The Skilled Player should kill the Less Skilled Player - Community Discussion

Games Other Halo
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> > NO, THE FACT IS:
> >
> > Bloom affects player A the same as it affects player B.
> >
> > So the player with more skill will win every time.
> >
> > /thread
>
> By your logic, if players A and B are flipping a coin, the player who quesses right is more skilled? That’s just false logic. You see, the bloom affects both players, but how it affects is different. If I spam, my shots can go wild, but my shots can also hit. In this case, the player with more luck wins the situation and everyone knows that luck is not skill.
>
> If we have player A spamming and player B pacing. Player A wins the situation by spamming seven shots and hitting five whilst player B gets perfect four hits, but simply doesn’t have time to land any more shots. Does this mean player A is a better shooter? And as FPS games are alot about shooting, does this mean player A is the better player? No, it only means player A got an unfair kill just by spamming.
>
> People who defend bloom fail to see the whole picture, it’s not just about that it affects both players, it’s not about that the pacing player will be more accurate, it’s not about that pacing will always win at long range, it’s not about that spamming is the only viable method at close range. There is no line where pacing becomes more useful than spamming, there is no magical way to win 100% of the time by pacing your shots against a spammer at mid range. There is only the fact that the spammer can get lucky. It doesn’t matter does it happen often, it doesn’t matter does it happen 1, 2, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, or 40% of the time, only thing that matters is that it happens enough for it to be noticeable.
>
> You can always try to convince me that a mechanic that gives fairly noticeable amount of random outcomes is better than a mechanic that gives little to no amount of random outcomes, but you will always be wrong. No power in this universe can transform luck into skill. You can always live inside your own little part of the huge universe that is gameplay mechanics, never seeing the whole picture, but that won’t change the truth, it can only hide the truth from you.

Yes, bloom adds a small amount of randomness to gameplay, but many people blow it completely out of proportion. A lot of opponents of bloom use the analogy of a “coin flip,” implying (even if they don’t directly say it) that luck accounts for 50% and skill accounts for 50%, which is simply not true.

Before I get into any debate, I will ask anyone that believes bloom removes most or all skill from the game to watch the MLG matches that 343 has been posting the last several weeks. As professionals, I consider these players to be the most “skilled” people at this game. In these matches, where players that understand the bloom mechanic better than most, if not all, the people on this forum, the “randomness” of bloom is almost never a factor. I personally believe that any of these players could beat me at any range, whether or not I spam my shots, because they understand the mechanic better than me.

The problem is the argument, laid out in the title of this thread. How can you tell that someone is more or less skilled than you just by looking at them. Even if their stats are better or worse than yours, they could be having a good day, or you could be having a bad day. Just because you have played more than them or your k/d is better, doesn’t mean that you are more skilled.

In my experience, when facing people that I know are less skilled than me, as evidenced by other Halo titles, I still win by similar margins. Relative skill is a hard thing to determine by one match of Halo. Perhaps the person was actually better than you at those three seconds of time.

How many people that argue this actually go into theater mode and break down the fights where the “less skilled player” wins? When I do this, generally it is the fact that I missed a shot that I thought I had landed, the other player used more effective cover than I, or they were using their scope, making it seem like their faster pacing was “spam,” and that their hits were just luck.

I’m sure you can find several documented incidents where luck was clearly the winning factor, but out of the millions of DMR kills that have occured since release, the percentage of luck kills is far smaller than you make it out to be.

And speaking of luck, I wasn’t aware that all other Halo games completely excluded luck. From what I can remember, uncontrollable things like BR spread, host, and bullet magnetism added a fair amount of luck to each of the previous games.

Conclusion: Bloom is not a perfect mechanic, but such a thing has never and will never exist in any First Person Shooter. Hopefully 343 will tweak it slightly to make the few luck kills disappear, but in any case, the more skilled player will still win the vast majority of the time.

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> NO, THE FACT IS:
>
> Bloom affects player A the same as it affects player B.
>
> So the player with more skill will win every time.
>
> /thread

and you wonder why no one takes you seriously. you are either incredibly oblivious to the topic at hand, or you are trolling.

yes, the bloom for my DMR is the same for yours. the problem lies within battles where 1 person is spamming, whilst the other person is pacing. in these situations, the spammer will lose the majority of the time (and rightfully so, as bloom makes pacing optimal at mid range). the spammer DOES have a chance to ‘luck out’, or win on occasion, which is what many people have trouble with understanding.

the game wants you to optimally pace your shots, and observe the mechanic of bloom, but it also rewards people who do not pace at all, and do not observe the mechanic of bloom some of the time. this is the biggest gameplay mechanic contradiction i have seen in a halo game.

ive said this about a billion times but:

IF YOU SPAM AT MID RANGE AND WIN, YOU DIDNT SHOOT BETTER, YOU GOT LUCKY.

using the facts that you have used (spamming beats pacing 26% of the time), what you are saying is that someone makes a conscious decision to shoot in a way that will make them lose damn near 3/4ths of the time, and when they get a kill they are the one who shot better? LAUGHABLE.

here are some questions that, quite frankly, just decimate your logic on bloom being ‘fine’:

why should the person observing the mechanics lose to the person making no attempt to?

if bloom isnt broken, why is it being fixed in the title update?

if bloom isnt broken, why do roughly a BAZILLION people dislike it?

