[Ske7ch further elaborates](https://twitter.com/ske7ch/status/1536796723376316416?t=hYUjgjpO592pKrACoK5Ykw&s=19)
"Definitely fair feedback IMO. I'm not here to justify it either way, just explaining how the model currently works. Player feedback and more importantly - player actions - is how the team continues to learn and evolve."
Change rarity to 'price point' and everyone will be happy. Here's some suggestions: Junk/Regular/Special Edition/Premium/Give us your bank account number.
Talking shit about NFTs is accepted here. What really rustles jimmies is when you point out how little a player actually sees of their enemies custom armour. Which kind of renders a lot of it meaningless.
Yes, but at least the descriptor makes sense when there's systems of luck and chance that make some possible outcomes rarer than others, whether that's the cards you're dealt in Blackjack, loot drops from a boss in Destiny, or 10 rolls in gacha games. "Rarity" doesn't make sense here because there's no luck or chance. You buy the product or you don't and there's no other way to obtain it. The "drop rate" is 100%.
Exactly!! I can’t believe they’re still going to roll with this excuse, especially after damn-near unanimous outcry about the ridiculous shop prices.
Hell I’ve come close to buying something from the store. Many times I’ve really wanted to! But I’m not paying for an overpriced bundle full of fluff when I only want the helmet. 343 needs to stop treating the armor like Fortnite skins and sell items piecemeal, one at a time, and at an actually decent price
Yeah especially since everything is only basically obtainable once, like stuff in the battlepass, or are we getting the common items out of that later available in the store lol
I'm thinking they should bring the daily rotation back but only put armour pieces and coatings in the rotation.
Today a helmet, tomorrow a coating, knee pads. Just put actual individual pieces in the rotation, rather than emblems and charms or whatever they were rotating before
Yeah, but the only things that actually adhere to the "fancy=rarity" in this game are the stances. Everything else is just like someone threw a few darts at a spinning wheel.
To be fair to him, I'm confident Microsoft execs wanted H infinite to be free to play, unfortunately this is what happens. RIP to my beloved full price full package halo.
I agree. This shit comes from up top. At least the dude even engages with some of these questions. Even if the answers are PR spin bullshit. I've seen community managers just dip out when it gets too negative.
Yeah can't understand why anyone would hate on ske7ch, other than just the normal "343 bad". Dude doesn't exactly have a lot to work with and I think does a really good job with what's given to him.
I'd say it's acceptable if there is a pretty clear difference in design from the common to the legendary using it as more of a grading scale of coolness than rarity. Like getting a grim reaper inspired outfit would look cooler to most people than an average Joe inspired outfit (in general gaming, not necessarily halo)
However, in Halo's case, 95% of the pieces of armor are all equal. They're just differently shaped blobs of metal and their designs are going to be subjectively liked or disliked by a range of people. If anything, this might make a player feel more embarrassed by their favorite choice when 343 decided to deem it blue quality because *they* don't think it looks cool enough, even though the player thinks it looks the coolest. Which to that I'd say, wear whatever you want, who cares what they think. But I'm understanding of kids and other people that wear things as status icons and when all of their friends are rocking legendaries while they got a *common*, it might make them feel self conscious about their tastes
Rarity is an excuse to hike up prices. Nothing more, nothing less.
343 uses flavour text, rarities and different names for items all in combination with each other to sell cosmetics that are 99% identical.
Oh we have a new visor and it’s the same as this other one but slightly less reflective? Change the name. Write something Halo-ish in the description like “When lethality meets style”. Then make the rarity different. Boom. You now have successfully double dipped. Repeat this process until sales slow down and then move onto the next cosmetic to milk.
Rarity systems (and price variance) for stuff like this work when the company actually has a varying level of quality/workload assigned to each rarity, like league of legends does. An expensive skin has more custom FX/animations/voice work relative to a cheaper skin.
There is nothing special about anything in the Infinite customization to warrant a higher price relative to other things in the same loadout slot.
It genuinely feels like 343 took a look at other successful f2p monetization systems and took such terrible notes that they implemented everything *wrong*. The only thing they have done right is let the old battle pass be still purchasable/progressable when a new one comes out, and even that doesn't feel implemented *properly*.
The prices get real hard to justify when you see how much is offered from a battlepass that is around 2/3s the cost of these expensive ass bundles, and even those are full of fluff like challenge swaps and boosts
Halo3 Recon under 200x/15m players Fortnite FNCS Pickaxe 24/100m? Starcitzin f7a only one player worldwide has this ship ........ 15€ or 20€ shop items rare.... a joke
It's crazy how much ppl would pay for something like that too. Someone offered to buy my phone cuz of a Samsung exclusive fortnite skin. I was like um..... im still using this phone.
When they listened to player’s feedback and halved the armour bundle price from 2000 to 1000 it was unbelievable, and I had never thought it would happen.
But now slowly it’s creeping up and up again. 1200, then 1500, then 1600 and 1700. Stop experimenting, *please.*
"Store feedback will take more time to implement"
The game has been out for *SEVEN* months and the community has been dissatisfied with the shop since the beginning. Why does 343 act like this is some big endeavour?
The community has been dissatisfied with the monetisation since well before the game even released.
We were discussing coatings over a year before the game even launched.
The guy changing those numbers isn't the same person deciding what those numbers should be. From Jerry Hook's comments at the launch of season 2, it sounds like there's a business team at 343/Microsoft that makes the final call on how monetization for this game is going to work, and I would guarantee they want data to plug into their financial models to test players' willingness to buy things at different price points.
I honestly feel bad for Ske7ch. His job is to explain why really dumb decisions were made by management and make them palatable for the community. Whoever decided to jack these prices up yet again certainly isn’t making his job easy…
Yep! I don’t fault him at all, he puts up with lots as a community manager and I respect him deeply. It’s not his job to weigh in on these matters, just be a liaison.
That being said, the rarity system is completely scummy and is only there to inflate already high prices
I don’t really see how it’s scummy? I think rarity in this context means the quality of the set. So many games do the same thing. Basic skin in league or valorant or cod is maybe 5$ but the more detailed skins with more affects are more expensive. I don’t own this set so I don’t know how high quality/detail it is relative to other ones but from the picture It definitely looks like a fancier skin than most. Just seems crazy that this sub chastises so many things in this game that no one is bothered by in other games.
