Full disclosure: I am a longtime fan of the Halo series, and have thoroughly enjoyed Halo 5. I have already completed every Halo 5 achievement and have logged over 900 multiplayer matches, although my team has only won 42% of them. In other words, I am a mediocre player at best but typically I still have fun, win-or-lose! Recently, my perspective has started to change in that regard.
To elaborate on all the recent discussions related to Warzone farming, last night I joined forces with a handful of friends for some casual Warzone matches. We actually lost all of them, and in four-out-of-the-last-five games we were blatantly trolled (a.k.a. farmed) by the winning team. Not merely to the ten minute mark for maximum REQ points, either. These game ranged in length from 16:22 to 18:24. In other words, the winning team genuinely earned the “Unsporting behavior” label.
Ultimately, this caused me to ask one compelling question: are there any ideal matchmaking playlists for casual and/or mediocre players? The simple answer would seem to be “no.”
As we have discussed at great length, the formerly fun 12-on-12 matches in Warzone have deteriorated into overtly unsporting teams relentlessly pursuing one set of armor that 99% of the community will never recognize even after they finally earn it. - All of the ranked Arena playlists are problematic because of the short season length along with the frequency of the CSR resets. Those of us who are lowly Gold players in Arena Slayer will typically be matched against much better opponents during the first 2-3 weeks of the season. By the time things finally settle down into relatively even matches, the season is mostly done already! Unless they either eliminate the seasons or lengthen them to somewhere around three months, these aren’t viable options. - The weekend casual playlists suffer from the same problem as the ranked Arena possibilities: they are only temporary and everybody starts out with the same baseline hidden TrueSkill ranking, so once again the average players are easily outgunned. Not particularly fun. - Last but not least, we have BTB. It isn’t ranked, it doesn’t get reset, and it isn’t temporary, so the hidden TrueSkill rankings should help provide a level playing field. Sounds promising, right? Of course, the one huge drawback is that there aren’t any first-party original BTB maps! All of them were created within Forge, as opposed to Warzone and Arena which have plenty of new first-party maps with even more on the way.So the question remains: which playlist should the casual players utilize?
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> Friends go and play a social playlist … Friends have coordination … Waypoint screams “tryhards” and “social ruined” on same social playlist.
Yeah but this is a little different, to be fair. The Warzone farming is definitely an issue tied to the appearance of Achilles. Let me tell you. Sitting on Escape from ARC with your core open for a full match because the enemy won’t end the game is a little frustrating.
If you don’t like BTB there really is no casual playlist to utilize. Even if you are ranked low 343’s matchmaking system is completely -Yoink- backwards, you could be silver 2 in slayer and get pitted against a team of diamond players.
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> > Friends go and play a social playlist … Friends have coordination … Waypoint screams “tryhards” and “social ruined” on same social playlist.
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> Yeah but this is a little different, to be fair. The Warzone farming is definitely an issue tied to the appearance of Achilles. Let me tell you. Sitting on Escape from ARC with your core open for a full match because the enemy won’t end the game is a little frustrating.
You can choose to not respawn in Warzone if it gets that bad. If your team does this often they get bored and kill core.
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> Friends go and play a social playlist … Friends have coordination … Waypoint screams “tryhards” and “social ruined” on same social playlist.
Are your partial sentences actually referring to Warzone? As many others have already implied within multiple discussion threads, that playlist has become a cesspool.
I have absolutely no problem losing to superior opponents. In fact, it happens quite often! I have the utmost respect for talented players who have refined their teamwork to become even better when they join forces. However, the overtly unsporting behavior exhibited by some teams in an attempt to pad their statistics against an inferior opponent by Warzone farming for 14-16 minutes is rather pathetic.
People automatically assume that there will be a more “casual” experience with social playlists because they think the only people that play them are causal players. That’s wishful thinking at its worst.
> …are there any ideal matchmaking playlists for casual and/or mediocre players?
Guess what’ll happen when they add a social playlist you desire? Those kill farmers you hate will follow you there. Why? Because to them, it’s much easier since the adversity is a lot less potent, meaning they’ll have a much easier time farming kills, especially when they’re most likely partied up.
