• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Halo |OT15| Beta-tested, GAF approved

Tashi

343i Lead Esports Producer
And he didn't say "We have nothing to announce on that front at this time," ?

Nah he said this. We did a lot of stuff to make sure the game is good for the babbies and the real Halo fans. We continue to support the game and have actually added a lot of stuff for the hardcore Halo fans post launch. Soooooo actually I guess the game was for babbies only in the beginning.

Imagine this Japanese guy met Frankie? Holy shit he would shit his pants right away
 
e9hus.gif

In a coat of gold or a coat of red, a lion still has claws.
 

Karl2177

Member
I don't want to be that guy, but I don't suppose someone could make this an even more awesome birthday by giving me a Halo 4 GonD code. All this Forge Island stuff is getting me excited for Halo 4 again.
 

Nebula

Member
Reposting for the new page, I want to know if some of the late to the party Halo 2 players had a similar experience.

I guess it helped me as well. I played social on my brothers account for a little while before I got my own and it was good to be matching people on my level since I was pretty bad at first. Guess the stigma around ranked play nowadays scares newer players away however so ranks might not solve the issue of the game being more accessible.
 

Ghazi

Member
I don't want to be that guy, but I don't suppose someone could make this an even more awesome birthday by giving me a Halo 4 GonD code. All this Forge Island stuff is getting me excited for Halo 4 again.

Watch Post Mordem, you won't be excited anymore.


Also, Happy Birthday
 

Homeboyd

Member
I don't want to be that guy, but I don't suppose someone could make this an even more awesome birthday by giving me a Halo 4 GonD code. All this Forge Island stuff is getting me excited for Halo 4 again.
Happy bday broseph. I'll buy the damn game for you if you don't get a code. Forge Island is awesome.
 

Ghazi

Member
NO GAMEPLAY IMPACTING PROGRESSION?!?!?!!?!?!

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME, YOU START THE GAME WITH ONLY THE ASSAULT RIFLE FOR FUCK'S SAKE!
 

wwm0nkey

Member
I guess it helped me as well. I played social on my brothers account for a little while before I got my own and it was good to be matching people on my level since I was pretty bad at first. Guess the stigma around ranked play nowadays scares newer players away however so ranks might not solve the issue of the game being more accessible.

There is no fear of ranked playlists because for some stupid reason every game does EXP based things. I mean it works really well for Call of Duty and Battlefield but not Halo....actually it was something that did set Halo apart from them, it was a game with a decent skill gap but was accessible because of the ranking system that made you play with people in a particular skill level.
 

IHaveIce

Banned
343 received feedback from fans that they were looking for gameplay impacting progression, not armor.
WAT?

NO GAMEPLAY IMPACTING PROGRESSION?!?!?!!?!?!

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME, YOU START THE GAME WITH ONLY THE ASSAULT RIFLE FOR FUCK'S SAKE!

Having to wait sixty levels in order to not flinch wildly on every shot: "Interesting," say fans.

WOAH WOAH WOAH!

We wanted a game impacting progression system?

Who on earth did they speak to?

:lol :lol this is just too perfect.
 

wwm0nkey

Member
As much as I like some of the people at 343 and think they are awesome, I simply can not buy a new Halo game if this is the way its going to be.
 

Havok

Member
Missed the panel but I would love to catch it, is there anyway to watch it now?
http://www.twitch.tv/gamespot/b/384027257

Starts at about 11:30 in.
For all of, what, 5 matches?
Here's the thing, though. They're looking to be welcoming to new players, right? Those five matches are all it's going to take for a new player to get dumped on because he's spawning with an ineffective weapon (I can say with relative certainty that the matchmaking system isn't very good at matching people both by skill range and progression level range) and the people they're looking to invite into the fold are going to walk away. They didn't really lower the barrier, at least not by very much, they just put a new barrier in front of the old barrier.
 

IHaveIce

Banned
As much as I like some of the people at 343 and think they are awesome, I simply can not buy a new Halo game if this is the way its going to be.

Don't worry, Destiny is also on PS4. No xbox nextgen if it keeps going like

So you start playing Throwdown or Swat.

Because these playlists were aviable at launch right? And this was completely his point right? It as about the progressions system, which some mysterious fans wanted. He just chose the AR for an example ;) Take the flinch argument and try to talk this away.
 
Inisde the small and large island

jv1wgCW3cvfjt.png


jbaUMmh2xnQygp.png

Now that makes an awesome Skybox! How do you get inside..? I really would like to see some maps made in there.

I am surprised Josh criticize their approach to the Didact. I would have not expected them to admit it. But it was obvious.

Yup, agreed.. I think the problem with the Didact could be applied to all of Halo 4's story and new additions TBH. I hope they have learned from it.

It also makes me laugh thinking how they acknowledge making players go to waypoint for terminals didn't work, but then do it for CSR. Apples and Oranges, but I think its still a fair complaint.

SHE'S NOT DEAD.

