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[Striker]

I sometimes wonder how much play testing goes into these playlists.

Playing CTF on Zealot with the other team using nothing but Drop Shields has to be one of the worst Reach experiences I've had so far.

They removed the Drop Shield from Oddball, KotH, and Territories, but kept it for CTF and Assault. Really odd decision. It should not be in Matchmaking period, but fine for campaign and Firefight.

 

[Ramirez]

They removed the Drop Shield from Oddball, KotH, and Territories, but kept it for CTF and Assault. Really odd decision. It should not be in Matchmaking period, but fine for campaign and Firefight.

Too obvious.

 

[neoism]

I played close to 20K games of Halo 2/3 combined, and a couple of months after Reach's release I can't even be bothered to turn it on to get an easy 3K credit challenge. :lol I'm not done with the game by any means, but there is no way I'm going to play this as much as the past two games. Were those V2 MLG changes for real Tashi? If they're allowing Sprint/Evade setups I really don't even think I'm gonna be interested in their playlist. I was hopeful that they would strip the game of all the BS, and try to get it back to a core Halo experience. =\

Doesn't help that Black Ops is the real deal Holyfield.

Spoiler

opinion subject to change in a few weeks

Really I was totally going to just say fuck it, and go out and get it, so I looked at a few game-play videos... I was instantly taken back, by how shitty it looks... I mean really, MW2 looks waayer better. :/ The gun play looked good ( more of the same) I do agree just a little though, this Halo game is awesome in a lot of ways, and I'll be playing it for years to come. After 2 months I still get that itch to play... but BUNGLE seriously needs to( I mean really... use Forge this time) have like 5 or more new good maps in the mix. They should release 2 or 3 forge maps a month, with new play-lists

 

[Hey You]

Is there a reason Firefight vs wasn't in from the start?

 

[Plywood]

Is there a reason Firefight vs wasn't in from the start?

Who knows, probably just held back for the hell of it like the armory and Glacier.

 

[Shake Appeal]

I can't even imagine how irritating Firefight Versus must be with Campaign/FF netcode. Jesus.

I mean, netcode/sensation of massive input lag is the reason I haven't touched much multiplayer Campaign or Firefight, and at least those are cooperative.

 

[Striker]

BUNGLE seriously needs to( I mean really... use Forge this time) have like 5 or more new good maps in the mix. They should release 2 or 3 forge maps a month, with new play-lists

I need to browse more around the surface and ForgeHub, but there has to be better substitutes than Cliffhanger. Atom I have played once, and though my team was down one player and I was playing against a team full of AR's/grenades, it didn't seem TOO bad. Not nearly as scoffing as Cliffhanger, at least. No offense, Larz, but your map just stinks. I don't want Forge World to turn into another Foundry, or other Forge models from Halo 3, where the community just seems blanketed in their submissions, yet things like Smashed somehow are permitted.

 

[feel]

I need to browse more around the surface and ForgeHub, but there has to be better substitutes than Cliffhanger. Atom I have played once, and though my team was down one player and I was playing against a team full of AR's/grenades, it didn't seem TOO bad. Not nearly as scoffing as Cliffhanger, at least. No offense, Larz, but your map just stinks. I don't want Forge World to turn into another Foundry, or other Forge models from Halo 3, where the community just seems blanketed in their submissions, yet things like Smashed somehow are permitted.

Atom is awkward as fuck to navigate. Just get rid of it Bungie, we'll pretend it never happened, promise. Cliffhanger is not that bad, but it should go too, sorry Larz.

 

[Zeouterlimits]

I can't even imagine how irritating Firefight Versus must be with Campaign/FF netcode. Jesus.

I mean, netcode/sensation of massive input lag is the reason I haven't touched much multiplayer Campaign or Firefight, and at least those are cooperative.

The games of FF MP I've played have been fine, that really shouldn't be the reason to avoid it.

 

[electricpirate]

I like Atom a lot, it's got good sight lines, and fun firefights, but I agree that cliffhanger is terrible. That map is just a clusterfuck, with probably the worst spawns I've ever seen.

In terms of custom content, some good stuff came out of the HBO contest, I really like the "Spartan Training Facility" map that came out of it. I hope they work that one in some where.

