• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Halo: Reach |OT5| A Monument to All Our Sins

Tashi

343i Lead Esports Producer
Blinding said:
Someone actually asked that and he explained that if the team had the right coordination and could successfully get the other team locked in a spawn cycle, then it would be certainly possible. I took that as someone focusing on their own spawn points (like, say, one player would be watching the spawns he was, someone would be watching another set of spawns, etc. etc.) In theory it's completely possible, but actually making it happen is a completely different thing, though I'm sure we're going to see a lot of pros attempting it since he was teaching Ninja about it earlier.

I'm not sure I buy that. Something like that would be nearly impossible. Especially in a competitive 4v4 match.

Also, Recarpo, I meant assassination is the classic Halo fashion. That melee with the flag in the back should have killed him. And I believe in MLG if you hold the melee button for a fancy assassination, the flag will drop and the animation will happen. It just registered a regular melee instead of a beatdown/assassination. That's my problem.
 
Tashi0106 said:
Oh ok, was just wondering :)

Blinding, I wonder if any of that could be applied to a 4v4. Obviously something exactly like that is near impossible in a 4v4 but maybe it offers hints about the spawn system in the game.
We never got that explanation from Shishka :(

Probably. In all of the Halo's map control was also about knowing where people spawned, and setting up in a given position to almost "force" spawns. I'm sure it's in Reach as well.


Tashi0106 said:
I'm not sure I buy that. Something like that would be nearly impossible. Especially in a competitive 4v4 match.

Not sure why, it was possible in previous Halos.
 

Tashi

343i Lead Esports Producer
Devolution said:
Probably. In all of the Halo's map control was also about knowing where people spawned, and setting up in a given position to almost "force" spawns. I'm sure it's in Reach as well.

Yea it is but I don't think players can influence spawns like they did in Halo 3. At least not on certain maps and gametypes. In Halo 3 I felt like I knew exact, pin point locations where people were going to spawn and can actively force them to spawn there. It's not the same in Reach. It's harder to block spawns.

edit: The timing of pulling something off like that is absolutely insane. That's why I'm saying it's nearly impossible.
 

Recarpo

Member
Tashi0106 said:
Also, Recarpo, I meant assassination is the classic Halo fashion. That melee with the flag in the back should have killed him. And I believe in MLG if you hold the melee button for a fancy assassination, the flag will drop and the animation will happen. It just registered a regular melee instead of a beatdown/assassination. That's my problem.

I figured that's what you meant, I still think the same rule applies. At least I've never been able to assassinate, in the classic halo sense, with the flag and I've seen it happen a few times on streams as well.
 

Tashi

343i Lead Esports Producer
Recarpo said:
I figured that's what you meant, I still think the same rule applies. At least I've never been able to assassinate, in the classic halo sense, with the flag and I've seen it happen a few times on streams as well.

Either way, he should have died. It was clearly right on his back.
 

Blinding

Member
Tashi0106 said:
I'm not sure I buy that. Something like that would be nearly impossible. Especially in a competitive 4v4 match.

I agree that it's a bit far fetched, but you never really know. A lot of people reacted how you did (myself included) and he pretty much said that if you have a general idea of where they're going to spawn (which you should if you're decent at MLG,) then you can build off of that and make a good solid attempt at doing that in a 4v4. Of course I think he was speaking individually, but I see that as being more complicated then a whole team doing it as you'd pretty much have to know who died where, when, and get to the appropriate spot in time in order to start the spawn cycle, and then there's the fact that the rest of their team could mess things up and all of that.

Edit: Actually, according to him it's easier to influence spawns as there's more variables that add different weighting to different spawns in Reach then Halo 3. If you notice when he spawn snipes "Hysteria" (really his guest, lol) all three times, there is an object partially blocking either his opponents direct line of sight from him, or vice versa. Those objects would be the wall piece for the snipe to flag spawn kill, the big rock for the pistol to rock spawn kill, and the wall piece being used as a floor for the shotgun jump to back snipe spawn kill. Apparently that makes the weighting that scoped weapons have on spawning have not as much of an influence, which then it turn allows for those spawn snipes to even be possible.
 

