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[FyreWulff]

I have yet to get such snarky bullshit from the established members of HaloGAF when I post about my personal experiences with something that's supposed to work "in theory."

Except you said yourself you're going in with mixed parties.. which we know for a fact TS can't really handle, and lacks in that area in terms of matching. Same issue exists with that both in Reach and Halo 3. All it takes is for a couple of people that barely play Reach to join my party and the games we play become really easy to win.

But nobody has come up with a better algorithm, so, not really sure what Bungie is supposed to do here, since Trueskill is a MS mandated and required feature for every 360 title that isn't an MMO or an EA game. The only other options are to make every single playlist Ranked like Halo Wars or make it 100% loose matching like Call of Duty.

Unless you want them to take the nuclear option and not even allow you to start searching as a party if any of you are farther than 5 TS from each other. I'm not sure the playerbase would react well to that. "Oh well Ms Beardface, you can't play with us because we got the game 2 months before you did. Go and search games by yourself until you get close enough lol". You'd get most of your games as a close match but that playlist would have even less population than Team Objective.

The root issue here is that ideally players would only match against players of the same skill all the time, but to figure out how good they are, you have to match them against players. So you have a Catch 22 where people want competitive games but to get them competitive games you're going to have to send them through some blowouts and some landslide victories before their TS level settles down.

 

[Devolution]

Except you said yourself you're going in with mixed parties.. which we know for a fact TS can't really handle, and lacks in that area in terms of matching. Same issue exists with that both in Reach and Halo 3. All it takes is for a couple of people that barely play Reach to join my party and the games we play become really easy to win.

But nobody has come up with a better algorithm, so, not really sure what Bungie is supposed to do here, since Trueskill is a MS mandated and required feature for every 360 title that isn't an MMO or an EA game. The only other options are to make every single playlist Ranked like Halo Wars or make it 100% loose matching like Call of Duty.

Unless you want them to take the nuclear option and not even allow you to start searching as a party if any of you are farther than 5 TS from each other. I'm not sure the playerbase would react well to that. "Oh well Ms Beardface, you can't play with us because we got the game 2 months before you did. Go and search games by yourself until you get close enough lol"

Full party. As in when I'm in a full one, the opposing team is usually far below my own trueskill. When I used to go in alone, my team mates were also below my trueskill but my opponents were at my level or above.

I guess it's hard to read when you're busy talking out your ass about how much you think you know about Halo.

To qualify this further my full parties recently are people around my level OR BETTER. So there is no reason the opposing teams should be this bad, this often.

 

[FyreWulff]

Full party. As in when I'm in a full one, the team is usually far below my own trueskill. When I used to go in alone, my team mates were also below my trueskill but my opponents were at my level or above.

I guess it's hard to read when you're busy talking out your ass about how much you think you know about Halo.

I'm sorry for paying attention when Bungie, 343, and MS employees post something or talk to me or have an interview where they talk about how the game works.

Here's a good place to start. I've read every single one of these, but the one pertinent to this conversation would be "E Pluribus Unum: Matchmaking in HALO 3 " (Chris Butcher, 2008) as it explains Bungie's ideology for matchmaking.

If you don't like my posts, throw my ass on ignore so they don't annoy you anymore.

edit: wait, I somehow missed them posting the Animation of Reach one. *downloads*

 

[bobs...onGaf]

Fyrewulff even though the system is pretty much unfixable people still have a right to complain about something that provides pretty poor experiences. Saying provide a better solution to people who may be experts in theyre own respective fields but dont do maths or programming is beyond ignorant. I dont expect Microsoft to spend resources changing a system that works well enough for 90% of the stuff out there but I am going to still complain the 10% of the time things suck.

Once again, I've never seen a group of people complain about a Halo game so much yet stop actually playing it so little. Seems these problems, just like the problems I have with Reach, aren't important nor enough of a showstopper to make anyone actually go back and play Halo 3 as their main game or stop playing it completely.