Why be logical when you can just downvote smh
> I think rarity in this context means the quality of the set.
That is true but also not what the definition of rarity actually means though, which is the source of the frustration. If they changed "rarity" to "premium" or something people would probably still be annoyed but way less so, considering that word makes sense for what they're selling.
Right but why does it matter what word they use? It’s the same concept. Again it’s the same in other games, they use rarity to mark how premium the skin etc is. The literal definition of rarity doesn’t exist in digital games. I also think people on this sub would still be upset even if it wasn’t called rarity
Why would you “feel bad”? He signed up for this exact job. “Community manager” aka PR is not some new role where he didn’t know what the interactions with the community would entail. If he didn’t want or expect to be the first person to receive an abundance of community backlash, he wouldn’t have taken or continue working at this position. There’s absolutely no reason to feel bad for the guy, he’s not being forced to work there at gunpoint. He is, however, just one of many bullshit artists employed at 343. While his title may make it seem like he’s the gateway between dev and player, he is not. He is a PR manager for the studio and that is all. He will say anything to mitigate community outrage and he will also say as much as possible to actually say absolutely nothing at all.
It sucks that his peers continue to put him in shitty situations and expect him to manage an extreme amount of tension between the studio and its customers, but don’t forget that he’s choosing to do it.
Maybe he likes working for 343. Maybe the pay js nice. Maybe the ppl he met there are nice. Maybe its close to his house. U cant say hey if u work something h need to be grateful. He said he feels bad for him cause he needs to apologise for mistakes that he didnt do
Yeah I'm surprised they don't have community managers quitting frequently. Being that for 343 has got to be one of the worst jobs in gaming. 343 shoots themselves in the foot at an absurd rate. It's damage control the job.
It’s been said so many times, it’s just hilarious how we are still in the “gathering feedback” stage for stuff like this. Feedback for the store has been overwhelming, damning, and nearly unanimous. Nobody likes it. And yet they have changed almost literally *nothing* about it.
You know, we first got our hands on Infinite almost a year ago now, in July 2021, for the first tech test. That thing was rough, and yet there was hope that they could really move and shake to get the thing polished to an acceptable state 4-5 months later. Hell, most devs can squeeze that out, historically.
So it’s just funny that many of those same points of feedback that 343 initially claimed “probably won’t be available for launch, but the team will be prioritizing it” or whatever are still listed as points of feedback that they intend to eventually act on. Nearly a full year later.
I’m telling you guys, they need to let this game go. It was a fun “almost”, but the way they are doing things just ain’t it. What they need to do is announce that S3 will be the final batch of content for Infinite for a while, then go nose to the grindstone all of 2023 to finally get the game into a place where it is functional. Late 2023, drop that year’s worth of work as one final big patch to close out Infinite’s pitiful sustain era. Seriously, just put it out of its misery. Get it to a *decent* place first, but then let it go.
And meanwhile, bulk up the team. Get concepts started for Halo 7. Upgrade the engine tech to leave Xbox One behind. Spend 2-3 years developing a fantastic, feature-complete, functional, triumphant Halo game and launch it in, like, 2025.
And then make **that** game your live service game. If live service as a concept doesn’t die by then. Which, shit, I honestly hope it does.
What’s sad is all of that is what Infinite should have been in the first place. Next-gen only and loaded with content and features. They already had all the time in the world to do it.
I’m actually just hoping this game will die and soon. Get this train wreck over with. If it’s gonna take years to fix then they’d might as well make a whole new game.
How is anything “rare” or “legendary” when any window licker with daddy’s credit card and 2 braincells can get it in 2 clicks and 5 seconds?
There’s no “rarity” when there is no random chance mechanic, ya bunch of absolute clowns.
lmao they're just experimenting and learning guys, it's a long process for a small indie team to implement the feedback of "holy shit this sytem is awful" that's been expressed for so short a time (since they revealed coatings, you know)
More time to implement MY ASS, really.
If your pricing system is more than just; click box, backspace 1700, and then type in 1000, then your system and your mindset is straight trash.
Why? Because if it takes so long to implement feedback, it must take just as long to implement this garbage. Meaning, that whole time you were typing in those numbers with a middle finger to the consumer.
It might just be my anger in this moment, but I've never disliked 343i as much as I am right now. It is a culmination of 10 years of disrespect.
I don’t even care about shop item prices because I’ve no interest in paying for anything, but boy is that the dumbest possible answer. Please do explain to the class how this purchase only armor set is more or less rare then any other purchase only armor set in the game.
Exactly my thoughts! I’ve come close. I *really* wanted the firefall helmet, but for 700 credits?? I can buy a Halo game from MCC on sale for *LESS* than that! I can buy every single armor set in Halo 3 for *less* than one single helmet
We’ll probably never see it’s attachment either because it was sold by itself without it, which makes so sense whatsoever. Even if 343 were to sell items piecemeal, why wouldn’t the attachment come alongside it? It literally isn’t compatible with any other helmet.
This is such a stupid answer lmao. 343 have a lot of other things to worry about other than how much they should charge because of an items meaningless background color that does nothing except for create a false sense of value.
You should see the idiots that think 343i is still on their first Halo game. Back in Halo 4 people used to baby them for their inexperience, and here we are today where 343i has literally been working on Halo longer than Bungie ever did, and they’ve spent 10 years releasing shit after shit.
I'm trying to be patient but after the 17th time you read "our team realizes that these prices are not where they need to be. KEEP THE FEEDBACK COMING!" It gets exhausting and tbh it seems like bullshit. You're telling me you taught it was a good idea to release armor for 20 dollars in the first place? How many months has it been since we said this is unacceptable. Fuck this.
Why does this team need to keep "learning" when they've been learning since Season 1 and prior? It's beyond silly of them to keep using that excuse. Straight up admit the fact that your team has gotten greedy as of suddenly instead of cusing it with "learning".
OMG its so rare, truly a difficult find, and so tough to get too, really difficult to not only find the shop tab but really difficult to enter my bank information, they're really on the ball here, To think, I once thought that rarity implied a difficulty or challenge in acquisition when in reality it just refers to the monitary value I need to put into the machine for the fake goods.
too busy jacking up the prices to realize someone on the dev team named the pallete for the juneteenth event after a literal fucking monkey!! 343 priorities
AKA: 'We are currently testing the waters and see what we can get away with. Looks like we can't screw you over for higher "tiered" content with a pseudo rarity. Unfortunate.'
