Sure okay, Warzone totally explains why every single arena playlist was ranked at launch.
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Halo 5: Guardians |OT5| Is HaloGAF irrelevant now?
- Thread starter sir_dany12
- Start date
Sure okay, Warzone totally explains why every single arena playlist was ranked at launch.
I think you're faking, on purpose, to understand how a competitive-focus from a company standpoint may be very different from what a esport crowd could have been waiting.
Or we just can't agree on this and, well, that's fine, you're free to think Warzone was the main focus for 343 and sucked every ressources they had.
FUNKNOWN iXi
Member
I guess I was conflating the lack of one-sided objectives with too much of a focus on symmetrical maps. To be clear, I don't think Halo 5 focused too much on competitive play, rather it was the direct result of all types of fans complaining after Halo 4.
Yeah, last time we had this discussion I thought Juan agreed with my point on this lol.
If anything, the blame should be aimed towards Warzone being a resource hog for multiplayer, rather than 343 focusing too much on competitive. An overwhelming majority of Halo fans complained about Halo 4's multiplayer, so that has to be one of the major reasons Halo 5 is the way it is for casual/competitive fans alike. Know what I mean? As Trup said, both casual and competitive players wanted equal starts to return. Both crowds wanted Armor Abilities removed. A lot of people wanted faster gameplay. Many asked for thrusters to be a default ability. The common opinion also seemed to be that Halo 4 had way too much aim assist. etc. etc.
Halo 5 didn't have any more or less of a competitive focus in its game design than previous Halo games imo. You can however argue that the initial playlist offerings in Arena did, large in part thanks to Warzone being the go-to casual experience. Let's also not forget the philosophy behind ranked playlists either, how Quinn et al. believes we should play ranked playlists without regard for our ranks. On one hand I could understand that line of thought because it is just a silly rank in a video game, so it shouldn't matter, but that's just not the reality for how players view ranks. That's another reason why we only had ranked Arena playlists at launch.
Warzone was intended to be the casual mode. You said it yourself. Warzone was your unranked playlist.
Warzone got the lionshare of the the dev focus.
4v4 got the table scraps. Which is why it had just 3 gametypes.
If we didn't have Warzone, you can bet your ass there would've been unranked Arena and BTB and mid sized maps.
The notion that these things were missing BECAUSE 343 was too focused on competitive is misguided. As is true notion that the convolution of the controls and heavy magnetism are competitive minded traits.
I'm not really faking. I think you are just projecting your distaste for 343's priorities and using competitive as the scape goat. The competitive offering is more sparse than it's EVER been, yet you cite focus on it as a primary cause for Halo's downfall.
It's clear that Warzone was meant to be the casual experience, and what that focus on the Mode did to the arena offering.
Oh I agree Warzone took time to develop ofc, and this is time that wasn't spent on 4v4 or 8v8 maps to create content for this area. I didn't change my mind on that, don't worry haha.
But I disagree to say Warzone was the main focus. Actually, I would rather say Warzone is that middle-ground I was talking about earlier when I said 343 was trapped in the middle when they had a competitive focus but still wanted to please a casual audience.
To be honest, since Halo 4 was update with 4sk BR and no-abilities, it may have been my favorite Halo MP, from a pure casual standpoint, because of this.
I would disagree with that, only seeing (but again, I may be wrong) that lowering the AIM assist increased the gap between pro and casual while making the game harder to access. Plus adding the pistol as the starting weapon. And this was clearly made to reward a competitive play that most casual player (like me) couldn't afford.
And I'm saying that while I played a lot of Team Hardcore and Halo 3 MLG settings, and I still do with friends on the MCC.
The main difference I see there is you could "easily" carry your team on past Halo (okay, maybe not Halo CE), while in Halo 5, the mojo was "Your team is your weapon", and it's hard to enjoy it as a solo casual player.
Counterpart, sure adding sprint and giving an (OP) AR as a starting weapon alongside the pistol was made to please the casual audience. And I see this move as that middle ground was trying to fill by having a competitive mindset but still wanting to please a casual audience. In doing so, they disappointed (kind of) both.
