Thus far I’m enjoying the game quite a bit, and I have an expectation that many of the technical issues will be addressed by full title launch in December. My issue, or really the issue is the current approach to the Battlepass.
Halo jumping on this bandwagon is understandable, it’s effectively industry norm at this point, but their approach is far from desirable. Before we even get into the stuff that costs money we already run into issues with armor unlocks being tied to a respective armor “core”. This hamstrings customization considerably in a game where building your Spartan is supposed to be a big focus. After the dumpster fire that was Halo 5’s approach to armor fans were really hoping for something much better, instead we get this half measure. While I can understand “kits” being tied to a respective “core” armor pieces should unlock uniformly.
The topic of progression in the pass has been done to death so I’m not gonna go into it in detail outside of simply agreeing with several others that it’s needs retuning. The grind is insane in its current layout and if this were a typical length season even avid players would have little chance of completing a pass. Which brings me to the real issue: Battlepass implementation seems designed to necessitate microtransactions. From the horrible exp payouts with the challenge system to the dripfeed of piecemeal cosmetics, it all reeks of “well you’ve always got that premium currency”, and thats a terrible business strategy. If the goal is to make money off this FTP nonsense (and let’s be real, that is 100% the goal) all you need to do is make content people want to buy ASAP or higher end, slick as hell cosmetics that justify a price tag. Another move to add value would be letting players use what they bought in an effort towards greater customization. An example of this is armor “kits”. If I drop actual money on a premium kit (like the HCS kits) I should be buying a lot more than just a fixed skin. As it stands you cannot even change something as small as an emblem on one of these kits. If the idea is to make it 100% what the HCS teams run, then cool, but let me use the unique color pallet as a standalone armor coating on my own build. I’d bet 5k credits (ugh) that’s the primary reason most people bought it in the first place.
The plus side is the issues the game currently face are easily addressed by way of refinement, and don’t require major changes or reworks. The biggest issue moving forward is going to be what kind of company 343i wants to be with regard to their Battlepass. Halo is a relatively obscure franchise these days, they’re not gonna get the endless stream of microtransactions from kiddies who were given purchasing power by their parents like Fortnite, so they need to build value. COD has had no trouble printing money off of Warzone because they let you reasonably grind decent stuff, and charge for clearly better stuff that you can use with considerable flexibility. “Don’t do worse than Activision” should be a mantra for game design.
I look forward to see how things develop in the coming weeks, and hope 343i don’t get comfy on the “bad” end of the season passe approach.