I don’t know how many of you have had the time to watch the sparkast yet, but something Frankie said made me a bit concerned.
They were talking about the Halo CE Pistol and briefly touched the topic of skill gaps. This is a summary of what made me worried:
>> Frankie starts talking about skill gaps
>> Provides an example to start talking about
>> Example: If Frankie were to face the Ogre Twins in a match with DMR starts he would get destroyed.
>> The result would be the same even if the match was Rocket Launcher starts
>> So isn’t any weapon a skill weapon?
Note: They start talking about skill gap around the 40 minute mark. The Ogre example starts around the 45 minute mark.
Let’s clarify something here:
If Frankie and Ogre 2 were to 1v1 in 2 seperate matches. One with DMR starts and the other with Rocket Launcher starts. The result would probably be 25-0 both matches. This is because Ogre 2 is miles and miles ahead of Frankie in terms of skill.
Now let me provide a different example. Say Pistola, a relatively good pro player was playing, say Totz, one of the lesser skilled pro players. Again the two matches would have one with DMR starts and one with Rocket Launcher starts. The one with DMR starts might turn out 25-10 while the one with Rocket Launcher starts would turn out 25-20.
The reason weapons need to have large skill gap is that they need to reward the better player with the kill no matter how small the difference in skill is. In a matchup with one of the Ogre twins against Frankie it might not make much of a difference, but if the Ogre twins were playing each other it most definitely would make a difference.
Hope Frankie understands skill gap a little better.
That’s what happens when the developers of a game are no good at said game. He called the CE pistol overpowered, which made me lose a little faith in him.
Also, I doubt Frankie would get any kills against any pro.
> That’s what happens when the developers of a game are no good at said game. He called the CE pistol overpowered, which made me lose a little faith in him.
Oh, he lost an entire level of faith by saying that. Its like the CE Pistol accident was a bad accident, but the Reach Bloom and horridly balanced AA’s implemented on purpose are awesome.
But, if he listens to the right fans and they (as a company) understand what makes for a good skill-based competitive game (B Deck and I seem to have made some good threads on it, for example), then all will be fine.
> That’s what happens when the developers of a game are no good at said game. He called the CE pistol overpowered, which made me lose a little faith in him.
Technically speaking, Frankie is absolutely right. H:CE’s magnum IS completely and utterly overpowered when compared to every other non-power weapon in that game.
I’ve played enough FFA games in H:CE and H:PC to know what I’m talking about. If you start with any other weapon BUT the magnum, the player to first get hold of one will most likely win. It completely upsets weapon balance.
But if you start with the magnum, however, this actually levels the playing field instead of upsetting balance. Now it comes down primarily to how good you are with the magnum, i.e. how good your aim is, and not what weapon you’re wielding. So a good player will kill a player with less skill/aim almost all the time. And that’s why the overpowered magnum was actually a blessing.
> That’s what happens when the developers of a game are no good at said game. He called the CE pistol overpowered, which made me lose a little faith in him.
>
> Also, I doubt Frankie would get any kills against any pro.
Yeah but he also said “it might be fun again who knows?” in a weird Frankie kinda way. I found that interesting but…who knows?
I lost faith when he stated he isn’t “arrogant or stupid enough to think Reach needs fixing”. Are we talking about the same game here? I’d like to be able to put the guass warthog in my maps!
> I lost faith when he stated he isn’t “arrogant or stupid enough to think Reach needs fixing”. Are we talking about the smae game here? I’d like to be able to put the guass warthog in my maps!
Agreed. In light of that bug, Frankie’s statement that Reach doesn’t need any fixing is really a bad joke. >:(
I’m curious, are the “Ogre Twins” actual people or just fictitious examples?
I don’t mind losing to players with more skill. I watch how they play and I learn how to improve my own skills. The skill gap in Halo 2 and Halo 3 was important. It taught me how to be a better player when I lost and made me feel like I achieved something when I won. In Reach, I don’t feel happy when I win, and when I lose, it’s usually not my fault. I’m not a “pro” player, nor am I a “casual”; I consider myself somewhere in between. I’m fairly decent at Halo, and I want that to show. You can’t judge the better player in an unfair game filled with randomness. Even if you play to have fun, which I do, you can’t because vehicles get destroyed instantly, if you start to do half-decent, someone armor locks and your plasma grenade ricochets off and sticks you, or gets a lucky shot off, and I’ve noticed in Reach it’s a lot more difficult to get a Killing Spree than in Halo 2 and Halo 3, because, for example, that random jetpacker might float above you and start freaking out and spam you to death, without you even knowing what happened.
