Amalgamation of MLG arguments against Bloom (recent)

Games Other Halo
1

Here’s the link.

I took a break from updating my State-of-The-Game thread to focus on other things, but today I stumbled upon an interesting thread that was recently created in the MLG forums discussing Bloom and why it’s bad for competitive gameplay. (“Bad” is such a sweeping generalization and I loathe to use it, but it’s necessary in this case. Besides, the thread goes into much more detail.)

I skimmed most of the OP’s posts and I believe the quote from the poster named “TheBigShow” raises the best points.

What I’ve found very interesting is how on the Bungie and Waypoint forums, there seems to be a sizable amount of people who voice their support for Bloom and Armor Ability mechanics, yet as soon as you go into the MLG forums the mentality of the posts completely shift, and the posters themselves are a lot more competitive-play oriented. It’s obviously because the MLG organization itself doesn’t exactly showcase casual players, but I feel that the MLG forums are much more critical on Reach’s Mulitplayer Matchmaking than other Halo-related forums. Is that a good thing? In my opinion, that’s a resounding yes.

But what does the Waypoint community think?

2

Forget any skill or competitive argument for one second.

Bloom is ANNOYING. I have hated bloom in every FPS, and one of the reasons I loved halo was because of it’s dependable precision weapons. Reach changed something that had been a constant in Halo for 10 years. Bloom simply does not belong in Halo.

3

Well im a part of both communities and i play for fun and competitvly, but to be honest, MLG is more focused on balancing and speeding up the gameplay, and thats why i play MLG, IMO the more balanced the more fun it is. but anyway bloom is just not for halo, i understand why it was put in but i still dont like it in halo period. It just dosent feel like halo to me.

And it slows down the gameplay and instead of increasing the skill gap it just adds randomness into the game.
Maybe with TU it will work properly but i know i will still be playing the Zero bloom playlists when they are released

4

By the way, i still think Frag Grenades need to be toned a bit, i hate how any noob can poorly throw a grenade and still kill me

5

> I feel that the MLG forums are much more critical on Reach’s Mulitplayer Matchmaking than other Halo-related forums. Is that a good thing? In my opinion, that’s a resounding yes.

There are 2 main issues with MLG opinions.

  1. The fact that it’s MLG makes it lose credibility in the eyes of many casual players, because of all the elitists. Not a fault of the reasoning, just a reason they’re not always taken seriously.

  2. Many MLG-ers fail to take into account the “fun-factor.” The debates are focused 100% on the skill involved, instead of the fun. That said, I don’t think anyone is delusional enough to really think bloom adds any real fun to the game.

6

> > I feel that the MLG forums are much more critical on Reach’s Mulitplayer Matchmaking than other Halo-related forums. Is that a good thing? In my opinion, that’s a resounding yes.
>
> There are 2 main issues with MLG opinions.
>
> 1) The fact that it’s MLG makes it lose credibility in the eyes of many casual players, because of all the elitists. Not a fault of the reasoning, just a reason they’re not always taken seriously.
>
> 2) Many MLG-ers fail to take into account the “fun-factor.” The debates are focused 100% on the skill involved, instead of the fun. That said, I don’t think anyone is delusional to really think bloom adds any real fun to the game.

But to many of us MLG’ers, the more skillful it is the more fun it is

7

> > I feel that the MLG forums are much more critical on Reach’s Mulitplayer Matchmaking than other Halo-related forums. Is that a good thing? In my opinion, that’s a resounding yes.
>
> There are 2 main issues with MLG opinions.
>
> 1) The fact that it’s MLG makes it lose credibility in the eyes of many casual players, because of all the elitists. Not a fault of the reasoning, just a reason they’re not always taken seriously.
>
> 2) Many MLG-ers fail to take into account the “fun-factor.” The debates are focused 100% on the skill involved, instead of the fun. That said, I don’t think anyone is delusional to really think bloom adds any real fun to the game.