Actually, I don't know this, but what is the difference between the base game settings and the HCS ones?
From my pov, you're getting everything I said wrong by misunderstanding the difference between a competitive focus from a company pov and what you could have waited from a esport tailored halo game.
Facts.
O rly?
Facts facts and more facts!
Ok stop w/ all the realness. It's too much.
Arena launched the way it did because at the end of the day, they didn't have the resources to include all the other of maps and modes after focusing on Warzone. It had THREE GAMETYPES for crying out loud! That's not how a playlist turns out of its your primary development focus.
I feel like you have to ignore everything about the game to feel like Warzone was some bone thrown to casual in exchange for a conpetitive focused game. Warzone was billed as their revolutionary new gamemode. And it was a massive undertaking for the team.
Kevin Franklin said:
In comparison, Arena was 3 gametype, two of which already existed.
They just traded aim assist for magnetism. Weapons have never been easier to land shots with. Headshots with the sniper without even aiming at the head. Melee lunge is farther and assists heavier.
The skill gap isn't larger. It's compressed. Both the skill floor and skill ceiling are moved closer towards each other.
The pistol and it's place among the sandbox is anti-competitive. A competitive focus would have the utility weapon more viable against map pickups, instead of being handily outclassed by everything!
Focus on teamshot is the opposite of competitive focus. Competitive Values empowerment of the individual, so that players can outplay their opponents.
The dynamic between pistol, AR and the rest of the sandbox is proof that competitive wasn't the focus. The pistol is outclassed by every other precision weapon in every way ( because they are all Warzone upgrades to the pistol), and the AR is a casual players best friend.
A competitive focus is a focus on competitive... is it not? The outcome of such a focus would have been much different from what Halo 5 delivered- from the number of modes, to the sandbox design everything suggests the focus was elsewhere. The only thing apparently competitively focused is the return to fair starts (which is something basically EVERYONE wanted, not just competitive.) Beyond that it's about as unfocused on competitive as it gets.
You already watched this video I think, but I would gladly invite to watch it again and count how many times you can hear "our focus on competitive gameplay": Designing Spartan Abilities for Halo 5: Guardians
Then told me focusing on competitive wasn't the mindset for Halo 5 development. Ryan Darcey even said the campaign designers were complaining because the stress test focused on small scale MP and not PvE environment, as they were focusing on MP first.
I would even quote Josh Holmes:
Josh Holmes said:
Link
The base gameplay was tailored for the competitive side, again, from 343's perspective, while Warzone was clearly made to please the casual audience.
The only thing I want to say regarding your post is that if you can not differentiate the outcomes when focusing on competitive from a company/game studio pov, and the outcomes you would have imagined if designing a Halo game yourself with a competitive focus, then the discussion has no point to continue.
Again, I'm just arguing competitive was a big focus for 343 on Halo 5. Not the only one, they ofc also had to deliver for the casual players, but a big one, and putting back Halo on the esport scene was almost as important, so it was to give this game the competitive tools it needed, again from 343' perspective, which can be very different from yours or the esport crowd.
And this focus on competitive lead 343 to take decisions that hurted the casual appeal for Halo, while the outcomes also may have hurted the competitive crowd because they may have expected something else, but I can't give my opinion for the last one.
And if you truly think competitive wasn't a big focus for 343 on Halo 5, and Halo 5 being esport friendly wasn't what they marketed for the Arena, then you're blindfolding yourself.
But the discussion isn't going anywhere, so I would just say we interpret things very differently from our own experience and wishes for a Halo game, but I agree with you on several points.
Fahzgoolin
Banned
You're all right in some capacity.
Why do you think 343s as a studio would view competitive so differently from what is actually viewed as competitive? Why do you think 343s inclusion of so many casual pandering mechanics equates to a misguided take on competitive. Finally, if 343 was so focused on competitive, why was competitive 4v4 so light in content at launch (and still just as light now)?