I remember a particularly excellent game of Team Slayer on Burial Mounds I got into a Ghost and started completely destroying everybody. That was because I was skilled with the Ghost. They got the Rocket Launcher once, but I zoomed out of the way of the rockets. Then my excellent team quickly mowed them down with their trusty BRs and together we secured our victory. I’ve done similar things in Halo 3, but that could not happen in Reach. I’m too afraid to splatter someone for fear they might Armor Lock at the last second and kill me, and if I waited there and shoot at them, I’d get torn apart by DMR bullets. Faster kill times, a simple formula, and a skill gap makes the game funner, and that’s what gaming is all about; fun. Entertainment.
> > That’s what happens when the developers of a game are no good at said game. He called the CE pistol overpowered, which made me lose a little faith in him.
>
> Technically speaking, Frankie is absolutely right. H:CE’s magnum IS completely and utterly overpowered when compared to every other non-power weapon in that game.
That, my friend, is an illusion. It isn’t OP, but what it is that it is necessary. Most of the gun fights in a Halo game are at Mid Range. Therefore, the Pistol is awesome because of the fact that the ideal combat scenario is likely to be at mid range. Go into a completely CQC situation, and unless you are more skilled than the opposing player with a shotgun or AR, you’re probably going to lose. Same way in a Long range scenario.
If you’re holding the pistol, and you’re beyond the AR’s/Shotgun’s effective range, you will win because that’s the Pistol’s territory.
> I’m curious, are the “Ogre Twins” actual people or just fictitious examples?
They are real. MLG pros that have been around forever from my home state of Ohio, I believe.
> > I’m curious, are the “Ogre Twins” actual people or just fictitious examples?
>
> They are real. MLG pros that have been around forever from my home state of Ohio, I believe.
Oh, wow. Thanks Link. 
> That’s what happens when the developers of a game are no good at said game. He called the CE pistol overpowered, which made me lose a little faith in him.
>
> Also, I doubt Frankie would get any kills against any pro.
That’s true but a bit unfair. Hardly any of us could keep up with pros.
I can’t seem to find the Sparkast, can someone please provide me with a link? Thanks.
> > > That’s what happens when the developers of a game are no good at said game. He called the CE pistol overpowered, which made me lose a little faith in him.
> >
> > Technically speaking, Frankie is absolutely right. H:CE’s magnum IS completely and utterly overpowered when compared to every other non-power weapon in that game.
>
> That, my friend, is an illusion. It isn’t OP, but what it is that it is necessary. Most of the gun fights in a Halo game are at Mid Range. Therefore, the Pistol is awesome because of the fact that the ideal combat scenario is likely to be at mid range. Go into a completely CQC situation, and unless you are more skilled than the opposing player with a shotgun or AR, you’re probably going to lose. Same way in a Long range scenario.
>
> If you’re holding the pistol, and you’re beyond the AR’s/Shotgun’s effective range, you will win because that’s the Pistol’s territory.
I’m sorry, but the magnum IS overpowered. But as I said, the beauty of the overpowered magnum is that it turned out to be a huge blessing instead of a curse. Everyone starting with a magnum makes the best and most balanced games, regardless of team games or FFA, slayer or objective. It simply works because it is overpowered. That makes it the perfect weapon.
> I can’t seem to find the Sparkast, can someone please provide me with a link? Thanks.
<a href=http://halo.xbox.com/Content/assets/en-us/Podcast/343Sparkast_006.mp3>No.
> > > That’s what happens when the developers of a game are no good at said game. He called the CE pistol overpowered, which made me lose a little faith in him.
> >
> > Technically speaking, Frankie is absolutely right. H:CE’s magnum IS completely and utterly overpowered when compared to every other non-power weapon in that game.
