343 Industries will be increasing the daily XP handouts in Halo Infinite, reacting once again to the strong community feedback that the game’s system of challenges and levelling up has received. Once it’s pushed live later today, you will now earn more than three times the XP you would have previously through the first six games played each day.
The focus here is on the “Play 1 Game” challenges that repeat endlessly, alongside the Weekly Challenges that have more specific in-game goals for you to achieve. In the days after release, the Daily Challenge system had been adjusted to a simpler and more straightforward 50XP reward for each match played which (ironically) was actually less rewarding through the first 16 games you played in a day. After today’s weekly reset, you will earn the following:
- 1st Game = 300XP
- 2nd Game = 200XP
- 3rd Game = 200XP
- 4th Game = 100XP
- 5th Game = 100XP
- 6th Game = 100XP
- 7th+ Game = 50XP
This now means that you are guaranteed to level up once in the battle pass if you play six matches in a day, something that would previously have taken 20 matches! In addition to the reduced demands of Weekly Challenges, expect people to make much quicker progress through the 100 levels in the battle pass.
This is a good boost to the existing system, but it’s still a quick fix to what remains a flawed progression system tied to a sparse set of battle pass rewards with a heavy emphasis on paid cosmetics in the in-game store. 343 are expected to make more fundamental changes to the progression system as well, with countless suggestions from players that range from having overarching in-game goals, to bonus XP that rewards you for your performance in a match, and just binning the whole challenges system entirely (which isn’t too likely to happen).
343 Industries are expected to make bigger changes to Halo Infinite’s progression
343 Industries Community Manager John Junyszek explained the changes:
When we made our initial change to progression, which added Daily “Play 1 Game” Challenges, updated Weekly Challenges, and doubled the duration of 2XP Boosts, we promised that we’d monitor the data and make additional changes if needed. Now, it’s time to follow up on that.
After seeing how XP was earned with those changes, we noticed that players were starting their sessions with slower payouts than we’d like. To address this, we will be increasing the XP payout for the first 6 matches of each day. […]
We believe this increase will help address those slower initial payouts while also benefiting those of you jumping on each and every day.
We know many of you want even larger changes and we’re committed to doing so, but those will take time. We made this update based on data and player feedback, and we’ll monitor its impact after we push it live [on Tuesday 30th November]. As always, keep sharing your feedback!
Junyszek also addressed the spate of cheating that has emerged over the last few days. He said, “It’ll never go away entirely, but we’re prepared and committed to releasing consistent improvements to our game’s systems and taking action on bad actors.”
We published out review of Halo Infinite’s multiplayer yesterday – it might be branded a beta right now, but this is the full multiplayer game, transactions, maps, modes and all. In it we were rather critical of the progression and other elements that have been wrapped around the sublime gameplay at its core:
“Halo Infinite’s multiplayer is a fantastic showcase of just how brilliant Halo can be, its fundamental gameplay and the mix of small and larger-scale modes a joy to play. It’s just a shame that so much of that is being clouded by the dismal battle pass, paid cosmetics and unsatisfying progression. Halo Infinite multiplayer is a must-play for shooter fans, but its monetisation needs to change if it’s going to survive in the long run.”
Halo Infinite free-to-play multiplayer is out now for Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One and PC. The Halo Infinite single player campaign will release on 8th December, which will be the nominal full release of the multiplayer as well.
Source: Twitter