 

[Zel3]

They removed the Drop Shield from Oddball, KotH, and Territories, but kept it for CTF and Assault. Really odd decision. It should not be in Matchmaking period, but fine for campaign and Firefight.

Hopefully Bungie tries fixing Team Objective instead of removing it because of the low population. 1000 players is just sad.

 

[Grimm Fandango]

Atom is pretty nice. If there was a way to get back to the base from beneath it without going all the way around (like adding a grav lift), it would be awesome.

 

[Hydranockz]

Ponder this.

Has the fact that we have come off of the back of 3 years playing Halo 3 affected how you perceive Halo: Reach? Personally I find the lack of suitable maps to be disappointing but is that because we have had many map packs released for Halo 3?

 

[Slightly Live]

With Reach we currently have the Forgetacular competition and the Community Cartographers group.

I honestly have no idea how Bungie plan to vet the maps submitted for Forgetacular - possibly dozens of thousands of maps. How the heck will they go through each of them? It sounds like a logistical nightmare. It's also important to note that Bungie

will not provide feedback, support or response to any Entrants regarding their submission.

This sounds nightmarish. If anything, map makers need more feedback not less. If some of these maps are going to end up in matchmaking, then they'll need to make sure they are up the standards folks expect.

And I wonder when we'll see the touted Community Playlist?

 

[Hey You]

Hopefully Bungie tries fixing Team Objective instead of removing it because of the low population. 1000 players is just sad.

Its my favorite playlist

Games like Headhunter aren't that fun to me IMO.

 

[Zel3]

Ponder this.

Has the fact that we have come off of the back of 3 years playing Halo 3 affected how you perceive Halo: Reach? Personally I find the lack of suitable maps to be disappointing but is that because we have had many map packs released for Halo 3?

Halo 3 had way better maps at launch, Reach at the moment has no maps that can compete with Guardian and The Pit.

 

[The Librarian]

I hope we see a title update before or around the map pack is released. That would be excellent timing.

 

[GhaleonEB]

With Reach we currently have the Forgetacular competition and the Community Cartographers group.

I honestly have no idea how Bungie plan to vet the maps submitted for Forgetacular - possibly dozens of thousands of maps. How the heck will they go through each of them? It sounds like a logistical nightmare. It's also important to note that Bungie

This sounds nightmarish. If anything, map makers need more feedback not less. If some of these maps are going to end up in matchmaking, then they'll need to make sure they are up the standards folks expect.

And I wonder when we'll see the touted Community Playlist?

Aye, I don't envy their play testing team. I suspect that a large swath of submissions will be nixed quickly because they won't follow the instructions correctly. And from there another chunk will go because it's easy to tell a very bad map from a good one very quickly.

But from there, the only way is play testing. And that takes lots and lots of man hours, if there are more than a few hundred maps.

One of the things both making and writing about my first map really cemented for me was that building good maps is hard. Like, really hard. From the basic elements of concepting and designing sight lines to handling the variables of player movement, vehicles, spawns, objective placement, object density/game slowdown, multiple game types....the list goes on. It's a thousand big decisions and a million small ones. And then it's got to be play tested and iterated a dozen times over to polish.

And even then, lots of people will hate it.

On GAF customs, the ratio of good to bad maps is pretty small, and the number of people really iterating on their map design rather than firing off one quickie at a time are few. (Self-reminder: try the new Crown of Flies tonight.) But that's not really anyone's fault. It's just that making good maps is very hard. And play testing them will be just as tough.

I really look forward to whatever set of tools Bungie is working on to help filter community content that Urk has hinted at. I know it's taking time to put together, but it should help to find the best of the stuff that's out there.

 

[Shake Appeal]

The games of FF MP I've played have been fine, that really shouldn't be the reason to avoid it.

It and campaign tend to be okay if I play just with UK/Irish friends. But as soon as you throw an American in the mix even aiming a headshot tends to be frustrating.

 

[chess]

For people to be putting Reach behind Halo 3 that really says something. Halo 3 was absolutely horrible. As much as I dislike equipment and AA's Reach will never be worse than Halo 3 or even Halo 2 for that matter.

