August MM Update Discussion/Feedback Thread

Games Other Halo
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Please, keep it clean, and on-topic. This way, the Monitors won’t have to clean up our mess.
An Open-Vote Poll is up top for your opinionated ease, and for those who don’t like typing. Or maybe just one of those. You decide, but please post specific-thoughts if you have them.

The removed playlists/gametype zones are: Anniversary BTB, Anniversary FFA, Action Sack, Firefight Doubles, and Squad DLC. Please stick to these topic-playlists unless referencing others for compare/contrast.

Personal Opinions:

Anniversary FFA was a way for Classic Halo lovers to enjoy Classic Halo. It had the Awesome Magnum, the medium-to-master AR, and other perks. It really was a flashback to Halo: Combat Evolved’s offline multiplayer. With its removal, I am disappointed, but I cannot say I’m surprised. It had less than a fourth of the amount of people than Rumble Pit, and thus was bound to be removed. However, I am against its removal due to it being an accessible playlist through the Anniversary Multiplayer Playlist, which those are the only ones available on the Anniversary disc.

Anniversary BTB offered an outlet for Classic Halo; on a much larger scale. Heavy magnums, quick-snipe battles, and raging against people with the Ghost due to their lack of Armor Lock was great! This is probably the biggest mistaken removal I have ever seen Reach take on. The population is always fluctuating, but mostly in a positive manner. It also doesn’t offer an BTB Heavies variants, so it is not clogged up with unavoidable, one-hit-kill vehicles. With the options for DLC-matching now forced upon the BTB playlist, chances are slim for playing these maps. In fact, it’ll probably bring you less than the odds of finding 10-12 people in the Squad DLC playlist that have Anniversary maps. What a shame it is that this is being retired, truly. In fact, it deserves this rather-disappointed (and large) frowny face:

:frowning:

Back to the topic; Firefight Doubles doesn’t come as a surprise, given the stress held between two people on different TV’s with that much lag. However, this does reduce the Co-Op options on Reach, and is therefore a bad idea. It is more likely that “this one guy” will have “this one dude” over to his house to play Reach Firefight than him throwing a party while his parents are on a luxury cruise and playing Reach with “this one dude”, “this one chick who has played Halo”, and “this one chick/dude who hasn’t played Halo”. Okay, so I exaggerated a little about the possibility of two guys AND two girls playing Halo, but I meant the part about the one girl at minimum.
(And the luxury cruise)

Squad DLC was a long-expected retiree, but that’s not to say it wasn’t depressing to hear of it’s departure. The least they could do is make a full-merge with Super Slayer and Squad DLC, so that the matching options put the DLC on a higher tier than Anniversary matches, but still lower than Standard matches. This would also help separate the notion of it being a “more-diverse” Team Slayer.
Okay, maybe not. But it would at least allow a way to keep all of the DLC as a top priority to any Halo-lover, and to keep the buying options as a good idea.

Finally, we arrive at Action Sack. Need I say more? Yes.
They could have merged it with Grifball. They could have renamed it. They could have merged it with Grifball, or they could have merged it with Grifball. Is my opinion on this clear? Good. Because as long as they did that, I wouldn’t care if the “special” gametypes showed up once every 50 years, just as long as they showed up.
Seriously, I want my Haloball and Splockets back. Now. (Please?)

And now, my fellow Community Members; discuss.

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I voted for Anniversary BTB but I foresaw it’s removal since it generally has a low population compared to regular/Evolved BTB that is full of noobs who abuse bad mechanics/maps and think they’re pro.

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Action Sack had much potential, and it was ignored

I feel sorry for the ppl that only have CEA, and now only have 2 playlists to choose

Squad DLC wasn’t a surprise, but that also throws my last two Defiant DLC Achievements down the drain

Firefight Doubles, I was surprised it lasted this long. it was very pointless IMO

and I’m still sad FF Limited isn’t back; I LOVE that playlist, and am very upset still that I’m forced to play Arcadefight because 90% of players in Firefight playlist just want to cR farm, while I want to play fun, exciting, and intense FF games :frowning:

I’m still dissappointed that after 2 and a half years, Default maps are still in Living Dead. what gives? they’re highly unbalanced, unfun, and not designed for Infection, and Halo 3 never had Default maps for Living Dead once.

I do like how they put all the Playlists into specific, better categories.

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Disappointed about Firefight Doubles. It was the only FF I went into, considering regular firefight has everyone running around with the FRG constantly and I can’t even see anything through the haze of green explosions (still funny when I get more kills with a sniper than they do that horrid gun). FF Doubles I could go into with a friend and we could both get whatever challenges we need without the extra people simply being annoying.

