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Halo: Reach |OT3| This Thread is Not a Natural Formation
- Thread starter GhaleonEB
- Start date
xxjuicesxx
Member
No the only reason Reach has low population is noone gives a shit about getting an Onyx. They want to grind in the 1-50, especially the bad kids who can never get there. Its there carrot on a string.
Seriously MLG is in a social playlist...theres shit thats wrong with this game. Look on JTV there is almost no streams of Reach the competitive community has all but left the game pretty much. Arena populations are low and hard to find good close games in... its just a shitball of a system and could have been utilized a lot better but nothing changed from the beta to the final.
Let us fight for 50s again, introduce new gametypes in double credit weekends and you'll definitely start seeing people coming back to Reach.
Use a piece of armor (maybe that purple flame thing if possible?) as Recon give it to community pillars, JTV streamers, so the game doesn't appear to be completely dead.
Bulldoze the playlists and really start over, force the kids who don't care to use DMR more so the people who do care don't have to have their brains almost explode every voting process. Throw retarded gametypes like rocket race into grab bag, not Rumble pit and Multi-Team. These games are SO different from normal Halo you can't put them in the same playlist it makes for people having to play gametypes they REALLLLY don't wanna play.
Wheres the Reach montages in the Bungie feed? Is anyone playing this game? Is Bungie?
Seriously MLG is in a social playlist...theres shit thats wrong with this game. Look on JTV there is almost no streams of Reach the competitive community has all but left the game pretty much. Arena populations are low and hard to find good close games in... its just a shitball of a system and could have been utilized a lot better but nothing changed from the beta to the final.
Let us fight for 50s again, introduce new gametypes in double credit weekends and you'll definitely start seeing people coming back to Reach.
Use a piece of armor (maybe that purple flame thing if possible?) as Recon give it to community pillars, JTV streamers, so the game doesn't appear to be completely dead.
Bulldoze the playlists and really start over, force the kids who don't care to use DMR more so the people who do care don't have to have their brains almost explode every voting process. Throw retarded gametypes like rocket race into grab bag, not Rumble pit and Multi-Team. These games are SO different from normal Halo you can't put them in the same playlist it makes for people having to play gametypes they REALLLLY don't wanna play.
Wheres the Reach montages in the Bungie feed? Is anyone playing this game? Is Bungie?
squidhands
Member
Weird, I've only had a set of Grunts, Jackals, and an Elite repeat itself over and over (actually, the class of Elite was the only thing that ever changed). I might have to play this again tonight and see if I can get a better outcome.ShinAmano said:
Major Williams
Member
Wow, written with love. I completely agree with everything with the exception of the community armor thing. Recon was hell to organize, ruined so many random people's accounts, and I was tired of being spammed with 'wanna buy recon?' messages. How about a simple graphic (like the star) that goes next to the players name in the lobby.xxjuicesxx said:
Bring back grab bag, and yes, numbered skill wouldn't be too bad, but make it impossible to reach level 50. Even I hit 50 in Halo 3, and I'm not a very good Halo player.
From experience, there are the same reasons why all of my friends left Reach.
1. DMRs every damn game.
2. Absolutely no incentive to carry on playing, leveling up for what purpose exactly?
3. Where the fuck are the Classic CTF, and Classic Slayer playlists?
4. Armor lock!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Truly the biggest fuck up of all the major fuck ups in online multi player history.
5. Thousands , maybe even millions of new 360 owners are playing on there 4gbs and thanks to a major Bungie fuck up Fire fight, and Co-op Campaign are off limits.
1. DMRs every damn game.
2. Absolutely no incentive to carry on playing, leveling up for what purpose exactly?
3. Where the fuck are the Classic CTF, and Classic Slayer playlists?
4. Armor lock!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Truly the biggest fuck up of all the major fuck ups in online multi player history.
5. Thousands , maybe even millions of new 360 owners are playing on there 4gbs and thanks to a major Bungie fuck up Fire fight, and Co-op Campaign are off limits.
Major Williams
Member
LamenessGui_PT said:
I'll give it a go tonight and see how my country internet connection fares. I usually have a huge disadvantage myself.
Major Williams said:Lameness
I'll give it a go tonight and see how my country internet connection fares. I usually have a huge disadvantage myself.
It's still pretty good though. Great looking maps and it plays awesome with evade.
Just get used to using the hammer way earlier than in H3.
