LunaticPuma said:
The overshield, power weapons, and unlimited lives are what make it harder to learn and transition to normal FF. Limited lives and normal health & shields creates the desire to improve in skill and stay alive which is not present in Arcade. You won't learn how to use a DMR or pistol or plasma pistol correctly if all you're given is rockets/FRGs/swords/hammers/grenade launchers. These are weapons that players generally have extremely limited access to. Arcade can be a good training mechanism to learn these weapons individually, but it in and of itself is not a good training scenario to normal Halo gameplay.
You learn to use those weapons in Campaign. Limited is essentially Campaign play, in a single location. Many of the locations are from siege encounters in Campaign. And from every other gameplay mode in the game, actually. In particular, Score Attack, which focuses the player on one type of enemy at a time so they can focus on learning how to combat them.
Limited is by definition a more hardcore playlist; it's punishing (set to Heroic) and often pretty hard. Personally, I would not recommend players learn the game in a more hardcore playlist. I'm very sympathetic to new players who want a survival mode though, and try to help them out.
But I think you lost what Squall and I were talking about. We're talking about BAD players playing Limited
as if it were Arcade. Players who run to the center of Corvette and shoot stuff and then die - and then do it 10 more times. Those two games where it was me an one other guy who died 11 times? Same dude, twice in a row. That's what we're talking about.
LunaticPuma said:
My "niche" comment about Arcade was not speaking to its popularity. Arcade is a niche playlist just like Grifball, Rocket Race, and Infection are niche playlists. They abide by a very specific set of rules with constrained weapon sets and altered damage tables. I'm well aware that Arcade is the most popular form of FF, but that has nothing to do with it not being a niche. I never said Arcade was not popular. I simply was implying that it does not expose a player to the standard Halo sandbox which Limited does.
You did not actually say that, FWIW, and that does tip the discussion a bit. You are correct that Arcade is not the straight up sandbox that Limited is. (But in this context, it's a niche of the overall player base, which is
how I took your meaning.) But I understand what you mean now.
I think in the case of Reach, it's hard to define what the standard gameplay mode is. In the case of Firefight matchmaking in particular, before Limited players never had a limited lives experience outside of Score Attack. And within the old Firefight playlist, regular Firefight was very much in the mix; I played a lot of it there. Between that and Score Attack, Limited is definitely not the place people go to learn the game mechanics. They launched alongside one another, remember.
In this context, what's really new is the limited lives. Before now, everyone had unlimited lives. So it might be a learning curve. Which is fine. And I've said many times that I'm pretty happy with the playlist despite the difficulty they bring.
But the problem with the playlist is one or two players draining 90% of the life pool, or AFK players doing likewise. That has nothing to do with learning the sandbox.
I would also expect you to have the highest score if you have the least deaths (longer sprees, etc.) assuming no one is turtling.