I'm sorry to be 'that guy'

Games Other Halo
1

for leaving you short players in the lobby before the game even starts. I’m down to the last few Commendations, and if I can’t advance them, I’m not staying - I’m backing out.

Action Sack - If even one person hasn’t gotten around to loading the FREE Forge Island, then I’m not going to see Paint Ball to vote for it. As soon as that happens I’m hitting B. Oh, sure, I need a few dozen more KotH victories, so if Clang of the Hill is there, I might hang around to see if it is going to get picked. But you may see me watching the countdown timer, and not voting, so I can back out. If Husky Raid is coming for the 10,000th time, I’m gone. If it had come out earlier, I might have been there with you, but Boltshot is not an option, and I don’t fancy going up against an iCannon with a PP, and those are the only two weapons I have left to complete.

BTB - Big Team Slayer does nothing for me Commendations-wise. KotH, Regicide, Scorpion, Mongoose, Boltshot, PP, and Perfections (which for me means Armor and Survivor) are what I am interested in. If I had DLC maps coming up, that would maybe give me a shot at one of my 3 remaining Achievements, but with my luck, they would be BTS, and lock me out of those anyways…

Will I play for fun? Sure - for a few games. I’ll get JIP’ed into Lightning Flag or something on Ragnarok or whatever and mess around with that. If I am constantly stuck into a JIP mess over and over, I’m going to quit out though.

I sure hope that the lessons learned about the playlist management are noted for Halo 5, or better yet, that players will be able to vote directly all the way down to the gametype, so that we, the customers, don’t constantly get stuck not being able to get what we want.

But in the meantime, I’ll wince every time I back out of the lobby and leave you short-handed, and I just wanted to say “Sorry”

2

I can’t say I haven’t done the same. If I’m playing Team Slayer and I get Solace - Abandon - Abandon as voting options, I’m gone.

3

I understand u, kinda did the same with most of my MM commendations.
When commendations were invented in halo reach they were not important. U did not get rewarded for them and they were lesser than in h4.i only checked a few times how i was doing.
Whereas in h4, commendation importance got to a degree, where it affects MM in a negative way somehow (commendation farming placed over MM gaming itself)
I did it mostly since there are nice armor rewardings for ur commendations…
I’m still struggling if h4’s or reach’s commendation system is better.
Maybe a mixture between them?

4

^ this. Commendations need a rework for H5. BTW, I LIKE COMMENDATIONS. I really do. They are fun to try to complete and they help give me a reason to try new gamemodes, weapons, or styles of play. But . . . there are some issues with them in H4.

For the most part, I like the player-based commendations (though I have only ever managed to get 3 perfections) and the gametype commendations (though I will never complete most of them due to no playlists). I think those are generally good ideas. Some ideas for improvement, though:

  1. Focus the gametype commendations on things that help the team. Assassinating the enemy king, for example, does nothing more to advance victory than sniping him. Avoid stuff like that.

  2. Avoid items that kind-of help, but can be abused, like flag kills. I hate watching dodos try and snipe with the Flagnum on Ragnarok in pursuit of those flag kills. While flag kills help, don’t actually have people TRY for them. They only help in the context that they might be necessary to move the flag further.

  3. Instead, focus only on wins, objective caps, and support activities. So for CTF, here’s what I would say: Wins, caps, flag defend, flag assist. Nothing more. For Regicide: Wins, regicides, king assists, cumulative time as king. Nothing more.

And so on.

When it comes to weapons, some significant rework needs to be done:

  1. Scaled appropriately. Props to those who completed the PP quals, but phooey to the developers. Generically applying the same requirements to all loadout weapons regardless of their ability to actually be used as a primary weapon in-game is a bad idea.

  2. Provide commendation gametypes. It would be nice to have a “Commendations” play list (not now - not enough population - but at release) that rotated through the various weapons. One week, everyone has concussions and swords. Next, fuel rods and binaries. Etc. Anything that can only be obtained as a map item (PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE NO POD . . . but if you have it, that would fall into this category, too) ought to be part of a rotating commendation playlist. That prevents people from altering their play just to get the commendation . . . and, more importantly, prevents the temptation to put stuff on maps where it does not belong simply to SUPPORT commendations - like the fuel rods on Solace.

  3. Supplement to the above: Action Sack should not be the commendations playlist. It should have games suited to its title (and fewer types). There’s so much stuff in there now that I will back out of two or three lobbies in a row. Separate commendations list, please.

  4. Disable earning weapons and player commendations entirely in Objective games. In objective games, you can get gametype-specific commendations . . . but nothing else. Leave the rest for commendations playlists and Slayer.

Vehicles:

  1. Scaled appropriately . . . and make sure the vehicles will be available for destruction.

  2. Prefer less focus on vehicle destruction and more focus on vehicle USE - and specific use. Chainhog kills. Scorpion turret kills. Hijacks separated from Wheelman. Maybe even Wheelman sprees. Again, scaled appropriately . . . but make people want to use them. I don’t bother with the scorpions on Longbow because they seem to exist just to give people a chance to blow them up.

  3. As above, disable earning the commendations for Objective games. Slayer and commendations lists only, please.

When planning commendations, I would suggest the following rules:

1. A commendation must reward an activity in support of victory.
2. A commendation must exist only in playlists where it cannot be farmed by activities unrelated to achieving victory.
- OR -
3. For commendations not meeting #1 or #2, they should be relegated to a separate commendation playlist.

Anyway . . . I love commendations, but I hate some of the bad that came with them in H4. Please keep them . . . just please also improve them!

Peace.

5

> . . . and, more importantly, prevents the temptation to put stuff on maps where it does not belong simply to SUPPORT commendations - like the fuel rods on Solace.

whenever i see solace getting voted, i back out. Fuel Rod on Solace is the most misplaced weapon in the entire h4 Matchmaking.
(I liked solace before though.)

> 2. Prefer less focus on vehicle destruction and more focus on vehicle USE - and specific use. Chainhog kills. Scorpion turret kills. Hijacks separated from Wheelman. Maybe even Wheelman sprees. Again, scaled appropriately . . . but make people want to use them. I don’t bother with the scorpions on Longbow because they seem to exist just to give people a chance to blow them up.

Actually i prefer destroying vehicles towards commendations (except mongoose) more than making kills with them.
However on the rest i agree with you.

6

Let’s see:

Reach Commendations:

  1. I love that there are Campaign ones - that plus XP gives incentive to go back and play over and over. Halo 4, I played once through on Normal to figure it out. Once on Legendary Co-op, and once on Legendary Solo. Then a couple of specific sections to get the Achievements. So maybe 4 times?
  2. FF - love that it encourages you to learn the sniper, etc. Vehicle destruction numbers were out of whack. 4 people and 3 Wraiths per game means a bazillion games before you could get those.
  3. MM - For the most part I think they are just part of gameplay.

Halo 4

  1. No reason to replay Campaign at all.
  2. SpOps - Crawler Sniper count is unrealistic. Thousands of kills and only 3-5 per game. Really?
  3. MM - They do encourage players to try new things. Splaser and Boltshot have made me completely rethink how to approach BTB and just general combat, i.e. “How to play ‘small’ on a big map.” I’m not going to rehash the missing gametypes since they were already mentioned. Not real excited about the ones that require Wins in a FFA, particularly in the environment where I get matched up against really skilled players - it’s not just a 1/8 chance of winning like if we were all more or less evenly matched. Non-team Regicide and Flood are good examples.

I do like the rotational concept - it would definitely keep people engaged. I was looking forward to Rocket Race and the chance to get some Mongoose kills for WEEKS - and got one kill by knocking someone off the map… :frowning: