Follow me on Twitter: twitter.com/Ascend_Hyperion The Full Results Document: drive.google.com/file/d/1NSLd54r9XRWq5T0Ug9HIcIzXx5sDZvHZ/view?usp=sharing Discord: Discord: discord.gg/aPWkJ9f

the fact that such a small percentage of people played infinite as their first halo game really puts into perspective 343's "broader audience" tactics for me

I'm really surprised that the number of people that wanted forge/custom games wasn't higher, it is so rare to see modern games have anything like what Halo's forge can be.

The implication of social features from previous halos (proximity chat, party up, voting, veto) would be appreciated.

One thing I find interesting is that in the survey PVE like firefight and spartan ops is nearly equal with esports in importance, yet one is on a pedastal and the other has been an afterthought for years. For me, that's one of the most dissapointing thing about the narrative events is that they don’t have any pve attached to them.

One big piece of the multiplayer that's missing for me is Firefight. PvE modes are always a fun time for me since it's, by nature, a cooperative experience (with or without voice chat) and there's less pressure involved. It also allows for engagement with Halo's combat loop and enemy variety outside of campaign. With Infinite's improvement in Ai (compared to their last 2 games), this is my #1 addition to Infinite, along with Forge. Like, imagine playing Firefight with costume Forge maps.

6:10 As one of these 34% of men dissatisfied I feel like my main disappointment with the body types was that regardless of which body type I picked, I never got the sense my spartan's underlying body was changing. For better or worse the armor blocks my spartan's body, which is perhaps more realistic but it made it feel less like I was picking my spartan's body type and more like picking whether he had a big breakfast that morning or not.

I'm happy to spread the Census across Latin American Community, i hope we helped out with the letter

What really bothers me the most is that most of this was brought up well before release by the Halo KZfaqrs and fans both. Everybody was warning 343 NOT to do exactly what they did. The fact that it was received as well as it was is frankly astonishing to me, because none of this was particularly surprising. The only part that was surprising was how much they failed. I think most of us were expecting small blunders but an otherwise perfectly acceptable experience, but what we got was a dumpster fire.

happy to participate in this survey -- hopefully it will reach the ears and brains of 343 devs

Attachments not changing color with coatings is another thing that hurts player expression.

I’m proud to be one of them

This is the first time I've felt hopeful about Halo since we saw Infinite after its E3 delay. Hopefully this will be seen and used by 343.

I'm honestly glad you made this survey. I have a lot I want to say about Infinite, but I always felt that just tagging 343 on Twitter was just not a good way of getting my thoughts across. I wish I could have gone into more detail about my thoughts in the survey but you already tweeted about why you only had it as multiple choice questions and I fully understand and can agree with why.

In case you're curious, the part where you talk about "the illusion of majority," you are correct when you say Halo 3 is not the majority here. The word to describe Halo 3 in that situation is "plurality." It is "the biggest piece of the pie," but not greater than 50%

Let's hope that 343i sees this. This was without bias and was well said and mature. Thanks, Acend and thr 17,000+ people who helped make this.

The biggest issue I have with Infinite's armor customization is it brought less to the table then Reach and 4. Not only did it fail to innovate and combine the best aspects of Reach's and 4's armor customization it ended up being a lack luster customization system overall.

I really, REALLY want to know why map design takes so freaking long...seriously, more maps would go a long way..

Lets keep the hope alive for the future of Halo.

The age demographic is absolutely wild, expected more 25+

My comment to 343 is to completely cast away with microtransactions, charge me $60, then give me missions and stuff to do to earn my gear. Not locking it all behind paywalls. Give me complete customization on my Spartans colors like cmon seriously. If you do not do this, you will not get my money and you will go broke 343. I've been playing Halo since CE and Ive had enough of you ruining my childhood game. The game that made me who I am today. Tell your bosses to listen, If not fuck em and leave. If you aren't passionate about Halo gfto, you are dead weight.

Thank you for providing actual evidence and not just anecdotes from “how people feel”.

Let’s gooo! I’ve been looking forward to this 😎

Glad to have been part of this survey.

