Official statement from Ske7ch

[XxPWNAGExX3]

@Ken_CTF

Not everyone likes that Infinite is a F2P game and thus has a new business model based on monetization of customization. I understand where you’re coming from, especially with a 20 year established franchise with a longstanding legacy. F2P has been a huge boost to growing the player base and we’ve seen a huge amount of new players entering the franchise for the first time ever. But this is a business - the servers you play on cost money to operate. The studio that develops and maintains the game costs money.

Every other game in the series among many, many, other major titles handled servers long term just fine with a minimum 60$ upfront. Meanwhile Infinite gouges you for a full price game that no longer has multiplayer and has a 10$ battlepass, and a severely over priced cash shop.

Making the multiplayer “free to play”, while still charging full price for campaign is just an excuse to cut up every little aspect of the game to sell it back to you in a million little over priced pieces.

After the campaign drops this is a 100% uninstall for me. Slamming down paywalls at every turn is not how you’re going to get people to open up their wallets. Gouge the whales while you can, but when the population drops people will have moved on to better games.

[ExMOSBoss]

Im wondering how much time went into working on the store and psychology of microtransactions, including interpretation of data for which pieces would be best to monetize and to what extreme in comparison to working on core issues including playlists, netcode, and features such as co-op and forge

[HotNWetMess]

Many of us dont because halo is our gaming life, there isnt anything even remotely close to halo in this market, its a game millions grew up with and actively play because its been such a huge part of their life.
Theres a reason people care about lore, and customization, and launch content, because halo is the game they LOVE and do not want to put down, i myself have had a love/hate relationship with the game for the last few years because of 343 directly, the way they disregard past halo fans for trying to capture that new money spending audience instead of the people keeping the franchise alive

[TheAIone0ne]

he doesnt defend it at all actually.

[XxPWNAGExX3]

Considering the amount of time they had to develop the game, and the sheer lack of playlists on top of the challenge system I’d argue most of the development time went into following EA/ Activision’s “turning players into payers”

[Raansu]

Zero sympathy for a team incapable of giving us basic features. There’s zero excuses for not having separated playlists and his post about "feasibility " proves they don’t give a damn about the community or the game and the entire design of 1 playlist was intentional for monetization of the challenge swaps.

[GLNK1]

He never said he expects sympathy, he states multiple times in the post people are RIGHTLY upset. The problem is the amount of hateful drivel being constantly thrown at 343 now.

And he lays out the situation with slayer pretty clearly. The social slayer playlist they’re working on won’t be ready till the new year because they’re still testing and working on the varients that might appear in it. They could add a simple “slayer” playlist a lot quicker, but are currently still undecided about it.

The logic behind not having a slayer playlist is to encourage new players to Halo to properly try objective modes. People often play one or two games with objectives, maybe have a bad experience and then drop them. If your first Halo experiences involve a lot of objective play, it’ll help new players see the modes can be fun. It’s not about forcing, it’s about exposure. The obvious side effect IS the forcing. Which is why they’re looking at it. You don’t need to constantly flame 343 to get your point across.

[xXx_Mhx_Air_xXx]

@GLNK1

People often play one or two games with objectives, maybe have a bad experience and then drop them.

People are having a bad time with objectives, because nobody is playing the objective, since they’re all out playing social Slayer in the middle of an objective playlist, since the challenges require them to do things that are not the objective. They caused this to happen simply by not having a vanilla Slayer playlist, so people could go do their kills and whatever instead of ruining the objective mode

[Plastic_Hassle]

tl;dr - As the author says, “Please do not shoot the pianist. He is doing his best.”

Put another way, the game isn’t finished and we shipped it too early, take it or leave it.

[Saint_Budden]

The part I focus my attention was the end when he basically said you chose if you want to play the game or not.
I want to play the game, and I’m a grown -Yoink!- man with a credit card and I’m willing to pay for content, but I have to see value in my purchase.
With the store prices as is, there’s no value for me. Spend 10$ on a sword? I can go buy a big Mac meal for that. 343 needs to show it’s customers purchase value or they won’t have the success they need.

