A motivation/Incentive for playing multiplayer needs to be in Halo 4.

Games Other Halo
1

Hey, all.
Just wanted to create yet another thread to voice my opinion, but be warned: This is quite a long read.
As we all know, the community has been raging over Halo: Reach, and how it is considered by many to be a “colossal failure”, in terms of Multiplayer.
While I don’t share this opinion, a vast majority of the Halo community does, as evident by the Reach playerbase.
So, after arguing and debating for a solid few months over the topic, I grew weary of the discussion. I thought “You know what? I suppose I’ll revisit the Halo 3 MP, to see what the big deal is…”, and I did just that.

It blew me away.
I felt an immediate rush of nostalgia.
I analyzed and truly recognized the severe differences from Halo: Reach to Halo 3.
I played Team Slayer on Last Resort, Capture the Flag on Citadel, and Oddball on Guardian.
It was the single most fun I had ever had in any Halo title yet.

HOWEVER,
It got old.
Fast.

After re-adjusting to the faster kill times, grenade distance, and maps, I got sick of the game.
By absolutely NO means is Halo 3 a bad game, but after getting better at the game, and continuously playing varied gametypes, I had no reason to play. The gameplay got stale after a while, and overall boring. I took out the Halo 3 disc, and resumed playing some other title.

The next day, I had another urge to play Halo 3.
Once again, I was blown away with how amazing the game is, and was in it’s golden age.
A few games of Objective, Swat, and BTB, and I got bored again.

While I realize not the same thing happens to everyone, I’m sure it happens to a lot of people. In my mind, playing Halo 3 multiplayer has a cycle for me.

-Play a ridiculously fun game on an awesome map, have a great time.

-Play old maps that were once forgotten, and have only gotten better after aging.

-Lose 3 games in a row, because of De-rankers and Afk’ers.

-Get frustrated, and continue to lose.

-Get sick of the game. Stop playing for the day.

-The next day, repeat the cycle.

Halo 3 was an amazing Multiplayer game. You had varied maps, gametypes, and weapons.
Halo: Reach was an amazing Multiplayer game. You had immense customization, and an amazing matchmaking system.

While these two are great games, they BOTH lack one thing: A motivation to keep playing. In Halo 3, you have TrueSkill ranks, but because of the decrease in population, it’s become something that not too many people care as much about as they used to. In Halo: Reach, you had more in-depth access to character customization as you progressed, but because of the ranking system, high rank =/= good player, so it didn’t really show off anything prestigious.

2

In Halo 4, a good motivation to play the game is key.
I’m talking about an improved ranking system, where ranks actually mean something.
I’m talking about unlocking more customization options for progressing your skill in the game.

It could be Armour options, Weapon signatures (A tag/signature on your starting gun), Emblem options, or weapon skins, anything. But in order to keep people playing the game, they need to have a real sense of accomplishment.
“What does this mean?”

Well, time for Video Games 101: Online Multiplayer.

Let’s take a look at online gaming as a whole.

Online gaming is like an onion (Or cake) of certain essential elements.

-You have your community. If your friends are playing a multiplayer game actively, chances are, you’ll want to play with them, especially if they enjoy the same aspect of the game as you. Plus, if people many people in your area enjoy the game, you may be indirectly influenced to play the same game.

-You have your gameplay. This one is kind of self explanatory. It is Obviously the “dinner on the table”. If your game has crap gameplay, no one wants to play it, just as no one wants to eat a crap dinner.

-You have your ecosystem. This is the environment of the online space. For example, in an MMO, such as WoW, SWTOR, or Guild Wars, you have a vast world. While the ecosystem of these games may not be the actual landscapes, they are what run the game. For example, you have level progression, guilds/clans, instances, and PvP. In a game like CoD, or Battlefield, You have similar elements: Level progression, Weapon unlocks, and character customization. Though, the most important part of this, in my opinion, is the sense of achievement. When you unlock that new killstreak after playing the game for a while, you feel good. When you unlock that new buff to help your guildies out with your raids, you feel good.

These, to me, are the 3 most important elements to an online game, MMO, FPS, or otherwise. I like to call it “The Dominant Three”, as per my nerdiness.
THESE ARE WHAT MAKE AN ONLINE MULTIPLAYER GAME FUN AND ADDICTING.

