I usually don't make big post in here, but Mr. B Natural made a excellent post that had some points that have been sitting in the back of my mind...
Mr. B Natural said:
Stuff like this rating system worries me that I'll be tired of Reach as quickly as Halo 3. Bungie's got too loud of a minority fanbase that treats this game like some psuedo-sport (which it isn't and never will be.) If anything, Halo was the definitive casual fps. Just get some friends over and play and watch the hours disappear. That's what made it such a super hit 10 years ago.
Yes I miss the Halo CE LAN party days... things were serious when we got together to play, but the atmosphere was casual. I don't like how the game is treated like a sport either, cause it does take away from the fun when you make it so competitive. I don't play video games for a competitive thrill, and the majority of console owners don't, I personally have enough competition to deal with in my job that I don't want to come home and have to deal with more of it... especially from some 10 year old kid with irresponsible parents.
Mr. B Natural said:
People play games for fun. Matchmaking should be fast first, and concerned about "balance" later. If I want to leave after the game because the game isn't balanced enough for my enjoyment, then I will leave on my own behalf. I don't need mr. computer to do that for me. What I need is mr. computer to get me in a game asap so i can have fun.
Matchmaking in my opinion is what has killed gametypes like Big Team Battle due to the long wait to find a game. Everyone can complain about lag, but most of the BTB games I played were fine and only a few were really bad, due mostly to poor host selection because of a limited pool of people to pick a host from due again to the long wait for games. I was so upset to see ranked BTB go away in both Halo 2 & 3, cause when it went to social you pretty much are required to roll with a full crew or expect to have half your team quit... and the guest option is a waste of space IMO.
Mr. B Natural said:
I don't need mr. computer to give everyone incentive to take this crap too seriously. It's a game. Don't put emphasis on what number rank I am or whatever. Being good at the game should be reward enough for being good at the game. At most, give me a pat on the back, an aesthetic reward, the ability to save my amazing "skillz" in a file when I do good. Go ahead and give me incentive to have fun...not incentive to take the game too seriously (not fun). If I want to start a league or clan and take it to the next level of competitiveness, I will.
I think the new system with selecting options for the type of player you are is better than the ranking, cause I do think the majority of the population or at least the ones I originally played Halo CE with play this game for FUN. Out of the 16+ people I know from my Halo CE days, not one of them still plays Halo, the Halo 2 & 3 online experience killed it for them and any attempt at a LAN party always fails because they are playing other games online.
Mr. B Natural said:
Halo 1 is still my (and a lot of people's) favorite halo game. One thing that made it so great is that it didn't count anything. You played with your friends, you had fun. It was as competitive as you want it to be, not what bungie thinks you think it should be.
Halo CE was innocent... everyone who played it, enjoyed it in their own little world. XBOX Live introduced us to the assholes of the world that play video games to compensate for other short comings in their life. Yes you can avoid these people by muting them or playing with friends, but sometimes if you really have the itch to play you have to play with those people.
Mr. B Natural said:
And before people say "well, you don't have to pay attention to rank/league"...yes, you kinda do. Even if you don't, too many people you play with certainly will. It's the only number that defines you when you play the game. Imagine in COD (or any game for that matter) your KDR was put right in front of your name in a matchmaking lobby and everyone else can see your stats with one button press. What would happen? People will start to take their KDR super seriously...even more so than usual. It's completely psychological. This is Xbox Live here. People take games seriously enough without your data being flaunted. Your stats are what define you in Halo and has made it a worse game.
I honeslty love the stats feature on Bungie.net. Showing stats at the end of the game is cool too (
Halo CE did it at much more limited scope), but I agree with the example of throwing KDR up and what kind of affect that would have. The ranks in Halo 2/3 really killed the fun at times, ultimately keeping them hidden would be the best solution or going to a simple system like other games where your rank is more a veteran label then a skill label.
As of late I've been paying a lot of Battlefiled: Bad Company 2, and while I love the single player campaign due to the very dynamic and real-world like characters the multiplayer is why I bought the game. The huge plus to Bad Compnay mutliplayer is how fast games are pulled together, yes you keep playing with the same people over and over, but if you don't like someone on the other team or your team you just leave and spool up for another game. You have zero downtime and that makes the hours fly by and you really get lost in the games. Halo on the other hand... even in social matchmaking you have the possible 1-3 and even sometimes 5-10 min breaks between games where you are "searching" for a match. That kills the flow and ends up making people look at the clock and realize "oh crap it's midnight, I need to go to bed" or "wow... I wasted 30-45 min tonight just searching for a game to play".
I'm still going to play Halo either way. I love the gameplay and the visual style, but ultimately the amount of time I spend playing it depends on what my friends are doing. I'm not going to go dig my head in the sand and play Halo without my friends when they are playing Battlefield, CoD or whatever the flavor of the month game is.
I just hope that XBOX Live finally decides to allow the friends list size to increase, because I'm picky about who I add to my list, but most everyone else I try to add who I enjoy playing Halo with seems to have a full friends list...
I will add one more thing... the greatest Halo online experience I ever had was during the early access Halo 3 Beta. I was lucky enough to pick up a F&F invite and those first few days were amazing... it was like Bungie magically weeded out all the jerks and hand picked all the awesome people. When the games ended and someone just destroyed us you always heard laughs about what happen and both teams saying "great game"... that to me is what the Halo experience was all about back in the old LAN party days and it happened online!