Support NeoGAF

[JaggedSac]

I wonder if the improved File Share is referring only to Bungie.net or will there be an in game one?

If there was an in-game one where you could search over the entire population, I would poop my pants.

 

[Slightly Live]

More.

Does the Arena rule out any chances of a specific 'MLG' playlist?

No.

Once in Onyx Division will you permanently remain in Onyx Division, or do you have to earn it month after month?

If you want to be able to state "yeah, I'm Onyx this Season", then yes, you'll have to earn it each Season.

Are there going to be vehicles in the Arena?

(And all other questions about parts of the sandbox, like abilities or specific weapons)

Our goal is to only include parts of the sandbox which lend themselves well to a competitive but even game. If there was a Scorpion on the map, and one person could go on a tear with a dozen kills with it, then the Arena would turn into "first person to the Scorpion gets a high rating!"

That is not our goal. The Arena is not intended to be a measure of how fast you are at getting to the single rocket launcher spawn.

 

[FourDoor]

Is Urk out of a job?

No but he's taking a 2hour lunch today since all he has to do is copy and paste the Q&A from the various threads. :lol

Spoiler

thanks for reposting the q&a here

 

[Slightly Live]

Copy and Pasta!

Are there going to be rewards--other than honor and glory--for being a top ranked Arena player? Like armor permutations, b.net mentions, etc?

No. We do not want people who do not enjoy Arena style playlists to feel compelled to do them to get the helmet that they really want.

The Arena and its Ratings/Divisions are their own reward, intended for the people who crave that particular flavor of reward.

Are there 5 ranks for every season or every day?

Every game, you will get a Rating.
E.g., 1340

Every day that you play at least X games (say, 3 games), your best X games will be averaged to give you a Day Rating.
E.g., 1314

Every Season that you get rated in Y days (say, 5 days), you will be assigned to a Division based on your performance across all games in the entire Season.
E.g., Silver Division

Will you be able to bring in a party to arena, or is it a single player entrance into the playlist like slayer?

You can bring in a party, but only up to the team size. E.g., 4 player parties in a 4v4 playlist.

How big of a role will the social search criteria play into finding teams in the arena?

Will the social search options play a role into the types of teams you get matched up against?

In Arena, Social Preferences will matter a lot less than Skill. When finding opponents, probably not at all. At most, they'd be a tie-breaker.

What did you have for lunch?

Will this seasonal class tier thing be the only ranking system in reach or is it just exclusive for arena?

A chicken chalupa, and because it's Friday and I'm doing forum posts, a marguerita.

Seasonal Divisions and Ratings are Arena only. As for other ranking systems that people are asking about, sorry: "more details Soon."

What would happen if I were Onyx division and chose to search with a friend who hadn't played a game of Halo yet? Would I get matched with players in Onyx division or players in lower divisions?

They will match with Onyx players, equal to the highest player in the party. The Arena is not a place to bring a date.

 

[electricpirate]

What did you have for lunch?

Will this seasonal class tier thing be the only ranking system in reach or is it just exclusive for arena?

A chicken chalupa, and because it's Friday and I'm doing forum posts, a marguerita.

Seasonal Divisions and Ratings are Arena only. As for other ranking systems that people are asking about, sorry: "more details Soon."

after what happened here I'm not sure Ferrex should be drinking and posting anywhere :lol :lol

 

[Slightly Live]

Will it ever end? Hope not!

How will you see your position within a league? I know that global leaderboards have brought problems in the past.

Your Division assignment approximately indicates your position in a playlist. There is no leaderboard beyond that. Our experience with leaderboards has been that they strongly motivate players to cheat, and ultimately only really matter to the top sliver of players anyway. Do you really care if you're #12000 or #11990?

In team based gametypes is it possible for the system to rank you as a team, rather than just individually? I may or may not be probing about the possibility of clans...

It is possible, in that Halo 3 did just that, but Arena playlists rank players as individuals. (And yes, victory as a team does affect that ranking, but not so much that the worst player on the winning team ranks above the best player on the losing team, a la Halo 3.)

Does the numerical rank decrease or increase with greater skill? By that, I mean are we striving to get 0001 or, for example, 5000?

The Rating (it's not a ranking, because it isn't relative to other players) will vary within a range of 0 (far, far worse than the worst imaginable performance) and 2000 (an inconceivably good showing.) Most ratings will be around 1000-1500. It'll be easier to see when we publish the formula.