[xXx_Mhx_Air_xXx]

They could have tossed grapple into the Halo 5 engine, swapped REQ Packs for a new shop, and called it a day. I get that they rebuilt the Reach system to sell us cores, but I don’t know how they spent 6 years making a worse UI with less maps and modes, when a majority of the project could have been rehashed from 5, since virtually every other fps AAA game rehashes their previous games. The Slipspace engine was likely 30% campaign focused and 68% shop focused, with the remaining 2% on the actual functionality of the free multiplayer, because even NASA can’t run the game on low settings without lag and crashing.

[Axe5197]

This is definitely a step in the right direction admitting these faults but they had to have known people were not gonna be happy with these decisions. I don’t know a whole lot about game developing other than stuff doesn’t happen over night, but the fact we have 3 playlists right now is just well, unacceptable. MCC was a massive game and had its problems that took a while to fix but if they could juggle all those games at once why not in one? As for the customization there was a dev post from December 2020 which you find linked on the Reddit post but here is a good snippet

• Allow Player Expression. We want everyone to build their dream Spartan. We are always looking for more ways to customize in-game personas and give the players options. My team knows that our long-term players have favorites that they love and may have for two decades. We want to make sure that Halo Infinite players will be able to get their old favorites, as well as find new favorites at launch and as we expand over the months post-launch. Much like MCC, I want to bring everything to Infinite (eventually).

This system doesn’t seem player first at all with an armor set being $20 and having to buy stuff for multiple cores and it’s also highly suspicious that there’s a lot of “filler rewards” in the pass. I know at the end of the day Microsoft gets the final say but this with the swaps is sus af.

With a lot of the stuff they showed in trailers they knew people weren’t gonna be happy with the stuff in here.

Again I’m glad to see that’s it at least being “addressed” by the team but we shouldn’t have to wait months for a game to be fixed especially one that took the better half of 6 years to release.

Adding in another edit here. Don’t you think it’s weird he himself didn’t post this on waypoint a website that’s specifically for this game? Yeah from what I’ve seen there’s about maybe 20 or so of us that I see active and regular and he’s probably a larger reach on Reddit but still why not use waypoint to draw more attention to this site?

[esnoox]

Sorry, but claiming they need more time to test things is beyond BS. They have 20 years of playlist experience to look at. It worked. They can try sonenew things, sure… but not WITHOUT giving people what they want and what worked so well. And even if they want to promote objective… give it a 70/30 ratio, at least in ranked, and see what happens. Butnot 20/80.

Oh, and please stop whining about harsh criticism and trolling. You just fcked up one of tge biggest franchises with your greed and obvious ers poor project management. Don’t expect the internet to obly tellyou “ooops, -Yoink!- happens”. YOU are not the victims in this case…. you pushed it, you pushed it too far and now sou hear it from the community.

[xXx_Mhx_Air_xXx]

@Axe5197

My team knows that our long-term players have favorites that they love and may have for two decades. We want to make sure that Halo Infinite players will be able to get their old favorites, as well as find new favorites at launch and as we expand over the months post-launch. Much like MCC, I want to bring everything to Infinite (eventually).

$50 for Hayabusa confirmed???

[Marauder_01]

100% agree. I really want to love the game but I can’t. Feel like all of us fans were led on to think this Halo was going back to its roots but it hasn’t even come close. Like you said they were to worried about catering to people who have never played Halo, and PC players at the expense of the true loyal xbox Halo fans. In the end the original fans will leave because of what the game has become and the new players will leave as soon as the next new fad f2p game comes out.

[l_HyperLethal_l]

He never said he was a victim.

@Ken_CTF

First, I’m going to stress again that I 100% understand and generally agree with the frustrations most are expressing even if I don’t agree with the attacks and ways in which some choose to express those feelings. Call me a shill, a liar, corp speak, etc. as you want, but I’ve never lied to this community and never will. And I’m not saying myself are 343 are a ‘victim’ in any way - that’s yet another narrative some folks here have chosen to apply. It’s my job to come in here, listen, franky take it on the chin, and despite personally being very put off by the way in which many are expressing themselves, still ensure that we are advocating for players internally. We do that regardless of it being positive or negative and always will.

