The word that killed it is beta
I actually think 343 is doing things right. They aren’t playing it safe, but healthy. I think it’s the jank code they have to contend with, and I'm genuinely shocked people are this outraged at the roadmap. I thought it was pretty good
People just jump on a reason to be pessimistic, and it feels so incoherent how reasons are presented. They took too long, the game’s great, but they take too long.
The game’s great. They take too long. What?
Map packs made in the past have so much more content and so much faster
Even with more streamlined workflows, it doesn’t mean the highly detailed and balanced maps nowadays are just as easy. Not all maps in older games were balanced, while almost universally all maps are enjoyed in infinite (at least when the community was coherent at the start)
Imbalanced imperfect maps make for fun but divisive fun. But I think they’ve been burned so bad by past halo games they play it overly safe and give tentative deadlines that people chew up. It’s still that same incredibly fun game at launch, and honestly if left as is, if the phrase live service was ditched, forge beta, co-op beta, without these safe words people use against them, I highly doubt things would be as bad. They aren’t likely so incompetent they can’t make more than two maps in a year, but two balanced and detailed maps. There’s a reason split-screen was cancelled, and my speculation is indefensible cross saves owing to the code they use that intertwined and muddied.
Map packs? Balance and detailing and so much more I’m sure I’m ignorant about goes into them making sure they don’t burn themselves again. And it’s so disheartening to see them release an amazing game only to be burned at the stake when other developers do so much worse, gameplay affecting microtransactions via hero class bs locking, or straight buffs.
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They dumped so much time and money into it. Does anyone honestly think they are half-assing content? If anything, they’re too assing it, ensuring everything is up to standard. Desync aside, which I have not experienced much but I agree should be prioritized, what they delivered? I loved it all.
And yes I’d prefer if they released more that I mightn’t love as much if we’d just get more, but not at all the astronomical amount of hate and firing that’s being touted right now. I genuinely think this is outrageously overblown.
The only thing I find offensive in the slightest is the promises they’ve made they haven’t delivered. There are sky-high expectations, and they deliver stuff they KNOW we’d love. Not what we might.
Right before this, with forge leaks, new weapons and modes and maps and all, optimism was rampant, and so much future content was being mined from the game. But because they play it safe and slow, the people want them fired? An entire company dehelmed? That sounds so demoralizing to be a developer there.
Co-op
They know shipping couch co-op with whatever issues it has currently would just burn them again. They scrapped it because of reasons. Just because people hacked a way to play it doesn’t mean they will ship it. Hell, it’s their own code they hacked in the first place. But if they just released it as is, people would be oh they spent so long and it’s still so game-breaking. It’s unfortunate because of the way the game is coded I’m assuming, but it will be an absolutely massive undertaking we just don’t want to hear about. Let's keep touting oh gamers got split screen to work when 343 was the one that did, but it couldn’t match the standards required, and couldn’t without massive upheaval. No way was that a light decision.
Did we forget forge or season 3 unfortunately titled a Winter update?
Forge is incredible? 30-tier battle pass with two new maps, mission replay and campaign co-op online? It’s basically a mini-season with an entire battle pass to tide us over till season 3, which should really have been titled season 4. Priority 0 was the health of developers. Maybe, just maybe crunch is why we are used to things being so much faster in comparison.
Look, I really do love this game, and it’s really fun. It hurts to see a great game like this catching so much unwarranted hate for… taking too long to release more?