The ideal is that players strive to make it better, such that you can say "hot damn, I cracked 1600 last night", and your friends will know what that means.

Are you approaching The Arena with an interest in having a balanced game while still keeping a varied sandbox in play?

We always have that interest. We sometimes allow ourselves to fall short of that goal to add fun things to the game, like Gravity Hammers and Mongooses.

Or is it Mongoosen?

 

[Slightly Live]

The end?

Will quitting out of matches have an effect on one's Arena ranking?

Yes, in as much as it will count as a loss, and if you do it too much, the Banhammer will apply a special new kind of punishment targeted specifically at quitters. (No, I can't detail it right now.)

If you were to incorporate objective games later, would you be required to keep them in their own playlist(s), or would you be able to use different forms of ranking for each individual game, enabling you to create playlists that are a mix of slayer and objective?

I can answer this on philosophical terms: if we added an Objective Arena gametype, with a good, robust Rating scheme that didn't ruin the gametype ("yeah, imma betray you so i get points for carrying the flag, sux2bu"), we would put it in its own playlist so that players can measure their skill specifically in that gametype.

 

[electricpirate]

The end?

I saw that, and It raised my banhammer a bit

 

[Slightly Live]

I saw that, and It raised my banhammer a bit

Looks like it ain't over yet! I've edited every new question and answer into this page to keep everything up to date.

Holy shit this is awesome. :lol

Ferrex do you personally think that because of this arena more people will be camping?

I don't think so, no. The way the Rating formula works, it is important to not throw your life away, but not so important that sitting behind a corner with a shotgun and going 5-0 in a game to 50 means you get a good Rating.

But we'll see. I'm sure some players will still find this to be optimal.

Will the stats and ratings from the Arena be posted on Bungie.net? And if yes can you specify wether it's the Beta Arena's stats and ratings, the actual game[Halo Reach] itself's stats and ratings or both?

I think these are both a safe bet. We like stats on b.net.

Will the new voting system be restricted in the Arena as there is (currently) a notable lack of Objective games?

Also, have you guys tweaked the Trueskill system as you did for Halo 3 (but obviously in a different way, such as making the system more fluid) or is it left in its original form this time around?

Arena playlist voting options will definitely be different. For example, you might find yourself voting more on the map you want to play than the gametype.

And the way we're using TrueSkill this time is closer to its original form and intended purpose, which (as I've mentioned before) it's really quite good at.

 

[Monocle]

Damn, this is why the Halo series is guaranteed to top the charts for a long time to come. Bungie's design sense never ceases to impress.

To even think about my hype level at this point would be to risk rupturing an organ.

 

[Deadly Monk]

I took off for the Halo 3 beta and got screwed since it was delayed almost a whole day (I had work when it actually went up). I hope they're prepared better this time for the beta!

 

[Shake Appeal]

Does the numerical rank decrease or increase with greater skill? By that, I mean are we striving to get 0001 or, for example, 5000?

The Rating (it's not a ranking, because it isn't relative to other players) will vary within a range of 0 (far, far worse than the worst imaginable performance) and 2000 (an inconceivably good showing.) Most ratings will be around 1000-1500. It'll be easier to see when we publish the formula.

The ideal is that players strive to make it better, such that you can say "hot damn, I cracked 1600 last night", and your friends will know what that means.

This gets me wet in ways I can't explain.

 

[Slightly Live]

Found this interesting bit which isn't part of the amazing Q and A.

Grenade Launcher

The GL fills a similar role as the Brute Shot, in that it can disrupt vehicles without being an overwhelming anti-infantry weapon like the Rocket Launcher, which means we can use them more often.

Functionally, though, it's a very different weapon with a lot of nuanced tricks. We'll see how close to balanced it is the Beta!

And now more!

How far is the skill level between someone in the 99th percentile of Onyx and the 1st percentile of Gold? Would the Onyx player own the Gold player, or would it be very even?

Same goes from players in the same division, IE 1st percentile Gold and 99th percentile gold.

The highest player in Gold and the lowest player in Onyx would be practically identical, existing as neighbors right on the very threshold of the Divisions.

I can't speak to the difference in players within a Division, though. Besides being different per Division (for example, there might be a wider skill range in Bronze than Silver), I just don't know our Arena players yet.