>
> That, my friend, is an illusion. It isn’t OP, but what it is that it is necessary. Most of the gun fights in a Halo game are at Mid Range. Therefore, the Pistol is awesome because of the fact that the ideal combat scenario is likely to be at mid range. Go into a completely CQC situation, and unless you are more skilled than the opposing player with a shotgun or AR, you’re probably going to lose. Same way in a Long range scenario.
>
> If you’re holding the pistol, and you’re beyond the AR’s/Shotgun’s effective range, you will win because that’s the Pistol’s territory.
This quote from the podcast really stood out to me when speaking about the pistol not being good for online multiplayer, “It would be a bloodbath if average players played against pro players with the pistol” okay just as I suspected they dont want new people to play the game and immediately get thrown into a spawn trap and get 50-0’d and get discouraged.
They then go out onto say which Im guessing is relating to Reach" I would rather play a 50-48 game than a 50-20 game, some people just seem to like to play the game to dominate" or something along those lines. So your effectively hinting that you would rather have a smaller skill gap in Halo and not allow veteran players to dominate as effectively as that is not fun for lesser skilled players.
Frankie also says that a “notion of a skilled and noob weapons is nonsense” when we can effectively compare the CE pistol to the AR and determine that if a good player 1v1d an average player with only pistol starts he would probably get 15-0d, but if a good player played an average player 1v1 only AR starts the score would be closer to 15-6 or maybe even closer as the AR does not scale with player skill as well as the pistol and thus has a smaller skill gap. This has been THE problem in Halo for years, the precision weapons scale with player skill MUCH better than the automatic and niche weapons will thus making the niche weapons less effective as a player progresses. For example remember in the Reach beta when the plasma repeater was dominating because everyone was still getting used to the reticle bloom? This is because players were not as inept with the DMR and reticle bloom as they are now, which meant the DMR was not being used to its full potential while the plasma repeater already was which created a more even playing field. But, when Reach was released and everyone got he hang of the reticle bloom and figured out when to spam the DMR scaled ahead of the plasma repeater to the skilled player making it less useful. <strong>The problem with the Halo Sandbox has ALWAYS been SKILL GAP IN WEAPONS. As a player progresses with the precision weapons the rest of the Sandbox becomes less important as the automatic weapons and niche weapons do not scale as well.</strong>
But why would noobs be playing against pros? Noobs should be matched with other noobs.
How is the pistol overpowered? people make it seem like they were 3 shooting foo’s left and right. 3sk are hard to pull off.
While I think their should be a large skill gap, I can understand frankies concerns. Shadowrun is an excellent game with a large skill gap but it also has a steep learning curve that no doubt turned off a lot of gamers and that’s what I think they fear would happen if Halo catered to the hardcore.
> > That’s what happens when the developers of a game are no good at said game. He called the CE pistol overpowered, which made me lose a little faith in him.
>
> Oh, he lost an entire level of faith by saying that. Its like the CE Pistol accident was a bad accident, but the Reach Bloom and horridly balanced AA’s implemented on purpose are awesome.
>
> But, if he listens to the right fans and they (as a company) understand what makes for a good skill-based competitive game (B Deck and I seem to have made some good threads on it, for example), then all will be fine.
Agreed. Frankie’s walking a slippery slope right now. 343 removing bloom gave me lots of hope for the future of Halo, but then Frankie has to come out and say something like this. Thanks for the shoutout too man.
> But why would noobs be playing against pros? Noobs should be matched with other noobs.
>
> How is the pistol overpowered? people make it seem like they were 3 shooting foo’s left and right. 3sk are hard to pull off.
>
> While I think their should be a large skill gap, I can understand frankies concerns. Shadowrun is an excellent game with a large skill gap but it also has a steep learning curve that no doubt turned off a lot of gamers and that’s what I think they fear would happen if Halo catered to the hardcore.
That’s why you separate casual and competitive gameplay. In casual, have equalizers like AR starts, maybe even AAs, etc. In competitive, have utility weapon starts (and a utility weapon with a large skill gap at that) without gimmicks like AAs and bloom. The perfect medium between casual and competitive is basically unatainable, so cater to both separately.
Can everyone juts calm down for like a minute halo’s gonna suck because user said this Halo’s gonna suck because Master chief is blue you havent even played the game when you have played the game then you can -Yoink- about it.