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> removed wall of text

Great post all around. Nice to see that someone is also trying to look at the issue outside the realm of player “skill.” I agree bloom doesn’t mess things up as much as people may imply, but as you said it is not a perfect mechanic either.

It’s just the simple fact that the possibility of a stray bullet giving someone a lucky kill exists that gets people upset. It has little to do with player skill if you ask me.

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> IF YOU SPAM AT MID RANGE AND WIN, YOU DIDNT SHOOT BETTER, YOU GOT LUCKY.

And if bloom was just taken out of the game completely the better shooter would win in that case any and every time, hence the uproar over bloom.

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> > IF YOU SPAM AT MID RANGE AND WIN, YOU DIDNT SHOOT BETTER, YOU GOT LUCKY.
>
> And if bloom was just taken out of the game completely the better shooter would win in that case any and every time, hence the uproar over bloom.

yep. bloom itself isnt that bad of a concept, as it COULD add a LOT of skill gap, AND depth to the game. unfortunately it was implemented terribly, so we see public backlash because its so obviously atrocious to many people.

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Having to lead your shots from mid to long range in Halo 3 messed me up way more than bloom ever will. I never got used to that having played Halo 2 so damn much. Reach’s bloom is not this broken system everyone makes it out to be. People who complain about it are just spamming bk’s who can’t get the mechanic down correctly.

327

> Having to lead your shots from mid to long range in Halo 3 messed me up way more than bloom ever will. I never got used to that having played Halo 2 so damn much. Reach’s bloom is not this broken system everyone makes it out to be. People who complain about it are just spamming bk’s who can’t get the mechanic down correctly.

Again, skill isn’t the issue so callign people BK’s isn’t going to accomplish anything.

The issue is you can test the bloom with another player and kill them, let’s say 50 times at the same distance by spamming your shots as fast as you can. What will happen is a handful of 5 shot kills, a bunch of 6 and 7 shot kills, and a few 8+ shot kills. THAT is the problem. The fact that you can do the same thing any number of times and you can get very different results is what people have a problem with.

It’s not that it happens a lot. It’s not that the more skilled player loses on occasion. It’s the small element of chance that can screw you over, even if it is on rare occasion people don’t like it and it’s not necessary.

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Halo: CE was fun to play because it was fast-paced, simple, fairly balanced, and exciting. Halo: Reach doesn’t satisfy any of those four qualities.

One of the main problems in my opinion is the slowing down of the game in each successive release. (Note: If you think there was bloom on the Halo: CE pistol you’re wrong. There was only bloom if you held down the trigger, but you could get the same rate of fire with no bloom by tapping it quickly. That’s the way bloom should be; it punishes someone for holding down the trigger.) I keep seeing a bunch of discussion about the original Halo pistol being a 3 shot weapon and now the DMR is a 5 shot weapon, but I don’t really think that’s completely correct. While technically those weapons can kill in 3 and 5 shots respectively, how often did you see people getting 3 shot kills with the pistol? With the faster movement speed and higher jumping, 3 shot kills(Halo: CE montages tend to feature snipes, sticks, three shot kills, and multikills) took a lot more skill than 5 shot kills do now. Additionally the melee attack was way weaker so it led to more shooting even at close range instead of just running up to try to double melee someone. Finally, the assault rifle has been completely destroyed for some reason. The AR was actually a useful weapon in Halo: CE, and pros would use it.

All of these changes lead to a much smaller skill gap, which is frustrating for everyone.

In Halo: CE unskilled players could have a blast just running around killing each other without even picking up any nonstarting weapons. The pistol was forgiving enough for everyone to use, but if an unskilled player with a pistol ran at a skilled player with an AR, the skilled player would win pretty much every time. If you tried to just camp with a shotgun, there were a variety of weapons that could be used to kill you quickly.

And then there’s the power weapons.

