I honestly would love to care about the lone wolves themed event stuff and learning about whatever other spartans and story ideas you guys are developing. But I don’t and I can’t, because all I hear from this update is that the stuff that actually matters is being put on a backburner to make room for the next round of mtx.
We need content. We need variety, in maps and/or modes. Desperately. ASAP. Do not wait for the season launch, put them in as soon as they are ready.
At present, you have 3 btb maps. All of which feel identical, because they largely are. They look the same, they have the same basic design, they’re all equally empty. They are boring to look at and boring to play. And just 7 arena maps, and most of them have a pretty boring design as well. Or, if you play ranked because you hate the absurdly broken ar, there are a grand total of 5 maps. To play over and over and over again. with the same 2-3 modes. Every. Single. Time.
This is a massive problem. I’ll say it again, we need more variety of maps and modes. Ah, but we have to wait until MAY to get literally 1 more map, 2 modes and some swat variants. Two months. For king of the hill and landgrab (which isn’t new). If that is gonna take 2 months, there will be no players left in 2 years when you to finally get around to adding the rest of the old gametypes and a few new maps.
Then there is the long list of issues with the sandbox. For a start, the spawn weapons are too strong. the ar should never be a desirable weapon to pick up in multiplayer if there is anything else available. If it is, why bother to go looking for other weapons? Might this be contributing to the stale state the game is currently in? I suspect so, and it would be nice if there was any mention in this live service title that there is a balance team of any kind that is perhaps looking into this and similar concerns?
How about that there is no real counter to the sword in close quarters? Used to be that players with a sword had to be careful because the shotgun could shut them down hard and fast. But this new sword cancels any counter melee, so it’s not possible to trade out with this weaksauce new shotty. Heatwave is cool, but again, you can’t shutdown a sword unless he’s dumb enough to get kited out in the open and run in straight lines. Doesn’t help that every normal melee is given a huge lunge, which is the source of most complaints about it, and probably responsible for how often you get a back smack from the front. Plus the super generous retroactive melee from death. With these powers combined, not giving the sword this broken melee eating power would make it pretty much useless. Still, it shouldn’t have to be either useless or unstoppable; there should be room in the sandbox for something that serves as a check on the power of the sword
Of course, you stripped all the maps to the most barebones amount of guns, so even if there was a counter it’s unlikely to get much use in that regard. Like how there’s no shotgun on the one map in ranked that has a sword and could benefit from a potential two tap to check a sword in close? Remember when maps had more than one power weapon, so that the guy with rockets still had to worry about getting sniped, or vice versa? Remember how beloved and widely praised maps like the pit had like 4 power spawns on them? That is called good design. It creates variety by creating more than one way to play the map.
Every time a game starts in infinite, both teams have to play completely around the single power weapon and possibly the equipment. There is never a decision to be made about going for the sword or the sniper or the rocket, and whether it is worth grabbing something else first or just running straight at power. With just one power weapon, there is no question; you know by default that there will be a fight on power, so you make the same 3 or so plays every time, because that single weapon is all you get.
Seriously, why are all the maps so empty? Out of the weapons worth using the only one that is always around is the freaking mangler. The one weapon that could be fun if you didn’t turn it into a budget shotgun with the oneshot melee combo. Instead that gun feels like a chore to play around, because you have to get it and using it pretty much always feels like you’re cheating. Where are the stalker rifle spawns? That’s a great gun, tons of fun to use, why make it so scarce? especially since it doesn’t really compete with the other snipers in the game. Thing feels like a beefier carbine more than anything close to the real snipers in the game.
Speaking of which, why do you hate snipers? Seriously, adding bloom to your precision weapons is not a great idea in general, but it especially doesn’t fit on the sniper. Especially since instead of a flinch mechanic you have descope. You cannot hand a player a weapon that only functions properly when scoped, then turn around and descope them for any tickle damage they take to the shield from any source, and making them light up brighter than the sun whenever they zoom in to boot.
Sniper ammo is already harshly limited to stop good players from stomping too hard, and the snipers are already hard to use with the lag time between shots and long reload to punish wasted shots. Sniping isn’t easy on PC either, despite what you seem to think with how hard you nerfed it. And, this may be a controversial opinion, but if someone is really really good, and able to consistently land headshots under pressure at all ranges, they deserve to reap the rewards. I don’t care what input someone uses, skill is skill, end of story.
Oh and hey, you know what else would help prevent one really good sniper from completely dominating a match? Putting other power weapons on the map. A dominant sniper can be dealt with by playing in tight quarters with shotguns, assuming the shotguns can potentially oneshot (the entire basis of shotty snipes is this dynamic), or they can be shut down with rockets if the issue is them playing in a power position that covers most of the map. In short, adding options creates options. Shocker.
Seriously, I know moneysoft wants the mtx to be top priority, but more mtx isn’t going to bring back the players you lost, nor will it stop you from losing what players you still have. If someone comes back in May and all they see is a few swat modes and 2 new maps, they aren’t going to stick around long enough to buy your new and improved mtx.
Your correct prioritization should be delivering whatever content you have and/or can make quickly. Just get whatever you can out the door in the next month or so. After that, the team needs to focus exclusively (aside from the hotlist of bugfixes, networking, ui, etc) on forge and firefight. I hate to say it, but campaign and co-op can wait too. If you want a live game to succeed, you need to prioritize the live. Stuff that will keep people as entertained as possible, as soon as possible, to buy you the time to work on everything else.
Forge is your holy grail, assuming that you deliver a working customs browser alongside it, because it gives you room to breathe. Seriously, of all the things to not have ready at launch, FORGE!? The thing that set Halo 3 multiplayer apart and let it compete with MW4. The thing that lets you outsource the burden of creating new maps and modes to keep the community engaged to a team of thousands for FREE! I’m astonished. I truly cannot fathom how you don’t see what a gamechanger forge is, and what a lifesaver it is for as overworked a team as yours must be.
Next, you want firefight out there. Again, I hate to say it, but the campaign of infinite isn’t really there at the moment, and fixing all the performance issues for singleplayer, much less all the work for co-op, plus whatever expansions you guys have planned is going to take time. A lot of time if you want to do it right. Firefight should be much easier and faster to get up and running to keep the pve players invested, letting them enjoy fighting the covenant with their friends again while you work on campaign.
Once you have a steady stream of content secured to maintain a healthy playerbase, you can focus on delivering the rest of the cut content and resume the mtx seasons. Investors like growth more than just cashflow, so why on earth would you want to push your mtx out to a ghost town? Just be sensible; finish the game, then make a play for our wallets.
Thanks for coming to my ted talk, props if you actually read this entire rant. If not:
TLDR; Selling mtx works better if you have more players to buy them. You need to prioritize work that will maintain a healthy playerbase before you worry about pushing your seasonal mtx. The investors will thank you.
Sincerely, a long time fan