I tried playing earlier, had a quitter in 2 out of the 3 games, and in the other Trueskill laughed at me and put me on a team with some of the worst players I've ever witnessed, while the other team was stacked. The game is sloppy enough as it is, the community sure isn't doing it any favors 99% of the time either.
I really don't think this is the case at all. The Halo 3 population had a very tiny percentage over 40. I'm highly doubtful that grinding to a meaningless number motivates most players much.juices said:
To the extent that Reach's population is dropping - I have no idea how it squares against Halo 3, I think it's similar right now - it has much more to do with the quality of the online experience and the game itself. I only have my own experience and that of a friend of mine who was new to Halo online, but after the first few weeks on the game I couldn't twist his arm into playing any longer. This was back when snipers was in team slayer and the other early playlist configuration snafus.
I think it has much more to do with the game itself, rather than the carrots put down to motivate people to play the game. I'm sure the carrots are a factor, but they're secondary. I have a much easier time listing gameplay and experience turnoffs than ways the investment system could be improved (which I think is very good, if imperfect, in Reach).
That said, Bungie did make some errors in defining stuff like Onyx, especially in Arena. What you are you're getting at is there's a lack of clarity around what the ranks mean - a nebulous measure doesn't motivate anyone. The Arena rating system is quite murky, and relative to your peer group. The proportion of the population you reside in is not made clear (what % gets Gold?). It's a confusing, over-engineered system and I think there's merit to the argument that they could have used a simpler, 1-50 rating for it (and call each cluster of ten the ranks; 1-10 is Onyx, 11-20 Gold, etc.).
But I really think the investment system helps around the edges. People play games they have fun with. And there are a LOT of ways to fire up Reach, hop into matchmaking and have a very unpleasant experience.
Captain Blood
Member
It is depressing that I don't follow this thread relgiously like I used to with the Halo 3 thread. Tugs on my heart strings everything I see this as the top thread in the community section.
I really hope Bungie talks about TU1 soon, and I HATE to say this but it has to be a pretty big update to get people back. I mean big as maybe adding a few options to the game. We know modders have the ability to take away bloom so why not give us that as an option in cutoms game settings and ect? I know stuff like that cant be applied in a regular update but why not do what Bad Company 1 & 2 do and release the update as a DLC for free.
Major Williams
Member
Ouch. Stings. While they did seek the fans' opinions, this was overarchingly true.kylej said:
Very true. It's one of the only reasons I fire up the games now. I think of what possible challenges there are, and am usually turned off by the first retarded game of mismatched trueskill or people quitting out.GhaleonEB said:
xxjuicesxx
Member
I like first to 3 wins instead of all 5 rounds being played this stops teams getting 3 for the win then just slaying the rest of the two rounds.
I don't like that betrayels still aren't off, whats the point of this? You just get douchebags who kill you too much or on purpose.
I don't like that betrayels still aren't off, whats the point of this? You just get douchebags who kill you too much or on purpose.
I got suckered into purchasing a 4gb for xmas and bought myself 2 x 16gb official memory sticks so I'm stuck playing fire fight alone.
Is it possible to get the achievements for ODST and Reach alone or is it nigh on impossible?
Also, are my stats still tracked even though I'm not matchmaking in Reach?
Hope you can help, thanks.
Is it possible to get the achievements for ODST and Reach alone or is it nigh on impossible?
Also, are my stats still tracked even though I'm not matchmaking in Reach?
Hope you can help, thanks.
I would go ungift my legendary statue back from the adolescent child of the acquaintance I gave it to, take it to the gun range and annihilate it with a full magazine out of a fucking AK47 just out of spite.xxjuicesxx said:
Saying this as someone who had Recon early in H3 and would have rather not seen anything like that, ever, let alone reimplemented on purpose to drum up more bullshit hysteria in an attempt to make up for the failings of their mediocre followup.
Everything around that permutation, the sub-communities built around it, the chase to get it, it was like a noxious cesspool of everything wrong with gaming, the internet and console culture all rolled into one. From day 1 all the way to ODST and the "road to recon" :lol
The blue flames staying with Bungle is literally the only thing they did that actually made any amount of sense this time around.
Clap your hands for Grifball, now everyone can play what they want consistently except for RR fans... reminds me of a game I used to play 3 years ago... oh yeah...
xxjuicesxx
Member
Well when Grifball came out in H3 it had about 300k players in it I believe I saw...
