A Simpler Solution to Multiplayer

Games Halo 5: Guardians
1

So… I just had an idea.

Everyone and his mother agrees that Halo 5 (or whatever it may be) should support both Legendary (or Classic) and Infinity playlists, effectively splitting the community into two halves and creating a bloated, unwelcoming number of playlists that may turn away newcomers. That is the only issue (as far as I know) with splitting the playlists.

My idea may be a simpler solution that prevents the playlist number issue. First of all, there would be two main Slayer playlist (one for Legendary and one for Infinity) so the core playlists would stay one-sided, but aside from Slayer, the rest of the playlists will feature both. You’re probably instantly turned off, right? Well, I’m not done.

When you enter a playlist, your voting options will always contain Legendary and Infinity game modes (Legendary CTF, Infinity CTF and so on) and whenever you pick one, the game will register it (whether the map you picked is the one that was chosen or not). The game will always track your last three votes and categorize them as Legendary, Infinity or Neutral (for Grifball and such). A player whose voting history is majorly Legendary will automatically be matched with other players who are ‘Legendary’. That way, players are always going to meet up with others who want the same thing as them (Neutral will set you up with anyone).

On top of this, there would be a search setting on the menu that allows you to instantly identify yourself as Legendary or Infinity player (which always chooses to match you with these players, regardless of your voting history). When players join in parties, the party’s setting will be identified by the number of players- if they are all Infinity, they will be Identified as Infinity, if one is Legendary and one is Infinity they’ll be identified as Neutral and if two are Legendary and one is Infinity they will be set up as a Legendary party. The party leader should also have a similar menu setting, but maybe there should be a vote on it (similar to votes in Left 4 Dead for booting players).

When a match is set up primarily with Legendary players, the voting options will adapt to their presence and there would be two Legendary map/gametype combinations and one Infinity combination. When the match is set up primarily with Infinity players, there would be two Infinity combinations and one Legendary combination.

This would also allow the return of two or three more standard ranked playlists without having to shun Legendary players in with competitive players (I myself want classic gameplay but am less into competitive gameplay). So basically the game would identify who you are (either manually or automatically) and set up matches for you accordingly. Everyone would be happy.

Thoughts?

2

Great idea. Classic, Arena, Legendary, what ever you want to call it deserves a place in Halo 5 just like Infinity does. Halo 5 needs a better playlist system. How about a system with both playlists and a server browser.

3

Infinity had proven widely unpopular and should be tossed out permanently.

Classic settings have and will always be popular with halo.

Its been long overdue getting this franchise back on track. Sorry infinite, you’ve been voted off the island. Pack your -Yoink- and leave!

4

> Infinity had proven widely unpopular and should be tossed out permanently.
>
> Classic settings have and will always be popular with halo.
>
> Its been long overdue getting this franchise back on track. Sorry infinite, you’ve been voted off the island. Pack your Yoink! and leave!

Getting rid of Infinity settings would set the community back. The fans of Infinity would feel just like the classic fans feel now. Halo needs both gamemodes.

5

> Infinity had proven widely unpopular and should be tossed out permanently.
>
> Classic settings have and will always be popular with halo.
>
> Its been long overdue getting this franchise back on track. Sorry infinite, you’ve been voted off the island. Pack your Yoink! and leave!

Why punish the fans who liked Infinity? With some tweaks, it could be a fun mode.

6

The community has been set back already thanks to infinity. Its basically halo 4 big team actionsack.

I’d settle for 1 playlist of infinity settings. There’s probably just enough fans to make it seem like a playlist worth keeping around.

I hope you realize that classic halo had 3 times or more players per playlist than halo 4’s total population.

7

It seems like an excellent idea. I’d be totally up for it.

8

If they make legendary more classic, I’ll be fine with it. (Descope, no sprint, special maps) I also think each map should have either Legendary/Infinity variants, or work well either sprint or no sprint.

9

> If they make legendary more classic, I’ll be fine with it. (Descope, no sprint, special maps) I also think each map should have either Legendary/Infinity variants, or work well either sprint or no sprint.

If they don’t even dare decide to add in Descope, I would atleast beg of 343 to not have as many sniper rifles as power weapons all over the place in CQC maps.

10

I’m not usually too inclined to second your ideas OP (I mean no offense, our opinions simply differ), but this would be a perfect way to rid Halo of Infinity settings. (I simply cannot fathom how people enjoy Infinity settings, and have gone so far as to impose their wishes on others) In any case, it’s a pretty small minority of people that do prefer Infinity, and I think should this be implemented into HX1 we would rapidly see Infinity settings fade into irrelevancy.

Great post. Hopefully we can keep this alive.

11

Alternatively, Classic can be Ranked and Infinity can be Social. A vast majority of competitive players want Classic, so give us that, and do what you will with Social. I honestly don’t see the problem with this. Casual players (the ones in Social) tend to not really care much if they’re playing Infinity or not, and if they want to play Classic, they’re matching players on their skill level, and will get better at the game, which creates an overall better experience. Everybody wins.

12

> Alternatively, Classic can be Ranked and Infinity can be Social. A vast majority of competitive players want Classic, so give us that, and do what you will with Social. I honestly don’t see the problem with this. Casual players (the ones in Social) tend to not really care much if they’re playing Infinity or not, and if they want to play Classic, they’re matching players on their skill level, and will get better at the game, which creates an overall better experience. Everybody wins.

