For all the competitive Halo players (you don’t need to be pro):
Do you find yourself loving Halo 5 because you’ve gotten your competitive drive from playing sports in real life?
I found a trend with my buddies I play Halo with. We have all played a team-based competitive sport at some point in our lives. I played years of basketball which I think, led me to love the competitiveness in Halo. Since Halo 2, the multiplayer is addicting in the aspect of always wanting to play more “pick-up” games. I find it more rewarding to play and win a game based on balanced elements than to play a game for hours to just receive “loot”.
Anyone else in the same boat that can offer supporting evidence to this theory? Gordon Hayward (NBA player) sure can attest.
I’m with you. My back (and life in general) really don’t accommodate playing hoops anymore. Played it a ton growing up and totally loved the competition. Was a big trash talker.
I love Halo 5 because it is as balanced as Halo has ever been and has tons of tools available to play the game. It’s very competitive and gets those same juices flowing. I get my time to trash talk, throw in a few teabags. Then I go to bed after getting that energy out and replaying moments from the night in my head, checking out stats, much like when I played basketball.
> 2535457602766763;1:
> For all the competitive Halo players (you don’t need to be pro):
>
> Do you find yourself loving Halo 5 because you’ve gotten your competitive drive from playing sports in real life?
>
> I found a trend with my buddies I play Halo with. We have all played a team-based competitive sport at some point in our lives. I played years of basketball which I think, led me to love the competitiveness in Halo. Since Halo 2, the multiplayer is addicting in the aspect of always wanting to play more “pick-up” games. I find it more rewarding to play and win a game based on balanced elements than to play a game for hours to just receive “loot”.
>
> Anyone else in the same boat that can offer supporting evidence to this theory? Gordon Hayward (NBA player) sure can attest.
I think I can agree that there is correlation. I have plated soccer/baseball before. I definitely am very competitive in the right scene.
Sports did not make me competitive. I just natrually wanted to do my best and improve, and halo really solidified that. I remember watching all these tutorials on how to strafe and that kind of crap in the Halo 3 era. I never really played halo 2’s multiplayer, so I played campaign mostly. My brother was terrible at CE, and the campaign honestly wasnt that fun, except the last. Halo 3 was the game that really just lit my fire. And its a great feeling. Eventually I noticed how much I hated losing in sports, despite not caring earlier. So Halo must be the culprit.
> 2533274805497312;2:
> I’m with you. My back (and life in general) really don’t accommodate playing hoops anymore. Played it a ton growing up and totally loved the competition. Was a big trash talker.
>
> I love Halo 5 because it is as balanced as Halo has ever been and has tons of tools available to play the game. It’s very competitive and gets those same juices flowing. I get my time to trash talk, throw in a few teabags. Then I go to bed after getting that energy out and replaying moments from the night in my head, checking out stats, much like when I played basketball.
For sure, I’m right there with you as well checking out stats and playing out different moments in my head or watching clips on the Smartglass app afterwards.
Haven’t played in a couple years since college but Ive always been a lover of basketball. I don’t really consider halo a sport at all but I’d definitely say that an existing competitive nature can even carry over to a video game sometimes. I try not to take it too seriously though lol.
I’ve had this discussion my friends before. There are some elements of competitive sports in Halo but in some regards it’s incentive structure is actually the polar opposite. I’ll explain.
I grew up playing multiple competitive sports. Ended up playing D1 football and I currently coach younger kids and still play sports (but not football anymore). A big part of the job of a youth coach in understanding incentive structure and sports psychology. When you look at a bunch of people who go to the park and play pick up games they are ONLY there for the game. They’re not there to get pair of shiny shoes if they win (reqs). They don’t get to display or brag about their field goal percentage (KD) or feel embarrassed by it. They play the game for the sake of the game. Their incentive is exercise, competition, and fun. And when they’re done they walk away and the game fades into ether. There’s no bronze division, or BK’s, or KD’s, or special armor, or any other manipulative crap to entice them to play. Halo 1 and 2 had this feel. You played the game for the sake of the game and there was no ulterior motive / incentive. Now you have reqs, armor, public KD ratios, etc. While all these things are great, they have been incorporated not as perks or additions to the game but as the actual incentive structure. I think this results in a lot of people who are playing the game for the wrong reasons and creates a disparity in expectations / priorities between players. Guys who worry about their KD don’t play the objective, guys who care about reqs are worried about dragging the game on for more RP points. Guys who are grinding for Achilles farm kids in warzone.