Reach brought back so much that was right about Halo, but then broke the gameplay with AA's and thus broke the maps and map design. A CE MP in the Reach engine would be best and last halo ever needed to be made. I'm not talking any major graphical change or added textures. Straight up and simple. Just make the pistol a 4 shot and call it fair. Heck even the original MP ported to some simple arcade networking model that's equal or better to xbox connect or Kai would be acceptable!

 

[Striker]

Its my favorite playlist

Games like Headhunter aren't that fun to me IMO.

The top gametypes for Objective should be Multi-CTF, Neutral Bomb, and then 1-CTF. The second tier should be 3 Plots, 1-Bomb, Multi-Bomb, and Oddball. After those the lower weights belong to Territories, Stockpile, Headhunter, and KotH.

I dislike seeing certain gametypes, i.e. Headhunter for Objective and Elites for Slayer, pop up so often.

Ponder this.

Has the fact that we have come off of the back of 3 years playing Halo 3 affected how you perceive Halo: Reach? Personally I find the lack of suitable maps to be disappointing but is that because we have had many map packs released for Halo 3?

Why do you think many were left dumbfounded and disappointed when they left Halo 2 MP to play Halo 3? Maps are crucial for this game.

I find half of Reach maps pretty damn good. There's also some I find meh, like Zealot and Countdown (I know some here like it, but I'm not a big fan of hide & seek), although one like Spire can be definitely tweaked for a more suitable play-through. Swordbase is generally fun, but it tends to have players run to yellow lift or the garden area to camp, which reminds me of Construct's lift camping.

Halo 3 had way better maps at launch, Reach at the moment has no maps that can compete with Guardian and The Pit.

Halo 3 had garbage at launch. The Pit and High Ground were the only suitable 4v4 maps that were decently made for both Slayer and Objectives. Guardian had Slayer going for it, albeit AR starts on that map was putrid, and it wasn't good for CTF or Bomb.

The rest? Isolation, Snowbound, Epitaph, Construct, Last Resort (Zanzibar was superior in every way)... not even close.

 

[electricpirate]

Aye, I don't envy their play testing team. I suspect that a large swath of submissions will be nixed quickly because they won't follow the instructions correctly. And from there another chunk will go because it's easy to tell a very bad map from a good one very quickly.

But from there, the only way is play testing. And that takes lots and lots of man hours, if there are more than a few hundred maps.

One of the things both making and writing about my first map really cemented for me was that building good maps is hard. Like, really hard. From the basic elements of concepting and designing sight lines to handling the variables of player movement, vehicles, spawns, objective placement, object density/game slowdown, multiple game types....the list goes on. It's a thousand big decisions and a million small ones. And then it's got to be play tested and iterated a dozen times over to polish.

And even then, lots of people will hate it.

On GAF customs, the ratio of good to bad maps is pretty small, and the number of people really iterating on their map design rather than firing off one quickie at a time are few. (Self-reminder: try the new Crown of Flies tonight.) But that's not really anyone's fault. It's just that making good maps is very hard. And play testing them will be just as tough.

I really look forward to whatever set of tools Bungie is working on to help filter community content that Urk has hinted at. I know it's taking time to put together, but it should help to find the best of the stuff that's out there.

The ease of Forge brings kind of an interesting piece to the mix, wherein putting down geometry, for a map is VERY easy, and actually pretty fun. This has led to an insane number of maps being uploaded, and never tested. There's so much garbage floating around, that it makes bubbling the good stuff up even harder.

When I first got Reach I DL'd a ton a of maps, and remakes, till I realized that 3/4 hadn't actually figured out what was going on yet, so I'm content to wait for the "Buried Treasusures" and Forgetacular results.

I've found that it's so easy to get blinded by the love for your own map. I had so much fun playtesting, tweaking, and rebuilding my first map, "Bounce." Then I went to play it 1 vs 1 after I hadn't looked at it for a while, and I realized, "Hey, this isn't really all that fun, all of the encounters are just playing out the same way , every time." That was honestly pretty heartbreaking, but that realization has taught me a lot that I'm using on my second map. At this point, I've basically given up on Forgetacular, because my maps just aren't good enough yet.

