As long as I can make my sword & shield emblem at launch for free, they can charge for everything else.
I finished the podcast today and noticed that the hosts didnāt care much for the coatings issue and would likely disagree with my take on it. Which is fine and actually speaks a lot to what makes Halo so great (but also a target). It makes me realize why Halo is seen in such a critical light by us, its fans.
Halo is a game that is pioneered so many things that we take for granted today. Apart from being an FPS game that really pushed the online play experience on consoles (people forget that before Halo voice chat wasnāt a big deal in much of online gaming on consoles, even PC). Halo pioneered things like customisable armour for players, a user-friendly level editor, deep customization of game types, a theater mode to watch replays, vehicle implementation in an FPS with robust physics, and much more. (And to be clear before anyone nitpicks, I mean that it is among the pioneers Iām sure some games have done particular features prior to Halo, but Halo had done it so well when it was relatively new)
And because of this many Halo fans are drawn to certain aspects of the game. Some people love level editing, some love making machinima and theater mode, some of tactical game types and some love arcade style gameplay game types. The game is something different for everyone. Iāve put thousands of hours into LAN play, hosting 16-player Halo LANs at my place since 2002 and it only stopped due to COVID-19, and Iāve only played maybe a hundred hours online. Halo is something different to all of us.
These things were pioneered 15 years ago and since then games have adopted many of these things and have iterated on them for years. So weāre comparing games with these features done over many iterations of their games, to Infinite, which is the 4th Halo game since many of these features were implemented. And we expect Halo to have the best-in-class features for all features, contrasting them to various games. Thereās no game that does everything perfectly in yet Iām expecting Halo to do it all.
For me this coatings issue was obvious and the solution was obvious but 343 decided differently. The same thing is going to happen with their implementation of Battle Royale. We all have a general idea of how it would be and see how the Halo universe would fit in very well with this gametype. but 343 will implement their own version and guaranteed some of us are not going to be happy with it.
In some cases these disagreements are on core issues that may turn people off the game completely. This has been the case with me and Halo 4 and 5 (poor split screen and no split screen). But when it comes to coatings I donāt see that turning anyone off from playing the game. Itāll be a disappointment for some, including myself, because other games (including past Halo titles) do it so wellā¦but my disappointment will be nothing more than āah well itās a missed opportunityā. Even if I disagree with monetization I simply wonāt buy skins.
What matters to me is the core gameplay, the physics implementation, fun game types (please have Firefight), and split screen support (more than having SS, it needs to be done well). And hey, if worst comes to worse I still have Halo 3 at 120fps.
Just a thought, but sometimes, we have to wait the end result to make our judgement. The ācoatingsā argument reminds me of the change of the OG omen for Gears 5. Devs knew they were touching something sensitive/iconic and said : trust us, itās a change for the better. Still, people were pissed, as always. But when they had the game in their hands, everyone could tell it is better like that and now there is no going back. So we donāt have to get into ultracrepidarianism at every decision a dev make about our favorite franchise.
Iām pretty much favorable to that new system. I donāt know much about it, but I prefer some color patterns I have to chose from, so I donāt have to look at purple/pink/yellow spartans because someone wanted to be original ! 
For me itās not gamebreaking, but in many F2P or microtransactions heavy multiplayer games (Modern Warfare is the last offender), fancy skins kind of ruin the immersion.
2 Likes
Halo subreddit at it again crying. Honestly I feel bad for 343 that they have to read and handle that vitrol constantly.
1 Like
Saw this coming when they announced it was F2P, have to admit I donāt like what F2P games do and would happily pay.
Iām surprised this wasnāt brought up few weeks ago
Sadly the biggest shooters and halo competitors are F2P. Adapt or die.
As long as it going F2P also comes with them dropping the requirement for Gold to play said games, they can do whatever they want.
1 Like
This might be a bit controversial but I personally dont think money, time and effort need to be spent on Forge. I feel that Halo Froge usage and popularity has declined considerably
Split Screen Co-op trend is also almost dead and dont think Halo should have this feature.
Leave something like that out and people will cry till no days end. Splitscreen co-op was gone and people cried and nobody died as a result.
Halo fanbase the worst
1 Like
I am super keen for the the next MCC update. Being able to select region specific servers for matchmaking is awesome. I am in AUS and since ODST Update I keep getting placed in West US servers for Mulitplayer matches.
Whatās XboxERA take on the new Halo engine? I think it would have saved time and money if it wasnt for the new engine and probably would have worked out better for Halo Infinite
Halo fans are the worst.
Did they really expect the game to be F2P AND to have a full range of customizability?
Idk maybe the old Engine just couldnāt handle what 343i wanted to do with infinite this is perhaps one of the most ambitious halo titles to date
Keep Forge, but only allow people to make race courses. I spent hours and hours playing race mode on custom tracks in Reach while listening to Meat Loaf.
Couldnt that be achieved with any other engines on the market? Only asked that because if they didnt have to focus on the engine they could have done with the game sooner
Not sure i do not know them personally but its what they wanted to do its just the reality of the situation and they have said the new engine allows them to get content done more efficiently but making a new engine on top of a very ambitious game like infinite is pretty daunting in it of itself
1 Like
Yes you are correct about other engine achieving what they wanted to achieve. Rumour (grain of salt) H:I development started in Unreal 4 but they couldnāt get the games movement and game play loop to feel like Halo. So they started retooling BLAM! to Slipspace. Iām assuming if you changed to Unreal you would need to rebuild Forge?
When you compare the 2018/19 trailers to 2020. 18/19 looks like Unreal 4 was used and 2020 used Slipspace. Like 343i were hoping they would have all the rendering technologies completed for launch and no one would know but then COVID hit.
The July 2020 trailer was missing technologies they showed in 18, stuff like photogrammetry.
1 Like
Can you give a good reason as to why players should be charged $5 dollars for coating other than making profit while ALSO getting rid of a free way that players could customize their spartans? You shouldnāt have to grind out (earn) or pay if you want your spartan to look a certain way imo if you remove a free way of customizing a spartan thatās been in the series for such a long time.
no, it wasnāt. halo infinite does use photogrammetry. it just doesnāt look as good as the past trailers.
1 Like
When a game becomes free to play this is the level of MTX you would expect. I donāt usually play any F2P games because of this so Iām quite apprehensive about Halo Infinite. I understand they will want to make money from it due to it being F2P but Iām struggling to see how they could push it when most matches are Red vs Blue.
I expect thereāll be some focus on modes where you can actually display your cosmetics so battle royale and multi team I can see getting pushed. I would hope that as gamepass subs we would get some bonuses as well.
1 Like