The progression tasks are sucking the fun out of the game for casual scrubs like me

Games Halo Infinite
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#1

First off, I know there have already been steps taken to reduce some of the more frustrating tasks, and that’s great. Thanks for listening to feedback. I remember the initial weapon- and mode-specific tasks being absolute hell in some cases. But I don’t think the changes are enough at the moment.

The TL;DR-ish version: I would really, really like to see some alternative tasks. This doesn’t necessarily mean removing the existing tasks; I understand that skilled players need more of a challenge. That’s fine, keep the current tasks and let those players progress more quickly. But I would love an alternative path toward my weekly progress, something more attainable even if it takes longer. For example, let me choose between: Get 3 headshot kills in Last Spartan Standing, or instead Kill 25 Spartans in any game mode. A skilled player will likely knock out 3 headshots in LSS without issue, and that’s great. They can move on quickly. You could even reward them by making their tasks worth more XP that my alternative tasks, I wouldn’t mind that. I know my limits though, and trying to complete that challenge would lead to more frustration than fun for me, so I’d rather play a few to several matches in a game mode I actually enjoy to get my 25 kills. This would also have to come with some kind of change to the challenge swaps; nothing is more annoying than using like 5 swaps because it keeps switching between the same two tasks I absolutely loathe before it finally gives me something else I can at least tolerate. I would prefer to choose the challenge, even if it meant a decrease to the drop rate of the swaps or something along those lines.

The longer version:

I am terrible at the game. I know I am, I’m not shy about it. I don’t care that I’m terrible. I still have a lot of fun. I love Halo, I have loved Halo for a long time, and I love playing regardless of how bad I am. I’m not looking to be good, I just like coming home from work and unwinding with some Halo shenanigans. The problem is that I have found that my fun is impacted a lot when I’m forced to play specific game modes or complete specific tasks (use X weapon, get X number of headshots/backsmacks, etc etc) in order to progress or earn items.

I understand the argument that I don’t HAVE to do these things, that the rewards are cosmetic and optional. And you’re right. And there are lots of times when I decide that the reward that week is not worth the frustration I’m going to endure, and I skip it. But that’s happening more and more often, which I think isn’t great for the longevity of the game. If you want to keep bodies in the game, you have to give me a reason to stay, and keep it fun; not drive me away with frustration because I feel like I have to do homework first before I can actually go have fun. Because the more that happens, the more likely I am to just go play a different game entirely. You could absolutely make an argument that this is a “me” problem, and you’d probably be at least partially right. And maybe you simply will not agree or see where I’m coming from, and that’s alright.

And I realize that I may not be representative of the more hardcore and more skilled players, and if your response to my post is “git gud” then we will simply never see eye to eye and that’s fine, we’re simply on totally different planes of existence in this regard. But “back in the day” I logged in to whatever the current Halo was at the time just to play, for fun, because there were no progression systems and challenge systems quite like this outside of maybe just earning XP by playing matches, and gear was earned in a different way. Now I almost dread logging in, especially if the featured game mode is something I simply do not enjoy. Because I have this perpetual list of tasks that I can’t really control, constantly present on the right side of my screen and engineered to take advantage of FOMO.

I will say that I do enjoy the concept of the season battle pass system (not to say there’s no room for improvement), simply being progressed by XP earning, and that is really what I enjoy. It boils down to what I really want to see from the game: getting rewarded simply for playing my way. That’s what I want to see more of from Halo Infinite’s multiplayer. A broadening of the tasks, or more extremely, an overhaul of the Challenge system entirely. I want to be rewarded for having fun and spending time in the game on my terms. By no means do I have a perfect solution, and I don’t think there is going to be a perfect solution; I know someone is always going to be unhappy. But I really, really want to like this game, and I do when I’m allowed to just have fun! But it feels like the game is actively trying to get in the way of that sometimes.

I expect to get some pushback for this, and that’s alright; we’re simply not going to agree and that’s your right. But I’m not going to argue about it. I have given this a lot of thought, and this is how I have felt for the last several months, and it hasn’t changed.

15 Likes
#2

Yup the challange system activily pushes away most casual players and was a bad idea porrly implemented and exceedingly short sighted

13 Likes
#3

I do not do the weekly challenge often, but I wanted the Battleship Haze. 20 challenges plus the Ultimate challenge seems like way too much for something that would likely cost 300 credits in the store.

5 Likes
#4

I’d say the challenge system is probably the worst implementation of any game I have played so far.

First few weeks I was actually enjoying it as it was pushing me to explore a little more to find weapons or play in a way I wouldn’t usually. I also had lots of time to play. But now it’s been going for a little while I find the challenges dreadfully boring. Although part of that is also due to the changes made. People wanted progression challenges and personally, I hate those.

Realistically I would have preferred simple daily challenges and slightly longer weekly ones. But the weekly ones should have been more inventive and possible to complete across most modes. The fact they round you into certain playlists, make you rely upon RNG, and just generally have some really uninspired challenges make it a recipe for disaster for a lot of players. The rewards are also generally poor so some weeks I don’t want to do them and I don’t. I’d say it takes me about 4-7 hours most weeks to do all challenges (because you can only work on 3 at a time and often they aren’t compatible).

Splitgate’s challenge system also sucks. Is it just harder for developers to implement challenges into arena games?

5 Likes
#5

I was playing this morning and someone had already completed the battle pass. Elite skulls and target thingy.

#6

he/she could also just have bought level ups ofcourse :wink:

#7

Some people buy their way up at the start. I have a buddy who bought all hundred levels of season 1 on day 1 and only ever played less than 20 total games.

It’s weird to me the way anyone spends money on virtual cosmetics. (I won’t even spend money on paper towels cuz it feels like I’m literally throwing money away.) But to each their own.