I know a bunch of people who have. There are even people on here who have, I personally just play a lot less Halo altogether these days.

 

[FyreWulff]

Fyrewulff even though the system is pretty much unfixable people still have a right to complain about something that provides pretty poor experiences. Saying provide a better solution to people who may be experts in theyre own respective fields but dont do maths or programming is beyond ignorant. I dont expect Microsoft to spend resources changing a system that works well enough for 90% of the stuff out there but I am going to still complain the 10% of the time things suck.



I know a bunch of people who have. There are even people on here who have, I personally just play a lot less Halo altogether these days.

I think the issue here is that we both post on the same 3 forums yet we haven't played Reach together yet. We need to fix this.

 

[bobs...onGaf]

I think the issue here is that we both post on the same 3 forums yet we haven't played Reach together yet. We need to fix this.

Im down whenever.

Out of interest has anyone looked at the Reach API stuff? Im sure you would have Fyrewulff, im not brilliant but I know my way around mysql and php and all that kinda stuff, does it work on the same principles? Im guessing it would be totally different and would be far beyond simple mysql queries. I would love to play around with it just to further develop my own knowledge but if its very much its own system I might be better off sticking to the well know commercial languages.

 

[FyreWulff]

Im down whenever.

Out of interest has anyone looked at the Reach API stuff? Im sure you would have Fyrewulff, im not brilliant but I know my way around mysql and php and all that kinda stuff, does it work on the same principles? Im guessing it would be totally different and would be far beyond simple mysql queries. I would love to play around with it just to further develop my own knowledge but if its very much its own system I might be better off sticking to the well know commercial languages.

Just learn how to use JSON responses with PHP (or language of choice) and you'll be set. It's basically a bunch of Key:Value pairs that you can use to set variables and then it's normal PHP programming from then on out.

I'm working on an entire stats portal based off it and I gotta get around to updating FTZ to use it after I get my wisdoms pulled, but it's pretty damn good. Wish we had it for Halo 3 and 2 back in the day. Anyone else remember running Query Spree?

Oh, also join this group on Bungie.net for the Stats API, Achronos is always there to answer questions along with a bunch of other Stats API users and programmers.

Edit: Also the API has been updated since that last newspost, so Bungie is still actively supporting it. I hope 343 has something for Halo CEA campaign sessions.

edit2: also remember that you need Bungie Pro to get a key so you can actually use it

 

[bobs...onGaf]

Just learn how to use JSON responses with PHP (or language of choice) and you'll be set. It's basically a bunch of Key:Value pairs that you can use to set variables and then it's normal PHP programming from then on out.

I'm working on an entire stats portal based off it and I gotta get around to updating FTZ to use it after I get my wisdoms pulled, but it's pretty damn good. Wish we had it for Halo 3 and 2 back in the day. Anyone else remember running Query Spree?

Oh, also join this group on Bungie.net for the Stats API, Achronos is always there to answer questions along with a bunch of other Stats API users and programmers.

Edit: Also the API has been updated since that last newspost, so Bungie is still actively supporting it. I hope 343 has something for Halo CEA campaign sessions.

edit2: also remember that you need Bungie Pro to get a key so you can actually use it

Thanks, im still an infant when it comes to this stuff so I think I will read up on 'JSON responses' before I take the plunge and get Bungie pro. Its pretty sweet that they provided us with a nice way to access the backend - I could learn a lot from making a front end stats page. Glad to see they are still supporting it aswell.

Whatever Bungies next game is I cant wait to see what they have in store for the social media side of things.

 

[FyreWulff]

Thanks, im still an infant when it comes to this stuff so I think I will read up on 'JSON responses' before I take the plunge and get Bungie pro. Its pretty sweet that they provided us with a nice way to access the backend - I could learn a lot from making a front end stats page. Glad to see they are still supporting it aswell.

Whatever Bungies next game is I cant wait to see what they have in store for the social media side of things.