So, you post a slide that had competitive play as a bullet under an increased move speed..So because they upped base move speed the entire game is competitive focused? Is this increased move speed an example of competitive harming casual gameplay? The same casuals who like sprint because it 'speeds up the game'
Small scale PvP is apart of every halo game, dating back to CE. It's a smaller part of halo 5 than every game before it. (3 gametypes)
If you refuse to separate the marketing from the actual development, that's on you. But what was marketed isn't what was delivered. They talked about halo being a competitive game (because competitive gaming is all the rage right now), but what about the design choices for Arena makes it more competitively focused than any other halo?
Sure they were financially dedicated to esports. Developmentally? The receipts don't support that.
If shipping the skimpiest arena to date, filled with elements the competitive community flatly rejected twice prior equals "hyper-competitive arena", then you have a point. But what we really have is 343 preempting the release of a game that was woefully lacking in content and trying to market it as something it it really isn't.
So, you post a slide that had competitive play as a bullet under an increased move speed..So because they upped base move speed the entire game is competitive focused? Is this increased move speed an example of competitive harming casual gameplay? The same casuals who like sprint because it 'speeds up the game'
Small scale PvP is apart of every halo game, dating back to CE. It's a smaller part of halo 5 than every game before it. (3 gametypes)
If you refuse to separate the marketing from the actual development, that's on you. But what was marketed isn't what was delivered. They talked about halo being a competitive game (because competitive gaming is all the rage right now), but what about the design choices for Arena makes it more competitively focused than any other halo?
Sure they were financially dedicated to esports. Developmentally? The receipts don't support that.
If shipping the skimpiest arena to date, filled with elements the competitive community flatly rejected twice prior equals "hyper-competitive arena", then you have a point. But what we really have is 343 preempting the release of a game that was woefully lacking in content and trying to market it as something it it really isn't.
This just helps illustrate the point: what you are expecting from a competitive focus differs from what 343 delivered with a competitive focus.
So here I'm done. Let's just move on to the next topic.
This just helps illustrate the point: what you are expecting from a competitive focus differ from what 343 delivered with a competitive focus.
So here I'm done. Let's just move on to the next topic.
A competitive focus that doesn't focus on the needs of a competitive game isn't a competitive focused, no matter what you or the marketing says.
FUNKNOWN iXi
Member
You can be competitive without focusing entirely on the desires of the competitive communities, Trup. Halo 5 could still have a focus on competitive gameplay despite sprint's inclusion.
That being said, I still don't think Halo 5 had "too much" of a competitive focus; that's a moot point imo. Had they handled the launch better and had more to offer, this may not even be a discussion right now.
That being said, I still don't think Halo 5 had "too much" of a competitive focus; that's a moot point imo. Had they handled the launch better and had more to offer, this may not even be a discussion right now.
At the end of the discussion, this is the ultimate truth.
No doubt. But when folks argue that Halo5 had too much focus on competitive- their evidence is usually the lack of casual content in Arena- when EVERY area of the game lacked content, including the so called competitive element.
Gameplay wise, there's no strong argument to suggest that H5 is more competitive minded than any other title (expect halo 4).
If 343 never mentioned esports in their launch marketing, I think people would call it like it is- 343 thought Warzone was going to replace casual 4v4 and BTB. Not only that but it was going to bring in boatloads of money. So naturally, the (potentially) most popular and most profitable gamemode got most of their focus- resulting in less focus going to other areas of the game.
Deputy Moonman
Member
I'd still like halo to be split into two games. Let 343 continue with their direction, both in campaign and matchmaking, but call it something else like Spartans. Then let there be a second game that goes back to the master chief as the sole character (cover some back story or something - I don't care anything) and let the matchmaking go back to more traditional play. Anyone at MS reading this lol? Is a great idea! Let them be on staggered 3 year cycles similar to call of duty.
Ozzy Onya A2Z
Member
I've thrown my hat in the ring a few times but here's my checklist in light of recent competitive/WZ chatter:
-great results from competitive focus for base movement/gunplay
-too narrow a competitive focus on maps and gamemodes with Arena. The truly great maps to me/us were Zanzibar 1 flag/bomb, High ground OBJ etc, burial mounds, Rats Nest etc. None of which have anything to do with H4 or H5.
