Party Matching Restrictions

Games Other Halo
1

Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but I recall Squad Slayer having party size matching restrictions: i.e., big parties can only match other big parties.

If so (and even if not, in fact), why is this not the case in Team Slayer? It’s one of the few playlists with the population to support matching parties, yet a to4 will almost always just match four randoms, which makes the match into a pointless debacle (unless the to4 is truly terrible, but I digress).

As far as playlists are concerned, in my ideal world Arena would be renamed Ranked Team, Squad Slayer would be renamed Social Team, and Team Slayer would be deleted (along with Anniversary Squad and a few other extraneous playlists), but that’s too extreme for most people’s tastes. Surely, though, having party matching restrictions in TS makes sense.

2

So I can assume that everyone who searches alone is happy get stomped on by full parties and all full parties are happy with zero-challenge matches against randoms?

I don’t enjoy either of these scenarios, personally.

3

I don’t care about Team Slayer, because it isn’t TU yet. But big party restrictions would be nice to see on BTB. I hate going in with a To8, and matching against 6 randoms and 2 guests from India, and having 20 sec delay.

4

I wish Parties / guests could get their own playlist as a requirement, its not fair to the ones who play solo to get destroyed by a party who collaborates a plan of victory >.<

5

> So I can assume that everyone who searches alone is happy get stomped on by full parties and all full parties are happy with zero-challenge matches against randoms?

I relish the victories over full team when I come in random far more than when I win as full team. Ive had it and gave it both ways, each way and its not going to be solved by restricting to party matching, because that would assume that all parties are of equal skill, they are not. Even if with the influx of new population (I have not forgot about that)the population will not support party to party matches of equal skill in a reasonable amount of time. Then we could all be treated to endless threads about having to wait forever to get a match when playing with freinds.

> I don’t enjoy either of these scenarios, personally.

What do you enjoy about Reach?

6

Agreed with OP, party restrictions make the game more competitive.

7

Perfect example of why party restrictions are an absolute must for the future
http://www.bungie.net/stats/reach/gamestats.aspx?gameid=904599282&player=xINSANiTYx22

8

> I relish the victories over full team when I come in random far more than when I win as full team.

I don’t. If I beat a full party as a random, it just means they were a terrible full party who weren’t cooperating. At that point, it’s no different than beating randoms. Don’t kid yourself.

> Even if with the influx of new population (I have not forgot about that)the population will not support party to party matches of equal skill in a reasonable amount of time. Then we could all be treated to endless threads about having to wait forever to get a match when playing with freinds.

Reach doesn’t even remotely begin to match people of equal skill anyway. Full parties shouldn’t match four randoms. That’s all there really is to it.

It wouldn’t kill people to have to split into twos and search.

9

> > I relish the victories over full team when I come in random far more than when I win as full team.
>
> I don’t. If I beat a full party as a random, it just means they were a terrible full party who weren’t cooperating. At that point, it’s no different than beating randoms. Don’t kid yourself.
>
> <mark>So you understand that even though players are in a party does not mean that the skill will be multiplied, even if there is party matching does not mean that you are going to get like skilled matches.</mark>
>
>
>
> > Even if with the influx of new population (I have not forgot about that)the population will not support party to party matches of equal skill in a reasonable amount of time. Then we could all be treated to endless threads about having to wait forever to get a match when playing with freinds.
>
> Reach doesn’t even remotely begin to match people of equal skill anyway. Full parties shouldn’t match four randoms. That’s all there really is to it.
>
> <mark>I cant imagine a scenerio where 343 is going to use their time for this, you are just going to have to put up with stomping on randoms, or maybe you could play as a random and see how good you are without your freinds.</mark>
>
> It wouldn’t kill people to have to split into twos and search.

I would think that would allow the current system to better match players of like skill, but one of the benefits to playing in parties with freinds is stomping on people, but that gets boring after ahwile. You could just play how you want and allow others to do the same and then everybody can suffer the consequence of their choice, be it good or bad. This way instead of lame micro adjustments to make the game more “competitive” we could get stuff that attracts customers, oh I dont know, things like maps.