I also enjoyed Action Sack whenever I felt bored of the regular “competitiveness” of the rest of MM. It was a playlist that was just for fun and I enjoyed it from time to time. I’ll miss Shotty Snipers (put into Team Snipers please?), Shotgun Assault (Team Objective?), BOOM! Ball (Team Objective?) and Splockets. Though things like Hockey and Haloball and Dinoblasters were not my thing at all and I usually just ran around like a maniac in those haha.

Too bad about essentially removing nearly all the DLC playlists though. Lucky I got those when they were on sale, or I’d be kinda annoyed seeing as they’re now a lot less accessible than before (certainly nothing to convince people to buy them now!)

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Lately I’ve mostly been playing Swat, but I did enjoy Anniversary FFA for something different. I like its Magnum, too. And now, the chances of getting an Anniversary map in Rumble Pit will probably be like trying to get one in Living Dead. Grrr.
The one I’m really gonna miss though is Firefight Doubles.
I really like Firefight. I usually play Score Attack, but sometimes I like playing Firefight with a friend that I know isn’t just going to run/fly around spamming rockets or the FRG. I like to hang back and pick em off with the sniper, and that’s hard to do when all of the enemies are basically vaporized with one shot, lol.
I wasn’t even that upset about Halo 4 not having regular Firefight, since I figured we could just go back and play Reach Firefight. Eh, I’ll live. But now…sad face is sad :frowning:

That reminds me - why in the world is there not a sniper loadout for Score Attack? I know sometimes you get Sniper Attack as an option, but it’s just not the same…

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Well first off, I was hoping for a Halo 3 Matchmaking update as well to be included with one for Reach and I was disappointed but as for Reach I would say Firefight Doubles could stay. I usually only play Team Snipers and Living Dead and when I would need some easy Firefight Commendations I would play Firefight Doubles. It’s an easy playlist to get your commendation progress up because you don’t have to worry about things like lag and your partners taking your kills and such, it’s just you and one other guy.

Squad DLC - Oh well, I had all the Achievements for those maps anyways, and as what “The Little Moa” said in a previous thread, you’d start off with Assault Rifles on maps like Highland, (Wait… is that the name of it?.. or Highground?.. Unless that’s on Halo 3) which is never a good thing.

Action Sack - This ruins my chances of ever getting that medal where you need 15 Laser Kills in a row without dying :’(

Bye Splockets!

Anniversary Playlists - Hardly ever played them, BTB would be fun on Headlong because of the Gauss but oh well, time to move on.

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Standard playlist options are lackluster compared to Evolved and some important playlists are removed with nothing else added or merged to make up for this.
Action Sack should stay at the minimum due to being the most different for what it offered.

Disappointing for a game I had hoped to come back to down the line.

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What is there really to discuss?

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It’s a little odd; these seem to be playlists a lot of the commenting players loved.

They also seemed to be Co-Op Friendly playlists; Anniversary BTB, FFA, and Squad DLC all supported 4-Player Splitscreen Live Co-Op. Firefight Doubles supported 2 Player Splitscreen, and Action Sack (due to lag issues) supported 2 players.

These were all commonly-played playlists by people who had friends with them, with the exception of FFA (sometimes). That basically leaves the game with one 4-Player Co-Op Friendly playlist; Living Dead. And we know how that turned out for Halo 3 eventually; good for a time, but it lost its luster.

Many of the previous MatchMaking updates made sense, and thus required no well-thought informative post to explain them (as us forumers assisted and discerned 343i’s reasoning). However, this is one of the couple of exemptions; this doesn’t make sense at all. Personally, I really would like a post made by 343i to provide the reasoning behind these changes, because we as a community majority seem to love some of these playlists.

Heck, I wouldn’t mind if they delayed the August update just to take some direct community input for this; actions don’t say everything when it comes to statistics. A lot more often, words provide the best input for the best outcome.

And quite honestly, I have never seen the MatchMaking thread this active since the incident with the TU vs Vanilla voting.

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> What is there really to discuss?

A lot. Why did they do this? Why were we, as the most talkative form of the Halo community, not asked questions regarding this?

And to be a bit more forward, why is there no BONUS or PLUS to this update? They have not added anything, they’ve just consolidated and removed resources. They sorted and trashed, and did not replenish the stock.

Quite literally, your thoughts, my thoughts, and everyone’s thoughts should have been taken into account regarding this large change, as it’s the biggest (and arguably the worst) to occur since “TU vs Vanilla”. But unlike that scenario, there’s more backlash and questioning than there is even conversation on both sides. I’ve been watching the MatchMaking, Halo: Reach, and General Discussion threads for some time now post-Bulletin, and there’s a lot of outcry, even from newcomers to the forums for their first post.