Basically any kind of good maps are going to take a really talented forger, with a lot of personal ambition and drive who can put him/herself in the right communities to get honest feedback, and invest real time in the maps. I'm not really sure if there's much Bungie can do, in fact, even a custom search wouldn't do much, as after playing some forged creations that I DL'd randomly,I would NEVER actively seek out untested/upolished forge creations.

In the end, great forge content is just going to take time, there's not really a way around that, hopefully the Forgetacular contenst is the real start of it.

I also hope my weekends sort themselves out so I can start getting into more Neo-Gaf Forge testing sessions/customs.

 

[squidhands]

With Reach we currently have the Forgetacular competition and the Community Cartographers group.

I honestly have no idea how Bungie plan to vet the maps submitted for Forgetacular - possibly dozens of thousands of maps. How the heck will they go through each of them? It sounds like a logistical nightmare. It's also important to note that Bungie



This sounds nightmarish. If anything, map makers need more feedback not less. If some of these maps are going to end up in matchmaking, then they'll need to make sure they are up the standards folks expect.

And I wonder when we'll see the touted Community Playlist?

I'd be shocked if Bungie goes through every map and plays a game on it. I imagine there's going to be a LOT of once overs with screenshots/films, then moving on to the next map. Is there a date on when the winner will be announced?

As far as playtesting goes, think about this:
-Atom was built within the first week that Reach came out (released on the 22nd, actually). I'd imagine that Bungie got a hold of it shortly after that to start their tests, so it took about two, maybe three weeks of theoretical playtest time for one map (that most people hate, lol). Multiply that by the ungodly amount of submissions for the forgetacular contest, and you'd see why Bungie would have to do a cursory glance to some of the maps.


The real question here is: would a liquor care package to Bungie's increase my odds of winning?

(Self-reminder: try the new Crown of Flies tonight.)

Invite me if you see me on, good sir. I'd love to hear what you think.

 

[chess]

I also hope my weekends sort themselves out so I can start getting into more Neo-Gaf Forge testing sessions/customs.

diddo, Forge and customs are so much fun. Forge during solo time and then have random customs fun on the weekend!

It's kind of like when cheating made halo 2 MM unplayable and that's all people did was play brainless customs. In a way this is sad, there is no rewarding or truly competitive MM experience anymore. But on the same note, since you can't play serious it has enabled mindless fun again!

 

[Kuroyume]

What playlists are you guys playing Atom on? Can't be Multi Team right? Because it's the fucking worst and that's where I played it. Perhaps 4 v 4 would be better.

 

[Zel3]

The rest? Isolation, Snowbound, Epitaph, Construct, Last Resort (Zanzibar was superior in every way)... not even close.

We'll just agree to disagree. You think half of Reach's maps are good i can only think of one or two I would consider good. Ahh I forgot all about Isolation >_> lets never mention that map again.

 

[squidhands]

What playlists are you guys playing Atom on? Can't be Multi Team right? Because it's the fucking worst and that's where I played it. Perhaps 4 v 4 would be better.

It was meant for 4v4, 12 players tops. Dunno why it got added to BTB or multi-team, other than to just piss people off and hate on the map creator (I blame urk).

 

[electricpirate]

What playlists are you guys playing Atom on? Can't be Multi Team right? Because it's the fucking worst and that's where I played it. Perhaps 4 v 4 would be better.

yea, just 4vs4, I'm a little stunned they put it into BTB and Multiteam, there's no way it should have that many people on it. IMO, one of my favorite maps for just strait DMR->DMR fighting (which means my KDR on it is TERRIBLE :lol )

 

[brokenwatch]

Iron division!! Why yes I will be signing autographs later, ladies.

Maybe I should spend some more quality time with armor lock.

Am I stuck here for the rest of the season?

 

[Shake Appeal]

Iron division!! Why yes I will be signing autographs later, ladies.

Maybe I should spend some more quality time with armor lock.

Am I stuck here for the rest of the season?

Nope, I went up to Bronze the next day without even playing a game. Not many people have placed yet. And today I came 4th, 1st, 2nd, and 4th, so I would hope I can maybe reach Silver soon, which I haven't done since the middle of season 2.

