I think the main damage was done before Staten came on board. Its critical MS keep him.
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Well written. Hopefully they can get things to where they want them to be sometime next year, even if that means 4 month season etc.
You make a good point about the maps. I think people latch on to them as the only form of ānew contentā, so a low map count clearly means the game has little to no updates.
I donāt really agree with that. Yes, I want more than 2 maps every 6 months, but I also donāt need any more than like 6-8 a year. Especially if we continue to get significantly different game modes, such as Land Grap or the new KOTH. No game mode plays the same as the other, even if theyāre on the same map. When Iām in a match of CTF on Aquarius, my playstile is drastically different compared to say team slayer on the same map. Same thing with oddball/strongholds on streets, etc.
I think having both KOTH and Land Grab will add a good amount of new gameplay variety, even with the same maps we have. And Last Spartan Standing will offer a very different experience, even if Iām playing on Fragmentation.
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I agree with you. It may suck now but halo came out within the first year of this gen and this gn will probably be 8 to 10 years. im sure in half that time we aregonna look back and halo is gonna have a lot of multiplayer maps, co-op, all sorts of modes and great campaign expansions that fix all the issues people had with the first campaign. The halo MCC template is accurate but lets hope 343 gets it together with the planning for whatever the next game is
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They always say they prioritize dev health over everything. I 100% agree. But that doesnāt explain the lack of content over the course of year one.
Thereās a minimum of 500 people working on halo since launch when you include contractors and other dev studios helping. That number may be much closer to 1000 than it is to 500.
500 people working 40 hour weeks is 20,000 hours a week. Over 80,000 hours a month. About a million hours in the first year.
I donāt see how so little content releases in a year of development. Far less than other halo games that where not marketed as GAAS titles. No oneās asking for crunch.
Anyway Iām not even bothered by the lack of content anymore. It is what it is. With the amount of people working on the game and them only commiting to two maps with hopes of having other content in the games first year one thing is extremely evident. They have been going through extreme engine issues. To me thereās no other explanation for this little content.
I still love the game, but donāt play as much because all my friends left due to no content.
Agreed, I actually left a YouTube comment on the latest Drop Pod touching on this. Decided to post it there instead of here to help with YouTube metrics 
But I completely agree and Iād argue that modes offer a ācontent multiplierā. For example Tactical Slayer makes me play the maps completely differently than typical Slayer. Iām way more agile and free flowing in typical slayer but in Tactical Slayer Iām playing it like Counter-Strike, making sure Iām out of sight lines, always behind cover, moving through the map watching my back, peeking corners, etc. And this is for all of the maps featured in the mode. At first I thought I would hate the non-BR TS modes but now Iāve gotten better at the weapons and appreciate the variation.
When it comes to the BTB maps I didnāt fall in love with Deadlock, though I enjoy it. I just find myself sticking to the outside routes to get across the map, rarely venturing through the middle. But I have a feeling that Iām going to have a newfound appreciation for that part of the map once Last Man Standing comes out. Iām going to be learning about every bit of cover in that middle area. And then add to that Rockets-Repulsers? It might be the closest thing to Valhalla Rockets. So I might fall in love with this map after these modes are out.
āContent-multiplierā sounds like a buzzword but I think itās accurate in this case.
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First some snarky comments
- Which such cadence, no wonder they said that they were gonna support Halo for 10 yearsā¦
- If will be hilarious if CE will be able to support MCC, BR with more content than 343i for the multiplayer
- People are saying that 343 should work on something else. Maybe it is a part of the plan? Run multiplayer into the ground and free some hands for other IPs
They have to relaunch the game 100% with co-op/forge/BR. They have no choice as unlike Sea of Thieves - which is to this day is a unique game in a sense - Halo competes with a lot of other online games. No crunch? Fine but all other games have a huge support for live service games (studios and people) and yet 343 is unable to do that. What will happen if the next season is also delayed? āNo crunchāā¦You can rely on that argument for so long.
The more saddening fact as it seems since MCC launch, 343 hasnāt learnt anything 
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To be a bit fairer to 343, I see this banded a lot but the truth of the matter is that Halo probably already has a lot of studios working on the game. The issue is that Infinite is such a big game that it requires more than the vast majority of similar games, with CoD probably being the only game that it is bigger and we all saw that Activision had to basically put a whole publisher on the series, and it is not that easy to just get more devs because everyone needs them.
It is something that 343 and Xbox do need to find a way to resolve though, otherwise the game will never meet itās revenue targets.
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But it does not explain just 2 maps in a year or something for exampleā¦
But Activision had to make COD every year (full game with multiplayer), while supporting Warzone and regular multiplayer with updates.
And now you have Activision deciding they can no longer do it despite having the entire publisher on the series, and they are planning to hire a lot more people. Plus the games are mostly supported for a year than abandoned for the next one.
I am not disputing your assertion that the post support for this game has not been good enough by the way. I was just pushing back against the assertion that 343 does not have a large support studio network already because the truth is it does.
It does appear that 343 needs more though, but then everyone else is looking to do the same, so it is not going to be easy unless Xbox literally takes their own studios off their own projects, which is not going to happen for good reasons.
As I stated in another topic
- Certain Affinity should take over Halo multiplayer whole (Infinite, MCC & BR)
- Hire some other smaller studio for Forge support
- 343 should only deal with Halo Infinite campaign (co-op) and DLCs.
The higher ups gave them plenty of time to make the game imo, and have been pretty understanding.
At some point, you have to release the game to get appropriate feedback. Delaying the game wouldnāt deliver the features we want faster.
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CA is seemingly in charge of this BR mode, which if other similar modes are anything to go by will require its own dedicated team, so I believe CA will be mostly in charge of that. This is to say nothing about CA having their own game in the works, so they will be in a similar situation to 343 in your course of action.
Making a BR with tools already made is not the same as making an entire game and engine yāall lol
But imagine if they will be able to produce more content than 343 still. Something should be changed in 343. And seriously.
Depending how 343 want this mode to go, the mode can entail you need a whole studio on just that mode ala Warzone and Fortnite. Plus according to Jez it has been in development for over 2 years now, so it hardly seems like a simple undertaking.
Iām not saying itās a simple undertaking. Still not comparable to making and engine, campaign, and multiplayer at the same time.
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Itās not a matter of higher ups giving time or not, is it? Itās a matter of higher ups getting their hands dirty at the game, why else would they need to make QoL changes just after release that probably most devs agreed should be there before release? Not to mention that 343 runs on the Microsoft policy of contractors.
But CA has already been working on the game, so I hardly see how taking 343 completely off multiplayer will quicken things, especially when they have their own AAA game in development.
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No one is being taking off anything lol, the overreacting here is insane.
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If 343 is unable to sustain the live part of the game, they probably should delegate it to a company (CE) that already have experience fixing live Halo updatesā¦But anyway, it wonāt happen and Halo will probably have another year of small amount of content. We will see. I donāt hold my breath.