New BTB playlist - a plea to the community

Games Other Halo
#1

You have probably heard by now that Big Team Slayer is getting a facelift soon when it merges with Big Team Skirmish and becomes Big Team Battle. This will bring an experience many veterans will fondly remember from past Halo games. The benefits will include better matchmaking and pairing of DLC players and should be a boon to the overall online community.

However, I feel inclined to make a plea for all of you who will join me in this new play list:

If an objective game is voted for, please play to the objective.

I enjoyed all past BTB playlists except for those games where teams with a lead start playing slayer to pad their K/D numbers. It was especially bad when the poorer team starts quitting and the team with a significant advantage in # of players doesn’t advance the objective to win. Then more players quit because they don’t enjoy being punching bags for jerks. There’s nothing worse than 12-15 minutes of being 1 of 3 players left with nothing to do except die because the other team refuses to press their advantage and win in short order. Some of us want to play the game the way it was meant to be played.

Same goes to the quitters who leave an objective game. Doesn’t matter your reason - maybe your team is getting spanked by a better one. Or maybe your team isn’t very good. But quitting just begets more quitting.

This totally blows for those of us who enjoy capturing a flag or defending a hill. Quitting because the game doesn’t go in your favor is poor sportsmanship. Playing slayer and strictly ignoring the objective is also poor sportsmanship.

I’m worried this will happen with greater frequency when BTB launches. Look, I get it. Positive K/D is important to people. And it is a FPS shooter, after all. But holding and padding just isn’t cool. Winning is important, too, and you can’t win if you quit.

Here’s hoping my concerns are overblown and the objective games are as intense and fun as they can possibly be. Thanks for reading.

See you on the battlefield.

#2

I agree all the way. I wish sportsmanship on the battlefield was more a part of the halo culture. I could care less about trash talk and tea bagging, but quitting and stat padding just ruin the game for everyone else.

#3

I can hardly remember a big team objective match in either Halo 3 or Reach that didn’t degenerate into exactly the crapfest you described, and my hopes for better games now are not raised.

I understand the benefit of combining low population playlists for a whole variety of reasons, but as always it is the unintended (though easily predictable) consequences which doom these efforts from the start.

The only possible salvation is Join In Progress which will fill in the gaps when people quit - although that will undoubtedly fill these forums with the righteous indignity of those who got put into a game that was lost long before they joined, etc etc etc.

No-win situation? Time will tell…

#4

I have been playing mostly skirmish since its launch and objective holding has not been much of a problem, quitting on the other hand has.

I guess we will see.

#5

Don’t worry, I play slayer from the beginning. Never been a fan of objective game types especially in BTB. It’s hard enough to get 3 other random players to coordinate let alone 7.

#6

> I have been playing mostly skirmish since its launch and objective holding has not been much of a problem, quitting on the other hand has.
>
> I guess we will see.

Agreed. I chalk it up to the CSR being less K/D based, but what do I know? It’s when you blend slayer and objective that the slayer mindset dominates.