:lol

But seriously, I hope not. Halo will be drab without her.
 

Tashi

343i Lead Esports Producer
He specifically said fans.

I know he said fans but I thought I heard him say that fans complained about a boring progression system and that lead them to making the gameplay impacting system instead of fans explicitly saying that they wanted gameplay impacting progression. Maybe I just misheard him.
 
Here's the thing, though. They're looking to be welcoming to new players, right? Those five matches are all it's going to take for a new player to get dumped on because he's spawning with an ineffective weapon (I can say with relative certainty that the matchmaking system isn't very good at matching people with both skill range and progression level range) and the people they're looking to invite into the fold are going to walk away. They didn't really lower the barrier, they just put a new barrier in front of the old barrier.

I'd imagine them trying to match newer players with newer players would have alleviated that, no?

To contrast, I wouldn't ever play Starcraft if I was forced to play the same settings as the pros. Slower game speeds and whatnot. Not using a BR for a few matches (I cannot overstate how few this was, c'mon) helps get people acclimated to just shooting and stuff first. Then you can get to use a rifle and hone that.


Because these playlists were aviable at launch right?
And this was completely his point right? It as about the progressions system, which some mysterious fans wanted. He just chose the AR for an example ;) Take the flinch argument and try to talk this away.

Wasn't possible at launch, maybe Slayer Pro but I don't remember if that was operational at launch.

Does it need to have been? You play a few games, you kill the BR players (cuz AR is an OP POS, right?), you pick up their BRs and you go from there. New players will stick with their AR because it's more accessible.

IHaveIce: Talk what away, it was one shitty decision that hinders gameplay. Pretty much everything else does what they set out to do just fine.
 
Did he specifically say that fans wanted gameplay impacting stuff or just that armor was too boring?
"A lot of the feedback we had from fans was around how that (unlocking armor) wasn't interesting to them as a progression system. They were really looking for gameplay impacting progression... We wanted to create a progression system and a reward loop that had a lot of impact."
 

Ghazi

Member
Does it need to have been? You play a few games, you kill the BR players (cuz AR is an OP POS, right?), you pick up their BRs and you go from there. New players will stick with their AR because it's more accessible.

I didn't mean to make it sound like a big issue, it's actually rather small to me compared to the Specializations which are huge issues. It got even worse when anyone didn't play it within the first 2 weeks could be outgunned due to people who had.
 

Havok

Member
I'd imagine them trying to match newer players with newer players would have alleviated that, no?

To contrast, I wouldn't ever play Starcraft if I was forced to play the same settings as the pros. Slower game speeds and whatnot. Not using a BR for a few matches (I cannot overstate how few this was, c'mon) helps get people acclimated to just shooting and stuff first. Then you can get to use a rifle and hone that.
Do you think their matching system really works that well? They can try all they want - I've been at 130 for months now and I'm regularly matched with people in the teens and twenties. I have a wealth of combat options that they simply won't have access to for another ten, twenty, thirty hours of gameplay.

The whole rifle thing is really only the first symptom of the problem, it continues to progress from there with the various abilities, perks, whatever. The point is that despite trying to bring in new players, they've put in systems that actively work against that effort. Even just making preset loadouts that are useful would help alleviate the problem, but instead we see things like the HLS/AR loadout in place trying desperately to combat a DMR user. It just doesn't fly. It's why I'm shocked that, despite mentioning it explicitly in talks about guiding new players in, they didn't institute something like Halo 3's Boot Camp.
 
http://www.twitch.tv/gamespot/b/384027257

Starts at about 11:30 in.

Here's the thing, though. They're looking to be welcoming to new players, right? Those five matches are all it's going to take for a new player to get dumped on because he's spawning with an ineffective weapon (I can say with relative certainty that the matchmaking system isn't very good at matching people both by skill range and progression level range) and the people they're looking to invite into the fold are going to walk away. They didn't really lower the barrier, at least not by very much, they just put a new barrier in front of the old barrier.

Thanks a lot!
 
I didn't mean to make it sound like a big issue, it's actually rather small to me compared to the Specializations which are huge issues. It got even worse when anyone didn't play it within the first 2 weeks could be outgunned due to people who had.

Your all-caps post kinda threw me off :p

Do you think their matching system really works that well? They can try all they want - I've been at 130 for months now and I'm regularly matched with people in the teens and twenties. I have a wealth of combat options that they simply won't have access to for another ten, twenty, thirty hours of gameplay.

The whole rifle thing is really only the first symptom of the problem, it continues to progress from there with the various abilities, perks, whatever. The point is that despite trying to bring in new players, they've put in systems that actively work against that effort.

I don't think their matching system works that well at all. But if you design something and the implementation is off, does that make the design bad? Let me be clear, the matching doesn't work quite as well as I'd have liked.

Could you elaborate on the other ways it works against that effort? How do the various abilities, perks or whatever counter that player experience?
 
Top Bottom