I’m a Game Designer currently completing my Master’s in Game Design in Zurich, Switzerland and I’ve been very troubled by 343i’s terrible idea of including playlist rotation for ranked multiplayer playlists. This is textbook bad game design as this mostly causes player alienation instead of " variety" and is not a good feature to have in a game like Halo. Myself and many of my friends are only playing the game every other month when the playlist rotation includes playlists I want to play. It seems their idea of adding variety in the game is very skewed as it really achieves very little other than frustrating players that enjoy playing specific competitive playlists. Take Halo Reach Hardcore for example. It’s recently been cycled off the competitive playlist which now renders the game useless for me a lot of my friends. What I struggle to understand is how they prioritize certain playlists like halo reach invasion over something like the MLG (hardcore equivalent) gametypes which is essentially what made MLG/HCS what it is today. To me that shows that 343i do not understand what Halo fans want nor what made the Halo franchise so great. The principle of removing gametypes from players is not a smart move and is much more prone to causing frustration and instability in user experience. Honestly, so many decisions made by 343i about Halo’s mechanics and matchmaking management is something that is directly against what made Halo unique from other shooters and is textbook bad game design. Something I’m qualified in evaluating.
What are your thoughts about this?
Yeah its wild to rotate competitive playlists out, makes no sense. Like why not just leave more playlist there… lol.
And they replace it with H2A, which I had no idea was such a terrible remake. Imagine taking a great game like H2 and butchering it that bad
My only guess is low player population, certain playlists would be always dead were they not replacing another.
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> I’m a Game Designer currently completing my Master’s in Game Design in Zurich, Switzerland and I’ve been very troubled by 343i’s terrible idea of including playlist rotation for ranked multiplayer playlists. This is textbook bad game design as this mostly causes player alienation instead of " variety" and is not a good feature to have in a game like Halo. Myself and many of my friends are only playing the game every other month when the playlist rotation includes playlists I want to play. It seems their idea of adding variety in the game is very skewed as it really achieves very little other than frustrating players that enjoy playing specific competitive playlists. Take Halo Reach Hardcore for example. It’s recently been cycled off the competitive playlist which now renders the game useless for me a lot of my friends. What I struggle to understand is how they prioritize certain playlists like halo reach invasion over something like the MLG (hardcore equivalent) gametypes which is essentially what made MLG/HCS what it is today. To me that shows that 343i do not understand what Halo fans want nor what made the Halo franchise so great. The principle of removing gametypes from players is not a smart move and is much more prone to causing frustration and instability in user experience. Honestly, so many decisions made by 343i about Halo’s mechanics and matchmaking management is something that is directly against what made Halo unique from other shooters and is textbook bad game design. Something I’m qualified in evaluating.
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> What are your thoughts about this?
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> My only guess is low player population, certain playlists would be always dead were they not replacing another.
It all comes down to player population, like lemmingscanfly said. Invasion is always there since it has a big population, while the other competitive playlists just don’t attract the same number of players. I think what would fix this problem is allowing players to queue for multiple of the existing playlists at once. I’d happily queue for all of the 4v4 playlists at the same time, and I think that would make it much easier to find games in all of them.
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> It all comes down to player population, like lemmingscanfly said. Invasion is always there since it has a big population, while the other competitive playlists just don’t attract the same number of players. I think what would fix this problem is allowing players to queue for multiple of the existing playlists at once. I’d happily queue for all of the 4v4 playlists at the same time, and I think that would make it much easier to find games in all of them.
The only reason Invasion has a ranked playlist where it really doesn’t belong at all is because it was Reach’s premiere gamemode, and being bunched with another BTB objective gamemodes in the match composer only would’ve hurt it.
While I get how rotating ranked playlist is frustrating, especially for players like me who love H2A, rotating playlist must be working as they have been doing it for awhile now in both MCC and even H5. I would say that in MCC there really should be at least one ranked playlist for each title but the population may not support that. Also invasion should be social as it was never ranked before so why is it now?