Here's a page that will give you an idea of how it works. If you've got access to PHP5, it has native JSON encode and decode functions

 

[Kuroyume]

Save me from Elite Slayer please

If that shit returns in Halo 4 (assuming the covenant returns which I FUCKING hope not) then put in its own playlist. It's like... When that shows up I just want to leave the game or walk away and do something until the game ends.

Also, why the hell do people keep choosing Headhunter? It's torturous! I did manage to stop some guy who was about to end the game with the max cap and that almost made up for playing that shit.

Btw, anyone ever play Halo and say to yourself... Okay, going to play one more game and then shut it off and then you get stuck playing some horse shit like Headhunter or Rocket Race and you say to yourself okay one more game (again) until I get a good game to end my gaming time? Then you find yourself playing like 5 more matches because you keep getting garbage? Yeah, that's me. At the end I always leave broken by matchmaking. Always. My last games are always Headhunters or Elite Slayers or I'll get a good game type and then get stuck facing a team of jetpackers with ARs on some CQC map. Feels bad man.

 

[FyreWulff]

Jesus, no wonder that presentation is 444MB - it's got a ton of example side by side video comparisons of improvements in their animation system between 3 and Reach, including what appears to be a couple snippets of beta Reach content.

 

[Striker]

To qualify this further my full parties recently are people around my level OR BETTER. So there is no reason the opposing teams should be this bad, this often.

The awful Trueskill developments have been going on since Halo 3. I would say majority of my games in Social Skirmish and Social BTB were unbalanced, and had the same issues people complain about now. Abundance of horrible guests, lots of low ranked players getting matched with parties and whaddya know, they play like their rank, etc.

The whole cR/EXP system really isn't a good one, either, for matching purposes. They both simply show how much a person has played, not so much how good they are.

 

[The Henery]

Save me from Elite Slayer please



Also, why the hell do people keep choosing Headhunter? It's torturous! I did manage to stop some guy who was about to end the game with the max cap and that almost made up for playing that shit.

Btw, anyone ever play Halo and say to yourself... Okay, going to play one more game and then shut it off and then you get stuck playing some horse shit like Headhunter or Rocket Race and you say to yourself okay one more game (again) until I get a good game to end my gaming time? Then you find yourself playing like 5 more matches because you keep getting garbage? Yeah, that's me. At the end I always leave broken by matchmaking. Always. My last games are always Headhunters or Elite Slayers or I'll get a good game type and then get stuck facing a team of jetpackers with ARs on some CQC map. Feels bad man.

Skullamanjaro's have been disabled in multiteam (I assume this is the playlist you're in). Headhunter is now the BEST multiteam mode as it's DMR starts and lasts a good ten minutes. I used to despise it because, often, the games would last a minute and a half as some chancer would stumble on ten skulls left from a four way war and have the collection point spawn in front of him; now, the games play out in the manner enthused giddily upon in the pre-beta vidoc. Best party gametype introduced in Reach in my opinion.

Also, can the same few posters stop shitting up the thread with the overly aggressive attacks on others? It's getting to the point of outright ad hominem by proxy of Halo playstyle. I lurked this forum for a couple of years before being approved, loved the discussion from the regulars here and, honestly, the shit from the last few weeks has been comparable to the mlg forums. And another thing. People belittling and attempting to render others opinions as without value based on their perceived lack of technical knowledge is in the same ballpark as someone saying 'shut up scrub, you can't express opinions on certain game mechanics because you have a sub 1.0 k/d spread and use the AR. I'm better at the game, therefore my opinion is more valid'. It's politically incorrect in Halo terms and off-putting to read.

 

[FyreWulff]

Headhunter is indeed better with the Skullamanjaro off (it's only on for Rumble Pit).

They need to add an option where if you're at max skulls, a countdown starts. If you don't cap within ____ seconds, you explode, sending skulls flying across the map.

