I wasn’t expecting much with Bungie, to be honest, but with 343, I was at least hoping someone would acknowledge the existence of competitive players. As it stands now, we have one ranked playlist. One. This I find strange, as past Halo games have been defined by the inclusion of a broad selection of ranked playlists. Do you have any idea how unrewarding it is for skilled players to play “Competitive”? I play Double Team as my warm-up – or if I can’t find a game searching 1% Onyx (which happens quite often, sometimes for hours) – and I haven’t lost one out of my last 50 games. While winning is fun, it’s not why I play Halo. I play Halo for a challenge. And, frankly, having only one playlist which matches players based on their actual TruSkill has, over the past six months, gotten extremely old.
I’ve talked with hundreds of Arena players online, and I have never had anyone disagree with one fact: the Arena needs more playlists, starting with the reintroduction of Doubles Arena, the only playlist which had moderately sufferable search times for high-tier players. In fact, Doubles Arena was bringing in more players than Team Arena when it was removed and Team was left in. What’s up with that?
Next, we need Team Snipers, 6v6 Squad Battle, and Lone Wolves, as well as MLG (assuming the league approves).
Until something like this happens, a lot less competitive players are going to be playing Halo: Reach regularly.
This is a no-brainer and something I’ve really been hoping for. I hope they make some change for the new season but I’m not keeping my hopes up just because we haven’t heard anything yet and they’ve been focused on the conference and the TU. Some of these changes would not be difficult or time consuming though so you never know…
Of course having your rank show in all playlists as well as some Arena-based challenges would be the best improvement as that would keep the population healthy.
They have priorities. IF they do attempt to beef up the competitive crowd, they know they need address other issues first. Like Bloom, AA balance, maps and bugs. Focusing on the competitive aspect at this immediate point would be a bad move.
> They have priorities. IF they do attempt to beef up the competitive crowd, they know they need address other issues first. Like Bloom, AA balance, maps and bugs. Focusing on the competitive aspect at this immediate point would be a bad move.
The day a classic arena playlist is added will be the best day of my life.
I agree with all of the OP, 343i also need to put in v5 gametypes and maps as we’re still on v4… I think v5 hs been out for a good few months now. It’s a simple copy and paste as all gametypes + maps have been tested and are used in the Pro Circuit and for GB.
> > They have priorities. IF they do attempt to beef up the competitive crowd, they know they need address other issues first. Like Bloom, AA balance, maps and bugs. Focusing on the competitive aspect at this immediate point would be a bad move.
>
> The day a classic arena playlist is added will be the best day of my life.
The day Reach’s servers are canned and H3 returns to a solid population will actually be one of the best days of my life.
> I agree with all of the OP, 343i also need to put in v5 gametypes and maps as we’re still on v4… I think v5 hs been out for a good few months now. It’s a simple copy and paste as all gametypes + maps have been tested and are used in the Pro Circuit and for GB.
I’m afraid that was Bungie’s job, if they didn’t do it. Tough luck I’m afraid :/. Sorry.
Isn’t there a problem, though, in that we risk subdividing a limited population of Halo players into too many playlists with no hope of skill based matchmaking (or any other preference matchmaking) within the many small population playlists that result?
The expansion will bring in some more players, at least temporarily, but will offset those gains by subdividing them into even more playlists (new maps, various bloom or pistol options or whatever — all good, but won’t help the matchmaking algorithms very much).
How many variations of Team Slayer can this game really support? Is contraction even an option?
What are you talking about? 343i is giving us the option to play classic CE style gameplay, without bloom, bleed-through melee, faster movement speeds, AA nerfs, more competitve 4v4 maps, ect… they are giving us everything we wanted gameplay wise! More ranked playlists would be nice, but 343i is doing a WONDERFUL job in catering to the whole community so far =)
> > > They have priorities. IF they do attempt to beef up the competitive crowd, they know they need address other issues first. Like Bloom, AA balance, maps and bugs. Focusing on the competitive aspect at this immediate point would be a bad move.
> >
> > The day a classic arena playlist is added will be the best day of my life.
>
> The day Reach’s servers are canned and H3 returns to a solid population will actually be one of the best days of my life.
> Have patience. 343 wouldn’t apply a Title Update and not include something for the Competitive crowd. Have a little faith!
Is this really a title update discussion? I mean, unless I missed something, the last update to matchmaking was Bungie’s last one on July 12th. 343 hasn’t done anything yet in that regard, and it’s September.
The OP’s basic point (arena) is correct, although after Halofest I wouldn’t say that competitive gamers are being ignored.
> > Squad battle? No. Either move BTB (8v8) to ranked or just don’t have any big team arena playlists. Squad battle was a complete waste of time.
>
> A playlist without Armor Lock? A waste of time? O RLY?
>
> Now we just need to remove jet pack, and it’ll be perfect as far as the Vanilla Reach experience can go.
What?
Squad SLAYER is in Halo Reach.
Squad BATTLE was that piece of crap 6v6 playlist in Halo 3.
> I wasn’t expecting much with Bungie, to be honest, but with 343, I was at least hoping someone would acknowledge the existence of competitive players. As it stands now, we have one ranked playlist. One. This I find strange, as past Halo games have been defined by the inclusion of a broad selection of ranked playlists. Do you have any idea how unrewarding it is for skilled players to play “Competitive”? I play Double Team as my warm-up – or if I can’t find a game searching 1% Onyx (which happens quite often, sometimes for hours) – and I haven’t lost one out of my last 50 games. While winning is fun, it’s not why I play Halo. I play Halo for a challenge. And, frankly, having only one playlist which matches players based on their actual TruSkill has, over the past six months, gotten extremely old.
>
> I’ve talked with hundreds of Arena players online, and I have never had anyone disagree with one fact: the Arena needs more playlists, starting with the reintroduction of Doubles Arena, the only playlist which had moderately sufferable search times for high-tier players. In fact, Doubles Arena was bringing in more players than Team Arena when it was removed and Team was left in. What’s up with that?
>
> Next, we need Team Snipers, 6v6 Squad Battle, and Lone Wolves, as well as MLG (assuming the league approves).
>
> Until something like this happens, a lot less competitive players are going to be playing Halo: Reach regularly.
Ha I love you. I’ve been pushing for LW for quite some time… it was amazing in the beta<33
