Ya I know the pandemic is an issue but vaccines have been abundant in the US since the game came out.
I think everyone here acknowledges the situation here. Itās just a tired subject.
2 Likes
I agree with you, but the game was to be released in the fall of 2020 and I donāt think all of 343ās problems was all caused by those 7-8 months of wfh before thatā¦ A healthy studio with things in order would have been able to take the extra year of development to make up for those months i think.
They still managed to launch with great campaign and multiplayer. They have acknowledged the content drought issues and trying their best to address that.
2 Likes
Haha I know, Iām not on Team Bash 343. I loved the campaign, and want a lot more. The gameplay of the MP is tight af and I want more of that too, preferably lots of PvE content and a fun progression system.
Using a 20 year old engine was 343ās choice. Maybe itās time to move on from the technical debt? ya
I just donāt see a valid excuse for post launch issues. Raytracing for example was committed to be in the works in 2020. As where service records. Not a word from either since. Whatās the excuse for that?
Iām just not the type of person that makes excuses for myself and not for other either.
And if you saw how much halo Iāve played in the last month, or last year, or last decade you would know that my criticisms donāt come from a negative place.
Iām frustrated that none of my friends will touch halo anymore. Iām frustrated by the desync and Iām frustrated that Iām playing ranked on 4 maps over and over again.
Disregarding facts around a gameās development, like the events of the world over the past two years and their subsequent effects on dev, in order to trash a developer is the type of thing that doesnāt belong here.
No amount of gameplay hours makes up for basic understanding of game dev or the context of said development.
1 Like
343 had to make a decision on the engine based on pros and cons, probably with a number of risks involved. Itās easy to sit here after the release of the game and say āwhy didnāt you do this?ā but itās a much difficult decision in reality. As they say, hindsight is 20/20.
And we continue to focus on post launch issues without acknowledging that they shipped an incomplete product. The post launch issues are because they are still finishing the game.
1 Like
I agree with you. It was a tough decision Iām not saying they made the wrong decision, Iām not really sure. And it hard to have a good opinion on that without being a developer.
6 Likes
Where did I trash 343? Iāve said they have issues putting out content, thatās trashing them? Iāve also said they made a great game. Great campaign, great gameplay. Iāve said I loved halo 5ās multiplayer, and halo 4ās campaign.
Iāve never said 343 should be pulled off halo, as itās not something Iāve ever felt. I actually have always felt they are one of Microsoftās best studios. Thereās probably only 2-3 studios in the world that could handle halo, and they are the only one at Microsoft who can. Jeez man like I said earlier no oneās allowed to be critical in here or you and a few other come down like a hammer.
Itās nice to hear that 343 treats their employees right. Also the Schreier article was always blown out of proportion, even he said so if I recall correctly. I remember specifically some employees commented that there were a couple of similarities between them and some of problems CDPR had and people immedietely blew that into āHalo Infinite had Cyberpunk level development issues!ā. Which is absolutely not what was said.
1 Like
I know your criticism is genuinely coming from a good place. You have been consistent with your issues (like lack of new maps in ranked, desync, service records, etc) - The best we can hope for is that they meet those internal targets and get the game in a much better state by March 2023.
1 Like
Your second point there is spot on.
Though one huge thing that is not factored here is the fact that one is built off a very mature pre-existing game engine (used in hundreds of released games) and one is being made on a custom game engine with many new parts.
The thing about Unreal Engine is that not only has there been millions of hours of development on it from Epicās staff, but the code behind it can be modified and upgraded by any developer using it. This means bug fixes, improvements in every manner including performance, and even new features are added by thousands of developers outside of the company.
Also consider that in 2017 the success of Fortnite meant that Epic could devote more resources into the engine. Partly because the game used it and needed improvements sooner than later. The $1.5 million a day the game made justified putting more resources into the already robust engine. It truly helped accelerate planned features for the engine.
Nevermind gameplay, physics, and audio improvements that Slipspace needed, but there were many āfirstsā covered by the graphics alone. They had to do all this work themselves with the staff they had vs millions of hours put into UE4ās graphics engine that was tried and tested on many released games on all sorts of hardware setups across consoles and PC (and even mobile).
The other massive advantage is that support studios, contractors, and new staff already know UE and its tools. Tools are things that exist outside your game engine to help assist in your workflow. An artist may need a tool to convert assets into a format compatible and optimized for a graphics engine, for example. If you have a custom engine like Slipspace then youāll have custom tools with their own interfaces and workflows. So you need to train every single person using that tool. You need to provide support for it and even fix bugs for it. With SS this is all happening for the first time whereas with UE, a mature product, these tools have already gone through the grinder. And then youāll need to train people on SS itself. Provide support. Fix bugs. 343 canāt focus on new features like ray-tracing until the engine gets to a point of stability, robustness, etc. So all the support studios go through this process. All new staff. All contractors.
But for UE, people already know it so theyāre 60-70% of the way there. The 30-40% remaining deals with the particular game itself. Which is a whole lot but it goes to show how much pre-existing knowledge helps.
So because of the massive headstart that a pre-existing and mature engine affords a game, I canāt say the situations are comparable.
