Imagine that you have a favorite buffet, in which they have many dishes and drinks included all for 15 dollars, and one day you go and realize that it costs 5 dollars, but now you only have 20% of the dishes that were previously in that package Now if you want to include sweets area, it is $ 10, if you want to include Mexican food it is another $ 10, and the same with the other areas that the initial package does not include. So it seems that it is happening, the game is free, but in the end it would be more expensive if you want the total content, imagine that they would have done that in halo 5, about $ 1000 would have cost all the content that it has or even more.
7 Likes
I bought one of the eSports skins thinking I could use the color palette on other armors. NOPE! It’s a kit that can’t be altered. I have to play with that configuration. I understand the armor pieces are unlocked later in the battlepass, but FFS I just want to use the color on other armor! The armor sets are ridiculously priced. I thought rocket league was out of their mind asking $20 for a goal animation but this is just nuts. These are no longer microtransactions, but rather simply “transactions”
It amounts to a system that is generally not fun. Its like look, I already gave you money for a battlepass. It’s not a FOMO type BP so why do you care how quickly I get through it. The Swaps and 2XP should be for the people who want to speed run the pass and get all the best stuff. The rest of us just want a reasonable progression system.
11 Likes
Completely agree with the original post. Not going to spend a dime in a system like this, that forces you to use real money to progress. Probably might buy battlepassess if I knew they weren’t mandatory. This is low.
16 Likes
If this post gets locked in a while it’s because 343 doesn’t want to receive negative feedback from the game, let’s hope that’s not the case.
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The battle pass being so obnoxiously grindy is pure madness. I don’t actually mind being asked £7.99 for the premium pass, after all the game is F2P and they need to get revenue from all the people who aren’t going to buy the campaign somehow. But at the moment I absolutely refuse to spend even a single penny on multiplayer because having to play the game like it’s a second (incredibly frustrating) job just to get the items you paid your hard-earned cash to get access to is ridiculous. Had the grind been on the same level as the current form of MCC’s season system I would have put the money down day one no questions asked.
I’m still planning on buying the campaign however, but that’s because it looks like a competent enjoyable product that will give me almost exactly what I want and expect for my money. The multiplayer does the absolute opposite of that and so I will continue to not spend any money on it purely on principle. (And as an aside, if it turns out that purchasing the campaign doesn’t give you access to multiplayer progression content I am going to be positively furious.)
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In Halo Cosmetics ARE gameplay. Do a little Halo History research.
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He should also do a little Battlefront research as well, because the system that locked gameplay items behind lootboxes was so poorly received (up to and including getting actual governments to start considering passing actual laws against such practices) that it was removed before the game launched.
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What does that even mean?
1 Like
The fact that they went this far is giving me pause on the campaign. If they went so cheap/bare bones here, what else is possibly missing in the campaign?
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Cosmetic monetisation is far from predatory, it’s not pay-to-win and it’s not a gamble. The current system is perfectly fine the way it is, and considering Season 1 is lasting until May, I’m glad it’s a slow progression.
As a side note, I do agree that we should get some amount of credits inside the BattlePass.
2 Likes
I put my foot on the breaks. Played the game checked out the goodies and decided the Battle Pass wasn’t for me.
If they improve it for season Two I’ll re think my decision. In the mean time the free samurai gear which starts on the 23rd November looks worthy of a shout.
If you don’t like it don’t buy it. If you’re not happy with the purchase ask MS/343 for your money back.
3 Likes
Technically daily progress slows down.
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You are very correct, Kabuskini.
There are two types of game developers these days.
- Developers that create games their players play
- Developers that create games that play their players
Put another way, game design looks very different when designing a game as a game versus designing a game or its systems around monetization. Halo Infinite is not the worst this one has seen but it takes from the usual playbooks of predatory monetization design. For those who aren’t familiar with this sort of game design strategy, a good beginner’s article about this to read is on Game Quitters and you can find it with an internet search for “video games are designed to be addicting” (the article itself is titled something similar but sadly linking is not allowed on these forums)
Those of us who are older gamers remember when video games were simply video games, not rackets. When encountering a monetization racket in a video game, always ask: given this game is not respecting me or my time, do I still want to play it? If so, why? What spending limits will I strictly set for myself? Be careful and be cautious when playing a game designed to manipulate its players into purchases.
