Hope blocking actually works

Games Halo Infinite
1

I hope we can block players in Infinite. I understand it was not allowed in H5 because players would block each other in Ranked to avoid being paired against tough opponents. However, the side effect of this has perhaps been worse since there are other reasons why someone would block another player.

Hate speech, betrayals, and lack of skill are some of the biggest reasons to block someone. The latter two are of particular interest to me. I am tired of losing matches because of one player dragging the whole team down. They’ll knock down ally player shields and/or feed the enemy team kills throughout the entire match, ending up at a spectacular 2-16 at the end of the match. It would be okay if the other team also had as many deadweights, but this is not the case. Going negative does not automatically make a player bad, but purposely going -15 undoubtedly does.

I don’t expect really anyone to take games super seriously, but at least some commitment is appreciated. By simply hiding and trying to get stealthy kills, a new player would at least end up with a closer spread, if not a positive KD. These are players I enjoy playing alongside. They are new and make a legitimate effort toward getting better and seeing that makes you feel good.

2

The block on xbox doesn’t work like that, is just for not recieveng messages or friend requests, if you don’t wanna match with someone you got to report him to have less chance to match with him, but still it is possible to match with him.

3

> 2533274985070673;2:
> The block on xbox doesn’t work like that, is just for not recieveng messages or friend requests, if you don’t wanna match with someone you got to report him to have less chance to match with him, but still it is possible to match with him.

Ahh, so it’s an Xbox issue then? Halo is really the only game I play online regularly with randoms, everything else is typically SP or with friends, so I did not know that.

4

The only concern I would see with blocking people of lower rank is that you don’t have the chance to match up with them later even if they are of higher skill level. This effectively reduces the amount of people you can’t match with and could lead to unnecessary long load times.

I understand blocking for toxic behavior, but because of lower skill? I don’t think that would ever be implemented.

5

> 2533274927740213;4:
> The only concern I would see with blocking people of lower rank is that you don’t have the chance to match up with them later even if they are of higher skill level. This effectively reduces the amount of people you can’t match with and could lead to unnecessary long load times.
>
> I understand blocking for toxic behavior, but because of lower skill? I don’t think that would ever be implemented.

It used to be a thing on 360 and I found it helpful. The players I’m referring to aren’t just lower skilled. That is totally fine and not a sin of any kind. I specifically mean players who put forth no effort and don’t try to play well or actively try and help the other team. They can have a lower rank, but I often see this behavior from experienced players too. The latter is more frustrating than the former. I’d rather not have them on my team at all.

6

Instead of bemoaning the lack of ability to block players (which functionally can’t happen- it would be abused so much more than used properly), why don’t you be the master of your own fate?

Party up with like-minded gamers you trust. Join an active Spartan Company, stack your friends list with H5 players, and/or use LFG services to party up.

From my perspective you’re essentially yelling into an empty void “fix this problem for me that I could probably fix for myself with some effort!”

7

> 2533274824050480;5:
> > 2533274927740213;4:
> > The only concern I would see with blocking people of lower rank is that you don’t have the chance to match up with them later even if they are of higher skill level. This effectively reduces the amount of people you can’t match with and could lead to unnecessary long load times.
> >
> > I understand blocking for toxic behavior, but because of lower skill? I don’t think that would ever be implemented.
>
> It used to be a thing on 360 and I found it helpful. The players I’m referring to aren’t just lower skilled. That is totally fine and not a sin of any kind. I specifically mean players who put forth no effort and don’t try to play well or actively try and help the other team. They can have a lower rank, but I often see this behavior from experienced players too. The latter is more frustrating than the former. I’d rather not have them on my team at all.

The rep system on the 360 was “cosmetical” at best, it was planned to have a use, but there were too many issues hanging in the air, so it wasn’t put to more use than feedback for the users.

What were the problems? Something I’d like to call “Rage repping”.
During a time I didn’t use a microphone, at all, I accumulated over 60% of “Disruptive language”. No, I did not even have it plugged in.
Having any sort of functionality used from the reputation system would depend on people actually using it as it was intended, both for players they enjoyed playing with, and truthfully against disruptive players. Losing to someone, or hating a team mate, who still played correctly, is no grounds for issuing a false “report” against that player.

Also, finding suitable players becomes an even bigger problem if the system has to match according to skill, latency, and then make sure all compatible players also haven’t blocked each other.

