Casual? Competitive? Let's try something...

Community General Discussion
1

This is your friendly neighborhood fruit Cursed Lemon, stopping by with an interesting little activity, if you Waypointers would care to take a few minutes and participate in it. I’m going to go ahead and preface this by making sure you understand that first of all, this isn’t a hidden sarcasm dagger just waiting for you to get to the punch line. This thread is an honest inquiry into something I feel could do with some clarification between the different “factions” in this community. Secondly, if you do respond, I expect that the responses given will be done so with fully formed, fully lucid ideas and/or questions, and to not have to sift through knee-jerk reactions to find the sort of replies I’m seeking.

Let’s pretend, for a moment.

Let’s pretend that there is indeed a distinct wedge between the two Halo groups that we often call “casual” and “competitive,” and that there really isn’t any distinguishable gray area between them.

Now, it’s worth noting that for this exercise, I’m essentially branding myself as a representative of that competitive group. I have never done that before, and never will do that where it’s relevant; I am just one person, with one opinion, and mine isn’t any more important than anyone else’s, whether in other communities or on here. But, I will say this; I think that I can speak for the competitive community in this instance, insofar as I have what I feel to be the rough approximation of what all competitive Halo players want to see in the next installment of the Halo game.

The problem here, that I offer up to all of you, is that I’m not so certain that you all have that same clear idea.

It is not because anyone thinks you are ignorant, or at least as far as the word “ignorant” carries the context of stupidity behind it. Rather, it may be that you are ignorant of us. Whether it is because things have gotten lost in translation, or that things have been expressed with too much vitriol, let’s assume that the casual community (which I am going so far as to say has its main base set squarely in this place) doesn’t really understand what the competitive community wants.

Now, do I think that this is an overexaggerated venture, and that the casual community is actually full of individuals who are both level-headed AND in possession of a perfectly clear understanding of what the competitive community is up in arms about?

Eh…not really. I think this thread could actually do a world of good. You see, the competitive community’s greatest selling point for their ideas is that they are mostly transparent to the experience of other Halo players - a point I am in full agreement with.

But putting that aside, we come to the point of this thread.

I want all of you who are reading to do me a favor. And that is, without me elaborating on what the competitive community wants, what do YOU think the competitive community wants? What is your perception of our goals and the things that we want to see implemented in Halo, and how do you feel about those changes with regards to your own vision for H4 and future Halo games? Hell, what is your perception of us, flat out?

Please do not respond to the greater majority of this post - I am only interested in your responses to the bolded paragraph, because it’s those responses that might be the key to getting on some common ground - and realizing that our experiences are not mutually exclusive.

2

I understand what that side of the community wants. Funny thing is, I also want that same thing. But my approach to it is different and that’s where a lot of people get angry with me. I don’t have a problem with people disagreeing with me, but I do have a problem with people ignoring my points and responses and replying with nothing but insults, stat references, avoiding all responses, responding with facepalm images, thank bombing insulting replies, etc. Just in general not bothering to understand anybody who isn’t on their crusade and worse, being against ideas and gametypes that they don’t want.

3

> I want all of you who are reading to do me a favor. And that is, without me elaborating on what the competitive community wants, what do YOU think the competitive community wants? What is your perception of our goals and the things that we want to see implemented in Halo,

An equal playing field and a high skill requirements to be the best. Basically: An Arena Shooter Setup.

> and how do you feel about those changes with regards to your own vision for H4 and future Halo games?

The problem is that there’s only so far you can take the Arena Shooter Setup that previous Halo games have operated under without breaking it out of that Arena Shooter Setup. You can’t have any of the additions that games are adding now because they fundamentally conflict with the Arena Shooter Setup. You can’t stay relevant with new players coming and constantly loosing players due over time.

> Hell, what is your perception of us, flat out?

If I want to take the easy way out and just list off the stereotypes?

Pig-headed
Egotistical
Elitist
Arrogant
Demeaning
Infuriating

But that’s the work of a few individuals tarnishing the reputation of the many. I won’t assume that all competitive players are those things because they aren’t. But even a good part of the many fall to at least one of these flaws. And when the only public voice for the competitive players makes me think of those things and when nobody steps up to put the offenders down it just kills any interest I have in them and their point of view and immediately puts me in the position to oppose them, almost regardless of the issue.

Also: I doubt you’re CursedLemon.

I’ve seen his posts. There’s no way he would be this nice.

