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Halo |OT15| Beta-tested, GAF approved

Tawpgun

Member
The last thing H4 needs at this point, is 2 separate playlists for social and ranked. Too little too late.
The thing is, even in halo 3, social btb, objective, social slayer it was all still competetively viable. It was fair and consistent.

In Halo 4 the base game is random.
 

FyreWulff

Member
I haven't read all the posts but I am pro ranked/social divide.

Personally I don't see what all the fuss is about with too many playlists, if the game is enjoyable enough to sustain a large population, it really is not a problem. Halo 3 in its prime had a ton of playlists and it worked well. I think the fact there was so many playlists and there was a ranked/ social divide meant that there was a larger population who enjoyed that feature sustaining the game.

Yeah Halo sucks now so more playlists equals larger search times, but a good Halo game can support it, and having it can lead to a higher population.

Halo 3 tended to stay around 12 playlists and couldn't support more than 16. Reach had 26 at one time, which was the maximum amount the game supported. Even at it's height, Halo 3 coudn't support 2 BTBs. Halo 2 couldn't support 2 BTBes either. Heck, they even tried it with Reach, and Reach's second BTB didn't last long either.

It's probably going to be the same story with Halo 4, eventually there'll be another BTB and it'll eventually be deleted because everyone wants to play the BTB they already had. Halo doesn't really gel with having a rolodex full of playlists to choose from.

edit: also, Barlow noticed that the rocks on the edge of the island in Forge Island are actually hovering above the ground. Now I can't unsee it every time I'm on the map.
 

IHaveIce

Banned
Ranked / Social split solves nothing and just creates a split in the playerbase for gametypes.
I don't care, give me playlists without guests, good quit penalties, no JIP, 1-50 ranking and I don't care anymore for the remaining players in other lists

EDit: and normal names like Team Slayer.. no legendary, throwdown infinity bullshit
 

Ramirez

Member
Im pretty sure by the time I would finish saying "one shot my X", my X will be gone. :(

When I played with Nutter last night, his X didn't even show up half the time, his call sign would just bounce around or something. I was pretty stunned (ok not really) they couldn't even do red X's right after hyping their return.
 
Halo 3 tended to stay around 12 playlists and couldn't support more than 16. Reach had 26 at one time, which was the maximum amount the game supported. Even at it's height, Halo 3 coudn't support 2 BTBs. Halo 2 couldn't support 2 BTBes either. Heck, they even tried it with Reach, and Reach's second BTB didn't last long either.

It's probably going to be the same story with Halo 4, eventually there'll be another BTB and it'll eventually be deleted because everyone wants to play the BTB they already had. Halo doesn't really gel with having a rolodex full of playlists to choose from.

edit: also, Barlow noticed that the rocks on the edge of the island in Forge Island are actually hovering above the ground. Now I can't unsee it every time I'm on the map.

Halo 3's model probably worked best then.

As for BTB I think that was a implementation problem rather than anything else, there really was no reason to choose ranked BTB over social BTB especially considering how social an experience BTB is. When you factor in the large team sizes and inability to add guests, its no wonder stricter trueskill made matches hard to find.

BTB should never have been included in the ranked and social divide, that's an example of a social only mode - I also dont think anyone really asked for ranked BTB did they?

Halo 5 needs a ranked/ social divide but it needs to be smart about what it includes in both:

Ranked:
FFA
Slayer
Snipes
MLG
Objective

Social:
FFA
Slayer
BTB
Swat
Action Sack
Multi Team

This way you restrict duplication to just FFA and Slayer, which are modes that fit in both social and ranked depending on the players mood anyway.

I stopped making these kind of posts ages ago simply because I know 343 will never go down this sort of route but meh.
 

FyreWulff

Member
Halo 2 was split into Big Team Battle (ranked) and Big Team Slayer. Slayer was doing much better but they both eventually started suffering.

Halo 3 was the BTB/Ranked BTB attempt. They made an attempt to save Ranked BTB by giving it Double EXP but that still didn't draw players (and also resulted in policy going forward that they'd just delete lists instead of prolonging their death with DEXP). They had BTB and BTB Mythic later on, which were both social, but it was hard to get people to play BTBMythic (even though everyone had the maps) because all their playlist exp and so on was invested into regular BTB at that point.

Reach had BTB and Anniversary BTB at one point. I'm not going to even get started on all the bullshit around that one.

Halo 4 currently just has Big Team Slayer, which regularly outperforms normal Team Slayer. Which is a first. If we ever see objective BTB it's going to be in a separate playlist. They're not going to endanger IBTS's population numbers. Objective is an anchor on playlist population.
 

ZeNy

Neo Member
Foundation was set by other people who had the experience of 5 other Halo games under their belt, not a completely new studio.

Some people learn from other peoples mistakes and some people need to make them. 343 isn't a carbon copy of Bungie.

This, this is the right move. Well said.
 

Ramirez

Member
I would add Squad Battle 6v6 to ranked.

That was my #1 playlist in Halo 3.