Bloom doesn’t add any fun to the game. It just slows down gameplay to a crawl and it was used to make the DMR less reliable so the Halo weapon sandbox wouldn’t turn into a one gun game which it didn’t. However their is no fun in using the DMR because of bloom because it’s so random.

8

> But to many of us MLG’ers, the more skillful it is the more fun it is

I’m the same way, but many people aren’t. And most MLG’ers tend to ignore that side of things.

9

Why is this argument still in existence. You guys are getting what you want in just a couple of weeks: bloom free Halo. Time to get over it.

10

he’s just asking what the waypoint communitty thinks, no need to get hostile

11

> > I feel that the MLG forums are much more critical on Reach’s Mulitplayer Matchmaking than other Halo-related forums. Is that a good thing? In my opinion, that’s a resounding yes.
>
> There are 2 main issues with MLG opinions.
>
> 1) The fact that it’s MLG makes it lose credibility in the eyes of many casual players, because of all the elitists. Not a fault of the reasoning, just a reason they’re not always taken seriously.
>
> 2) Many MLG-ers fail to take into account the “fun-factor.” The debates are focused 100% on the skill involved, instead of the fun. That said, I don’t think anyone is delusional enough to really think bloom adds any real fun to the game.

Well, to many, skill directly equals to fun.

Should I take a modder clan’s concerns into consideration, even when they are focused 100% on creating new weapons or maps? Yes. To them, modding is fun.

This fun-factor you are talking about is purely subjective. Saying that MLG isn’t taken seriously because they focus only on skill is like saying casuals should not be taken seriously because they focus only on losing and having horrible K/D ratios (not saying it’s true, but…)

There’s no one way of having fun. Some prefer to win or have close, competitive games, some prefer to mess around and make things, and some prefer to team kill. Either way, fun should not be narrowed down to playing casually.

12

> There’s no one way of having fun. Some prefer to win or have close, competitive games, some prefer to mess around and make things, and some prefer to team kill. Either way, fun should not be narrowed down to playing casually.

Which was my point exactly. Many, many MLG posts completely ignore the fact skill =/= fun for many people, and call for changes which would make the game more skillful, but much less fun for everyone else. Thus, their critical evaluations are biased and not necissarily the best arguments.

13

> > There’s no one way of having fun. Some prefer to win or have close, competitive games, some prefer to mess around and make things, and some prefer to team kill. Either way, fun should not be narrowed down to playing casually.
>
> Which was my point exactly. Many, many MLG posts completely ignore the fact skill =/= fun for many people, and call for changes which would make the game more skillful, but much less fun for everyone else. Thus, their critical evaluations are biased and not necissarily the best arguments.

Casuals can and have enjoyed a more skillful Halo (The first 2). Competitive players have a harder time enjoying games like Reach because it isn’t as deep or fast-paced. Why should the game be slowed down and the better players have to be held back so worse players can catch up?

14

bloom is not inherently a bad idea.

the applications for it (when implemented properly) are tremendous because it can factually increase skill gap in shooting (or, rather, give people room to fail in shooting too quickly), add depth to the game, whilst NOT ADDING A RANDOM FACTOR (which is the reason for the negativity directed towards bloom).

if bloom is to work, spamming simply CANNOT be good, at ANY RANGE. spamming should always be terrible, and never be optimal, regardless of your range. when spamming works, and is even remotely reliable, the act of these ‘spammed’ bullets landing injects a random factor in the game that is literally 100% un-needed, and adds nothing of value.

15

The design decision to include a visual representation of the bloom feature is, by far, one of the most hotly debated topics revolving around Halo Reach. I’m going to do my absolute best at staying focused during this discussion. Should you disagree with my understanding of this topic, feel free to let me know.

Halo MLG gamers absolutely love fast-paced gameplay, controllable and predictable environments, and matches designed around accuracy-based contests. Each Arena* match they partake in, must contain these aspects. Should something harm their formula in any manner, they remove the item or do everything in their power to minimize its relevance.