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> > It all comes down to player population, like lemmingscanfly said. Invasion is always there since it has a big population, while the other competitive playlists just don’t attract the same number of players. I think what would fix this problem is allowing players to queue for multiple of the existing playlists at once. I’d happily queue for all of the 4v4 playlists at the same time, and I think that would make it much easier to find games in all of them.
>
> The only reason Invasion has a ranked playlist where it really doesn’t belong at all is because it was Reach’s premiere gamemode, and being bunched with another BTB objective gamemodes in the match composer only would’ve hurt it.
Well technically it wouldn’t be competing with the other BTB modes that much since there are no other 6v6 modes in social matchmaking.
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> > 2533274941718912;1:
> > I’m a Game Designer currently completing my Master’s in Game Design in Zurich, Switzerland and I’ve been very troubled by 343i’s terrible idea of including playlist rotation for ranked multiplayer playlists. This is textbook bad game design as this mostly causes player alienation instead of " variety" and is not a good feature to have in a game like Halo. Myself and many of my friends are only playing the game every other month when the playlist rotation includes playlists I want to play. It seems their idea of adding variety in the game is very skewed as it really achieves very little other than frustrating players that enjoy playing specific competitive playlists. Take Halo Reach Hardcore for example. It’s recently been cycled off the competitive playlist which now renders the game useless for me a lot of my friends. What I struggle to understand is how they prioritize certain playlists like halo reach invasion over something like the MLG (hardcore equivalent) gametypes which is essentially what made MLG/HCS what it is today. To me that shows that 343i do not understand what Halo fans want nor what made the Halo franchise so great. The principle of removing gametypes from players is not a smart move and is much more prone to causing frustration and instability in user experience. Honestly, so many decisions made by 343i about Halo’s mechanics and matchmaking management is something that is directly against what made Halo unique from other shooters and is textbook bad game design. Something I’m qualified in evaluating.
> >
> > What are your thoughts about this?
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> > 2533274862813053;3:
> > My only guess is low player population, certain playlists would be always dead were they not replacing another.
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> It all comes down to player population, like lemmingscanfly said. Invasion is always there since it has a big population, while the other competitive playlists just don’t attract the same number of players. I think what would fix this problem is allowing players to queue for multiple of the existing playlists at once. I’d happily queue for all of the 4v4 playlists at the same time, and I think that would make it much easier to find games in all of them.
I suppose player population is their main motivation to keep certain playlists alive and that does make a lot of sense. What I’m confused about is H3 Hardcore has been cycled off and that is a very popular game mode and yet Invasion has never been taken off - per to my knowledge. I like your idea about queueing up multiple playlists. Thank for the response!
> 2533274941718912;8:
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> > > 2533274941718912;1:
> > > I’m a Game Designer currently completing my Master’s in Game Design in Zurich, Switzerland and I’ve been very troubled by 343i’s terrible idea of including playlist rotation for ranked multiplayer playlists. This is textbook bad game design as this mostly causes player alienation instead of " variety" and is not a good feature to have in a game like Halo. Myself and many of my friends are only playing the game every other month when the playlist rotation includes playlists I want to play. It seems their idea of adding variety in the game is very skewed as it really achieves very little other than frustrating players that enjoy playing specific competitive playlists. Take Halo Reach Hardcore for example. It’s recently been cycled off the competitive playlist which now renders the game useless for me a lot of my friends. What I struggle to understand is how they prioritize certain playlists like halo reach invasion over something like the MLG (hardcore equivalent) gametypes which is essentially what made MLG/HCS what it is today. To me that shows that 343i do not understand what Halo fans want nor what made the Halo franchise so great. The principle of removing gametypes from players is not a smart move and is much more prone to causing frustration and instability in user experience. Honestly, so many decisions made by 343i about Halo’s mechanics and matchmaking management is something that is directly against what made Halo unique from other shooters and is textbook bad game design. Something I’m qualified in evaluating.
> > >
> > > What are your thoughts about this?