10

Reach has no competitive factor due to its mechanics and matchmaking so I only play it when old Halo friends want to.

I doubt party or tighter TrueSkill restrictions will be implemented at such a late date, given the population of many playlists it wouldn’t even be feasible because it would significantly increase search times and result in higher latency matches.

11

> <mark>So you understand that even though players are in a party does not mean that the skill will be multiplied, even if there is party matching does not mean that you are going to get like skilled matches.</mark>

Parties are far, far more likely to be employing teamwork than four randoms.

Teamwork is far, far more important than individual skill in Reach.

You do the math.

> <mark>I cant imagine a scenerio where 343 is going to use their time for this, you are just going to have to put up with stomping on randoms, or maybe you could play as a random and see how good you are without your freinds.</mark>

I doubt party matching restriction would take an immense amount of effort, seeing as Squad Slayer already has them.

I search as a random far more than I search in a party. Problem?

> This way instead of lame micro adjustments to make the game more “competitive” we could get stuff that attracts customers, oh I dont know, things like maps.**

Yeah, because those map packs really injected some life into the Reach population :expressionless:

12

> Parties are far, far more likely to be employing teamwork than four randoms.

Right, we all know that.

> Teamwork is far, far more important than individual skill in Reach.
>
> You do the math.

Customers are the most important thing in Halo, even a few extra seconds waiting for a match could disuade customers from returning to replay and that means less money for MS, which means less money for 343, which means less money for Halo. That is the only math I care about.

> I doubt party matching restriction would take an immense amount of effort, seeing as Squad Slayer already has them.

Its not a matter of effort in my mind, its a matter of consequence as stated in the response above this one.

> I search as a random far more than I search in a party. Problem?

No, so do most players, that is why I dont think 343 should focus on problems that only effect small portions of the population, like players that search in hunting parties and are tired of all the killing they have to do.

> Yeah, because those map packs really injected some life into the Reach population :expressionless:

Im not talking about DLC, which frankly was completely disappointing now that they removed the playlist for the DLC I had(I wont be buying more, so I can get ripped of again), I am talking about reforged community created maps that draw intrest like we are seeing in LD, for every playlist. Two things, first it gets people excited, feeling like they have a real voice in what is happening. I am sure everyone of the people that forged those maps in LD is feeling pretty good right now as they have become imortalized in Halo via their map contribution.

Last, new free maps will have an insane amount of draw for current and potential new customers and even old ones that have left. Even if you dont play, look at the LD population counts and see for yourself, this could happen in every playlist and would bring a 1000 times more customers than party restrictions.

Once the customers are here Sentex, we can micro-tweek all kinds of thing and the skill pool will be larger, so better matches will be had by all.

13

> Customers are the most important thing in Halo, even a few extra seconds waiting for a match could disuade customers from returning to replay and that means less money for MS, which means less money for 343, which means less money for Halo. That is the only math I care about.

Randoms will never have an issue finding a match in Team Slayer.

If a full party does… well, that’s not the end of the world. They can try another playlist, split up, or go play something more suitable like MLG.

> Its not a matter of effort in my mind, its a matter of consequence as stated in the response above this one.

One of the consequences would be that players have less negative experiences getting utterly wrecked by full parties.

This isn’t entirely uncommon, either; there’s quite a few full parties trolling in Team Slayer. Although, if I’m going to be honest, I guess they wouldn’t support this, because if they wanted competition they wouldn’t be in team slayer.

> Once the customers are here Sentex, we can micro-tweek all kinds of thing and the skill pool will be larger, so better matches will be had by all.

You know how I feel about a lot of your opinions, but I’ve never misspelt your name either.

14

> You know how I feel about a lot of your opinions,

I honestly dont think you have ever agreed or ackowleged in a single post of mine, so yes I do, if I post it, you dont like it.

> but I’ve never misspelt your name either.

I believe you have, but it was intentional, whereas I just didnt really pay too much attention, sorry buddy, you know how I am with spelling.