When it comes to a comparable engine, Iām thinking that the IW Engine that the Call of Duty series uses might be more comparable especially because it was built on pretty old legacy code used since the X360 days. Any contractors or new employees jumping in have to learn it. But as we all know that game has an incredible number of support studios and over a thousand people working on it. So maybe, while the circumstances in regards to the engine are comparable, the overall situation is not comparable. MS didnāt turn Turn10 into a permanent support studio.
Youāre absolutely right that the game is so pitifully light on content. Light on content at launch, light on content since launch, and light on content planned for the next 6 months (apart from the endless content Forge will provide in a manner of weeks). Whether itās compared to games built on existing engines like Unreal Engine or to games built on a custom engine, it looks silly.
Delaying Season 3 until March tells me that theyāre wanting to address all of the underlying issues and impediments that is preventing this game from being a proper live service title. With a proper 3-month length with proper content it tells me that they desire a Season 3 that compares to any other live service title.
And it can only happen when all of these underlying issues are addressed. Stable and robust tools, and a stable and robust engine, with stable and robust online playā¦ abandoning a core feature like splitscreen co-op tells me that their focused on getting this live service aspect right.
What I canāt explain is how and why Infection is taking so long and is rumored for Season 4. While I think itās a bit overrated as a mode, it would definitely be more popular than modes like Last Spartan Standing (whoever prioritized the development of LSS hopefully learned a lesson).
Holy Guac this post got long. 
4 Likes
Thanks mate.
Ya I think if they add those two forge maps into ranked in November it will go a long way. Would also like to see behemoth make a comeback, I love that map. Bazzar as well is hardly in ranked, and itās one of my favorite maps. Right now thereās 6 maps for ranked but bazzar is played extremely rarely(havenāt played it once in last 37 matches) so it essentially feels like 5 maps.
One thing Iāll give 343 mad props for is map design. I love behemoth, bazzar, live fire, and catalyst. Only map I dislike is recharge.
Service records shouldnāt be that hard to implement if 343 can spare the manpower to do it, think that should go along side a proper progression system.
Desync I know they have been trying to fix, seams pretty complicated, hopefully they can make some strides there over the next few months.
1 Like
I 100% agree there. Hopefully the engine, and tools get to a good spot over the next couple years. If they canāt get there than 343 may need to take a close look at switching engines. IM GUESSING but I think the engine/tools are the main reason content has been slow. Seams like it takes them 6 months to make an arena map, which is too long.
Like you said the unreal engine is extremely efficient . But could halo still feel like halo on another engine if they where looking at switching down the line?
I agree prioritizing LSS(attrition too) probably wasnāt the best idea but I thought those modes where fine, and I figured they where used to test things that will be in the battle royale.
Iām curious whatās taking so long for a proper progression system, and service record. Thoughts?
Also Iāve seen it mentioned by 343 that the UI or something was stopping them from adding more playlists. I know they mentioned this in the past about ranked. I donāt quite get that.
Am I the only one who thinks The Pitt map looks ugly and has no soul ? I assume thatās because itās a very early version with mostly blocks and some colors. Weāve seen that Forge can do a lot better than this in Infinite.
2 Likes
Itās definitely a work in progress so itās hard fully judge.
I will say this though, in my opinion when developers bring back old maps in their games it almost always feels soulless and ācheapā when compared to the original map.
Whether itās COD with Nuketown or the BF portal maps in BF 2042. etc etc.
But hey, weāre in no position to judge. New content is new content so Iām excited to see it in the game.
1 Like
I can only guess and my guess is that it took them a good month of feedback to understand that it wasnāt designed to player expectations (doesnāt live up to previous Halo progression systems and doesnāt really compare to what is found in other Live service titles). And then another few months of redesign and getting player feedback. And then development of it in a manner that can replace the old one seamlessly.
On a more general point, one way to think about some of these issues and to understand why making changing to software is difficult is that some things that should be designed interchangeably is hard-coded because the latter is faster and as such helps hit deadlines.
So a comparison that might work is say, you had to design and build a car. A deadline is approaching so instead of creating a bolts and nuts system to put on tires to an axle (which would take a week and take you past the deadline) you actually weld the tire rim to the axle (which took you a day and you finish the project on time). But after product release people complain that they want to put their own rims on the car. To fix this you have to remove the old system without damaging the rest, and implement the new one.
Software has a ton of that. Itās not good, but when hitting deadlines it has to happen.
Also, thereās a balance between too forward thinking and practical. Say if someone spent a week so that players can customize the horn on the Warthog/Mongoose. In a sense itās good design to leave things flexible like that. But if itās a feature no one would use, they could have saved a whole week. This boils down to proper design and knowing what needs to be made and what your customers expect (often called requirements gathering).
I figure Infinite had a lot of design issues on top of shortcuts to hit deadlines. A lot of work put into the wrong things. A lot of getting something out asap so people can at least start playing (like the UI).
I also figure they are going to address all of this. Using user feedback to prioritize things going forward. Getting things done right so they can add modes, maps, playlists, with the snap of a finger. If by March we donāt see it in that state then I can see big questions being asked.
Thanks for the detailed reply. Makes a lot of sense.