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Halo |OT3| Remember Reach?

Very much this. I want to know how I stand in relation to everyone else. If my true skill is hidden, I may be getting really competitive games, but I have no idea if that means I'm doing well or not. And without that knowledge, I lose a lot of drive/motivation to compete. What's the point? What am I working for? Players need to have a visible goal in matchaking, and in Halo, that has usually been to get better, with ranking up the way to track your progress.

I'm not a big fan of the way Arena works in Reach, but I do like the idea of having ranks reset periodically, assuming ranks are even in Halo4. Otherwise, the maxed out ranks become stagnant, and the players who can't get any higher feel stuck. This also contributes de-rankers. Having ranks reset periodically would eliminate the Halo3 issue of it becoming increasingly more difficult to rank up after months/years of playing. The game could keep track of your highest rank for each period and be visible for others to see. I think it would keep the game fresh, while not removing the ability to always improve. It just needs to be long enough for players to have a fair amount of time to reach max level.

I'd only have the rank symbol appear when you're actually in ranked matches, so not like in Reach where it's with you even if you're in a campaign or custom game lobby. In essence, bring it closer to Halo 3 in that regard. The 'max rank' you describe could be something that's recorded in your service record.
 

J10

Banned
In terms of EXP or Trueskill/skillmatching?

Matchmaking. I know you could always earn more XP, but I guess what I'm asking is how high could ranks feasibly go without progressing too slowly if you're bent on giving players something to always aim for?
 

FyreWulff

Member
Onions


Matchmaking. I know you could always earn more XP, but I guess what I'm asking is how high could ranks feasibly go without progressing too slowly if you're bent on giving players something to always aim for?

For matchmaking, no, infinite ranks wouldn't work.

If TS is operating ideally, the population would sort into the ranks thusly:

1hLld.jpg


Create too many ranks, and that same population will pull the top of the curve down, drastically reducing the players in each skill range (we can safely assume that no game has an infinite amount of players to make infinite ranks viable):



So basically the only way to have infinite ranks or virtual-infinite ranks is via EXP or rank progression system, where you're not using it for skill matching. You're only limited by art and how big of an integer you can store in memory to track that player's total EXP. Halo 3's per-playlist EXP change was a solid fix for the TS-only 1.0 because for a majority of the population, ranking up was virtually infinite, since they would never feasibly become 5 star EXP generals in every playlist. I mean, I considered myself a relatively hardcore player in terms of playtime for Halo 3 and I only the first General rank in two playlists

In this way I wish Reach had had per-playlist EXP-based ranks so you could judge someone's familiarity with a playlist at a glance like you could in Halo 3.
 
I'd only have the rank symbol appear when you're actually in ranked matches, so not like in Reach where it's with you even if you're in a campaign or custom game lobby. In essence, bring it closer to Halo 3 in that regard. The 'max rank' you describe could be something that's recorded in your service record.
That would work.
 
Recoil is fucking terrible. Can't wait to have my gun flail around as I'm trying to BR someone. The "but but but it increases the skill needed to use the gun" is about the worst excuse possible too. Stop making it COD-lite.

Dude look at the Conan video, the recoil hardly does anything.
Plus it is a consistent amount, so after a few days you won't even notice yourself correcting your aim.
I feel like you may be over exaggerating this issue.
 

zap

Member
Ugh, playing terribly on Reach tonight (and have been the last week or so), it's frustrating, I can't DMR or snipe as good as usual and I have no idea why :(

Nothing's changed - I just got bad! :(
 

J10

Banned
Onions




For matchmaking, no, infinite ranks wouldn't work.

If TS is operating ideally, the population would sort into the ranks thusly:

1hLld.jpg


Create too many ranks, and that same population will pull the top of the curve down, drastically reducing the players in each skill range (we can safely assume that no game has an infinite amount of players to make infinite ranks viable):



So basically the only way to have infinite ranks or virtual-infinite ranks is via EXP or rank progression system, where you're not using it for skill matching. You're only limited by art and how big of an integer you can store in memory to track that player's total EXP. Halo 3's per-playlist EXP change was a solid fix for the TS-only 1.0 because for a majority of the population, ranking up was virtually infinite, since they would never feasibly become 5 star EXP generals in every playlist. I mean, I considered myself a relatively hardcore player in terms of playtime for Halo 3 and I only the first General rank in two playlists

In this way I wish Reach had had per-playlist EXP-based ranks so you could judge someone's familiarity with a playlist at a glance like you could in Halo 3.

OK, thanks. So, assuming boosting/cheating can be effectively minimized, how do you deal with the problem of stagnation among higher level players who feel like they can no longer progress after a certain point? I imagine that around level 40-45 the level of competition is so high that your win/loss percentage starts to level out around 50/50 - ideally they want this since it means they're getting close hard fought games, but they also wanna feel like they still have somewhere to go. What do you do?
 

kylej

Banned
Dude look at the Conan video, the recoil hardly does anything.
Plus it is a consistent amount, so after a few days you won't even notice yourself correcting your aim.
I feel like you may be over exaggerating this issue.

Bloom was a consistent amount. After a few days I'm sure you don't even notice yourself pacing your shots.
 

J10

Banned
Onions




For matchmaking, no, infinite ranks wouldn't work.

