The Initial Playlist Lineup

Games Halo 5: Guardians
1

A GOOD FIRST IMPRESSION IS KEY: I can’t emphasis enough the importance of having a deep initial playlist offering as well as map offering considering the game’s population will be at its highest; if the Matchmaking system isn’t completely overhauled in Halo 5 as to its inner workings then I think the below offering covers a lot of what I think people will expect to be available and possibly plus some.

  1. Big Team Slayer: A 8v8 slayer based objective playlist that’ll also lock-in team sizes of 7v7 or even 6v6; contains medium to heavy vehicle use.

Variants:

[/li]- Standard

  • Infinity
  • Regicide
  • Heavies - An emphasis on powerful vehicles and power weapons.
  1. Big Team Skirmish: A 8v8 non-slayer based objective playlist that’ll also lock-in team sizes of 7v7 or even 6v6; contains medium to heavy vehicle use.

Variants:

  • Multi-Flag
  • Extraction (2 or 3 site)
  • Dominion (3 or 5 base)
  • Assault (Neutral Bomb)
  1. Capture the Flag: A 5v5 flag based (non-slayer) objective playlist that’ll also lock-in team sizes of 4v4; may include light vehicle use or be infantry only.

Variants:

  • Multi-Flag
  • Multi-Flag Infinity
  • 1-Flag - Attacker vs Defender style; multiple rounds.
  1. Extractions: A 5v5 extraction based (non-slayer) objective playlist that’ll also lock-in team sizes of 4v4; may include light vehicle use or be infantry only.

Variants:

  • Extraction (1 or 2 site)
  • Seek & Extract - An elimination and multi-round based variant; similar to Call of Duty’s SnD game-type.
  • Conversion - A multi-round based linear progression variant; shares similarities to Reach’s Invasion, plus Battlefield’s Rush and Conquest modes.
  1. Territories: A 5v5 territorial based (non-slayer) objective playlist that’ll also lock-in team sizes of 4v4; may include light vehicle use or be infantry only.

Variants:

  • Lockdown
  • 3-Plot
  • King of the Hill
  1. Action Sack: A 5v5 unorthodox slayer based objective playlist that’ll also lock-in team sizes of 4v4; may include mongooses or be infantry only.

Variants:

  • Fiesta
  • Mini-Slayer
  • MIA - A twist on Headhunters making it similar to Call of Duty’s Kill Confirm game-type. Deaths provide team oriented skulls; the skulls must then be picked-up to either add to the team score or to deny/prevent the opposition from acquiring a score. No deposits involved!
  • Tug-of-War - Kills gain points, dying losses points, but killing sprees and exterminator award bonus points.
  • Rock n’ Rail
  • Snapshot
  1. Team Slayer: A 4v4 conventional slayer based objective playlist that’ll also lock-in team sizes of 3v3; may include light vehicles or be infantry only.

Variants:

  • Standard
  • Infinity
  • Pro - Similar to the standard slayer experience except for an ally only radar.
  1. Legendary Slayer: A 4v4 classic slayer based objective playlist that’ll also lock-in team sizes of 3v3; may include light vehicles or be infantry only.

Variants:

  • Retro - AR/Mag, BR/Mag, or DMR/Mag optional starts.
  • Legend - BR/AR starts.
  • Hardcore - BR/AR starts, no radar, and map pick-ups limited to human only.
  1. Snipers: A 4v4 sniper based (slayer) objective playlist that’ll also lock-in team sizes of 3v3; may include mongooses or be infantry only.

Variants:

  • Standard (Sniper only start)
  • Mags and Snips
  • Shotty Snipers
  1. SWAT: A 4v4 no-shields based (slayer and non-slayer) objective playlist that’ll also lock-in team sizes of 3v3; infantry only.

Variants:

  • Human SWAT
  • Alien SWAT
  • Lightning Flag
  1. Ricochet: A 4v4 non-slayer based objective playlist that’ll also lock-in team sizes of 3v3; infantry only.

Variants:

  • Standard
  • Pro
  1. Grifball: A 4v4 non-slayer based objective playlist that’ll also lock-in team sizes of 3v3; infantry only.

