Guys, Bravo posted the competive playlist settings:
CLickidiclick
probably old.
No instant respawn.
No JiP
no guests.
FUCK YES
Extremely promising news and the fruits of 343's decision to employ the ex-Triggers Down coach starting to pay off.
With that said, I'll be keeping a keen eye on something which will be very important to this playlist and will pivot upon how far 343 pushes the forthcoming TU: the tactical upgrades and support upgrades.
Firstly, and most obviously, they can't be customisable otherwise the focus of the playlist will crumble. With that said, as posters have pointed out in this thread, many of the tactical and support upgrades are essentially band-aids to 343's self inflicted cuts to the sandbox balance; even if two upgrades are rigidly pre-fixed as the playlists standard setting, that only plasters two cuts, to paraphrase Tawpgun. The TU needs to allow a full bodied Halo experience that isn't an exercise in compromising one sandbox element for the 'privilege' of access to another, particularly with things we've always taken for granted.
Something which caught my eye a few bulletins back was the promise of a returning "improved Team Snipers" in the near future. This gives me genuine hope that they're patching de-scoping functionality into the game. I say this because flinch was absolutely catastrophic for Team Snipers. Mullered it. Rendered it practically unusable. And so, I can't envisage any return of the playlist even approaching the mantle of 'improved' unless flinch is culled. The other major problem with the provincial Snipes playlist in Halo 4 was the maps: they were all too big. Haven and Adrift need to be added to it and I'd put some forged Team Snipers classics in there too like The Pit and maybe Lockout/Guardian. New Forge maps would also be welcome.
In addition to de-scoping, I'd like to see red X's return (to go with that patched respawn timer), flag juggling with auto pickup disabled and the option, at least in custom games, to disable sprint.
They'd do well to take the word Pro out of the playlist name. Just call it Team Slayer. And put it at the top of the list.
Please just name it 'team slayer' and put it right at the top of the list. Now let's see how much the brand recognition comes into play.
This. This. This. None of this 'Arena', 'Hardcore' or 'Pro' shit; these are basically loaded terms in online gaming now and part time/casual/bad/average players won't touch playlists associated with these words.
'Team Slayer'. Perfect brand recognition; it's lying dormant anyway so it's a prime opportunity to make sure all of this effort from Bravo and the team doesn't go to waste.
Also, Thruster and Hologram as the only AA's please. Absolutely no AA's in which their optimal use encourages crouching, overly defensive or negative playstyles. And no jetpack because we want the maps to work.
Been asking about JIP for a bit now, but I see there is no real answer to how no-JIP matches are competitive. The best answer so far is to run as a team. Well, of course, that's the best case scenario. But what happens when somebody gets dropped? What happens when some players quit?
If the game doesn't end on the spot its not competitive, period. So you're stuck in a game, with a lack of teammates, and you're being scored. I really don't see how that's a better situation than the game seeking players to drop into your match to help you out.
In terms of competitive ranking, both situations suck, and neither is the best measurement of skill. In terms of enjoyment, it'd seem the least of two evils to include JIP.
And I think whats gets to me the most is people who seek to quit at the first sign of a game mode or map they didn't individually vote for, but who are the first to gripe about JIP ruining things.
It's a very basic answer: it's unfair in the extreme to be plonked into a game halfway through, find yourself on the losing team (with the other team holding the power weapons) and then have that situation, which was not of your own making, influence your rank. People quitting sucks but at least everyone in that trueskill adjudicated game
started on an even footing.
