> 2533275031939856;8:
> Um… maybe they just decided that they’d give those players something in H6? I don’t see what’s wrong with rewarding them, it’s a hard goal.
I want to preface what I’m about to say with the disclamer that I don’t have strong interest in any rewards for Halo Infinite whatsoever, and am completely fine with the notion of a reward that’s totally unattainable to me. I’m of course naturally mildly jealous for other people getting stuff I’m not getting (stuff that I totally don’t deserve), but I really don’t feel strong enough need to be valited to want a reward.
With that out of the way, reaching level 152 is undeniably a hard goal in the sense that it sucks a lot of time and effort out of a person’s life. Many people don’t have the opportunity to dedicate that amount of time and effort to a single game, which is what makes it such a coveted goal. However, the goal is not in any meaningful way challenging. A person, regardless of how good they are at any aspect of the game, will eventually get there if they have enough time in their hands. Therefore if you don’t see time input as a meaningful accomplishment, like I don’t, you might conclude that this accomplishment is not worth a reward. Consequently, it’s quite reasonable to upset that people who have accomplished things that you deem much more meaningful are not being rewarded.
Furthermore, what 343i rewards people for is necessarily the kind of world of gaming they’re endorsing. In this case, 343i is endorsing spending lots of time grinding away at a game, which of course makes total business sense since they want maximal player engagement since that gives them sales on microtransactions. Considering that grind probably isn’t going to be enjoyable all the time, which is the nature of a grind, it’s already pretty questionable (though certainly not unexpected) to put business interests ahead of player enjoyment in such a blatant way. On top of that, we can also consider the fact that we know spending lots of time gaming (the amount reaching these very high ranks requires) is not a healthy thing to do. And while many people would of course do it anyway, actively endorsing and rewarding it is, again, somewhat questionable. Then finally, there are goals developers can design into a game that are more interesting and engaging than grinding away at an experience bar. If somebody finds the grind enjoyable, good for them, but every gamer should probably ask themselves whether the developers could have crafted a more interesting challenge than grinding?
As I said in my previous post: I’m not in charge here. 343i are free to reward whoever they want, and it’s undoubtedly exciting for those who will get the reward. However, even if it was created with the purest of intentions (which means forgoing all the cynicism about business interests in the previous paragraph), and even if we disregard all the personal gripes one can have with it, it nonetheless endorses certain things that aren’t necessarily positive, and sets a precedent for other in-game rewards.