Let’s say that you overhear a couple of your buddies talking about a new game on the FUNBOXSTATION 1337. You approach them about it, and gradually learn about the game.
You look up info about it on the internet, watch videos of gameplay, and, in some cases (like me), learn the basic even BEFORE you play the game, in order to get familiar with it. Eventually, when the time is ripe, you decide to get this new game for the Funboxmathingy, (Which we’ll now call Shooter Action Game in this instance) and tell the friends who got you interested in it about your purchase. So, you hop online with your buddies, get use to playing Shooter Action Game, and get pretty good at the game. In fact, over the course of playing Shooter Action Game, you make new friends online. You then become immersed into this game. You talk to your IRL friends about it, and you anticipate the next time you get to play with your online friends in Shooter Action Game.

But, now what?

So far, you’ve become immersed into the Community side of this online game. All of your friends play it, and you feel the need to play it with them, in order to have fun with the people you know.

3

Here come’s the gameplay aspect of it all. Now, you might be thinking: “Wait, ButteryPie, wouldn’t the gameplay aspect be at the beginning?” And the answer to that is simply: No. This is because, typically, someone wouldn’t think “Would this game truly be fun?” when becoming invested into the game.
Now, you may think I’ve gone crazy, but hear me out. Because this is a game that you’ve presumably NEVER played, you become interested in all of the elements of the game, and because you have all of these people you know playing, you think to yourself: “What’s all the buzz about?”, and upon learning about the game, your mind grows curious into the social side of it.
You experiment, you give it a shot. When you try out a new game, normally one doesn’t think “Will this game be fun after a month of playing it?”, but rather, “Will this game be something I become interested and involved with as soon as I put the disc in?”
The gameplay in Shooter Action Game has to be solid, or you’ll quickly lose interested in it. When a game catches you with a hook, that hook needs to be strong enough to hold onto you. The game needs to be FUN, FLUID, and Practical.

So, once again, let’s review here; The hook for playing Action Shooter Game is the social side. Your friends play it. And your friends play it because their relatives play it, and their relative play it because they saw some commentator play it. In order for the Social Hook to keep you in, the gameplay itself must be overall GOOD. What good is a game that you play with your friends if the game you play with your friends isn’t any good?

Time for the final element of The Dominant Three:
Ecosystem. So, Action Shooter Game is Fun, and all of your friends play it.
It has solid controls, a fluid online system, and helpful tools for staying connected with friends, Etc. But, what Action Shooter Game NEEDS is a reason to play. Let’s say in this game, you are able to set yourself personal goals, such as “Get to level 50”, “Unlock this piece of armour”, or “Improve on objective based games”.
All of a sudden, you feel like there is purpose behind all of your time spent into playing!
You’re rounding up friends to get a really hard achievement, so you can get a certain upgrade for your gun, so you can do better in the game, so you can get more achievements! It can easily be debated that this is a false sense of achievement. After all, it is just a video game.
But, that’s not the point! Even if it is a false sense of achievement, it keeps you coming back to the game!
You try to get a weekend where nothing is happening, just so you can rank up with your friends and have a great time on a video game.

So, to me, those are the three MOST IMPORTANT elements for creating a successful online multiplayer game. Still don’t get it?

Let’s say you get into Action Shooter Game because my friends play it, and it turns out to be really fun. After my friends get off, you play a bit more, but then it gets a bit boring after a while. Suddenly, you realize your really close to unlocking something you’ve wanted to obtain since you got the game. You become motivated to play more to unlock it. In this process of unlocking it, you have a couple of great games, and suddenly, the game becomes really fun again! Then, you can’t wait until you get to play with your friends again, because then you can tell them stories about your experiences, and relate to one another within those experiences. You and your friends get excited, and then begin to play some more of Action Shooter Game, thus restarting the cycle of The Dominant Three.

“So, ButteryPie, after reading this gigantic wall of text, I still don’t know what it has to do with Halo 4.”

I created this thread because the Halo games, as of now, are missing a lot of that final important element of The Dominant Three. Ecosystem.
Sure, you have achievements and armour permutations for Halo: Reach, but what else do you have? Not a lot. Halo 4 NEEDS to take into account this final element, if it wants to become a hugely successful online multiplayer shooter. Don’t believe me?