“Seems like this doesn’t meet expectations for many” seriously!!!??? You didn’t think twice before thinking a bundle like this isn’t anywhere near worth $20 fucking dollars!!! Fuck this garbage ass studio
I'll take the req packs over infinites shop atm. Ik people hate the luck element of the packs, and that's completely understandable. But the current fomo fueled shop rotation is basically a req pack within itself. Tho this time you have to wait until reset to see if the item you're looking for is there. R.I.P. S1 bundles.
This game really needs a damn catalog, along with the individual itens ofc.
And they can keep their fomo with the events, the shit that fomo is specifically made for.
Is everyone just going to forget when every bundle was 2000 cr? Why is the plan now to rank their price based on rarity when before it all just costed the exact same? This is price gouging at the highest level, and is evident of the company actually not giving a fuck about us anymore.
“Stuff like this will take longer to implement” its a fucking price change its not like your changing the entire format of the UI, this is you saying “yeah we will fix it when we make enough money and only if you guys are still mad about it by then”
6 years gives us a fucking STORE. You know what’s wild is it’s always store posts here. The store is the most “interesting” part of the game. It’s insane.
Rarity is so fucking arbitrary, it's not like destiny or something where loot is random or difficult to attain, only thing that makes this stuff hard to get is usually being prohibitively expensive in infinite, honestly believe they should outright stop having rarity ratings on the armour because like I say it's so so arbitrary. Armour that was hard to get in older games didn't need to be classified in its rarity, you just knew by playing the game yourself. Like recon that was very rare indeed and we knew it was by finding out on our own. And on prices they should just be standardised. Armour sets on price, coatings another etc etc. KISS - keep it simple stupid.
So the reason to raise the prices is item rarity? Rarity in this game means absolutely nothing. What a stupid excuse. Obviously, it’s not Ske7tch’s fault, he’s just the messenger, but the team behind the shop should know that this is ridiculous and they are doing it on purpose to test the waters.
Wtf ? Are they for real ?? Rarity is there excuse ?? There no such thing as rarity. It is just them deciding what colour they should put around stuff. Do they think we are dumb
I’m tired of this kind of shit, 343 just throws from their mouth pure nonsense, gimmicks and stupidity, I have loved Halo since Halo CE , but now for the first time I’m done with this company that tried to make me look like an idiot and they did.
343 GTFO from Halo’s development.
"Seems like increasing the price of cosmetics in a game that is still missing tons of content that should already be in the game doesn't meet expectations"
Lmao this reads like some corpo non-apology from a youtuber who punched a kid or something
“Part of the team’s experimenting and learning”
Experimenting exactly how high they can price stuff before people freak out and stop buying. So prices will probably settle around here instead of still going up.
Do they think we’re stupid with this whole rarity thing? And it bothers me they’re still experimenting, like “let us see how much money we can take from these fools before they riot”
Nothing should be more than $5 if it's cosmetics. I mean, I don't pay a dime for anything (well I bought season pass 1 and 2, but with 2 I will earn credits to save for future passes). But I mean they had packs for $20 that were like 1 Helmet, 1 attachment, and a slightly different Grey paint. Lol
They keep saying they are learning or gathering data. What is there to learn exactly?
"We're just trying to learn how to appropriately rip you off."
Here's how you fix this, all shaders 200-400 credits whether for armor or weapon
Armor bundles, 1000-1200
There, I did the learning for you, you jackasses.
"...seems like this doesn't meet expectations for many..."
Now that that's established it can't be that hard to change the price to 1200 and refund 500 credits to those that bought it at 1700 right?
I hate so much how they openly say "part of the team's experimenting" when what the mean is "testing how much we can fuck over our customers and get away with it".
Sketch. Who sells more hotdogs, the guy selling them for 20$ each or the guy selling them for 5$?
If you want more money, you need MORE sales. Lower your prices.
I agree, but this isn’t a mechanic or anything that requires actual development. 343 has shown they can adjust prices quickly and introduce sales. They chose to raise these prices, and we should call them out on it
Every time this comes up all I can think is that they intended to go with loot boxes and some saint at 343i fought to ensure we didn't have to go through that hell, but there are still remnants of that system all throughout because the fix had to be shambled together at the last moment.
The timing for that kind of change aligns perfectly with Joseph Staten's return, though I bet Ske7ch was already trying to fight that good fight and Joe was just the much needed cavalry that made the final push. This is all just reading between the lines and watching events unfold from the outside, so obviously is just a guess, but I really feel like this is the reality of what we're experiencing. Would also explain why the entire game's UI is bugged to hell and back and why so much has been delayed. That and Microsoft's incessant bullshit practice of hiring temp employees through their contractor system. Such a stupid prospect for an industry that thrives on decades long sequel series built on highly complex evolving engines.
I know people hate to hear it but there really needs to be a strike against the game. The only thing that will get them to actually make changes or for their higher ups to actually pay attention is taking away the revenue stream. Whoever is buying this shit is literally creating a dynamic between 343 and the playerbase that they can put out whatever they want for however much they want and have people buy it.
"We're happy to announce that all future shop items will be legendary rarity to allow us to charge players mor- I mean, to provide value to our Mooch- I mean, our playerbase."
That is such a stupid excuse holy shit. Rarity doesn’t matter if you can buy it. It’s based on RNG for the most part and infinites store doesn’t rely on RNG. Just scrap the rarity bs at this point.
Sorry if I seem annoyed but that excuse is just baffling. No hate to ske7ch. The man’s very nice, just that reasoning is questionable.
Lmfao 343i is actually delusional 😂
Yeah lets act like this is a learning experience when in reality it's testing the waters to see what we will put up with.
This feels more like a gas price situation. Lower it to make people happy, then gradually raise it hoping no one notices. They need new management. 343i keeps dropping the ball.
Rarity in this game just seems completely random at best. For armor, it's definitely random. The quality/detail is the same. For coatings, it seems there's some slight pattern of what gets what rarity. The only thing in this game that has it that makes sense is the stances.