PS: I played a BTB match in Halo 3 against a party of 8 who were dominating. I “reported” them as Avoid : Too Skillfull. Meaning, I did not want to play against them because they were too skillful for me to be matched against.
Worked so great I played against the same 8 player party two consecutive matches more, making it three matches in a row against the same players, and at that point the playlist had a whooping 10 000 players.

8

> 2533274803493024;6:
> Instead of bemoaning the lack of ability to block players (which functionally can’t happen- it would be abused so much more than used properly), why don’t you be the master of your own fate?
>
> Party up with like-minded gamers you trust. Join an active Spartan Company, stack your friends list with H5 players, and/or use LFG services to party up.
>
> From my perspective you’re essentially yelling into an empty void “fix this problem for me that I could probably fix for myself with some effort!”

Agreed. We’ll never be immune from ending up in a match with players we don’t like, but from personal experience the entire gaming session is more pleasant when experienced with a friend. One thing I would like to see though: filters in matchmaking lobbies to omit matches containing a certain party size from match finding. When a clan has 6 of its members together in a WZ match where there are only 12 total players on each team, that’s goes beyond one-off players to foundationally unbalancing the whole match. Since quitting early hurts everyone, but knowing from the drop that 6 identical player icons are on the other team sentences you to an entire match of not experiencing meaningful team parity, it seems it would be less disruptive to have an added playlist in between WZ and WZ Warlords: e.g. no fireteams 4+, no fireteams 8+, full-12 fireteam allowed.

9

> 2533274803493024;6:
> Instead of bemoaning the lack of ability to block players (which functionally can’t happen- it would be abused so much more than used properly), why don’t you be the master of your own fate?
>
> Party up with like-minded gamers you trust. Join an active Spartan Company, stack your friends list with H5 players, and/or use LFG services to party up.
>
> From my perspective you’re essentially yelling into an empty void “fix this problem for me that I could probably fix for myself with some effort!”

Kids, a job, and a marriage or relationship make it virtually impossible for a large amount of general gamers to party up.

I still play H5 and MCC regularly. I usually have a 30-45min block of time to play, and I rarely know when it’s going to happen. How am I supposed to gather 3 other players to party up with and play with within that time frame with no prior notice?

And that is the basic problem with telling people to party up to solve their problems. For the vast majority of gamers (yes majority, go check statistics. Avg gamer age is mid 30’s and avg weekly time played its 4-8hrs) partying up to play is simply a non-starter.

10

> 2533274803493024;6:
> Instead of bemoaning the lack of ability to block players (which functionally can’t happen- it would be abused so much more than used properly), why don’t you be the master of your own fate?
>
> Party up with like-minded gamers you trust. Join an active Spartan Company, stack your friends list with H5 players, and/or use LFG services to party up.
>
> From my perspective you’re essentially yelling into an empty void “fix this problem for me that I could probably fix for myself with some effort!”

This is a fair point minus the last paragraph and I like to do this whenever possible. However, partying up is not always an option and sometimes I have to or prefer to play solo. The issue I take is not being able to block someone for feeding kills, partially betraying, etc. since that directly affects my online experience. However, players can get banned for other offenses not directly tied to playing the game.

EDIT: Reach also had some great filters that helped you match with like-minded players and avoid those who would waste your time. That is the whole point of matchmaking, isn’t it? Otherwise why not simply have open servers and nothing else?

11

> 2614366390849210;9:
> > 2533274803493024;6:
> > ~snip~
>
> Kids, a job, and a marriage or relationship make it virtually impossible for a large amount of general gamers to party up.

They certainly make it more difficult. They do not make it impossible. Should we allow players to block other players if they can prove they lead busy lifestyles? Send in a W-2 to Microsoft to see how many dependents are claimed and prove a salary has been earned?

> I still play H5 and MCC regularly. I usually have a 30-45min block of time to play, and I rarely know when it’s going to happen. How am I supposed to gather 3 other players to party up with and play with within that time frame with no prior notice?

When I hop on line and want to play a game I generally check my friends list to see if any are playing the game and message them inquiring if they have room for one more. If none are playing I can create a LFG post (publicly posted, or exclusive to my friends list) letting people know I’m looking to party up.

These two things may eat up 2-3 minutes of your playing session but it may increase the quality of your play session. If random teammates are so bad you desire the ability to permanently block them, then reducing as many random teammates as you can would seem ideal.