Squad Battle was a good example though of how ranks sometimes fuck you if the population isn't there. Once I hit 40 in that playlist, it was impossible to find a match with a group, like literally impossible.
 
This is a thing Halo 4 has going for it. They don't have anchors to a specific playlist.

Abandon is an anchor to every playlist in features in.

Anchor is a bad metaphor for dropped population anyway. It's more like a millstone/anvil tied round the ankle while trying to swim.
 

Nebula

Member
Abandon is an anchor to every playlist in features in.

Anchor is a bad metaphor for dropped population anyway. It's more like a millstone/anvil tied round the ankle while trying to swim.

I was using it as in "the person isn't anchored to that playlist because that person has no specific number (like EXP) keeping them there."

If that makes sense.
 

Striker

Member
Ranked:
FFA
Slayer
Snipes
MLG
Objective

Social:
FFA
Slayer
BTB
Swat
Action Sack

Multi Team.
If the base game is good and there's a nice set of weapons at our disposal, we should not need something like MLG, or Throwdown. They were both added in Halo 3, Reach and Halo 4 because the base settings in those games were not up to par; each game they've decreased melee strength, increased the damage modifier, and increased the walking speed. Not to mention removed equipment, and heavily restricted the usage of armor abilities. We should already have a good speed, melee, and strafe in place so those are not needed to be altered to make sure we'll get a good gaming experience. If not then it'll be just like those past three games and we'll have the saving grace be the MLG/Throwdown/Hardcore playlist. It really should not come down to that.

Also I think SWAT and Actionsack are better suited for weekend trips, especially Actionsack which could see a rotation in its gametypes instead of the static set that's always involved. Add Living Dead, Grifball, Race, whatever. Those are weekend type flavors to me.

A 6v6 playlist for mid-size and larger maps can be of good use, but only if the maps and gametypes are there for it. And there needs to be a precedent for the number of playlists, 8-10 lists is something I'd look at, and that includes the weekend rotations.
 

Omni

Member
I was using it as in "the person isn't anchored to that playlist because that person has no specific number (like EXP) keeping them there."

If that makes sense.

Kinda like how most of the population that bought Halo 4 aren't anchored to playing the game because it's bad, right?

:lol
I jest
Not exactly sure why I wrote 'jest' in particular but I'll go with it anyway
smh
 

Ramirez

Member
Kinda like how most of the population that bought Halo 4 aren't anchored to playing the game because it's bad, right?

:lol
I jest
Not exactly sure why I wrote 'jest' in particular but I'll go with it anyway
smh

You just made a penis with spoiler tags, nice Freudian slip. ;P
 

Moa

Member
Rebirth-Code-FULL.png


http://www.halocouncil.com/2013/03/31/silentium-glyph-code-2-50k-xp-emblem-video/

Happy Easter, all that jazz.

PS: Dunno if the code has been posted yet.
 
I was using it as in "the person isn't anchored to that playlist because that person has no specific number (like EXP) keeping them there."

If that makes sense.

Oh yeah, my mistake. I was conflating your post with fyrewulff's where he said 'objective is an anchor to a playlists population', as in, it pulls them down, whereas I take anchoring more specifically to mean holding something in place. It's just me being bitty and pedantic on an internet videogame forum, I know what he means.
 

willow ve

Member
Missed the entire Waypoint meltdown over the GDC panel. Seems rather justified considering some of the odd quotes and the poor choice in graphics.

---

In other news I personally think they need to go back to Ranked and Social. It's a clear way to communicate to the player base what is going on in each playlist, what to expect, etc. Giving everything a trendy name like Arena, Throwdown, Classic, Inifity, etc., just muddies the water and doesn't communicate with the audience.
 

Nebula

Member
In other news I personally think they need to go back to Ranked and Social. It's a clear way to communicate to the player base what is going on in each playlist, what to expect, etc. Giving everything a trendy name like Arena, Throwdown, Classic, Inifity, etc., just muddies the water and doesn't communicate with the audience.

It would be nice to get some clarity.
 

Tashi

343i Lead Esports Producer
I will care about my CSR in Halo 4...but only for like 2 playlists. There's no way I'm going to grind to 50 in any playlists other than Doubles & Throwdown. Just about everything else would be a nightmare in heavy competitive play.
 

Pop

Member
I will care about my CSR in Halo 4...but only for like 2 playlists. There's no way I'm going to grind to 50 in any playlists other than Doubles & Throwdown. Just about everything else would be a nightmare in heavy competitive play.

Just wondering, did 343i ever say CSR was 1-50?

haha why should I have to ask this
 

Havok

Member
Is there a Spartan Ops mission with 30 Watchers? Or a short mission with many watches?
This spreadsheet might help: https://skydrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=A39C946A316F7935!217&app=Excel

When I was still doing challenges, I'd usually go to (I think?) Nothing Can Go Wrong (I think it's in Episode 5) for Watchers. There is a big wave of Watchers at the beginning, and you can just restart it when you've killed the initial wave and keep the challenge progress.
 
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