First, Bots shouldn’t be filling in just for quick search times; I’d rather wait a few seconds in a pregame lobby *cough cough add it back, rather than immediately be put into a match.
Second, I’ve been playing a lot of Quick Play and doing pretty well and suddenly now it feels like I’m playing ranked. Every match is difficult and frustrating because it’s a full on Competitive Match. If I’m playing a social playlist I want to chill, I don’t want to play a super sweaty match back to back to back. It’s social for a reason, it’s meant to be casual.
At the end of the day I guess I’ll just get good, but still I think it should be addressed or brought to attention. Most posts seem to focus on the monetization of Infinite rather than actual gameplay issues. I’m concerned these things won’t get addressed for a while tbh.
What do y’all think about…
pre/post lobbies?
The matchmaking system (SBMM)?
Bots in general?
Essentially SBMM is needed. “Random” is not so random if you are good - it’s endlessly dining out on average players. That’s why they like it. They get to chill with double figure K:D and make lots of streamable content.
The downside is that games will be close / contested. Most people find that fun and relax on the basis that the result doesn’t matter and you can muck around. But some people can’t relax - they just can’t stop getting sweaty themselves.
But the biggest downside of SBMM is that you can’t hit up a game with a bunch of lower ranked mates and expect a game where they can have a turn dominating. There will always be good players on the other team matching your ability which means your mates need to rely on your help… a lot.
I’m fine with it in Ranked, but for social playlists like Quick Play it is not needed.
Bots filling in wouldn’t be as much of an issue without SBMM in social then too. It wouldn’t matter, because it’s a casual mode.
I think this system is overly optimized for gameplay; getting into a match, playing the game, finding the perfect skill level, rather than optimized for the Community aspect of Halo. It feels like they made a a shooter that’s streamlined for the pro tournaments rather than for us. Just look at custom games, it’s busted. And we won’t get Forge for 6-9 months. All the social pieces are missing.
I like lobbies, voting on maps, seeing peoples service records and armor, seeing their ranks. Those were all fun little pieces of interaction between players which we don’t get currently.
Draw a normal distribution curve for skill. Now put a dot in the right hand tail to represent and Onxy player (top 4% or so). Their opponents, if chosen randomly, come from the area under the curve - with an average of Gold 6.
A good player, MMR of 1500+, will be the top dog in more than 9/10 games.
There is no “some good” games / “some bad” games for these players. They talk about stomping and getting stomped… but how often do you think they are going to get stomped?
Life is very different for players on the left hand side of the curve.
It’s still casual. That whole point is that it’s for everyone. This system isn’t good for social playlists, it’s making casual modes meant for fun into competitive ranked equivalent matches.
You can’t please everyone, but you shouldn’t design a system to punish people who happen to be good at the game either.
I’m not even that good at the game but I’ve just hit a wall and get absolutely stomped every match of Quick Play.
There’s an outlet for people who want to play skill based matches. It’s not social playlists responsibility.
I honestly think the “problem” with SBMM is two fold.
Some people can’t let go of the way they play. They would rather play 100% and win with a high K:D then jump in the warthog and try for a bunch of splatter kills and risk losing.
You can’t put players on the maps and game types that are carefully honed for their competitive play and expect things to magically play out differently.
Social needs multi-teams. It needs focus taken away from map control and power weapons. It needs a bit more randomness. It need dynamic handicapping of dominating players and buffing of those struggling. Stay away from toxic stats like K:D.
I’m not sure if I miss the lobbies or not.
It was nice to know I’m actually playing matches with humans and not bots, but I guess I could do without being insulted, hearing people playing loud music or hearing them breathing into their mics.
They should add some more casual modes and playlists.
I think the problems with pricing are getting fixed soon, so we’ll probably see more fixes for the game not very long after that.
Fun is what you make it. Close games are good games. It’s how much emotional effort you are having to put in that governs your enjoyment. That’s up to the individual.
The system isn’t designed to punish everyone. It’s trying to give everyone the same experience. The only people it’s punishing are good players who want to go on a K:D spree.
Well at least the other team is feeling pretty chill.
But the idea of having some SBMM in place is that you lose a few games… your rank drifts down… and hey presto, the quality of your opponents comes down to meet you.
Yeah, I often feel like I have to try my best to win, even in non-Ranked, because the maps and modes aren’t much different, and it takes me a while to remember I shouldn’t be playing so strictly.