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Halo: Reach Beta Thread

Shake Appeal said:
I meant solely in terms of Arena Ratings. A death hurts your rating, but only by a third as much as a kill or assist helps it. Getting more kills and assists is far more important than having a great spread, up to a point.

They did conceded that they might be underrating the significance of a death in the formula used for this Preseason, and I personally hope they kick it up for release.

that explains it! thanks.

yeah, IMO something like:

+1 kill
+.8 assist (currently +1)
-.6666 per death (currently -.3333)

(obviously would need extensive testing to get right)
 
Shake Appeal said:
I've got something that'll blow your mind, and probably put a grin on Dax's face:

dunts1.png


awesome.

b....b...b....but AR sucks!
 
So I hear some guy visited some forum and saw Urk post that something was coming out to take care of quitters by Friday. Truth or False?

Oh yeah, what does decide the sparkles next to your medal? It's not Arena, because people were getting sparkles during the F&F.
 
Proven said:
So I hear some guy visited some forum and saw Urk post that something was coming out to take care of quitters by Friday. Truth or False?

Oh yeah, what does decide the sparkles next to your medal? It's not Arena, because people were getting sparkles during the F&F.
I think you get that right after you rank up.
 
HGJoo.jpg


theres a window on sword base? :lol i need to do more playing around in theater mode
 
Just got my highest score of 1678 while maintaining a positive 13 spread. Shame I only had one assist though... Is it my fault that I follow through with my kills!?
 
Cuban Legend said:
yeah I had to repost that post as I was missing my little emoticonimage, done:

GAF, I'm proud to relay this message in regards to this GAF post i made, and It's subsequent B.net Thread...



I'm speechless right now so I'll just

SHUTUP GAF, It's just something in my eye! :')
About this...
http://img9.abload.de/img/halo_3_party_details_1qqrc.png
In Reach, if you check a friend gamercard it seems that one option at the top is loading, similar to those Halo 3 options... but in Reach it never loads/displays
Why?
 
Devin Olsen said:
From our game last night with Eazy, Ram, and Epic.

Sprint+Shotgun
http://i.imgur.com/IM33I.jpg[/IMG

[IMG]http://imgur.com/GLzGM.jpg[/IMG

Game Over
[IMG]http://imgur.com/HGJoo.jpg[/IMG


[URL="http://www.bungie.net/Stats/Reach/FileDetails.aspx?fid=508253"]Rendered Video[/URL][/QUOTE]

You wasted render minutes on a game of 3v4? For shame.
 
op_ivy said:
that explains it! thanks.

yeah, IMO something like:

+1 kill
+.8 assist (currently +1)
-.6666 per death (currently -.3333)

(obviously would need extensive testing to get right)
I could agree with this. Maybe 0.9 of a kill for an assist and -0.5 for a death.

op_ivy said:
awesome.

b....b...b....but AR sucks!
To be fair, when you check his stats, the goddamned shotgun is two kills behind. :lol
 
GhaleonEB said:
Invasion tomorrow. Gotta work on my DMR usage tonight to get ready. I think I'm going to brave The Arena for a bit tonight. Last night's ~1200 performance wasn't so hot. gulp.

bleh. Would love to play, GF decided we needed to go to a wedding that is 6 hours away :(

The DMR, Nerfle, and Pistol are slowly becoming favs!
except for double melee ;)
 
GhaleonEB said:
I never thought it made much sense to have two grenade types, with different uses, but not include both at start. And while we talk about grenade spam being a problem, it's really frags and their attributes; plasmas are much easier to avoid and as such are not as much of a problem. One of each would limit the grenade spam issues considerably. And I'd say a solid 90% of the grenades I pick up are from dead players, not from placement on the map, so that's a marginal change at best. It would refine, not gut, the grenades available to players, as you suggest.
I think my biggest beef with the grenades is that they are always available. The phrase "almost becomes a power weapon" was used in a podcast describing them (by a certain lovable urk, no less), yet the respawn timers are still seemingly just as short as they ever were. It's a pretty rare occasion that I don't see them in their default locations on the maps. I'd be fine with the current damage if they weren't so damned prevalent.
 
Shake Appeal said:
I could agree with this. Maybe 0.9 of a kill for an assist and -0.5 for a death.

yeah, anywhere in that ballpark. slightly less awarded to assists, certainly a higher penalty for deaths (but still low enough to encourage violence!)

Shake Appeal said:
To be fair, when you check his stats, the goddamned shotgun is two kills behind. :lol

i thought those were your stats! :lol
 
Zeouterlimits said:
Current announced end date is the 19th.