I think the survey was an awesome idea, but I think some of the questions and answer choices limited the amount of firm conclusions we can draw from the data (and i'll give my thoughts on conclusions and my personal opinions on issues futher down). Like at 6:55, it's said 70% of players don't think Infinite's MP is what they expect of Halo, but the question didn't specify what "multiplayer" means in this context: The quality of gameplay and maps (Or the quantity)? Also weapon balance and the sandbox? Or even progression/challenges and customization even if there were separate questions for that? I'd wager to guess that a lot of the negative responses there came from people thinking of the latter, rather then the former. There's a number of other questions and answer choices I think were worded in a way that limits the conclusions we can draw from them, too. I already sent this to you elsewhere, but just for the benefit of other commenters: - You should make a distinction between 4v4, btb, and custom MP experiences: Just having MP and forge results in people having to weigh distinct things, and people aren't gonna weigh them the same, leading to muddled data with people focusing on the spoecific things they value most in "multiplayer". - Likewise, make a distinction betweeen player expression/customization, and the progression and method of unlocking cosmetics. Same reasoning as above. - Rather then including a 0 for "did not play" for the campaign, make that question optional. I think people who hated the campaign may vote zero not realizing it's intended to be a n/a - include a text field after each question so people can clarify what they mean. - The "artistic style" question being just yes/no when fractures exist I think is iffy. I'd have added a "aside from fractures" respone, or avoid just yes/nos all together. - With "Which issue acknowledged by 343 is most important to you?", I think "Amount of Multiplayer Content" is too vague: Is it just maps and sandbox items., or also gameytpes, or also how playlists are organized, etc? - "In general, which Halo experience is most important to you?" should be ranking, or allow ties. There is going to be a LOT of people that equally value more then one option here, myself included. Similar deal with "How do you primarily engage with the Halo community at large?" - "a Halo community group" is too vague. Does this mean like a actual server, or just any sort of place that talks about Halo, including simply say posting on the subreddit, etc? In future surveys I think it'd be beneficial if these sorts of methodological issues could be resolved, and I hope my feedback here is constructive. Anyways, to give my personal thoughts on some stuff: 12:46: I'm not sure I agree that Infinite is the only Halo game that plays similarly to 5: I think Halo 2 does as well. I am a huge Halo 2 fan, and I think 5 captures a lot of what I love about 2 in terms of having very responsive and tight movement, an emphasis on verticality and platforming and skilljumps in maps, advanced techniques, etc. 5:25: I sort of disagree with the idea that Infinite doesn't have options for feminine body types: What do we expect genetically and cybernetically enhanced supersoldiers in 7 foot tall titanium powered armor to look like, even ones who are women? I don't think even relatively petite female Spartans would actually look that curvy or lithe in armor. If anything, I have always thought Reach and 4 and 5's female spartan models looked implausible and undermined what Spartans are supposed to be. 14:28 I would LIKE to watch and even play Halo in a competitive context, but I just don't find how stripped down it is fun: A big part of why I like Halo is it';s variety of weapons and other sandbox elements, and when comp play is so centralized around the BR and removes other weapons and vehicles entirely, I don't care about it. In earlier Halo games, I got why this happened, to an extent: Guns like the Halo 2 SMG are way too RNG to have in a competitive context. But I think this is less an issue now, and I don't really see how ANYTHING about vehicles is inherently uncompetitive, at least when they have static spawns. Nor is having larger team sizes. I think competitive Halo is very much stuck in "their vission" or what comp halo should be which is rooted in what was necessary back in Halo 2 even if there's other ways to have a ruleset that doesn't have RNG and rewards skill.

I think the professional and methodical approach to your analysis videos, especially this one in particular, makes the information being conveyed far easier to digest and understand, which will likely go a long way when trying to reach 343i and will allow them to work with the data. Keep up the great work!

Well done man. It's clear a ton of thought and consideration went into putting this together. I hope we get to see a response directly from 343 on your findings here once they have had a chance to dig into it themselves!

I seriously wish you had a question asking if local splitscreen was important to players.

Super glad I was able to be a part of this! Had my sister take the survey too cause her and I grew up playing the classics together. Happy we could be of help, Hyperion! 💯

I've been waiting for this

God I absolutely love what you are doing here putting your heart out for a game franchise you love. How I wish Star Wars battlefront had something like this.

