The Henery
Member
MCC can be fun to play but there's a lengthy list of ifs, buts, caveats and conditions attached to any enjoyment to be had. Last Friday me and a friend played for hours in BTB and it reminded me why I fell in love with Halo multi; the search times were reasonable, we happened upon good gametypes successively and the majority of games had satisfactory networking (I have a theory that the dedi's are prioritised for BTB). However, that Friday session came after a few midweek sessions that pushed not just mine but two others I play with's tolerance to the limit. Several two hour + sessions just feeling like wasted time between the long search times, AR starts, lag, bad maps and bad gametypes; the sort of experience that cumulatively leaves you questioning why you bother to play Halo at all.
With Halo 5 releasing in October we now know that MCC is over half way through its lifespan as the current Halo. It's crashingly disappointing to consider that, 6 months into its 11 month primacy, it's already into the Autumn of its cycle and we're just moving into a position where the maps are configured as they should be and ranks may possibly be rolled out in the next 8 weeks (ranking has been coming 'soon' for the last six months according to the playlist blurbs). Upon its announcement at E3 many posters on here opined that the game would live and die by its playlist settings. A thoughtfully curated 'best of' experience crafted by people who had lived and breathed each game in their respective glory years? Or, a playlist approach that indiscriminately plopped any old map with default gametypes into MM, utterly unmindful of the three years of matchmaking data that Halo 2 and 3 had accumulated? Unfortunately the latter approach was adopted and as a result, reliving frustrations from a decade ago is a regular trial whilst trying to enjoy game time.
Where, one must ask, is the vision for MCC's playlists? Where is the community knowledge reflected in the decisions of the people in charge of this collection? If you so insistently rebuff the now cross-generational call for a custom games browser and cling philosophically to a matchmaking paradigm from 2004 then you have a duty to shape those playlists to the preferential trends of players and yes, the general consensuses of community forums. I see broad agreement that CTF on The Pit, Ball on Lockout, Slayer on Narrows and One Bomb on Headlong are premier experiences; I see similar agreement that Isolation, Orbital, Assembly, Epitaph and Gemini, to name a few, are poor to mediocre maps. I even see the creators of Halo 2, the anniversary of which made for much of the fanfare surrounding MCC, openly profess that SMG starts were and are a mistake and should not happen. Why, then, do I see Isolation, Orbital, Highground, Epitaph and Assembly appear almost every voting round in the H3 playlist, often as a pairing and even more often joined to an AR start? Why are SMG starts so prevalent in the H2 playlist? These experiences were gruelling in 2004/7; in 2015, the post-loadout age, AR starts are a bizarre anachronism that inspire the apathy of the AFK'er and quite literally ruin the experience in 10-20 minute increments. Sure, the odd poster will confess a rare appreciation for one of the aforementioned bad maps but they are an outlier, which is what their appearance in MCC MM should be - not removed for varieties sake but with a low weighting to allow the proven fan favourite's to shine and prosper.
Yes the MCC provides opportunities for fun now that MM is largely up and running. That is testament to the longevity of Bungie's masterpieces. It is in spite of 343's involvement. Seeing as they were releasing games that were already made they were charged with three imperatives to justify the release:
1) Improve the resolution and double the frame rate of each game
2) Provide a cohesive lobby system that allowed the player to seamlessly switch between the games and matchmake without problems
3) Curate the playlists in a manner which took into account years of matchmaking data and acknowledge that not all map/gametype pairings are created equal
They fulfilled the first point satisfactorily, minor quibbles aside. As for the latter two, we're just at the point where matchmaking works more than it doesn't, 6 moths post release, population decimated (I keep seeing the same gamertags popping in various different playlists) and they obviously disappointed with the playlists.
The move to all BR starts in doubles is encouraging and the guarantee of a BR start in the second slot is welcomed. Are the objective gametypes being upgraded to BR starts? That's absolutely essential; AR starts have shooed me and my friends away from voting for obj in H3 and playing Slayer near exclusively (in 4v4) for 6 months is utterly bland.
P.S H3 Assault and KOTH in BTB are still erroneously AR starts. I can't imagine it's that difficult or deprives H5 of that much bandwidth to address that issue. Also, Assault (2 bomb) is a less interesting CTF and should be jettisoned in favour of the superlative and thrilling Neutral Bomb.
