The current progression system for the Battle Pass in which progress can only be made through challenges works against 343’s multiplayer design pillars, and is bad for the game’s longevity and player engagement for the following reasons:
- Players don’t all have the same challenges and can re-roll them into different ones, disincentivizing players to play together so they can each grind out their individual challenges for the day instead of being rewarded for simply playing the game how they want (and with their buddies). - It caps the amount of grinding someone can do in a day. If you really want your players to grind your game’s Battle Pass, then limiting their ability to do so could irritate many, even if there are a lot of daily challenges to complete. - Not being able to earn XP and progress just by playing discourages play once someone has completed their challenges. - The daily challenges turn each day into a grind, one that many players will feel trapped by. - It limits player choice to be forced to earn Battle Pass progress a certain way, instead of just playing what appeals to them. This sense of obligation can kill a game by itself. - It compromises gameplay by encouraging players to take specific actions. As an example, if a challenge instructs one to get 10 kills with a specific power weapon, you’ll find people camping this weapon in-game or making strategically unsound sacrifices in favor of just getting kills with said weapon. If a challenge instructs one to play X number of competitive games, you’ll get non-competitive players who don’t play as hard or as well as the competitive ones who are trying to improve their rank, and you’ll get idle players as well. It interferes with the natural flow of the game.If players cannot earn a meaningful amount of Battle Pass progress just by playing the game, then players will be less engaged and feel a greater sense of obligation. If 343 doesn’t want to turn Halo into a chore, as they’ve said repeatedly about the progression system, then they shouldn’t make it into a player-specific laundry list of things to do.
Agreed in full. The biggest issues with this no-XP system are that it’ll ruin the competitive play of multiplayer since any given player in a game will be playing a different objective than what the game is suggesting to them, and that it’ll make the game feel like a chore to play at all in the first place.
Counterargument: Of COURSE a player can ditch the progression and “just” play the game. Counter-counter: But then they’re not being rewarded for doing so unless they just so happen to achieve a challenge at the same time.
A gamer should always be rewarded for enjoying the game they paid for.
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> Agreed in full. The biggest issues with this no-XP system are that it’ll ruin the competitive play of multiplayer since any given player in a game will be playing a different objective than what the game is suggesting to them, and that it’ll make the game feel like a chore to play at all in the first place.
> Counterargument: Of COURSE a player can ditch the progression and “just” play the game. Counter-counter: But then they’re not being rewarded for doing so unless they just so happen to achieve a challenge at the same time.
> A gamer should always be rewarded for enjoying the game they paid for.
This is one my greatest concerns about it. I added this to the list; it compromises gameplay.
Yeh I agree 100%, progress needs to be possible just through regular play of the game. It’s one of my biggest gripes with the MCC system in that there is much less incentive to play after getting the weekly challenges done. It will be the same deal with infinite and I really hope it’s tweaked.
the only reason they capped how much you can grind is to get you to buy pass levels which sucks. seems like they have lost sight that people dont need challenges to play, if the game is good people will play challenges should reward you for just playing, not something that i should feel compelled to play a map/mode/weapon i dont like.
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> Yeh I agree 100%, progress needs to be possible just through regular play of the game. It’s one of my biggest gripes with the MCC system in that there is much less incentive to play after getting the weekly challenges done. It will be the same deal with infinite and I really hope it’s tweaked.
Even with a large number of daily challenges, the challenges themselves create the issue of artificially influencing the flow of gameplay and they make things a chore. If I want to hop into a specific mode with my friends because it’d be fun, I have to choose between that and playing separately from them so I can do my unique daily challenges. Progression should happen naturally and organically as a result of just playing the game, just as in Reach, where every mode had some amount of XP to offer you and the challenges were large supplements.
Just read a quote from the Halo subreddit, and I think it characterizes one of the biggest issues with the progression well:
This is bad news.
Look I’m not trying to be negative but one thing I noticed a lot in the flight was that a lot of challenges were like [Get 15 kills with the Needler]. On it’s own, it’s not bad, when it’s just an optional bonus where after time you unlock it after getting 15 Needler kills through normal gameplay.
But when you make it so that [Get 15 kills with the Needler] is on your challenge list and it’s the ONLY way to get XP to level up your BattlePass then it completely breaks the flow of your gameplay and the weapon sandbox.
You are then essentially ignoring the weapon sandbox, and instead joining the game with the sole focus of getting kills with the Needler to complete the challenge. You’re camping the Needler spawn point every time, you’re ignoring all other weapons on the map now because the only objective is to get kills with the Needler. And that’s just you. What if 3 of your teammates also have a Needler challenge? Now the 3 of you are fighting over control for a Needler because all 3 of you need the challenge.
That’s breaking the flow of gameplay, and breaking the weapon sandbox. That’s why this decision is terrible.
