A word on Score attack, map selection and voting in general.

Games Other Halo
1

Particularly, daily challenges that are map specific.

Last week there was a firefight daily challenge that was map specific. I believe it was Holdout. First cycle of voting it never came up. I dash-boarded and reloaded Reach. Same thing happened again, in fact the voting selections were nearly identical. Which was ridiculous.

Which brings me to the crux of my argument. Why does a one player playlist rely on a voting system optimized for multiple parties? I know that bungie and now 343i has access to all kinds of player specific metrics. With out a doubt I’m sure one of those things is our individual voting statistics. Why not use these to improve the voting system not only improve Score Attack voting but all of match making as well?

If 343i were to look at my voting tendancies in score attack they would see that an overwhelming majority of the time I vote for Gruntpacyplse on Beach head. With that being the case why can’t option always be in the first round of voting? Why should I, in SINGLE player playlist, be forced into other map/gametype combinations that I really don’t have any interest in playing?

If we expand that into all the other playlists, this would actually all players get the most out of their MM experience. BFBC2 does something similar. Should I chose to, and a majority of the time I do, I can play Conquest on Oasis over and over and over again. I would love this Team Objective as I could set my preferences to 2flag Pro on Asylum and play that to my heart’s content. The system would do it’s best to pair me with players with similar voting tendencies.

In regards to daily challenges that are map specific? It’s the same issue. Why wouldn’t a map specific challenge be in the first round of voting. Players shouldn’t have to vote “none of the above” Nine times only to have the specified map not even show up the the voting options.

I know this can be done, for every time I go into Score attack, Unearthed has been the first option nearly every single time. This tells me the system recognizes that I have the DLC and to give me the most bang for my buck it’s forcing it as the first option, which goes completely against the way I vote as I have outlined above.

In short, adjust the voting options to reflect what we actually want to play. This could seriously improve MM across the board for everyone.

2

They could try making a play list catered to the challenges themselves, for example as you said a Holdout-related challenge can come underneath a new playlist that caters to daily challenges, where it’s always going to be the Holdout map, but score attack, firefight etc. This could work with the competitive challenges too, for example CQB kills as a daily can be attained easier in a playlist that prioritises something like a Team Shotgun game mode.

Of course this might take away from the “Challenge” part seen as it’s all accessible in one place, it’s just my two cents though c(:

3

Score Attack just needs its own static playlist and listing all gametypes to choose from before searching, then after searching the maps come up. At most you would have to choose “None of the above” twice before all maps have shown up.

It wouldn’t slow down searching times because its solo. In fact it would increase searching times, no longer having to cycle through 10 times to not get the map or even game type you want.

The only problem i would see with this is “strain” of some sort on the servers but i dont think it would actually be a problem.

Someone more knowledgeable in that subject could post their thoughts on it an enlighten me or even PM.

@OP, i don’t quite understand what you’re trying to suggest but basically in score attack the most common map you play on is first to come up? If it is that, i do agree with that and if you add it in with my idea it could be even more beneficially.

How exactly would that work in multiplayer matchmaking btw? The most common maps you play on doesn’t make them ones you most like for multiplayer matchmaking, doesn’t even make them ones you like at all in fact.

4

> The most common maps you play on doesn't make them ones you most like for multiplayer matchmaking, doesn't even make them ones you like at all in fact.

Sorry if I didn’t make myself clear, I will try to elaborate further and more concisely.

With my idea, a players individual voting statistics would be taken into account, either passively [meaning the mm system would take those tendencies into account and automatically try to match me with players with similar voting tendencies ] Or actively, meaning and individual player could select this as MM option, just like selecting fastest connection, language or skill.

So as an example:

I play mostly Team Objective. I love flag games and I enjoy Asylum the most. If my voting statistics were taken into account in the match making process the system would see that I almost always vote for flag games. It would then attempt to pair me with players who vote for flag also as well as giving us the appropriate options to vote for.

Such as for example, round 1 might look like this:

Slot 1: 2 flag pro on Asylum

Slot 2: Mult-flag on Countdown

Slot 3: 1 flag on Reflection

In the example of above the system has given myself and the other players the best choices based off of how we vote.

There are several upsides to this type of system:

A) Players would no longer be forced into gametypes, maps or both that they don’t enjoy.

B) Players would have significantly better chance of player maps and gametypes they prefer

C) As result of the above, fewer player would quit as they would be playing on maps and gametypes they enjoy

D As result of C, the quality of the matches would improve. This would be more pronounced in objective games, as individual players would actually be playing the maps and gametypes they enjoy.

Arguably this doesn’t take into account full teams, but I don’t think it would be much of an issue as teams of players tend to vote along the same lines anyhow.

The whole idea behind this is to give each and every individual the best MM experience possible by providing them with the choices they prefer instead having ones they don’t enjoy at all crammed down their throats.

Or better yet, 343i could go with a system similar to Battlefield that allows players to choose not only what map they want but what gametype they want to play. Again, arguably battlefields MM process is very simplistic. There is no voting. All the maps cycle in a sequence and due to the nature of BF’s two gametypes each team takes a turn attacking and defending. That being said I think it could work halo, maybe not Reach as I don’t know how many changes would have to be made to the MM process to allow for this kind of thing, not to mention changes to the user interface.

Hope that helps. I could repost my original idea from the Optimatch forum from b.net.

5

I saw no sense in making another thread about this, so just let me reiterate here why the voting system for a single player mode makes no sense what so ever.

It’s score attack. I should be able to play the map and gametype I want to play. I shouldn’t have to suffer through Eleventeeninehundred rounds of voting only to NOT get the map and gametype I prefer. I’ve already outlined several ways this could be accomplished in my above posts:

  1. Preferred map and gametype setting in options menu. This could easily work for score attack and I could see it also helping players get the maps and gametypes they like in other playlists especially if my second idea is put into place:

2)Individual player voting statistics/tendencies are taken into account during the voting round. In Score Attack I almost always without fail vote for Gruntpacolypse on Beach head. I know that our choices during the voting round are tracked along with innumerable other metrics that have helped bungie and now 343i it adjusting map and gametypes weightings in every playlist. Why can’t this be done in Score Attack?

  1. The most easiest idea; The ability to choose outright which ever map and gametype I prefer. I don’t see how this couldn’t be implemented in SA, that said, I’m not a programmer so it’s probably a lot harder than I think it is.

I just don’t see why, in a single player game mode, that we aren’t allowed to choose which map and gametype we prefer.

I shouldn’t have to dashboard or suicide myself to end the game just so I can try again and hope that that the map and gametype I want is in one of the rounds of voting. It’s single player, it’s as simple as that.