Variants:

  • Standard
  • Pro
  1. Throwdown: A 4v4 slayer and non-slayer-based objective playlist that’ll also lock-in team sizes of 3v3; infantry only.

Variants:

  • Slayer
  • Multi-Flag
  • Ricochet
  • Extraction (1 site)
  1. Doubles: A 2v2 slayer and non-slayer based objective playlist; infantry only.

Variants:

  • Standard Slayer
  • Legend Slayer (BR/AR starts)
  • Neutral Flag
  1. Multi-Team: A 2v2v2v2 slayer and non-slayer based objective playlist; may include light vehicles or be infantry only.

Variants:

  • Infinity Slayer
  • KotH
  • Lowball - Each player on the team needs to hold the oddball for a set amount of time in order to win the match.
  • Rocket Race
  1. Lone Wolf: A 1v5 slayer based objective playlist; infantry only. (group/party restricted)

Variants:

  • Standard
  • Legend (BR/AR starts)
  • Infinity
  • Regicide
  1. Rumble Pit: A 1v7 unorthodox slayer and non-slayer based objective playlist; infantry only.

Variants:

  1. Race: A 1v9 race based (non-slayer) objective playlist; competitive vehicles only.

Variants:

  • General
  • Terrain
  • Motorcross
  1. Flood: A 1v11 infection based (slayer) objective playlist; may include light vehicle use, but likely to be infantry only.

Variants:

  • Standard (Infection)
  • Hivemind
  • Safe Havens
  • Save One Bullet
  1. SPECIAL PLAYLISTS: Sort of rotational as these change or come and go.

Possibilities:

  • Global Challenge/Championship Contests
  • DLC Specific
  • Community/Forge Stuff
  • Rocket Hogs
2

Why not just consolidate CTF, Extraction, and Territories into one playlist.
That being Team Objective.

Also, Territories is much more fun in Big Team.

As for the Big Team split, I don’t mind.
That is, IF the population is high.
But only if…

3

I agree with the guy above me and what about Invasion.

Other than leaving out Invasion you have my full support for this list, because IMO It’s all about the game…types.

4

You have way too many.

An Objective Playlist could incorporate all the Objective Game types.

And BTB Slayer and Skirmish should also be combined.

If we could have 4 voting slots, it would allow for more options.

Too many playlist is a bad thing. This I think is biggest issue with REACH and Halo 4.

Halo 3, had this perfect, and it also had RANKED and SOCIAL.

5

> it also had RANKED and SOCIAL.

Quite possibly the most important thing Halo 5 needs to be successful.

6

There are far too many playlists here, and Ranked/Social would need to be included as well.

I think Big Team should go bigger, and Race should be introduced. Infinity should be replaced with Traditional Slayer, with all the innovations which Halo 5 will hopefully bring.

Overall, they should focus on having the playlists ready by launch (within reason), and keep things as simple as is necessary.

7

> Why not just consolidate CTF, Extraction, and Territories into one playlist.
> That being Team Objective.

That’s not a bad idea as the game ages and the population drops, but why have the extra consolidation early on when the population will be at it highest?

> As for the Big Team split, I don’t mind.
> That is, IF the population is high.
> But only if…

I can’t envision the population not being extremely high initially. I believe we’ll be looking at similar population numbers as to what Halo 4 generated within the first week of its release… probably between 300 - 400 thousand.

> …what about Invasion.

I think the Conversion game-type will prove to be a more than effective replacement for Invasion.

> You have way too many.

If we’re talking about the current state of Halo 4 then yes, but we’re talking about what should be available at Halo 5’s release.

> An Objective Playlist could incorporate all the Objective Game types.

Yes of course it could, but it would also potentially bury some game-types making them less accessible; meaning it’ll be more difficult for people to play what they want when they want and why do that during the initial release of the game? Consolidation makes sense as the game ages, but only a minimum amount of consolidation should occur for the initial offering.

> And BTB Slayer and Skirmish should also be combined.

You’re kidding right? Those two game-types involve completely different player strategies/desires/mindsets; and while I don’t think it’s a horrid idea to combine them later on as the game ages they certainly shouldn’t be combined initially.