This is entirely the fault of MLG and tryhard gamers. Here’s pretty much the formula for modifying a map for MLG play: Make sure there’s 2 snipers + at least one shotgun + rockets + grenade launcher and you’re good to go. MLG and “pro” players have glorified the power weapons a ridiculous amount, and in turn Bungie decided to make them extremely overpowered. The idea of “weapon control” is garbage right now because the power weapons require no skill at all. Notice how there wasn’t nearly as much complaining about power weapon hogging in Halo: CE, yet in CE they spawned more frequently and with more ammo. This is because they actually took some amount of skill to use.

TL:DR
I’m not suggesting that 343i makes another Halo: CE. I’ve played that already. However, it would be nice if they tried to take it back to the basics of a run and gun game that’s enjoyable for people of all skill levels, as opposed to a game where the weapon in your hand is the most important thing. In Halo: CE a skilled player could kill an unskilled player holding a power weapon 90% of the time with the pistol and AR everyone spawned with. Make balanced weapons so that the focus isn’t on certain power weapons, but instead is on your skill with whatever weapon you have.

329

> and you wonder why no one takes you seriously. you are either incredibly oblivious to the topic at hand, or you are trolling.

There you go again, someone doesn’t agree with you, or points out that you’re wrong, and you report them for trolling.

> yes, the bloom for my DMR is the same for yours. the problem lies within battles where 1 person is spamming, whilst the other person is pacing. in these situations, the spammer will lose the majority of the time (and rightfully so, as bloom makes pacing optimal at mid range). the spammer DOES have a chance to ‘luck out’, or win on occasion, which is what many people have trouble with understanding.

So we agree. One person doing it wrong, whether that be pacing at the wrong time or spamming at the wrong time will lose consistently.

Understand though… if a ‘spammer’ gets a shot on you, IT WAS CAUSE YOU WERE IN HIS RETICULE. And that’s the way it works for EVERY weapon.

So if you didn’t get the kill, it’s either because you weren’t as accurate, and/or as fast.

> the game wants you to optimally pace your shots, and observe the mechanic of bloom, but it also rewards people who do not pace at all, and do not observe the mechanic of bloom some of the time. this is the biggest gameplay mechanic contradiction i have seen in a halo game.

I keep asking you where you heard this lie. Site your source, c’mon, lets see it! “the game wants you to optimally pace your shots” sounds like you dreamt that the game was speaking to you and that you have to share that with the world. IT’S CRAZY.

> ive said this about a billion times but:
>
> IF YOU SPAM AT MID RANGE AND WIN, YOU DIDNT SHOOT BETTER, YOU GOT LUCKY.
>
> using the facts that you have used (spamming beats pacing 26% of the time), what you are saying is that someone makes a conscious decision to shoot in a way that will make them lose damn near 3/4ths of the time, and when they get a kill they are the one who shot better?
> LAUGHABLE.

WHAT IS YOUR OBSESSION WITH WANTING TO CALL THE BAD SHOOTER: “THE BETTER SHOOTER”?!?!

What’s so difficult about the concept of not being able to determining the more skillful player in more than JUST ONE KILL!!?!?!?!?! NO ONE DOES THIS. Not even you! And if you come back and tell me that you do, we’ll all know you’re lying.

Because skill isn’t and has not ever been completely calculated by a single kill, let along 1 in 4.

> here are some questions that, quite frankly, just decimate your logic on bloom being ‘fine’:
>
> why should the person observing the mechanics lose to the person making no attempt to?

Because they spent too much time observing something and not enough time killing something. Yeah, I really feel decimated here… /sarcasm

> if bloom isnt broken, why is it being fixed in the title update?

FIRST - You don’t know that it indeed is being “fixed”
Second - IF it were being fixed, all you DO know is that it will apply ONLY to classic playlists.

> if bloom isnt broken, why do roughly a BAZILLION people dislike it?

Because people don’t like change, your posts make that OBVIOUS.

You guys who can’t deal with bloom, all whine about the same mechanics. “whaaa, I hate AA’s” “whaaa, I hate bloom” “whaaa, I want to be ranked” “whaaa, Halo ‘X’ was better”. It’s literally why you haters can’t be taken seriously AND why the upcoming changes will be rolled out to the classic playlist only.

I patiently await you calling me a troll and asking me questions I’ve already answered for you again and again.

330

You cant say spamming grenades, dropping into armor lock, then bust my shields and running at me while hosing me down with the AR is skilled? No, Armor Lock is a nuisance and is very bad. The once of skill that Reach had was lost when Bungie had the idea to implant the AR in every other playlist as either the primary or secondary. Even Arena fell victim to this… and Arena was supposed to be the ‘True Skill’ playlist, well all I see are AR sprayers and theres nothing 5 bullets (while trying not to spam except YOU HAVE TO WHEN IT COMES TO THE DMR OR ELSE THE AR WILL ALWAYS WIN.)

