How to improve Custom Game pop. in H4.

Games Other Halo
1

I just visited the good old Bungie forums, and there was a very interesting concept as to why the customs in Halo:Reach are dead compared to 3, and the same reason barely anyone plays customs in games like Call of Duty or Battlefield.

The ranking system of Reach is obviously a credit system vs. a skill based system as in Halo 3. In Halo 3, once you were locked into a rank, you were pretty much stuck there. If you were capped at around a 40, that was about where you were going to stay. And really, that wasn’t that big of a deal. Because you would get matched up with other 40’s, or just people around your general rank so you would have fair matches etc. Same with people at 20’s,30’s,50’s etc. Point is, The length of playing time did not affect your skill/rank.

Obviously, Reach is the opposite. The more you play, the higher your rank is. Simple.

Now, what does this have to do with custom games?

Simple. People do not play custom games in Halo:Reach simply because there is no reward when compared to a matchmaking game. Same as in Call of Duty which uses a similar ranking system. In matchmaking, you basically receive the max payout in what you’re going to receive in credits, where as in customs, you receive basically little to none.

I think we’ve all been in a situation where we could have played custom games with our friends, but we instead play matchmaking due to the fact we can get a similar experience and earn credits instead.

Now, since this is the Halo 4 forums, you might ask, how could we change this for Halo 4?
There are two simple options here, each with their own drawbacks.

  1. We take out the Reach credit system and instead put in the Halo 3 skill based ranking system.
    Now, is this likely to happen? No. But, honestly I see a combination of both happening in Halo 4. I’m almost 99% sure there will be a credit/Spartan Point system, and I’m confident they will put in a skill rank too. Even if it’s playlist specific, there will probably be something.
    2.We give custom games an equal credit/spartan point reward as matchmaking or whatever has the highest payout. Honestly, if there is a separate skill based rank, I really wouldn’t mind seeing this as long as there is a precaution against AFK’ers.

TL;DR:
The credit based Reach ranking system hurt the population of custom games in Reach compared to Halo 3, and that could be solved in Halo 4 by either rewarding the same payout or just removing the credit system altogether, however that is unlikely.

2

well… this is obvious, but nice break down. and what makes you so sure there will not be a ranking system? A lot of people complain about reach’s non skill based system and I am confident there will be a skill based playlist at the very least and it will not fail like arena.

3

The amount of playing time does affect your rank in the Halo 3 system. If you are a good player and play a lot, you will be a 50. If you are a good player, but don’t play too much you will be a 15 or 20.

4

@Assassin of course, however once you are locked in you are locked in and a lot of playing time won’t see that increase. And @Anubis, I meant I anticipate there will be a ranking system, however it will probably be complimentary to the Spartan Points.

5

I don’t really care what the ranking system is like. I didn’t mind the Halo Reach ranking system because people couldn’t claim they were better than you because they had played more team swat than you. There’s nothing bad about rewarding players that play more often. They are investing time into the game.

I would like it to show a skill level based off your last 10 or so games but perhaps still have the progression system. It could then match people on this stat. I rarely played ranked games in Halo 3 because they were no way near as enjoyable for me so I never became a rank that matched my potential.

I play the games for fun. Customs games can be a lot more fun than matchmaking games and a little rank above my name is not important and won’t be important when the next console and Halo game comes out. It’s a game and games are meant to be fun. People have fun in different ways.

6

That has nothing to do with Custom games. people play them for fun without any particular consequence of losing, Cutom games at the most serious aspect is for practice but more so for fun. Gamers these days do things less for fun and more for in game personal gain.

7

> Gamers these days do things less for fun and more for in game personal gain.

Which is WHY Reach’s ranking system impacts the custom games played. Also, I never said one ranking system was better than the other.

8

we get credits for playing custom games in reach in Halo 3 we didn’t get diddly.

9

I have a good and solid reason as to why people do not play custom games near as much in Halo Reach as they did in Halo 3. I think this is the main reason.

The maps in Halo Reach are not that great. Forge world was interesting but there wasn’t many areas to drive around, but let me get to the main point - the forge items were all grey, boring, and dis-encouraged players to play custom games. A lot of maps looked the same and when you made a remake of a map, you actually had to take time to decipher which map it was because of this. Overall the forge objects were badly designed and not enough time or effort put into making them.

However, in Halo 3 you had a good few maps to forge on. You had indoor maps, outdoor maps, day, night, ect. All of these maps had different forge pallets, that weren’t grey. They had coloured objects that made the place look a lot better. The maps were also better and the same with the forge objects. This is the main reason why people ditched custom games so quickly in Halo Reach.

There’s also something else to note - Halo 3’s population was still doing amazing three years after it’s launch, reaching up to a million players on some rare days. I know for a fact at least 50% of the, past, Halo fan-base played for forge and custom games because it was just so fun, amazing, and had great gameplay. It made people leave Reach because the replay value just declined and declined as people started to realise that it wasn’t that great.

Halo Reach’s failure with the forge objects resulted in a decline of people playing the game mode as a whole and the overall people playing the actual game.

10

Great point. In Halo 3, matchmaking was competitive. People in matchmaking always tried to win (even in Social) and do really well. In Reach, the entire matchmaking system isn’t competitive at all, without skill-based ranks and prominent stat tracking (W/L viewable in lobby). If you wanted to play a goofy game in Halo 3, or not try, you play a custom game. If you want to play something silly in Reach, just play matchmaking. There’s no point in trying anyway. It’s all fun and games. I’m not trying to say I don’t like Reach. I love it! I just accept the fact that it’s very noncompetitive.

11

I posted a threat JUST like this not 3 days ago