If you want to be a truly balanced game and have people play it competitively and for the right reasons, you can’t make shiny toys and bragging stats part of the incentive structure. But that’s just my 2 cents. Still love playing every night.
I’ve found Halo 5 to be the most sweaty because of how hard they’re pushing it with Arena playlists, the message-of-the-day about tournaments and the ‘pro league’ it’s kind of off putting. I enjoyed it more back in H2/H3 when MLG ran the pro league and the competitive side of things, Bungie never had anything to do with it, they simply tried to make the game fun instead of worrying about being competitive. Now all you do is run into tryhards in every arena playlist.
I never really thought of it that way. Makes sense though. When Halo CE first came out our entire baseball team would LAN together before big tournaments. Competitive play is what made it fun.
> 2533274808316762;8:
> I’ve had this discussion my friends before. There are some elements of competitive sports in Halo but in some regards it’s incentive structure is actually the polar opposite. I’ll explain.
>
> I grew up playing multiple competitive sports. Ended up playing D1 football and I currently coach younger kids and still play sports (but not football anymore). A big part of the job of a youth coach in understanding incentive structure and sports psychology. When you look at a bunch of people who go to the park and play pick up games they are ONLY there for the game. They’re not there to get pair of shiny shoes if they win (reqs). They don’t get to display or brag about their field goal percentage (KD) or feel embarrassed by it. They play the game for the sake of the game. Their incentive is exercise, competition, and fun. And when they’re done they walk away and the game fades into ether. There’s no bronze division, or BK’s, or KD’s, or special armor, or any other manipulative crap to entice them to play. Halo 1 and 2 had this feel. You played the game for the sake of the game and there was no ulterior motive / incentive. Now you have reqs, armor, public KD ratios, etc. While all these things are great, they have been incorporated not as perks or additions to the game but as the actual incentive structure. I think this results in a lot of people who are playing the game for the wrong reasons and creates a disparity in expectations / priorities between players. Guys who worry about their KD don’t play the objective, guys who care about reqs are worried about dragging the game on for more RP points. Guys who are grinding for Achilles farm kids in warzone.
>
> If you want to be a truly balanced game and have people play it competitively and for the right reasons, you can’t make shiny toys and bragging stats part of the incentive structure. But that’s just my 2 cents. Still love playing every night.
This ^^^ is exactly my point. I play for the competition and fun. I could care less about the shiny rewards. I’m still rocking the default helmet and armor.
I think 343 wanted to still appeal to this crowd that’s after “loot” so they implemented a way for it to enter the game while still not affecting the competitive side. The competitive side is what I’m referring to in my OP.
I can definitely agree with you OP. I’ve competed in most common sports since I was a child and got into mtn biking as an adult. When I was in high school and HaloCE released my natural competitiveness took over and my friends and I started hosting lan tournaments with our buddies from school. We were all athletes who just naturally wanted to play against each other in our favorite game.
Some people are just born competitive, and strive to excel at anything they do. My niece is like this too, even at a young age (10) she’s super driven and competitive. Best grades in her classes, top marks in extra curriculars, and super competitive at any sport she does. Always gives 110%, its hilarious to see such focus in a little 10yo girls face, but also inspiring.
Halo and esports is just competitive people like that who’ve taken that drive and channeled it into their passion for Halo or whatever game they choose.
I feel Halo 5 is closest to H2/H3. We finally have a competitive feel back into Halo. I don’t understand why everyone thinks “Tryhards” are a bad thing. Is it so bad that somebody wants to play hard enough to win? If you’re not playing to win, then why are you playing at all? If your answer is " I just play to have fun. " then don’t complain when you lose.
> 2533274848763524;13:
> I feel Halo 5 is closest to H2/H3. We finally have a competitive feel back into Halo. I don’t understand why everyone thinks “Tryhards” are a bad thing. Is it so bad that somebody wants to play hard enough to win? If you’re not playing to win, then why are you playing at all? If your answer is " I just play to have fun. " then don’t complain when you lose.
The thing is H2 had fun playlists as well, it wasn’t all sweat sweat sweat. Social slayer, social objective, team objective, btb, rumble pit, etc,. were all just go in and have fun playing the game, when now it’s basically crappy grifball, which gets boring after 2 games. Warzone is not even fun anymore because of the teams thinking their warzone pros for some reason.
I like to compare Halo to hockey… To set up on a Halo map is more or less comparable to setting up an attack in the offensive zone on the ice, where teams position themselves on an individual basis and work together to score.