4

I think I’m the grey area. I most certainly play more that most casuals and am kind competitive but don’t play in arena or the MLG gamemode that much, nor have I ever partaken in any tournaments. If the casual vs competative argument is so big just have game modes and maps designed for both? Idk…

5

I think the competitive community just want a balanced game and have a good reason to be hesitant about Halo 4. My perception of you guys is that MOST of you are awesome and some of you ruin your image (like every community)

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> I think I’m the grey area. I most certainly play more that most casuals and am kind competitive but don’t play in arena or the MLG gamemode that much, nor have I ever partaken in any tournaments. If the casual vs competative argument is so big just have game modes and maps designed for both? Idk…

There used to be a divide in place with Ranked and Social playlists in H2+H3 where Bungie catered to the social players in social playlists, and catered to the more competitive players in ranked playlists. This system WORKED, and could of continued to work had Bungie not abandoned the Ranked/Social divide and instead decided to relegate the ranked playlist to just Arena completely unbalancing the system.

As a competitive player, I want competitive core Halo mechanics and play-lists designed to cater to the play-style I prefer. Do that, and I dont care what the social play-lists look like. I barely ever played social in H3 because it wasn’t to my liking.

H4 needs to have playlists(plural) where competitive players are catered to because I feel that wasn’t done in Reach outside of MLG and hurt the longevity of the game.

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Lemon, this community can hardly even decide on one solid definition of “competitive;” you can’t expect them to give you a good summary of what the “competitive” community wants. There’s so much subjectivity when it comes to what one considers competitive that the question is pretty pointless. Saying the competitive community consists entirely of people who all want the same thing is VERY wrong and VERY stupid, therefore the generalization is nugatory.

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> I want all of you who are reading to do me a favor. And that is, without me elaborating on what the competitive community wants, what do YOU think the competitive community wants? What is your perception of our goals and the things that we want to see implemented in Halo, and how do you feel about those changes with regards to your own vision for H4 and future Halo games? Hell, what is your perception of us, flat out?

What do I believe they want? It seems like they want a prettier version of Halo 3, where only the battle rifle is supreme and they can easily dispatch everyone with years and years and years of practiced ease. I believe they want everything “balanced” but again want the BR to be the only truly good weapon because it is the only thing they view as “skillfull.” I believe they oppose change simply because it is change and that they view every new feature as an abomination because it changes this new game into an actual new game that works differently. I believe that they want weak players to forever be weak if they cannot master the skills they believe are the only important ones. I even had a “Competitive” player tell me a few days back that “noobs” should never be able to kill a vehicle of good players, that they should just destroy them repeatedly every life in an argument against vehicle health. I believe that you want a truly boring and repetitive game and it scares me sometimes.

I love all these changes so far, once I play the game Ill decide if any of them turn out to suck by the immoral players that exploit them.

My perception of them?
Self-righteous
Perceived Omniscience of the “Good for Halo”
Try-Hards
Hate change in general
Arrogant
Fear of any “Randomness”

I used to consider myself a competitive player due to the fact that Ive been playing hard and competitively since customs in CE. Never had a problem with mlg people, even kind of thought the idea was nice if really geeky, the whole pitting the best against the best. Buuuut then I came to the forums. Will never play mlg because of it. Now the word competitive is almost ruined for me and I dont know how to refer to myself anymore.

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This is probably going to end up as another flame thread, where everybody vents their hate of “Casual” and “Competitive” gamers and re-inforces false stereotypes like the post above me^^. You probably shouldnt of asked what they thought of the competitive players because they are just going to repeat the same “Elitist” and “Arrogant” -Yoink- because somebody prefers to play the game differently than them and has their own established community.

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> I understand what that side of the community wants. Funny thing is, I also want that same thing. But my approach to it is different and that’s where a lot of people get angry with me. I don’t have a problem with people disagreeing with me, but I do have a problem with people ignoring my points and responses and replying with nothing but insults, stat references, avoiding all responses, responding with facepalm images, thank bombing insulting replies, etc. Just in general not bothering to understand anybody who isn’t on their crusade and worse, being against ideas and gametypes that they don’t want.

Yeah you’re so right, no idea why people disagree with you about bloom or armor lock. They were great additions to halo.

lolno

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> because somebody prefers to play the game differently than them and has their own established community.

That’s not it.

The problem is that the competitive community’s perceived agenda is to force everyone to play by their rules.

