A buddy and I were thinking about this today, we feel like Halo (among many other things) has been purposely made bad to get more publicity and news time, ultimately resulting in more attention. Because NO PRESS is bad press. . . And microsoft very well knows this.
Every single day we have new complaints from millions of Halo players about the poor state the game is in, and it keeps getting worse.
Why did they make the shotgun so weak? Why did the campaign release without co-op? Why is MP free but we have to BUY the campaign and all the armor. Why are the servers trash? Why are so many players being desync’d? Why is the ranking system like drawing cards from a deck? Where is the overall ranking and progression aspect? Why is theater a joke?
343 has templates from the older Halo games that worked well, yet here we are with an all new systems that are mostly trash.
Why does 343 only seem to be passionately working towards things that directly acquire money from the fans?
There is foul play at hand here and we, the players, are the butt of the joke. And if you don’t agree, congtradulations, They got you. . .
I feel like they have had enough time, effort, and resources to have made the sickest Halo game imaginable by this point. Yet, here we are. There has to be a reason beyond poor management as to why Halo is in shambles. No other Halo game has ever been released with this much flack. And we have WAY more available to us now a days. Sometimes I feel like its the connections that we can’t see that make the most sense. And of course they want us to think we are all wearing tinfoil hats lol
No company wants to create a negative image with their consumer base. Believe it or not, a negative public image does impact shareholder value. They keep their ears close to the ground, it is their investment after all.
Not very specific, but I imagine that 343i Doesn’t want to just put out the same thing every so many years.
Because it’s a business. Businesses exist to maximize profit and increase shareholder value.
They sure got me alright, oh baby they got me good with that free multiplayer.
Ok they don’t want to put the same game out every year like COD, yet they made Halo into Fortnites BP model? They made Halo, Not Halo.
Yes, buisness is what is killing Halo. They want money, not prestige of making a super good game. No shame, if they have monetary gain.
They did get you with “FREE” multiplayer because they know WAYYY more people that don’t actually care about Halo (enough to BUY the GAME) or its lore will throw HUNDREDS of dollars at cosmetics, because you know, people are way more superficial than wholesome. The numbers are in bro/sis, people don’t care how GOOD something is as long as they can feel they are “unique” right?! We don’t care how the game plays as long as I can have a neon pink armor with cats ears…
It fits the gameplay loop they set out to create. While the shotgun used to fill the space opposite the sniper rifle in terms of power weapon tier, the shotgun now fills a role that lets it reach out a bit further and a bit faster at the expense of damage per shot.
It’s a neat experiment, but one that has definitely not sat well with the playerbase.
There is evidence that a pump shotgun is on its way though. So we’ll see where that goes.
Considering the campaign runs fairly poorly with just one player in the massive world, it doesn’t surprise me that co-op is a later inclusion. I mean look at BL3, co-op was hit or miss for a good part of almost a year and a half and that game was far less ambitious than Halo Infinite.
Another drive may have been to drum up hype when it is included.
Couple ways to look at this.
Because a service that you can drop in and out of while the game is going through an knowingly rough post launch support period allows for ease of access back into the meat of the game rather than paywalling players out of the gameplay experience they’re most likely to spend time in.
Making it free incentivizes players to purchase cosmetics as there isn’t an up front paywall that bars them from access to the game.
After 3 rough experiences within the franchise and the faith/population lost by the playerbase because of it, 343i needed to wrangle as many players back into Halo as they could. Despite the many many issues both serious and frivolous the playerbase has raised with Infinite, making multiplayer F2P was a far better approach to letting players try the 3rd iteration of a changed formula than locking it behind a $60 paywall.
Terrible server structures.
Because you’re not structuring your deck to work in your and your team’s favor.
The best way to approach a competitive system is with friends and a team you trust.
The game’s engine is overly complex to work with a simplistic system that essentially has operated the same way since Halo 3.
For the monetization yeah? That’d be like me calling out Halo 3 at launch for having the same monetization scheme of $60 dollars at the store; for being unoriginal. It has nothing to do with core gameplay.
Business created Halo. It wouldn’t exist today without a massive investment from Microsoft in 1999. Prestige is nice and all, but Microsoft only cared about market share then too.
They did. I really like the fact that I can play this for free.
Idrc about the rest of that paragraph. Just reads like unhinged grandstanding.
Short answer, selfishness. Money seems to change most people and not for the better.
Long answer, I bet 343 doesn’t even have half the game’s content completed, and this was their way to drag things out while making a profit. Seriously, why treat this game like it’s a looter shooter when it’s clear as day that it never has been nor will it ever be. Yet 343 has this weird illusion that they can treat it like one🤦‍♂️
Exactly. They only seem focused on the short hand making profit. However, I feel it will be at the franchises expense. Halo was one of the few Xbox exclusive (was exclusive) that had an amazing story full of backstory and lore, but they don’t seem to know how to handle it. So many companies are watching fortnite make stupid money from skins and they are like “bet, we can do it to”. Even though most of Halo’s real fan base are older and want story and not flash.
That is not quite the same argument. 60 is the base price for modern games, that is a standard or average aspect. Modeling a new game diliberately after another games money model is something very different, and stupidly lucrative towards the fan base. Fortnite was intended to be free and fun with the “option” to buy stuff. Halo is doing that now even though it has never before made player pay, with real cash instead of time, for customizations.
Bungie never seemed to take advantage of the player base with Halo. The only things we has to pay for before were DLCs. Which made sense. Paying for an extra piece of the game. Not making people PAY for the proper game itself… 343 has been implementing buying in the game (warzone and such) for some time but not like this new scheme. Then I guess its fitting for buisness to Kill Halo.
Playing for free is great, but not when they know everyone will want customizations and then they bust heads to get it. Basically they’re saying F the poor kids who can’t afford to customize. Kids can’t even beat the game or spend time to earn all the cool cosmetics. Its not grandstanding to call stuff like it is. I’m not going above and beyond to make myself look good to call 343 out on stuff the player base doesn’t favor. And the fact that some people DON’T care about a solid gaming experience over flashy cosmetics is LITERALLY an actionable/observable form of superficiality. It almost a direct correlation to shallowness. Sometimes people have to read between the lines my man. Not all things are as they seem or are said to be. . .
I dont think have an understanding of just how much impact bad management can have when your engine goals change upper key roles are a rotating door and a pandemic are involved i very much think that hat of tim foil is being worn hah
Okay, that reply was much, much better. Thank you for taking the time to carefully word your opinion. I don’t think we’re going to agree on what ought to be prioritized, but that’s fine.
I don’t know what the distinguishing factor is. Video games at one time made money through coin operated machines, then they made money from retail purchases, now they make money through F2P models and subscription services.
This is why I think we have different priorities. The paid DLC model was terrible for building a cohesive player base. I remember being bullied as a kid for not having the Mythic Map Pack in Halo 3. I was left out of a lot of custom games and multiplayer matches.
Good point. I do agree that the poor shaming of children caused by this business model is terrible. From an adult consumer perspective, I personally prefer it, but I’m sure there is a far better model out there that can continue to make money post launch without gating certain players. I just don’t know what that’d look like.
I think superficiality isn’t anything unique in the gaming industry, I actually think it’s pretty ubiquitous. That’s kind of why I have a hard time caring extra about it when Halo does it. I agree that too many people are focused on the state of cosmetics. I would like to see 343i pay more attention to bug squashing but the majority of boisterous opinions I see about the game typically revolve around cosmetics, store prices (for those same cosmetics,) and the progression system (Which seems to purely revolve around unlocking cosmetics.)