Thank you for doing this. I was particularly interested to hear what everyone thought about body choice, and the community didn't disappoint. I hope 343 adds more body options for everyone

I'm glad you addressed the weaknesses and potential for survey bias in your sample here. Unfortunately, I feel like this particular survey is absolutely _fraught_ with bias potential that makes it hard to trust that this data is any sort of representative. Of all of the different types of survey bias, this one has the potential to check off nearly all of them. I don't have access to the backend of how you structured the data-gathering. If your survey service didn't provide best-practices for randomization of question and answer order, there's a chance that this survey hits almost every kind of bias. _That all being said._ I think a state-of-the-community census kind of idea is _great_ to have. And you'll find that many of these bias potentials go down the more frequently you run them and the larger your sample size. If we can run this kind of thing like... at the end of every game season - or at the minimum annually - I think it'll help build a broader representation of the community. I think there are two big biases that may have skewed these results: 1. First off, the sampling bias that you so dutifully addressed in your video. Only people who engage with Halo _beyond_ just playing the game responded here. The survey wasn't something mandatory that was delivered in-game, so you necessarily only capture people who seek out secondary Halo content. There's also the additional potential for skew in that only people who use the various social platforms this was posted on (i.e. people who check the Halo subreddit frequently, or people subscribed to you). This second potential for sampling bias might *really* skew things, because a significant percentage of the people responding are people who probably follow you. And those people follow you because they like your content and opinions and share some of your thoughts on them. There's potential that the survey selected for individuals pre-disposed to people who share certain beliefs already. 2. The second biggest bias potential is probably going to be the survivorship bias. This is bias caused by not getting responses from people who can't be reached by you because for one reason or another, decided to leave the field the survey is curious about. How many people love Halo, have thoughts about Halo, and would normally participate in this kind of survey, but were so badly burned by Infinite that they've since stopped engaging with Halo? These people are *very* important to get feedback from (and are often the hardest to reach) because the product was so off target from their expectations that they quit using it entirely. Learning *why* these folks left and what they were expecting gives you a better idea of how to tap into that group of once-fans and people who jumped ship early on. For example, there's probably a lot of people who like Bungie's Halo and played a lot of it, who just... wouldn't ever know to look for a survey like this, because they got burnt by Halo 4, 5, or Infinite and have since stopped engaging with Halo as a result. Their responses in the survey could potentially change the percentages of the whole target audience.

343 should be more like terraria devs. Terraria just gives whatever their fans want. Wanna gun that shoots slimes? Sure, why not.

we need all the top halo channels to cover this. thanks for doing this bro

ill die on a hill screaming that halo 5s multi-player was criminally underrated

Can we do more to push the importance of campaign? Everyone's talking about MP these days I'm afraid 343 might cast aside the story

Sad you didn't include voices in the survey after mentioning body types, because currently all Halo Infinite voices are American. What happened to the British, Spanish, Australian voices that we had in H3 and even way back in CE? I can't believe you included body types but not voices.. so much for freedom of expression

Happy to be part of something positive for Halo's future from this awesome community

the root cause seems to be a flawed code system and short staffing. lets hope that 343 employees are getting treated right by management for having such a big task on their hands

If anything, I hope 343 industry realizes that if you do for the fans, you will get them to respect, admire, and applaud your work. So, let's hope if another Halo game comes, it will have what we need.

Thanks for doing this survey. Cool to look at the data!

Thank you so much! 🙏 This data is extremely informal and useful!

I want coatings to be more like a color pallete that you can use, painting individual sections with the colors and textures provided by the coating you are using. Furthermore, i would like arnor decals that we could color howerver we like, and put on our soartan wherever we like.

I don’t hate Infinite, and I don’t think I ever will. It has the most solid multiplayer gameplay in the whole franchise, unfortunately there’s just so much holding it back. And for me, a person who has always adored and clung to Halo for its customisation, it’s truly failed to deliver on that though admittedly there is so much potential

I am a halo veteran with 21 years of service, and I approve this message.

