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Halo: Reach |OT3| This Thread is Not a Natural Formation

S

Steelyuhas

Member
NullPointer said:
Is it viable to just add "Match DLC" as a Matchmaking setting? That way instead of hoping that your matchmade players have the DLC you can have a much better chance of it?

Another real solution would once again be to keep multiplayer maps FREE, and sell other content as DLC. Things like new armor permutations, armor effects and extra campaign missions.
Click to expand...
squidhands said:
This is a wonderful idea. I'd risk the longer waiting period if this was implemented somehow.
Click to expand...

Yeah, this idea has been floating around the optimatch forum for a while. It could be in the search filters with connection, langauge, and skill. I would happily wait longer for games if it ment that I would actually get the full list of maps that own to play in playlists.

It really irritates me that DLC implementation is still so poor in Halo. People that buy maps should be rewarding to putting more money into the game, not restricted to a DLC playlist in order to play them. I was curious to see how Bungie did DLC implementation in Reach after H3's was awful (IMO), and was estatic when Urk said both in here and in a BWU that there was a matchmaking algorithm in Reach that was going to match you up with people that had the same DLC as you. Then DLC came out, and that matchmaking algorithm did not work and I've noticed that Bungie has backed off that statement saying that you will be matched up with people with the same DLC as you (For reference the Defiant FAQ released yesterday states that you need to have everyone in the lobby have the DLC).

It is really inexcusable for a developer to not have good DLC implementation in their game in this day and age. Also, COD does DLC implementation perfectly, why every developer in the world didn't copy that model is odd.
 
G

GhaleonEB

Member
Blue Ninja said:
It is. If you load up the map in Forge, and stand on the Blue side of the map, you can see pieces of geometry from the Red side actually disappear. :lol
Click to expand...
Good to know, I get a kick out of it. I wouldn't mind seeing it in there instead of the Ghost.

You bring up something, though. There has been a degradation in frame rate stability in Reach's maps. Tempest has frame rate issues when scoping from certain places on the map, and so do Unearthed and Highlands. I would trade a less grand skybox or less environmental detail for a more stable frame rate. I appreciate the work that goes into making the maps look spectacular - and they do - but frame rate stability should be paramount.
 
T

The Librarian

Banned
A27_StarWolf said:
Perhaps the helmet is a variant that got cut out of the final game.

Highlands needs falcons, or more vehicles. Maybe a banshee I don't know but it has an empty helipad and the map is really big.
Click to expand...
I don't think Highlands is big enough for Falcons.
 
M

MrBig

Member
Havok said:
How did this shit ship?!
Click to expand...
I've been cheated on like this more than a few times. As much as I love the revenant, it's role is redundant, and with this game breaking tactic it just needs to go.

wwm0nkey said:
Well guess we are going to get some customs going, message me for an invite. WE have 4 people right now.
Click to expand...
I got me a vanilla coke and am hopping on now :D
 
M

MrBig

Member
wwm0nkey said:
Well guess we are going to get some customs going, message me for an invite. WE have 4 people right now.
Click to expand...
Is you friends list full? xbox.com doesnt seem to be sending the request since it doesn't show up in my friends list
 
S

squidhands

Member
Demoncarnotaur said:
The Chopper. =(
Click to expand...
343i, please hear our cries. The Chopper is like Yoda from Empire Strikes Back, and the Revenant is the shitty CG version of him that was in Episode I. Some things just can't be replaced.
 
B

bobs...onGaf

Member
So why is a random solid wall on Condemned blowing smoke? :p Classic settings on that map are really good, I would love to try a Highlands game with those settings. Is GAF doing classic settings defiant map pack this weekend? :p
 
H

Hypertrooper

Member
Plywood said:
Highlands Radio people were talking about earlier: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KfW-5-gXII
Click to expand...
It would be nice, if there were radios on Unearthed and Condemned.(Maybe they are, but no one found them, right?) 343i and CA could tell a story with the Radios about a spartan group. Unearthed you would hear the first contact of a Spartan team with the Convenant. On Condemned you would hear the end of the Spartan team. :)
 
Genesis Knight

Genesis Knight

Member
I fucking called it about that Revenant. It happened in one of my first matches in Reach and none of my buddies believed me and just thought the kid was really good.
 
G

GhaleonEB

Member
Bungie trademarks Bungie Foundation.

bfoundsmall.png


Good for them.
 