If TS is operating ideally, the population would sort into the ranks thusly:

1hLld.jpg


Create too many ranks, and that same population will pull the top of the curve down, drastically reducing the players in each skill range (we can safely assume that no game has an infinite amount of players to make infinite ranks viable):



So basically the only way to have infinite ranks or virtual-infinite ranks is via EXP or rank progression system, where you're not using it for skill matching. You're only limited by art and how big of an integer you can store in memory to track that player's total EXP. Halo 3's per-playlist EXP change was a solid fix for the TS-only 1.0 because for a majority of the population, ranking up was virtually infinite, since they would never feasibly become 5 star EXP generals in every playlist. I mean, I considered myself a relatively hardcore player in terms of playtime for Halo 3 and I only the first General rank in two playlists

In this way I wish Reach had had per-playlist EXP-based ranks so you could judge someone's familiarity with a playlist at a glance like you could in Halo 3.

OK, thanks. So, assuming boosting/cheating can be effectively minimized, how do you deal with the problem of stagnation among higher level players who feel like they can no longer progress after a certain point? I imagine that around level 40-45 the level of competition is so high that your win/loss percentage starts to level out around 50/50 - ideally they want this since it means they're getting close hard fought games (I realize this is also probably the case for players who plateau at level 20 or whatever), but they also wanna feel like they still have somewhere to go. What do you do?
 
Bloom was a consistent amount. After a few days I'm sure you don't even notice yourself pacing your shots.

But with the DMR, the bullet placement is random.
With the BR, where you aim is precisely where you shoot.
All that changes is where you aim, which can easily be corrected in-between shots.
 

Woorloog

Banned
Halo 2 Vista installed and working, controller makes playing this so much better. We're going to play that on Saturday still? Need MP achiveables.
 

kylej

Banned
But with the DMR, the bullet placement is random.
With the BR, where you aim is precisely where you shoot.
All that changes is where you aim, which can easily be corrected in-between shots.

Where you aim is precisely where you shoot, but recoil changes your aim through no fault of your own. In a 4 or 5 shot DMR battle your reticule is going to be kicking all over and no, you cannot "easily" correct it in-between shots. In an imaginary conceptual design meeting? Yes, it's easy to control in the same way bloom can be "easily" corrected through pacing. Doesn't mean that's what happens in a real game against people, where every millimeter of control matters in a fight. Does 343 really think Halo 2, 3, and Reach didn't have skillful BR/DMR battles between players? Why add another layer of randomization on top?

Recoil is a wholly unnecessary addition to the game. Period.

in before "u havent playd it trust fronkie why u troll"
 

Gazzawa

Member
Halo 4 will only have 1 map
What map you say?
The entire "multiplayer experience" takes place in virtual reality on a ship.
Or in other words the middle of a ship
Midship
Cancel your preorders.
 

FyreWulff

Member
OK, thanks. So, assuming boosting/cheating can be effectively minimized, how do you deal with the problem of stagnation among higher level players who feel like they can no longer progress after a certain point? I imagine that around level 40-45 the level of competition is so high that your win/loss percentage starts to level out around 50/50 - ideally they want this since it means they're getting close hard fought games (I realize this is also probably the case for players who plateau at level 20 or whatever), but they also wanna feel like they still have somewhere to go. What do you do?

The ideal ranking system would have 50/50 ties (since your opponents would be ideally evenly matched), which is also why TS tries to put people together that it will believe will tie.

The problem with that, is that it's a pretty brutal reality and not very encouraging. Enter EXP systems, where the players get feedback / mental stimulation constantly in return for play.

You also can't make ranks hard to earn and easy to lose as that will give your players tons of loss anxiety and they'll get a high rank and never go into a list again to 'protect their rank'
 

Krispy

Member
Ugh, playing terribly on Reach tonight (and have been the last week or so), it's frustrating, I can't DMR or snipe as good as usual and I have no idea why :(

Nothing's changed - I just got bad! :(

You're bad and you should feel bad.

<3
 
Recoil is fucking terrible. Can't wait to have my gun flail around as I'm trying to BR someone. The "but but but it increases the skill needed to use the gun" is about the worst excuse possible too. Stop making it COD-lite.

So you want every gun to be a pea shooter? Some recoil is fine.
 

Deadly Cyclone

Pride of Iowa State
Recoil is fucking terrible. Can't wait to have my gun flail around as I'm trying to BR someone. The "but but but it increases the skill needed to use the gun" is about the worst excuse possible too. Stop making it COD-lite.

You're just trolling now right? Almost all the footage we've seen has shown very little recoil... Some recoil is always necessary on rifles. It looks minimal in the shots we've seen though.

Calm yourself Iago.
 

Louis Wu

Member
Where you aim is precisely where you shoot, but recoil changes your aim through no fault of your own. In a 4 or 5 shot DMR battle your reticule is going to be kicking all over and no, you cannot "easily" correct it in-between shots. In an imaginary conceptual design meeting? Yes, it's easy to control in the same way bloom can be "easily" corrected through pacing. Doesn't mean that's what happens in a real game against people, where every millimeter of control matters in a fight. Does 343 really think Halo 2, 3, and Reach didn't have skillful BR/DMR battles between players? Why add another layer of randomization on top?
You make it sound like you'll be wrestling with a firehose.

I had no trouble at all keeping my reticle on my target a couple of weeks ago.
 
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