Tashi

343i Lead Esports Producer
Blinding said:
I agree that it's a bit far fetched, but you never really know. A lot of people reacted how you did (myself included) and he pretty much said that if you have a general idea of where they're going to spawn (which you should if you're decent at MLG,) then you can build off of that and make a good solid attempt at doing that in a 4v4. Of course I think he was speaking individually, but I see that as being more complicated then a whole team doing it as you'd pretty much have to know who died where, when, and get to the appropriate spot in time in order to start the spawn cycle, and then there's the fact that the rest of their team could mess things up and all of that.

Edit: Actually, according to him it's easier to influence spawns as there's more variables that add different weighting to different spawns in Reach then Halo 3. If you notice when he spawn snipes "Hysteria" (really his guest, lol) all three times, there is an object partially blocking either his opponents direct line of sight from him, or vice versa. Those objects would be the wall piece for the snipe to flag spawn kill, the big rock for the pistol to rock spawn kill, and the wall piece being used as a floor for the shotgun jump to back snipe spawn kill. Apparently that makes the weighting that scoped weapons have on spawning have not as much of an influence, which then it turn allows for those spawn snipes to even be possible.

Doesn't that seem completely backwards? You would figure that with more variables it would be harder to spawn kill. Also, this 1v1 simulation doesn't account for split spawns. Realistically it seems impossible in a competitive 4v4 match. To the point where it's not even worth trying. I think though that there could be value in trying to completely master the spawn system in Reach through watching this video. Hints, clues.
 
Tashi0106 said:
However, if I'm going after a guy who drops from health pack, I'll always look to make sure he's not sitting there waiting for me to drop in front of him. It never happens, they always run under the base and hide there or just go straight bottom middle. It's a bad position to chase anyway. I can see why this guy chased me though. I was absolute, he was full shields and I had their flag. He needed the quick recovery.
yeah. i'd like to think that I would have looked first before dropping down. in the heat of the moment i might have blindly dropped down too. I'm gonna watch your clip again.

And to Plywood: I can't think about what you said with regard to charging the plasma pistol in Halo4 and look at that gif without busting out laughing.
 

Recarpo

Member
Tashi0106 said:
Either way, he should have died. It was clearly right on his back.

Agreed. I wanted to see if it was just an MLG thing or a reach thing so I went into a custom game and apparently you can't get an assassination, non animated, with the flag in default settings either. You'll get a flag beat down, because of the 1 hit kill, but not an assassination. Seems like a weird oversight or annoying glitch.
 

Blinding

Member
Tashi0106 said:
Doesn't that seem completely backwards? You would figure that with more variables it would be harder to spawn kill. Also, this 1v1 simulation doesn't account for split spawns. Realistically it seems impossible in a competitive 4v4 match. To the point where it's not even worth trying. I think though that there could be value in trying to completely master the spawn system in Reach.

It does a bit, but I'm assuming his point was that because theirs more variables, there's more control on what influences a spawn point and what doesn't (for example, placing an object between you and a spawn point to decrease the influence on said spawn point.) Oh of course, I mainly posted because (outside of Octagon) I've never seen a spawn trap like that accomplished, both in Halo 3 and Reach. This is him pulling off the same spawn cycle in a legitimate game, and then here's him doing spawn cycles on Countdown and Zealot (I'd read the description on these two, gives a bit more information about his "technique.") Like I said, pulling it off in a 4v4 is really far fetched, but I don't think that it's completely impossible, and at the very least it'll bring something fresh to MLG gameplay just by learning how to manipulate the spawn system like that.
 

Tashi

343i Lead Esports Producer
Recarpo said:
Agreed. I wanted to see if it was just an MLG thing or a reach thing so I went into a custom game and apparently you can't get an assassination, non animated, with the flag in default settings either. You'll get a flag beat down, because of the 1 hit kill, but not an assassination. Seems like a weird oversight or annoying glitch.