> If we could have 4 voting slots, it would allow for more options.

True; and if we had a veto option we’d be granted access to even more options. Plus, if the game switched to a drop-in/drop-out matchmaking system similar to Battlefield 3 everyone could potentially choose exactly what they wanted to play when they wanted to play it, but I’m simply going off what we’ve experienced from the previous games thus far and I’ll assume that a veto option returns, but I think it’s not ideal to have that in order to justify having a deep offering of game-types in one playlist, but instead to provide better opportunities to choose different maps.

> Too many playlist is a bad thing. This I think is biggest issue with REACH and Halo 4.

Yes and No. Too many playlists can be a bad thing when the population is very low and is spread out to thinly because of the quantity of playlists, but I’d absolutely argue that too few playlists can be even more detrimental when the population is healthy. I think it was one of the biggest problems with Halo 4 initially. I can think of at least 15 people on my friends list alone who stopped playing Halo 4 early on specifically due to the game not having what they wanted to play available.

> There are far too many playlists here, and Ranked/Social would need to be included as well.

I completely disagree. I lay out why I think it’s not too many playlists above, but I’ll just link my reasoning as to why Ranked/Social isn’t necessary since it’s a pretty long explanation.

> I think Big Team should go bigger, and Race should be introduced.

I think a bigger Big Team would be really cool and a nice step forward for the franchise, but for now I’m basing everything off of what we’ve experienced in all the past games.

If many of the bigger team maps are conceptualized and designed with the thought of being able to Race on them within a matchmaking format then I think it’ll become my new favorite playlist.

> Infinity should be replaced with Traditional Slayer, with all the innovations which Halo 5 will hopefully bring.

What do you consider Traditional and what do you consider Infinity?

How I differentiate between them and what I would consider the new standard -

Infinity: reasonably equivalent custom loadout classes, personal ordinance drops (though modified from Halo 4 to provide a more relevantly balanced form of gameplay), initial ordinance drops per spawn locations, and a minor amount of global random drops within the neutral territory between the spawn locations.

Traditional: pre-established loadout, no personal ordinance drops, and only initial ordinance drops.

New Standard: reasonably equivalent custom loadout classes, no personal ordinance drops, initial ordinance drops, and maybe a slight amount of randomization within the neutral territory but only on large maps within the big team games.

I wouldn’t mind seeing all three experiences return as they all provide a different flare and flavor to the game. I know my preference leans toward what I would consider the newer standard, but I too am looking forward to what Halo 5 will present.

> Overall, they should focus on having the playlists ready by launch (within reason), and keep things as simple as is necessary.

Yes the playlist must be fully realized and polished by release (within reason), but I don’t think they need to simplify things to much at release as it’s the best opportunity to put everything out on the table and observe how the consumer base reacts or diversifies themselves amongst all the options. Basically it presents a chance to truly observe the full consumer-base’s tendencies and desires.

8

Rumble Pit: 6 player FFA

Team Doubles: 2v2

Team Slayer: 4v4

Team Tactical: 5v5 (SWAT, Snipers, etc)

Team Objective: 6v6

Squad Battles: 10v10

Warzone: 16v16

Grifball: 4v4

And just give us the option to toggle CSR on and off (ie play socially or competitively).

9

> I completely disagree. I lay out why I think it’s not to many playlists above, but I’ll just link my reasoning as to why Ranked/Social isn’t necessary since it’s a pretty long explanation.

OK I read the link and from what I can gather, the relevant part is your opinion that Social/Ranked wasn’t for the purpose of providing appropriate places for when you want to work on your rank, and when you don’t.

Why are we to assume that this wasn’t a part of the purpose of Ranked/Social divide? And more importantly, it’s what the divide actually did well that matters, and providing a split between competitive and social play styles absolutely WAS one of them.

You may not see it as necessary based on how much it impacts your personal experience with the game, but that says nothing about how well a Social/Ranked divide worked for Halo for everyone else.

Whether it is important for you or not, the divide served as a perfect split between apathy, and competitiveness. It allowed for both without players having to worry about their play style impacting one or the other.

> What do you consider Traditional and what do you consider Infinity?

