[Franklinator]

Thanks for the code, derFeef!

[bobs...onGaf]

That seems to me like part of the problem. Ideally, only about 1/50th of the population shoud get to that level, so unless you really are that good, it's not the destination. There should be an even spread of players in each rank and it should be constantly moving/adjusting every time a player moves up of down. Meaning it's a relative scale, WHICH IS WHAT ELO IS. So trueskill. I dont know how you can improve over it, although that doesn't mean its impossible.

It depends on your definition of 'going for 50', I hope your not implying that moving up and down is not possible in ELO, I dont know anything about ELO but I do know that no one is born a Chess Grand Master lol.

I think the Halo 3 population spread was probably fairer than most realize, even on forums where people playing the game 24/7 there was a fair spread of ranks. I think a harsher system would just bunch up too much at the lower ranks.

[StalkerUKCG]

I don't think Tsquared is a genius, but I've thought that many many times I've played Reach. Risen and I played with some others last night in 8 games and it ended every time 75-30 and under besides 1 game when they got in the 40's. It wasn't really fun to play against those people, I'll take losing 49-50 over winning 50-15 any day of the week. The way of the nerd books! I hate that stupid phase with people pushing that book and Gamma Gamer crap.

Reach diffidently has Hidden trueskill The calibur of people i face when playing with my RL friends who dont play alot to when i play alone with randoms and then when i play with a good team like you guys or juices/devo/kyle is clearly worlds apart.

[Risen]

It sounded to me like you wanted the old 1-50 system back, sorry if that wasn't the case. So I'll ask again, what do you propose?

I'd like the old 1-50 system from H2 back. The system more accurately tracked your ability in a TEAM game. Win and you go up, lose and you go down and you're only matched within a specific window of your number. All the intangibles that go into winning are rewarded in the win, and the lack of same penalized in the loss. I can say emphatically my games in H2 as a 43 in hardcore were competitive the vast majority to the time. Remove trueskill altogether so that people cannot manipulate their positioning simply by throwing games.

The inclusion of trueskill did more to allow cheating than deter precisely because it can be fooled. People go in, lose badly on purposed for x number of games, then win a sufficient number which fools the system into thinking they should not have been winning them, and they rank up faster.

Arena initially was completely broken by how stats were applied and not accurately measuring the assist. The change to wins/loses was a huge step in the right direction.

Cheating should be addressed, but by penalizing those that cheat and ensuring it's hard to tamper with the network, not adjusting to an inferior system (in my opinion - I get we're polar opposites here).

[Computron]

I hope your not implying that moving up and down is not possible in ELO

That's the opposite of what I am saying, it was seemingly impossible to do so under the 1-50 Halo 3 system, unlike say pure trueskill.

[neoism]

I'd love to have it, if you don't mind Haha is it that bad?

YES

[Franklinator]

Reach diffidently has Hidden trueskill The calibur of people i face when playing with my RL friends who dont play alot to when i play alone with randoms and then when i play with a good team like you guys or juices/devo/kyle is clearly worlds apart.

Definitely. I have a friend who's not very good, so I always get matched with derps when I play with him. Then when I play with you guys I play against Jedis. Although matchmaking still screws up a lot though

[Devolution]

Played heavies...never again. That is all.

Did you forget how fun they were in 3?!!!!

[Demoncarnotaur]

I can't recall.. Do we know whether or not Halo 4 will be present in any shape at GDC?

[Computron]

Definitely. I have a friend who's not very good, so I always get matched with derps when I play with him. Then when I play with you guys I play against Jedis. Although matchmaking still screws up a lot though

Didn't they match you up based on the highest trueskill of an individual player (as opposed to the average of the group) in one of the games?

I can't recall.. Do we know whether or not Halo 4 will be present in any shape at GDC?

those are the speakers and their sessions. Technical Artists Rejoice!

[bobs...onGaf]

That's the opposite of what I am saying, it was seemingly impossible to do so under the 1-50 Halo 3 system, unlike say pure trueskill.

Oh right, my mistake. I misread and assumed that you were saying that the system was too easy. I agree with you, the idea of rank locking was downright insane.