I thought about doing this exact same thing!!! So glad to see it done!! This is amazing!

Not even a question about how satisfied or dissatisfied we are with the sandbox?

great job Ascend.

Thank you so much for taking the time and putting forth the energy to do all of this. You rock 🙌🙌

Seeing how hard the community is trying to make the game better and help 343 get the game in a better state and just how much people want to help shows that we deserve to see Halo Infinite become a great game. I hope the restructuring at 343 will lead to them listening to the fans more.

Some points I found interesting (from my perspective): - Close to 50/50 ratio of players who were in the target age demographic for Bungie (25+) and 343 (under 25) eras. - While a massive minority in this survey, NB and Female are represented in comparable quantities. As a female player myself, I think it's as important for both minorities to be able to properly express themselves through visual identity. - Close to 30% of the survey participants in total do not feel they are able to express themselves through visual identity, regardless of gender. - The majority of participants began their journey under Bungie, so the older players are still a sizeable playerbase to consider. - Halo: Reach was indeed divisive, considering the size of responses choosing either Reach or H3 as their preferred MP. - A third of the survey pointing as Campaign as important is nothing to ignore, and given Infinite's campaign was well received, it could be something to pay attention to. - Considering Forge and Customs are, to an extent, a form of casual multiplayer experiences (Forge maps are ultimately meant to be played, and cusomts are an expansion on the couch-party type of gameplay), over 50% of the responses consider casual multiplayer to be the most important aspect of Halo, nearly 10 times as much of that of Competitive MP. It would be wise to consider Infinite's approach to MP going forward.

Have you thought about maybe fielding the questions with the community before publishing the survey next time? Would help immensely as far as getting people's most pressing concerns out there. I'm happy to have participated, but the questions and their wording as well as the limited answers left something to be desired. Thank you for all your work!

That letter was really well worded. Thanks for putting that out there for 343. I really do care about the game, and just want it to get better.

there’s a reason you’re the only halo content i consume regularly outside the game, this hammers that point home for me. thanks for doing this

Great video bro, love how you handled this and the maturity everyone showed here, this is the way to handle this, not screaming, insulting, or wishing wrong on 343

Fair, but how do we know you didn’t just take the survey 17,000 times???? Checkmate Hyperion. I’ll take my money now.

For a game with 7 mainline entries, one entry garnering over a third of the vote in any category is largely significant.

Very happy to have taken a part in this! Honestly proud of you man for putting in the effort and professionalism to this survey. Numbers speak a lot better than the comments on social media. Keep up the great work!

“Per piece customization” so that was a lie. Along with the 10000 other lies about customization. And that’s just player customization……

I was so sad my spartan didn't have a thicc booty 😔

good work on this i haven't been able to enjoy inifnite at all and i haven't even completed the campaign let lone touch MP and ive gone back to MCC due to it so this is a amazing thing to see done for the community and also very good timing within the situation at 343.

I wish I could’ve been there to input into the survey but I’m glad to see the results

7:13 My boi halo 5 finally getting some love.

Wait wait wait…halo infinite is close to halo 5’s multiplayer design? Hard disagree, it’s more like halo 3 minus sprint. Infinite and 3 have equipment

Glad we could help quantify information

Also, this is the most well put together and professional video I've seen on youtube when it comes to gaming criticism and community outreach. Good job man!

Gendered appearance is pretty important to someone like me because I build stories for my Spartan character. She’s supposed to be a perfect feminine “wife” character, but because of the constant warring between the UNSC and covenant/banished, she can’t reach her full potential as such, and has to become a badass against her will instead. I got attached to that character, and her looking like a man in infinite kinda defeats the point.

Very well done. And just to give my input, as nonbinary, I feel Infinite should also get another body option than what we have currently. I love that they added an androgynous body type, but entirely removing another wasn't the right move.

Great video, should definitely do another these types of census in the future.

Been very hyped ever since I did this awhile back. Great video and so cool to see the final results. Keep up the cool shit man

Yeah Infinites biggest problem, spartan genders. Huge issue.