-WZ PvP is too random and requires a big team, I prefer FF/PvE over PvP for these modes/reasons
-My circle of 10-20 Halo hardcore fans gave everything to H2-H4/MCC and dwindled out to literally just me. I hear party chatter constantly they miss good ol' BTB, 1 sided and light vehicles. They don't go for uber competitive at all, we never liked MLG playlists or ultra team work being required. This hasn't changed from H2-H5.
-Sure keep some resources on HCS but don't have this binary focus of Arena vs WZ and ditch so much of the Halo sweet spot e.g. 4v4 default H2/H3.
-Matchmaking and stability inhibit us from playing Halo together. We can't choose what to play, we drop out or can't find matches.
-Quitters in all modes can eat shit and die.
That's the summary of this Aussie group. We are competitive in that we like to win and will coordinate as a team e.g. BTB (we don't use official callouts etc), we also like to fuck around and have fun but we've never really streamed eSports or wanted to play those playlists. We had a friend/acquaintance from Halo 3 days head over to USA tournies on Team Immunity but we've still never followed the eSports hardcore competitive scene. It's just not Halo to our group or preferred way to play.
-great results from competitive focus for base movement/gunplay
-too narrow a competitive focus on maps and gamemodes with Arena. The truly great maps to me/us were Zanzibar 1 flag/bomb, High ground OBJ etc, burial mounds, Rats Nest etc. None of which have anything to do with H4 or H5.
-WZ PvP is too random and requires a big team, I prefer FF/PvE over PvP for these modes/reasons
-My circle of 10-20 Halo hardcore fans gave everything to H2-H4/MCC and dwindled out to literally just me. I hear party chatter constantly they miss good ol' BTB, 1 sided and light vehicles. They don't go for uber competitive at all, we never liked MLG playlists or ultra team work being required. This hasn't changed from H2-H5.
-Sure keep some resources on HCS but don't have this binary focus of Arena vs WZ and ditch so much of the Halo sweet spot e.g. 4v4 default H2/H3.
-Matchmaking and stability inhibit us from playing Halo together. We can't choose what to play, we drop out or can't find matches.
-Quitters in all modes can eat shit and die.
That's the summary of this Aussie group. We are competitive in that we like to win and will coordinate as a team e.g. BTB (we don't use official callouts etc), we also like to fuck around and have fun but we've never really streamed eSports or wanted to play those playlists. We had a friend/acquaintance from Halo 3 days head over to USA tournies on Team Immunity but we've still never followed the eSports hardcore competitive scene. It's just not Halo to our group or preferred way to play.
Samurai G0SU
Member
hopefully there is a fruitful amount of details for halo at gamescon next week.
ElzarTheBam
Member
Why are you guys not playing Rainbow 6 yet?
Im telling you guys that you'll like it.
I got Fats hooked but his performances lately have been questionable.
Im telling you guys that you'll like it.
I got Fats hooked but his performances lately have been questionable.
VincentMatts
Member
Im hoping for an xbox one X update
I'm really interested in rb6, but haven't had the time for gaming at all lately.
The success story is captivating. The franchise went from being a heavy hitter, to being vaporware. Seige had a middling release. Now it's one of the most played games on xb1. (Edit: the most played on xbl)
Rainbow 6 was one of the games i cut my teeth on when i got into online gaming. Seige seems like a great evolution of the franchise that is both new yet true to its roots.
i remember this shit like it was yesterday
blue_phazon
Member
I moved onto other genres for the time being. Addicted to Paragon at the moment.
But we all know we'll be back for Halo 6 BETA
FATstronaut
Member
R6 is the bee's knees. I regret not listening to you and buying it sooner
You sure about that!?
Y'all should do another jackbox day. Those were fun times.
Just got this message hmm
Nah man, join KSI, but you have to put KSI in your name, preferably like xKSIx420"YourNameHere"
Too slow paced for me.
I can see the appeal though.
Also H5 still has me completely hooked so I have no reason to change.