[thezerofire]

Did you forget how fun they were in 3?!!!!

we got Standoff Heavies yesterday. Dear god. All it takes is one idiot to lose the gauss hog for the game to be over.

[monsterfracas]

Definitely. I have a friend who's not very good, so I always get matched with derps when I play with him. Then when I play with you guys I play against Jedis. Although matchmaking still screws up a lot though

I will never forget the time it was me, you, and 6 randoms against an entire party of inheritors/reclaimers/forerunners.

[Risen]

I am not a mathematician, so correct me if you see something weird, but; That seems to me like part of the problem. Ideally, only about 1/50th of the population shoud get to that level, so unless you really are that good, it's not the destination. There should be an even spread of players in each rank and it should be constantly moving/adjusting every time a player moves up of down. Meaning it's a relative scale, WHICH IS WHAT ELO IS. So trueskill. I dont know how you can improve over it, although that doesn't mean its impossible.

Ideally... whose ideals? Why should there be an even spread of players in each rank? This is not a lab setting or math problem. In the real world there can be all sorts of "clumps" of skills. The vast majority of the population simply is not that good... truly. There is no way there can be, or should be an even distribution of skills.

What there should be is a system that matches appropriate skills together, which ensures likes play with likes. In H3 the system couldn't do that because it could be manipulated. Now in Reach it can't be done because of population and some bewildering emphasis on search times.

If there is going to be a representation of that skill in a team game, it should only be predicated on wins and losses against a small window of similarly ranked opponents.

[bobs...onGaf]

we got Standoff Heavies yesterday. Dear god. All it takes is one idiot to lose the gauss hog for the game to be over.

That game was so bad, I was having a pretty rough run of games, and when that came up I was pretty close to throwing my xbox out the window.

[Franklinator]

I will never forget the time it was me, you, and 6 randoms against an entire party of inheritors/reclaimers/forerunners.

That was the worst. In that game we were the derps

[Kuroyume]

It's going to be in H4 right? Heavies? It's going to ruin BTB there too right?

[Havok]

Plywood, Barrow, and Heckfu - really sorry I left so quickly, but I've been up for 36 hours now and it was making me play like crap. I'll jump in another time once I'm out of exam hell. Pretty sure my echo issue is from this old controller I was using, sorry about that.

Also, Super Slayer seems to have inherited the latent shittiness of Team Slayer.

[Computron]

Ideally... whose ideals? Why should there be an even spread of players in each rank? This is not a lab setting or math problem. In the real world there can be all sorts of "clumps" of skills. The vast majority of the population simply is not that good... truly. There is no way there can be, or should be an even distribution of skills. What there should be is a system that matches appropriate skills together, which ensures likes play with likes. In H3 the system couldn't do that because it could be manipulated. Now in Reach it can't be done because of population and some bewildering emphasis on search times. If there is going to be a representation of that skill in a team game, it should only be predicated on wins and losses against a small window of similarly ranked opponents.

So more of a bell curve? maybe.

I did a post a long time ago on b.net for halo 3 and it didn't fit that either.

[Hydranockz]

Thread is impossible to keep a track of lol. Yay for Halo 4 :p

[thezerofire]

That game was so bad, I was having a pretty rough run of games, and when that came up I was pretty close to throwing my xbox out the window.

and then my xbox froze. Even it had had enough.

[Tashi]

Ideally... whose ideals? Why should there be an even spread of players in each rank? This is not a lab setting or math problem. In the real world there can be all sorts of "clumps" of skills. The vast majority of the population simply is not that good... truly. There is no way there can be, or should be an even distribution of skills. What there should be is a system that matches appropriate skills together, which ensures likes play with likes. In H3 the system couldn't do that because it could be manipulated. Now in Reach it can't be done because of population and some bewildering emphasis on search times. If there is going to be a representation of that skill in a team game, it should only be predicated on wins and losses against a small window of similarly ranked opponents.

lol ya. I'm sorry but I'll wait an extra minute or so just so I don't have to play a 10 minute bore fest against complete scrubs.

