I know that right now my topic will be lost in the tide of topics that are being created in these two days, but I needed to vent my concerns a bit.
We know that it is a beta, and that there is still a month of work ahead. But is there really time? Do we really have a long enough time frame to fix this? In addition to the launch of the campaign.
The gameplay feels great, the game is fun, it’s HALO, it’s the return of the king. This is indisputable. But this game has to last 10 years and I don’t think it will last more than two months if a series of problems that I have been warning about for months are not solved immediately.
Let’s collect:
The progression system just doesn’t work, it’s too slow, doesn’t really reward good play, and encourages a severe toxic attitude. I know you have to work on the prizes, but it is not rewarding to spend 3 hours playing and not having reached level 5 of the battle pass. It is not a fair system.
The number of maps is low, they are very good maps and they are really well balanced and with a beautiful visual style, but they are few for what should be a base content.
The challenges are WRONG, they do not have a logical approach, or they are very easy, or they are Mint Blitz level. I support that the challenges should be easy or have a middle point, but perhaps they should be rethought and above all, and most importantly, be able to be done in the VS bots mode to avoid that it harms the social games or the ranked games.
If you allow all, ALL CHALLENGES, to be performed against the bots it helps to relieve the pressure of the players, and you allow that who wants to focus only on challenges not to harm the game of other players.
The shop is out of balance, I see fair the prices of the coins, but the price of armor sets in some cases is simply prohibitive. You have to try to find a balance in some way.
The challenges, apart from giving exp, should grant rewards in coins from the store. I see the system that Gears 5 uses as the perfect challenge system, it helps you by giving you rewards, and it also contributes to the season’s battle pass.
There are many game modes missing, this is very serious, but also a game mode selector is missing. I think the latter is done on purpose to encourage certain game modes and gather feedback, but if so, 343i should say so openly.
I don’t know if I forget something else. Surely 343i is saving many things for the 8th, but I think that right now the priority is to CALM the community by talking openly about the things that are being saved, because we have a serious content problem that should be solved in less than a month .
The things I am most concerned about are the maps and modes. If this is truly all we get at launch, that is an abysmal amount if content. I really hope they explain what is all going to be in the game when Dec. 8throlls around
This is the same system that’s existed since the first flight, which 343i acknowledged was a problem even then, and was said they’re working on it. So it is possible they could put something out in a month since theoretically they’ve been working on it for months. But I would imagine it’s unlikely, and we’re not going to see a change until at least season 2 at the earliest.
If they would at least adjust the total XP given by the challenges to make it more fair, and that could hold us over for a month or two until they redesign the progression system
There is not even a balance between effort and reward, the exp given by the challenges is too little for the general calculation that it costs to reach each level of the pass.
I would say make Challenges simpler by do having it get X kills with pistols, or precision weapons, instead of making players get X kills with specific weapons.
I can design and implement a progression and XP system and fully implement it into a MP game in under a week. Seriously it isn’t hard I have done it before. The only thing that takes time is rewards, rank names / emblems. They have chosen to put those into the cash shop instead. They are milking us from the get go. Saying they are working on this for months is a joke.
The challenge based xp and progression overall I’m with you on. That 100% needs work.
I wouldn’t sweat the missing modes just yet though. We’re still technically in beta and I’d be incredibly surprised if we didn’t get significantly more playlist variety once the full game launches.
I agree with everything you said, minus the maps. My point of view is that it’s pretty on par with 3 and Reach as far as map variety goes for launch(that was a long time ago, I know it’s hard to remember pre DLC 3 and Reach). So I’m not too peeved, would love to see about 3-5 more maps and that would a perfect launch selection. Hopefully they’ve got something in store for the 8th. Otherwise this launch is Halo 5 all over again.
For MP mode, this is quite abit of content. The fact it’s a Beta now means more people can test and get a feel of it so we can pile the feedback on for 343 to improve on them.
And yea, the elephant in the room right now is the Progression : It sucks.
You aren’t rewarded for playing well. You aren’t rewarded quick enough for a player to not feel like they are wasting their time.
The game is very fun, yes, but it’s usually integral to player experience to be able to see your hardwork and effort come into fruition faster. I’m not talking about just magically finishing the Season Pass in 1 month quick, but at least have the progression be fast enough that a player who is willing to perform well and play consistently each day to at least progress at an estimated 5 - 6 tiers at a constant pace.
The challenge system is also straight up bad :
The whole specific weapon/equipment/kill/mode style challenges worked in MCC because they were FOR CAMPAIGN. Campaign is an open sandbox that lets us do whatever we wish, as much as we wish.
This is simply not possible in PvP MP because even a small little factor like not getting the game mode you want (say, CTF) will make that particular Flag oriented challenge dead in your list.
In fact, why do we even have a list + a sub list which feeds into the first? This means even if we complete challenges in the sub list, it won’t be counted as it’s not active! This is ridiculous! Just give us the whole list activated at the start of the weekly reset!
Unless they lied in the blog post on this very site that was posted when the multiplayer went live we have everything we are going to get at launch. They very clearly said that all day 1 maps and modes are enabled along with the full season 1 battle pass. The only additions to multiplayer outside of some bug fixes and MAYBE a new playlist or two will be the cosmetic unlocks from campaign.
I would love to know where you and all these other people are getting your info that what we got is NOT all day 1 multiplayer content because the only post i know about that talks about the amount of content there will be at launch of the blog post on here posted 2 days ago saying we already have access to all content we are going to get at launch.
I think Dec 8th they would need to announce Forge and new maps.
I assume it can’t be by choice since it was a mistake Halo 5 not having forge and custom browser at launch. Amazing tools that weren’t given legs when most people played the game.