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I don’t even…

Firstly, Bloom isn’t random. It’s random if you don’t pace yourself. If you jump out and spam the trigger as fast as possible like a BR from Halo 3, bloom will mess you up. If you’re losing to someone DMR vs DMR and blaming it on bloom, perhaps you AREN’T the more skilled player because you haven’t learned to master the skill of patience necessary. Maybe you have better K/D or better rank, but with that weapon you’re probably outmatched until you learn not to spam.

Second, Armour Lock isn’t broken. I pretty much only use Armour lock on the second wave of Invasion on Spire, because at all other times all it does is A) hypnotise some players into standing still waiting for you to come out of your shell, and/or B) give you a guaranteed death sentence of 5 seconds. The guy with Armour Lock cannot get to power weapons as fast as the guy with sprint, evade or jetpack. He cannot dupe the enemy like the guy who brings invisibility or hologram, and he can’t help his teammates like someone who brings Dropshield. Armour Lock is only good against CQC rush-punch tactics or uncommon swords/shotguns, and it has a ball achingly long regen time after use. If you’re losing to people who bring Armour Lock over and over in a game, it’s not random or unbalanced, it’s just you going it alone, getting obsessed with waiting for the kill at the expense of everything else, or getting too close.

I don’t mean to flame or say you’re bad at the game, because I’m sure you aren’t, and I’m a self confessed casual gamer myself. I’m here for the fun and little else, I don’t DO -Yoink!- contests about who’s the top dog or whatever. But the DMR is a good solution or a genuine problem that existed in Halo 3, namely the BR making all other weapons obsolete at all but extremely close distance. It’s still a damn good weapon in the right hands, but it’s not gonna suit every situation anymore like it’s cousin. And Armour Lock is a very restrictive power to bring, which despite cropped has the payoff of letting you survive an explosion or shotgun blast… But you only have 5 seconds tops to Macguyver yourself out of the exact same situation once it runs out, or be rescued by a teammate.

Maybe you’re a skilled player, but these things aren’t insurmountable and shouldn’t be treated as gamebreakers. They just aren’t.

333

Spread >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Bloom.

I don’t care that I can control Bloom and not Spread, If two players are equal distance standing still and spam the DMR it is a 50/50 chance that one will beat the other. That sounds like the definition of random to me. It might as well be a coin flip, huh?

The issue with bloom is that we were told from day one that pacing will always beat out spamming. That isn’t really the case is it? Between shotty hit detection and pacing vs spamming this game might as well be called Halo: Yahtzee. Spread was never really that big of a deal because there was no visual representation of it and it wasn’t something we could control (except at medium distances where we had to lead shots).

Bloom just slows down the game so much and its just so infuriating when we pace our shots and some guy spams five shots to a kill. I know for a fact, it seems anytime I spam it takes nine or ten shots and most of the time it seems to take the enemy 5-7 shots. Sounds fair to me, right?

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You all keep saying the same damn thing, but it’s not true.

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Actually, I had a conversation with one of the game designers of Reach on twitter. He said he believed that pacing will defeat spamming 95% of the time. I respectfully disagreed. But this is what he actually believed.

If his claim were true, then pacing would be the number 1 choice by players in Arena/MLG. It clearly is not. Semi-spamming to outright spamming is the method of choice in DMR starts.

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And they also teamshoot more often. Can’t forget the teamshooting. Definitely not, definitely. Can’t forget pro-Halo players play as a team and the ones that have the best synergy as a team can actually have a perfect tournament. On maps where large is actually a medium. Nope, nope. SPAAAACE! :slight_smile:

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Why would you state such a thing without documentation?

Honestly, you’re gonna claim you had a twitter conversation with someone claiming to work for Bungie as your source, but not prove it?

Honestly?

HONESTLY? You’re gonna tell me that the statement “he believed that pacing will defeat spamming 95% of the time.” is within the context of a 1v1 battle at anything other than long range?

I CALL BS.

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Wait a second… Some guy claimed that bloom would be beaten by paced shooting, that was what he believed… And when it doesn’t happen, it’s broken? Now hold on just a second. If I believe that the sun is going to come up tomorrow, but it doesn’t due to overcast conditions (We know it came up, but can’t see it), does that mean the sun is broken? Yes, I’ve lost to DMR spammers more often than the 5 or 10% predicted by this guy (whoever he or she was… Was it even a programmer or statistician?) But the reason bloom is blown out of proportion like it is, is that the one “lucky shot” is more noticable than the 5 head shots I got by pacing.

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Here you go [http://imageshack.us/f/832/joshhamrick.png/

](http://imageshack.us/f/832/joshhamrick.png/)P.S. I would never lie about such claims.

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Have you ever played a custom game with a friend? Just 1V1? If so, then you would know that even if you are more skilled, that doesn’t mean that you are going to win every single encounter.