[HiredN00bs]

Has anyone considered that most people (i.e. the general populace) played ranked matchmaking in Halo 2 and 3 because it was directly tied to the main incentive system in those games?

Tie the incentive system to ranked play by rewarding ranked play time (either exclusively or more heavily) rather than the rank itself. Having heavily and diversely populated ranked lists will improve skill matches for everyone.

[StalkerUKCG]

Finished up mass effect 1 the other day again, seen Kiki wolfkill listed as the lead artist?

Halo 4 is in good hands.

[Booshka]

Has anyone considered that most people (i.e. the general populace) played ranked matchmaking in Halo 2 and 3 because it was directly tied to the main incentive system in those games? Tie the incentive system to ranked play by rewarding ranked play time (either exclusively or more heavily) rather than the rank itself. Having heavily and diversely populated ranked lists will improve skill matches for everyone.

Coming from the Inheritor just for perspective.

[CyReN]

Finished up mass effect 1 the other day again, seen Kiki wolfkill listed as the lead artist? Halo 4 is in good hands.

Speaking of which Mass Effect 3 is really good so far, pick it up.

[Rickenslacker]

I really like the general look of the multiplayer footage we've seen. I don't know how someone can say Reach 1.5 or anything like that. Everything about it looks visually different from something that Bungie would do, the character models, the HUD, the general aesthetic of the levels. It's a refreshing change, and one I'm open to considering it's a whole new team at the helm.

I just like how clean everything looks, and there's a sort of Doom 3 quality to the environments we've seen so far. Very shiny looking industrial interiors. Also kind of reminds me of Perfect Dark Zero in a way, vibrant, clean, shiny.

I can stare at that BR kill gif all day.

Edit: Post 777 holla.

[Plywood]

Plywood, Barrow, and Heckfu - really sorry I left so quickly, but I've been up for 36 hours now and it was making me play like crap. I'll jump in another time once I'm out of exam hell. Pretty sure my echo issue is from this old controller I was using, sorry about that.

It's all good. go ly dow

[HiredN00bs]

Coming from the Inheritor just for perspective.

I didn't get there playing Arena, but I definitely would have played more Arena if it had been worth significantly more credits.

Remember when the Super Jackpot was in Arena? The population increased by 3000%. Yeah.

The point is to encourage people to play ranked and win because that will yield better match results for all players.

[bobs...onGaf]

Has anyone considered that most people (i.e. the general populace) played ranked matchmaking in Halo 2 and 3 because it was directly tied to the main incentive system in those games? Tie the incentive system to ranked play by rewarding ranked play time (either exclusively or more heavily) rather than the rank itself. Having heavily and diversely populated ranked lists will improve skill matches for everyone.

What would the point of that be? Its not like time played = skill. You would just incentivise afk'ing. I know rewarding Skill opens the system up to abuse from boosters and the like, but to be honest I think I would prefer to go up against 'fake 50's' than to have afk'ers plague matchmaking.

Derankers are a whole nother issue, but that was more down to how trueskill worked, 1-50 with another implementation which didn't involve rank lock etc could work better there. (Not that im directly blaming rank lock for the cheating. )

[Magni]

I see it as a failed experiment. No one used them after shorter and more specific callouts were made by players.

Which is why I hope they're user editable, I'd be sad to see them go away, there's a lot of potential in them.

[FyreWulff]

Nice to see the update go out. The majority of the maps submitted seem to have made it in for Heavies, so there's a mix of new FW maps and variants of DLC and disc maps.

I think at least one person from all the communities got a map in.

that reminds me, did super slayer end up with a huge number of community maps, like its team slayer counterpart? did armor lock return too?

It is an exact duplicate of Team Slayer, just with TU settings

[Risen]

So more of a bell curve? maybe. I did a post a long time ago on b.net for halo 3 and it didn't fit that either.

I don't think it should look any certain way. The skill distribution is just a set of data points, and it will be in constant flux by the nature of the game.

I'm just not a fan of trueskill, or the hybrid system used in H3 because it was (and is) too easy to manipulate. I do not believe it is the best indicator of a player in a team environment beyond general terms.