Traditional refers to core gameplay of the original trilogy.
Infinity refers to the Infinity settings in Halo 4.

> Yes the playlist must be fully realized and polished by release (within reason), but I don’t think they need to simplify things to much at release as it’s the best opportunity to put everything out on the table and observe how the consumer base reacts or diversifies themselves amongst all the options. Basically it presents a chance to truly observe the full consumer-base’s tendencies and desires.

I agree that they might not need to simplify things quite as much at release due to the large population, but I still see your suggestion as a little much.

10

> OK I read the link and from what I can gather, the relevant part is your opinion that Social/Ranked wasn’t for the purpose of providing appropriate places for when you want to work on your rank, and when you don’t.
>
> Why are we to assume that this wasn’t a part of the purpose of Ranked/Social divide? And more importantly, it’s what the divide actually did well that matters, and providing a split between competitive and social play styles absolutely WAS one of them.
>
> You may not see it as necessary based on how much it impacts your personal experience with the game, but that says nothing about how well a Social/Ranked divide worked for Halo for everyone else.
>
> Whether it is important for you or not, the divide served as a perfect split between apathy, and competitiveness. It allowed for both without players having to worry about their play style impacting one or the other.

My opinion is based on the belief that all the playlists are competitive in nature; this is because the essence of the game centers around winning or losing matches. Sure there are positive and negative silver linings in outcomes that either finish out as wins or losses, but generally speaking the major fun factor comes from defeating your relatively competitive opponent. In other words fun and competition are relative, not mutually exclusive.

Now to what degree of personal focus people wish to put into the competition can surely vary and by splitting the playlists up under the guise of so-called competitive and social playlists a clear and visual divide is indeed established, but <mark>I still know that having a behind the scenes option to alter the matchmaking search’s settings (under personal preference settings that mimic the internal differences between split playlists) and in-turn ensure that a lessening of impact or influence on the calculated (visual) skill levels occurs when looser skill matching is selected (aka the social-like setting) the system will ultimately provide a similar result</mark>; yet, with much better matchmaking experiences overall to the majority thanks to reducing the amount of unnecessary user base fracturing.

> Traditional refers to core gameplay of the original trilogy.
> Infinity refers to the Infinity settings in Halo 4.

Yeah, but I’d argue that Halo 4 managed to provide core gameplay to the original trilogy minus some of the over-the-top randomness that was introduced through PODs and having only random global ordinances (at least initially); yet, I believe many people would disagree with me (you included I assume) – some of them would say that sprint, flinch, ordinances, AAs, tactical packages, support upgrades, and loadouts in general are all violations of that traditional sense or core gameplay of the franchise… or some particular combination of these. I believe based on past posts that I’ve read from you I think you fall into that category, correct? I can’t remember if it was all of those things for you or some specific combination; nevertheless, it’s all just our opinions. We’ll just have to wait and see what 343i decides to present with Halo 5.

> I agree that they might not need to simplify things quite as much at release due to the large population, but I still see your suggestion as a little much.

I don’t know if it really is too much considering Halo 4 eventually was able to provide a wide-ish selection of playlists when it got up to 17 and that was after the population had dropped down to 40-50 thousand. Unfortunately, as other issues existed and the fact that the game was aging (facing new competition for a player’s time) the population gradually dwindled down until settling or plateauing off into the 10-30 thousand range where there were certainly going to be difficulties in providing an ideal matchmaking experience with that number of playlist options. Yes, too many playlists with a low population in many ways only serves to thin out the population and dilute the playlists, but I think it is worth while to note that having all those options also probably helped maintain and keep a number of players around too; so, when it comes to consolidating for the sake of improved matchmaking experiences careful consideration has to go into it because it’ll come at a cost of further losing a percentage of the population.