Team work is crucial to controlling the pace of the game, and the game itself.
> 2533274816628272;14:
> > 2533274848763524;13:
> > I feel Halo 5 is closest to H2/H3. We finally have a competitive feel back into Halo. I don’t understand why everyone thinks “Tryhards” are a bad thing. Is it so bad that somebody wants to play hard enough to win? If you’re not playing to win, then why are you playing at all? If your answer is " I just play to have fun. " then don’t complain when you lose.
>
>
> The thing is H2 had fun playlists as well, it wasn’t all sweat sweat sweat. Social slayer, social objective, team objective, btb, rumble pit, etc,. were all just go in and have fun playing the game, when now it’s basically crappy grifball, which gets boring after 2 games. Warzone is not even fun anymore because of the teams thinking their warzone pros for some reason.
I do agree that there needs to be more social playlists that somewhat mirror the current ones. I feel like it would filter the “competitive” and “social” player a little better. Regardless I’m really happy about the competitive nature of Halo 5.
> 2533274808316762;8:
> I’ve had this discussion my friends before. There are some elements of competitive sports in Halo but in some regards it’s incentive structure is actually the polar opposite. I’ll explain.
>
> I grew up playing multiple competitive sports. Ended up playing D1 football and I currently coach younger kids and still play sports (but not football anymore). A big part of the job of a youth coach in understanding incentive structure and sports psychology. When you look at a bunch of people who go to the park and play pick up games they are ONLY there for the game. They’re not there to get pair of shiny shoes if they win (reqs). They don’t get to display or brag about their field goal percentage (KD) or feel embarrassed by it. They play the game for the sake of the game. Their incentive is exercise, competition, and fun. And when they’re done they walk away and the game fades into ether. There’s no bronze division, or BK’s, or KD’s, or special armor, or any other manipulative crap to entice them to play. Halo 1 and 2 had this feel. You played the game for the sake of the game and there was no ulterior motive / incentive. Now you have reqs, armor, public KD ratios, etc. While all these things are great, they have been incorporated not as perks or additions to the game but as the actual incentive structure. I think this results in a lot of people who are playing the game for the wrong reasons and creates a disparity in expectations / priorities between players. Guys who worry about their KD don’t play the objective, guys who care about reqs are worried about dragging the game on for more RP points. Guys who are grinding for Achilles farm kids in warzone.
>
> If you want to be a truly balanced game and have people play it competitively and for the right reasons, you can’t make shiny toys and bragging stats part of the incentive structure. But that’s just my 2 cents. Still love playing every night.
Matchmaking = organized sports, pick up games = custom games. When you introduce organization, you get rankings and awards and there may even be stat tracking. When it’s just a couple of friends gathering to play, you lose that peripheral stuff. But at the heart of it all, there’s still competition and fun and all the great things we love about sport and games.
I’d agree OP. Playing years of competitive sports as a kid and up until a teenager probably have me more of a competitive drive. I love the competitive feeling of halo 5. I wish they would make some truly social modes for the people who don’t want to try hard every game they play. But as for me, arena competitiveness is where it’s at!
> 2533274848763524;16:
> > 2533274816628272;14:
> > > 2533274848763524;13:
> > > I feel Halo 5 is closest to H2/H3. We finally have a competitive feel back into Halo. I don’t understand why everyone thinks “Tryhards” are a bad thing. Is it so bad that somebody wants to play hard enough to win? If you’re not playing to win, then why are you playing at all? If your answer is " I just play to have fun. " then don’t complain when you lose.
> >
> >
> > The thing is H2 had fun playlists as well, it wasn’t all sweat sweat sweat. Social slayer, social objective, team objective, btb, rumble pit, etc,. were all just go in and have fun playing the game, when now it’s basically crappy grifball, which gets boring after 2 games. Warzone is not even fun anymore because of the teams thinking their warzone pros for some reason.
>
>
> I do agree that there needs to be more social playlists that somewhat mirror the current ones. I feel like it would filter the “competitive” and “social” player a little better. Regardless I’m really happy about the competitive nature of Halo 5.
Now I played D1 soccer/football as an undergrad and I can see the correlation between halo and sporting. The one issue I have with 5 is the inability of 343 to recognize a healthy balance between social and competitive halo. I think halo 3 really nailed this concept. I totally understand 343’s logic behind the lack of playlists at launch and now (as opposed to the past halos). The desire to steer players to warzone is a wise concept and it certainly made them some cash.