A very relevant T-day topic, isn't it? While a lot of us will be carving up birds or other animals today, I'd like to discuss cutting down 3 and Reach.
3 is in the worst need of it, due to lowered population with the same amount of playlists. Instead of repeating myself <a href="http://halo.xbox.com/Forums/yaf_postst42710_Halo-3-Matchmaking-in-need-of-consolidation.aspx">I'll direct you at my Waypoint thread on the topic.</a> The jist of my proposal would be a reduction of Halo 3 down to to 7 playlists from it's current high count, by eliminating fringe playlists and favoring unique experiences.
Now to Reach.
Please 343, for the love of god, if you are not interested in updating Halo 3, at least consider Reach playlist consolidation before you start riding the Halo 4 unicorn around the office every day. The amount of playlists up now will NOT hold once Halo 4 arrives and certainly not versus another CoD, GTA5, and new hardware eventually being released.
Plus we've got to deal with the fact that you've added heavy playerbase splitting and confusing over which pistol you have (in Anniversary Squad, <i>all 3 pistols show up in gametypes</i>
<b>Objective</i>
As stated in my Halo 3 post, Reach playlists should favor unique and popular experiences over fringe gametypes and playlists that only have a small hardcore following.
<b>Restrictions</b>
We cannot cut any playlist nor require DLC for playlists with disc achievements for Reach. This means for example that Invasion cannot be removed or made to require DLC due to the Skunked achievement and the Kill 5 Spartans as an Elite In Invasion achievement.
<b>My Proposal</b>
Of course I want to hear yours, but here's my opinion.
<u>Competitive</u>
The Arena
Team Slayer
MLG
Team objective
Team Precision (SWAT/Snipers folded together)
Multi Team
Invasion
Big Team Battle
Premium Battle
<u>Cooperative</u>
Campaign
Score Attack
Firefight Arcade
Firefight Anniversary (2 man)
<u>Community</u>
Living Dead
Grifball
Action Sack
<u>Anniversary</u>
Anniversary Squad (6v6)
Anniversary FFA
Anniversary Classic
<b>Changes</b>
Living Dead: Anniversary and Defiant required, add in community variants to replace base variants.
Big Team Battle: All DLC required
Firefight Doubles deleted since it really hasn't been given the attention it needs to function. Move Anniversary Firefight up to Cooperative category to replace it. This will have a theme of replicating the Halo 1 experience with 2-man co-op. Heavily weight Installation 04 in Arcade as the first voting option (like Unearthed was for a while) then pull it back later on once everyone has had their fill, but do not require DLC on Arcade.
Now keep in mind this is just a first crunch, and there would be definitely one later on. The only issue I have here is dealing with BTB and Premium Battle both requiring DLC. The upside to Premium Battle being 6v6 is a relatively easy way of getting Invasion Breakpoint. The downside is that with the new Anniversary requirement on Premium Battle, we run into redundancies with either Anniversary BTB or Squad. The idea I would have is to let Premium Battle go on for a bit longer then delete it a while after Anniversary has come out, so that BTB becomes the destination for big parties that want DLC and Anniversary Squad becomes the big party destination for bigger parties that want to just play the Anniversary maps.
Team Objective: Delete Flag Slayer, require all DLC. Weight achievement-heavy gametypes to the top.
<b>Clarification of what we're voting for</b>
I could spend a whole post on this, but it's undeniable that the Reach playerbase has been split and gametype awareness muddied. Unfortunately 343 has made their bed on this and we're stuck with the situation due to the Anniversary disc being out there. Especially since in Anniversary Squad, you could be using any of the 3 pistols (Bungie 5Sk pistol, 343 4Sk pistol w/ bleedthrough, 3 Shot Magnum with autofire) and with the 5Sk and the 4SK you can be spending the first half of the game figuring out which one you have. I like to think of myself as one of those Halo players that knows the gametypes and even I have to ask myself what I'm using. We need a gametype renaming scheme to clarify what we're using. Since 343 still seems adamant on hooking 85% and bleedthrough together:
Bungie Reach gametypes
Same names as before
343 85% bleedthrough gametypes
"85% Bloom Slayer"
"85% Bloom Flag"
etc
Classic 3-shot Pistol gametypes
M6D Slayer
M6D CTF
M6D Big Team Slayer
Basically any gametype with the 3SK pistol should be marked M6D to signify the weapon. It's a short 3 characters and is a mot more directly and clear than "Anniversary" which means nothing since it's also used in Squad and BTB.