 

[wwm0nkey]

After reading that b.net thread with Frankie posting, I am a bit sad that the changes will be for MM playlists, but it wont be hard to just download the gametypes so oh well

 

[The Henery]

Headhunter is indeed better with the Skullamanjaro off (it's only on for Rumble Pit).

They need to add an option where if you're at max skulls, a countdown starts. If you don't cap within ____ seconds, you explode, sending skulls flying across the map.

Options are always nice, the more, the better (sounds like we're getting more with the TU). I would add that armour lock should be removed from headhunter, again it's all personal preference.

 

[Gabotron ES]

The reactions are pretty funny still.

Some dude went out of his way to make this.

Warning, contains embiggened Frankie.

Pic

I'm saving this to my Frankie erotica folder.

 

[FyreWulff]

Options are always nice, the more, the better (sounds like we're getting more with the TU). I would add that armour lock should be removed from headhunter, again it's all personal preference.

They probably should. Once you have more than 1 skull, you're not going to be coming out of Armor Lock and live for more than half a second anyway from everyone focusing on you. Sprint is much better since it lets you get to the cap points faster.

 

[Gabotron ES]

Options are always nice, the more, the better (sounds like we're getting more with the TU). I would add that armour lock should be removed from headhunter, again it's all personal preference.

That's a playlist management thing.

 

[wwm0nkey]

Hey guys since these options in the TU are going to be put only into certain playlists, do you think they will give us the options to turn these things on/off or do you think we will have to DL the gametype to have the new options?

 

[Gabotron ES]

Hey guys since these options in the TU are going to be put only into certain playlists, do you think they will give us the options to turn these things on/off or do you think we will have to DL the gametype to have the new options?

Woot? link to that? I have just woke up.

 

[The Henery]

That's a playlist management thing.

Yea i know bro, I made the TU reference because Fyre was talking of something not possible in current custom options (though obviously we won't be getting headhunter options; perhaps megalo could alter things like that though?).

Me saying remove AL was just a general opinion on Headhunter.

Btw, are you the guy that posted that massive spartan lineup? I can't look at that picture without thinking of the New Super Mario Bros DS mini game where you have to pick Luigi or someone else out of a sea of Mario, Wario and Yoshi heads. They could add this to Halo 4 like 'pick the jackall from a collage of skirmishers', play in the lobby while searching MM. You could even pick with Kinnect.....

 

[wwm0nkey]

Woot? link to that? I have just woke up.

From frankie on the b.net thread

If you guys, or at least the guys who are mad that the TU won't be meaningful, actually read what I said and what I was responding to, you might have a better context. The poster I responded to was concerned that the TU would universally change Reach's entire gameplay and feel. It can and will make significant changes, but these will be handled in playlists, not just used across the board. Some people love the way Reach plays now, some people want to see new (and old, classic) features and gameplay changes. They will see these things, in playlists clearly labeled.

I personally love Reach. I also love CE, Halo 2 and Halo 3. All of those games have very cool and significantly different aspects.

We will describe the content of the TU and the features and changes it will enable fairlly soon. I am confident that there will be aspects of the TU that appeal to everyone in this thread, and I have read it all.

The trick will be implementing them appropriately.

Not sure if that means we dont get the options or if we have to go download those gametypes in the playlist to get the options

 

[Ken]

They could add this to Halo 4 like 'pick the jackall from a collage of skirmishers', play in the lobby while searching MM. You could even pick with Kinnect.....

1200 MSP XBLA Arcade Game/Promotional item for Halo 4.

 

[FyreWulff]

Hey guys since these options in the TU are going to be put only into certain playlists, do you think they will give us the options to turn these things on/off or do you think we will have to DL the gametype to have the new options?

I would hope it's enabled for all gametypes as an option. They could add the "No Fall Damage" to the Base Player Traits submenu widget, so every gametype would be able to get it automatically without having to go back an add it as a new menu option via Megalo to everything.

