Objective

Games Other Halo
1

Please don’t merge objective with anything slayer based.

Currently there is only 1 playlist to guarantee objective games and even then I have to put up with over 75% of the games I want to play being vetoed for hot potato, crazy king and so very often oddball on swordbase.

Frankly I just want to play assault and flag games…what happened to that staple of objective?

I’ve enjoyed the matchmaking system through Halo 2 & Halo 3 but with Reach I’m finding my hardcore objective play completely gone (less than 5% of games played in fact). I’m still in shock that the latest update didn’t remove oddball on swordbase, really? How about changing things up a bit.

It even seems the Reach BTB lists have very little weighting towards objective and less community votes too. Sure much of the issue is majority voting but for me I just want to play objective the way I like, at least more like 20-50% of my games NOT 5%.

As great as I think Halo 4 is going to be if I find objective or the community don’t turn the corner into some great and often objective play or a playlist I can call home for my style of play then I’ll find myself play far less of multiplayer with Halo 4.

-Edit 1-
I think the gametype issues relate more to skills than the game mechanics themselves. Regular teams who frequently play with each other or frequently play objective simply dominate other teams of randoms due to experience or teamwork skills in the playlist.

The real issue to combat this requires altering the gametype mechanics. It’s a fine balancing act but a necessary one. We saw Bungie attempt this with invasion and stockpile as they’re really designed to mix the best of slayer and objective to provide more playlists than just slayer.

Just how you provide a more enticing playlist for objective over slayer is beyond me. Judging by the statistics the largest percentages of players frequent slayer and living dead. I’m about as hardcore objective as they come and I’m not fond of either slayer or living dead.

I’m still yet to come up with “killer objective ideas for the masses” but that is the task in front of 343i to restore this cornerstone of Halo. I also believe the community and players themselves need to move away from the instant gratification and outcome of slayer.

-Edit 2-
BTB objective may hold some answers in returning players to objective but I’ve a feeling groups/clans is going to be the potential return of CTF/Bomb as king.

-Edit 3-
Perhaps a better way to handle objective rounds is simply remove the rounds. Here me out…keep the slayer style continuous timed gameplay but make the spawns dynamic or the map design handle objective offense and defense fluidly.

This way the scoring is a matter of how many flag caps you can get during a fixed time. Reward scoring hugely so actually capturing or arming the objective is a priority.

Having a fixed time with dynamic scoring removes objective holding while promoting objective targeting/carrying.

Trial some variations of this during the first few months, use the built in statistics based on veto/quitting and then update monthly to refine a quality 2 flag/bomb or 1 flag/bomb (without rounds) variation.

2

From another thread of mine but very relevant for Halo 4 matchmaking. Don’t you want to be able to choose what games and maps you play on?

-Edit 1-
I just feel this sort of filter or anti-filter would enable player choice while keeping the existing matchmaking system too. I believe in part why Reach’s population was lower than previous Halo games is due to the updated vote/veto system frustrating players by not letting them play what they want.
For example players will stick with the game if 55-85% of the time they get to play what they like. However if they only get what they like 5-50% of the time they’ll simply stop playing or playing that playlist. This also create variety as you don’t always get what you want, this became imbalanced with Reach in my opinion.
I enjoy the matchmaking system to find games, for the most part. However I found the veto process with Reach usually ends in me having to play maps or gametypes I don’t like.
I’m once again suggesting player toggles/filters for maps & gametypes so the matchmaking system knows which you want to play or not based on your toggle on/off for each. This is in addition to existing filters criteria.
I just feel maps and gametypes are paramount choices for players, moreover than current choices we have in Reach.

What I’m trying to achieve is keeping the best of matchmaking system without introducing a custom games browser while enabling individual choices. This delivers what you actually want to play rather than being out voted by the majority time and time again. Overall variety and map/gametype randomness will remain but dilute the inherent flaws of the majority mentality in the current matchmaking system.

Is it perfect? Hell no. Is it an improvement? Hell yes.

Thanks to Viet Honor this should be for social only where ranked is kept as is for balancing a fair playground. Ranked matches shouldn’t cater for one map for one player style or skill etc.

Once a full game is matched then the veto options are easier to predetermine and will reduce quitting while enabling player choice within the matchmaking framework.

Players simply tick/untick what they like. This way matchmaking puts players together who want to play the same maps or gametypes and then veto’ing is also more accurate for the options it displays. This gives choice back to the players without removing the matchmaking system itself, which is what a custom games browser would do.

