Stop needlessly splitting up cosmetics

Games Halo Infinite
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One of the most frustrating part of Infinites monetization is how they have needlessly divided up cosmetics that should be whole. Weapons Skins, vehicle skins, coatings and emblems should apply to everything within their category but instead we have this awkward situation where there are 4 different emblems that are exactly the same and an awkward mismatch of skins where you will never get a complete set.

  1. Vehicle and weapon skins should apply to every weapon or vehicle (at least within a faction type (UNSC/Forerunner/Banished etc)) This would mean no weapon or vehicle would be neglected and players can choose to have a consistent theme amongst their skins instead of an awkward mismatch. This would also give skins back the value they previously had and will be more desirable to players.

  2. Why did anyone EVER think splitting up emblems was a good idea? It is just so blatantly greedy and has made an already bad situation when it comes to the loss of emblem customization even worse. If you wanted something else to monetise why not separate nameplates like in MCC and sell those? This has even hurt the weekly ultimate rewards with us getting 4 WEEKS of the same emblem. I try to avoid being too harsh but this is truly horrible.

  3. Coatings should apply to all armor cores (heck everything should be cross core but that’s another issue). The coating system was already hated before launch so why anyone thought it was a good idea to have it only apply to one core is baffling to me.

I don’t like to talk as if 343 makes a choice solely out of either greed and/or laziness because I understand a lot of people there do care and may ultimately not have a choice in the matter but I have to call this out. None of these choices benefit the player and all it does is add more things for 343 to monetize for insane prices while doing less work. This needs to change…

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It won’t change because the system is designed for you to want everything/play for everything.

If things were together people would be less inclined to spend more money because they already got what they want. They would also feel less inclined to do challenges.

The goal is to keep you playing as long as possible and to have you spend as much as possible. Sepreated items is the way to go

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They will split up the cosmetics but they won’t split game types into their own playlists because “what if objective game types have a smaller player pool because people prefer slayer game types?”

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I was thinking about this the other day. If this is a 10 year game and they have a new ultimate reward each week that’s over 500 unlocks.

When I realised this it no longer surprised me that they split things like emblems out into 4 unlocks.

I would still prefer them to be a single unlock though.

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Really isn’t as bad as you make it out to be when you think about it. If a normal season lasts three months that’s only 13 cosmetics they would need to set aside per season. That really isn’t bad enough to resort to splitting up emblems, skins etc.

Also if it gets to a point where they can’t keep up as unlikely as it is they could always repeat previous weeklies and include some credits to provide incentive for people who already have it. My point is there are much better ways of dealing with this for the community than to start splitting up the exact same emblem into 4 and expecting people to be motivated to play for that.

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It won’t change because the system is designed for you to want everything/play for everything.

Then why do I constantly see people complaining and not bothering to play for the ultimate’s each week saying they’re not worth the time investment? That shouldn’t be the response to a system designed for you to want to go after/play for everything each week. I get where you are coming from but a system like that just doesn’t work unless the reward you get is substantial enough to motivate people. 25% of an emblem isn’t going to do that.

If things were together people would be less inclined to spend more money because they already got what they want. They would also feel less inclined to do challenges.

As for your first point I do agree to an extent. It’s undeniable putting things together means less money for 343 than if they kept them apart however I don’t think it would really have any other side effects. If people don’t like a skin, emblem etc they aren’t going to buy it regardless of if it is split up or not.

As for your second point I completely disagree. If anything I think it would increase the amount of people going for the weekly as it is a more substantial reward. Genuinely have no clue what your point was here why would people be more motivated for a split up emblem compared a whole one lol? Even if it was a situation where players have everything they want and wouldn’t use the weekly 1. that’s already happening and 2. Something being free and substantial is often all the motivation people need regardless of if they will actually end up using it.

The goal is to keep you playing as long as possible and to have you spend as much as possible. Separated items is the way to go

Once again they have failed pretty heavily at that goal. Like I said previously the needlessly split up skins, emblems etc just aren’t enough to motivate people to do the challenges. I mean maybe you could argue it increases the money 343 make but they aren’t even selling the missing parts meaning we got a weird mismatch of cosmetics. Separated items isn’t the way to go.

