I think its no question how Season 1 panned out as far as how it started vs when it ended. The challenge system, while still questionably scuffed in the attempts to get the userbase to engage more with the game, and therefore keep the player count up as time goes on, it feels like there is some need of change as far as how the game operates. This is especially relevant since Season 2 is slated as another 6 month excursion, as opposed to the 3 months it was originally shown to be. Because of Infinite’s progression, even for those who only play the bot boot camp for the full level’s worth of the daily challenges, you can expect a player who diligently plays the game to complete the BP a little before or after the 3 month mark.
That means for another 3 months, with only the occasional event going on, and even with more potential weekly rewards that aren’t emblems, 343 might see another falloff of players after that point. Maybe, just maybe, it feels like maybe a little good will to the players might be in order. Of course this will reward players that go above and beyond trying to complete the BP, and this is not only a means to incentivize players to push on, but alleviate some of the problems the current challenge system poses.
Because we currently lack the means of choosing a new challenge, players tend to resort to the use of challenge swaps if there are challenges they either don’t like, or find too tedious to complete, sometimes even multiple times since, again, the challenge system is scuffed. If what is true about this season having more desirable weekly rewards, there might be a bigger need for challenge swaps to incentivize player interaction. What I suggest as a reward, should a player complete the BP, is to reward the player with challenge swaps for every couple or so levels they would normally earn beyond it.
This gives a player a bit more agency to play beyond just trying to get a reward or complete challenges, or at least give players a means to earn more challenge swaps in order to get challenges they want done if they come across one surrounding a gametype they can rarely find or don’t find much pleasure in trying to complete. I know this might cut into the sales of the double XP and challenge swaps in the store, but at the same time, it might give players more of a reason beyond the BP to earn said swaps, continue to earn weekly rewards, and could keep the player count high. This in turn, means more newcomers would come play this game, and could incentivize to buy the Battle Pass and store cosmetics.
Please give the players a means of trying to earn something rather than buying the solution to an already existing problem.