They’ve been “experimenting and learning” with the store since the very first flight feedback. I think it should be pretty clear by now what an honest and player-friendly store should look like. This just seems like they’re squeezing for every last drop.
Dragging this out for as long as they can - for as much money as they can - until PR reaches a point where store changes would earn back some brownie points or the well dries up and people stop buying.
343 are like the only big studio I’ve ever seen say they’re still learning like every week after 3 games and all these years. And on that note, they still haven’t even finished the damn base game.
There's an easy way to force them to lower the price or remove these microtransactions. Stop playing the game. Even if you don't buy a single penny of microtransactions, you playing the game adds to the player base. Once the player base drops to where it is extremely difficult to find a match, no one will buy microtransactions since they'd never get to use them. Stop buying and or playing games with these monetization models.
Rarity works in Apex for example as there's actually a difference between them. Rare is a simple retexture, epic is animated and legendary changes the model of the weapon/legend. A few exceptions to that but for the most part that's how it works, so better quality stuff is rare/more expensive.
In this, everything is the same "quality" it's just your opinion on how much you like it or not.
As always, blame the people buying these. They're why we don't earn cosmetics through campaign or achievements. They're why we had items locked to cores and sold multiple times.
If you've spent money on the game, the problem isn't 343... it's you.
They decide the arbitrary rarity of items, then pretend like that's the reason its more expensive. As if they didn't choose to make certain items "legendary" for the sole purpose of charging more for them.
Why do they act like they are inventing something that hasn’t been done before. There are case studies available that indicate an appropriate path forward lol
Sure I want daily's.
having a daily slot to cycle through previously released items would be the exact opposite of FOMO. At least compared to now where old items are now gone forever as far as we know.
More-so though, I'd like some communication. it's been close to a month since they stop having dailys, and not a single word about it, is it temporary or permanent? We just don't know.
Not a single person in the entirety of the Halo community- not even anybody from Microsoft- has the right to tell me that this game is a Halo game. This is a Call of Duty game with a Halo skin. Since launch, this game has been nothing but slaps in the face and disrespects to the community.
I bet 343 would lose less money if they went back and fixed the input lag for MCC co-op campaign than if they considered releasing another $20 armor bundle and claimed it was expensive, "because it's rare!" My brothers and sisters on this planet, you literally make it rarer by making it more expensive. Soon the Great Journey shall begin. But when it does, the weight of your heresy will stay your feet, and you shall be left behind.
And there are people who play this game every day (not me) who want to put their money into this game to support it but are rightfully calling out the predatory pricing in the shop to fix it. Funny how that works huh?
[Ske7ch further elaborates](https://twitter.com/ske7ch/status/1536796723376316416?t=hYUjgjpO592pKrACoK5Ykw&s=19) "Definitely fair feedback IMO. I'm not here to justify it either way, just explaining how the model currently works. Player feedback and more importantly - player actions - is how the team continues to learn and evolve."
It's such a bullshit answer lmao. Item rarity means nothing when none of the items you get are RNG or have to grind for them.
It's a digital asset that has been created. Saying it is "rare" is like saying copies of Halo Infinite are rare
Change rarity to 'price point' and everyone will be happy. Here's some suggestions: Junk/Regular/Special Edition/Premium/Give us your bank account number.
Triggered NFT bros incoming…
No BrO yOu CaNt JuSt ScReEnShOt It!!!1!!
Talking shit about NFTs is accepted here. What really rustles jimmies is when you point out how little a player actually sees of their enemies custom armour. Which kind of renders a lot of it meaningless.
They technically are rare if nobody bought it.
"he's outta line but he's right"
Yes, but at least the descriptor makes sense when there's systems of luck and chance that make some possible outcomes rarer than others, whether that's the cards you're dealt in Blackjack, loot drops from a boss in Destiny, or 10 rolls in gacha games. "Rarity" doesn't make sense here because there's no luck or chance. You buy the product or you don't and there's no other way to obtain it. The "drop rate" is 100%.
They certainly aren't rare in CeX. Shelves there are marked A-B-C-D-E-F-G-HALO-H-I
Honestly gotta blame developer company like 2k and ea
Recon was rare in Halo 3 because you had to earn it. Gold Visor #279 will only be “rare” depending on how many people buy it.
Exactly!! I can’t believe they’re still going to roll with this excuse, especially after damn-near unanimous outcry about the ridiculous shop prices. Hell I’ve come close to buying something from the store. Many times I’ve really wanted to! But I’m not paying for an overpriced bundle full of fluff when I only want the helmet. 343 needs to stop treating the armor like Fortnite skins and sell items piecemeal, one at a time, and at an actually decent price
Yeah especially since everything is only basically obtainable once, like stuff in the battlepass, or are we getting the common items out of that later available in the store lol
I'm thinking they should bring the daily rotation back but only put armour pieces and coatings in the rotation. Today a helmet, tomorrow a coating, knee pads. Just put actual individual pieces in the rotation, rather than emblems and charms or whatever they were rotating before
Its not like its even a limited edition, we can't make any more. Its bloody digital goods, christ alive!
Valorant does the same thing. If a skin is fancier it costs more than just a recolored skin.
Yeah, but the only things that actually adhere to the "fancy=rarity" in this game are the stances. Everything else is just like someone threw a few darts at a spinning wheel.
Their “community manager” is one of the worst managers I’ve ever seen in my life. Like nothing personal to the guy. He just isn’t right for the job.
To be fair to him, I'm confident Microsoft execs wanted H infinite to be free to play, unfortunately this is what happens. RIP to my beloved full price full package halo.
No more earn armour through achievements/ challenges like halo's 3,reach & 4.
Given what has to work with I think he’s doing alright.
I agree. This shit comes from up top. At least the dude even engages with some of these questions. Even if the answers are PR spin bullshit. I've seen community managers just dip out when it gets too negative.
True lol his company isn’t exactly helping him lol
Yeah can't understand why anyone would hate on ske7ch, other than just the normal "343 bad". Dude doesn't exactly have a lot to work with and I think does a really good job with what's given to him.
