A population counter is a must have for any online game, especially Halo. Halo 5 currently doesn’t have anything where players can see how many players are active on a mode or where these players are and that is frustrating. It is nice to have a world map like in Halo 3 that accurately displays the location of the online population around the globe so players can at least see what the odds of a high-ping match are. Furthermore, a population counter for each of the playlists is also needed to see which playlists offer the best chance for a good matchmaking experience.
343 will add a new matchmaking preference option in the Memories of Reach update and I think that a population counter (including world map) will complement that new feature well as it shows the player whether to use the balanced, focused or expanded option based on the amount of players and their location. And even if 343 is uncomfortable with showing population numbers as it may have a bad effect then at least have a world map in the menu. Later on in this games’ lifespan where the population might have dropped significantly it would be great to see where players are still active.
All of this will simply lead to an improved matchmaking experience which benefits everybody and I hope 343 will add this in a future update
I put this forwards in a poll, but it was voted as irrelevant information console players don’t need to worry about. I think COD were doing this back on the 360, and it has been a long standing convention in pc gaming
What pisses me off the most about matchmaking is the -Yoinking!- season resets. Match making was way more balanced and consistent when the ranking was 1-50 with deranking.
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> What pisses me off the most about matchmaking is the -Yoinking!- season resets. Match making was way more balanced and consistent when the ranking was 1-50 with deranking.
The reason resets are a thing is because players want to improve, and once you reach 50 there is no way to rank higher than that. In turn, rank 50’s would create smurfs (which is much easier now since it is free) and purposefully rank low to stomp on lower ranked players, which in turn caused mid-ranking players to become locked into a rank because they would win matches against lower-ranked players, but lose against people within their own rank who were obviously much more skilled than they. If you win x games against bronze, and lose x games against silvers (who are not actually silver), you are forever stuck in the middle.
That being said, I would agree with the idea that we need to take the TrueSkill system and improve on it to prevent rank locking, discourage/eliminate smurfing (or the need to do so), while instilling a sense of progress. that is what the Reach system started to do with CSR but they forgot to incorporate ranked play.
I agree theres no perfect system. I’ll never see the benefit to increasing skill by reseting ranks though. After a reset you place and end up pretty close to where you left off. And how can ranked players get a truly consistent and fair match when there constantly playing unranked players of widely ranging skill. I’m only level 53 but I have matched against players both ranked and unranked at levels as high as 144. You can say it doesn’t matter because we’re all diamond 1-6, or similar, but overall XP isn’t even close.
There will always be a ceiling to hit but at least there’s quite a few playlists to rank in (way less in H5). I can’t suggest a great solution, but no one will ever convince me that resets are the way to go. Especially now that I have responsibilities that don’t allow me to play 5 hrs a night like I used to.