So I have just watched the winter update and what I was most interested in hearing about was the Co-Op Campaign. Something that should have been part of the product at launch. And I am a little concerned about some of the limitations you have placed on the Co-Op, and also some of the attitudes towards it expressed in that interview.
One guy said Co-Op campaign is about griefing other players, and you have made it so if you place a marker anyone can remove it (and the guy thought that would be funny). Or if you are watching a cutscene, anyone can skip it. That infuriates me. We all play campaign differently, so not everyone will feel the same way, but someone interrupting what I am doing by removing my marker, or breaking my story campaign experience by skipping a cutscene without a vote system is so annoying and is not a fun element to any game. Yes, my friends and I have hit each other in the back or lobbed a grenade at each other. But that isnât griefing, that is friends playing around and having a bit of fun. Haloâs Co-Op experience is supposed to be fun environment where players can enjoy the story and campaign together. Youâre supposed to be thinking âHow can we make this fun for everyoneâ not âOk, how can we allow players to annoy each otherâ. Please think about the things you say and do.
I think the two key changes to make here are to give each player their own marker and colour code it, so that the players can all see it and agree where to go, or if they want to split up. And add a majority vote requirement to skip cutscenes.
Also, Iâd like to comment on the distance allowed between players and your join the furthest behind in the campaign restrictions. When playing with other people, the update said you can only continue the campaign from the playerâs progress with the least amount of progression. And, when playing with others, if you get too far apart you will be spawned back together. The very big issue with this is that you are telling us how this game must be played. You are imposing your ideals of the game (which you always get wrong) on the players and are not allowing players the freedom of playing the game however they want. No one has ever said âOh, I love these restrictionsâŚâ
Why did you guys think you had to impose where in the campaign everyone could play together? I donât understand the thought process that went through someoneâs head when they went âYou know what we should do? We shouldnât allow the players to decide for themselves where they pick up the campaign. IN FACT! We shouldnât let the team carry on from player 1âs progress, it should start with the guy at the back.â Because to be quite honest with you, if the groups intention was to help someone with their campaign, the group would make that person player 1. And that is how it is supposed to be, player 1 sets up the game and it is their progression, everyone else is players 2, 3 and 4 tagging along for the ride. You should have also made it a drop in drop out co-op experience, so that we could invite players mid campaign and they could join us seamlessly.
Now, I played the beta and it was very annoying when we split up to complete multiple objectives or someone had found a collectible, but couldnât reach it because they were too far away. One thing we all said was âthey need to get rid of thatâ. I agree with the sentiment that it is a co-op campaign and players will get to work together, but you made Halo Infinite an open world game. We can still work together and complete side objects, find collectables and recover a equipment by splitting up and exploring the map. Imagine if Rock Star told GTA and Red Dead players âOh no, you decided to play as a team so you must stick together. You cannot go there without your friends.â it would be terrible, and this distance restriction is also terrible. You should have made it so that we can explore the map as we wish, but need to come together to start the main campaign story missions. And I havenât played the campaign in a while, but canât we fast travel to FOBs? So we could split up and, when we need to, regroup by travelling to an FOB.
Now the forge update looked good. It was actually very intriguing to see what was coming with forge and it looks very good. But another issue is that you are focusing too much on your free-to-play multiplayer, when at the core of the Halo franchise has always been an amazing campaign story and experience. You guys need to get back to the roots of halo and start focusing on bringing us more campaign updates and developments. Whilst providing us with complete player freedom and not dictating how players must play your game.