 

[bobs...onGaf]

I took off for the Halo 3 beta and got screwed since it was delayed almost a whole day (I had work when it actually went up). I hope they're prepared better this time for the beta!

Im just hoping that they have a full month long Arena season in the beta... meaning that the beta would last a month

Im hoping for that as I wont really be able to play the Beta otherwise but they will probably have a short season in the beta.

Spoiler

Just to spite me.

 

[feel]

Is nobody asking questions about regular matchmaking?? Or is this Q&A dedicated only to Arena mode?

And thanks for posting all that stuff here Dani.

 

[InvincibleAgent]

*Mongeese

 

[Slightly Live]

The train keeps steaming ahead!

Legit 1200? So what division does that put you in?

It doesn't. It will make more sense later, but a Rating only tells you how good you did against the people you played against (i.e., your peers.)

You could have a Silver Division player who gets a Day Rating of 1200, or an Onyx Division player who gets a Day Rating of 1200. Both of those players know "ugh... I didn't play very well* last night. I need to do better."

Short version:
Division = who your peers are
Rating = how well you played against your peers

*1200 is not very good.

I know its hard to know what the population might look like in terms of sheer numbers, but do you have a rough target percentage for how many players would be in Onyx, Gold, etc.?

We won't be comfortable answering that till after the Beta and we've seen some real numbers. Sorry.

I thik a lot of us here will not be able to play on a daily basis. I personally can only play on weekends. Does this meen I will basically never rank up? I believe people with more time on their hands will have a huge advantage from my point of view at this moment.

Quantity only matters until you get enough games and days to get assigned to a Division.

Quality defines which Division you get assigned to, and that's what ultimately goes in your Service Record. Quality >>> Quantity.

 

[Domino Theory]

So wait, there's a Divisional rank, numerical rank and an EXP rank?

 

[electricpirate]

So wait, there's a Divisional rank, numerical rank and an EXP rank?

Numerical rank is dead. Nothing said on Exp rank yet.

 

[electricpirate]

Is nobody asking questions about regular matchmaking?? Or is this Q&A dedicated only to Arena mode?

And thanks for posting all that stuff here Dani.

Just arena stuff, I asked a question about matchmaking but it was ignored, and Ferrex said they weren't going off topic from Arena stuff.

 

[Slightly Live]

Choo Choo!

What about August 31? You can't leave a day out

Does August have 31 days? Crap. I knew I should have checked.

Sorry to tell you guys, but your 360 probably won't boot up on August 31.

I thought you said that your rating per match was not relative to your peers' performance.

Now when you say "how well you plated against your peers" do you mean the people you just played in a match or the division as a whole?

My "Division" right now is "employees at Bungie". I haven't been doing too well in playtests.

Rating is against opponents in that game. In a large enough population (like a few thousand, or tens of thousands), Matchmaking will do a pretty good job of putting you in games where your opponents are, in fact, your peers. Especially with TrueSkill being freed up to do its magic (fun factoid: in a large population, TrueSkill can accurately predict your relative skill level in less than a dozen games.)

If I play the minimum number of required games and a get a good enough rating to be Silver, will I stay silver the whole month?

Basically I'm asking if the leagues are divided by the number of players, or point boundaries.

Also, what incentive is there for an Onyx player to play more Arena that month?

If you land smack dab in the middle of Silver Division, and your game neither improves or worsens, you'll probably stay Silver. If you improve, however, you can still go up.

A player who comes in at Onyx after a couple of days of winning most or all of his games (even against challenging opponents) and stops could be pushed out if more players move up above him. Divisions are distributed across the population.

Guys, this has been fun, but I need to get back to work for the rest of the day. There's another info drop coming soon, so stay tuned.

Thanks all for the questions, and sorry to anyone that I missed (or couldn't answer.)

Cheers!

 

[bobs...onGaf]

Another info drop? Meaning the Weekly Update or something more interesting?

We have been spoilt these last few days, Mancannon posting here, Ferrex posting on Bungie.net and the shacknews articles (any more of those incoming?).

Good Times

 

[Shake Appeal]

I love everything I am hearing about the Arena, the ratings, the lack of visible ranking, the matchmaking, all of it. If it works as advertised, this game has legs.

 

[JaggedSac]

Arena sounds like an incredibly well designed mode.

And hooray for the +2 Banhammer of Smiting that does extra damage to quitters.