I like this.

13

Why can’t infinity have ranked playlists?

14

> Why can’t infinity have ranked playlists?

That’s like saying ‘why can’t social have ranked playlists’

15

> Alternatively, Classic can be Ranked and Infinity can be Social. A vast majority of competitive players want Classic, so give us that, and do what you will with Social. I honestly don’t see the problem with this. Casual players (the ones in Social) tend to not really care much if they’re playing Infinity or not, and if they want to play Classic, they’re matching players on their skill level, and will get better at the game, which creates an overall better experience. Everybody wins.

Because some things (like BTB) will never have a ranked playlist. I don’t want to have to play Infinity in those modes just because they’re Social. I think Legendary should have the same place in Halo 5 that Infinity has all around, not just in Ranked playlists (which I did mention in my post). Obviously Ranked playlists would have more strict setting. The Legendary Slayer playlist could work as a Ranked playlist (otherwise there’d be three Slayer playlists and that would be completely unnecessary).

16

> I’m not usually too inclined to second your ideas OP (I mean no offense, our opinions simply differ), but this would be a perfect way to rid Halo of Infinity settings. (I simply cannot fathom how people enjoy Infinity settings, and have gone so far as to impose their wishes on others) In any case, it’s a pretty small minority of people that do prefer Infinity, and I think should this be implemented into HX1 we would rapidly see Infinity settings fade into irrelevancy.
>
> Great post. Hopefully we can keep this alive.

It would definitely make Infinity fade into irrelevancy when it comes to us Legendary players, while Infinity players can do what they want.

17

> Infinity had proven widely unpopular and should be tossed out permanently.
>
> Classic settings have and will always be popular with halo.
>
> Its been long overdue getting this franchise back on track. Sorry infinite, you’ve been voted off the island. Pack your Yoink! and leave!

In practice, this is never going to happen. There’s no point in even discussing it. Our best chance (probably) of getting Legendary gameplay back is by bringing it alongside Infinity gameplay. I think the solution I present might be better than just splitting Multiplayer into two huge sets of playlists (which is something 343i has been avoiding throughout Halo 4).

18

The moment they add infinity slayer traits to the game as a spawning option, you might as well just throw the game out the window.

The moment they give you the option to spawn with something that can break a map or causes the map to be LARGER than normal (sprint) the game is done for. You can’t have 20 maps 10 for (this game type) and 10 for (that game type.) Maps cannot and do not function properly between one another when players have attributes that force map designs to change because of said options.

When sprint is added, map MUST expand exponentially in size. (this is not Halo and we’re back playing Reach and H4 again)

Jetpack, at best we should have a short range thrust if anything. Jetpacks force level designs to allows players to jump and jet providing MASSIVE advantages.

Jetpack being used should equal extreme bloom.

Stop trying to separate the community, it’s not working!

  1. Just give us the ability to add our own maps to the MM playlist.
  2. Let us have the ability to modify EVERY weapon’s damage.
  3. Remove spawning power-ups / Abilities (make them pick-ups and limit them per map)

*That is my top three to fix the game, let the community break themselves into categories, don’t do it for us.

19

> The moment they add infinity slayer traits to the game as a spawning option, you might as well just throw the game out the window.
>
> The moment they give you the option to spawn with something that can break a map or causes the map to be LARGER than normal (sprint) the game is done for. You can’t have 20 maps 10 for (this game type) and 10 for (that game type.) Maps cannot and do not function properly between one another when players have attributes that force map designs to change because of said options.
>
> When sprint is added, map MUST expand exponentially in size. (this is not Halo and we’re back playing Reach and H4 again)
>
> Jetpack, at best we should have a short range thrust if anything. Jetpacks force level designs to allows players to jump and jet providing MASSIVE advantages.
>
> Jetpack being used should equal extreme bloom.
>
> <mark>Stop trying to separate the community, it’s not working!</mark>
>
> 1. Just give us the ability to add our own maps to the MM playlist.
> 2. Let us have the ability to modify EVERY weapon’s damage.
> 3. Remove spawning power-ups / Abilities (make them pick-ups and limit them per map)
>
> *That is my top three to fix the game, let the community break themselves into categories, don’t do it for us.

That’s where you’re wrong. The community is already separated and the best thing 343i can do is appeal to as much of us as possible. While splitting Infinity and Legendary may still leave a few people out, I think it would give a satisfying play experience for most Halo players (new and old). As for Sprint and maps, it would never be ideally perfect and that’s something we should all understand off the bat. Sprint (if it does indeed return) will affect maps, but there are still ways to tune it down in a similar way that you suggested to tune down the Jetpack (which I totally agree with btw) such as making the speed boost sprint gives a bit smaller (instead of a 30% speed increase, make it a 20% speed increase). Custom Games definitely should allow a lot of room for customization, but Custom Games will never be the same as true matchmaking (I don’t have 7-15 friends that want to play Legendary gametypes, so that’s pretty much moot for me and probably many others). Legendary should have a respectable place in matchmaking, that’s for sure- the only question is how should that be handled.

EDIT: Ideally, community maps would be supported in matchmaking post-launch (just like in Halo 4 and Halo Reach).

20

Still need an MLG/whatever-competitive-community-will-support-Halo-5 playlist. But I like your idea very much!