Samurai G0SU
Member
ive stopped gaming completely for a few months now due to some shit at home. im hoping when i can aquire an xbox one x, it will revitalize my gaming habits because i still want to play many games. glad to hear many of you are still kicking it in halo 5 mp.
ElzarTheBam
Member
R6 is the bee's knees. I regret not listening to you and buying it sooner
You sure about that!?
Wow
SMH
Another is scheduled soon, I shall hit you up on twitter. Actually a Halogaf one might be very fun indeed.
Ya, it is extremely slow.
FATstronaut
Member
Lol pls don't post a pic of my ranked stats
Menke thinks Halo 5 is too competitive for social to work:
https://www.reddit.com/r/halo/comments/6qrzhg/matchmaking_feedback_update_july_31st/dlah4oz/
Regarding lack of gametypes:
https://www.halowaypoint.com/en-us/...145-4a9b-bb26-a5d494afba32/posts?page=1#post9
VincentMatts
Member
Successful games today tend to put more focus into a smaller amount of differentiated modes. So you're more likely to go to another game than look for another playlist.
Because of that, most games just don't have the population to spread their players around too much --- even games that have much bigger populations than Halo has ever had (I've worked on a few of these) still try and focus the population.
What a crock of shit. Having the fucking gametype in the game doesn't mean it cant be part of a "rotational" playlist that comes in and out from time to time. This is just an excuse for not delivering plain and simple.
Im telling you right now, if halo6 doesn't ship with its usual "halo" gametypes and i mean the ones we had in bungie games, then fuck this game and fuck this franchise. Fed up of these bloody excuses all the time.
edit: I never went to "other games" for a big team battle until you guys fucked it up. Wake the fuck up 343. Honestly.... if this guy works for 343 then im telling you, it doesnt give me any hope for 6
If Microsoft delivers an MS Office suite every few years but then google comes along and offers one too where some of their apps are better, does MS stop offering the ones that google does better cause people will go there or do they improve what they have so that people wont leave? lol
I better log out of Neogaf today cause im gonna fucking lose it
Who is Menke? I don't know everybody from the US/Reddit community, so I never saw this username before.
Menke is a matchmaking guru. Handled the MM algorithms for a lot of games known for their MM. left halo shortly before launch to work on Another game, then came back.
He's also one of a few devs who openly talk about development and even responds to suggestions! Awesome guy.
Edit: I love menke to death, but...
Of course more people are playing the competitive play list- the game launched with few other options (Warzone being the ONLY casual option). Not only that, but they casualized the competitive playlist. MLG didn't have sprint, radar, or automatic weapons. H5 Team Arena and later HCS have.
It's OBVIOUSLY caused by how they shipped.
They basically got rid of the competitive playlist, merged ranked team skirmish and slayer, and then called that "competitive".
Josh Menke, main ranks/matchmaking guy. Designed ranking system for Halo 5, left 343i after the beta, and now he's back Very active on Waypoint, Reddit and Twitter.
https://www.reddit.com/user/ZaedynFel
https://www.halowaypoint.com/en-us/players/zaedynfel
https://twitter.com/joshua_menke
Fahzgoolin
Banned
Menke's point about how it's harder for one person to make a big influence in the match is one of the number one things I don't enjoy about Halo 5. In previous Halo's you could take on multiple enemies with a well placed nade or taking advantage of trick jumps and the map design with the movement. As a result, the moment to moment gameplay and encounters just don't feel as good and it creates a more frustrating experience online.
Yeah, I was just thinking about that. No other shooter has the same feel of proper King of the Hill, Oddball, or w/e. Those gametypes with the Halo gameplay (especially classic) are so unique. They were unique back then and still unique today.
Yeah, I was just thinking about that. No other shooter has the same feel of proper King of the Hill, Oddball, or w/e. Those gametypes with the Halo gameplay (especially classic) are so unique. They were unique back then and still unique today.
FUNKNOWN iXi
Member
The comment on custom games at least instills confidence that we'll see improvements in that area. Tom French is also an advocate for the customs browser, so hopefully they launch with a drastically improved browser to help with the limited playlist offerings.