Players getting more of what they want individually while matching globally and not getting stuck with what others vote for out of the hundreds or thousands of permutations matchmaking veto options present.

This toggle system combines the defaults for new players, provide customisation for player choice, keeps fast game matching, keeps matchmaking overall, keeps skill matching, keeps party matching but introduces a tiered layer of player choice about maps/gametypes.

This is NOT simply a relabelled Custom Games Browser. Custom games browsing requires maps/gametypes downloaded outside of matchmaking updates and operate outside of the 343i allowed maps/gametypes and settings etc.

My toggles idea combines the best of custom games browsing and matchmaking to deliver a new hybrid system that is fast and flexible. A small nuance of difference but a very important one.

I think it’s time matchmaking took individual choice into account more. Presently the veto system is setup for global democratic choice rather than individual preferences. You’re constantly overridden by the more popular choices, which won’t align with your personal ones.

That’s what the minimums achieve. The minimum selections kept a variety in the voting options and still held true for the one player that bothered to set their toggle preferences. It forces players to select a medium amount of maps and gametypes so they can’t just select Oddball on Swordbase as their matching criteria. Say 4 or 5 maps/types as a minimum.

As long as there is balance between choice and minimum player selections I think matchmaking and player maps/gametypes would work very well together. The system as described would avoid just one or two map selections and 343i could always tweak the system through updates too.

Another possible toggle for the idea: Strictness On/Off
You could also introduce another new filter which is to keep “strict or widen” search parameters. Essentially this toggles matchmaking to widen the search parameters the longer the games found/matching process takes. Bungie/343i already do this now by widening parameters the longer searching takes.

Once again this additional toggle would restore player choice at a number of levels and be defaulted to Off, widen the longer wait times go on.

- Example Player Toggles -
(all YES by default unless switched off by player)

MAPS:
Boardwalk = YES
Boneyard = NO
Countdown = NO
Forge World = YES
Powerhouse = YES
Reflection = YES
Spire = YES
Sword Base = NO
Zealot = YES

GAMETYPES:
Slayer = NO
TU Slayer = YES
Multi Flag (2flag or 3 flag) = YES
One Flag = YES
Neutral Flag = YES
Assault (2bomb) = YES
One Bomb = YES
Oddball = NO
King of the Hill (KOTH) = NO

OTHER FILTERS
Close Skill = YES
Good Connection = YES

DLC & Achievement toggles
Basically if you have the DLC maps you can toggle them on/off. So overall you set all older maps = NO and only the DLC maps = YES. Matchmaking would then only put you in veto options for those maps. You could even toggle gametypes too so you can get specific achievements.

3

Holy text Batman

But I agree I dislike most of the new objective games in both Team objective and BTB

I enjoy the classics of objective Flag and bomb thats about it
Everything else could go far far away

4

> Holy text Batman
>
>
> But I agree I dislike most of the new objective games in both Team objective and BTB
>
> I enjoy the classics of objective Flag and bomb thats about it
> Everything else could go far far away

Nice to know there are other objective connoisseurs out there.

I miss the days of ranked objective where it was almost always flag or bomb 100%. Reach objective is not fun.

5

Objective is hands down the best playlist in Reach.

DMR starts on every game type except one.

No armor lock. No jet pack.

6

> Objective is hands down the best playlist in Reach.
>
> DMR starts on every game type except one.
>
> No armor lock. No jet pack.

I agree, DMR starts and NO armour lock are win. Jetpack I can live with or without.

Objective was soooo much better in Halo 2 and Halo 3 it’s no comparison, if you look at Reach maps and settings as well as all the “junk objective gametypes” the reasons objective is such a low population is pretty clear to me.

In my opinion these maps were the great ones for objective:

  1. Valhalla

  2. Burial Mounds

  3. Midship (Heretic not as good)

  4. Lockout (Blackout sucks)

  5. Last Resort & Zanzibar

  6. Colossus

  7. Containment

  8. Elongation

  9. Ivory Tower (Reflection is OK, buggy lift suicides for the loss)

  10. Relic

  11. Sanctuary

  12. Terminal

  13. Turf

  14. Avalanche

  15. Ghost Town

  16. High Ground

  17. Isolation for bomb, flag was too easy with throwing through windows

  18. Longshore

  19. Narrows

  20. Standoff

  21. The Pit

Compare this to Reach for which maps are solid for flag/bomb:

  1. Boardwalk

  2. Powerhouse

  3. Reflection (a solid remake but not as good as the original).

  4. Battle Canyon (released to late and population already dwindled).

  5. Ridgeline (again released to late).

  6. Breakneck (not enough purchasers of DLC and poor DLC selections so objective is never played oon this map).

  7. Tempest (a great map but hardly ever in matchmaking voting choices and again released to late).

There is a world of difference in terms of Reach vs. Halo 2/3 for objective flag/bomb. This doesn’t even factor in ranked objective which both Halo 2/3 had in spades.

