Now that we’re finally starting to see the awesome stuff Forgers are making, 343i has gone and done a very cool thing: added community created maps into playlist rotations. However, while I’m completely in favor of the community having an active role in shaping how Halo 5 evolves, I feel it needs some tweaks.
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Forge maps should never be in the same playlists as “real” maps.
(There should be a better name for them but that’s what people seem to call them) It’s not that I think forge maps can’t be good maps for ranked, or that I’m a hater that thinks forge maps look bad, it’s just very awkward in a playlist going from two very distinct design styles. It’s not… (checking thesaurus) homogenous. I’m well aware that forge maps have quite the history in tournament play; Reach had a ton of amazing forge maps that were considered standard for MLG and other organizers, but it’s just very jarring to mix real and forge maps together. That includes 343i’s creations: Orion and Pegasus should be taken out of non-forge playlists. (personally I’d prefer they’re removed entirely, but I don’t see that happening) The only exception to this is, ironically, breakout, (the only playlist currently using forge maps, but this is mainly for playlists that one should assume will follow) since all breakout maps are actually forge-based regardless.
Going forward though, things should be separated. I see no reason why there can’t be two ranked slayer playlists for real/normal and forge maps, and slayer + variants being in a social playlists that’s chock full of forge stuff. It’s just cleaner and makes the whole Halo experience feel more put together.
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Having more than 8 playlists is 100% a good thing.
I’m really getting tired of this one. I don’t know why it started, but it has to end. If I power up Halo 3, Reach, 4 and even MCC, there are tons of playlists for everything one could want to play. In fact, last time I checked, Reach had 3 sub-playlists within Firefight alone, and this is a glorious thing. Granted Reach is an older game with shrinking player counts (I found a playlist or two with a slim 35 people currently in matchmaking) but this really won’t be an issue in Halo 5 for some time.
Yes I know a lack of game types is a big factor here, (which we’re all praying will soon be remedied) but there’s absolutely no reason why the playlists we voted on each week last year aren’t already permanent playlists.
There should have been a CTF playlist from day one.
There should have been a strongholds playlist,
a covie slayer playlist,
a shotty snipers playlist,
a doubles playlist,
on day ONE.
I just don’t get where 343 got the idea that there’s some huge problem with online player-count or something. Just because there are less than 20K people playing a playlist doesn’t mean you have to remove it or reshuffle the deck.
So please, for the love of all that is reasonable, just make every gametype a permanent playlist, and have a few lists on top (like team arena and social lists) that serve up a variety. If a playlist truly becomes so unpopulated that it’s a problem, that is the time to pull it. Don’t avoid putting these lists in because you think they’ll fail, test them in the real world first.
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Show us the data.
Now, I know there are probably plenty of actual good reasons why some of the issues with Halo 5 have occurred, and that’s entirely ok. (I’m a programmer myself, and I understand how complicated a project like this can get) The issue is that we don’t know what 343 doesn’t tell us. In short, 343 shouldn’t be afraid to share data with the community that backs up the choices they’re making.
It’s really ok to show statistics to gamers. The majority of us are above average on the tech-savvy and math scale; we can parse whatever they throw at us. I’m not saying the community should be aware of every little minute decision that gets made, but if there’s a reason why there isn’t a CTF playlist, would it really hurt so much to share? I’m personally very grateful for the weekly blogs that explain what’s happening in Halo, but sometimes we should get an update on why things are happening in halo. Why is it that you showed us a Halo CE Magnum in the Sprint, but have yet to implement it in Warzone? Why is it that Halo 5 launched with Strongholds, but KoTH, a mode that likely would share some of the same code, was absent? For that matter, why were game types delayed at all? Gamers are often portrayed as negative and unforgiving, but I think that’s entirely untrue. We just like to be kept in the loop. If more data like this was shared, I think a lot of people would be very understanding.