In Reach its got 6k right now...
You make the call which ones doing better.
In Reach its got 6k right now...
You make the call which ones doing better.
That is all microsoft's fault. I'm assuming that Reach is using the HDD as a scratch disc, which is something a memory card can't be used for. Microsoft's new hardware came out after Reach and that 4gb in the cheap one is listed as 'removable/on board media' or something to that effect. Reach reads this as a memory card and doesn't accept it as a HDD. MS said they were working on it but of course they are as delayed in solving problems as ever.CozMick said:
If you have a live account ya. I'm not sure if you need gold.CozMick said:
Slightly Live
Dirty tag dodger
wwm0nkey said:
It's never been mentioned, confirmed or even hinted at. It may never even happen. Many folks are expecting a TU but maybe they should wait until Bungie bring up the idea. I honestly think we would have heard about it by now if one was coming any time soon.
7echnicolor
Member
Yeah and CoD wasn't really as popular back then as it is today.xxjuicesxx said:
CozMick said:Yeah, I have a Gold account,
Is it hard to gain the points needed for the achievements when playing alone?
Thanks
It'd be a bit boring to get them alone, but it should be doable. You'd need 3 other people to help for the Vidmaster: Endure and Vidmaster: Deja Vu achievements, though. (and I could help you with those since I loved doing them)
Dani said:
I doubt there'll be a title update. The game works as they designed it. There are no major bugs and there are no major balance issues. Whether or not Armor Lock is "fun" is subjective, and if they change anything, they're going to piss some people off while trying to make others happy.
I think the game could be made way better with some changes, but I'm not deluding myself into thinking those changes will happen.
Bungie is working on another title now, updating Reach isn't a priority. Making new maps they can sell (or are contractually obligated to make) is a different story, and that involves a different set of people, and far far far less testing than a TU, so I'm hopeful we see another map pack or two.
The Librarian
Banned
Re: Halo 3 vs. Reach.
I'm definitely playing, if I remember correctly, a lot less of Halo: Reach at this point in its life than I was Halo 3 within the same time frame. I mean, I'm still playing Reach, but not as much as Halo 3.
I'm definitely playing, if I remember correctly, a lot less of Halo: Reach at this point in its life than I was Halo 3 within the same time frame. I mean, I'm still playing Reach, but not as much as Halo 3.
Don't see the correlation between the competitive community not being there and the low population. How big was that community in Halo 3? The difference of a couple hundred thousand? No. Let's not kid ourselves. Halo Reach is just an example of Halo fatigue. It's also a bit more complex than that and I understand people have issues with certain things in the game but the overall problem has to be fatigue. Even before the game was revealed I recall the excitement being lukewarm compared to the previous games. Hell, some people were annoyed Bungie was doing yet another Halo game. All this is kind of funny when you consider how many people in here are fantasizing about 343 returning Halo back to what it was. It's not going to matter. The formula is old and even though some people here feel Reach is a huge departure others outside the community clearly don't feel it is big enough of a change.
Prophet Steve
Member
Are there people willing to help me with my machinima for a school project? I need players with the noble map pack. Expect it to be boring. Add me: Prophet Steve.
I´m not sure about the time, since I need to have many people for this (seven or something).
I´m not sure about the time, since I need to have many people for this (seven or something).
I disagree on both counts, but since balance is subjective, I'll point to one clear, significant bug as an example: the Revenant physics bug, which causes it to be launched off maps, most frequently (but not exclusively) Forged surfaces.Falagard said:
I agree Bungie is probably not going to work on a title update, and that was hinted at with the Noble Map Pack: since the Revenant is bugged, they simply excluded from the maps entirely rather than fix it. It's not even an option.
Not at all. I can only speak anecdotally, that's all any of us can do, but the number gave players a reason to keep playing the game and perhaps try out new playlists. You could achieve a 35 in Team Slayer, reach a peak and then move onto something else. Then when you felt your abilities had improved you could come back and try to raise that rank, it definitely was this carrot on the stick mentality. It also forced people to vary their playlists more than Reach does, which is basically an unguided mess. This number was also a great way to drive that hardcore community which is lacking in Reach, those sort of players aren't interested in glorified social matches.GhaleonEB said:
Honestly Arena is an absolute mess. Warning signs started to signal when they revealed Arena was Slayer only, right there is a huge turn off for a lot of players. Not only that but requiring players to work much harder than they ever had to in past games to get a top rank(by dictating the times in which they must play the game, rather than leaving players to fit it around their own schedule) and then taking that top rank away from them on a monthly basis is ridiculous.GhaleonEB said:
Another huge problem, and I feel foolish for contesting this with Tashi prior to Reach's release, is that ratings are now solo based, rather than decided by a teams performance. This is a massive crutch and ruins most team play in Arena. Players are too self motivated and it ruins that competitive mentality in team games where your own performance comes second to the overall result. In Halo 3 I was constantly shifting my eye to the score, now I'm constantly holding the back button to view my own personal score.