This is the major downfall to social playlists. They should only be around for fun/temporary modes, not having permanent “alternate” versions to allow “casual play”. Your idea for a social playlist is like building a settlement in a zombie apocalypse without walls and believing nothing bad will happen. Bad things will happen, thus making the idea a waste of time.
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> People automatically assume that there will be a more “casual” experience with social playlists because they think the only people that play them are causal players. That’s wishful thinking at its worst.
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> > …are there any ideal matchmaking playlists for casual and/or mediocre players?
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> Guess what’ll happen when they add a social playlist you desire? Those kill farmers you hate will follow you there. Why? Because to them, it’s much easier since the adversity is a lot less potent, meaning they’ll have a much easier time farming kills, especially when they’re most likely partied up.
>
> This is the major downfall to social playlists. They should only be around for fun/temporary modes, not having permanent “alternate” versions to allow “casual play”. Your idea for a social playlist is like building a settlement in a zombie apocalypse without walls and believing nothing bad will happen. Bad things will happen, thus making the idea a waste of time.
I remember Halo 3 social playlists being a nice break from the constant pressure of competitive play? Sure sometimes you get the odd few teams that wreck you into the dirt, but the majority of good players will still flock to the ranked playlists, because to a competitive halo player your rank is more important than your k/d.
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> I remember Halo 3 social playlists being a nice break from the constant pressure of competitive play? Sure sometimes you get the odd few teams that wreck you into the dirt, but the majority of good players will still flock to the ranked playlists, because to a competitive halo player your rank is more important than your k/d.
I have essentially said the same thing. It was really nice to have those choices readily available during the Halo 3 era! I definitely enjoyed the ranked matches, but the 5-on-5 Social Slayer games were a lot of fun, too.
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> > 2535419776663845;9:
> > I remember Halo 3 social playlists being a nice break from the constant pressure of competitive play? Sure sometimes you get the odd few teams that wreck you into the dirt, but the majority of good players will still flock to the ranked playlists, because to a competitive halo player your rank is more important than your k/d.
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> I have essentially said the same thing. It was really nice to have those choices readily available during the Halo 3 era! I definitely enjoyed the ranked matches, but the 5-on-5 Social Slayer games were a lot of fun, too.
I played competitive halo 3, the majority of my social game play was spent either just relaxing when none of my teammates were online, or warming up for ranked. I never witnessed 50 generals camping social slayer just to farm their k/d
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> I remember Halo 3 social playlists being a nice break from the constant pressure of competitive play? Sure sometimes you get the odd few teams that wreck you into the dirt, but the majority of good players will still flock to the ranked playlists, because to a competitive halo player your rank is more important than your k/d.
But how do you know people will care about their rank and stay in those ranked playlist? Again, its wishful thinking. If you ask me, I think the ranked players would want to relax too, right? The moment they hear about a social playlist, they’ll be baited to play and guess what? It’s a slaughter-fest.
IMO, just keep the standard modes ranked. It provides fairness (as much as possible) in order to separate the highest skilled players from the lower tier newbies. If people don’t like to sweat, then 343 should add “fun” social modes like Action Sack, Infected, Racing, Grifball, and even custom games with friends with crazy rules would be beneficial.
In conclusion, not having to “sweat” should be remedied through fun modes. It should never involve ruining the experience for the much lesser skilled by pairing a higher skilled player against them. It’s not fair and its very selfish to desire that sort of situation.
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> - Last but not least, we have BTB. It isn’t ranked, it doesn’t get reset, and it isn’t temporary, so the hidden TrueSkill rankings should help provide a level playing field. Sounds promising, right? Of course, the one huge drawback is that there aren’t any first-party original BTB maps! All of them were created within Forge, as opposed to Warzone and Arena which have plenty of new first-party maps with even more on the way.
I don’t understand why BTB having only forge maps is a problem. I’ve been playing BTB almost exclusively ever since Warzone went to hell and I’ve been having a blast. Just give it a try.
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> > I remember Halo 3 social playlists being a nice break from the constant pressure of competitive play? Sure sometimes you get the odd few teams that wreck you into the dirt, but the majority of good players will still flock to the ranked playlists, because to a competitive halo player your rank is more important than your k/d.