Hmmm. Must have been a glitch the times that I've seen it. Actually, now that I think of it, I think I usually see the flag guy getting assassinated. Yea, that's what I've seen. There's actually a funny story about that. MLG Zealot Flag, my teammate is about to cap a flag when he gets stopped short and is put into an assassination animation. The flag drops and I score it while he's being assassinated lol. Funny shit.
 
With how many random fluke things happen in matchmaking, whether from lag or not, I'd ultimately chalk that failed assassination to pure BS and leave it at that.
 
Deputy Moonman said:
With how many random fluke things happen in matchmaking, whether from lag or not, I'd ultimately chalk that failed assassination to pure BS and leave it at that.

Or how many times melee just up and fails in general.
 

Tashi

343i Lead Esports Producer
Blinding said:
It does a bit, but I'm assuming his point was that because theirs more variables, there's more control on what influences a spawn point and what doesn't (for example, placing an object between you and a spawn point to decrease the influence on said spawn point.) Oh of course, I mainly posted because (outside of Octagon) I've never seen a spawn trap like that accomplished, both in Halo 3 and Reach. This is him pulling off the same spawn cycle in a legitimate game, and then here's him doing spawn cycles on Countdown and Zealot (I'd read the description on these two, gives a bit more information about his "technique.") Like I said, pulling it off in a 4v4 is really far fetched, but I don't think that it's completely impossible, and at the very least it'll bring something fresh to MLG gameplay just by learning how to manipulate the spawn system like that.

That's pretty cool stuff. I would be interested in see what breaks a player out of that spawn loop. That would offer more insight into how the system works. I'll bet right now all the 1v1 players are going to attempt this stuff lol.
 

FyreWulff

Member
Know exactly what's going in those videos. Give me a bit to write it up.

Part of the reason you can do that on MLG maps is because practically all the MLG maps (and a lot of the Bungie maps) are spawn-starved. Add in spawn zones and you multiply the effect and brokeness of having zoned spawns in Slayer.
 

Tashi

343i Lead Esports Producer
FyreWulff said:
Know exactly what's going in those videos. Give me a bit to write it up.

Part of the reason you can do that on MLG maps is because practically all the MLG maps (and a lot of the Bungie maps) are spawn-starved. Add in spawn zones and you multiply the effect and brokeness of having zoned spawns in Slayer.

How long is a bit? lol

Also, played some Gamebattles today. Campus Safety is now ranked 39th on the Team Ladder. Top 12 gets us a sponsor for Orlando so that's the goal. Going to be tough tough because at the moment we are a team of 3 and are running games with 4th players. Here's the series against the first team we played tonight.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMvpvXSGmD0

Be sure to watch in Glorious HD
 
Blinding said:
I'm the same way, if I feel like I wasn't performing up to par then I instantly place all blame for the almost always negative outcome of the game on myself.
I'm this way, too. I find it easier to stomach a loss when I know I played well. When I don't play well, I feel totally responsible.

I was doing horrible tonight. And with the system in Reach, I never know if it's because I was actually playing poorly, or maybe i got unlucky with spawns, or something else like lag. My last 3 games of the night were a lot better, though. I got put in a group of 3 people together in a party and my playing experience shot through the roof. Then I finished up the night in a Squad Slayer DMR match on Boardwalk and felt much more in groove. But there again, I may have had host, and the other team had a couple of players that did really, really poor. I have no idea where I stand in this game.

http://www.bungie.net/Stats/Reach/GameStats.aspx?gameid=768958513&player=XxDeputyMoonman
I love games where I do well, or feel like I do well, and not a single power weapon did I touch. Almost makes me shed a tear :p
 

Plywood

NeoGAF's smiling token!
Tashi0106 said:
I was just thinking the same shit bro. When I capture it, it's nice and bright but when I upload it to youtube, it gets all dark on me. I don't like it. I'll figure it out for next time.
Your capture card hates you. :(

Or maybe youtube is re-encoding wonky.
 