S

Striker

Member
xxjuicesxx said:
5. Large and Small maps. Stop focusing so much on BTB (which you end up giving a SINGLE playlist!) and Firefight maps. Give us 4 really good Firefight maps at release, and 4 good BTB maps, and then give us 8 small MP maps. Halo 2 is said to have some of the greatest Halo maps. It stuck with what works 4v4 Slayer. Turf, Midship, Warlock, Reflection, Sanctuary, these maps are all so highly praised because they work great for 4v4 they are all a certain size and general shape (circle NOT long ass oval). Not to say H2 didn’t have great BTB maps too, but their small maps really shined. When big maps had one focus it was probably a lot easier, but now BTB maps also are used in FF and or Invasion sometimes. Focus on BTB, Invasion should be a secondary thought for those BTB maps.
Click to expand...
The primary issue now is too far gone. Bungie loved the idea of Invasion and stuck with it. They proceeded to try to stick Invasion style maps into BTB and the implementation is, well, not to sound like a dick, but half-assed.

Spire's spawns are very odd. Why do some times players spawn way down by Phase 1 area? And in team games like CTF no less? Is this suppose to be fair? It's sure as hell not fun... Why is the Banshee way down there so far away from the action? Not to mention with all the vehicles added (two Falcons, two Warthogs, two Ghosts, Banshee) you have two Rockets, Fuel Rod Gun, two Snipers.. it's overkill.

Boneyard is a complete mess in my view. Quite easy to spawn trap red team. And why not? Their base is steps for crying out loud. It has no flow for CTF and, like Spire, is put together like it was created in five minutes. The Scorpion's spawn location - middle of the middle - why? Weapon locales completely random. Why? Like Spire, using half the map. Why?

Why was Invasion so heavily involved in Reach's planning? Halo games for large parties thrived on 8v8 CTF/Assault/Slayer. Not Headhunter on Countdown.

When you ship your game and the best two BTB maps are created in a Forge palette, something's wrong with something behind the scenes. It felt like no one cared enough about the actual competitiveness of BTB and just threw it all together at the last second. And on record, I find Hemorrhage and Paradiso to be solid maps, Hemorrahge moreso. But it's still has not been up to its possible potential like it could be/have been.

Hopefully 343i, like my other wishes for Halo 4, goes back to its Halo roots and creates your spectacular 8v8 maps built on symmetry and one sided affairs. Remember Halo 2's launch BTB maps? Coagulation, Waterworks, Headlong. Fantastic maps. Where did the brain power behind these maps go?


17 It’s a problem, mainly because Reach seems to do a really bad job matching parties against parties like Halo 3 did.
Click to expand...
It's party restriction. If you had 3 in Team Objective in Halo 3, you were going to get matched up accordingly so. Thus with this inclusion you had longer wait times. The long wait times were keys to the inevitable deaths of both TO and Ranked BTB in Halo 3. I believe Halo 2 had it the same way - though its Team Skirmish thrived - because it was so good, of course.
 
N

ncsuDuncan

Member
Tycho on Penny Arcade said:
- I was given a stack of Defiant Map Pack codes by someone from 343 Industries and told to, I am being completely serious, "Make It Rain." There weren't actually that many codes, though. So I had to content myself with "Making it Damp."
Click to expand...

Bwahaha, even Penny Arcade was talking about Making It Rain.

(After all the code begging here, ncsuDuncan finds any DLC precipitation references hilarious.)
 
W

wwm0nkey

Member
Ok here is a good idea I came up with during these mini-customs.

Halo Creators Club (similar to XNA creators club)

Subscription service for map creators
Make .map files for Halo games.

Membership cost $50 a year.

PC based tool lets you create detailed .map files for Halo Reach and sell them for either
$0.50, $1.00, or $2.00. The $2.00 option would require 2 or more maps with a memory cap of 150mb.

Microsoft would earn 30% of profits from each sale.

Peer review would check for things like re-makes and obviously inappropriate content in the maps.

Option to try a trail of the map, will last 48 hours or 7 games after that time it will ask you to buy the map, if you do not buy the map you will no longer be able to play it.

This option could be used on all current Halo games and is pretty much guaranteed to make a profit for Microsoft.

EDIT: I would also like to add that there would be a downloadable HUB on the dashboard to find and rate maps just like indie games.
 
P

Photolysis

Banned
Striker said:
The primary issue now is too far gone. Bungie loved the idea of Invasion and stuck with it. They proceeded to try to stick Invasion style maps into BTB and the implementation is, well, not to sound like a dick, but half-assed.
[...]

When you ship your game and the best two BTB maps are created in a Forge palette, something's wrong with something behind the scenes. It felt like no one cared enough about the actual competitiveness of BTB and just threw it all together at the last second. And on record, I find Hemorrhage and Paradiso to be solid maps, Hemorrahge moreso. But it's still has not been up to its possible potential like it could be/have been.

Hopefully 343i, like my other wishes for Halo 4, goes back to its Halo roots and creates your spectacular 8v8 maps built on symmetry and one sided affairs. Remember Halo 2's launch BTB maps? Coagulation, Waterworks, Headlong. Fantastic maps. Where did the brain power behind these maps go?
Click to expand...