If there's classic Halo weapons in the remake .maps, I believe that would need you to download the Megalo gametype to be able to start with them. Or they could define them as the Map Default starting weapon, which was last used in Halo 2. Certain Affinity set Tombstone to default BR spawns. Which then made us lose PR start on Midship because Jeremiah had to force-set the starting spawn to SMG for certain gametypes so they'd be SMG start on Tombstone. :lol

The only issue with that is Bungie didn't make Heretic map-default PR start even though it was in the .map, so I have no idea if the .map can make you start with a weapon not in the selector by itself, or if Bungie just elected to not do it. You'd have to ask MrBig or kornman about that.

343 needs to let people define the Map Default Starting Weapon(s) and the Map Default Grenades in Halo 4 via the map editor so you don't have to always make a one-off gametype just to get people start with the weapon you want on the map.

Hopefully if there is in fact classic weapons in the Anniversary .maps, Anniversary Reach Multiplayer actually comes with the properly Megalo'd gametypes on-disc. Hell, it'd be great if they would at least include every post-ship gametype on Anniversary Reach.

 

[Gabotron ES]

Yea i know bro, I made the TU reference because Fyre was talking of something not possible in current custom options (though obviously we won't be getting headhunter options; perhaps megalo could alter things like that though?).

Me saying remove AL was just a general opinion on Headhunter.

Btw, are you the guy that posted that massive spartan lineup? I can't look at that picture without thinking of the New Super Mario Bros DS mini game where you have to pick Luigi or someone else out of a sea of Mario, Wario and Yoshi heads. They could add this to Halo 4 like 'pick the jackall from a collage of skirmishers', play in the lobby while searching MM. You could even pick with Kinnect.....

Oh ok and yes, it was me who posted that image and I'm still waiting for some HaloGAF members to submit their spartan for the Reach one. :/
I have 36 entries so far.

 

[Gui_PT]

Oh ok and yes, it was me who posted that image and I'm still waiting for some HaloGAF members to submit their spartan for the Reach one. :/
I have 36 entries so far.

I'll do it in a little while. I seem to have lost that link you provided with instructions. Could you possibly share the link again please?

 

[Gabotron ES]

I'll do it in a little while. I seem to have lost that link you provided with instructions. Could you possibly share the link again please?

Sure <3
I need HaloGAF representation in this...

Even bs angel loves it:

The first one turned out awesome. Can't wait to see the next one!

 

[Tawpgun]

Regarding this trueskill stuff, how does any gap in our skill levels explain getting matched up against SIGNIFICANTLY lower players?

I know trueskill isn't a perfect system, but I feel it should work better than this. The explanation that it breaks down at higher levels of play makes sense. When I played with Wu and friends we were getting decently matched, and I was always carrying the team with like 20+ kills all the time.

But this doesn't help the guest and party matching issue. I could have sworn in H3 guests were more likely to get matched with other guests. Or maybe I'm imagining that, but the fact is our full parties rarely get matched with other full parties. I remember being kind of pissed on Bungie day when they would rarely face a full party when Reach was supposed to match parties with other parties most of the time.

Also on the whole member fighting topic... HaloGAF is fine right now. There is nothing wrong with a little rivalry between people. Hell, it makes it interesting and stirs up some interesting conversations. Maybe I just have a thicker skin for these things, but so far I haven't seen anything that is too bad or going overboard. I appreciate Fyrewullfs input since he does have a better understanding of the more technical aspects. But likewise player experience is EQUALLY as important. As long as it doesn't devolve into really bad personal insults its all good.

 

[Gui_PT]

Sure <3
I need HaloGAF representation in this...

Even bs angel loves it:

Thanks.

Guys, help Gabotron out. It takes literally 2 to 3 minutes and the end result will surely be awesome.

