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Halo |OT14| They call it Halo

Madness

Member
New playlist settings sound good, and it would've been great to include it in the Bulletin. Why wasn't it in there? I find that strange.

Same. I don't know whether it's Jessica/BSAngel or if she has to follow some sort of vanilla script etc.

But half the stuff she writes can better be left off the weekly bulletins and rather be posted as an additional blog post.

I'd much rather know Bravo is making a playlist that removes instant respawns, no join in progress etc. than to know that bs angel is a mediocre player who likes to camo/camp as a viable strategy. No offense if she's reading. Keep the bulletins serious, remove the fluff, save the rest for another post or something.
 

Arnie

Member
New playlist settings sound good, and it would've been great to include it in the Bulletin. Why wasn't it in there? I find that strange.

It's absence does seem odd considering how developed it appears to be.

If this is due to the backlash from the bulletin, then I'm glad people complained, because this is the sort of information that we should be receiving at such a precarious time in the game's life cycle. Many people are moving on, and the deficiencies and lack of bottle in the CSR implementation had me considering doing the same (although given the amount I've played the game since launch, you could question if I was ever entirely 'there').

Now, with what sounds like a remarkably corrigible playlist on the horizon, offering a Halo experience that should've arguably launched with the game back in November, I've again got a kernel of hope that the game will improve to the degree that'll make owning it worthwhile.

I would like to know why exactly a competitive playlist, and a ranking system, weren't prioritised within the development team, considering the community of which it refers to as a democratic extension of the team itself had been asking vociferously for its inclusion.
 

TheOddOne

Member
Not necessarily, but I don't think that's the point. It's more about making the experience better for the people who are sticking with it, and that includes the hardcore who are excited for the return of this style of play. But you do see population bumps with this kind of thing sometimes. The Reach TU, along with Anniversary, helped the Reach population climb back up.
I swear you are reading my mind, Havok. Creepy. I agree, might look like baby steps but if it leads to a better game, then I am all for it.
 

TCKaos

Member
So where in your Waypoint stats are the charts that show what weapons you use and how many kills you have with them and deaths you have by them? I see people posting parts of it here all the time and yet I can't find it.
 

Fuchsdh

Member
Is koth settings in the forge playlist still based on points instead of time for when the hill moves?

Yeah. Personally I like that option since I know exactly whether it's worth engaging for the hill or if I should be moving to another location.


Same. I don't know whether it's Jessica/BSAngel or if she has to follow some sort of vanilla script etc.

But half the stuff she writes can better be left off the weekly bulletins and rather be posted as an additional blog post.

I'd much rather know Bravo is making a playlist that removes instant respawns, no join in progress etc. than to know that bs angel is a mediocre player who likes to camo/camp as a viable strategy. No offense if she's reading. Keep the bulletins serious, remove the fluff, save the rest for another post or something.

Why not have both? Lots of people like the "fluff", that's basically how she made her name in the Halo community. But yeah, I don't see why they shouldn't be letting us know stuff in the bulletin rather than a forum post that has to trickle through the grapevine to us. (Would also love a day-before playlist update changelog rather than this afterwards stuff, but we've all hashed that over before.)
 

Gui_PT

Member
385359_502513313125215_1019458195_n.jpg
 

Madness

Member
Yeah. Personally I like that option since I know exactly whether it's worth engaging for the hill or if I should be moving to another location.




Why not have both? Lots of people like the "fluff", that's basically how she made her name in the Halo community. But yeah, I don't see why they shouldn't be letting us know stuff in the bulletin rather than a forum post that has to trickle through the grapevine to us. (Would also love a day-before playlist update changelog rather than this afterwards stuff, but we've all hashed that over before.)

Yes that's fine. It was one thing to write as hawty mcbloggy on her personal blog, but she's now the community manager at 343 Industries and so there's a change in content especially when it comes to Halo waypoint. It's fine to post that stuff as a blog or another post or even on her twitter, but I read the weekly bulletins to find out the goings on in regards to Halo development and multiplayer changes/playlists.

Do you get what I mean? I don't mean to sound like some massive jerk you know, and I admit there are those who are her fans or like reading her posts like that about her camping strategies or play style etc.

My point is, we find out more info about multiplayer changes from forum posts there, from random twitter accounts or from guys like CyReN and u4ix from halo council or posts from oddone and Moa on Gaf, than we do on the official halo weekly bulletin.
 

Homeboyd

Member
Company Combat
Team Tactical
War Games: Ultra
Hyper-Halo
Advanced Team "Slayer" or "Flag" etc...
Battalion Battle
Elite Team "Slayer" or "Flag" etc...

I don't know... Spinning the wheels here.
 