This isn't counting all the questionable gameplay and balancing decisions Bungie have made regarding the playlists themselves which hampers competitive play in Reach.
And Juices, do you really want more Reach montages? It's just four minutes of Sniper footage against slow moving targets, maybe with a couple of rockets thrown in. Clutch plays in Reach barely even exist, especially compared to what was in Halo 2 and 3.
Blue Ninja
Member
Honestly, I'm kind of glad Bungie's reign on the Halo franchise is over. Speaking entirely from a canon perspective, I cannot fathom how they thought Reach's story would be a good idea. Sure, it stands well on its own, but it's a giant "screw you" to every fan who invested time in reading the novels and learning about the expanded universe. I'm sure they meant well, but it completely destroyed my faith in Halo's future storytelling.kylej said:
That said, I'm interested to see what 343 brings to the table. I haven't read Cryptum yet (Amazon hasn't shipped it yet ><), but I've heard a lot of good things. If they can translate the good things they're doing to a game, my hope for the Halo's future will be renewed. Right now, however, it's pretty low.
From a gameplay perspective, they can keep churning out sequels without making too major changes to the gameplay, and I'll probably still enjoy it. True, I haven't played Reach nearly as much as I played Halo 3 when it came out, but my life now is also vastly different then it was 3 years ago. I have a lot less time to play games in general.
TU1 needs to fix ONE thing for me: Armor Lock
How I would fix it:
if you use it, you're locked into it, you can't just spam it
shields don't recharge when you're in it
increase by at least 50% the recharge rate
It's basically why I exclusively play Hardcore playlists (or MT :lol), Team Slayer is just too much of an AL-fest every time I tried it =(
How I would fix it:
if you use it, you're locked into it, you can't just spam it
shields don't recharge when you're in it
increase by at least 50% the recharge rate
It's basically why I exclusively play Hardcore playlists (or MT :lol), Team Slayer is just too much of an AL-fest every time I tried it =(
Yeah, I think that's the natural limitation on these kinds of conversations. What motivates me is very different than what motivates you, and what motivates juices, and others. We all work differently.Arnie said:
To me, the Halo 3 system didn't exist, because 1) I was an average to sub-average player, so I peaked in the first month or two of release, 2) I played mostly Social games (for that reason), and 3) a simple number doesn't motivate me. This is highly anecdotal, but it seems like the most vocal proponents of the 1-50 ranking system are, for the most part on GAF, people that were near the upper tier of that system in Halo 3. And that was a tiny percentage of Halo 3's players. They want their skill level recognized and displayed, but Reach doesn't do that. Which is understandable. I'm a Brigadier Grade 2, but nearly anyone here can dong on me comfortably. And the Arena system is quite murky, and not everyone (most don't) play it.
The comparisons to CoD and its success would be easier if they were more similar games, so we don't have an apples to apples comparison there. More broadly, it's always been true that good online games get played for a long time, and that's been true well before MW birthed the current investment systems. People play games they have good experiences in. The stuff wrapped around it reinforces that.
I remain very dubious that a simple 1-50 progression, where the vast majority of players by design cannot reach anywhere near the top, contributed materially to Halo 3's longevity for more than a small portion of the population. It was the game itself.
I agree, however, that Reach does a very poor job at providing feedback to highly skilled players, and rewarding them - somehow - for that skill.
Melee is my biggest problem with Reach's combat as well.Ramirez said:
Kuroyume said:
Yea because the beta was awful. Sure didn't stop us from going back to Halo 3 and playing it for 4-5 more months, so I don't but the fatigue comment. The game just sucks, everything about the combat is a sloppy mess. The melee, grenades, and gunplay all got changed in major ways for no reason at all other than to say hey we changed something!
I'm pretty sure the melee system is my biggest beef with the game at this point, there is absolutely no reason a guy should be able to eat 3-4 shots and be on equal footing with you once you get into a CQC situation. Ugh.
