So there's been a bit of a hubbabaloo over some hilariously stupid shit going down in Halo 5's newest map for their flagship gametype Warzone.
So back in January 343 Industries released the Infinity's Armory update for Halo 5, including a new-ish map for use in the game's Warzone Assault gametype, Urban.
It was a reworking of the previous update's Battle of Noctus map made to function with a slight variation of the Warzone gametype that effectively acts as Rush to the standard mode's Conquest. The attacking team rushes a base full of defenders and kills them in the hopes of clearing out the base long enough to capture it, triggering the capture of the next base.
The only issue with Urban is that the attackers are definitively, unequivocally fucked because of how horrible their spawns are. How horrible, you might ask? Horrible enough that defenders were able to toss grenades from the back of the Mongoose ATV (which grants infinite grenades for some reason) into all possible spawns, spawn-killing the attackers for full minutes at a time.
So that's pretty bad. It turns out, it's way worse than that. Waaaay worse. Halo 5's spawn system refuses to spawn a player in the event that an enemy is close to the spawn. If an enemy is looking over an area where you could spawn, the game will choose to spawn you somewhere else. In modes like Big Team Battle this can lead to teams switching bases entirely as what was originally your base gets overrun by enemies.
On Urban, it simply means that no one respawns. Ever.
The enemy team can position themselves in such a way that prevents the opposing team from respawning.
Here's a handy infographic someone on /r/Halo made that uses Donkey to explain:
If you place a player in the areas that have a bright Donkey, then 99% of the time the opposite team will actually be unable to spawn. The other three dimly lit Donkeys are secondary placements that aren't necessary but do prevent the other 1% of situations where the enemy could spawn. The light green areas are the spawns for the enemy team.
In response to this, Waypoint (the official Halo forum) and /r/Halo have exploded, screaming for the people who are capable of doing this to be banned for cheating. Clans that have managed to obtain special armor through "Farming" kills are being told that they should be banned, or their unlocks removed, to be made "examples" of. I understand that it's a bunch of stupid hyperbolic shit being screeched by eight and nine year olds. The offending map has been wholly removed from matchmaking to be reworked and reimplemented at a later date, hopefully corrected.
Now, personally, I view this sort of destructive play as completely okay. Is it kind of a dick move? Sure, but there are no external exploits being abused. It's the fastest avenue to victory. Leveraging of the map's embarrassingly bad flaws rather than the toxic exploitation of a system. To me it's the difference between manipulating the game using external means (trainers in multiplayers games, stand-bying, modding consoles, ect) versus using the most broken but completely "legal" means of achieving victory, even if you're being a cheesing asshole about it (being that fucker that used Metaknight in Brawl, FEAR in Pokemon, ect).
It's even further muddied that this is the theoretical final form of a strategy that already exists in Halo that involves spawn manipulation. It's a tactic that dates back to Halo 1, but here's a really good example of it in Halo: Reach. The player is able to accurately predict the enemy's spawn by manipulating his own positioning relative to the point of death of the enemy.
And so, I said all that to ask this: Is it the responsibility of a player to ensure that everyone else in the game is having fun, even if that includes your direct opponents? Is it my responsibility as a player to not use strategies like this one in order to achieve victory in the most efficient means possible?
If it is my responsibility to ensure that my opponents have fun, to what extent am I responsible? Should I throw games, or try less than my hardest so that someone who is clearly worse than me or is susceptible to a particular strategy is able to have fun?
If so, why?
So back in January 343 Industries released the Infinity's Armory update for Halo 5, including a new-ish map for use in the game's Warzone Assault gametype, Urban.
It was a reworking of the previous update's Battle of Noctus map made to function with a slight variation of the Warzone gametype that effectively acts as Rush to the standard mode's Conquest. The attacking team rushes a base full of defenders and kills them in the hopes of clearing out the base long enough to capture it, triggering the capture of the next base.
The only issue with Urban is that the attackers are definitively, unequivocally fucked because of how horrible their spawns are. How horrible, you might ask? Horrible enough that defenders were able to toss grenades from the back of the Mongoose ATV (which grants infinite grenades for some reason) into all possible spawns, spawn-killing the attackers for full minutes at a time.
So that's pretty bad. It turns out, it's way worse than that. Waaaay worse. Halo 5's spawn system refuses to spawn a player in the event that an enemy is close to the spawn. If an enemy is looking over an area where you could spawn, the game will choose to spawn you somewhere else. In modes like Big Team Battle this can lead to teams switching bases entirely as what was originally your base gets overrun by enemies.
On Urban, it simply means that no one respawns. Ever.
The enemy team can position themselves in such a way that prevents the opposing team from respawning.
Here's a handy infographic someone on /r/Halo made that uses Donkey to explain:
If you place a player in the areas that have a bright Donkey, then 99% of the time the opposite team will actually be unable to spawn. The other three dimly lit Donkeys are secondary placements that aren't necessary but do prevent the other 1% of situations where the enemy could spawn. The light green areas are the spawns for the enemy team.
In response to this, Waypoint (the official Halo forum) and /r/Halo have exploded, screaming for the people who are capable of doing this to be banned for cheating. Clans that have managed to obtain special armor through "Farming" kills are being told that they should be banned, or their unlocks removed, to be made "examples" of. I understand that it's a bunch of stupid hyperbolic shit being screeched by eight and nine year olds. The offending map has been wholly removed from matchmaking to be reworked and reimplemented at a later date, hopefully corrected.
Now, personally, I view this sort of destructive play as completely okay. Is it kind of a dick move? Sure, but there are no external exploits being abused. It's the fastest avenue to victory. Leveraging of the map's embarrassingly bad flaws rather than the toxic exploitation of a system. To me it's the difference between manipulating the game using external means (trainers in multiplayers games, stand-bying, modding consoles, ect) versus using the most broken but completely "legal" means of achieving victory, even if you're being a cheesing asshole about it (being that fucker that used Metaknight in Brawl, FEAR in Pokemon, ect).
It's even further muddied that this is the theoretical final form of a strategy that already exists in Halo that involves spawn manipulation. It's a tactic that dates back to Halo 1, but here's a really good example of it in Halo: Reach. The player is able to accurately predict the enemy's spawn by manipulating his own positioning relative to the point of death of the enemy.
And so, I said all that to ask this: Is it the responsibility of a player to ensure that everyone else in the game is having fun, even if that includes your direct opponents? Is it my responsibility as a player to not use strategies like this one in order to achieve victory in the most efficient means possible?
If it is my responsibility to ensure that my opponents have fun, to what extent am I responsible? Should I throw games, or try less than my hardest so that someone who is clearly worse than me or is susceptible to a particular strategy is able to have fun?
If so, why?
