The Challenge System is single-handedly killing the game

Games Halo Infinite
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Undoubtedly, challenges are a must in any repetitive game such as an arena-like multiplayer game; while every match is unique, it’s still the same game over and over - challenges add a spice to it that makes it a little extra fresh. But that should be a choice. That should be for when you want a little something more. Locking player progression behind a series of difficult and frustrating tasks isn’t fun for the player, it makes you annoyed with the game, angry at the game, and less likely to play it later.

“Hey, that’s a pretty cool visor, what do I have to do to get it?” Oh, just a series of highly specific, very circumstantial, difficult tasks - somewhere around twenty or so should do. My task to get five kills with the Brute Chopper’s main guns is a good example. It sounds easy in theory, but there’s a fantastic saying: “Easier said than done.” I spent about three hours playing BTB over and over just trying to accomplish this task, and here are the results:

  • The Chopper did not spawn in every match, when it did, it was unlikely that I was able to grab it before a teammate did

  • When I would face off with an enemy, I would get roughly two hits before I would get hit with the EMP-effect and shut down, allowing the enemy to blow up the vehicle.

  • I often didn’t even get a chance to attack an enemy as I would immediately become the target of the entire enemy team and would die very quickly.

  • I got one kill.

So here we are, three hours later, and I still only have one of five kills. I find that I’m not having fun with the game as I’m so focused on accomplishing this one task that I don’t even want to do! This is only one example too, issues with challenges such as “Kill X number of enemy flag carriers” abound. I saw someone somewhere describe the issue perfectly: “You have to choose between winning the match, or finishing your challenge.” That just simply shouldn’t be how the game is played.

Again, challenges are a must for a game like this, but they should be supplemental, not mandatory. The XP system should be based on things such as: per game, win or loss, what medals you received during the match, your objective performance, etc. And while I appreciate the attempt to dial it down to be accomplishable by all skill levels, it is, in its current state, certainly not that. The concept of accomplishing a series of challenges to unlock a new customization piece is intriguing, but way too hard as it is! And the fact that is on a one-week time limit makes you feel like you have to do them and do them now, or you’ll never get that piece - and that’s true! But then, you’re not really playing the game for its enjoyment anymore, it feels like work now, it’s stressful now.

343, you guys are close to something enjoyable, but this… this is not it. Please, reevaluate the challenge system!

And to the community, what are your thoughts?

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Yeah, it just isn’t fun, every game now seeing the 50 exp for just completing the match is almost insulting, challenge based progression just isn’t fun, or fulfilling, absolutely rocking a BTB match, only to see that you didn’t complete any challenges, and that Overkill and Killing Frenzy doesn’t matter because you only get the same 50exp as everyone else, just for being there.

I’m getting some serious “A sense of pride and accomplishment” vibes from this.

I don’t really see as many people playing this game in 3 months time, because of how grindy and how disrespectful this progression system is, and players will realise how little progress they make and will migrate to other games that reward their performance.

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I have yet to see a Wraith for the challenge about destroying Wraiths I got 30 games ago.

It’s fun guys, right?

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I feel that haha, I think I have one for 5 wasp hijacks. I just gave up on the challenges completely.

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Yeah, it’s a real ballache, some challenges are completely circumstantial. Especially the vehicle specific ones, I can easily go half a dozen BTB matches without seeing a ghost or a chopper and when I do it’s only for a brief period in a match. What are the chances that out of 12 people I’ll be the one to blow it up, or out of 24 people I’ll be the one to grab it?

It’s not overly difficult if I camp for it but then I’m not helping my team or playing the objective. That’s my main complaint overall, this system incentivizes people not to play to win. I had a squad of guys partied up apologetically tank a game for us earlier because they just needed to play (not win) a round of lockdown and they wanted to try and get another challenge done ontop before their boosts ran out, so they just went and hid in a corner so the game would end quicker.

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To make it worse the decision whether to win or do your challenges is a choice everyone on a team has to make, all it takes is a single person picking challenge over win to drag down the entire team. For example if you are playing slayer and someone has a challenge to get a kill with the bulldog and the only time they manage to get their hands on it is in that match they could easily die 10+ times trying to get the kill or kills they need thus single handedly handing the other team the win.

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To make it worse the decision whether to win or do your challenges is a choice everyone on a team has to make, all it takes is a single person picking challenge over win to drag down the entire team.

This this THIS. Challenges should be bonuses to improve progression, not be a requirement to have a reasonable rate of progress. See every other western Battle Pass game on how to do this correctly, or at least fire up CoD Cold War for an example of good daily/weekly challenges and associated rewards.

Right now everyone has to choose between Challenges or playing the objective, and far too many are choosing Challenges since there’s no other reasonable way to progress the Battle Pass.

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And, that is their attempt to get you to pay for swaps and XP boosts. The design is intentional and won’t get fully resolved with the changes they made. Biggest issue is not being able to progress all challenges at the same time.

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I totally agree. The challenge system has meant I’m yet to relax and play a game just for the objective even though I’m at over 110 games now. Feeling completely burnt out.

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even a challenge like “destroy 3 enemy choppers” is so much more complicated than it sounds…you need to…

  1. Hope the chopper spawns
  2. Hope any other players attempt to use it
  3. Hope the ENEMY team gets it
  4. Hope you have a rocket or skewer when it comes to get you (cuz it wont count if the enemy bails out from taking too much light damage or getting EMPed)
  5. Hope a teammate doesn’t jack it or destroy it before you.
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I’ve said it in other threads and I’ll say it here, pretty much all the problems with the progression system can be fixed simply by awarding 10% of a player’s match score as XP. That way you progress simply by playing the game how you want, and on top of that it actively encourages players to try and win because the better they do in each match the faster they’ll get through the unlocks.

1 Like