>
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> But how do you know people will care about their rank and stay in those ranked playlist? Again, its wishful thinking. If you ask me, I think the ranked players would want to relax too, right? So they’ll just have an easier time destroying people since it is so much easier to them.
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> IMO, just keep the standard modes ranked. It provides fairness (as much as possible) in order to separate the highest skilled players from the lower tier newbies. If people don’t like to sweat, then 343 should add “fun” social modes like Action Sack, Infected, Racing, Grifball, and even custom games with friends with crazy rules would be beneficial.
>
> In conclusion, not having to “sweat” should be remedied through fun modes. It should never involve ruining the experience for the much lesser skilled by pairing a higher skilled player against them. It’s not fair and its very selfish to desire that sort of situation.
However when you say it provides enough fairness as possible, it doesn’t even do that? I’ve seen silver 6’s get matched against onyx 1600 players. Don’t get me wrong I respect them for bringing back the ranked competitive playstyle, but it limits so many people from enjoying the game. For instance if I’m ranked onyx in slayer, and my friend is bronze, it makes it very difficult for me to play with him because the two scenarios that can happen are A) we get a full onyx team and my friend has no fun whatsoever, or B) we get a team of silvers and if we happen to lose it crucifies my rating.
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> > 2542657289632179;1:
> > - Last but not least, we have BTB. It isn’t ranked, it doesn’t get reset, and it isn’t temporary, so the hidden TrueSkill rankings should help provide a level playing field. Sounds promising, right? Of course, the one huge drawback is that there aren’t any first-party original BTB maps! All of them were created within Forge, as opposed to Warzone and Arena which have plenty of new first-party maps with even more on the way.
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> I don’t understand why BTB having only forge maps is a problem. I’ve been playing BTB almost exclusively ever since Warzone went to hell and I’ve been having a blast. Just give it a try.
My problem with it is that it is lazy, and that leaves me salty. I also happen to not enjoy them (except for the one with the scorpion and the tower), but I think I’m in the minority there.
I find a lot of comparisons to Halo 3 in all of these posts, and about how things like this would of never happened there. This is a moot point. Halo 5 is only similar to Halo 3 in name and community, and the latter is changing. People didn’t always want to be spoon fed, but entitlement has no boundaries. At no point when I installed the game did I find somewhere that told me there were certain ways to play, within the realm of fair play. I don’t cheat, I don’t dashboard to save my win %, and I don’t initialize altercations. I find that triple capping and farming kills, on teams and pugs alike, is the most reliable way to complete my kill commendations and win warzone games, period.
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> > > 2542657289632179;1:
> > > - Last but not least, we have BTB. It isn’t ranked, it doesn’t get reset, and it isn’t temporary, so the hidden TrueSkill rankings should help provide a level playing field. Sounds promising, right? Of course, the one huge drawback is that there aren’t any first-party original BTB maps! All of them were created within Forge, as opposed to Warzone and Arena which have plenty of new first-party maps with even more on the way.
> >
> >
> > I don’t understand why BTB having only forge maps is a problem. I’ve been playing BTB almost exclusively ever since Warzone went to hell and I’ve been having a blast. Just give it a try.
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> My problem with it is that it is lazy, and that leaves me salty. I also happen to not enjoy them (except for the one with the scorpion and the tower), but I think I’m in the minority there.
The majority of the maps in every playlist seem lazy. Hey lets make two slightly different versions of midship… that’ll work right?
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> I find a lot of comparisons to Halo 3 in all of these posts, and about how things like this would of never happened there. This is a moot point. Halo 5 is only similar to Halo 3 in name and community, and the latter is changing. People didn’t always want to be spoon fed, but entitlement has no boundaries. At no point when I installed the game did I find somewhere that told me there were certain ways to play, within the realm of fair play. I don’t cheat, I don’t dashboard to save my win %, and I don’t initialize altercations. I find that triple capping and farming kills, on teams and pugs alike, is the most reliable way to complete my kill commendations and win warzone games, period.
The reason there are a lot of comparisons is because Halo 3 was a much better and more successful version of the game. I don’t think anyone here is saying they should be identical, and I’m also not debating innovation. But why not try to base your ideas off of concepts and principles that are proven to work?