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> Just read a quote from the Halo subreddit, and I think it characterizes one of the biggest issues with the progression well:
>
> *This is bad news.**Look I’m not trying to be negative but one thing I noticed a lot in the flight was that a lot of challenges were like [Get 15 kills with the Needler]. On it’s own, it’s not bad, when it’s just an optional bonus where after time you unlock it after getting 15 Needler kills through normal gameplay.**But when you make it so that [Get 15 kills with the Needler] is on your challenge list and it’s the ONLY way to get XP to level up your BattlePass then it completely breaks the flow of your gameplay and the weapon sandbox.**You are then essentially ignoring the weapon sandbox, and instead joining the game with the sole focus of getting kills with the Needler to complete the challenge. You’re camping the Needler spawn point every time, you’re ignoring all other weapons on the map now because the only objective is to get kills with the Needler. And that’s just you. What if 3 of your teammates also have a Needler challenge? Now the 3 of you are fighting over control for a Needler because all 3 of you need the challenge.*That’s breaking the flow of gameplay, and breaking the weapon sandbox. That’s why this decision is terrible.
Not only that, but if challenges are the same for everyone… Then everyone needs 15 needler kills. How well do any of you think that’s gonna play out?
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> > 2533274907207100;7:
> > Just read a quote from the Halo subreddit, and I think it characterizes one of the biggest issues with the progression well:
> >
> > *This is bad news.**Look I’m not trying to be negative but one thing I noticed a lot in the flight was that a lot of challenges were like [Get 15 kills with the Needler]. On it’s own, it’s not bad, when it’s just an optional bonus where after time you unlock it after getting 15 Needler kills through normal gameplay.**But when you make it so that [Get 15 kills with the Needler] is on your challenge list and it’s the ONLY way to get XP to level up your BattlePass then it completely breaks the flow of your gameplay and the weapon sandbox.**You are then essentially ignoring the weapon sandbox, and instead joining the game with the sole focus of getting kills with the Needler to complete the challenge. You’re camping the Needler spawn point every time, you’re ignoring all other weapons on the map now because the only objective is to get kills with the Needler. And that’s just you. What if 3 of your teammates also have a Needler challenge? Now the 3 of you are fighting over control for a Needler because all 3 of you need the challenge.*That’s breaking the flow of gameplay, and breaking the weapon sandbox. That’s why this decision is terrible.
>
> Not only that, but if challenges are the same for everyone… Then everyone needs 15 needler kills. How well do any of you think that’s gonna play out?
And if they’re different for everyone, then I’m incentivized to NOT play with my friends so that we can all go complete our unique challenges. It’s a loss either way.
Heavily agree. Something needs to change with the system, or this game will have a rough launch. Wow.
They’d be undermining so many of their core design pillars by going forward with this. I really hope they hear the community’s feedback and change this before launch.
I just came to the realization that with this system you can pay real money for challenge skips… Now I know why this system exists.
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> I just came to the realization that with this system you can pay real money for challenge skips… Now I know why this system exists.
Better late than never. You can take a look at Gears 5 to see how idiotic that turned out.
If I recall correctly most of the Daily Challenges I received during the flight was to play matchmaking games. This would scale up from 0/1, to 0/3, to 0/5 and then stop. I think this is a half–Yoinked!- attempt to claim that you can still get EXP by just playing the game but everyone’s points here still ring very true. Passive EXP should still be apart of the game and the solution is to just lower the amount of EXP you can get by just playing. I think Fortnite’s EXP system is the best structure to use;
Battle Pass Long Challenges worth medium amount of EXP in increments (Incentivizes long term goals)
Limited Weekly Challenges worth a lot of EXP (Incentivizes branching out to try new things to get EXP)
3 Daily Challenges worth medium amount of EXP (Incentivizes to play daily and earn the EXP)
After 3 Daily Challenges complete, they are replaced with others worth 10x less EXP (Rewards continual playing)
EXP Earned In Match, small and passive EXP that could potentially add up over time as more games are played
Everything the Devs have been saying is that they will be player forward and for the most part they have been but this is something that needs adjusting. Hopefully they’ll listen to the community feedback on this…
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> I just came to the realization that with this system you can pay real money for challenge skips… Now I know why this system exists.
I really hope they change this. There’s no better way to kill your fanbase than to use them like that.
I think you nailed it OP. The problems you laid out are very concerning and I hope that they are addressed in some way during Infinite’s early life cycle.
you know what’s funny they said it’s free to play game but you must pay for battle pass in order to progress in multiplayer. so they charge 60$ dollar for campaign and i assume 30$ for battle pass. in this case they sell you the game for a price of 90$.
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> I think you nailed it OP. The problems you laid out are very concerning and I hope that they are addressed in some way during Infinite’s early life cycle.
I hope they address them before launch, because it wouldn’t be terribly hard to do and it’s critical for the sandbox that this be fixed.
I believe it to be a compromise for being free to play as it negates the problem of players just idling in the match to rank up without doing anything. It sucks but I see why it’s there. A fix that would benefit everyone is if the challenges always refreshed, that way you can still be rewarded for extended hours of play.
It should really just be xp for completing actions that contribute towards winning matches. Otherwise it’s a chore. Why is that so difficult to understand?