> And that is the basic problem with telling people to party up to solve their problems. For the vast majority of gamers (yes majority, go check statistics. Avg gamer age is mid 30’s and avg weekly time played its 4-8hrs) partying up to play is simply a non-starter.

Then those players can live with the consequences of not partying up. Random teammates = unexpected or unwanted things happening.

> 2533274824050480;10:
> > 2533274803493024;6:
> > ~snip~
>
> This is a fair point minus the last paragraph and I like to do this whenever possible. However, partying up is not always an option and sometimes I have to or prefer to play solo.

If you have to play solo, you’ll have to accept the consequences of that. If you prefer to play solo, then you’re choosing to accept the consequences of that.

> The issue I take is not being able to block someone for feeding kills, partially betraying, etc. since that directly affects my online experience. However, players can get banned for other offenses not directly tied to playing the game.

Players stripping shields is a terrible thing to have on your team sure. This is actively detrimental to their teammates experiences. I would think a boot option would be a better implementation for this? After a player does X amount of damage to their team, the option to boot becomes available- the same way that it does if they fully kill teammates a few times. Getting booted counts as a quit, if they quit (get booted) too many times they start incurring stacking temporary bans until permanently banned for repeating offenses.

This system would prevent the need to block players, which clearly invites abuse.

Players feeding kills is a tougher one to discuss. How would the system or a player such as yourself infer intent? What if a Halo dad has let their spouse or child play a match on their account? Or what if they are trying a silly challenge like trying to get kills only using the Plasma pistol? Should players have to take a sobriety test or sign an agreement to do their best before entering matchmaking to make sure they are at their peak performance to be on your team? Earlier in the OP you mention:

> ending up at a spectacular 2-16 at the end of the match.

well, I’m here to let you know I’ve gone 2-16 in matches. It’s certainly not my average, but it’s happened. Am I such a miscreant that my teammates should be able to block me? Probably not I say.

> EDIT: Reach also had some great filters that helped you match with like-minded players and avoid those who would waste your time. That is the whole point of matchmaking, isn’t it? Otherwise why not simply have open servers and nothing else?

I’m confident those filters did nothing. They were a mix of placebo effect and free data collection.

It’s a tough scenario and something that could certainly be improved upon by the devs but my main response to both of you that I’m quoting is blocking cannot be the answer. It’s too exploitable. In absence of a better solution to immediately offer, I conclude that taking control of your teammates you play with is the best option we have as Halo gamers.

12

> 2533274824050480;5:
> > 2533274927740213;4:
> > The only concern I would see with blocking people of lower rank is that you don’t have the chance to match up with them later even if they are of higher skill level. This effectively reduces the amount of people you can’t match with and could lead to unnecessary long load times.
> >
> > I understand blocking for toxic behavior, but because of lower skill? I don’t think that would ever be implemented.
>
> It used to be a thing on 360 and I found it helpful. The players I’m referring to aren’t just lower skilled. That is totally fine and not a sin of any kind. I specifically mean players who put forth no effort and don’t try to play well or actively try and help the other team. They can have a lower rank, but I often see this behavior from experienced players too. The latter is more frustrating than the former. I’d rather not have them on my team at all.

this (pardon for a lack of a better word) feels discriminatory towards newer players. I am an advocate towards newer players (motstly because I am relatively new and would like them to have a great time playing halo). Just because they are bad doesn’t mean that 343i should make them feel bad.

13

Another problem with blocking is being in a big party with people and having one or certain people “rage” blocking. These type of people block simply because they don’t like the person or because they and/or their team is deemed too skilled for them. So that’s essentially cuts the population down much when you are in big parties. This happened much in Warzone and big team down the later cycle of the game, people were dodging and being petty, others had to tell them to unblock a guy. It made search times and finding games worse.

In all my years of playing halo, I can probably count the amount of people I’ve blocked on 1 or both hands, because I don’t let bad apples ruin my experiences that much. I either deal with it or try to carry lol. That’s just the game of Halo, especially if you risk going into a team game without a party, be prepared for disadvantages. It’s a risk when you do that, sometimes you win or lose, search perimeters should def help lessen the chance of getting a complete noob. Hell, you could even take initiation and talk through the mic and randos will listen and cooperate with instruction at times.

I’m absolutely against blocking everyone that isn’t of your skill level, above or below, and I’m fairly skilled myself. I just don’t think it’s that serious unless you’re in ranked, mlg, or very competitive playlist in which you shouldn’t be without a party tbh. And blocking only makes the people you group with have a lesser pool of players too…