One reason why I like Highlands (from the limited experience I've had with it) is because it captures Halo gameplay in a way the other maps don't. The moment I started playing on it it felt like classic old-school Halo.

The problem with MP map design baffles me; it's been going downhill for years now. H2 had an excellent selection of maps. H3 was weaker but had some good ones (though Bungie also managed to butcher most of the remakes, even when the originals were classics). Most of the Reach maps are mediocre at best.

Gearbox have shown they can make fantastic Halo maps. CA have shown they can make them too (probably helps that Max is running them). Bungie used to be able to make them, seemingly as easily as breathing. I wonder what happened...
 
T

The Librarian

Banned
Photolysis said:
One reason why I like Highlands (from the limited experience I've had with it) is because it captures Halo gameplay in a way the other maps don't. The moment I started playing on it it felt like classic old-school Halo.

The problem with MP map design baffles me; it's been going downhill for years now. H2 had an excellent selection of maps. H3 was weaker but had some good ones (though Bungie also managed to butcher most of the remakes, even when the originals were classics). Most of the Reach maps are mediocre at best.

Gearbox have shown they can make fantastic Halo maps. CA have shown they can make them too (probably helps that Max is running them). Bungie used to be able to make them, seemingly as easily as breathing. I wonder what happened...
Click to expand...
Probably because certain folks at Bungie left between the development of Halo 3 and Reach.
 
N

ncsuDuncan

Member
wwm0nkey said:
Ok here is a good idea I came up with during these mini-customs.

Halo Creators Club (similar to XNA creators club)

Subscription service for map creators
Make .map files for Halo games.

Membership cost $50 a year.

PC based tool lets you create detailed .map files for Halo Reach and sell them for either
$0.50, $1.00, or $2.00. The $2.00 option would require 2 or more maps with a memory cap of 150mb.

Microsoft would earn 30% of profits from each sale.

Peer review would check for things like re-makes and obviously inappropriate content in the maps.

Option to try a trail of the map, will last 48 hours or 7 games after that time it will ask you to buy the map, if you do not buy the map you will no longer be able to play it.

This option could be used on all current Halo games and is pretty much guaranteed to make a profit for Microsoft.

EDIT: I would also like to add that there would be a downloadable HUB on the dashboard to find and rate maps just like indie games.
Click to expand...

So like the Rock Band Network, but swap out the songs for maps?

I think the problem with such an idea is Matchmaking... if you're charging people for maps you need to ensure they'll be able to find games to play them on (aside from distribution bugs like Defiant is experiencing).

I do like the idea of making better map creation tools for the public, but it really doesn't work if you charge for them. And you'd still need a server-based multiplayer instead of matchmaking. If you think we have "map load fail" errors NOW...
 
K

krakov

Member
So has anyone figured out why the tracking of "points" isn't working correctly in a game? Like sometimes you'll end a game with 16 kills and in the post game stats it's 22, also seems to screw up medals like the ones for sprees etc.
 
S

Striker

Member
Photolysis said:
One reason why I like Highlands (from the limited experience I've had with it) is because it captures Halo gameplay in a way the other maps don't. The moment I started playing on it it felt like classic old-school Halo.

The problem with MP map design baffles me; it's been going downhill for years now. H2 had an excellent selection of maps. H3 was weaker but had some good ones (though Bungie also managed to butcher most of the remakes, even when the originals were classics). Most of the Reach maps are mediocre at best.

Gearbox have shown they can make fantastic Halo maps. CA have shown they can make them too (probably helps that Max is running them). Bungie used to be able to make them, seemingly as easily as breathing. I wonder what happened...
Click to expand...
It's a map that should have been on the disc day one. Instead, we got two Forge creations, ok fine, but they forced in Invasion maps in spite of adding two serious contenders for the Big Team playlist. I don't want to sound mad, but it just reeks bad gameplanning. Maybe if those behind the scenes could have done it differently now, whatever, it's just disappointing. As for overall map quality, I've found more maps enjoyable on here than 3. I honestly found little to care about in 3. At least with Reach's DLC it's improving - I find Anchor 9 and Tempest to be two of the best symmetrical maps in a long time.

When was the last great asymmetrical BTB map shipped? Halo 2 had it, and released Terminal and Relic in their DLC in summer '05. The last true one-sided BTB that got released from Bungie/a Halo game was nearly six years ago. How baffling is that...
 
N

NullPointer

Member
ncsuDuncan said:
I do like the idea of making better map creation tools for the public, but it really doesn't work if you charge for them. And you'd still need a server-based multiplayer instead of matchmaking. If you think we have "map load fail" errors NOW...
Click to expand...
Agreed. If anything I'd like to see a Little Big Planet model. Maps are free to all, but content packs with new Forge items and Forge spaces could be sold to creators.