18 Likes
While I think it’s a soft push on microtransactions - it does not pay to win.
All progression and paid content are cosmetic only. Unlike Battlefront 2 on launch which if you paid, you could get % damage buffs.
To be fair to Microsoft, and 343, this is a beta multiplayer release, so we could expect better, and bigger things on full release, the reason it’s a beta is so they can gather how people are enjoying the game thus far, and to see what needs to be addressed. I agree with almost every point. However, I’d like to state, that they made each battle pass completable whenever whether or not it ends, so adding credits to each pass for the next, would basically mean they gain almost little to no profit from the next one, because they can just go back, and complete the rest of it. The big reason why companies did that, was because you had a time frame, and it was somewhat tedious to grind to 90th tier, for the last bit of credits. I really do think that making all these great looking armor sets hide behind a paywall is extremely annoying, making multiplayer free would require them to make things cost a bit more money then a average game, especially with their expansive staff, and Microsoft’s cut in profit. I honestly believe a good fix would be to make campaign when purchased allows for credits to be earned similarly to how Fortnite had save the world, where you could gain their currency. Granted that the game would have to cost more then 60 dollars for it, im sure plenty of people would be okay with this, thus mitigating the high price for armor’s, and even the Battle Passes.
2 Likes
I agree, it’s alarming how predatory it is. I can’t believe 343 would do this to their community, which is already dwindling from their mistakes in MCC and H5. They’ve just earned back a sliver of our trust from fixing and adding content to MCC, and instantly threw it away because they got money hungry. 343i has blatantly sold out to their investors. They no longer give a crap about the community. It’s honestly very insulting to be treated this way. IMO they need to put their primary focus on reworking the progression system, or the community will shrink quickly as players lose motivation for the grind, since it takes SO long.
How could they rework it? Well to start, they could give match performance XP. Even if that’s just a bandaid change that comes before S2 in 2022. I think it would at least hold everyone over until they come up with and deploy an entirely reworked progression system.
It seems to be that there’s a very predatory marketing and management team at 343, despite their creative teams being awesome. IMO, from what I see, the creatives at 343 hate this just as much as we do. They’re not proud of it. But the wallet eaters somehow get the final say on things. They need to get rid of these corporate shills and replace them with people who have a passion in gaming. People who can connect with players and understand what they want in a game. When you create an amazing masterpiece of a game, it will earn you more money than any predatory cash grab ever would. Cash grabs only work on the vulnerable, and drive many potential customers away. Great games work on everyone, and drives no one away.
343, please fix this HUGE mistake quickly. For your sake, and ours. I’m not sure why you ever thought it was a good idea after seeing the backlash against EA in the Battlefront 2 days. This move tells the community that you don’t care about them. If you don’t want that to be the message, then you’d better get to work, quickly. I’d argue that you only have until launch day before this turns into more of a PR disaster than it already is. Please don’t flop another Halo launch like the last 2.
Sincerely,
The entire Halo community.
16 Likes
I’m just gonna go ahead and say it, the microtransaction systems in Infinite are more predatory than the American Health Care system.
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i miss when games where about the gameplay and not about cosmetic progression trees. i get people wanna look cool but its a free game, the crying over the progression would make alot more sense if it was a paid game. Instead all the posts and vids about the progression being “too grindy” or “too hard” only distract from real and more important gameplay issues that would need addressed. And for the most part, the people who mainly see the cosmetic progression as the main focus of games are usually the ones who are the first too leave the game soon as they unlock it all.
3 Likes
I can’t agree that it’s predatory, but as it stands it seems built to deliberately push players towards spending money. If this is the tone they aim to keep for their iteration of the seasons pass mechanic their game is going to suffocate
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people need to stop over using and overexaggerating the word “predatory” this isnt “predatory”. They aren’t trying to exploit people, most cosmetics can be obtained free or through a $10 battle pass. Campaign will also have a lot of cosmetics to achieve that way. People really out here trying to make a huge deal out of a very small one.
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