Addressing the elephant in the room, I think that if the progression system (and matchmaking system) is not corrected immediately, the playerbase is going to fall off by the end of the year and this game will be 2021’s Anthem or Cyberpunk and it won’t recover. I would guess that 343i has until Dec. 8th to fix these issues and tout them as being part of the “real release”, or at least to give a very specific timeline on when these changes will go into effect, because there’s no way people are sticking around through May on the current system and I doubt the extra content (campaign, forge) will be enough to keep people around for that long either.
So without further ado:
Progression
Problem: The slow progress is not a problem, it’s the NO progress. No match or performance XP gives no reason to play well or even to stay in the match if it can’t progress your challenges. Some will say “play for fun” except fun, for me, is not collecting a bunch of power seeds. So not only can I not play the gametypes I need in order to progress, I am forced to play random gametypes in the hopes of either getting a gametype I want to play or one that will provide me an opportunity at progression. This, in turn, leads me to focus on completing my challenge rather than being a good teammate.
Proposed Solution:
- Split the playlists up. Look to MCC or Titanfall 2 for how to do that well. Even better would be the ability to choose a specific objective game mode, but objective OR slayer would be a start (and we’re still missing Swat, Snipers, and Infection).
- Create challenges specific to each playlist. These should play into playing the game effectively. For the moment, splitting the current challenges into these playlists should suffice. Then, to limit XP, just limit how many challenges a player can complete per week overall, and don’t force them to play gametypes they don’t want to play (or force them to play in a way they don’t want to play in order to complete challenges)
- Provide some experience after every game (maybe 100?) (does not need to be a “daily challenge”, especially not once it takes more than one game), additional experience for winning (maybe +50?), and additional experience for performance (maybe +10% of score earned?)
Problem: Timed unlocks should never be a thing. Not in the battlepass, not in the store, and not in weekly challenges. CHALLENGE unlocks are excellent. Limited time unlocks are not. (Note that event unlocks are fine as long as the event is annual or at least repeating, or the unlocks can be acquired a different way eventually (ie the store))
Proposed Solution:
- Instead of weekly challenge unlocks, just make them challenge unlocks that are provided once a week (and don’t need to be unlocked by completing challenges). The limited time unlocks make people too desperate to complete their challenges, which feeds into the first issue, which destroys the gameplay loop.
- Instead of a rotating store, just a normal store that you just add stuff to. I get that you’re trying to capitalize on FOMO to scare people into buying $20 cosmetics, but it’s A. a scummy business practice and B. barely effective.
- Hey, you already solved the Battlepass limited time issue! Well done
Problem: Unlocked cosmetics are extremely limited. It is sad that we can’t use our favorite old equipment alongside the cool new equipment to create a composite Spartan - we are limited to some old stuff or some new. Also, many people have bought armor kits with the expectation they could use things in the armor kit separately.
Solution:
- Provide more transparency in the store about what you’re purchasing. I almost bought an armor kit myself but I was luckily able to discover that the kit did not include a separate shader.
- Armor kits should be the composite of attainable armor pieces. They should either unlock all required armor pieces (and shaders) when they’re unlocked, or they should be a quick and easy way to automatically equip all of the acquired parts to-date.
- Allow cross-customization of armor across cores. We already have to unlock the armor, the shaders, etc and it’s not like we can unlock them twice to get the armor in multiple places. So either allow cross-customization, or provide a method of unlocking the same armor for every core so that we can cross-customize. As a player, I prefer the first option; as a business, I understand why the second is more appealing. Either way, it should be one solution or the other.
Problem: I can’t even have player collisions in custom games.
Solution:
- Well, the lack of player collision kinda destroys the “making Arena ‘canon’” thing you’re trying to do, right? So just add it back in.
…barring that, add it in as an option for customs.
Now, I’m going to give one big PLEASE at the end here, as I know I’m asking a lot. But I think these will vastly improve the game.