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since squad dlc is now gone please make the core playlists require DLC to play like Halo 3.

Only way for me to ever get the good maps again …

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Why isn’t 343’s precious Super Slayer removed? It’s population can be worse than some of these.

I long for the day when another playlist is DLC required. Woe is me…

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Why on Earth did they remove Action Sack? The playlist with the most variety gets shunned for multiple play lists for Team Slayer?

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There’s so much to say, so I’ll just get started about the three gametypes I’d like to have remained.

1 (Most Important) - Action Sack. The gametypes which went into the particular playlist could have arguably been the most successful if new gametype ideas were implemented. With its removal, many of the people I know are not going to want to continue as there is no “relax and have fun” playlist for them anymore. But oh well, I understand the consequences and rewards for removing it, so I’ll continue playing.

2 (Middle ground) - Firefight Doubles. Any time I ever had a campaign daily challenge involving killing things, I went into co-op campaign just for the simple notion I like to play with others and to also start on my accommodation for assists in it. The same concept applies to firefight, it was always doubles. I like the idea of going into Team doubles and having to know what to do and how to do it. Why? Because it was a bigger challenge then 4 people with jet packs and radiated cannons on their shoulders. Doubles, you will be missed.

3 (least important for these choices) - Squad DLC. While Anniversary BTB is a close choice for this as well, the fact is DLC owners are not getting their due fairness when it comes to those maps and gametypes on those maps. With Squad’s removal, its a heavy hit which I see will ultimately mean people will be playing other gametypes and playlists because the playlist had low population, but if I had to pick another playlist to replace Squad DLC with, I definitely would have picked another just for the DLC users who are slowly but surely starting to realize the waste of money they invested into because of that. Oh well, hopefully this will be fixed later down the road.

That’s what I have to say about those three. Like I said, Anniversary BTB was a fun fourth which almost made my top 3, but in reality, I hardly ever played it and when I did, people chose T.U. over those. Still, the principle is right there with Squad DLC and I can’t say I agree with Squad or Anni. BTB’s removal, but that’s reality for ya.

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I’m quite annoyed to learn that the Anniversary BTB playlist is being removed. I am going to miss playing CTF on Ridgeline.

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> Please make the core playlists require DLC to play like Halo 3.

Second that or at least make the “Evolved” playlist require DLC.

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So people with only the Halo CEA disc now can’t play 2 of 6 maps.

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To be honest I am surprised 343i aren’t removing more playlists and while my two favourite playlists in Anniversary BTB and Firefight Doubles are being removed I am not unreasonable and understand they had consistently low populations.

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There are few things that, IMO, are wrong with that update.

First, I’m disappointed to see only playlist removal. I fully understand the reason why 343i decided to turn off some playlists, because of the low populations inducing somehow a waste of ressources and a too important spreading of the players. What I don’t get is why they didn’t do updates for the remaining playlists. I mean, the forum is full of topics about how to make MM better, with playlist-specific threads. I understand there is no way to satisfy everyone, but some comments were recurring and deserved to be heard and listened to. To name a few, I’ll cite the sickness of Sword Base and Pinnacle, Super Slayer back to Squad Slayer and Living Dead map set update.

Secondly, I hardly accept the removal of Action Sack. Ok, the population was low. So was the one of Super Slayer. The problem I see with the removal of Action Sack is that there is no alternative to it. e.g., if you removed Super Slayer (I’ve nothing specific against it, it’s just a good example), the people who were playing it could have gone to other playlist, such as Team Slayer or, for the TU Aficionados, Mulit-Team or BTB. I know these are pretty different from Super Slayer, but it is much closer to it than Action Sack can be to any other playlist. Action Sack was a really unique playlist that has no equivalent in the current playlist set. It’s a shame that it disappeared.

I’m pretty convinced that 343i is a really professional and efficient studio, and that they did it for the best, but I stay a little disappointed to have to play that “mutilated” version of Reach until the release of Halo 4.

I can’t wait to see what you guys did with Halo 4. I hope this sacrifice on Reach was worth it!

Thanks for reading.

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Action Sack was ruined with the addition of the new Slayer game types. How often was Halo Ball, Hockey or some other oddball game type picked instead? Those game types were why I loved Action Sack, and the differences between Power Slayer and Hotshots conpared to vanilla and Super Slayer are barely noticeable.

But, yeah, the playlist should have been merged with Grifball and only consisted of the weird and creative game types like Halo Ball, Hockey, Toy Factory and that one Stockpile game type with one team throwing stickies and the other capturing the flags on Mongooses.