I really don’t get any of your points here or why you could even think that way. It’s very easy to poke flaws in many of your arguments and the only one that has a leg to stand on solely benefits 343 not us. Like there are substantially better arguments against my point than what you came up with but the issue is they are all negatives for 343 not the players.

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For me, the issue isn’t that the item is not worth getting, it’s that the work to get it is way too much. As of Feb. 19, I have to complete 20 standard challenges + 1 capstone challenge to unlock… 1/4 of an emblem. An emblem I can only use on my weapons. In MCC, I can complete 12 challenges in a week and unlock 12 different items from helmets, to vehicle skins, to nameplates. In a sense, I’m doing 20x the work for 1/4 of the reward. And on top of everything, Infinite’s rewards are time sensitive, so if I don’t get them now, I might not get the chance anytime soon.

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Whether the challenges are too much work for me really depends on luck due to some of the challenges being insane. Like last week we had an un-swappable ultimate challenge to WIN 3 RANKED CTF GAMES and I just think to myself it isn’t worth the effort regardless of the reward. So to an extent I definitely agree with you that how much time and work the player has to do should be taken into consideration. I still think the reward itself is an issue alongside that though since that is the main thing encouraging you to work to begin with.

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That’s definitely another problem. There’s a luck/p2w aspect to this. Some people will have easy challenges one week, while other will have hard ones. Mine are super easy this week, so I’ve been taking my time. But other people have probably been sweating their butts off or even using swaps to get better challenges.

Yeah, the rewards themselves are very problematic, not just the quality and redundancy, but the lack of variety as well. Right now, we’ve only had 5 different types of items:

  1. Three visors
  2. Four emblems (3 of them were ‘Sacrifice’)
  3. Three backdrops
  4. Three weapon skins (1 is part of a matching set in Tenrai, so have fun having a mismatched AR/Sidekick combo)
  5. One Armor Coating (notable the most beloved of the items)

For instance, that chest knife they were selling for $15 would have made a nice weekly since it’s basically default reach armor. Or how about some default colors for Yoroi?

Edit: Also it’s the fact that you can’t work on all of the challenges at once. You have to do them in a certain order, so something easy like, “Kill x spartans” ends up taking days.

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I think from a customisation mindset, having more combined items in universal application is part of the charm of the system, take that away and its a system I don’t want to mess with, cause its just not fun when its so restrictive.

though this might just be me, felt this way ever since the colour restrictions.

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I’ll explain to you in simple terms.

The more they split stuff up, the less stuff they have to give out for free and the more they can put in the store.

All about the $$$$

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While I feel like 343 would probably eventually rework the customization system due to the resounding pushback, I wanna really bring to question who on earth designed it in such a way in the first place.

While the Coatings system was already unpopular, people were still willing to give it a go if it meant wacky combinations could be placed on each piece etc etc. Coatings would be the evolution of the Primary Secondary colour system.

But not only did Coatings come out as the worst possible version people expected (as we have seen in the Flights and on Live), they split it apart. If you look at the entire customization system right now, you know what it REALLY looks like?

It looks like the entire reason why they sell Coatings for individual cores was because it’s a bandaid for their crappy UI

It really feels like that. And people are starting to even question what about future Cores. Will you make us buy coatings for those again? Or will you just send them to us for free? Nothing about the customization system makes sense, even from a money making perspective, because by limiting cores and customization like this, you are potentially making less people purchase an item if it doesn’t fit the core they wanted.

So instead of making players buy everything to collect because they CAN use it on everything, people start passing up on sales or events for specific cores, because they like some other core.

The game should really only have had ONE core, the MK7.
Everything else goes ontop of this core. If Yoroi’s core looked too different, they should have done away with Yoroi Core and redesigned Yoroi to fit onto the MK7, while Reach armors could have fit onto the MK7 aesthetics anyway, just having a Back replacement which swapped out the MK7’s armor pylons for the Reach’s powerpack.

In fact, Hayabusa wasn’t a core on its own either, it was redesigned from Ryu’s Ninja garb into an armor aesthetic, so that was what 343 should have done in the first place.

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