Homeboyd

Member
Anything with the word elite in it is a bad idea. Why not team hardcore?
I thought about that... Then I thought about the fact there are "Elites" in Halo anyways. Just spitting some suggestions.

I think somebody (official) mentioned an issue with a "hardcore" name in that waypoint thread. Let me see if I can find the post.

Edit: ^poker-faced
 

willow ve

Member
Just call it Team Slayer.

Then you'll have clear differentiation between Infinity Slayer and Team Slayer.
And the names are actually descriptive - one takes teamwork...
 

Homeboyd

Member
Didn't Kevin Franklin post the competitive settings? It was signed "^KF" ... Figured it was because everyone was saying it was bravo.

And it won't just be slayer either, right? Thought it said objective too.
 

Moa

Member
Something MW3 started doing was having an e-mail address for people to send gamertags of cheaters to.

report@infinityward.com

Black Ops 1 & 2 has its own in-game report system to report those boosting.

Halo really needs one of the above two, hire a team who will actually review cases and take action - then you can give us in-game competitive rankings.

EDIT: Just remembered MW3 had an in-game report system as well, but you couldn't actually report people via leaderboards, you had to play with them.
 
Guys, Bravo posted the competive playlist settings:

CLickidiclick

probably old.

No instant respawn.
No JiP
no guests.


FUCK YES

Extremely promising news and the fruits of 343's decision to employ the ex-Triggers Down coach starting to pay off.

With that said, I'll be keeping a keen eye on something which will be very important to this playlist and will pivot upon how far 343 pushes the forthcoming TU: the tactical upgrades and support upgrades.

Firstly, and most obviously, they can't be customisable otherwise the focus of the playlist will crumble. With that said, as posters have pointed out in this thread, many of the tactical and support upgrades are essentially band-aids to 343's self inflicted cuts to the sandbox balance; even if two upgrades are rigidly pre-fixed as the playlists standard setting, that only plasters two cuts, to paraphrase Tawpgun. The TU needs to allow a full bodied Halo experience that isn't an exercise in compromising one sandbox element for the 'privilege' of access to another, particularly with things we've always taken for granted.

Something which caught my eye a few bulletins back was the promise of a returning "improved Team Snipers" in the near future. This gives me genuine hope that they're patching de-scoping functionality into the game. I say this because flinch was absolutely catastrophic for Team Snipers. Mullered it. Rendered it practically unusable. And so, I can't envisage any return of the playlist even approaching the mantle of 'improved' unless flinch is culled. The other major problem with the provincial Snipes playlist in Halo 4 was the maps: they were all too big. Haven and Adrift need to be added to it and I'd put some forged Team Snipers classics in there too like The Pit and maybe Lockout/Guardian. New Forge maps would also be welcome.

In addition to de-scoping, I'd like to see red X's return (to go with that patched respawn timer), flag juggling with auto pickup disabled and the option, at least in custom games, to disable sprint.

They'd do well to take the word Pro out of the playlist name. Just call it Team Slayer. And put it at the top of the list.

Please just name it 'team slayer' and put it right at the top of the list. Now let's see how much the brand recognition comes into play.

This. This. This. None of this 'Arena', 'Hardcore' or 'Pro' shit; these are basically loaded terms in online gaming now and part time/casual/bad/average players won't touch playlists associated with these words.

'Team Slayer'. Perfect brand recognition; it's lying dormant anyway so it's a prime opportunity to make sure all of this effort from Bravo and the team doesn't go to waste.

Also, Thruster and Hologram as the only AA's please. Absolutely no AA's in which their optimal use encourages crouching, overly defensive or negative playstyles. And no jetpack because we want the maps to work.

Been asking about JIP for a bit now, but I see there is no real answer to how no-JIP matches are competitive. The best answer so far is to run as a team. Well, of course, that's the best case scenario. But what happens when somebody gets dropped? What happens when some players quit?

If the game doesn't end on the spot its not competitive, period. So you're stuck in a game, with a lack of teammates, and you're being scored. I really don't see how that's a better situation than the game seeking players to drop into your match to help you out.

In terms of competitive ranking, both situations suck, and neither is the best measurement of skill. In terms of enjoyment, it'd seem the least of two evils to include JIP.

And I think whats gets to me the most is people who seek to quit at the first sign of a game mode or map they didn't individually vote for, but who are the first to gripe about JIP ruining things.

It's a very basic answer: it's unfair in the extreme to be plonked into a game halfway through, find yourself on the losing team (with the other team holding the power weapons) and then have that situation, which was not of your own making, influence your rank. People quitting sucks but at least everyone in that trueskill adjudicated game started on an even footing.
 
Pretty sure Halo used have one of those during the H2 days.

Yeah it was the unevolved formof the 360s feedback system.