Also, I've been doing better than ever recently using hologram instead of armor lock. :lol

 

[Deleted member 22576]

I really like Arena. Like, a lot. It's just so simple. You got your DMR and your sprint, maybe a few grenades and then you take on the world. It's the best thing to happen to HaloMP ever. I've actually found it kind of hard to venture into other playlists.

 

[Dirtbag]

Armor lock is slowly killing me on the inside.

 

[Shake Appeal]

I really like Arena. Like, a lot. It's just so simple. You got your DMR and your sprint, maybe a few grenades and then you take on the world. It's the best thing to happen to HaloMP ever. I've actually found it kind of hard to venture into other playlists.

Yeah, it's far and away the best playlist, especially now with no radar, the map tweaks, only sprint/holo/armor lock, etc.

If they gave everyone one grenade on spawn and reduced the power weapon count a little it would be even better (I've said it before, but: remove one of the rockets from Boardwalk; move sniper on Reflection to replace rockets, and shotgun to where sniper was; and then just delete The Cage).

It's really what I play most of the time at this point (I think 29% of my games or something, and certainly more time than Firefight and Campaign combined), and will probably be the reason I keep coming back to Reach for the foreseeable future. It's just a shame I don't have many people to play with.

 

[cuevas. PhD.]

Armor lock is slowly killing me on the inside.

it's also slowly killing the Reach population.

 

[Domino Theory]

I hope we see a title update before or around the map pack is released. That would be excellent timing.

What makes you think a title update will happen?

 

[MrBig]

it's also slowly killing the Reach population.

btb is still going strong with it.

 

[electricpirate]

Yeah, it's far and away the best playlist, especially now with no radar, the map tweaks, only sprint/holo/armor lock, etc.

If they gave everyone one grenade on spawn and reduced the power weapon count a little it would be even better (I've said it before, but: remove one of the rockets from Boardwalk; move sniper on Reflection to replace rockets, and shotgun to where sniper was; and then just delete The Cage).

It's really what I play most of the time at this point (I think 29% of my games or something, and certainly more time than Firefight and Campaign combined), and will probably be the reason I keep coming back to Reach for the foreseeable future. It's just a shame I don't have many people to play with.

I'd agree with all of your changes, for maybe the two nade's part.

I really love competive on Reach, Which is weird, because I'm normally more of a "Weird gametypes/BTB guy." But I really like the competitive gameplay reach. This is going to be the first month I qualify due to low available playtime/friends who hate competitive gametpes, Just hoping I can clear iron. I think it's because I don't like Reach's radar, so the Reach Radar/ sprint panting to hear people makes the game feel a lot better.

I just wish there was an arena objective playlist, I think limiting it to slayer is a huge mistake. Especially once MLG comes online, and people are going to want an MLG arena with the full game type list.

 

[Louis Wu]

[talking about Atom] one map (that most people hate, lol)

Where are you getting this?

I've heard a few people say they hate it - and easily as many people say they like it. And the VAST MAJORITY of people who've played on it haven't made comments one way or another that most of us have seen or heard.

So where is this "most" coming from?

 

[GhaleonEB]

Where are you getting this?

I've heard a few people say they hate it - and easily as many people say they like it. And the VAST MAJORITY of people who've played on it haven't made comments one way or another that most of us have seen or heard.

So where is this "most" coming from?

Yeah, there's no way to really measure community reaction to a map from a user perspective. But the simple fact that people are playing it means people are voting for it. If "most" people hated the map, it wouldn't get played.

I think the only way to really evaluate Atom from a community perspective is the veto data. If we haven't driven Urk away yet, I think seeing what the most and least popular maps on playlist a given playlist is might be a neat update item.

 

[ElRenoRaven]

Where are you getting this?

I've heard a few people say they hate it - and easily as many people say they like it. And the VAST MAJORITY of people who've played on it haven't made comments one way or another that most of us have seen or heard.

So where is this "most" coming from?

Good question. I've seen just as many say they love it as have said they hate it. Hell I'm in the love it camp myself.

Yeah, there's no way to really measure community reaction to a map from a user perspective. But the simple fact that people are playing it means people are voting for it. If "most" people hated the map, it wouldn't get played.