Now, I realize the Halo community might rage at me for saying this, but take a look at the Call of Duty, or Battlefield franchises:

Immensely popular - Has the Community part nailed.
Tight, and overall enjoyable gameplay - Gameplay element: Checked.
Has more customization options, weapon choices, and achievements when progressing levels and skill - Ecosystem? Spot on.

Now, I’m not saying “Have unlock-able starting weapons in Halo 4!”, or “Put customizable classes with Armour Abilities in Halo 4!”, but rather, “Implement a sense of true progression and motivation in Halo 4!”
While I may not have a solution myself to this missing element, I have a few rough ideas of what might help, such as more customizable options, (Such as your HUD, Armour, Starting weapon appearance, or Emblem.) being rewarded for creating a piece of content that is thoroughly enjoyed throughout the Halo community, and becoming more skilled in the game, so that one may participate in matches with higher ranked allies and opponents, (and then being rewarded even more afterward for doing so.)

So, after reading this, what are your thoughts and opinions on this, community?

4

-Yoink- that is so long

5

> Yoink! that is so long

Yeah. Admittedly, I got carried away with it. But, I’m still proud of my work, and my opinion still stands.

6

I agree.

Reach is a great game. Just doesn’t feel like Halo. Once they get the feeling down, then worry about the hook. You can set thr greatest mouse trap in the world, but you can’t trap one if he doesn’t eat thr bait, and he probably won’t eat the bait unless it looks, tastes, and feels like the good ol cheese he likes.

7

First of all, great post. I found myself agreeing on some parts, but let me voice my opinion. I think that out of the dominant three, the ecosystem is the least important. Or rather, it’s misused in most games. Let me explain.

The community

As you said, this is the initial reason people start playing while they don’t know enough about the game to get fully invested into it. In my years of online gaming, I have noticed that playing is much more fun when you have someone to play with and talk to. With a group friends you can also do things you couldn’t do without proper communication and people you can trust, like performing a trick that requires at least three people. In short, friends make the replay value of the game higher.

The gameplay

This I think is the most important part in the long run. If the game sucks, you may still find some fun things to do with friends, but you only play when your friends are online and want to play with you. If the game is enjoyable, you can play it whenever you want and it’s much more fun. I’ll come back to this part later.

The ecosystem

This has potential to be something magnificent, but how games use it is very disgusting. For example, have you ever got the kind of situation that you’re very close to achieving something in the game, maybe some very cool weapon. It would take about a month anymore to achieve it, but you’re sick of the gameplay of the game. Every time you go into the matchmaking to get some exp to get that weapon, you start raging after the first game, but can’t stop because you want that weapon. That’s not fun at all, you’re only playing the game to get all the rewards, not for fun. And at that point the game becomes work.

Now a bit about how the ecosystems are misused in modern games. Let’s take MW3 and BF3 for examples. Both games have the regular weapon unlock system of a modern shooter. You get exp, you get weapons and attachments. Really efficient, keeps people playing until they have achieved everything. Then there are the “harder” rewards that are meant to take as much time as the developer thinks the player can handle, but they aren’t actually hard. This kind of system can keep the player invested really long.

But let’s take a situation where the player gets every possible unlockable in the game and get to the highest rank. Chances are, they play for a few days and find that they have no point to play anymore. Let me use one of my friends as an example. He once got a chance in MW2 to get into a 10th prestige lobby. After that I asked him “Was it worth it”. He responded that he got bored to the game because there was nothing to play for.

That’s how modern games use reward system in a nutshell, but not how they should be used. This is the part where gameplay comes back again. Gameplay is the thing the game should be built around. If you have a reward system, you better build it around that gameplay. The way modern games do it isn’t building it around the gameplay, they build it around time. Building around gameplay isn’t “kill 5,000 people with this weapon to get that medal” or “get 500,000 exp to get that weapon”, no. These are examples of rewards built around the gameplay: “Get to the round 50 in survival mode”, “Complete the very hard mission without dying”, “Collect all the collectables”, or “Win a game without dying”.

