Under the past 3 titles released under 343i, player population has been a problem, this problem even continued as they brought the MCC to PC. I want Halo Infinite to succeed but 343i cannot make these same mistakes.
Regardless if you are a classic fan like myself or someone who enjoys sprint clamber and all the other stuff. One thing that I believe we all can agree on, is that half baking this game will only add it to the pile. Halo 4 dropped because of its CoD elements and missing features, Halo MCC did not work on launch. Halo 5 had a bad campaign, and missing features on launch. (although the main two in my opinion is the missing features and its game play.) Finally we have Halo MCC on PC, launched one game at a time. Steam charts show over 900 thousand ppl on launch for Halo MCC. The game should have launched completed instead of spoon feeding content. MCC is doing good now but it isn’t nearly as strong as it should be.
Halo Infinite especially with it being free to play needs to work on launch and cater to both Ranked and Social communities. Its not as hard as some make it seem, Halo 3 did it which came out over a decade ago and Halo infinite should be able to replicate it.
To me the key is ‘missing features’. In the time it takes to roll out the features that should be present Day 1, other games come out, people become bored with the game, etc all adding to why the population falls. Although slowly rolling out game types, features or whatever sounds good for player retention and population on paper, by the time those rollout players have already made up their minds on whether they like the game or not. Having those features Day 1 is one of several keys to keeping players around. More options, game modes gives players a better opportunity to find out what Halo has to offer and whether or not it’s something to stick around for…very few will set a reminder note to come back to a game when a new feature launches if they decided that they don’t like what we have to offer.
if a restaurant only has two or three menu items and they aren’t of the highest quality then more than likely you won’t go back to that restaurant. If they have more items then that equals more choices which increases the probability of keeping someone coming back…especially if they like the ingredients.
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> To me the key is ‘missing features’. In the time it takes to roll out the features that should be present Day 1, other games come out, people become bored with the game, etc all adding to why the population falls. Although slowly rolling out game types, features or whatever sounds good for player retention and population on paper, by the time those rollout players have already made up their minds on whether they like the game or not. Having those features Day 1 is one of several keys to keeping players around. More options, game modes gives players a better opportunity to find out what Halo has to offer and whether or not it’s something to stick around for…very few will set a reminder note to come back to a game when a new feature launches if they decided that they don’t like what we have to offer.
>
> if a restaurant only has two or three menu items and they aren’t of the highest quality then more than likely you won’t go back to that restaurant. If they have more items then that equals more choices which increases the probability of keeping someone coming back…especially if they like the ingredients.
Exactly, look at Halo 5 for example. It struggled to maintain a population and is being beaten out by Halo MCC. Which is a collection of old games. Halo 5 released bare bones and by the time it was a complete game, many including myself rarely touch it. Many will be bind and say “MCC is receiving updates where Halo 5 isn’t.” Meanwhile they fail to see how many updates Halo 5 actually received vs what MCC is getting now.
Its all about features and server stability that will keep players invested. Even though I don’t like Halo 5’s gameplay. I would have stuck around if it had social playlists, firefight, and forge. Not to mention all the lag and jitters I experienced while trying to play Warzone.
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> Under the past 3 titles released under 343i, player population has been a problem, this problem even continued as they brought the MCC to PC. I want Halo Infinite to succeed but 343i cannot make these same mistakes.
>
> Regardless if you are a classic fan like myself or someone who enjoys sprint clamber and all the other stuff. One thing that I believe we all can agree on, is that half baking this game will only add it to the pile. Halo 4 dropped because of its CoD elements and missing features, Halo MCC did not work on launch. Halo 5 had a bad campaign, and missing features on launch. (although the main two in my opinion is the missing features and its game play.) Finally we have Halo MCC on PC, launched one game at a time. Steam charts show over 900 thousand ppl on launch for Halo MCC. The game should have launched completed instead of spoon feeding content. MCC is doing good now but it isn’t nearly as strong as it should be.
>
> Halo Infinite especially with it being free to play needs to work on launch and cater to both Ranked and Social communities. Its not as hard as some make it seem, Halo 3 did it which came out over a decade ago and Halo infinite should be able to replicate it.
Personally I think developers are focusing too much on multiplayer population retention. Ultimately, there is no real longevity there. I think that developers who are looking to make money on games over time should focus more on the 10-15-20 year re-playability, which can’t rely on having a huge player base. I’ve always thought that multiplayer game modes that can integrate AI (with different scoring perhaps,) to fill in for lack of players would be much more re-playable. Or just make a really cool massive campaign and it will be immortalized in history!
I think game developers would be wise to focus more on AI game modes and hybrid AI/PVP modes. Especially in a series like Halo that will always have classic games pulling some of the player base, multiplayer popularity will always be a fad when you look at the overall lifespan of a game.
