HALO 4 Rally & Rocket Race Playlist - THANKS!

Games Other Halo
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Hello again 343!

Well Firstly a HUGE THANK YOU! :slight_smile: You gave me and the racing community a fantastic Christmas!!!

I’m a female Rocket Racer from the Halo3 days and still to this day actively run customs every weekend in H3 or Reach. I last wrote to you in March 2013 requesting that a trial be done on Rally, Rocket Race and Rocket Hog Race so that all people who race, could be catered to with a choice.

I want to thank you so very much for trialling the Rally and Rocket Race in matchmaking over the Christmas holiday period. I will be honest in saying I haven’t had any interest what so ever in playing Halo 4 as there were no signs of any racing in matchmaking ever coming to fruition. After it being taken away from the racing community twice now, we all had given up hope.
To my surprise I received a message on Xbox Live from a fellow Rocket Racer (thanks Gren :slight_smile: ) advising me that Rally was in the Halo 4 playlist.
After smacking myself to believe it was a reality, I immediately dusted off my copy of Halo 4 (which I’d archived away for memories only due to no Rocket Race) and began racing. I was happy just to be able to race in a competitive environment in the matchmaking playlists regardless of how many changes to it have been done.
You can imagine my overwhelming excitement when I saw the matchmaking update advising ‘Rocket Race’ was to be in the playlist for 2 weeks. Whilst in any way shape or form it was not long enough and shouldn’t have been temporary, it was just in time for my Christmas holidays. So I raced and kept racing till the final moment when it was taken off.

That’s when the heartache hits… when you realise you can’t just jump into it whenever you want. It’s simply not fair 343.
Thanks to this fun play list however I have made new racing friends and I noticed that the numbers for the playlist for both Rally and Rocket Race stayed strong throughout both game types very short life cycle.
In particular, I was watching the Griff Ball and Rocket Race playlists to monitor numbers for comparison and saw that they were either the same numbers or much higher for the Rally and Rocket Race for the whole two weeks it was in matchmaking. As for “Team Throwdown” get rid of it - I’ve not seen it get more than 20 players in it!!

Too many slayer variants - Give us our racing games PLEASE!! No wonder most resort to Big Team Slayer… its got Vehicles! People like operating them because its fun so lets have the fun racing back… both types :slight_smile:
A lot of split screeners also played, which meant those people who like to play together in this playlist, got to once again enjoy Rocket Race. Friends across the world got to play with their old buddies again doing what they do best…race.

All of my friends who have H4 played it, but now it’s gone again and so I must ask the question why?

I also noticed that there is a War Games Feedback Forum to which there is a Rocket Race feedback topic but it has been locked now and so no one can put any feedback there. Why is this? How can we provide true feedback with a locked thread? Is it because they don’t want to see how many people want it??
If Halo 4 wanted to increase their numbers and be unique to everyone else, why not keep it in the matchmaking playlist? I guarantee you would have more dedicated players to H4 should you have the racing community addressed permanently and not just for 2 weeks.
Please 343 - put this play list back. Seems a bit pointless to put it in and finally address the racing community only to take it away again. I emplore you to not follow suit of the previous Halo racing decommissioning crew and support your racing community.
Whilst there were glitches and some bugs to iron out I had a blast and hope it will come back as soon as possible and permanently. I speak on behalf of all my racing friends in saying that.

Some of the following points would be good if could be addressed in Rocket Race.

  1. Inability to change driver/gunner
  2. Bigger maps without so much clutter in the middle like Complex
  3. Spawning without a rocket launcher when you are gunner following someone quitting out.
  4. Not quoting “King of the Hill” when it’s Rocket Race or Race.
  5. Not having the team/s that are about to win tagged with a flashing ‘Kill’ indicator (when you can’t kill anyone)
  6. Inability for the gunner to throw grenades – can we have them?
  7. Mongoose colours would be good same as team colours (like Reach did)
  8. Ability to kill someone who attempts to ‘walk’ you ie: be able to shoot a person walking and kill them, or be able to take a melee swing at them and kill them with what we call a ‘DBA’ = “Drive By Assassination”
  9. Show destination/hill on radar for the gunner and driver
  10. Count rotations, top speed and distance travelled

Well that’s all from me for now, I have poured my heart out and once again and unfortunately have to leave our racing destiny in your hands but hopeful you will hear our plea.

See you when it returns along with all of my friends :slight_smile:

Mystified MJ

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I would also love to see Rocket Race return. I use to play it when it had it’s own playlist in Halo 3. I have played it in each Halo game since. I fell in love with it the first time I played it. I was also in a Rocket Race group (WARR; Corest on bungie.net). When I saw the playlist for that brief period on Halo 4 I played it everyday until it was gone. Rocket Race is easily one of the more fun, competitive game types in Halo. I would really like to see it’s return even as stated in the first comment by MJ if it where for a 6 month trial period. I do believe it would boost the population and overall use of Halo 4 if it where to come back. Hopefully 343 considers this and allow Rocket Race to live on as it’s own playlist.

~ Zombie Realm/Relapsed World

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Well options have been lacking but its something. I had fun with both.

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I concur with MJ that it would be great to have Rocket Race back in H4 again. I didn’t get to play it enough(if there is such a thing). I race in her custom games and have a blast with everyone. The customs are great, but it would be even better to be able to pit yourself, once again, against people you don’t know and make new friends. Isn’t that what XBL and matchmaking do best? I love the job that you’ve done with the game in general and with Rocket Race. Please return it to us so that we may sing more praises to you. I promise to not actually sing. Awful racket that.

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I played 1 game of rocket mongoose and it was enough to return to the lobby after it was over. I’ve seen posts by other people who praise 343 for making a race playlist WITHOUT the ability to kill other players. Back in Reach’s rocket hog race in multiteam it was hard to get kills, most people tried to win the race unless you spawned with randoms who would disable the hog with the grenade launcher. What’s the point of even having rockets if you can’t kill anything with them? Like I said I went back to the lobby once I finished the game - it was on vortex by the way. Not fun at all.

In Reach only one map worked for rocket hog and that was hemmorage, because of it’s openness and lack of obstacles to drive around. Rocket Mongoose wasn’t around when I played it.

So in short:
enable killing
use larger, more open maps
change it so either gunner or driver can switch roles

It goes without saying that damage resistance would need to be beefed up like the way it was in reach.

Also feel free to mix up the weapon choices. IE: if you are going to keep rocket mongoose the way it is without killing then change the weapons to something like the concussion rifle.

Rocket/Concussion Rifle/Sniper/Grenade/Etc Mongoose/Hog Race.

Replace the Mongoose with a Ghost even, make a map like the end of Forerunner where you’re speeding along with infinite boost. Just take out infinite boost, OR make it so that direct collisions are fatal to both drivers.

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I thoroughly enjoy rocket race. Thanks 343 for having it up for two weeks. I would be very grateful to have race as a permanent playlist again. The two weeks it was up reminded me of the days in Halo 3 and also the short time it was in Halo Reach.

Blessings,
ACE
Thanks for all your hard work MJ:)

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Yes permanent playlist rocket race.