7

Note to mods: I’m not necrobumping, I looked at 5 pages of matchmaking forum and NOT 1 thread is about objective.

Note to all: I’d like to get some more discussion on objective wants and what would get you to play more Reach objective or Halo 4 objective in matchmaking.

Do you want 1 flag, 1 bomb, 2 flag, symmetrical maps or asymmetrical? etc.

Please help the developers understand what would get you to play objective playlist and settings?

8

> Note to mods: I’m not necrobumping, I looked at 5 pages of matchmaking forum and NOT 1 thread is about objective.

Feedback threads are pretty cool.

9

> > Objective is hands down the best playlist in Reach.
> >
> > DMR starts on every game type except one.
> >
> > No armor lock. No jet pack.
>
> I agree, DMR starts and NO armour lock are win. Jetpack I can live with or without.
>
> Objective was soooo much better in Halo 2 and Halo 3 it’s no comparison, if you look at Reach maps and settings as well as all the “junk objective gametypes” the reasons objective is such a low population is pretty clear to me.
>
> In my opinion these maps were the great ones for objective:
>
>
> 1. Valhalla
>
> 2. Burial Mounds
>
> 3. Midship (Heretic not as good)
>
> 4. Lockout (Blackout sucks)
>
> 5. Last Resort & Zanzibar
>
> 6. Colossus
>
> 7. Containment
>
> 8. Elongation
>
> 9. Ivory Tower (Reflection is OK, buggy lift suicides for the loss)
>
> 10. Relic
>
> 11. Sanctuary
>
> 12. Terminal
>
> 13. Turf
>
> 14. Avalanche
>
> 15. Ghost Town
>
> 16. High Ground
>
> 17. Isolation for bomb, flag was too easy with throwing through windows
>
> 18. Longshore
>
> 19. Narrows
>
> 20. Standoff
>
> 21. The Pit
>
>
> Compare this to Reach for which maps are solid for flag/bomb:
>
> 1. Boardwalk
>
> 2. Powerhouse
>
> 3. Reflection (a solid remake but not as good as the original).
>
> 4. Battle Canyon (released to late and population already dwindled).
>
> 5. Ridgeline (again released to late).
>
> 6. Breakneck (not enough purchasers of DLC and poor DLC selections so objective is never played oon this map).
>
> 7. Tempest (a great map but hardly ever in matchmaking voting choices and again released to late).
>
>
> There is a world of difference in terms of Reach vs. Halo 2/3 for objective flag/bomb. This doesn’t even factor in ranked objective which both Halo 2/3 had in spades.

I’m just gonna say I have some fun -Yoink- memories of CTF on burial mounds…damn …actually it might have been assault, been too long.

Looking through just your list of maps I realized they don’t make maps like they use to. Burial mounds and terminal are among the few bigger maps I actually enjoy playing.

H2 objective > all

I agree that all the new gametypes in Reach clutter the playlist. It was a nice experiment but those new gametypes simply are not fun IMO.

10

> I agree that all the new gametypes in Reach clutter the playlist. It was a nice experiment but those new gametypes simply are not fun IMO.

From base mechanics to gametypes to maps, everything was just off in Reach and early objective matchmaking settings were downright bad.

The only upside to voting objective in Reach is that if players on the other team quit you can capture the objective to quickly end the match instead of a Slayer match where you are forced to slowly kill the few remaining enemies which can get tedious.

11

Personally I’d like to see a Flag and/or Assault only playlist, 4v4 or 8v8, it doesn’t matter. I loved Halo 3 because for a while we actually had a Flag only playlist, plus it’s one of the Double EXP weekends. :smiley:

12

> Personally I’d like to see a Flag and/or Assault only playlist, 4v4 or 8v8, it doesn’t matter. I loved Halo 3 because for a while we actually had a Flag only playlist, plus it’s one of the Double EXP weekends. :smiley:

I’m all for flag and bomb only, my favourites too.

13

> > Note to mods: I’m not necrobumping, I looked at 5 pages of matchmaking forum and NOT 1 thread is about objective.
>
> Feedback threads are pretty cool.

Thanks, didn’t even know that thread was around.