They'd have to say goodbye to the megabucks gained from current map pack sales, but it'd extend the longevity of the game, reduce trade-ins and foster goodwill for the community and brand. There is more than one way to make a buck, and I'd like to see more creativity put towards efforts that don't harm the consumers and fans like all of these map packs do.
 
X

xxjuicesxx

Member
ncsuDuncan said:
I'll comment on more sections, but this one was the first that needed a response.

NO.

The absolute worst thing possible would be to vote for map and gametype separately. Let's look at this scenario, where A is how Reach does it and B is your idea.
A:
Team Slayer on Countdown - 4 votes WINNER
Team Snipers on Paradiso - 3 votes
Headhunter on Boardwalk - 1 vote

B:
Team Slayer - 3 votes
Team Snipers - 4 votes
Headhunter - 1 vote

Countdown - 5 votes
Paradiso - 3 votes
Boardwalk - 0 votes
WINNER: Team Snipers on Countdown.... whaaa?
Click to expand...

But you missed how it would actually work and a bunch of my follow ups points, especially regarding map size.

Theres absolutely no playlist that would have both Team Slayer and Team Snipes, AND Headhunter, and Countdown WITH PARADISO. Is this a BTB playlist you are thinking of?

A better scenario would be Team Slayer

X Midship
Y Turf

A Slayer
B Slayer DMRS

And you could lock in X and B (obvy) and whichever of the two had the most votes would be picked. You'd get exact data on whether or not people loved Midship over Turf or Turf over Midship.

and again Letters, I'm not really into MLG that hard, take a look at my playlist game spread and you'll see its pretty fairly spread out.

When I want to play Arena slayer type shit yea I feel I have a good idea how it should be done, but I really want to see BTB to succeed and you need some really solid BTB maps to get that done, the focus just isn't there right now. They are too busy doing wayyyy too much other stuff like shoehorning completely new features that end up broken in some way (camo glitch, AA's not being there after a black screen, things of that nature)

Theres no polish even though after several games they should have been able to nail it down to a science.
 
G

GhaleonEB

Member
Photolysis said:
One reason why I like Highlands (from the limited experience I've had with it) is because it captures Halo gameplay in a way the other maps don't. The moment I started playing on it it felt like classic old-school Halo.

The problem with MP map design baffles me; it's been going downhill for years now. H2 had an excellent selection of maps. H3 was weaker but had some good ones (though Bungie also managed to butcher most of the remakes, even when the originals were classics). Most of the Reach maps are mediocre at best.

Gearbox have shown they can make fantastic Halo maps. CA have shown they can make them too (probably helps that Max is running them). Bungie used to be able to make them, seemingly as easily as breathing. I wonder what happened...
Click to expand...
I've concluded that Reach just didn't have the design and art resources it probably should have for a major Halo title. There were nine base maps, one of which has a large swath of it (Forge World) ripped from Halo 2 geometry, and one of which (Boneyard) was taken straight out of campaign and converted into an Invasion map.

And that's with minimal design/art devoted to Firefight (which could have used some). With the with the addition of numerous new game types, most notably Invasion which required a custom set of maps, it's clear that resources were spread even more thinly than previous Halo titles. DLC has done a lot to flesh out areas that needed fleshing out, but I can't help but feel that the MP game got a bit too big for the team to generate enough content to support it properly.
 
N

NullPointer

Member
GhaleonEB said:
And that's with minimal design/art devoted to Firefight (which could have used some). With the with the addition of numerous new game types, most notably Invasion which required a custom set of maps, it's clear that resources were spread even more thinly than previous Halo titles. DLC has done a lot to flesh out areas that needed fleshing out, but I can't help but feel that the MP game got a bit too big for the team to generate enough content to support it properly.
Click to expand...
That and I don't think it was wise to restrict maps to single uses. Everybody would be better off if all multiplayer maps (or most) supported multiple game modes (ie. Firefight and Invasion).

Something I hope they're thinking seriously about for the next Halo. That along with custom matchmaking.
 
W

wwm0nkey

Member
ncsuDuncan said:
So like the Rock Band Network, but swap out the songs for maps?

I think the problem with such an idea is Matchmaking... if you're charging people for maps you need to ensure they'll be able to find games to play them on (aside from distribution bugs like Defiant is experiencing).

I do like the idea of making better map creation tools for the public, but it really doesn't work if you charge for them. And you'd still need a server-based multiplayer instead of matchmaking. If you think we have "map load fail" errors NOW...
Click to expand...
How about every 3 months 5 of the maps will be chosen to be put into a community map pack witch will be put into matchmaking?
 
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