[HiredN00bs]

What would the point of that be? Its not like time played = skill. You would just incentivise afk'ing. I know rewarding Skill opens the system up to abuse from boosters and the like, but to be honest I think I would prefer to go up against 'fake 50's' than to have afk'ers plague matchmaking. Derankers are a whole nother issue, but that was more down to how trueskill worked, 1-50 with another implementation which didn't involve rank lock etc could work better there.

AFKers are already detected and banned. Winning should also be incentivized, but your actual rank should be just that. And players wouldn't need to AFK in a play time system if you also incentivized dedicated servers.

Rewarding skill doesn't make any sense. Recognizing it and encouraging players to improve, does. If you work really hard and get ranked in the 90th percentile, that's its own reward. Giving someone a gold star on top of an objective analysis of their performance is unnecessary at that point (which is essentially what Halo 3 did).

Rewarding players for playing the game makes sense because it improves the game. More players means a larger population, faster skill matches, better skill matches. This is also why it's important to encourage a diverse population in terms of skill.

[op_ivy]

Plywood, Barrow, and Heckfu - really sorry I left so quickly, but I've been up for 36 hours now and it was making me play like crap. I'll jump in another time once I'm out of exam hell. Pretty sure my echo issue is from this old controller I was using, sorry about that. Also, Super Slayer seems to have inherited the latent shittiness of Team Slayer.

that reminds me, did super slayer end up with a huge number of community maps, like its team slayer counterpart? did armor lock return too?

[heckfu]

that reminds me, did super slayer end up with a huge number of community maps, like its team slayer counterpart? did armor lock return too?

Of the games we played about half were community maps. Armor lock prevalent and used by others.

[bobs...onGaf]

AFKers are already detected and banned. Winning should also be incentivized, but your actual rank should be just that. And players wouldn't need to AFK in a play time system if you also incentivized dedicated servers. Rewarding skill doesn't make any sense. Recognizing it and encouraging players to improve, does. If you work really hard and get ranked in the 90th percentile, that's it's own reward. Giving someone a gold star on top of an objective analysis of their performance is unnecessary at that point (which is essentially what Halo 3 did). Rewarding players for playing the game makes sense because it improves the game. More players means a larger population, faster skill matches, better skill matches. This is also why it's important to encourage a diverse population in terms of skill.

A separation of the two models is best in my opinion. Your probably saying the same thing right? Essentially I think both models fit into the game but should not interfere with each other.

Im all for the main ranking system to be separated from skill levels but I think skill levelling should still be a important part of the game and should require win/loss to go up/down.

The main ranking system would appeal to the mass market in that you rank up just for playing, that could copy the Reach model and would be fine. It would be an awful model for proving skill though. I mean why would more playtime give you a higher skill rank? Time played does not equal skill. And also skill should not stop people from going for Inheritor.

Essentially Reach did what im talking about by seperating Arena ranks and global ranks. Whatever the ranking system is in the next game I just hope its miles better than the arena lol. I think your saying that the ranking system should offer a good payout for the overall system, I would agree with that!

[Woorloog]

Thanks for the games, whoever i played with. Elzar, ZalinKrow, can't remember who else.

Maybe we should play Halo 3 someday.

EDIT i just remembered, i need some Halo Wars achievements (Legendary, Co-op ones, some MP ones too probably), anyone want to play someday?

[op_ivy]

Of the games we played about half were community maps. Armor lock prevalent and used by others.

yay

[CyReN]

Anybody down for Halo 3 or Reach around 9pm est? (2 hr 15 min)

[Computron]

Anybody down for Halo 3 or Reach around 9pm est? (2 hr 15 min)

I am up for either. GT: Vlad356.

I am in reach right now.

[GhaleonEB]

Nice to see the update go out. The majority of the maps submitted seem to have made it in for Heavies, so there's a mix of new FW maps and variants of DLC and disc maps. I think at least one person from all the communities got a map in.