Really? I thought they'd give us the whole month. I figured they'd want at least a full week or two to gather data on the Generator Defense gametype. Plus, I'm sure we'd like to have that amount of time to try out the final map.
 
I really do think that they have the scoring right just how it is. I think that Assist should be equal to kills, I had several games yesterday where I carried my team with assist in the 10 to 15 range.

Assist and working as fire teams are a huge part of Halos teamwork aspect and they are also very good representation for the amount of communication a player has with their team.
 
neoism said:
daaammnn +536

why is that number useful? am i missing something?

Not a Jellyfish said:
I really do think that they have the scoring right just how it is. I think that Assist should be equal to kills, I had several games yesterday where I carried my team with assist in the 10 to 15 range.

Assist and working as fire teams are a huge part of Halos teamwork aspect and they are also very good representation for the amount of communication a player has with their team.

what about the death portion of the formula?

TommyT said:
I guess I missed it. Why are people saying that assists need to be less than a kill?

i guess my reasoning is that the kill is the goal of every encounter and should be awarded as such. kills are often the result of one individual, an assist never is. i think assists should be highly valued, but putting it as exactly equal to the actual kill seems high to me.
 
TommyT said:
I guess I missed it. Why are people saying that assists need to be less than a kill?
Because god dammit I sat back and didn't get killed but got 9 kills, that guy who was part of the other group of three who got the other 41 kills shouldn't get a higher rating!

(I can kinda see it, considering an assist isn't, technically, a kill, but if the rating system were "get more kills than other people" then there'd be no reason for a scale of 1 to 2000, or for teamwork. Which is the entire point of making the assists equal to kills.

Deaths might be just a *tad* underweighted, though. It feels like the penalty for death is so small that it's actually pretty difficult to get below a 1,000.
 
op_ivy said:
why is that number useful? am i missing something?



what about the death portion of the formula?

I do agree with making the death portions a little more harsh on players...have seen a lot of people break high 1600s but they died almost 20 times, it is kind of annoying to see that.
 
Ok, so despite the fact that my +/- for the melee is still absolute garbage and I still die from it more than I succeed with it....I am starting to like it.

That extra second of tension as you wait for the enemy's shields to pop, or that fraction of a second of panic when you hit to early and hope to god your second melee hits before their first is a nice addition.

A little bit of extra thought never hurt any game, so even though I'm not used to it and even though I still think SOME damage should carry over from that last sliver of shields onto health damage (just give me like 20% or something), I can live with this.

So, here are my latest thoughts on how to 'fix' Reach:

Grenades are perfect. They feel powerful, satisfying to use, and they allow players with close-range weapons to counter the advantage of mid-range attackers with a well placed blast. They also punish players for bunching up or camping. Just put fewer of them on the map so players feel the need to conserve them for 'special' occasions.

DMR should be a four-shot kill. Right now there really is little reason to swap the pistol for the DMR. Yes, the DMR is more accurate and powerful at range, but when it takes five-shots to kill plus the time for the reticule bloom to recover, its way too hard to finish off long-range kills. At mid-range, the weapons are totally equal, but you spawn with one so why put out the effort to pick up the other? Make the DMR a four-shot kill, which will make it more effective at mid-long range (which is supposedly its niche), and will give players a reason to actually choose it over (or in addition to) the pistol.

Pistol is perfect. I don't use it very much because of a psychotic hatred of the original Halo: CE pistol, but even I can tell that the new magnum feels great. DO NOT make it more powerful. Its powerful enough at mid-range, and making it effective beyond mid-range makes it the same kind of broken power-weapon as the original Halo: CE monstrosity. You finally balanced the pistol Bungie. Congrats. Now leave it the fuck alone.

Take the lock-on off the Plasma Launcher. I crossmap with this thing every other game, and its the least satisfying weapon to use in the game. Keep the lock-on for vehicles and jetpacks, make players actually aim the damn thing at other players.

Nerf the Focus Rifle. This one hurts me because I love using this gun so much as a sniper weapon, but the fact is its equally brutal against mid-range and even close-range players. I have no idea how to fix the weapon to keep it effective at long-range and make it more manageable at mid-range or short-range. Good luck Bungie, I hope you figure it out...

Make the AR slightly more accurate. Self-explanatory, tighten up the reticule abit. Not as tight as the pistol or the DMR obviously, but a little tighter than it currently is. Make it 10% to 20% more accurate and reward trigger-feathering more, and its a perfect close-range spawn weapon.

That's all I got.
 