Tashi

343i Lead Esports Producer
Plywood said:
Your capture card hates you. :(

Or maybe youtube is re-encoding wonky.
Zealot is emo. I'm going to fiddle with the brightness and test some film tomorrow. Will fix. Much love
 

FyreWulff

Member
Tashi0106 said:
How long is a bit? lol

Also, played some Gamebattles today. Campus Safety is now ranked 39th on the Team Ladder. Top 12 gets us a sponsor for Orlando so that's the goal. Going to be tough tough because at the moment we are a team of 3 and are running games with 4th players. Here's the series against the first team we played tonight.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMvpvXSGmD0

Be sure to watch in Glorious HD

Let me introduce you to FyreWulff Time

Take Fyrewulff's time predictions, apply Valve time, then divide by half

Also I'm in the middle of a project build and upload so I'm writing the post in my spare time :lol
 

Plywood

NeoGAF's smiling token!
Tashi0106 said:
Zealot is emo. I'm going to fiddle with the brightness and test some film tomorrow. Will fix. Much love
Well it knows it can never be its big brother Midship and that is why it is so gloomy.
 

Tashi

343i Lead Esports Producer
Plywood said:
Well it knows it can never be its big brother Midship and that is why it is so gloomy.
Lolol but but IGN said....

Fyrewulf, I'll give you the time needed but I swear if it's not all encompassing, complete and straight to the point with proof of your own to back up your claims, I'm gonna...I'm gonna...I'll be real sad :(
 

FyreWulff

Member
Tashi0106 said:
Lolol but but IGN said....

Fyrewulf, I'll give you the time needed but I swear if it's not all encompassing, complete and straight to the point with proof of your own to back up your claims, I'm gonna...I'm gonna...I'll be real sad :(

I'm gonna proof you so hard you're gonna wish I didn't proof you so hard
 

Tashi

343i Lead Esports Producer
Steelyuhas said:
I just hopped into TS for a game because its the only playlist with a decent population at this time. Wow, Swordbase is terribad!
Welcome to the Halo Reach beta lolz
 
Plywood said:
Well it knows it can never be its big brother Midship and that is why it is so gloomy.
My friends are all convinced Zealot's a Midship/Heretic remake, even after I've told them countless times it's not. :lol

"But dude, it's purple!"
 
What's everyone use for control scheme?

I've been using bumper jumper the last few weeks but I'm starting to hate zoom being bound to Right-Stick-Click... a quick browse of the other control schemes is depressing to say the least.
 

FyreWulff

Member
Blinding said:

I don't know the MLG callouts, so bear with me.

Terms for shortening to save time:

NW = negatively weighted
PW = postively weighted


:43 The spawn forcer is standing on Blue bridge. Every spawn within a radius of this player is now NW, including the ones on the ground behind him and the ones in the tunnel.

:49 the spawn forcer has now sniped the victim player. EVERY spawn around that player has now become NW from the death, and any overlapping spawns from the attacker are now NW. The engine now has a very low chance of choosing anything on the non-rock side as a spawn

:52 the player is now looking across the open base area. Jonnyothan confirmed on the Forge World group (I'll pull up the post when I have the time, but you can't search Bungie.net groups for posts, so I'll have to find it manually) that weapons in Reach have LOS influence on spawns, and it's weapon dependent. The sniper rifle apparently has one of the bigger influences. This comes into play because


:53 The camper now points to snipe at the spawn point hidden behind the Rock. Since the spawn is behind the rock and not visible from the player's POV, it is not NW. Every other spawn in that area IS. The player is now killed behind the rock.

So now the player has died at the flag spot (!) and now the rockside (!). That side of the map is now substantially NW for the blue guy to spawn in from his deaths.

:58 is beautiful when you realize what he's doing. There's a good reason he doesn't jump up and snipe the guy, or just stay on the bridge - the camper is exploiting the fact that the Tunnel, Long Forge piece is hiding (or for engine speak, occluding) the spawn from the camper's POV. However any spawns UNDER the tunnel are visible by the player and deweighted.

Crummy Paint.net explanation:

BieV2.png



Of course, the engine now sees that spawn as the best place to put the player, and the camper snipes the sliver of player he can actually see.

He then runs up to where he just killed the poor guy and looks over at the original spawn. The camper has now NW the entire bridge side, the rock death NW is just about to expire.. Oh by the way, flag posts have a bunch of PW for the team it belongs to. Guess which spawn the engine is about to use. Player gets killed, repeat positions and the cycle continues.