Heavies in Halo 3 was a pretty bad experience, and with Reach's inferior vehicle sandbox and balance, I'm nervous about it in Reach. The test games I played were...unpleasant. But I'm going to hop on tonight and do a couple games, and see how it goes.

Don't make me do this alone, people.

Did you forget how fun they were in 3?!!!!

Heavies on Standoff is still my personal bar for worst. Game. Ever. The map was specifically designed NOT to have a sniper rifle on it, and they put four down, along with the requisite array of heavy ordnance. It was pure, unmitigated misery.

[Woorloog]

Heavies in Halo 3 was a pretty miserable experience, and with Reach's inferior vehicle sandbox and balance, I'm nervous about it in Reach. The test games I played were...unpleasant. But I'm going to hop on tonight and do a couple games, and see how it goes. Don't make me do this alone, people.

Heavies is some horrible shit. At least based on one forged map (which too was horrible). It feels like there's 110-120% damage on, 'nades felt OP (well, more so than usually), vehicles felt... wrong, like they were Reach Beta vehicles (remember how weak those were?).

[VivaciousJazzy]

I actually liked heavies in halo 3. Does that make me a bad person?

yes

[Devolution]

My problem with time based ranks is they tell me nothing about the kind of player I'm going against.

[Woorloog]

I actually liked heavies in halo 3. Does that make me a bad person? yes

The only good thing in Heavies in Halo 3 was the Gauss Hog. That thing is lovely, it feels so damn great. The rest, it was pure misery as Ghaleon noted.

Gotta say that i'd take Halo 3 BTB Heavies over Reach BTB... well, maybe not always but it is close.

My problem with time based ranks is they tell me nothing about the kind of player I'm going against.

Indeed. You generally higher ranked people are better, it doesn't really tell anything. Though arguably it is sort of good thing, people don't quit when they see full Inheritor team, unlike in Halo 3 where a full team of Generals would cause my team to quit...

[TCKaos]

Which is why I hope they're user editable, I'd be sad to see them go away, there's a lot of potential in them.

They should have just been like objective/safe-zone/kill-zone objects. Create a single volume for the entire map, give it a specific label (callout). Create other volumes inside that volume that have a different value (callout superior) that overrides the call-out of the standard label.

Make it so that you can give each a name the same way you can name and edit the description of maps.

Boom, call-outs.

[ElzarTheBam]

My problem with time based ranks is they tell me nothing about the kind of player I'm going against.

Yep, I find myself having a look at their halo 3 record of games played and their K/D to better gauge who I'm going up against.

[Booshka]

My problem with time based ranks is they tell me nothing about the kind of player I'm going against.

Well, they tell you one thing.

[HiredN00bs]

A separation of the two models is best in my opinion. Your probably saying the same thing right? Essentially I think both models fit into the game but should not interfere with each other. Im all for the main ranking system to be separated from skill levels but I think skill levelling should still be a important part of the game and should require win/loss to go up/down. The main ranking system would appeal to the mass market in that you rank up just for playing, that could copy the Reach model and would be fine. It would be an awful model for proving skill though. I mean why would more playtime give you a higher skill rank? Time played does not equal skill. And also skill should not stop people from going for Inheritor. Essentially what Reach did with Arena ranks and the Inheritor system would be great, if they actually got the Arena system right next time round.

Yeah, I think our terminology may be causing some confusion.

When I use the term "rank" or "ranked", I'm using it in the sense of a competition, a ladder, in which everyone finds their place through their performance.

This could be confused with the military-style labels that were used in Halo 3 and Reach, because in reality, many of these labels are actual military ranks.

When I say the incentive system, I mean at the very least, what a player sees as a representation of their state, what kind of change takes place, and how the player reacts to those changes. In Halo 2, the only representation the player had was a number, specific to each playlist. Every player wanted to see that number increase, so they would search in these playlists and try to win. If a player saw the number go down, he might have been discouraged from playing that list. This is not a desired behavior. You want to stroke the player for playing in ranked playlists regardless of their progression on the ladder so they continue to stoke the population for the betterment of matchmaking. We should do this by rewarding them both for participation and for winning.