The Orion Project
“In the Halo universe, the Orion Project was the precursor to the SPARTAN Program. It was humanity’s first attempt at augmenting soldiers to improve their performance. Sticking with the theme of Halo 4 unifying the multiplayer and single player experience, this is why I chose the name The Orion Project. But what exactly is The Orion Project? It’s a way for players to learn from one another and improve their play by regular practice and instruction with and from players of equal or greater skill; however, it will go much deeper than that, as The Orion Project will also feature a league system to foster the relationship between teacher and student that will use an ELO ranking system. Participation in the league is entirely optional, and you may come and go as you please. At it’s core, this is about improving your gameplay with others in the community.”
Although it’s not entirely finished, it’s at the stage where I require community support and opinion. The Orion Project is one of the first steps I’m taking in order to bridge the ludicrous and unwarranted divide within the Halo community. Halo is a video game and, in matchmaking, we all strive to do well and have fun. The Orion Project will allow players who need help to easily and efficiently seek it out from other members of the community. It also features a completely optional league that will use an ELO ranking system to allow you to keep track of your progress and visually see improvement. For those that aren’t aware, the ELO ranking system is used in Chess and is the mathematically basis for the system used in Halo 3. The Orion Project will continue for the remainder of Halo:Reach and, following a reset of the rating when Halo 4 launches, will continue with that.
The maps and settings used in this league will be decided upon by the community, and that’s where I need the assistance. I need to know what the majority of the community thinks is best. So please leave your feedback and opinions below so that we can discuss this. And feel free to join the discussion over at The Halo Council as that is where the information will be kept. However, for those not interested in the league, posting the proper forms found in that thread here will also allow you to put onto the list for regular assistance.
Cheers!
Little bump of an update.
So far The Orion Project has gotten quite a bit of interest and is more or less ready to go,
but the league still needs some work as far as the settings.
For maps and gametypes, the list being considered is currently:
MLG Zealot - Slayer, maybe Oddball?
New Sanctuary - Slayer, maybe Oddball?
Old Synapse - Slayer, maybe Oddball?
Matchmaking Select - Slayer
For those that aren’t aware, we’re talking Zealot used in MLG settings (lifts blocked), the new Sanctuary remake that is slightly condensed, the original Synapse in matchmaking, and the last version of Select to be seen in matchmaking.
For the settings, we’re leaning towards no bloom and trying to incorporate Sprint with altered movement speeds/jump heights/etc, in order to make it have a bit of a Halo 4 feel to it. Would love help in testing these settings, suggestions, map ideas/suggestions, etc. Especially if you know your way around Forge.
Will be doing the first round of settings testings tonight at 10pm hopefully.
Probably just doing a lot of Zealot Slayer and tweaking things until the settings feel good,
then we’ll look more at maps and game types on them.
Another little update.
The settings have been tested and more or less approved.
It features Zero Bloom, Sprint, slightly increases movement speed/jump height/gravity…
The DMR is a 4shot kill, 2shot melee kill, and 6 body shot kill.
Shield and Health Regen is at 200% to lessen the time between battles.
We have not noticed any adverse effect with other weapons like rockets and sniper.
It’s been liked by those that helped test it and those that never tested it and said that it feels like a good mix between default and MLG play/settings, which is exactly what I was going for.
We’ve also begun to look at maps which so far feature MLG Zealot (blocked lifts to space), Select, Synapse, Sanctuary t8 (a smaller proportioned Sanctuary with some cosmetic changes currently being tested at THC) and another map made by the creator of Select, called Despair. All of these can be found in my fileshare as well as a place holder for the Neutral Flag gametype I’d like to test.
For full details on all of this stuff, click the link in the OP to check out the thread over at The Halo Council.
Why not 85% bloom? Its very close to ZB anyway, KT should be about the same while punishing trigger mashers a bit. And a few extra weapons maybe. Differentiate yourselves from MLG and have a bit of imagination that they never did.
> Why not 85% bloom? Its very close to ZB anyway, KT should be about the same while punishing trigger mashers a bit. And a few extra weapons maybe. Differentiate yourselves from MLG and have a bit of imagination that they never did.
When we started testing, I had two identical game types except one was TU and one was ZB.
I went into this wanting to not only make the settings appealing to those accustomed to MLG and default,
but also similar to how Halo 4 seems to be. So I wanted to include Sprint.