 

[Domino Theory]

I can tell you that Invasion/gametype details are in the caboose of the hype train. Basically we ordered this stuff around complexity of assets required since we're neck deep right now. UI screenshots/high level features = easy. Awesome multiplayer screenshots and details on gametypes = more time consuming. All in due time... Next week will be cool though.

Cool beans, thanks a million.

 

[Slightly Live]

I've put a full summary of the Bnet Q and A on Forward Unto Dawn.

 

[electricpirate]

between this and whip counts I'm rubbing the text off my f5 key on a brand new laptop. I'm going for a run, I need to the get the hell out of here!

 

[CadetMahoney]

Arena sounds like an incredibly well designed mode.

And hooray for the +2 Banhammer of Smiting that does extra damage to quitters.

have to agree, looking forward to this game.

 

[urk]

Numerical rank is dead. Nothing said on Exp rank yet.

EXP is dead too.

 

[InvincibleAgent]

Arena sounds like an incredibly well designed mode.

And hooray for the +2 Banhammer of Smiting that does extra damage to quitters.

What happens to them? I missed it.

 

[Eric WK]

I love everything I am hearing about the Arena, the ratings, the lack of visible ranking, the matchmaking, all of it. If it works as advertised, this game has legs.

Ain't that the truth.

 

[Magni]

Update is up, and it's still Friday

Spoiler

well, for seven more minutes

here in France, hell yeah

 

[bobs...onGaf]

EXP is dead too.

The credit system is going to be basically the same thing though right?

Spoiler

Dont let the Bungie team down, so far the employees have been super awesome at explaining things :lol

 

[Popeck]

BWU is up:

http://www.bungie.net/News/content.aspx?type=news&cid=25207

 

[urk]

The credit system is going to be basically the same thing though right?

Spoiler

Dont let the Bungie team down, so far the employees have been super awesome at explaining things :lol

Nope. It's far more robust and globally implemented. You won't need to hit a certain playlist (or even matchmaking) to see positive results.

 

[urk]

I love everything I am hearing about the Arena, the ratings, the lack of visible ranking, the matchmaking, all of it. If it works as advertised, this game has legs.

The quality of your games should be much better as well, my Transatlantic friend. Except when you're hammered. Then it's all on you.

 

[Mr. Lemming]

Glad to see the return of a Bungie that discloses the details of their games in progress instead of talking about how water is wet and awesome for weeks at a time.

 

[Shake Appeal]

I gave up (grain) alcohol for Lent!

 

[Magni]

In the Beta, players will be able to create Saved Films and upload them to their File Shares and create screenshots that can be posted to their gallery on Bungie.net. In Halo 3, players were limited to a total of around 100 custom content items (maps, game types, films, screens, etc.), but in Reach, you’ll be able to have THOUSANDS of custom content items. Better yet, you’ll be able to upload, tag, and search for content right from the in game menus, utilizing the massive database previously found only through Bungie.net to tag and query our vast community collection for kick ass content.

Sounds awesome, eh? It is.

Oh, and regional MM is great as well

 

[gibration]

Reach is looking to take over my life. I hate you Bungie.

Spoiler

jk I <3 you Bungie.

 

[feel]

EXP is dead too.

Interesting. When will we be reading about non-Arena matchmaking and how its incentives to play work?

Oh, update is up, gotta go read.


read it-

:') oh bungie...

 

[Self Induced]

Glad to see the return of a Bungie that discloses the details of their games in progress instead of talking about how water is wet and awesome for weeks at a time.

So when you say "return of a Bungie" you really mean "they've progressed work on Reach enough," right?

 

[bobs...onGaf]

Nope. It's far more robust and globally implemented. You won't need to hit a certain playlist (or even matchmaking) to see positive results.

Wow I was just joking, I actually love you just for making the effort to post. Best dev's ever, thanks for the response.

Personally I had a feeling its going to be like the old Halo 3 system (or maybe like CoD's), but on a larger scale. From the Morello pics we see its implimented into single player aswell so I guess earning certain medals or whatever will raise 'credits'. Im guessing that its the system used to unlock more asthetic armour items? Meh ill gladly wait for this info.

Back on topic, the new file share system sounds amazing, and we have access to it (in a limited form?) in the beta, awesome! I just love the removal of the annoying 100 item limit.