Tom is now head of multiplayer as a whole, so I think it's pretty likely.
Like menke, I'm a numbers guy, but following the numbers can get you into Trouble if you arent careful.
Halo learning the wrong things from other popular titles is what got us in this rut in the first place.
Why should be stray away from the things that makes halo unique?
Fahzgoolin
Banned
Tom admitted there is things he doesn't like about Halo 5's gameplay, but he said he doesn't have much influence in that regard. Frank has stated that Halo 6's gameplay will be largely similar to 5's. Menke just said there is problems with the core gameplay itself being "too competitive."
I wonder what changes will be made...or if they will be drastic. I want to believe they'll do more than just refine it, but reign it back a bit to make it closer to how classic Halo feels.
I wonder what changes will be made...or if they will be drastic. I want to believe they'll do more than just refine it, but reign it back a bit to make it closer to how classic Halo feels.
Thanks!
Holy crap, I already like this man then haha.
Maybe seeing other games doing well without modern day mechanics like DOOM or OverWatch will influence their decision to prompt back Halo to its route, as it doesn't need this to be a good shooter nowadays.
I look at this in a positive way. There has never been more players playing objective game modes. Slayer vs TA vs HCS on Halotracker is 250K - 210K - 168K. Warzone, W. Assault and Breakout are also objective modes. Respawn time was reduced in objective modes and increased in Slayer. Players have been conditioned to accept and like objective game modes at the expense of Slayer becoming too "snowbally". Oddball and KOTH both had like 1% of population playing it in Halo 4, it is no wonder they were dropped. And now they can return in Halo 6, with more people willing to play them than ever.
FUNKNOWN iXi
Member
Has anyone tried Lawbreakers? That game has sprint, but it seems rather inconsequential to the gameplay because you don't really get that much boost in speed. The transition from sprint to shooting is very quick also.
Too bad it's not on Xbox..
Too bad it's not on Xbox..
I disagree. It's not more people willing to play them. It's a larger percentage of remaining players.
Compromising what actually made specific gametypes work, what made people attracted to specific playlists, does Nothing but decrease the likelihood that fans will find what they want- it puts people off on the game.
The end result might be a more even population distribution throughout the playlists, but that comes at the expense of people leaving the game altogether because their needs aren't met.
Using H4's terrible playlist management as a datapoint for cutting those gamemodes is an example of extreme confirmation bias. Why would anyone expect that KOTH and Oddball would be successful in their own playlists? The draw of objective playlists is the variety. People loved playing KOTH and Oddball, but they didn't want to play them exclusively.
My take: don't arbitrarily funnel your playerbase into the location of your choosing. Let the playerbase organically decide how the playlists should look. Start with a previously successful structure and make the neccisary changes from there.
If Halo 5 launched with all of the objective modes, an HCS playlist (with actual competitive settings), a Team Arena playlist (with normal settings), Team Slayer (minus the snowbally BS), and unranked playlists, it would have been MUCH better received by players from all over the spectrum.
EvilChameleon
Member
I enjoy the way Halo 5 plays. I just wish, as I have said countless times before, that the maps were better.
You can do all of that in H5 just as much,, if not more so. Especially in taking advantage of the map design. H5 has easily the highest skill gap in the series in terms of nerdy tricks you can do with the movement mechanics and map design. Look at the shit which Shottzy and Frosty pull off. It's ridiculous how big the skill gap is even amongst the pros.
Fahzgoolin
Banned
I played it on PC. I enjoyed it, but it honestly feels...kind of redundant in the shooter space? It's definitely not Overwatch, but you can't escape the feeling of extreme familiarity in that regard. It's more of an arena shooter than hero shooter, but there aren't any weapon pickups and the balance of heroes makes it feel less...interesting? The heroes function more like loadouts in an arena game, so take that as you will.
It's a well made game, but it feels lack luster and the skill ceiling is a bit overstated imho. It makes me want to play Overwatch or Unreal Tournament or even the new Doom (with all of it's flaws). It just feels like a compromise and combination of genres that don't feel super compatible.