2 Likes
#8

It’s fine at the start of the season when all those challenges go toward progressing your BP as well. But as the season draws to a close and your BP is maxed it’s like a slap in the face to have to do every challenge for 0 XP just to reach the capstone challenge.

2 Likes
#9

Winning is the best challenge… if that’s an issue not dying is good one too. I try and practice this I don’t do many challenges mainly events.

I very rarely press ‘y’ it’s the best habitual practice!

#10

It’s modern development trend chasing,
Can’t confirm it of course, but.

I would bet both my Kidneys that someone is feeding “Industry wisdom” from some soul less mobile development group about the popular methods of monetizing live service games.

And their using these really awful and predatory Ideas across the game, as well as the general gaming industry.

There is nothing hard about developing challenges for the game,
Challenges could be as simple as, “play 20 games” or “get 100 kills” or “Cumulative play score” or “Play 5 games from (playlist)” or “10 Kills with common weapon” or “3 Kills with Grenades”.

None of these challenges would negatively effect play engagement, and would be obtainable naturally over the course of play.

The entire Challenges library could to stacked with these types of challenges and the game would be better for it.

Bit that’s not the case,
A good chunk of the challanges are… Obtuse.
Things that you CAN’T earn naturally over the course of normal play.

“Win odd ball games”, where Oddball is hidden behind a Randomized playlist, where you have a less than 15% chance of even getting an oddball game, where you then need to Hope your random team of players even KNOWS how to play to win at Oddball.
Where, over normal play, it could take 3-4 hours of pure playtime, if you’re working with purely average luck.
Where if you’re unlucky, you could run 40+ Quickplay games and NEVER end up in an oddball game.

But thats OKAY, because 343i “conveniently” sells you Challenge Re-rolls.
Is finding oddball games too frustrating?

Because they put it into an RNG playlist?
Because the community doesn’t actually like oddball over all?
Because 343i was fully aware that the challenge WOULD frustrate its players?

For the Price of a WHOLE $1.
You can RE-ROLL a single time.

We take no responsibility if you Reroll it and it gives you another frustrating Challenge like getting Back Smacks. Or Killing the Flag Carrier.
We make no promise that we won’t give you another Oddball Challenge every other Re-roll.

“We at 343i have no upper limit on how many Re-Rolls we expect you to buy,
If you have terrible luck its not our fault, we only designed the system to harvest money from you.”

Honestly,
It makes me sick when people see this and think,
“Yeah, that sounds like a fair thing for them to do, nothing disgustingly predatory about that at all, don’t spend money if you don’t have self control.”

Because the point is going way, WAY over these idiots heads.

It was designed to take advantage of players,
It was designed to weaponize human psychology against the fanbase.
Its not an honest trade between producer and consumer,
Its pachinko machine.

Never forget that 343i put Pay2Win lootboxes into Halo 5.

3 Likes
#11

Sounds like you rode in on a High horse, lol.

That’s not the reality of the game, your moral posturing doesn’t change the Reality or the condition the game is in.

What you’ve done is the equivalent of jamming your thumbs into your ears and pretended that you’re better than other player for just turning a blind eye to glaringly problematic features the game contains.

For literally EVERYONE ELSE,
The challenge system is utterly broken by design,
Its broken in such a way that is ruining the gameplay experience for large sections of the playerbase.

Frankly,
If you’re not here to contribute to that serious conversation,
You shouldn’t even have left a comment, you’ve contributed literally nothing with what you’ve posted.

1 Like
#12

On the contrary, it’s how I get around the challenge system. I don’t take part in its weekly ritual. However I am forced into it when an event comes up.

I focus on winning my games and not dying. It’s a bit like playing the game and not listening to somebody shout across the arena - I bet you can’t get ten headshots with that semi automatic weapon.

I don’t like that distraction.

Your best voice is by non participation.

1 Like
#13

I feel like conceptually it would have made a lot more sense, if it wasn’t so dependent on RNG. The challenges should be focused on maintaining player engagement, like getting X amount of kills, cummulative score, assists, etc. Having to get kills with a certain weapon, or double kills, or a certain amount of flag runs just sucks.

2 Likes
#14

I’m right here with you fellow Spartan.

1 Like
#15

This is a great post which goes into great detail about the challenges. Based upon your 4th paragraph, you admit that you realize that none of the items granted by completing these challenges actually do anything.

My advice to you is to simply ignore them! Completing challenges will not grant you any advantage over anyone else in-game, nor will anyone else have an advantage over you if they have completed any. They are completely pointless.

I primarily play the MCC and I haven’t even bothered unlocking anything and I ignore the challenges. I just play the game types I enjoy and am best at. Do yourself a favor and do the same - the challenges don’t mean anything.

#16

Ignoring them is all fine and all, however its hard to ignore how they still impact your games. Because I might ignore the challenges, but if the rest of my team is focusing on them… its gonna suck for me.

5 Likes
#17

Exactly. Also, it’s annoying when players are in matches for challenges and don’t care about the objectives of the match.

1 Like
#18

That’s why god and 343i created quickplay and unranked game modes.

#19

so your entire team can repeatedly quit because the did not get the specific game mode they need?

I played a match last night in quick play and by the end the scoreboard looked like a BTB roster :laughing:

2 Likes
#20

Forcing me to play so much LSS on the same map over and over and over again just to get a weapon coating is not my idea of fun or a good challenge system. There needs to be less reliance placed upon the event. I finished the event, which was fine, because it’s limited. But when you finish it, but are still having to play the same mode over and over it just sucks the fun out if the game, I expect the highly skilled players who can get 20 kills in one match may feel differently, but I normally can’t get more than 10 kills. that means loads of matches before the tasks can be completed.