Here’s a teaser: The DMR and the Magnum can take down a fully shielded Spartan with the exact same number of trigger pulls.

Why does this worry me? Hopefully this doesnt mean the DMR is as the same strength as the pistol, but I really dont want the DMR to be weakened close quarters or something.

 

[kylej]

EXP is dead too.

Could someone at Bungie whip up a nice flowchart detailing the new "ranks" (Arena, division, peers, etc)? Would help me and I'm sure a lot of people understand the system better.

From what I understand, the ranks that people are going to brag about are the Arena ranks. So if someone is a staff captain in Halo 3, the only definable rank they will have in Reach is their Arena rank which changes every month. Is a rank you earn in the Arena a sort of "highest skill" that you keep for everything under the umbrella? Like, if I play Team Snipers in the Arena and get to Gold rank, then I play Team Slayer in Arena, do I start from scratch in Slayer?

Social matchmaking seems like it will hinge on the hidden trueskill that you kind of get in Halo 3. Basically if my friends and I dong on kids in BTB for 5 hours a day, eventually we're going to be locked out of games filled with guests and scrubs and will only play people of our same trueskill, right? I'm loving what I'm reading but I don't quite grasp it all.


If you want to cut down on 1 month boosters I'd recommend putting some sort of Arena history into every Service Record. If I click on a guy's name and see he has hit Onyx rank for the past 5 months, that would be way more impressive than seeing 'iTz SmokeWeed v19' have one month of Gold level rank.

It’s about finding out who really is the best slayer when many of the more “random” external factors have been stripped away and the underlying ability to put bullet on pixel is all that’s left.

 

[Kapura]

Ferrex stole my halo emblem design.

That was really cool that he was able to answer some questions from the community. reading the bwu.

 

[Mr. Lemming]

So when you say "return of a Bungie" you really mean "they've progressed work on Reach enough," right?

No, for instance back when they were working on Halo, Matt Soell and others actually took the time to answer specific questions on forums... even about things that may not have been discussed on official channels. The lead up to Halo 2 and 3 was shrouded in so much secrecy even when something was shown off any details about it were vague or left for us to discover when we bought the game.

This infodump is sort of a mix of the two, but Bungie is bigger in size and stature now. The change is understandable, Bungie has gone through considerable changes in the last decade being swallowed and then punching out through Microsoft's esophagus. I just like having some sort of regular information instead of constant teasing of "This is awesome but I can't talk about it".

Edit: Also to the benefit of the current method of unveiling information unveiling, we never would have gotten as much detail and polished writeups about individual features as we do now in the past.

Also "Majority rules, but if a playlist demands special treatment, we can configure blind or no vote options as well." at least the feature is there to hide vote tallies.

 

[Slightly Live]

All of the customized Spartan and Elite models look hot

Someone will be pleased. :lol

 

[big ander]

Spent most of this car ride today refreshing my subscribed threads looking for Reach news, but the title change must have removed it. Holy crap. This is awesome.
I love everything I'm hearing. Now, to read FUD, Shacknews, and the BWU.

 

[urk]

Could someone at Bungie whip up a nice flowchart detailing the new "ranks" (Arena, division, peers, etc)? Would help me and I'm sure a lot of people understand the system better.

Yeah, we're probably gonna blow it out next week. Best to think about Arena as it's own thing. You'll have historical seasonal rankings sort of like the back of a baseball card to track your play over time, so yeah, if someone were to buy an Onyx, it'll be pretty obvious (and embarrassing).

And you're correct, Trueskill will drive matchmaking across all gametypes. Not only that, but the matching will take groups into account whenever possible. Not having a split between Social and Ranked means that the population for most hoppers will be much larger overall.

 

[Eric WK]

If you want to cut down on 1 month boosters I'd recommend putting some sort of Arena history into every Service Record. If I click on a guy's name and see he has hit Onyx rank for the past 5 months, that would be way more impressive than seeing 'iTz SmokeWeed v19' have one month of Gold level rank.

I think that's exactly what they're doing:

Luke Timmins: "It's a season-based model, which [helps prevent account smurfing]. If you played a bunch in Halo 3, you'd hit around 40 [skill] and all of a sudden you're number isn't going up. Players would say, 'I guess I'm done. Do I make a second account?' The season model does some really cool things. At the end of the season, it goes on the back of your 'baseball card' and the next season begins fresh."