 

[FyreWulff]

When there's a considerable gap in skill levels, the algorithm starts searching for everyone within 10 of the highest and lowest player, then it'll go to 20, then it'll go to "any skill" if all the potential matches have crap connections. Bungie can force it to not do that (this is what Arena is set to) but it has a significant impact on search times


Group vs group is also another toggle that both Halo 3 and Reach have. In Reach it is referred to as Big Party Restrictions. Squad Slayer has this on. I don't remember what other playlists have it on, but they've been mentioned in Jeremiah's playlist update threads and have "Big Party Size" under their description in matchmaking. Once again, throwing this on negatively impacts search times, so that's why it's not on in every playlist.

 

[Striker]

I could have sworn in H3 guests were more likely to get matched with other guests. Or maybe I'm imagining that, but the fact is our full parties rarely get matched with other full parties. I remember being kind of pissed on Bungie day when they would rarely face a full party when Reach was supposed to match parties with other parties most of the time.

No it was worse. In fact, Shishka I believe was in one thread saying how in Reach MM we will see how more often guests will be matched up with other guests, or at least that's how it was suppose to be done. If he's still here, he can vouch for that statement if I remembered correctly.

Halo 3 unranked also had the splitting parties crap going on all the time. Even if it wasn't suppose to happen.

 

[Ken]

Thanks.

Guys, help Gabotron out. It takes literally 2 to 3 minutes and the end result will surely be awesome.

I'll try tomorrow. I can just take the screenshot, and name it photo11 without needing to add it to my file share right?

 

[Gabotron ES]

I'll try tomorrow. I can just take the screenshot, and name it photo11 without needing to add it to my file share right?

Tag it photo11 and no, you don't have to add it to your fs.

 

[FyreWulff]

Okay, booted up Reach and going down the list, the playlists that match party v party are:

Squad Slayer (Big Party Size 4-5)
Arena (Big Party Size 3-4)
Double Team (Big Party Size 2)

I guess MLG elected to not turn it on, I kinda expected it to be on in there..

 

[Gui_PT]

I'll try tomorrow. I can just take the screenshot, and name it photo11 without needing to add it to my file share right?

You have to Tag it photo11.

And no, you don't need to add it to your fileshare

Edit: Beaten =P

 

[erpg]

Other than not knowing you had to set your Network to My Console / System Link, yeah, it was pretty simple. Should probably note that, as I don't think the video linked on Waypoint did.

http://www.bungie.net/Stats/Reach/FileDetails.aspx?fid=20917556

 

[Tawpgun]

Okay, booted up Reach and going down the list, the playlists that match party v party are:

Squad Slayer (Big Party Size 4-5)
Arena (Big Party Size 3-4)
Double Team (Big Party Size 2)

I guess MLG elected to not turn it on, I kinda expected it to be on in there..

Squad sure doesn't feel like it does a good job. But if it takes parties of 4 and 5 at the same value it explains the full guest party + random.

Honestly to us, it makes no difference. We'll dong happily. But for the guests that just want to have a good time, or the players that want an even match of Squad and they get matched against us... Ouch. Those 75-10 games are like the slayer equivalent of the Tempest CTF base rape.

 

[kylej]

You know, I think I need to test TrueSkill some more before I jump to conclusions. Lets shit on kids in Objective get on gt jelyk thankssssssssssssssssssssssssss

 

[The Henery]

Okay, booted up Reach and going down the list, the playlists that match party v party are:

Squad Slayer (Big Party Size 4-5)
Arena (Big Party Size 3-4)
Double Team (Big Party Size 2)

I guess MLG elected to not turn it on, I kinda expected it to be on in there..

The reason it is practically unplayable without a to4 and highly inadvisable to enter alone. It's a shame because I like what they've done with Reach, more so than their alterations to Halo 3.

Half of the true skill argument could be resolved if Bungie/343 enabled big party restrictions in more playlists. I've seen a group of mic'd up yet average players defeat five individually skilled randoms many times - they win by virtue of communication alone. Now, you take the gang of highly skilled individuals and have them communicate against a group of random average individuals (i.e what was posted by tawpgun a few days ago) and you see results that skew Trueskill even further than it usually is.