If you put too much weight on deaths, then people won't even move around the map, it would be terrible.

Focus Rifle has way too much ammo, and it's stupidly easy to use at close range, just bring the beam rifle back. :lol
 
Pookaki said:
That's how many more times he has killed someone with the magnum, against how many times he has died from it.

His is +536

i understand that, i just dont see how it communicates anything of value to the player. maybe i'm just being dense.

Ramirez said:
If you put too much weight on deaths, then people won't even move around the map, it would be terrible.

its certainly a balancing act, and i'm not sure where that balance is, but i think its definitely somewhere where there is a stiffer penalty for dying.
 
WJD said:
I miss VIP :(

Then again, I must have been one of the few people that actually liked that gametype.

Custom VIP gametype:

One team has a VIP to defend. The VIP spawns with a plasma pistol and cannot kill anyone (with the exception of an assassination or execution) If I can, I would allow the VIP to use plasma overcharge to take out enemy shields. I'm uncertain about what AAs I'd allow for the VIP.

The attacking team must kill that VIP. The only way to kill the VIP is with an execution.

The defending team gains points when their VIP reaches destinations. There are five destinations per round. The round ends when/if the attacking team kills the VIP or the VIP reaches all destinations.

Serious question, you being someone who likes VIP, does that gametype sound fun? Others are welcome to answer.
 
op_ivy said:
i understand that, i just dont see how it communicates anything of value to the player. maybe i'm just being dense.
Not of very much value, if you ask me. What would be more valuable, is if it showed how many times you died while wielding that particular weapon.
 
Raide said:
I think it might be the most awesome animation for an assassination. I do hope they have a wider variety for release but the air takedown is just awesome to see.

I really want an air to jetpack assassination where you stab a knife in the pack and they go out of control and slam into the ground. :lol
 
Zapperkhan said:
Zapperkhan.png

Melee defense force. Slowly getting back into it after 2 years off of Halo. Should be able to get up to my 1.4 kdr from H3.

Represent brother represent.

Still not a fan of the new melee system but oh well.
 
I don't understand armor lock really. If I stand behind someone using it, and punch him in the back as soon as he goes out of it, why doesn't he die?
 
TommyT said:
I guess I missed it. Why are people saying that assists need to be less than a kill?
My core argument is that the Arena is about individual performance, even thought it is played as a team game. The game is primarily about kills, and the scoring should reflect this. The kill is the primary unit of victory, and players should be rewarded for racking up those units above all else. An assist is a great thing, but it needs to be of (very, very) slightly less value than a kill. I say 'very, very', because rewarding assists is obviously essential to fostering teamplay and communication. And all of this is dependent, obviously, on how an 'assist' is counted.

Anyway, I wouldn't mind if assists were left untouched. I am far more worried about the current weighting of deaths, which would seem to encourage rambo plays and traded deaths that that don't help the team win, but do serve to boost the individual's kills. It's a tightrope to walk between that and encouraging conservative camping, but I think they're teetering too far to one side at the moment.
 
Tashi0106 said:
When I think about it, I'm not sure that the grenades are too strong. We're just getting hit by them more often. Maybe it's the maps and how you're fighting in tight spaces most of the time, especially Swordbase. Maybe there's some other new characteristic that I just can't put my finger on.

I think you're probably right. Think about any game on Orbital...I always feel like I'm dying by grenades in enclosed spaces. I bet everyone wont mind the grenades so much in the big open spaces that we'll see in Invasion. I think they're a bit strong right now but I want to try more maps and gametypes.
 
pringles said:
I don't understand armor lock really. If I stand behind someone using it, and punch him in the back as soon as he goes out of it, why doesn't he die?
Because he's probably rotated his 3rd person view to face you while in AL. I'm assuming he'd pop out of it looking right at you.
 
op_ivy said:
i guess my reasoning is that the kill is the goal of every encounter and should be awarded as such. kills are often the result of one individual, an assist never is. i think assists should be highly valued, but putting it as exactly equal to the actual kill seems high to me.

Kills aren't the only goal (see: KotH, CTF, etc.) whenever you see someone. During high level play for team games you still shoot people even if you can't get the kill because a team mate might be able to, or you make them hide until their shields recharge. People would be up in arms if they got someone to 1 red health bar and someone else farted on them and they died. :lol

Ramirez said:
If you put too much weight on deaths, then people won't even move around the map, it would be terrible.

Let me just put this here for you:
Mo0 said:
Because god dammit I sat back and didn't get killed but got 9 kills...