If people would demonstrate basic reading comprehension…

[PlasmaSoldierX]

I can only level so much.

I know they put effort but, we’ve been around this block before with Halo 5 and its not like any game, should EVER launch in a situation like this.

The game is good, the execution is horrible. I dont want to act like a demon, but when Overwatch thought the whole 2 2 2 mode was good, it backfired tremendously.

I can never buy into the “We dont want a splintered playerbase with modes.” THIS this is EXACTLY why we have the situation now with people leaving whenever they get zones or oddball.

Its NEVER GOOD to just lump everything together. There will always always always be least played and enjoyed modes, I am sorry, but this is just a fact of ANY GAME WITH MULTIPLAYER

The fact is, theres always going to be a mode the majority see as just not fun.

Even a simple deck of playing cards, you have games or modes metaphorically, like go fish, blackjack, war, poker old maid etc. Everyone has their pick. Some like poker for the skill, others like war and go fish for just guessing, some will think old maid is just boring or strange. Thats just how things are.

[Dark_Prince_Zen]

I feel sorry for them with the offensive and insulting comments. Nobody should have to deal with that. But I also feel this comes off as passive aggressive as well lol. The “yes, yes, we know already” vibe is strong.

These acknowledgements only come now, when they feel offended or threatened. Why not post it after the initial backlash and feedback. And why not by PR rather than a dev?

@Ken_CTF

As for Slayer itself - we’re still having discussions around feasibility. Yes this is absolutely a hot topic and something the team is aware of

For starters, I appreciate their attempt to get more people to play objective game types. But at the same time, if people don’t want to play them, why muddy the waters by forcing them into it by not having separate slayer playlists on top of this? They have the playlists people want already at their disposal via what people liked in previous Halo games. Why not use them? Add more playlists if they want to diversify, but don’t take them away.

@Ken_CTF

The launch playlists were setup as they were to take a measured approach. We have UI limitations with the game right now in the way and number of playlists that are exposed.

@Ken_CTF

The team’s plans for a Slayer playlist, I think, are more robust than what might ‘suffice’ for an interim solution.

There has to be a serious design flaw in their UI if it has limitations like that. From a developer perspective, I don’t understand how they simply can’t select levels and game types to add to a playlist. All people want are quickplay and BTB slayer playlists for both those who want slayer only and objective players having team mates who don’t solely go for kills. Shouldn’t be this big an ask. Genuinely interested in what is doing this.

I could go on about the Battle Pass/Progression for ages but I feel that is mostly covered with what people have said. No full customisation of colours, paying for reused assets, overpricing for few items that should already be in the pass. The list goes on.

I would like to end on a more positive note though. Whilst I do have my frustrations with the game and strongly disagree with the way 343 have designed and managed the game, I have been thoroughly enjoying the gameplay itself.

The developers have clearly worked hard and as plain as day this should be, but seems to go amiss is, they are human and have lives as well. They get sick, they have time off, they have families, they were hit by Covid like everyone else. Not 100% of their time is dedicated to us. Thinking it does, produces unnecessary company crunch and overtime for them.

We haven’t even seen the full extent of everything yet such as the revamping of the campaign and it’s graphics, the campaign itself, and the various other components they are adding to the game like coop, forge, etc.

A well deserved thank you to the developers and all involved @343 who are genuinely working towards a nicely bundled and polished product.

[American_Zealot]

@Ken_CTF

The employees are probably pretty bummed with a lot of the feedback when it relates to something they were passionate about and did for appropriate reasons.

Yeah I’m pretty bummed a comoany I believed in and a franchise I’m passionate about could be so slimey with the customization deliberately limiting player expression excessively for greed.

COD:MW2019 has a better customization system than Infinite.

Not to mention the bad gameplay choices like a worthless radar, 0 aim assist, horrible menu and UI, no playlist selection, and forced crossplay to name a few.

[esnoox]

As you said… read and understand.
He saying they are not the victim doesn’t change much if you read the rest of the statement. It cries out loud “don’t hate on us, we work so hard, we know things need to change”. Delivering almost nothing doesn’t make you the hero when you finally bring the basics.