If any playlist needs party restrictions then it is big team battle. Some say it leads to longer wait times for to8 but honestly what's the point of even playing the game if it almost always ends in the same result - the team of eight crushing the randoms like ants. I've played by myself against a to8 and it feels pointless and is prompts me to want to leave. I've played in a team of eight against randoms and decimated the randoms - randoms that invariably quit and who can blame them? Seriously every game I played in a to8 the other side quit until there was one or two players left. Boring for everybody.

Now, BTB is pretty bad in Reach anyway, however, games where i've played 8 randoms vs 8 randoms have been very playable and to8 vs to8 is awesome. This is why party restrictions are a necessity for BTB.

 

[The Librarian]

For some weapons on the HUD, Bungie went way overboard to make the player notice when his or her weapon was overheating.

The plasma repeater for example. There's an indicator just to the right of the reticule, one near the ammo counter, and a visual representation on the gun itself.

 

[FyreWulff]

For some weapons on the HUD, Bungie went way overboard to make the player notice when his or her weapon was overheating.

The plasma repeater for example. There's an indicator just to the right of the reticule, one near the ammo counter, and a visual representation on the gun itself.

PR was the same way.

Then they go and make it so Blind removed both the HUD and the gun, so the in-universe indicators are redundant.

Dammmnnn Yoooou Bungiiieeee

 

[HiredN00bs]

Hey guys, I have a great idea to improve Trueskill matching.

The main problem is that new players entering a playlist, mixed skill parties, and guests fuck with TS's ability to match close games, right? Right.

So this is what I propose:

We create a new playlist.

Ban guests from playing, they throw off TS.

Turn the restrictions on matching up so only close skills are matched.

Then, make a system to encourage these players to play a minimum amount of games before we show their skill level. This will make them play enough games for TS to figure them out. Let's say around 30 games before we show them their skill level. TS can figure out your skill in about 12 games, so about twice that amount will give us better results.

After that (hold on, it gets good), take only their BEST performances (so people aren't encouraged to quit out of losing games and don't have loss anxiety) and put them into a TS group. Since we're not running Halo 3's hill-climb 1-50 in the background, the number would jump up and down too much (even after wins) and would confuse the player. So we reduce the number of possible groups down to 4-5 and then just show them a general percentage of placement within that group, like Starcraft 2 or some shit. Let's call them Leagues or something like that, I can't remember what else you'd call a group of people with similiar skill, but I'll edit it in when I do.

So now we have:

- no guests and minimal mixed parties
- harder restrictions for close games
- encourage the player to play a minimum of games to get enough data points into the TS black box to promote better matching

So everyone in this playlist would get competitive games at their skill level. The minimum game amount would make boosting pointless.

I'd call it The Coliseum.

Hire me 343.

Casting your pearls before swine...

 

[ElRenoRaven]

But by that time most of those forums will be gone from Bungie.net!

Yup. But there is always 343's forums. We can go there and laugh.

Fyrewulff even though the system is pretty much unfixable people still have a right to complain about something that provides pretty poor experiences. Saying provide a better solution to people who may be experts in theyre own respective fields but dont do maths or programming is beyond ignorant. I dont expect Microsoft to spend resources changing a system that works well enough for 90% of the stuff out there but I am going to still complain the 10% of the time things suck.



I know a bunch of people who have. There are even people on here who have, I personally just play a lot less Halo altogether these days.

In Fyrewulff's defense he's not saying you can't complain. He's just trying to give some insight into why it's the way it is so that maybe people will not just come in all the time going it's broken. It sucks. It's not a perfect system. Everyone knows that. It's what we have though. It's a prime example of why I want a browser for customs.

