We Need Some Perspective

Games Halo Infinite
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I get the impression from about half of the people on Waypoint that they despise 343 with a passion and have been waiting for six years to nitpick the hell of out Infinite, declare that “Halo is dead,” send death threats to 343 employees, and then walk away from their computers feeling good about themselves. You’d think they never gave a crap about Halo. This community can be disgusting; look at r/halo. The mods had to temporarily shut it down because the toxicity got so bad, and from what I’ve seen, Waypoint hasn’t been much better.

It’s just a video game. The world isn’t going to crumble if Infinite flops and the Halo franchise dies with it.

That’s not going to happen, though; Infinite has a lot going for it. The campaign is already being heralded as one of the best, and the core gameplay for the multiplayer is the best one to date. The weapon sandbox needs a couple of tweaks, but even as it is, it’s very well balanced, and in the campaign I think it will shine.

The game also has a lot going against it. Progression, customization, meager playlist offerings, and server desync are the big ones. You’d think that after Halo 5 they’d have this figured out, and based on the way they marketed it (“No FOMO”), it certainly seemed like they did. These are the ones we tend to agree on universally; other topics like player outlines and player collision are a lot more split than people realize.

It’s okay to be upset and angry about Infinite; in fact, they are excellent motivators for us to express ourselves, and if done correctly, it’s the best way to engage with the developers who want to make the best game that they can. We’re giving them free feedback on how to make their game better, and when their game is better, they can be more proud of the product they’ve made and make more money.

Spite and vitriol goes nowhere, though. It’s demoralizing, and after so many changes in 343 leadership and COVID, I’d bet a lot of employees are wondering if this was all worth it. I wonder how many of them wanted to quit (or did quit) because of the monumental stress. Apparently many of them are just as upset about the playlists, progression, and customization as we are, and yet we can’t stop picking up our theoretical gravity hammers and beating them to a pulp.

Nowadays, I rarely comment on Waypoint, let alone think of a new thread to create, but this post just wrote itself. I know it’s hard to be patient with 343 with yet another imminent launch that will be fraught with problems. Address the problems; tell them what needs to be fixed and maybe even a possible way to fix it.
Just don’t be a -Yoink!- about it.

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Facts

Saying 343 has ruined halo and are the worst thing since the black death- Broke

Giving genuine feedback about what you want to see improved- Woke

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Sufficiently said. Feedback and holding someone to what they said are what every community needs, but hate and vitriol needs to stay away.

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First of all every halo launch ever has been met with hate. Even the beloved halo 2 and 3. Even now people love reach but forget how absolutely dreadful launch feedback was. So some of this is expected.

I’ll say I’m more upset with infinite because this is 343’s like 5th attempt at halo and they have continued to fail despite often capturing some quality underlying gameplay the company has never been able to bring it all together in a nice product in a remotely timely manner.

Personally I feel like they’re being pretty underhanded with many comments- obscuring the launch under the pretense of a beta when it is nothing like a beta. We wanted to test our objective gametypes first- oh but we have no process or plan for implementing more playlists so that’s not really true. The stress on customization but getting this- coupled with the updates and refinements of MCC and halo 5 would have you think they’d have a better direction for things but no it’s basically a bait and switch. Looking at MCC progression I thought hey a battlepass won’t be bad I like how 343 does it and then they give us this?

They’ve run 4 halo games and didn’t think about adding a slayer playlist at official launch? No SWAT? No doubles or snipers? Minimal maps and no forge for months? This is the second game in a row forge has been extensively delayed.

It’s annoying because they’ve claimed to learn from the past, show us they can make a quality game, and then do something to seriously mess with the player experience every time they work with a clean slate.

The perspective is I love halo as my favorite IP, 343 knows how to deliver a game players like (current MCC) but they back track and give us a disaster that hurts the growth and population of halo down the road. It feels like lying and even little things like teammate collision are off because they know the tick rate or whatever issues would be super obvious.

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Someone that works for 343 and is privy to the inside details of all the mandates on the game’s development should bite the bullet, break any NDAs they might have signed, and go on record about what was really happening. We know Ske7ch can only tell us so much before he gets in trouble by his corporate overlords. Without knowing who gave the orders for specific decisions and what their reasons for and what they stood to gain from it based on their position within 343/MS would be very insightful.

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You want someone to throw away their career so we can learn about development of halo?

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Idk how anyone sleeps at night working there knowing they had a blueprint made a decade ago for a nearly perfect Halo game and they threw it in the dump. We need answers for that

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Pretty sure that it happens a lot in the industry. They have dreams but then the budget and pressure from above shrinks the scope down. Not worth being unable to feed a family and being sued just to tell us they had trouble developing a game

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Infinite is a great game. That said it has become the battlefield on which this war between developers and gamers is being fought. To play games in 2021 is to hate the people that make them. This is the result of years and years of gamers being manipulated by marketing and monetization. The bile that is being spewed virtually everywhere you look in gaming is the direct result of these “systems” put in place by these developers and corporations meant to sap us of our time and money but in fact have sapped us of our enthusiasm for this hobby. Remember when we used to just play games because we loved them?

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I agree, totally. I think 343i should just throw MS under the bus and accept their fate though.

I’m willing to bet MS would just do damage control and restructure 343i but keep making Halo. It’s the the face of their games business model after all.

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I get the impression from about half of the people on Waypoint that they despise 343 with a passion and have been waiting for six years to nitpick the hell of out Infinite, declare that “Halo is dead,” send death threats to 343 employees, and then walk away from their computers feeling good about themselves.

everyone wanted this game to do well, bungie fanboys and the anti-343 mob alike.