There are still calls for Team Slayer to be made TU’d.

> lolno

And this is the type of behavior that I was talking about. It needs to be tarred and feathered and driven from the community. From the casual and competitive communities.

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I want Ogre 2 to win every event.

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> > because somebody prefers to play the game differently than them and has their own established community.
>
> That’s not it.
>
> The problem is that the competitive community’s perceived agenda is to force everyone to play by their rules.
>
> There are still calls for Team Slayer to be made TU’d.

Calls? They didn’t trying calling or asking for anything. They were literally trying to force a TU into a playlist they admitted they had no intention of ever playing while stuffing the vote in their favour.

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> Calls?

There was a thread last week or week before in the MMing forum. Delete Super Slayer and make Team Slayer TU’d.

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> I want Ogre 2 to win every event.

I LOLed.

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> > because somebody prefers to play the game differently than them and has their own established community.
>
> That’s not it.
>
> The problem is that the competitive community’s perceived agenda is to force everyone to play by their rules.

Where do you get that from? Halo has always had way more social offerings and “social features” since H3 than competitive ones. Competitive players want options to customize the game and ranked play-lists catered to them in default, but never did anyone ask for MLG settings to be across the whole game or whatever you are suggesting.

Alot of the social community makes up alot of BS and has alot of baseless claims of the competitive community “based on that one time in MM or on the forums” which is ridiculous and illogical thinking. That makes you all seem like haters who just want an excuse to not like us, because you’re not interested in our way of play anyway. The real competitive community(Bravo,Bestman,Nexy,Cyren,ect.) helped out at E3 and RTX, created a website(THC) that is encouraging different competitive communities such as BTB.net, and has relentlessly supported Halo since its inception. What is there really to hate? Competitive Halo players DO NOT hate the social communities like the social communities hate on us and its basically unwarranted as far as im concerned. Its up to you if you want to just be a hater based on a pre-conceived stereotype, if not you might actually learn to like the competitive side of the game and the community.

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Hey… not trying to be rude… But PLEASE… dont do this : This is your friendly neighborhood fruit Cursed Lemon
It bugs the HEll out of me! Thanks :slight_smile:

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But answering to your post, as a competitive player i want what most of these guys want a basic system. I personally hate AA’s because they throw off balance and skill. Sprint is fine. But PV, Shields, perks ect are all things that make competitive players cringe because it cripples the skill side and leans more to the layout that COD stresses on so much. When everyone has the same weapon and same abilities it is ALL about who is the best of the best and who wins has the most skill. But now with all these loadouts and weapons to start with people aren’t even anymore so even if a player is more skilled than another player, that player might lose to the lesser skilled player all because of a different loadout. I personally don’t like it and believe many others are with me on this one. But i have faith 343i will try their best.

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I respect and love halo’s MLG community, what really pisses me off about them though is when they act like their opinions are what matters when in reality they only make up a very small portion of the community.

oh yeah and I also despise how they consider themselves true halo fans when they hardly even play the campaign, halo at its core has always been based around the campaign.

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> Where do you get that from?

Players posting on the forums.

“AR should always lose to BR.”
“Title Update Team Slayer.”

And so on.

> Alot of the social community makes up alot of BS and has alot of baseless claims of the competitive community “based on that one time in MM or on the forums” which is ridiculous and illogical thinking. That makes you all seem like haters who just want an excuse to not like us, because you’re not interested in our way of play anyway.

Again, this is the perceived agenda.

I’m smart enough to know that not everybody whistles to that tune but if that is the only interaction that players are going to have with a “competitive” player.

And on the flipside, you don’t see the same kind of negativity being directed at the Grifball community that is directed at the competitive community.

> The real competitive community(Bravo,Bestman,Nexy,Cyren,ect.) helped out at E3 and RTX, created a website(THC) that is encouraging different competitive communities such as BTB.net, and has relentlessly supported Halo since its inception. What is there really to hate?

The fact that that THC didn’t call out the OP on his Youtube rant.

> Competitive Halo players DO NOT hate the social communities like the social communities hate on us and its basically unwarranted as far as im concerned. Its up to you if you want to just be a hater based on a pre-conceived stereotype, if not you might actually learn to like the competitive side of the game and the community.

I don’t know where and I don’t know how, but somewhere and sometime ago, being a competitive player became equally interchangable in the eyes of many with the word jerk.

I don’t think it just happened because Casuals didn’t like Competitives.