Take RTCW. I played that game for years on the PC. THere was a server I played on all the time called Happy Penguin. The reason I gravitated to this server was because it was a very competitive server. There was a map that we'd play called Tank. This map was huge and just amazing. You could play that map for a good 3 plus hours then leave and come back 8 hours later and the same game you left was still going on. If I couldn't have picked that server I would never have had the fun I did on that game. It allowed me to play the game the way I wanted on a server that had a regular group of people that cycled in and out that was in the hundreds at least. If more games on live had that ability the competitive types that are more skilled could host up a server and find people of similar skill because some would leave and eventually you'd find the others like you that are skilled enough. Basically it would not require any trueskill. You could still have match making though.

You know I just realized the game that does it and does it like I'd want. If you guys have played Team Fortress 2 that game does it right. You have a play now option which is basically match making. You click that and pick a mode you want to play. For me it's attack and defend. Then it finds you a game. At the same time it has the browser to find a server of your choosing. I'd love for Halo 4 to have something like that. You could choose matchmaking and pick a gametype you like and it would find you games of that type. Then if you wanted to find a specific server that someone is hosting you could by using the browser list.

Does that make any sense? I hope it does.

 

[neoism]

Only 3,987 to Onyx! The good news is that along the way you'll get a whopping 3,250 cR in bonuses, not counting the 300 you got for Iron rank! That's 0.13% of the credit cap in your current rank. Your player investment system in action, folks.

Yeah but don't you get 14cR for every assassination? That's 55818cR for all you've done not counting the bonuses for every new commendation level.... if the bonus was a lot more say 100X people would have already got max rank and even more people wouldn't be playing.

 

[op_ivy]

jesus, after squad slayer, i cant touch any other mode infected with armor lock. its 10x as infuriating now that i've gotten used to not seeing it

 

[GhaleonEB]

From frankie on the b.net thread

Not sure if that means we dont get the options or if we have to go download those gametypes in the playlist to get the options

I wonder if the TU will take the same cautious approach the CEA is taking. The remake is very conservative, preserving the exact game we know and adding a new (optional) graphics layer and some cookies sprinkled throughout. It sounds like the TU will focus on adding new options, and then the playlist management side will allocate the implementation of those options alongside the current gameplay. But it also sounds like they're shying away from universal balancing tweaks the likes of which we've been accustomed to from the past few games. That strikes me as an overly hesitant approach, because I would really like to see some stuff rebalanced in Reach's core gameplay.

We don't have a complete picture (or even a picture at all) so I'm not drawing any conclusions. But in what we know so far with the TU and CEA, 343 is being very deferential to the original experience, and then adding an optional other layer, be it new visuals or new game play tweaking options. I understand the approach, but I still hope for some universal tweaks when CEA hits, and some new ways to play CEA, be they skulls or whatever. Things like nerfing the Banshee's acrobatics isn't something that should be confined to a set of playlists.

Is it PAX yet? I can't believe we still have six weeks to go.

 

[wwm0nkey]

I think starting with the newest Halo Bulletin this week they should tell us 1 thing that is being added/changed in the TU and do this up until Halo Fest where they will tell us the big changes/options they are making

 

[Hypertrooper]

jesus, after squad slayer, i cant touch any other mode infected with armor lock. its 10x as infuriating now that i've gotten used to not seeing it

Welcome to the club. Squad Slayer is indeed the best playlist right now. tbh. they should add CTF/Assault/Bomb gametypes in that playlist and I don't need other playlist anymore.

New frankie photo for your frankie erotica folder:
Search in plus.google after Frankie.

 

[The Librarian]

I wonder if the TU will take the same cautious approach the CEA is taking. The remake is very conservative, preserving the exact game we know and adding a new (optional) graphics layer and some cookies sprinkled throughout. It sounds like the TU will focus on adding new options, and then the playlist management side will allocate the implementation of those options alongside the current gameplay. But it also sounds like they're shying away from universal balancing tweaks the likes of which we've been accustomed to from the past few games. That strikes me as an overly hesitant approach, because I would really like to see some stuff rebalanced in Reach's core gameplay.

And I can understand that. The people who enjoy Reach's core gameplay should be able to enjoy it. Separate playlist with different options would probably be the best thing to do.