Some of those rewards may sound familiar, but they aren’t very common, usually only seen in the form of achievements. They aren’t common because they are so hard to come up with, much harder than “kill X amount of opponents with X”. But they are much more fun for the player and get the player try new things they would otherwise never have tried, they also reward the player for completing an actually hard task with not only a nice badge, but skill. Through these the player learns to appreciate the game much more and finds much more dimensions out of the game than just farming as many kills as possible. Of course they have to be balanced accordingly or you end up with something no-one can do legitimately. Very familiar example would be “Perform a double kill with the Spartan Laser in a ranked free for all match”, that’s way too hard for anyone to do legitimately. But this is definitely the way players should be rewarded, not by giving objectives where only thing you need is time, but objectives that require skill.

And the last thing, the gameplay should of course be designed so that it supports as many of these rewards. For example collectables like skulls in Halo are one example. But they shouldn’t be in places that are easy to find or even hard to find, but easy to get to. Getting them should require some skill. Like in case of Halo, skill of trick jumping, possibly even finding a way to get out of the map. It’s time for developers to realize that players love glitches and glitches that don’t harm the regular gameplay should just be left there. They offer significant possibilities to reward players.

8

Needing an incentive to play equates to one of two things; either the gameplay sucks or you don’t like the game. End of story.

Too many times have I heard players in Reach’s game lobbies say, “after this let’s play x to get the daily challenge”. When a playlist offers a cR jackpot the population jumps to abnormal levels, even if they playlist itself is terrible (cough cough old classic playlist cough cough). Players aren’t playing the game because they like the gameplay, they’re playing it because they’re getting rewarded for it. The brain doesn’t differentiate between physical and virtual rewards. If enough personal effort goes into obtaining a virtual item it’s as real to your mind as your hand carved, wooden sword is; it releases the same “feel good” hormones. This is one of the reasons why CoD has become so popular; it’s a virtual skinner box.

9

I think there should be a global ranking system like in Reach, along with “skill-based ranks” for Rank/Arena in Halo 4. The problem with Halo MP is that if you hit a losing streak it can really sap away your will to play if you’re not a hardcore player. I think they should put in a comphrehensive reward system that games like Call of Duty do.

10

> Needing an incentive to play equates to one of two things; either the gameplay sucks or you don’t like the game. End of story.
>
> Too many times have I heard players in Reach’s game lobbies say, “after this let’s play x to get the daily challenge”. When a playlist offers a cR jackpot the population jumps to abnormal levels, even if they playlist itself is terrible (cough cough old classic playlist cough cough). Players aren’t playing the game because they like the gameplay, they’re playing it because they’re getting rewarded for it. The brain doesn’t differentiate between physical and virtual rewards. If enough personal effort goes into obtaining a virtual item it’s as real to your mind as your hand carved, wooden sword is; it releases the same “feel good” hormones. This is one of the reasons why CoD has become so popular; it’s a virtual skinner box.

Agreed!

11

why do you need to constantly get exp or rank up to keep playing? cant you simply play Halo because its fun? thats what keeps me coming back.

play Halo for fun. if your playing just to rank up and get have numbers pop up on the screen, your playing for the wrong reasons

12

> Needing an incentive to play equates to one of two things; either the gameplay sucks or you don’t like the game. End of story.
>
> Too many times have I heard players in Reach’s game lobbies say, “after this let’s play x to get the daily challenge”. When a playlist offers a cR jackpot the population jumps to abnormal levels, even if they playlist itself is terrible (cough cough old classic playlist cough cough). Players aren’t playing the game because they like the gameplay, they’re playing it because they’re getting rewarded for it. The brain doesn’t differentiate between physical and virtual rewards. If enough personal effort goes into obtaining a virtual item it’s as real to your mind as your hand carved, wooden sword is; it releases the same “feel good” hormones. This is one of the reasons why CoD has become so popular; it’s a virtual skinner box.

This is technically my post in a nutshell. The skiner box approach is really making games worse as instead of actually thinking and making good gameplay, the developer can just create a reward system with skinner box type of approach and get a popular game. It’s a real problem in the gaming industry these days. Even Halo fell into it with Reach, I hope 343i doesn’t continue with the trend.