> >
> >
> >
> > > 2533274862813053;3:
> > > My only guess is low player population, certain playlists would be always dead were they not replacing another.
> >
> > It all comes down to player population, like lemmingscanfly said. Invasion is always there since it has a big population, while the other competitive playlists just don’t attract the same number of players. I think what would fix this problem is allowing players to queue for multiple of the existing playlists at once. I’d happily queue for all of the 4v4 playlists at the same time, and I think that would make it much easier to find games in all of them.
>
> I suppose player population is their main motivation to keep certain playlists alive and that does make a lot of sense. What I’m confused about is H3 Hardcore has been cycled off and that is a very popular game mode and yet Invasion has never been taken off - per to my knowledge. I like your idea about queueing up multiple playlists. Thank for the response!
Only 343 really knows the population of each playlist. I believe Invasion has endured, because it is the signature game mode of Reach and unique among Halo game modes. Since they are finally bringing match composer to firefight. Hopefully, ranked is next.
I can understand how rotating playlist can be a bit of a pain/let down, especially when it’s a playlist you like, however. They have been doing it with H5 and now MCC so clearly they seem to be working. It probably does work since Halo in general has a pretty low population. While I do wish we had at least one playlist for each title in ranked I have no doubt that as much as I love H2A it probably doesn’t carry enough of a population to be an all the time thing. Sometimes when things are only available for a limited time people tend to flock to it for that limited time.
> 2533274941718912;8:
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> > > 2533274941718912;1:
> > > I’m a Game Designer currently completing my Master’s in Game Design in Zurich, Switzerland and I’ve been very troubled by 343i’s terrible idea of including playlist rotation for ranked multiplayer playlists. This is textbook bad game design as this mostly causes player alienation instead of " variety" and is not a good feature to have in a game like Halo. Myself and many of my friends are only playing the game every other month when the playlist rotation includes playlists I want to play. It seems their idea of adding variety in the game is very skewed as it really achieves very little other than frustrating players that enjoy playing specific competitive playlists. Take Halo Reach Hardcore for example. It’s recently been cycled off the competitive playlist which now renders the game useless for me a lot of my friends. What I struggle to understand is how they prioritize certain playlists like halo reach invasion over something like the MLG (hardcore equivalent) gametypes which is essentially what made MLG/HCS what it is today. To me that shows that 343i do not understand what Halo fans want nor what made the Halo franchise so great. The principle of removing gametypes from players is not a smart move and is much more prone to causing frustration and instability in user experience. Honestly, so many decisions made by 343i about Halo’s mechanics and matchmaking management is something that is directly against what made Halo unique from other shooters and is textbook bad game design. Something I’m qualified in evaluating.
> > >
> > > What are your thoughts about this?
> >
> >
> >
> > > 2533274862813053;3:
> > > My only guess is low player population, certain playlists would be always dead were they not replacing another.
> >
> > It all comes down to player population, like lemmingscanfly said. Invasion is always there since it has a big population, while the other competitive playlists just don’t attract the same number of players. I think what would fix this problem is allowing players to queue for multiple of the existing playlists at once. I’d happily queue for all of the 4v4 playlists at the same time, and I think that would make it much easier to find games in all of them.
>
> I suppose player population is their main motivation to keep certain playlists alive and that does make a lot of sense. What I’m confused about is H3 Hardcore has been cycled off and that is a very popular game mode and yet Invasion has never been taken off - per to my knowledge. I like your idea about queueing up multiple playlists. Thank for the response!
H3 Hardcore is dead to lower ranked people who wanna play it tbh. You really have to be a 20 to start gettin regular games in the evening or afternoon.
> 2535458627492448;2:
> Yeah its wild to rotate competitive playlists out, makes no sense. Like why not just leave more playlist there… lol.
>
> And they replace it with H2A, which I had no idea was such a terrible remake. Imagine taking a great game like H2 and butchering it that bad
I would agree with separate Hardcore playlists for each game (even create one for H4) but there aren’t enough people playin the game, matter a fact, jus ranked itself, to have these separate playlists.
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