Of course, if any of blue guy's teammates are running around on this side of the map, they will PW any spawns near them for their teammates to spawn at. If you have teammates on the said trying to help you camp, they will also influence the spawns.

Since MLG uses hard sided spawns, the engine only has half a map to choose from, and it's trying to choose from the few that the forger put down out of the ones that don't have a recent death. This is what I mean when I say a map is spawn-starved - not enough choices for the engine to choose from + small map = you can do forces like this. And now you know why I think sided spawns on Highlands and Tempest had me going "wtf why would you do that"

Sources:

jonnyothan posts on Forge World bungie.net group
Stuff about the spawn system I reverse engineered from Halo 3 (a lot of this is still the same in Reach, but not all of it, like the addition of LOS affecting spawns in Reach)
Stuff about the spawn system I figured out for Reach
A blog about the spawn system quirks

Reach spawn engine bugs

That grenade throw was (or should be) a red herring and has nothing to do with the camp cycle, grenades cannot block spawns in 3 or Reach, they simply aren't big enough or exist long enough. At most it may be influence the engine on a 50/50 split decision.

It's all about using the zone of spawn influence around you and fucking with the weights on a map that needs to either be de-sided for Slayer or have a crapton more spawns added.

It also makes me annoyed that I somehow missed Mt Lam Lam coming through, because that map REALLY needs a spawn overhaul

tl;dr if I had the time I would re work most every Bungie and 343 map for improved spawns but keeping up with backporting all the later Megalo gametype updates for 20+ maps is just way too much work. In Reach forgers really need to be throwing down as many Respawn Points as they can (in safe locations) for optimal spawn performance.

This is also why you'd have to get really lucky or have very coordinated teammates to pull this off in a legit game with money on the line. Players moving around, deaths, and objective locations will change the weights of the spawns much more frequently and more unpredictably.
 

FyreWulff

Member
A group of GAFfers I played with a couple of nights ago also saw this in action. We were playing 1 Flag Condemned, I knew exactly where to stand to buddy-spawn them right next to the opposing team's flag. It was like a spawn hose of spartans only 30 feet away from their flag. As soon as Team GAF would die, they would spawn right in the stairway outside of their base. Other team never stood a chance and were only able to break the spawn hose once one of them decided to go root me out of the stairwell.. but I came right back and started the spawn hose again.


Previous post is written as an extremely educated guess based on way too much spawn testing and jonnyothan posts from the Forge World bungie.net group for the stuff I couldn't quite figure out, by the way.

(and this is why any MLG Pros out there should stay in high school. MATH!)
 

MrBig

Member
Gui_PT said:
It's clearly the spot where you land when you use the base's side man cannon(the base next to the water)!

BELIEB
Timberland. All maps currently available on 360 have been denied.
 
Stripper13 said:
What's everyone use for control scheme?

I've been using bumper jumper the last few weeks but I'm starting to hate zoom being bound to Right-Stick-Click... a quick browse of the other control schemes is depressing to say the least.

I've been using bumper jumper since halfway in Halo 3's life. In one game of swat, I realized that I wasn't as effective as I could be while jumping and shooting and I found bumper jumper the perfect option to improve in that nichè.

Oh, and Gui, I was meaning to ask you yesterday night, were you talking about me when you said:
Why in the hell would you play customs to camp with Evade and power weapons?
?
 

Louis Wu

Member
Letters said:
Me too. I wonder how long it takes for the shirts to arrive after ordering from the US store? Maybe you could send one to the reception of the hotel where you'll be staying and or to another gaffer going to pax.
Placed my order on August 11 - got ship confirmation on August 16, received the shirt on August 22. (I live in CT.)

Spreadshirt USA's headquarters is in Boston, the shirt was mailed from Kentucky.

Bottom line - I really, really doubt an order placed now would arrive in Seattle before PAX ended, no matter WHAT shipping you paid for. :(
 
MrBig said:
Timberland. All maps currently available on 360 have been denied.
Oh. While largely expected, I must have missed that.