Also, Grifball is as dumb as ever, one match in there, and I've had enough for my lifetime.
electricpirate
Member
All this doom and gloom for a game that has a higher population than Halo 3? (at least according to Urk over at B.net).
ElRenoRaven
Member
So yea without a doubt Griffball is the way to go for the weekly. Just a few games and I'm up to 50 double kills. At this rate about 4 days and I'll have it easy.
This is all true, but the funny thing is most of GAF and the gaming press didn't even acknowledge all these gameplay changes, so it was pretty pointless from that perspective on Bungie's part.Ramirez said:
There are a few things I can't fathom in my head about these issues, and I doubt we'll ever get any response from Bungie on the matter but:
1) The amount of Bungie research done in the QA and Player Response departments at Bungie during the games development must've indicated that these changes improved the game, otherwise they wouldn't be included. In the latest EDGE John Hoppson, Bungie's Player Response Researcher (or something along those lines) talks about the extensive and crucial research they do in order to make sure the people buying the game are going to enjoy every second of it. How such huge fundemental design flaws can seep through that are beyond me. Either Bungie were testing the wrong people or the Testers were lying, Hoppson admits he doesn't have much faith in using Biometrics(heart rate, skin temperature, etc.) as a valid form of player response so the latter is actually a possibility.
2) The rest of the team just sat by and let this happen. People like Luke Smith can't have agreed and enjoyed these changes whilst the game was being developed, why not say something. Now I don't mean to put words into anyones mouth so I'll say that it's just as possible that Luke liked all the changes, but you know my point, how can the entire studio all believe that these changes are the right move for the game when the majority of the active community can agree they are a step backwards?
3) In one of the Vidocs one of the employees mentioned that he wouldn't be putting as much effort into crafting Reach if he didn't think it would be played by the fans for many years to come, so why actively ignore them both prior and post release. It's clear the fans weren't happy with the changes from the minute they touched the controller back in May, they still aren't now and a large chunk have abandoned the game, why are we still not seeing any changes?
GhaleonEB said:
The best Halo players are of course a tiny majority, but they are an important one nonetheless. Juices' remark about the lack of montages on Bnet for example, who makes montages? The highly skilled players. And those players aren't having as much fun on Reach as they were on previous Halo games.
The best Halo players
The formula works well for FFA, I'm not sure why there wasn't an FFA Arena at launch as FFA is the thing that makes the most sense for the Arena formula.
IMO the current individual kill-based Arena formula should be completely scrapped and replaced by a team victory-based formula much closer to what we had for Halo 2/3. Something that can work with Objectives, because MLG shouldn't be split into two playlists.
But at the very least, as a temporary quick fix while revamping all of this, just replace every gametype and map in Arena 4v4 by MLG Team Slayer on MLG maps, you'll see the numbers rise I'm sure.
GhaleonEB said:
I have no problem with melee in Reach, guess I just adapted faster. Just wait for that shield to pop, and bam! I can tell most people I play have kept their reflexes from Halo 3 though. The AR 6-shots + melee combo is dead, I personally don't miss it.
Domino Theory
Crystal Dynamics
Does Grifball count towards the Competitive K/D? If so,
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l
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How would you feel if a Plasma Pistol overcharge took the user out of it instantly and drained their meter + shields? Actual risk vs. reward instead of a panic button.MagniHarvald said:
Unrelated: So I assume we'll get another couple map packs from Bungie, but what does that leave 343 doing? On an 8-4 podcast, Ryan Payton said that they would be supporting Reach for the forseeable future, but what does that really mean? I'm sure they're probably doing at least preliminary work on another title, but what he said rang odd to me, since having two studios supporting one game is kind of strange.
Havok said:
Since I feel AL should lock the state of shields as well (ie, not letting them recharge), I'd be fine with PP just delocking, no need to drain shields, that'd be overkill IMO (though since most of the time people go into AL when they are shieldless, it wouldn't change much.
LunaticPuma
dresses business casual
electricpirate said:
The real question is what % of Xbox players are playing Reach now vs. H3 back in the day. Absolute numbers mean little since the Xbox player base continues to grow. % of player base playing would be a more telling sign of how popular it is relative to Reach. It's also a much more competitive landscape as other games have finally matched features to Halo MP or at least gained enough ground that they are not a pain to use.