:D
 
Church RvB said:
Custom VIP gametype:

One team has a VIP to defend. The VIP spawns with a plasma pistol and cannot kill anyone (with the exception of an assassination or execution) If I can, I would allow the VIP to use plasma overcharge to take out enemy shields. I'm uncertain about what AAs I'd allow for the VIP.

The attacking team must kill that VIP. The only way to kill the VIP is with an execution.

The defending team gains points when their VIP reaches destinations. There are five destinations per round. The round ends when/if the attacking team kills the VIP or the VIP reaches all destinations.

Serious question, you being someone who likes VIP, does that gametype sound fun? Others are welcome to answer.

Sounds good, but I don't know how practical it would be having to kill via execution - we all know how inane the melee battles during Rocket Race ended up being when all you could do was Assassinate. Maybe if you could only kill the VIP with beatdowns?

I'd have to play it to really assess though :lol
 
Presco said:
I think you're probably right. Think about any game on Orbital...I always feel like I'm dying by grenades in enclosed spaces. I bet everyone wont mind the grenades so much in the big open spaces that we'll see in Invasion. I think they're a bit strong right now but I want to try more maps and gametypes.

Also because people are starting to understand spawn points, desirable paths, etc. As soon as I spawn on Swordbase as red I delay throw a grenade for someone rushing sniper. On Powerhouse, it's the same when I spawn as blue and I want the hammer.
 
dslgunstar said:
Ok, so despite the fact that my +/- for the melee is still absolute garbage and I still die from it more than I succeed with it....I am starting to like it.

That extra second of tension as you wait for the enemy's shields to pop, or that fraction of a second of panic when you hit to early and hope to god your second melee hits before their first is a nice addition.

A little bit of extra thought never hurt any game, so even though I'm not used to it and even though I still think SOME damage should carry over from that last sliver of shields onto health damage (just give me like 20% or something), I can live with this.

So, here are my latest thoughts on how to 'fix' Reach:

Grenades are perfect. They feel powerful, satisfying to use, and they allow players with close-range weapons to counter the advantage of mid-range attackers with a well placed blast. They also punish players for bunching up or camping. Just put fewer of them on the map so players feel the need to conserve them for 'special' occasions.

DMR should be a four-shot kill. Right now there really is little reason to swap the pistol for the DMR. Yes, the DMR is more accurate and powerful at range, but when it takes five-shots to kill plus the time for the reticule bloom to recover, its way too hard to finish off long-range kills. At mid-range, the weapons are totally equal, but you spawn with one so why put out the effort to pick up the other? Make the DMR a four-shot kill, which will make it more effective at mid-long range (which is supposedly its niche), and will give players a reason to actually choose it over (or in addition to) the pistol.

Pistol is perfect. I don't use it very much because of a psychotic hatred of the original Halo: CE pistol, but even I can tell that the new magnum feels great. DO NOT make it more powerful. Its powerful enough at mid-range, and making it effective beyond mid-range makes it the same kind of broken power-weapon as the original Halo: CE monstrosity. You finally balanced the pistol Bungie. Congrats. Now leave it the fuck alone.

Take the lock-on off the Plasma Launcher. I crossmap with this thing every other game, and its the least satisfying weapon to use in the game. Keep the lock-on for vehicles and jetpacks, make players actually aim the damn thing at other players.

Nerf the Focus Rifle. This one hurts me because I love using this gun so much as a sniper weapon, but the fact is its equally brutal against mid-range and even close-range players. I have no idea how to fix the weapon to keep it effective at long-range and make it more manageable at mid-range or short-range. Good luck Bungie, I hope you figure it out...

Make the AR slightly more accurate. Self-explanatory, tighten up the reticule abit. Not as tight as the pistol or the DMR obviously, but a little tighter than it currently is. Make it 10% to 20% more accurate and reward trigger-feathering more, and its a perfect close-range spawn weapon.

That's all I got.

Agree for the most part, although I think grenades need to bee toned down a bit, or at least make their splash damage less, your first thought should be "shoot" when you see a guy down the hall not "throw a grenade at him!"

I like your suggestion for the AR, in Halo 3 my most kills were with the AR in Reach it feels less powerful, I think it needs to do a bit more damage too.

Agree with DMR, and I would add Needle Rifle needs to be one less as well. I see why they thought to add a shot going from BR to DMR, but now that we all have armor abilities and people can sprint away, the DMR equaling what the BR did in Halo 3 would actually be balanced.

Agree with focus rifle, although I am terrible with that thing when people start jumping around. :lol Also agree with having lock on only for vehicles and jetpacks for the plasma launcher.
 
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