I think its moreso people are upset about the game launching after 6 years with half the content Reach had, the least rewarding progression system we’ve ever seen, frustratingly restrictive customization and a battlepass tied to obnoxious RNG challenges.

these aren’t nitpicks, they’re glaring, game-killing issues.

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This should be a community of people who love Halo and want it to thrive, and if you love Halo, you critique it to make the game better, not to justify your preconceptions that 343 is garbage and incapable of doing anything good.

I do agree about the lack of content and the broken progression and customization, and that’s something the community almost universally agrees upon. They’re definitely not nitpicks, but my point is that 343 isn’t ruining your life. A lot of people use this as “just another example” of how 343 ruins everything they touch.

This just isn’t true about Infinite. My brother stopped playing Halo shortly after Halo 5, but after I told him that Infinite is free on Steam, he expressed a lot of interest in jumping back in. I’m getting to introduce old friends of mine into Halo for the first time, and they’re having so much fun with it.

We don’t have to agree on how good or bad Infinite is, though. As long as the criticisms come from a place of genuine love and care for this franchise and a desire for 343 to succeed, that’s excellent. I also want people to remember that this isn’t a faceless corporation. These are real people who put their heart and soul into this game, and nobody deserves the unbridled rage that “fans” frequently hurl at them.

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I’m just upset that even though we got such a good game in terms of the core foundation of gameplay, it has been so marred by poor playlist selection with little to no control primarily to sell challenge skips to supplement the quite flawed and sole means of progression so far. Plus Halo was always built on its predecessors in terms of customization (except for maybe Halo 5 which took a few steps back in terms of mix-and-match). To have even just colors outside of 10 very basic colors heavily monetized is so frustrating in terms of creating my own Spartan.

Plus with Battlefield 2042 having an identity crisis and Vanguard not being what I wanted, I was really hoping that Halo Infinite would sweep them off their feet as it was the only game I was really looking forward to this year. However, I don’t wish harm on any specific person or organization. I just wish they would recognize what a great opportunity they have here and stop worrying about squeezing every penny out of my pocket. Trust me, give me some decent progression and not hilariously overpriced stuff in the store and I might actually buy some extra store stuff every now and then if you support your game. I’ve unashamedly bought Sea of Thieves cosmetics because after they’ve fixed and added so much I now support them,

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If nobody tells them about the problems the game has then they will never consider fixing them. The more people who make their voices heard the better. People have every right to be frustrated with the current state of the game. Voicing your concerns isn’t “toxic”. As soon as people stop complaining they’ll forget about the issues and move on while saying “deal with it” to those who continue to remind them that the problems exists.

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I absolutely don’t approve of death threats or doxxing either but let’s be very clear, the people doing that are a minority within a minority.

I’ve posted criticism and feedback on these forums many times. I have also made posts praising the game and features that 343i have added. I’ve never once threatened a developer, nor has it ever crossed my mind. I imagine that’s true for MOST people who post on these forums. Most people are simply voicing their discontent with the decisions that 343i have made and there’s nothing wrong with that. Backlash is what leads to change, not blind positivity.

There are positives about the game, however. The gameplay (especially in Ranked imo) is very good, the maps are mostly great and equipment opens up many new gameplay possibilities.

But the perspective for many is this: This game is nowhere near what it should be given that it has been in development for 6 years by a AAA studio that has been handling this franchise for over a decade. 10 maps is fine but the fact that Halo games made in half the time with half the resources had more is a bit embarrassing. No co-op campaign, forge or working custom games, limited playlists and game modes that are straight up missing, no progression system or free customisation outside of the battle pass…Yet all the MTX stuff is ready day 1.

It’s not hard to understand why people are complaining and I think those complaints should continue to be made if you want to see any change. Judging from Sketch’s recent post, it doesn’t seem that these complaints are being fully addressed either.

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Amen. I want to support 343; honestly, the pineapple bundle is quite humorous and I actually want to buy it but it’s waaaay overpriced. I would even consider buying the Anubis bundle if it cost 10 dollars. If they cut the store prices in half, I think they’d more than double the number of people buying these bundles and make their fans happier. This shouldn’t be a permanent solution, though; I still think that earning credits via campaign gameplay would be a fantastic way to reward the more dedicated fans who bought the campaign.

I appreciate you being level-headed and calm about this but also honest. This is how we improve the game’s future.

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That remains to be seen…

I’ve never liked how people go off of the hype train or take the word from others. Destiny 2 base game is a prime example of how wrong people can be. No one knows what will take place so I rather wait and see what actually takes place. Mainly because actions will always speak a hell of a lot louder than words, and boy has 343/Microsoft proven that.

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honestly the only halo I didn’t like was halo 5. its monetization was horrible, story was worse, and art style just felt off. Only thing I thought was cool was the rocket launcher new design and how they then also added the old one back.
Also the monitor they introduced in the game. Halo infinite though it has its own issues is leagues better. the fact the current one has no loot boxes is awesome. Plus they have been modifying the xp earning to be less grindy. The fact I nearly have the ODST helmet this early is awesome. in halo 5 I wanted the ODST helmet but even to this day those loot boxes I grind RP for never have given it to me…that alone has caused me hope.

still needs work but yeah I agree some blow it out of proportion. I still have hope, just wanna play the campaign already.

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Saying they’re the wrose thing since the black death is definitely rediculus.

But they’ve done a pretty terrible job over their stewardship of halo for the last 10 years.

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The only way to help them do better is to give them useful information and feedback. If all they see is people bashing them it gives them nothing to learn from.

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