Decided that I care less about Bloom being fixed and more about nukes grenades being nerfed.
Please god.
 

Gui_PT

Member
Tha Robbertster said:
Oh, and Gui, I was meaning to ask you yesterday night, were you talking about me when you said: ?

No it was some guy called BigWillIrish or something. But you didn't help tone down my rage :lol
 
Tashi0106 said:
Yo Juices, you figure out a way to capture in HD where entire length matches don't take up 8gbs? Lol. It's pretty insane.

If you use VirtualDub you can record video using different types of compressions like a h264 or whatever. I never really found anything that worked too well without having a messy framerate but I'm sure its possible and I didn't mess around too hard. I just usually record the full match in Media Express as Raw .Avi and then Rerender it in Vegas at 10M quality which doesn't lose much quality the eye can see unless really really looking for it. Shrinks a 10 minute match to maybe 500mb.
 
Ramirez said:
back in the day we had one of those adapters for the PS2 that could add 4 extra controllers. My friends would come to blows over who had to use the 3rd party controllers in our 6 player Smackdown sessions.

1302516725678-1.jpg


Tha Robbertster said:
I've been using bumper jumper since halfway in Halo 3's life. In one game of swat, I realized that I wasn't as effective as I could be while jumping and shooting and I found bumper jumper the perfect option to improve in that nichè.

Wouldn't it be great if they could add bumper jumper++ for the TU. Armor ability assigned to RB, jump to LB, melee on the B button. I and many others aked for this during the beta and were summarily ignored. As it stands, an entirely new and significant element of the sandbox in Reach - the jetpack - is practically impossible to use for bumper jumper users (bollocks to clawing, I don't fancy arthritis in my 20's). That's not really acceptable when considered against the puzzling resistance by Bungie to allowing players to customise their own control setup. I'm pretty sure that bumper jumper was the most adopted control scheme after default in Halo 3; why alienate all those users after you introduce that scheme in the previous title?

I'm expecting to be able to bumper jump in Halo anniversary.
 
thee henery said:
Wouldn't it be great if they could add bumper jumper++ for the TU. Armor ability assigned to RB, jump to LB, melee on the B button. I and many others aked for this during the beta and were summarily ignored. As it stands, an entirely new and significant element of the sandbox in Reach - the jetpack - is practically impossible to use for bumper jumper users (bollocks to clawing, I don't fancy arthritis in my 20's). That's not really acceptable when considered against the puzzling resistance by Bungie to allowing players to customise their own control setup. I'm pretty sure that bumper jumper was the most adopted control scheme after default in Halo 3; why alienate all those users after you introduce that scheme in the previous title?

I'm expecting to be able to bumper jump in Halo anniversary.
Agreed. One of the many reasons I don't like AAs is because it ruins the perfect control scheme that came from Halo 3. You finally had a control scheme that was perfect for a controller, and in Reach I have to consider if I value jumping or AAs more. Nonsense.
 
thee henery said:
Wouldn't it be great if they could add bumper jumper++ for the TU. Armor ability assigned to RB, jump to LB, melee on the B button. I and many others aked for this during the beta and were summarily ignored. As it stands, an entirely new and significant element of the sandbox in Reach - the jetpack - is practically impossible to use for bumper jumper users (bollocks to clawing, I don't fancy arthritis in my 20's). That's not really acceptable when considered against the puzzling resistance by Bungie to allowing players to customise their own control setup. I'm pretty sure that bumper jumper was the most adopted control scheme after default in Halo 3; why alienate all those users after you introduce that scheme in the previous title?

I'm expecting to be able to bumper jump in Halo anniversary.

If they make it a different controlle variant, then I'm fine with it. I'm really used to beatdown being on the right bumper and pickups at B. I don't even use jetpacks 99% of the time. But I'm all for a new variant.
 
Tha Robbertster said:
If they make it a different controlle variant, then I'm fine with it. I'm really used to beatdown being on the right bumper and pickups at B. I don't even use jetpacks 99% of the time. But I'm all for a new variant.

Yea, that's what I meant, I should have made that clearer :p
 
Top Bottom