Its pretty incredible that Bungie doesnt get more credit for pioneering most of the features in Halo 2 that became online console gaming mainstays across the board now.

Be interesting to see what innovations they can come up with for Destiny
 

Moa

Member
Pretty sure Halo used have one of those during the H2 days.

343i need one badly, there is no excuse for it to be honest, especially since it is keeping one of the most requested things from the 'competitive' crowd from happening.
 

Fuchsdh

Member
Extremely promising news and the fruits of 343's decision to employ the ex-Triggers Down coach starting to pay off.

With that said, I'll be keeping a keen eye on something which will be very important to this playlist and will pivot upon how far 343 pushes the forthcoming TU: the tactical upgrades and support upgrades.

Firstly, and most obviously, they can't be customisable otherwise the focus of the playlist will crumble. With that said, as posters have pointed out in this thread, many of the tactical and support upgrades are essentially band-aids to 343's self inflicted cuts to the sandbox balance; even if two upgrades are rigidly pre-fixed as the playlists standard setting, that only plasters two cuts, to paraphrase Tawpgun. The TU needs to allow a full bodied Halo experience that isn't an exercise in compromising one sandbox element for the 'privilege' of access to another, particularly with things we've always taken for granted.

Something which caught my eye a few bulletins back was the promise of a returning "improved Team Snipers" in the near future. This gives me genuine hope that they're patching de-scoping functionality into the game. I say this because flinch was absolutely catastrophic for Team Snipers. Mullered it. Rendered it practically unusable. And so, I can't envisage any return of the playlist even approaching the mantle of 'improved' unless flinch is culled. The other major problem with the provincial Snipes playlist in Halo 4 was the maps: they were all too big. Haven and Adrift need to be added to it and I'd put some forged Team Snipers classics in there too like The Pit and maybe Lockout/Guardian. Ne wForge maps would also be welcome.

Your point about tac packages is interesting. Using loadouts would seem to suggest that you can't enable all the packages or more than one in each slot. Maybe there's a behind-the-scenes way to do it.

(I see the point about band-aids, but besides stability and maybe dexterity I don't really think there are segments that are that important to a core/previous Halo appearance and functionality.)
 
Yeah it was the unevolved formof the 360s feedback system.

Its pretty incredible that Bungie doesnt get more credit for pioneering most of the features in Halo 2 that became online console gaming mainstays across the board now.

I'm still convinced there wouldn't be gamer pictures if it wasn't for the emblems in Halo 2.
 
reading the topic on waypoint im surprised 343 thinks not putting ranks in game will deter cheating, as people still cheat even with no skill-ranks in the game. i still think implementation of a better banhammer would work perfectly fine, but w/e at least it's something.
 
Your point about tac packages is interesting. Using loadouts would seem to suggest that you can't enable all the packages or more than one in each slot. Maybe there's a behind-the-scenes way to do it.

(I see the point about band-aids, but besides stability and maybe dexterity I don't really think there are segments that are that important to a core/previous Halo appearance and functionality.)

To the first point: you can't even access all of the support upgrades in custom games, let alone use more than one in each slot. It must be an oversight.

And to the second: 'Resupply', being able to pick up nades from fallen spartans? 'Explosives' basically makes the nades viable. Shield recharge. Mercifully, the ammo perk can be mitigated by simply placing regular weapons on the map
 
I'm still convinced there wouldn't be gamer pictures if it wasn't for the emblems in Halo 2.

There really wouldn't.

The lobby party system is now a standard feature, that's from Halo 2.
The whole matchmaking/hopper playlists infrastructure that's now in most games (Cod, etc) Yep, games are doing that similar to how it was done in Halo 2.
Remember checking peoples names to see what clan they were in? Evolved into the xbox live gamer profile.
Like EagleBurnn said emblems went on to become gamerpics.
Halo 3s theatre mode was a huge innovation, using game data instead of video footage was a brilliant design innovation.
Forge is another example of Bungie making gold out of the steaming shit they were forced to abide by. (Microsofts ridiculous policies on modded content and lack of focus for community created content.) Look at the creativity Forge allowed, not even a full map editor and the Halo community did some amazing things with what they had.

All of these were down to Bungies innovations alone.

Halo was the king of online games because of Bungies innovations. In alot of ways, they are responsible for Xbox live's success.

For 343 to bring Halo back to the top, they need to become the innovators and not the followers like they are now. I have pretty high hopes for Halo 5. Do something new 343, take some risks. Instead of just doing the same things all games are doing now, the standard features listed above etc. Sprint, Jip, Exp ranking, Perks, Loadouts the list goes on and on.

343 have a massively impressive team built, if they were to focus all that talent on innovating and doing new things as opposed to making a modern day Halo game and in some ways playing catch up, the possibility is there for Halo to get back on top.