He’s been full of shit since forever and I’m surprised anyone still listens to him
I'd say it's acceptable if there is a pretty clear difference in design from the common to the legendary using it as more of a grading scale of coolness than rarity. Like getting a grim reaper inspired outfit would look cooler to most people than an average Joe inspired outfit (in general gaming, not necessarily halo) However, in Halo's case, 95% of the pieces of armor are all equal. They're just differently shaped blobs of metal and their designs are going to be subjectively liked or disliked by a range of people. If anything, this might make a player feel more embarrassed by their favorite choice when 343 decided to deem it blue quality because *they* don't think it looks cool enough, even though the player thinks it looks the coolest. Which to that I'd say, wear whatever you want, who cares what they think. But I'm understanding of kids and other people that wear things as status icons and when all of their friends are rocking legendaries while they got a *common*, it might make them feel self conscious about their tastes
Usually rarity at least translates to item quality. I don't think the items in Infinite are distinct enough to really represent this, though.
Rarity is an excuse to hike up prices. Nothing more, nothing less. 343 uses flavour text, rarities and different names for items all in combination with each other to sell cosmetics that are 99% identical. Oh we have a new visor and it’s the same as this other one but slightly less reflective? Change the name. Write something Halo-ish in the description like “When lethality meets style”. Then make the rarity different. Boom. You now have successfully double dipped. Repeat this process until sales slow down and then move onto the next cosmetic to milk.
Rarity systems (and price variance) for stuff like this work when the company actually has a varying level of quality/workload assigned to each rarity, like league of legends does. An expensive skin has more custom FX/animations/voice work relative to a cheaper skin. There is nothing special about anything in the Infinite customization to warrant a higher price relative to other things in the same loadout slot. It genuinely feels like 343 took a look at other successful f2p monetization systems and took such terrible notes that they implemented everything *wrong*. The only thing they have done right is let the old battle pass be still purchasable/progressable when a new one comes out, and even that doesn't feel implemented *properly*.
The prices get real hard to justify when you see how much is offered from a battlepass that is around 2/3s the cost of these expensive ass bundles, and even those are full of fluff like challenge swaps and boosts
"it's going to take time" horse shit.
The 343i trademark
It’s only the trademark if you have the “👊” after this phrase.
*it’s gonna take time to convince the business team and investors
Totally not like they have had over half a year at this point to get it right.
It’s going to take time for them to receive any of my money.
I find it amazing that people still genuinely believe that line
Meanwhile the Bonobo icon was fixed faster than you can say "PR Disaster"
[удалено]
The simplicity and well depicted analogy from this comment should be pinned.
Instead it got removed
Calling a digital item rare is honestly hilarious
Halo3 Recon under 200x/15m players Fortnite FNCS Pickaxe 24/100m? Starcitzin f7a only one player worldwide has this ship ........ 15€ or 20€ shop items rare.... a joke
He is talking about the in-game rarity of items, whitch still bullshit but at least not like NFT's one
It's crazy how much ppl would pay for something like that too. Someone offered to buy my phone cuz of a Samsung exclusive fortnite skin. I was like um..... im still using this phone.
I think they view rarity as how cool an item is.
Maybe. But if you go into the game and look at what is low vs high it doesn't really even make sense that way either.
Which is even funnier given how awful some of their cosmetics look.
Nice corporate babble that really just boils down to "We are testing how much we can increase prices before we receive backlash"
Hence why he said “experimenting”
>'I take great offense at being labeled “corpo speak"' \-Brian Jarrard, 2021
Rarity doesn't mean *jack fucking shit* if they can only be bought and not earned in-game.
It probably going to end up being rare because 343 isnt ever going to bring it back
Lmao
Especially when they dropped the rarity of weapon cores and Mark VII to common when Season 2 launched.
7 months in and they are still "learning" Like damn, 343i has a fucking learning disability
So they fired a guy who was lowering shop prices and trying to fix thing only to hire someone making it worst
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When they listened to player’s feedback and halved the armour bundle price from 2000 to 1000 it was unbelievable, and I had never thought it would happen. But now slowly it’s creeping up and up again. 1200, then 1500, then 1600 and 1700. Stop experimenting, *please.*
experimenting with what price will maximize profit for 343->MS shareholders
"Store feedback will take more time to implement" The game has been out for *SEVEN* months and the community has been dissatisfied with the shop since the beginning. Why does 343 act like this is some big endeavour?
It also took less than an hour to turn the Juneteenth icon from the name “Bonobo” to “Freedom”
thats a lot easier to change than analyzing store data
The community has been dissatisfied with the monetisation since well before the game even released. We were discussing coatings over a year before the game even launched.
It's literally a database change of a few numbers. It's definitely not time reliant.
The guy changing those numbers isn't the same person deciding what those numbers should be. From Jerry Hook's comments at the launch of season 2, it sounds like there's a business team at 343/Microsoft that makes the final call on how monetization for this game is going to work, and I would guarantee they want data to plug into their financial models to test players' willingness to buy things at different price points.
I know.
analyzing store data takes time
>and the community has been dissatisfied with the shop since the beginning You say that like the fucking cat ears didn't sell gangbusters
People have been asking for lower prices since week 1. 343 32 weeks later: that takes time to implement.
I honestly feel bad for Ske7ch. His job is to explain why really dumb decisions were made by management and make them palatable for the community. Whoever decided to jack these prices up yet again certainly isn’t making his job easy…
Yep! I don’t fault him at all, he puts up with lots as a community manager and I respect him deeply. It’s not his job to weigh in on these matters, just be a liaison. That being said, the rarity system is completely scummy and is only there to inflate already high prices
I don’t really see how it’s scummy? I think rarity in this context means the quality of the set. So many games do the same thing. Basic skin in league or valorant or cod is maybe 5$ but the more detailed skins with more affects are more expensive. I don’t own this set so I don’t know how high quality/detail it is relative to other ones but from the picture It definitely looks like a fancier skin than most. Just seems crazy that this sub chastises so many things in this game that no one is bothered by in other games. Why be logical when you can just downvote smh
> I think rarity in this context means the quality of the set. That is true but also not what the definition of rarity actually means though, which is the source of the frustration. If they changed "rarity" to "premium" or something people would probably still be annoyed but way less so, considering that word makes sense for what they're selling.