But as I also said, rewarding players isn’t completely bad. As long as the player actually does something worth of doing for the reward, and not just get it for the sake of getting it. But these ways to get the rewards are very hard to come up with and therefore the developers take the easier skinner box approach.

13

> > Needing an incentive to play equates to one of two things; either the gameplay sucks or you don’t like the game. End of story.
> >
> > Too many times have I heard players in Reach’s game lobbies say, “after this let’s play x to get the daily challenge”. When a playlist offers a cR jackpot the population jumps to abnormal levels, even if they playlist itself is terrible (cough cough old classic playlist cough cough). <mark>Players aren’t playing the game because they like the gameplay, they’re playing it because they’re getting rewarded for it.</mark> The brain doesn’t differentiate between physical and virtual rewards. If enough personal effort goes into obtaining a virtual item it’s as real to your mind as your hand carved, wooden sword is; it releases the same “feel good” hormones. This is one of the reasons why CoD has become so popular; it’s a virtual skinner box.
>
> Agreed!

We’re so glad he speaks for the community.

bursts into laughter

14

I don’t agree about the numbers, there is a lot of false information out there about Reach’s population and Archonos said a long time ago that it has always been higher than 3s.

Otherwise, it is up to 343i to decide I guess…

15

> Needing an incentive to play equates to one of two things; either the gameplay sucks or you don’t like the game. End of story.
>
> Too many times have I heard players in Reach’s game lobbies say, “after this let’s play x to get the daily challenge”. When a playlist offers a cR jackpot the population jumps to abnormal levels, even if they playlist itself is terrible (cough cough old classic playlist cough cough). Players aren’t playing the game because they like the gameplay, they’re playing it because they’re getting rewarded for it. The brain doesn’t differentiate between physical and virtual rewards. If enough personal effort goes into obtaining a virtual item it’s as real to your mind as your hand carved, wooden sword is; it releases the same “feel good” hormones. This is one of the reasons why CoD has become so popular; it’s a virtual skinner box.

Sorry for the late reply.
I have to greatly agree with you on your general point, but hear me out, just a bit more.
In this day and age, the “casual” gamer population has exploded, beyond anything that it could ever be before. If someone happens to be a “hardcore” gamer, such as myself, your point becomes more relevant and truthful to that party. However, as the Casual ballplayer is continuously expanding beyond the Hardcore, someone needs to occupy the Casuals, as the Hardcore do their own thing.
Back before online console gaming was truly enormous, (Especially on the 360) you had games like Doom, Quake, Counterstrike, etc. being played by a pretty large community.
They played because the game was fun. Just like any logical person would do.
But here’s the thing: Most of those people weren’t these “Casual” gamers.
They didn’t just play because it was “in”.
But, again, in this day and age, Casual gaming is becoming increasingly popular, simply because of the ease of access.

A lot of people that I know in real life play the games I’ve mentioned (CoD, WoW, Etc.) NOT because they necessarily enjoy it, but because they’ve invested a ridiculous amount of time into it. I have friends that play WoW that want to quit, but can’t give it up because of all the time investment. Hell, I even have a CoD junkie as a friend that won’t take a decent-sized break from the yearly CoD game until he’-Yoink!- the level/prestige cap.

In games like MMOs, a popular objective for players is to reach the Endgame.
And, evidently, they were doing something right. WoW had TONS of players, where a vast majority would create a character, hit the level cap, and then repeat the process.
Eventually, this game element was implemented into CoD, and let me tell you: It surely did NOT fail. And because CoD got so popular off of it, it started to attract Casuals to the game. Now, because of this explosion of population in CoD in Casuals, it’s kind of become something to expect in FPS games now. GoW? It has an incentive to keep on playing. BF3? Incentive to keep on playing. Just about any other MMORPG/MMOFPS? Incentive to keep on playing. Halo: Reach? Eh…Nope.
If Halo truly wants to compete with player population with all of the online MP gaming giants of today, it ABSOLUTELY NEEDS this “incentive”.
I’m not saying I like the way this works, I’m just saying that this is the way it works.

16

The only thing that should motivate people to play multiplayer is good gameplay.

17

> The only thing that should motivate people to play multiplayer is good gameplay.

I agree with that. “Should”.
But it doesn’t. Read the post above yours for my explanation of it,