I’ve seen it mentioned that 343 is apparently offering Halo Infinite Multiplayer as a Games-As-A-Service type game and they expect this to last for 10 years. Why is there no roadmap? This seems like a no-brainer to me. There are so many issues being tossed around on the forums, reddit, etc. that could easily be dealt with by simply providing a roadmap with continual updates as time goes on.
For example, things like game types and playlists. Obviously, there are other game types that haven’t been released yet and most players are hoping/assuming that additional playlists will be added at some point. But so far 343 hasn’t commented on this. Why not? Giving players a roadmap of what their intentions are with this type of stuff would do a lot to build trust with the community and actually show that they do have a player-first mentality.
Obviously, there are many other things that they could include in roadmap updates. And it isn’t like they don’t know better. Microsoft already tried out this GAAS thing three years ago with Sea of Thieves. Rare was pretty bad in that first year with communicating but they finally figured out that roadmaps with updates are a great way to provide the “service” part to the community.
343 needs to regularly provide to the community with structured updates that outline their future plans. This helps to promote that 2-way feedback loop that is necessary if they are actually interested in providing a game as a service for the next 10 years. So far, my impression of 343 has been that they only provide updates that say what changes they have already made; and it’s mostly a my-way-or-the-highway approach. Halo Infinite will not succeed as a GAAS if this continues.
Pretty much all we know is that Season 2 comes in May, and what we have seen from leaks, data mining, offline custom games, and early versions of the Waypoint app. We have an idea that several new game modes will be coming, and there will be some sort of holiday events (or just holiday themed shop items), as well as roughly the shop items and season 2 and 3 effects items. That’s all we know.
I would like to see a roadmap of when these will come out, and I’d like to see a shop calendar, so I don’t have to check the shop daily. I saw someone with a helmet I don’t even think is in the game yet, but that was probably just a bot. Thanks to bots, we have a huge preview of what already exists, but we cannot currently access. If they’re going to do slow delayed releases to stretch out the time until future content, I want dates on when and what is coming.
A roadmap would be very nice, but considering how Season 2 isn’t coming for 5-6 months they probably don’t want to put out a roadmap that just says “LOL, enjoy Fiesta and Swat once a month for the next 5-6 months while we swim in all this microtransaction money”.
If their reason for not telling us their plans is because they already think we won’t like them, that sounds like a horrible way to produce a game. They should be jumping at the opportunity to tell us what they are planning. Because even if they are wrong, they should at least think their plans are amazing.
I mean, I don’t fully know what is going through their heads and I agree that under normal circumstances they should be very excited to tell us what is in the works. But the problem is that some of our biggest features (Co-Op and Forge) have now been delayed several times over, and some fan favorite gamemodes are literally being drip-fed to us like a carrot on a stick in small, weekly events with a limited rate of progression.
I feel like for a roadmap of the next 5 months (which is ALL Season 1) they would really want to show more than just a couple of rotating events and a couple of small holiday events.
Considering the Mark VII Helmet is in MCC Halo 4 since it was apparently already in the original Halo 4 but scrapped (or 343 just added it as a teaser for Infinite), yet Halo 3 and 4 featured the Mark VI, would that make the Halo 4 armors Mark VII core or Mark VI core? Trying to figure out if they’re going to be blending Halo 4 armors into Halo 5 armors or Halo 3 armors for that specific core. Depending on their decision, it could lead to some pretty interesting combinations, since Halo 3 didn’t have many armors. It might end up being like Halo 3 MCC.
Data mining on Reddit showed the files had apparently already existed in some iteration, and were in the files of an early flight before Halo 4 was added to MCC, so it was likely cut content in the original
It only makes sense from a marketing standpoint to spread them out.
Game’s main armor is MK7 with Reach armor being tied to the battlepass and its theme.
Halo 2/3 armor will probably be another battle pass in the future.
They might even do a 4/5 armor one, maybe with some tweaks.
Given how armor cores are not cross compatible atm, I’m betting their idea was a new armor core every pass and use that to make people buy everything again.
Roadmaps and communication are really important to keep live service games going.
To give an example, I used to play a lot of Path of Exile, which is generally thought of as a free to play / live service game done fairly well, and I still keep up with it a bit. If there is an issue in PoE that goes more than a week without getting addressed by the developers in some fashion, the community borderline riots. The game would be going down in flames if it had issues as glaring as Halo Infinite’s and the devs waited weeks (or longer) to adequately respond.
The problems with Halo Infinite are all glaring, well known, and obvious to anyone paying attention. Most of its biggest problems, like a terrible customization/monetization system and a significant lack of content (e.g. playlists) don’t require weeks in the wild to identify. 343’s apparent reticence to say anything about them other than “the feedback is mixed” is not a good sign for long-term prospects. If they want to get 10 years out of this, they have to make it to a year 1 anniversary without dropping their whole playerbase… something they have yet to show they can do.
If there are no real fixes coming until Season 2 in May 2022, this game’s playerbase will evaporate quickly, just like Halo 4’s and 5’s.
I think part of the problem is how they’ve sort of cross-promoted with other companies in terms of not just coatings but also EXP boosts and Challenge swaps.
I’d imagine if they did something to devalue boosts and swaps, the companies they’re promoting with would get angry.
It would be bad if there weren’t any fixes for 6 months and some major ones at that.
And they need to at least provide a clear roadmap explaining what they are planning on doing along with their reasoning and some explanation as to why things may be taking longer to deal with.
At this point they just seem to be stalling with everything by sending out tweets saying that they hear us and that just isn’t going to cut it. It gives the impression that they are hiding stuff that they know we won’t like, which is stupid if you’re actually trying to make a game that people will want to play for 10 years.
I mean if all you’re trying to do is get the most money that you can in the first 6 months of the games release, then it totally makes sense. This would be the mentality for more traditional game releases. But they are going for a games as a service type game that they want to last for 10 years. They will lose players really fast if they keep going that way and the game definitely won’t last that long.
Or they know the internet has a famously short memory and they’re hoping they can just stall and all the criticism will disappear on its own. They may just be planning on saying “we hear you” until everyone shuts up.
A lot of what I see makes me concerned this is what they’re trying to do. Take a page from the Cyberpunk playbook… shake down the community for all its worth before or immediately after launch, then fix it in a year or two later.
Maybe. But things like: the problems with the Battle Pass, the problems with the Store, the problems with Collision, the problems with Game Types and Playlists… Those problems only go away when people stop playing the game. Those aren’t things that just magically get forgotten.
Im under the impression 343 has no idea what they are doing, this is a game that needed another entire year of dev time and still is missing more content than halo 5 on launch, so a road map wouldnt be plausible because 343 is running around like a chicken with no head trying to figure put how to get this content out and keep the game alive, i dont see halo infinite lasting longer then a year or 2 at this rate
I wouldn’t expect a big content dump at any point. Like others have said, I would anticipate single armor cores coming out with new seasons.
I would be surprised if we don’t get cores for mark 5 and 6 armor. I’m almost positive well get one for mark 4 armor as well. And, I would love to see a core for SPI armor from Ghosts of Onyx. Maybe even an Elite core for certain game modes.
Personally I reckon it’s one of two things: either the developers at 343 are so spectacularly incompetent that it’s a minor miracle that any sort of game got released at all, or there’s some spectacularly incompetent people in the marketing department that have managed to convince everyone else that drip-feeding game modes over months and months will totally increase “player engagement” and lead to higher revenues. I’m leaning towards the latter, purely because I refuse to believe that anyone would be capable of accidentally screwing up Infinite’s matchmaking system so badly when MCC has a basically perfect template that could be copy/pasted straight into the new game.