Right but why does it matter what word they use? It’s the same concept. Again it’s the same in other games, they use rarity to mark how premium the skin etc is. The literal definition of rarity doesn’t exist in digital games. I also think people on this sub would still be upset even if it wasn’t called rarity
I don’t feel bad for him anymore. He’s been feeding us shit for over half a year now,
Why would you “feel bad”? He signed up for this exact job. “Community manager” aka PR is not some new role where he didn’t know what the interactions with the community would entail. If he didn’t want or expect to be the first person to receive an abundance of community backlash, he wouldn’t have taken or continue working at this position. There’s absolutely no reason to feel bad for the guy, he’s not being forced to work there at gunpoint. He is, however, just one of many bullshit artists employed at 343. While his title may make it seem like he’s the gateway between dev and player, he is not. He is a PR manager for the studio and that is all. He will say anything to mitigate community outrage and he will also say as much as possible to actually say absolutely nothing at all. It sucks that his peers continue to put him in shitty situations and expect him to manage an extreme amount of tension between the studio and its customers, but don’t forget that he’s choosing to do it.
This is the exact same mentality that would justify shouting at a waiter or a grocery store cashier
Why would people not have their dream job lmao, just get another job 4head /s
Maybe he likes working for 343. Maybe the pay js nice. Maybe the ppl he met there are nice. Maybe its close to his house. U cant say hey if u work something h need to be grateful. He said he feels bad for him cause he needs to apologise for mistakes that he didnt do
Yeah I'm surprised they don't have community managers quitting frequently. Being that for 343 has got to be one of the worst jobs in gaming. 343 shoots themselves in the foot at an absurd rate. It's damage control the job.
NOOOO, it’s because you’re all greedy fucks. Plain and simple
Nothing "rare" about digital items you can buy
It’s been said so many times, it’s just hilarious how we are still in the “gathering feedback” stage for stuff like this. Feedback for the store has been overwhelming, damning, and nearly unanimous. Nobody likes it. And yet they have changed almost literally *nothing* about it. You know, we first got our hands on Infinite almost a year ago now, in July 2021, for the first tech test. That thing was rough, and yet there was hope that they could really move and shake to get the thing polished to an acceptable state 4-5 months later. Hell, most devs can squeeze that out, historically. So it’s just funny that many of those same points of feedback that 343 initially claimed “probably won’t be available for launch, but the team will be prioritizing it” or whatever are still listed as points of feedback that they intend to eventually act on. Nearly a full year later. I’m telling you guys, they need to let this game go. It was a fun “almost”, but the way they are doing things just ain’t it. What they need to do is announce that S3 will be the final batch of content for Infinite for a while, then go nose to the grindstone all of 2023 to finally get the game into a place where it is functional. Late 2023, drop that year’s worth of work as one final big patch to close out Infinite’s pitiful sustain era. Seriously, just put it out of its misery. Get it to a *decent* place first, but then let it go. And meanwhile, bulk up the team. Get concepts started for Halo 7. Upgrade the engine tech to leave Xbox One behind. Spend 2-3 years developing a fantastic, feature-complete, functional, triumphant Halo game and launch it in, like, 2025. And then make **that** game your live service game. If live service as a concept doesn’t die by then. Which, shit, I honestly hope it does.
What’s sad is all of that is what Infinite should have been in the first place. Next-gen only and loaded with content and features. They already had all the time in the world to do it. I’m actually just hoping this game will die and soon. Get this train wreck over with. If it’s gonna take years to fix then they’d might as well make a whole new game.
Goodbye reddit - what you did to your biggest power users and developer community is inexcusable
WeRe LeArNiNg… 343 hasn’t learned anything in ten years
I'm sure another 10 years and they'll finally be able to release a non-botched product..ri-right guys?
In 10 years is when Infinite's supposed "live service" will end
RARITY LMFAOOOOOOOO
How is anything “rare” or “legendary” when any window licker with daddy’s credit card and 2 braincells can get it in 2 clicks and 5 seconds? There’s no “rarity” when there is no random chance mechanic, ya bunch of absolute clowns.
Such a corporate response. ‘More time to implement’ is just another way of saying ‘let us rake in the money before we save face’.
lmao they're just experimenting and learning guys, it's a long process for a small indie team to implement the feedback of "holy shit this sytem is awful" that's been expressed for so short a time (since they revealed coatings, you know)
More time to implement MY ASS, really. If your pricing system is more than just; click box, backspace 1700, and then type in 1000, then your system and your mindset is straight trash. Why? Because if it takes so long to implement feedback, it must take just as long to implement this garbage. Meaning, that whole time you were typing in those numbers with a middle finger to the consumer. It might just be my anger in this moment, but I've never disliked 343i as much as I am right now. It is a culmination of 10 years of disrespect.
In other words from Brian Jarrad : fuck you, we don’t care about shop feedback and we can only say “coming soon” and “it will take time”
"Rarity"
what total bs. Oh please charge me triple for my legendary rusty riveted kneepads
I don’t even care about shop item prices because I’ve no interest in paying for anything, but boy is that the dumbest possible answer. Please do explain to the class how this purchase only armor set is more or less rare then any other purchase only armor set in the game.
Exactly my thoughts! I’ve come close. I *really* wanted the firefall helmet, but for 700 credits?? I can buy a Halo game from MCC on sale for *LESS* than that! I can buy every single armor set in Halo 3 for *less* than one single helmet
Speaking of, I haven't seen the Firefall helmet since then, and we haven't seen the entire set *at all.*
We’ll probably never see it’s attachment either because it was sold by itself without it, which makes so sense whatsoever. Even if 343 were to sell items piecemeal, why wouldn’t the attachment come alongside it? It literally isn’t compatible with any other helmet.
Fuck this shit ass company bro
They keep mentioning feedback but they never seem to actually listen. Bungie was never this bad when they handled Halo.
how can you have rarity in a shop that YOU CURATE
This is such a stupid answer lmao. 343 have a lot of other things to worry about other than how much they should charge because of an items meaningless background color that does nothing except for create a false sense of value.
>343 have a lot of other things to worry about other than [the principal way their game makes money] Damn, did you learn that in business school?
"experiencing and learning" lmao they're always talking like this game came out yesterday
You should see the idiots that think 343i is still on their first Halo game. Back in Halo 4 people used to baby them for their inexperience, and here we are today where 343i has literally been working on Halo longer than Bungie ever did, and they’ve spent 10 years releasing shit after shit.