The thing is I’m also aware that I haven’t really introduced to much in regards to new game-type experiences and who knows what new innovations might make possible so I’m sure the actual playlist would either require even additional playlists or some of the playlists/game-types I’ve laid out above will have to be consolidated or sadly be removed. Personally, as much as I’d love for there to be a Race playlist I’m not sure if it’ll hold up very well, especially long-term, so I can see that one being replaced with some new experience – maybe it’s actually used as a rotational or a weekend playlist with a select few others. I could also see another consolidation in regards to the main slayer playlist similar to what we have now instead of the two playlists (Team Slayer & Legendary Slayer) I have laid out above, but overall I just want to know that most of these game-type experiences that I hope and kind of expect to be available will be fairly easily accessible to play come release instead of buried with several other similar types or completely different types of experiences or even worse not offered at all or to have too many on a rotational basis to start (like Halo 4 did).

11

> My opinion is based on the belief that all the playlists are competitive in nature; this is because the essence of the game centers around winning or losing matches. Sure there are positive and negative silver linings in outcomes that either finish out as wins or losses, but generally speaking the major fun factor comes from defeating your relatively competitive opponent. In other words fun and competition are relative, not mutually exclusive.

Any type of game where players are competing, is indeed competitive by definition. But that does not mean that all types of gameplay allow for the same competitive skill gap.

I still believe you’re missing my point. Ranked allows for a place for players who are trying to contribute to their rank, while social allows for a place where players can play apathetically without worrying about how that will impact their rank.

> Now to what degree of personal focus people wish to put into the competition can surely vary and by splitting the playlists up under the guise of so-called competitive and social playlists a clear and visual divide is indeed established, but I still know that having a behind the scenes option to alter the matchmaking search’s settings (under personal preference settings that mimic the internal differences between split playlists) and in-turn lessen the impact on a calculated (visual) skill levels the system will ultimately provide a similar result; yet, with a much better matchmaking experience overall to the majority thanks to reducing the amount of unnecessary user base fracturing.

Don’t get me wrong, I love community members such as yourself who actively think of ideas and ways around problems, but I still don’t think this appropriately replaces ranked.
Players would still have to worry about their rank. Also, competitive players wouldn’t want to have to play lesser skilled players every time they didn’t feel like playing towards their rank.

> Yeah, but I’d argue that Halo 4 managed to provide core gameplay to the original trilogy minus some of the over-the-top randomness that was introduced through PODs and having only random global ordinances (at least initially); yet, I believe many people would disagree with me (you included I assume) – some of them would say that sprint, flinch, ordinances, AAs, tactical packages, support upgrades, and loadouts in general are all violations of that traditional sense or core gameplay of the franchise… or some particular combination of these. I believe based on past posts that I’ve read from you I think you fall into that category, correct? I can’t remember if it was all of those things for you or some specific combination; nevertheless, it’s all just our opinions. We’ll just have to wait and see what 343i decides to present with Halo 5.

I often come across as argumentative, but I’m going to take special care not to sound that way with what I’m about to say, because I really don’t mean it in a nasty way and it could easily come across that way:

If you think that core gameplay is all down to our opinions, or down to what we personally like about the game, then you have a misunderstanding of what core gameplay is.
I understand that people may not feel that features such as sprint and Personal Ordnance are bad for gameplay, but that is entirely separate to whether or not it is in keeping with core gameplay of the original Halo trilogy.
I believe that what you’re actually getting at with what you said above, is that you personally do not think that the new features diminish the experience, and that you enjoy them. I have no problems with that.

> I don’t know if it really is too much considering Halo 4 eventually was able to provide a wide-ish selection of playlists when it got up to 17 and that was after the population had dropped down to 40-50 thousand. Unfortunately, as other issues existed and the fact that the game was aging (facing new competition for a player’s time) the population gradually dwindled down until settling or plateauing off into the 10-30 thousand range where there were certainly going to be difficulties in providing an ideal matchmaking experience with that number of playlist options. Yes, too many playlists will a low population in many ways only serves to thin out the population and dilute the playlists, but I think it is worth while to note that having all those options also probably helped maintain and keep a number of players around too; so, when it comes to consolidating for the sake of improved matchmaking experiences careful consideration has to go into it because it’ll come at a cost of further losing a percentage of the population.

Yeah that’s all fair enough. At the end of the day, we would have to see it in action to really get a clear picture of how many they could get away with at the start of the games life.

12

20 Different playlist’s that’s a TON
I would prefer like 12 that are set up nice and balanced

all playlist should look for

party size vs party size