This is the type of thing that happens all...the...time that we're talking about, Juan. In case you're wondering.
Hey, I applied for a job at 343 (I really did btw) this summer which will help me give you the best Halo ever, and so far, 343's recruiter has been nice to me. Now you understand why I'm defending them like never before?! lol
Jokes aside, I clearly understand why no one is giving 343 the benefit of the doubt. Hell, I would be a damn liar if I said I couldn't understand this since I've been the first to criticize some decisions 343 made over the past few years and I've been there to see mistakes blowing away the community and Halo as a whole.
On this particular point (tweaking the BR), I was evaluating the amount of work required to retool the BR like most of you asked for here over what we actually got, and I just truly think, and somehow hope, they gave us this tweaked BR because from all the settings they could have thought to change the BR, they thought this was the best solution they could afford (and because, so far, I'm having a ton of fun with those tweaked settings).
And again, I could be wrong, and with the recent example of the shield in the H3 playlist, I can't blame someone for thinking 343 can't be trusted when it comes to tweaking the game.
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As a quick note about this sad story, on a personal pov, I couldn't care less about someone criticizing my work and telling me I don't deserve a job if they can argue why they think my work is bad. Like E92, I don't take things personally and I'm open to criticizes even if they are garbage or hurting my feeling.
But, from a human ressources standpoint, I can clearly understand their decision. I got the opportunity to hire many people as myself a senior designer, and it once happens I loved the work from someone, but I didn't feel it would be a great fit in the team since he was over-criticizing work from my colleagues and sometime attacking people personally.
I thought this was just because he was new and I should gave him a chance since his work was really shinning and I trusted him. 2 months later, we had terrible clashs everyday at the office, and the mood was really really bad. We asked him to leave since he was on a trial period with us, not because of its work but his attitude.
We separated each other in good terms (from my perspective) as I still consider this guy a cool dude with its bad sides, but it really hurted the the team as a whole for a long long time.
So, if they had a doubt about his attitude affecting how people would work, or just feel at work, I could totally understand they changed their mind.
Now, I also think this was just a post on a forum, which can be explained for many reasons like, I don't know, having a really bad day, or just being frustrated over Halo 5 or a HCS stream, I don't know, and they at least should let him the opportunity to explain himself and see if he was redeemable (maybe they did, I don't know).
I didn't really like his work to be honest, it was aesthetic and eye-candy, but I never had fun playing on his maps. Still, he clearly had some valuable assets as a level designer, and it's still bad to lose someone with passion for Halo for those strong words.