I think the statement about Halo 3 being best mutliplayer and it only being a technical majority is a little misguided. I bet if you asked the community which game they think mechanically is the best Halo 3 would be the clear majority. A lot of people like Reach the most because its had the best player expression, imo.

This survey is a good baseline. I would like to see a deeper dive survey after this one.

glad to take part in it and give my two cents, and appreciate ya for putting in the work to get this out there!😊 also very iconic that the number of responses for a halo survey had two 7's in it lol

the gender tjing doesnt matter and häve not matterd before it was all about customizing master chief n arbiter those are what matters

I’m a trans woman and the body type available just looks way too masculine and just makes me feel uncomfortable.

Incredible vid! Extremely proud that this survey got over 17,000 participants.

As a Masters Student who is deep into research the format and script for this video is lit.

Completely lost me when the gender topics came up. There are only 2 genders. Male and female. Why cater to 1% of the population? From the ridiculous TV show on Paramount Woke to removing tons of content from the original games. And even with Ross gone I highly doubt 343 and the new bosses poses the skills to fix Halo as a franchise. Gears Of War and Halo are dead.

More of this ! The professionalism of this video gives me the funny tingles ;)

Well done and thank you for doing this

As a very young Halo Fan, my friends and I hold the same feelings towards the trends in the development of the series. The problems with 343 era Halo are not just older players mad at new changes; nearly everyone from every demographic hold a form of disdain for Halo’s handling.

it's a sad fact that a dedicated halo youtuber was able to put together a comprehensive survey chalk full of useful and professional player feedback, and yet 343 hasn't tried to reach out and directly ask the players questions like these, instead they see "gathering fan feedback" as just seeing what people post on reddit and twitter. As much as it sucks we do have to account for audience bias as the majority of people taking this survey are Ascend Hyperion fans, I think a survey like this actually being conducted by 343 themselves would have a huge impact on the future of Halo. Hopefully their team sees this video and does something similar. great video Ascend!

First time seeing this, wish I had a chance to participate in the survey. Have been playing Halo since the first. Loved taking the Xbox to friends with my 4 controllers to drink and party. Way better and easier than setting up lan parties with StarCraft and just as fun. More fun really because everyone could play. As soon as they eliminated the couch coop they castrated Halo. I want to play with my kids but am not willing to get 3 more tvs and 3 more xboxes. If they want to b relevant again they have to get back to what made Halo great and focus on its strengths. Not look at the other gaming communities and try to figure out how to b just like them.

As a sonic fan (halo too obv) it makes me so happy that there is a dedicated community that agrees on what is wrong and actively pushing to make it better, without devolving into community arguments or unrealistic wishlists. Regardless of whether 343 rubs their shit with this or actually addresses their problems, it's still miles better than apathetic praise that results in complacency and no willingness to change. Sonic, Avengers 2020 are the examples that pop in my head instantly.

I participated in survey and damn glad I did after I watched this vid

“Expectations of fans” we expected a complete game at this point, we expected we weren’t lied to again, we expected 343 to let us down

We just needed ten more to be 17,117! We were this close to greatness..

Mr. Hyperion, this was an excellent effort you made here. Fantastic video and project as a whole.

Well structured, thorough and well spoken video. Earned a subscriber

I like how the number of responders ended up being 1s and 7s

I salute you guys for staying on. Hopefully we can all see each other again when this mess is sorted ✌️

Darn, I wish I learned about this survey when it was accepting info. I would have participated having know.

Thanks man. I hope your message doesn't fall on deaf ears.

It’s safe to say as fans we want this game to succeed. I’ve seen so many videos that have come out in the last 3 days criticizing the game in its current state. We know the potential of this game and hope 343 will listen. But personally, I haven’t played infinite in months, and don’t know if I will until this game is in a state that makes it feel like Halo again.

more people took the survey than play halo infinite. that speaks for itself in how we feel about the game and how we want to be heard by 343.

Very well put together congrats !

This is a very thoughtful and productive way to help 343 know how Halo fans feel about the state of Halo Infinite and promote positive change to get the game back on track. Kudos; if they can’t use this level of constructive criticism to right the ship then perhaps it is time for Halo to change hands before it’s not salvageable.

Man I’m bummed I didn’t see it till right now