Take a look at Halo 2… sort of the original online multiplayer craze. It was a blast back in the day because it was the thing, but declining populations took its toll. A decade later it got a remaster, but by then there was a lot of other stuff on the market and the population boom wasn’t like it use to be. After a certain amount of time multiplayer is just no longer viable… lots of classic games like Battlefield Bad Company 2, COD 4, etc. that I loved to play are no longer worth playing due to lack of population. On the flipside, I still play through the classic halo campaigns pretty regularly, they’ll last forever.
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> > 2533274902469708;1:
> > -snip-
>
> Personally I think developers are focusing too much on multiplayer population retention. Ultimately, there is no real longevity there. I think that developers who are looking to make money on games over time should focus more on the 10-15-20 year re-playability, which can’t rely on having a huge player base. I’ve always thought that multiplayer game modes that can integrate AI (with different scoring perhaps,) to fill in for lack of players would be much more re-playable. Or just make a really cool massive campaign and it will be immortalized in history!
> I think game developers would be wise to focus more on AI game modes and hybrid AI/PVP modes. Especially in a series like Halo that will always have classic games pulling some of the player base, multiplayer popularity will always be a fad when you look at the overall lifespan of a game.
>
> Take a look at Halo 2… sort of the original online multiplayer craze. It was a blast back in the day because it was the thing, but declining populations took its toll. A decade later it got a remaster, but by then there was a lot of other stuff on the market and the population boom wasn’t like it use to be. After a certain amount of time multiplayer is just no longer viable… lots of classic games like Battlefield Bad Company 2, COD 4, etc. that I loved to play are no longer worth playing due to lack of population. On the flipside, I still play through the classic halo campaigns pretty regularly, they’ll last forever.
I think it’s also important to understand why Halo had such a broad appeal. It was super inviting to a casual audience. Controls are simple, button inputs aren’t crazy, and while there’s certainly a steep learning curve to Halo, it’s not hard to pick up. I know people love Halo 5, but it’s not inviting to a casual audience in the slightest. I’d say that Halo 5 has some of the sweatiest social lobbies I’ve ever seen, although any game can get like that, I feel like the amount of mechanics tied to the player just increases that inaccessibility to players who may be new to games altogether. Custom Games has always been a huge part of Halo, and I’m hoping that the Custom Browser ends up bolstering that part of the community. Halo infinite has had a lot of time to bake in the oven, and it needs to come out feature-rich, with all of the aspects that make Halo, well, Halo.
Halo 5 was a huge misstep for a few very important mistakes. No splitscreen, forge, gametype variety, and no BTB maps. Looking back, it’s laughable that the game didn’t launch with some of the most unique parts of the Halo experience. Player Retention my -Yoink-, the game was barren. Clearly, the REQ store and it’s associated gamemode Warzone were the top priority and were meant to be the casual game mode for Halo fans, but it is nothing like BTB and plays nothing like a Halo game because it’s not an arena gamemode.
In my mind, Halo Infinite needs to launch with and improve the core parts of the Halo experience:
Personally? I think the population issue isn’t completely about what 343 did or did not do. The biggest issue I think has to be that people are easily bored because a lot of people present their experience with games as a race to the end. How quickly can they do something before dropping it? How fast can they complete the game on the hardest difficulty just to prove they can? 3 hours? Cool, next game.
Now I’m not talking about people like HaloCompletionist, Rocats, or Garish Goblin who continuously go back to their preferred Halo games (or ones they don’t prefer just to see how good they can do it) to speed run them for the World Record or make guides. I’m talking about people who pick them up, speed run them, then drop them like a sack of potatoes on Twitch or Youtube just for some easy views.
So while missing features or hit/missed opportunities or what have you may be a contributing factor, we also have to look at the people that have the cover page of the streaming medias with their time on it. People will often look at the first stream that pops up and that’s how they can base their own experiences too.
mp just needs to be released complete. It needs forge at release, it needs a server browser at release, it needs many game modes and ranked playlists at release. It needs community maps as soon as there are enough ext.
halo 5 never had any of that. Its going to be even more important with a ftp title, as any lack of content people will feel less inclined to stick around for a game they didn’t have to put any money into.
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> mp just needs to be released complete. It needs forge at release, it needs a server browser at release, it needs many game modes and ranked playlists at release. It needs community maps as soon as there are enough ext.
> halo 5 never had any of that. Its going to be even more important with a ftp title, as any lack of content people will feel less inclined to stick around for a game they didn’t have to put any money into.
Agreed, and if im to be honest, what is expected of Halo does not fit the business practices that majority of these companies conduct. For the past 5 years or so its been about cut or none developed content, then spoon feed it over time.
Halo can’t thrive under that sort of practice if 343i looks at it in, “how can we do what the next guy is doing.”
I’m really worried that even with the delay, lots of stuff will be missing at launch. I’m anxiously waiting for them to confirm what will be present at launch and their near future timeline after launch.
I’m not to horribly scared about population, As mp is going to be f2p and it’s coming to pc day one ontop of Xbox, So I can almost guarantee it’s going to be bumping.
Player retention on the other hand is a different story that really only time will tell
One hard thing now too is that it seems no game really works at launch anymore, no matter how much preparation goes into the launch, there are always server issues these days.