an insaine amount of halo. Halo 4 and Halo 5 were big let downs for me and my friends, after the flights i was very dissapointed with the machanics. It’s my take after playing Halo for 20 years but the campagins for 4 and 5 were bad and forgetable. I will never not play video games but this game looked good but just not for me and my friends, thats ok we will just go play MCC to play the playlist and stories we liked.
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correct. 343 have tried to be too smart and shot themselves in the foot
But the fact that he even mentions it, is devastating. Admitting the backbone of tge game is a problem… wow.
Beside: it’s kinda odd saying they don’t wanna split the communities in the first paragraph and then saying the got the biggest playerbase ever.
Even IF you don’t want to kill off objective play types, you don’t do that by essentialy eliminateing the type almost everybody wants to play.
By now I can’t tell if 343 dont care or simply can’t do better. Both scenarios are crushing for a 20 year halo fan…
2 things:
i stick with halo because it’s the only mp with longer killtimes.
yes, I have some insights in the industry and know what I’m talking about to a certain extend.
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I really don’t feel like this is a very good response to the community’s feelings right now, and comes off as, frankly, a little spiteful, despite the fact that a lot of the community outcry, while more vitriolic than necessary, really isn’t unfounded. I’m not going to comment at all on the technical aspects of the post, what worries me more is the seeming lack of concern for the lack of communication.
Something Sketch hits on consistently is that talks about what to do forward are going on internally. This is, ostensibly, good. But, this comes after three weeks of practical radio silence. “We hear you and we are talking about it” is probably the least reassuring thing anyone from 343 could say. We know you’re talking about it, you can’t not be talking about it. What we want to know is what you’re going to do about it.
I don’t think that Sketch or anyone else at 343 owes us a timeline of how they’ve spent the last X years of development, but I do think that we’re owed a timeline, or at least a priority list, of things that will be changed, and how they will be changed. Sketch mentions he hates having to repeatedly queue in a kitchen sink playlist to maybe get Oddball. Does that mean that we’re going to be able to queue into specific modes? He also mentions how frustrating it is to have to get X kills with a specific weapon that may or may not be on the map. Does this mean that we’re going to see more specific challenge conditions go away?
What bothers me about this is that says “we are all in agreement here” as if that’s what I wanted to know. No, I know the experience is awful, I don’t need you to tell me that. What I do need you to tell me, is how are you going to fix it?
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With the creative process butting heads the directions may be pushing and pulling. They can’t give a timeline until they have organised what they are even actually doing. I suppose they also want to assess how much of the feedback is critical and what is a kneejerk reaction that will dissipate over time.
I’m sure there are some pretty substantial obstacles to some of the issues whether that be getting the authorisation to do it or just basic implementation.
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The team is doing a great job. I don’t rly care for the conspiracies and nonsense some of the community create. The percent of ppl across social platforms that understand game development is close to nil. Base gameplay is the strongest it’s been since 3 imo. We know a larger offering of modes is on the way and will continue to grow, and we know they’re looking at the Progression System and shop. Whether or not the ppl who claim they’re gonna dip do or not, I think we’ll see the game in a healthier state soon enough with this strong base gameplay we have, and as time goes on it will only get better and better.
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Umm it’s the Halo franchise. Many of us would support Halo even if Microsoft removed 343i’s control over Halo. Many of us are just sick of how 343i are handling the IP. 
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Yeah sorry I get that but if 343 are doing it so badly why not just come back if and when another company takes over?
I don’t know what they expected.
Perfect predatory monetization working just fine
Challenges harming the game and are annoying in design
Lack of playlists, poor optimization to add them, yet Fiesta came in wonderful but was yanked out.
Unable to choose what we want to play
343 have learned nothing
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Because many of us are too invested into the franchise. For many of us 20 years is important…not like other new IP’s where games have less attachments to.
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This is an absolute gem of a point!!! Matter of fact, I didn’t even look at cores as “individual character” until you made this point. Man it seems like I’m sucking up to everything you put out there, but the points are outside the box.
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Somebody compared coatings and cores to Apex and it just didn’t jive with me.
Rooney summed it up nicely for me it’s very possible to love the franchise but hate the developer.
FFS adresse the price of your store! You can’t just say it’s complicated when something like this is obviously intentional… 10 dollars two pine apple ! It’s insane! 20 dollars a fan favorite armor! It’s one third of AAA games! Yes the new system need money somehow but with lower prices more people buy ! It’s fairer for everyone! Whales would not be the only one to finance your servers!
Edit: “As far as the notion of this all being a ploy to force challenge swaps - it just isn’t. I don’t expect everyone to believe that, but while we may not agree with the playlist selections and approach, I’m just going to say again “making players have no control and have to use swaps” has never once been a thing I’ve heard. Ever.”
You are right. I won’t believe that. As long as I have no game mode challenges game modes are balanced. Last week I had Stronghold challenges. No stronghold for days. It happens once I say okay it’s just bad luck. It happened again with Oddball this week. It happens twice this is no bad luck. It’s in design. I do believe Sketch when he says he is unaware though. I trust that guy. His post is great on many regards.
It was a sad read. I really believe devs wanted the best.
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Damn, that was kind of depressing to read. It is such a shame that people feel the need to attack them.
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Its also a shame that they seemingly addressed none of the feedback they received from the flights. Everything that is currently an issue now people were also pointing out during the flights.
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Man, the fact that you even bothered to explain this to the playerbase, means a lot to me personally even though I disagree with most of the design choices made with Halo Infinite, especially this game being my first Halo since Halo 3. I appreciate your time and effort posting a response to out criticisms. Thank you!
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This is a good read if legit. I’ve been trying to tell people all week that game design is very complex and fixes will come when they are ready. This stuff just takes time.
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I’d love to take everything he said at face value but I just can’t. And it’s nothing against ske7ch, I genuinely think he seems like a great guy and I’m sure he’s handling this best as he can. But ultimately I just don’t trust 343 at this point. (Just to be clear, I’m using 343 as a catch all term because I have no idea who’s specifically responsible. I don’t think they’re all bad people or anything)
So far they’ve marketed yoroi as free while locking the pieces most prominently displayed in advertising materials behind a paywall, they marketed the battle pass as Reach themed while obviously removing highly anticipated armor from it to monetize in the store, they’re heavily encouraging the purchase of swaps, and they’re charging 10-20 bucks just to color your Spartan. I get they need to make money but they just went way too hard on the microtransactions in my opinion.
I guess ultimately what I’m saying is, actions speak louder than words and so far all 343’s actions have indicated they’re willing to make things as frustrating as possible so people feel the need to buy items in the store. It literally feels like the game is manipulating me to spend more every time I load up and it just gets tiresome. I get it’s business, but I just hoped it wouldn’t be so overt and in our faces.
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They really spent all this time bragging about how the Slipspace engine is so great, but can’t toggle in and out playlists that already exist, without months of work. Wild. Daily shop works perfectly fine though. Crazy how that level of priority makes a difference in their “limited UI”. Daily and Weekly shop? Piece of cake. Daily and Weekly game mode playlist? Literally impossible.
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