With the inclusion of a visible bloom, their formula was hindered. I’d go into the details, but they have already been stated multiple times within this thread and the MLG one. For a more positive view on bloom, please see URZA’s post above mine. His words are pretty much spot on concerning Reach’s implementation of the bloom mechanic. Feel free to view all responses at your own leisure. Let us continue.

A zero-bloom gametype in Halo Reach, will do wonders to bring back the Arena-style gameplay MLG loves in its competitions, but that is all. The notion that Arena-style gameplay is the only way to play competitively, something a large number of MLG gamers believes in, is absolutely false. This is why so many members on the MLG forums despise Bloom. It is a feature that, in its current form, wrecks their style of gameplay. That being the case, they do not want it in Reach or in any Halo ever again. It is their personal preference.

What is mine? Quite honestly, that doesn’t really matter at this point. We were asked for our thoughts on MLG’s arguments against bloom. Should you care for my personal preferences and ideologies on gameplay, competitiveness, and/or balance let me know via PM. Back on topic, with a better knowledge of why MLG states/believes what they do, I hope you, the reader, can understand why MLG gamers, for the most part, do not support bloom. Thank you for taking the time to read this.

-Always Hope

16

> > There’s no one way of having fun. Some prefer to win or have close, competitive games, some prefer to mess around and make things, and some prefer to team kill. Either way, fun should not be narrowed down to playing casually.
>
> Which was my point exactly. Many, many MLG posts completely ignore the fact skill =/= fun for many people, and call for changes which would make the game more skillful, but much less fun for everyone else. Thus, their critical evaluations are biased and not necissarily the best arguments.

Can a casual player have fun if the weapons are bloomless? Now ask the same for the competitive players.

The whole idea of “playing for fun” is that you DON’T CARE about; winning, the finer details of weapon balance and game mechanics, luck being forced into your gameplay and pretty much every concern that comes from the MLG type crowd.

So if you don’t care, who does it affect, the bloom on the DMR. Certainly not the casual crowd. Only the competitive players get screwed over and can not enjoy the game.

That is why you balance a game from the top down, because everyone at the bottom could care less.

17

The only problem with MLG is one that has already been stated in this thread. A lot of people in the MLG crowd that actually voice their opinions hold the idea that skill = fun. Well does it? Not entirely, something that takes more skill is in some cases harder. And difficulty =/= fun. Conversely, a nice balanced game that has a moderate difficulty level will allow both skilled players and nub cakes to enjoy it (think Halo trilogy). But some of these debating folks on MLG, on account of their personal skill and that of their peers, have a positive predisposition to difficulty. MLG would want a game to be harder. And that’s the only time when skill-based gameplay is bad for the casual gamers: when it’s too hard.

18

> The only problem with MLG is one that has already been stated in this thread. A lot of people in the MLG crowd that actually voice their opinions hold the idea that skill = fun. Well does it? Not entirely, something that takes more skill is in some cases harder. And difficulty =/= fun. Conversely, a nice balanced game that has a moderate difficulty level will allow both skilled players and nub cakes to enjoy it (think Halo trilogy). But some of these debating folks on MLG, on account of their personal skill and that of their peers, have a positive predisposition to difficulty. MLG would want a game to be harder. And that’s the only time when skill-based gameplay is bad for the casual gamers: when it’s too hard.

This is very true, and I agree. I think it is possible, however, to make a game that is competitively balanced, while not being too hard.

A bloomless DMR for example would make the game more skill based while not increasing the difficulty. I think there are plenty of those kinds of game mechanics in Reach.

19

> Forget any skill or competitive argument for one second.
>
> Bloom is ANNOYING. I have hated bloom in every FPS, and one of the reasons I loved halo was because of it’s dependable precision weapons. Reach changed something that had been a constant in Halo for 10 years. Bloom simply does not belong in Halo.

QFT