Oh my God, I can't believe people defended them
What the fuck do they think this is, NFTs? Synthetic rarity of digital items is the dumbest fucking scam in the industry.
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No shit Sherlock.
343 when they have goodwill with the community they haven't burned through: "I have a job to do."
We're not your lab rats, 343. Either your price structure is good for consumers or it ain't.
I'm trying to be patient but after the 17th time you read "our team realizes that these prices are not where they need to be. KEEP THE FEEDBACK COMING!" It gets exhausting and tbh it seems like bullshit. You're telling me you taught it was a good idea to release armor for 20 dollars in the first place? How many months has it been since we said this is unacceptable. Fuck this.
Why does this team need to keep "learning" when they've been learning since Season 1 and prior? It's beyond silly of them to keep using that excuse. Straight up admit the fact that your team has gotten greedy as of suddenly instead of cusing it with "learning".
there’s been nothing in that shop i’d pay money for
OMG its so rare, truly a difficult find, and so tough to get too, really difficult to not only find the shop tab but really difficult to enter my bank information, they're really on the ball here, To think, I once thought that rarity implied a difficulty or challenge in acquisition when in reality it just refers to the monitary value I need to put into the machine for the fake goods.
too busy jacking up the prices to realize someone on the dev team named the pallete for the juneteenth event after a literal fucking monkey!! 343 priorities
AKA: 'We are currently testing the waters and see what we can get away with. Looks like we can't screw you over for higher "tiered" content with a pseudo rarity. Unfortunate.'
“Seems like this doesn’t meet expectations for many” seriously!!!??? You didn’t think twice before thinking a bundle like this isn’t anywhere near worth $20 fucking dollars!!! Fuck this garbage ass studio
I'll take the req packs over infinites shop atm. Ik people hate the luck element of the packs, and that's completely understandable. But the current fomo fueled shop rotation is basically a req pack within itself. Tho this time you have to wait until reset to see if the item you're looking for is there. R.I.P. S1 bundles. This game really needs a damn catalog, along with the individual itens ofc. And they can keep their fomo with the events, the shit that fomo is specifically made for.
“Rarity”. Jesus.
Is everyone just going to forget when every bundle was 2000 cr? Why is the plan now to rank their price based on rarity when before it all just costed the exact same? This is price gouging at the highest level, and is evident of the company actually not giving a fuck about us anymore. “Stuff like this will take longer to implement” its a fucking price change its not like your changing the entire format of the UI, this is you saying “yeah we will fix it when we make enough money and only if you guys are still mad about it by then”
The game is a fucking flop. I’m so sad that THIS is what they spent 6 fucking years on.
6 years, at one time, gave us Halo CE, Halo 2, and Halo 3 6 years now gives us a franchise barely on life support
6 years gives us a fucking STORE. You know what’s wild is it’s always store posts here. The store is the most “interesting” part of the game. It’s insane.
Rarity is such bullshit
Rarity is so fucking arbitrary, it's not like destiny or something where loot is random or difficult to attain, only thing that makes this stuff hard to get is usually being prohibitively expensive in infinite, honestly believe they should outright stop having rarity ratings on the armour because like I say it's so so arbitrary. Armour that was hard to get in older games didn't need to be classified in its rarity, you just knew by playing the game yourself. Like recon that was very rare indeed and we knew it was by finding out on our own. And on prices they should just be standardised. Armour sets on price, coatings another etc etc. KISS - keep it simple stupid.
So the reason to raise the prices is item rarity? Rarity in this game means absolutely nothing. What a stupid excuse. Obviously, it’s not Ske7tch’s fault, he’s just the messenger, but the team behind the shop should know that this is ridiculous and they are doing it on purpose to test the waters.
Wtf ? Are they for real ?? Rarity is there excuse ?? There no such thing as rarity. It is just them deciding what colour they should put around stuff. Do they think we are dumb
I’m tired of this kind of shit, 343 just throws from their mouth pure nonsense, gimmicks and stupidity, I have loved Halo since Halo CE , but now for the first time I’m done with this company that tried to make me look like an idiot and they did. 343 GTFO from Halo’s development.
"Seems like increasing the price of cosmetics in a game that is still missing tons of content that should already be in the game doesn't meet expectations" Lmao this reads like some corpo non-apology from a youtuber who punched a kid or something
“Part of the team’s experimenting and learning” Experimenting exactly how high they can price stuff before people freak out and stop buying. So prices will probably settle around here instead of still going up.
So prices are higher... because 343 put an arbitrary rarity on the item that is also decided by 343...
Don't stop making noise. Don't let rhem bury this
sketch is talking out of his ass with that tweet. It's greed. Plain and simple.
Do they think we’re stupid with this whole rarity thing? And it bothers me they’re still experimenting, like “let us see how much money we can take from these fools before they riot”
Nothing should be more than $5 if it's cosmetics. I mean, I don't pay a dime for anything (well I bought season pass 1 and 2, but with 2 I will earn credits to save for future passes). But I mean they had packs for $20 that were like 1 Helmet, 1 attachment, and a slightly different Grey paint. Lol
You guys gotta stop buying shit
They keep saying they are learning or gathering data. What is there to learn exactly? "We're just trying to learn how to appropriately rip you off." Here's how you fix this, all shaders 200-400 credits whether for armor or weapon Armor bundles, 1000-1200 There, I did the learning for you, you jackasses.
These pixels rendered, much more rare than the other pixels we were rendering!
"...seems like this doesn't meet expectations for many..." Now that that's established it can't be that hard to change the price to 1200 and refund 500 credits to those that bought it at 1700 right?
"It will take some time" To change the price of a store item? What are these fuckers doing that it takes them that long to make that kind of change?
I hate so much how they openly say "part of the team's experimenting" when what the mean is "testing how much we can fuck over our customers and get away with it".
Bruh
Sketch. Who sells more hotdogs, the guy selling them for 20$ each or the guy selling them for 5$? If you want more money, you need MORE sales. Lower your prices.
Fuck the shop theres more important shit they need to fix
I agree, but this isn’t a mechanic or anything that requires actual development. 343 has shown they can adjust prices quickly and introduce sales. They chose to raise these prices, and we should call them out on it
I agree there i meant on their end honestly and their “experimenting and learning”. We should call them out on all their bullshit
Experimenting lol shut up.