I think the only way to really evaluate Atom from a community perspective is the veto data. If we haven't driven Urk away yet, I think seeing what the most and least popular maps on playlist a given playlist is might be a neat update item.

That would be interesting to see in a weekly update without a doubt.

 

[timetokill]

I probably wouldn't play anything other than Arena if they finally took out Armor Lock. Slayer Pro is probably my favorite variant.

I really don't mind the other AA's but AL just ruins everything. So it's just safer to play with sprint-only and avoid that nonsense.

It's a shame too because I really love hologram.


Edit: and to chime in, after thinking I'd like Atom at the start, I actually hate it now. :lol Cliffhanger I've warmed up to a little, though I still rarely vote for it (only will if Elite Slayer is the only other option).

It's a shame because I think there are probably 5 or so ForgeGAF maps or so that I'd rather see in the rotation (with minor tweaks of course).

 

[MMaRsu]

AL does ruin everything. I fucking hate it SOOOOOOOOO much !!!!

I almost kill one dude, he goes into AL for a milisecond and either sticks me or beats me down. So goddamn lame.

Also, I encountered a weird bug today. In the voting round we voted for another round, and selected a map, but instead of that 3 more rounds of voting came up? None of the maps we chose loaded.. until the fifth map.

 

[The Librarian]

What makes you think a title update will happen?

What makes you think there won't be? From everything I've heard, Bungie plans to support Reach as much as they did with Halo 3, and that means title updates.

 

[Willeth]

What makes you think a title update will happen?

A title update will definitely happen for the new achievements. It may not change the game at all, though.

 

[TheOddOne]

Also, I encountered a weird bug today. In the voting round we voted for another round, and selected a map, but instead of that 3 more rounds of voting came up? None of the maps we chose loaded.. until the fifth map.

I thought I was the only one who got this. It has happend multiple times before :|

 

[GhaleonEB]

A title update will definitely happen for the new achievements. It may not change the game at all, though.

The achievements are probably bundled with the map pack. I think that's how they have been distributed in the past.

I think Reach is in more of a need for a title update than Halo 3 was, partly because there's more to balance and thus more tweaking needed. But some bugs could stand to be squashed.

 

[Veelk]

How large of a chance is there that Bungie is going to tweak Armor Lock? I know Bungie doesn't usually change their game significantly once it's released, and I don't have a problem with it myself (for the most part anyway), but a decent chunk of the fanbase obviously has issues with it, enough that I think it should warrant Bungie's attention. There were some pretty good suggestions on how to limit it while still keeping it useful, so is there any chance at all that Bungie will listen?

 

[Blue Ninja]

Man, having a good team for matchmaking makes the game ten times for awesome. I teamed up with team HBO this afternoon, and had a blast.

Also, for some reason, a lot of people like my 'Lookout' map. Getting people to download it is a whole different thing alltogether, though.

 

[Domino Theory]

What makes you think there won't be? From everything I've heard, Bungie plans to support Reach as much as they did with Halo 3, and that means title updates.

Because the same people who are in charge of the sandbox (the area that needs the title update) had to be "bartered by other employees of the studio just to add 3 extra bullets to the DMR", said "I will not freaking put 2 extra bullets into the Magnum" in regards to changing the Magnum from Beta to release and said "It's more idiot-proof and that's all I'll say about that" in regards to changing the Sniper from Beta to release.

Those are the kinds of designers we have to deal with when wanting to change and fix Halo: Reach.

(All quotes taken straight from the June 2010 podcast)

A title update will definitely happen for the new achievements. It may not change the game at all, though.

Achievements are instantly uploaded to the Xbox LIVE servers for all games and DLC. No title update is needed there.

 

[squidhands]

Where are you getting this?

I've heard a few people say they hate it - and easily as many people say they like it. And the VAST MAJORITY of people who've played on it haven't made comments one way or another that most of us have seen or heard.

So where is this "most" coming from?

That comment was meant to be a snarky reply to the Atom haters on GAF. The thread at bnet is mainly comprised of people complaining about it's inclusion in playlists that I don't believe it was intended to be in, which is refreshing when you read some of the comments about it here. I personally enjoy the map and am a big proponent of JoeSki's forging ability. Atom is only a small glimmer of what the guy can pull off in forge.