They need to lead and stop following like Bungie did.
 
I played Halo 4 for the first time in weeks yesterday (busy atm) for about 10 minutes. Jumped in a forge map, don't know which one it was because I joined mid-game. Man that shit looked horrible. The map had the same texture on walls/floor, combined with the fact that they were lower res than most UT'99 textures. That made the map extremely difficult to navigate for me. Every spot looked the same and I didn't get a decent sense of depth because of the low res textures.

According to Waypoint, that map was 'Despair'. What an ugly map that is. Honestly if it weren't for the somewhat decent looking character models I'd think I was playing an Unreal Tournament 1999 mod.
 

Moa

Member
I played Halo 4 for the first time in weeks yesterday (busy atm) for about 10 minutes. Jumped in a forge map, don't know which one it was because I joined mid-game. Man that shit looked horrible. The map had the same texture on walls/floor, combined with the fact that they were lower res than most UT'99 textures. That made the map extremely difficult to navigate for me. Every spot looked the same and I didn't get a decent sense of depth because of the low res textures.

According to Waypoint, that map was 'Despair'. What an ugly map that is. Honestly if it weren't for the somewhat decent looking character models I'd think I was playing an Unreal Tournament 1999 mod.

Yeah, just ignore Despair, it was forged on the worst Forge environment for Halo 4.

The creator is remaking it on Ravine which is a lot nicer to look at, a well actually colouring pieces and being noticeable.
 
Yea if Despair is that brown map with the little tower in the middle shaped like a cross then yea it's ugly. Looks like a damn Sega Saturn level. The other maps are good though.
 

Alchemical

Neo Member

Fantastic post. You covered the majority of my concerns that have arisen in relation to this playlist since it was announced. I can only see this playlist succeeding on a major level if the default mechanics that were removed, in order to justify the existence of 'armor mods' etc. are patched back in by default. It just doesn't make any sense to do it any other way.

I'm also in agreement on the topic of AAs and the naming of the playlist. We really don't want this playlist to become another Arena. There were multiple reasons why I believe the latter did not succeed.

-The name and the in-game description (potentially intimidating if you were a casual player)
-Initially split from main playlist roster (until Season 5/7, IIRC)
-Lack of clear cut information sharing on updated settings (W/L implementation)
-Inclusion of particular AAs, to the disgust of a large chunk of the playerbase*
-Map selection, imbalanced initial spawn locations, sometimes terrible weapon sets & locations (default Campdown, ffs)**

I was still coming across Arena players two seasons after W/L was implemented who thought that individual ratings were the only important metric in relation to divisional ranking.

*The call for the removal of Jetpack was ongoing for almost 2 years! The majority of players were in favor of Sprint/Hologram loadouts only. There were literally thousands of people posting in threads on B.net and Waypoint (after the changeover) calling for this change. Jetpack was finally removed somewhere around mid 2012 IIRC. I know some of this delay could be justified in light of the logistics involved in the MM changeover itself, but let's not have this happen in this playlist. Just remove the cheap/map-breaking AAs from loadouts at the get-go.

**I was part of a group who redesigned and rigorously playtested modified map settings and campaigned to get these changes implemented into the Arena. The changes were miniscule (in terms of not requiring any major backend work), and yet profoundly improved the dynamic and flow on each map. Even though the response to these modifications from the community on various forums was hugely positive, nothing was ever done in response to our campaign.

I really don't want to have to go through this again. Let's have balanced initial spawns, balanced and more importantly; suitable power weapon selection and locations (no shotguns on tight, campy maps) and a very much stripped down AA selection (if there must be one at all).
 

FyreWulff

Member
They should remove the cubemaps from the Forge pieces on Erosion in the TU. Problem with Forge maps on that map is all the pieces have the same low-res cubemap, so any angle on the map pretty much has this big, slightly shifting effect that looks like frost on my screen.
 
Yes. Despair is an atrocity to look at. I hate that map just because of its look. I played tons of the Forge Community playlist. I love Simplex. I enjoy non-SWAT matches on the Lockout remake. Did I play other maps? I don't think so. But please remove swat from the playlist. Nearly everyone is voting for that!
 
343 has my attention. These changes only fix a few problems. There are a myriad of other problems that need to be dealt with.

We get it. There's no need for you to say the exact same shit everyday like clockwork though. You can be a great poster when you want to be, but when your on this negative shit every single post it becomes a chore just to read them.
 

Pop

Member
We get it. There's no need for you to say the exact same shit everyday like clockwork though. You can be a great poster when you want to be, but when your on this negative shit every single post it becomes a chore just to read them.

Yeah just gotta wait half a year for any changes to come but surely 343i will deliver. It's not like the game has been out for awhile.
 
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