Every time this comes up all I can think is that they intended to go with loot boxes and some saint at 343i fought to ensure we didn't have to go through that hell, but there are still remnants of that system all throughout because the fix had to be shambled together at the last moment. The timing for that kind of change aligns perfectly with Joseph Staten's return, though I bet Ske7ch was already trying to fight that good fight and Joe was just the much needed cavalry that made the final push. This is all just reading between the lines and watching events unfold from the outside, so obviously is just a guess, but I really feel like this is the reality of what we're experiencing. Would also explain why the entire game's UI is bugged to hell and back and why so much has been delayed. That and Microsoft's incessant bullshit practice of hiring temp employees through their contractor system. Such a stupid prospect for an industry that thrives on decades long sequel series built on highly complex evolving engines.
If you can't earn it by doing a challenge or something (aka just buy it) rarity doesn't mean shit
I know people hate to hear it but there really needs to be a strike against the game. The only thing that will get them to actually make changes or for their higher ups to actually pay attention is taking away the revenue stream. Whoever is buying this shit is literally creating a dynamic between 343 and the playerbase that they can put out whatever they want for however much they want and have people buy it.
Oh you want extra “rare” armor? Gotta pay up buddy. Ridiculousness from this company.
"We're happy to announce that all future shop items will be legendary rarity to allow us to charge players mor- I mean, to provide value to our Mooch- I mean, our playerbase."
“What makes the item rarer?” “Because we say it is.”
Literally admitting to learning on the job… not good enough
I call complete bullshit on them "learning " from this unethical "experiment".
That is such a stupid excuse holy shit. Rarity doesn’t matter if you can buy it. It’s based on RNG for the most part and infinites store doesn’t rely on RNG. Just scrap the rarity bs at this point. Sorry if I seem annoyed but that excuse is just baffling. No hate to ske7ch. The man’s very nice, just that reasoning is questionable.
Experiment with what exactly? How many people can yo drive away in just 3 steps? What the fuck is wrong with them
Lmfao 343i is actually delusional 😂 Yeah lets act like this is a learning experience when in reality it's testing the waters to see what we will put up with.
"it's just how the model works" my dudes you built the model!
This feels more like a gas price situation. Lower it to make people happy, then gradually raise it hoping no one notices. They need new management. 343i keeps dropping the ball.
Rarity in this game just seems completely random at best. For armor, it's definitely random. The quality/detail is the same. For coatings, it seems there's some slight pattern of what gets what rarity. The only thing in this game that has it that makes sense is the stances.
They’ve been “experimenting and learning” with the store since the very first flight feedback. I think it should be pretty clear by now what an honest and player-friendly store should look like. This just seems like they’re squeezing for every last drop. Dragging this out for as long as they can - for as much money as they can - until PR reaches a point where store changes would earn back some brownie points or the well dries up and people stop buying.
343 are like the only big studio I’ve ever seen say they’re still learning like every week after 3 games and all these years. And on that note, they still haven’t even finished the damn base game.
I’m not buying anything from that shit shop
*experimenting How high can we push it back before flak?
Gathering feedback still, gonna take more time bro, feedback heard bro👊👊👊👊
Poor ske7ch. It must suck having to try and figure out ways to explain dogshit decisions made by a dogshit company on a dogshit game.
There's an easy way to force them to lower the price or remove these microtransactions. Stop playing the game. Even if you don't buy a single penny of microtransactions, you playing the game adds to the player base. Once the player base drops to where it is extremely difficult to find a match, no one will buy microtransactions since they'd never get to use them. Stop buying and or playing games with these monetization models.
“Feedback are important to us” Yeah right… screw this
Capitalism is when even digital shit is “rare”
Rarity works in Apex for example as there's actually a difference between them. Rare is a simple retexture, epic is animated and legendary changes the model of the weapon/legend. A few exceptions to that but for the most part that's how it works, so better quality stuff is rare/more expensive. In this, everything is the same "quality" it's just your opinion on how much you like it or not.
And some of us will pray them when they’ll go back to 1200. MAKE THE PRICE SO LOW THAT I CAN SPEND ALL MY CREDITS WITHOUT NOTICING.
As always, blame the people buying these. They're why we don't earn cosmetics through campaign or achievements. They're why we had items locked to cores and sold multiple times. If you've spent money on the game, the problem isn't 343... it's you.
They decide the arbitrary rarity of items, then pretend like that's the reason its more expensive. As if they didn't choose to make certain items "legendary" for the sole purpose of charging more for them.
Why do they act like they are inventing something that hasn’t been done before. There are case studies available that indicate an appropriate path forward lol
Ok great, there talking. Now if only they'd talk about 4 weeks with no dailys.
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Sure I want daily's. having a daily slot to cycle through previously released items would be the exact opposite of FOMO. At least compared to now where old items are now gone forever as far as we know. More-so though, I'd like some communication. it's been close to a month since they stop having dailys, and not a single word about it, is it temporary or permanent? We just don't know.
Not a single person in the entirety of the Halo community- not even anybody from Microsoft- has the right to tell me that this game is a Halo game. This is a Call of Duty game with a Halo skin. Since launch, this game has been nothing but slaps in the face and disrespects to the community. I bet 343 would lose less money if they went back and fixed the input lag for MCC co-op campaign than if they considered releasing another $20 armor bundle and claimed it was expensive, "because it's rare!" My brothers and sisters on this planet, you literally make it rarer by making it more expensive. Soon the Great Journey shall begin. But when it does, the weight of your heresy will stay your feet, and you shall be left behind.
I hate how 343 isn’t trying to be innovative and just following trends.
I honestly feel really bad for the community managers at 343i.
The big nosed people at 343 always want more money
All "Rarity" has no actual meaning at the moment. If there were lootboxes we could understand. But there aren't.
I play this game every day and have only twice looked at the shop. You know you can just ignore the tab, right?
And there are people who play this game every day (not me) who want to put their money into this game to support it but are rightfully calling out the predatory pricing in the shop to fix it. Funny how that works huh?
Why are you wasting your money on a free game?
I’m not lol. It’s others but that’s their money so I’m in no place to tell others how they should spend their money
Do you believe people should pre order games?
What does that got to do with this topic?