Thankfully the latest update by 343I has addressed the MCC once again and we are to expect a few changes to the playlist line up. Unfortunately still no word on them continuing to try and actually FIX the still apparent bugs in the MCC as promised by Bonnie Ross but at least there is an acknowledgement.
Now one of the playlist changes is the removal of Rumble Pit, the “least popular playlist”. Now this makes sense and I for one barely ever played Rumble Pit in the MCC. Note I said I barely played it in the MCC, in other Halo games however I played the heck out of it and others did too. I believe I can explain part of why it was so unpopular in the MCC.
Reason 1 first and foremost I believe is because it lacked Halo CE and Halo 2 classic in the rotation of games available in Rumble Pit. This meant that players of Rumble Pit are left to choose from Halo 2 Anniversary (with very very few maps), Halo 3 (which often had 8 people crammed into the smallest of maps with Assault rifle starts a lot of the time) and Halo 4 (some people absolutely refuse to play Halo 4 and would quit out if that got picked). For those of us who wanted that free for all insanity in Halo 2 Classic on Lockout or some chaotic fun in Halo CE on Chill Out were out of luck and would have to resort to custom games for that experience.
Reason 2 I believe is because Rumble Pit only allowed 1 person to jump into the playlist at a time where as in Halo Reach, Halo 3 and Halo 2 allowed you and your friends, up to 8 people to all play together in match made games. Many of us used this playlist either for warm ups for a group not quite ready to go into Team matches or for casual parties with people who didn’t only want to face off against just their friends, random opponents makes it interesting and fun. Some people have stated that lack of restricting it to one person per group for Rumble Pit will lead to groups " cheating". Well for one, no other game had this one player restriction in the unranked Rumble Pit playlist and plenty of people had a total blast going into it with a couple buddies. Add to that the fact that the MCC lacks an EXP system for Social playlists so there is almost no point to this group cheating that people refer to. Ontop of that, I’ve found that people that “team up” in Rumble Pit often lose because that just means that group has less targets (possible points) and I have more which usually ends up helping me win. The “group cheating” was never a problem before for this social playlist and should not have caused a 1 player restriction. People want to play with their friends!
Reason 3 is because Rumble Pit is unranked. Even if people want to take it seriously there is nothing aside from K/D to show for it. This also again makes the 1 player restriction pointless.
TLDR: In essence, 343i if you are to ever rotate Rumble Pit back in here are the changes that should be made: 1.) Include all the Halo games as possible options in Rumble Pit. Halo CE, Halo 2 Classic, Halo 2 Anniversary, Halo 3 and Halo 4.
2.) Open up the party restriction to allow for people to play with friends and set it so it has to find a minimum of 6 players and a max of 8 players or option 3.) Make it ranked so there is actually motivation to take it seriously or there is option 4.) Rotate in and out individual social 1 game Rumble Pit playlists like exclusively Halo CE Rumble Pit, then Halo 2 Classic Rumble Pit and so on. A lot less people will quit and a lot more people will play it.
What does everyone else think?
People aren’t playing it; it’s getting removed.
Edit: Here; it really shouldn’t be complicated. Relatively speaking, there are not many people playing this title 1.5 years after release. Slayer has always been the hallmark Halo gametype and commands the most people. They get the individual ranked playlists. Not enough people to spread the rumble pit population over individual ranked rumble playlists. So they have to keep them pooled in a crossgame playlist and even if you don’t like crossgame, if you like rumble pit, odds are that you’ll take what you can get over nothing at all. Still, that’s not enough to even sustain a social playlist. People simply aren’t playing Rumble Pit even when they’re being shoehorned into the only FFA option available. It’s going, going, gone (for now).
I laughed when I first saw Rumble Pit that they wouldn’t allow more than one player in the matchmaking game when it’s a social playlist.
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> People aren’t playing it; it’s getting removed.
>
> Edit: Here; it really shouldn’t be complicated. Relatively speaking, there are not many people playing this title 1.5 years after release. Slayer has always been the hallmark Halo gametype and commands the most people. They get the individual ranked playlists. Not enough people to spread the rumble pit population over individual ranked rumble playlists. So they have to keep them pooled in a crossgame playlist and even if you don’t like crossgame, if you like rumble pit, odds are that you’ll take what you can get over nothing at all. Still, that’s not enough to even sustain a social playlist. People simply aren’t playing Rumble Pit even when they’re being shoehorned into the only FFA option available. It’s going, going, gone (for now).
I still think that playlist lost all it’s potential as a result of being limited to 1 player per party and by nor having Halo 1 and 2 included as option. The latter is why I barely played. I had a 1 out of 3 chance of playing something tolerable (Halo 3)
Well, the unfortunate truth is that this GAME lost most of its potential by simply having 343s hands on it. I would have been much more interested in what Bungie would have potentially done, had they not moved on from the IP. That being said, I definitely think you make a good point. H2A and H4 are just laughably bad compared to the others…and that’s just my opinion, but it seems like this has been routinely reflected in the playlist changes. Halo 4 isn’t in the most popular playlist, Team Slayer and they’re removing Rumble Pit, which does emphasize Halo 4 and H2A.
Amazing that the common thing that 343 notices is that people don’t want to play their maps. The original trilogy strikes again.
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> Well, the unfortunate truth is that this GAME lost most of its potential by simply having 343s hands on it. I would have been much more interested in what Bungie would have potentially done, had they not moved on from the IP. That being said, I definitely think you make a good point. H2A and H4 are just laughably bad compared to the others…and that’s just my opinion, but it seems like this has been routinely reflected in the playlist changes. Halo 4 isn’t in the most popular playlist, Team Slayer and they’re removing Rumble Pit, which does emphasize Halo 4 and H2A.
>
> Amazing that the common thing that 343 notices is that people don’t want to play their maps. The original trilogy strikes again.
Agreed, 343i seems to not listen to what the people want and continues to drive their own vision which time and again is shown to drive more and more people away. That and their flat out lies and or broken promises.