I loved the Arena ranking system, in the first 6 seasons, that was based off of individual skill. I could search by myself all day and move up in onyx regardless of my teammates going negative 50. If 343 wants to improve the popularity of arena why not remove the frustration of useless teammates by reverting to the individual performance true skill ranking system. Matchmaking creates a sense of hopelessness in players who search by themselves because they know the worst players will be sorted onto their own team. This hopelessness cripples the competitive spirit which fuels Arena popularity. All debates of this nature are never black and white and it is obvious that Bungie erroneously took a monochrome bandade approach. The win/loss calculations are important in their own way and must also factor into the ranking system. Bungie were very close to making a great ranking system and yet instead of incorporating win/loss weights and ratios in a sensible way they decided to erase all of their progress and reinstate their rudimentary system.
Teamwork is naturally occurring and encouraged in and by the following ways and incentives, in an individual performance ranking system.
Members of a team acting in their own best interest will inevitably realize helping each other is the most sound strategy for staying alive, gaining weapon control and establishing spawn traps.
Heavily weighting assists is the most obvious way to encourage teamwork in an individual performance true skill ranking system. The points and the scores were COOL! COOL that your 1650 average actually meant something. That something could be compared and shown off to your friends thereby stimulating larger commitment and attention to Arena.
Searching in a team of 4 largely results in more frequent victories; teamwork suppression of the opponents increases the likelihood that each member of the winning team will finish in the top 4 of the 8 players’ scores.
Additional Ideas for Arena
Apply no bloom title update.
Re-create Doubles and FFA Arena.
Remove jet pack and Holograms (are predominantly sources of frustration)
Put Arena Division and % on nameplate next to Gamertag (or make it accessible at fewer than 7 commands away in the service record)
Add needle rifle to the loadout (CHOICES ARE GOLDEN)
> <mark>Remove jet pack and Holograms (are predominantly sources of frustration)</mark>
I liked everything in your thread except the highlighted line, you are going to have to explain the concept of how removing the main defining mechanic of Reach, AA, from Reach’s Arena is going to make Reach players play Arena.
> > <mark>Remove jet pack and Holograms (are predominantly sources of frustration)</mark>
>
> I liked everything in your thread except the highlighted line, you are going to have to explain the concept of how removing the main defining mechanic of Reach, AA, from Reach’s Arena is going to make Reach players play Arena.
I put that in the thread because 90% of the competitive community does not use jet pack in arena meaning 90% of the players in Arena see only the negatives associated with it. There are a few major points: jet packs entirely break down structural map play. Jet packs create several new camping spots on every map which were never designed to be used. Jet packs enable people to be attacked from almost any point on a map destroying preconceptions about lines of sight and spacial strategy. Jet packs. off course, disable sprint and slow down the speed combat in games for any player or team using it.
On every map a player has areas in which they feel secure and where they can reside until they make up their mind about pushing into more hostile territory. Jet packs violate this security at a fundamental level. This type of violation feels similar to having been cheated. If everyone was forced to use jet pack alone then everyone would have learned to play the maps in entirely different ways, and would naturally not be surprised by getting assaulted from above. The issue is that players who choose not to use it feel they deserve reciprocated respect from their gesture of staying on the ground.
Should jet packs be removed? well consider this… Should teleporting be added in the January update. If you can imagine how frustrating a skilled teleporter could be as he continually appears behind and assassinates you then you can access the same state of mind which concerns players about jet packers. Is this a useful analogy? not really unless you understand the slippery slope argument or you are a keen believer in maintaining consistency in game play. You will find all highly specialized sports maintain high levels of consistency in their rules and equipment. If Formula one suddenly allowed jet packs it would entirely defeat the point of the entire racing system. If tennis players were allowed to jet pack it would add a new dynamic which would completely confound most players and destroy the pre-existing standards of the sport. The real question is do the millions of people, who played the original Halo games, want their pre-existing standards to be completely abolished by a jet-packer? You can extrapolate this once again with how you would feel about unrestricted teleporting.