Sprint has two major flaws - the infamous “herp a derp” or Sprint beatdowns, and using Sprint to flee from a bad situation that should have otherwise resulted in your death, or panic buttoning.
In Halo 4, they’re adding the stutter effect which solves both of these pretty well.
But we don’t have that option here, so my issue was “How to I balance sprint to prevent these?”
First was bleed through for melees, which is having your melee damage do a fixed amount and possibly damage your health while depleting your shields. As far as I’m aware, there isn’t an 85% game type that has this feature. Also, we noticed that in the ZB games, battles were over quickly and while TU battles could end just as quickly, they were more prone to drawn out fights over longer distances. And I mean REALLY drawn out…
So, for the moment, we’re settled on ZB because it balances the best with Sprint.
It allows you to kill people who are trying to flee, and also gives bleed through to the melees.
It also seems to have a smaller/faster kill time window which changes power weapons from trump cards to more specialized.
For example, you pretty much have to sit back and take your one snipe shot and move, otherwise you’ll get shot to ribbons if you miss.
> > Why not 85% bloom? Its very close to ZB anyway, KT should be about the same while punishing trigger mashers a bit. And a few extra weapons maybe. Differentiate yourselves from MLG and have a bit of imagination that they never did.
>
> When we started testing, I had two identical game types except one was TU and one was ZB.
> I went into this wanting to not only make the settings appealing to those accustomed to MLG and default,
> but also similar to how Halo 4 seems to be. So I wanted to include Sprint.
>
> Sprint has two major flaws - the infamous “herp a derp” or Sprint beatdowns, and using Sprint to flee from a bad situation that should have otherwise resulted in your death, or panic buttoning.
>
> In Halo 4, they’re adding the stutter effect which solves both of these pretty well.
> But we don’t have that option here, so my issue was “How to I balance sprint to prevent these?”
>
> First was bleed through for melees, which is having your melee damage do a fixed amount and possibly damage your health while depleting your shields. As far as I’m aware, there isn’t an 85% game type that has this feature. Also, we noticed that in the ZB games, battles were over quickly and while TU battles could end just as quickly, they were more prone to drawn out fights over longer distances. And I mean REALLY drawn out…
>
> So, for the moment, we’re settled on ZB because it balances the best with Sprint.
> It allows you to kill people who are trying to flee, and also gives bleed through to the melees.
> It also seems to have a smaller/faster kill time window which changes power weapons from trump cards to more specialized.
>
> For example, you pretty much have to sit back and take your one snipe shot and move, otherwise you’ll get shot to ribbons if you miss.
Fair enough. I thought it was a case of picking ZB on principle and whacking everything on 200% and being all like “there now is competitive lol” like people have tended to do before, but it sounds like you trialled a few different options first. I hope you have a good tourny.
Its still pretty far from the default game though with the damage tweaks and the bleedthrough etc. Not even MLG uses a 4 shot kill. Seems a bit antithetical to the goals of THC which is to bring competitive halo in from the cold and to the wider community as i understand it. I hope THC succeeds in that goal if thats what they really want, it remains to be seen how it pans out.
> Fair enough. I thought it was a case of picking ZB on principle and whacking everything on 200% and being all like “there now is competitive lol” like people have tended to do before, but it sounds like you trialled a few different options first. I hope you have a good tourny.
>
> Its still pretty far from the default game though with the damage tweaks and the bleedthrough etc. Not even MLG uses a 4 shot kill. Seems a bit antithetical to the goals of THC which is to bring competitive halo in from the cold and to the wider community as i understand it. I hope THC succeeds in that goal if thats what they really want, it remains to be seen how it pans out.
Not at all - I was hoping to use TU instead, actually, to keep more in line with the new standard Reach experience. The main issue is Sprint. When I think of this idea and how I want it to pan out, I’m more concerned with Halo 4, which has sprint as a default mechanic. And, for all intents and purposes, Sprint is more or less a default mechanic in Reach. I wanted to make Sprint work in Reach as best it could, and went from there.
Although a 5 shot kill could be worth testing, the big issue is Sprint. While a 5shot kill might work in Halo 4, it’s because Sprint is altered - primarily with the stutter. A faster kill time is, in my opinion, almost required to prevent abuse of Sprint.
Version 1.3 just came out, and I think we are extremely close to a finalized set to allow this league to begin.