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

Games Other Halo
561

> > You keep wanting an explanation of why bloom was implemented and why it’s a good system and I have fed it to you like a baby and still not a single thing has stuck… Pathetic.
>
> Wow no need to get so rude and disrespectful.
>
> I know why Bloom was implemented and I know it can be a good system but in Reach it’s not that great in my book.
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> I don’t like the element of chance involved when I can spam away and get a 5 shot kill at mid range when that should never happen. It might be rare, but it should be impossible. You can argue for Bloom all you want but that fact alone turns off a lot of people and they are entitled to their opinion.

Sorry for being rude, but being polite and laying out my arguments for and against bloom in a logical and concise manner just isn’t getting the job done.

So many people, you included, are so biased and wrong about this issue it’s not even funny.

People keep asking for a good argument FOR bloom and I’ve given it to them multiple times.

I’m the only person actually discussing this issue at a high level; delving into the negatives/positives and possible implications of changes along with the complete removal/retooling of the system. I’m talking about the concept in itself and weighing the pro’s/con’s together. I’m talking about the impact on the game as a whole. Balancing issues, possible problems when it comes to vehicle/infantry gameplay. How will gameplay on specific maps be effected? Hemorrhage has quite a few wide open spaces, along with Boneyard, for example. How will the Sniper and other power weapons, along with the automatic weapons, be effected by any major changes to bloom and other gameplay mechanics, another example.

And I’m being met with, “Bloom is random and sucks!”

You want some actual changes and innovations to come from this? Get to a higher level of thinking and then we can actually discuss the issues at hand.

In one of my courses I took about logic and debate, they have a list of all of the fallacies of people who make bad arguments. I’ve yet to run into someone who can have a decent discussion about Halo’s issues, whether it’s a problem with pointing out what they’re talking about precisely (Not just bloom sucks, but bloom sucks with the DMR at close range type of stuff), only discussing the negatives/con’s of the issue, BIAS (This one is huge), sociocentrism, using faulty statistics (I wonder who this could be!) etc.

I could basically list every fallacy in the entire realm of debate and logic and it would apply to you and many other people who claim to know what’s “good” for Halo.

562

I guess hoping for a fresh start after the switch from the Bungie forums was misguided - the same conversations are starting over here too.

Listen, people are blowing Reach’s faults way out of proportion. The people on these forums are still only a small population of Reach’s players, and I am sure many people do not share the opinions that we do.

Also, the bloom/randomness debate is overplayed. If you haven’t figured out bloom and how to minimize randomness, then you aren’t as skilled at Halo as you think you are. Halo has never been solely about trigger smashing. There are lots of ways to put yourself in the best position to win, and many times that means picking up a weapon that isn’t the DMR. Strafe side to side, use cover, evade and return, etc. I have found that when I was coming up the ranks I was able to exploit bloom more effectively. Since I have started being matched against better players, it is vital to pace my DMR shots if I want a shot at winning a showdown.

For AAs, get over it. There are playlists that give you various ranges of AAs. The AAs could be tweaked, sure, but overall they are fairly balanced. If the same strategy against ALers isn’t working, then try something else. Hang back, time your grenades, etc. You can counter pretty much all of the AAs out there.

I think the sanbox of weapons is the most balanced in the Halo series. There will always be instances where a lesser skilled player wins. People do not play with the same skill level every match; skill fluctuates and there always needs to be proper execution alongside and attempted act.

563

> I guess hoping for a fresh start after the switch from the Bungie forums was misguided - the same conversations are starting over here too.
>
> Listen, people are blowing Reach’s faults way out of proportion. The people on these forums are still only a small population of Reach’s players, and I am sure many people do not share the opinions that we do.
>
> Also, the bloom/randomness debate is overplayed. If you haven’t figured out bloom and how to minimize randomness, then you aren’t as skilled at Halo as you think you are. Halo has never been solely about trigger smashing. There are lots of ways to put yourself in the best position to win, and many times that means picking up a weapon that isn’t the DMR. Strafe side to side, use cover, evade and return, etc. I have found that when I was coming up the ranks I was able to exploit bloom more effectively. Since I have started being matched against better players, it is vital to pace my DMR shots if I want a shot at winning a showdown.
>
> For AAs, get over it. There are playlists that give you various ranges of AAs. The AAs could be tweaked, sure, but overall they are fairly balanced. If the same strategy against ALers isn’t working, then try something else. Hang back, time your grenades, etc. You can counter pretty much all of the AAs out there.
>
> I think the sanbox of weapons is the most balanced in the Halo series. There will always be instances where a lesser skilled player wins. People do not play with the same skill level every match; skill fluctuates and there always needs to be proper execution alongside and attempted act.

HAHA I don’t care about that anymore because we get a TU that fixes Reach finally.

564

This:

> So many people, you included, are so biased and wrong about this issue it’s not even funny.

And this:

> You want some actual changes and innovations to come from this? Get to a higher level of thinking and then we can actually discuss the issues at hand.
>
> In one of my courses I took about logic and debate, they have a list of all of the fallacies of people who make bad arguments. I’ve yet to run into someone who can have a decent discussion about Halo’s issues, whether it’s a problem with pointing out what they’re talking about precisely (Not just bloom sucks, but bloom sucks with the DMR at close range type of stuff), only discussing the negatives/con’s of the issue, BIAS (This one is huge), sociocentrism, using faulty statistics (I wonder who this could be!) etc.
>
> I could basically list every fallacy in the entire realm of debate and logic and it would apply to you and many other people who claim to know what’s “good” for Halo.

are why nobody is listening to you. Your courses about logic and debate clearly did not prepare you properly because you would have learned that having an elitist attitude is going to get you nowhere…and nowhere is exactly where you have gotten.

Many of us have pointed out how Bloom can be good “in theory.” It’s not Bloom that’s the problem, it’s not even the “it’s random it sucks!” that’s the problem. It’s the implementation of the feature. The fact that two people can exchange fire at medium to long range and someone can spam away and get a lucky 5 shot kill. There is no logical counter to that point. If you’re ok with that as a game mechanic then fine, there’s no debate there since that’s opinion. But to deny that statistical fact would be a poor choice of direction and not something you would want to ignore, something I’m sure you learned in your debate class: don’t ignore facts.

565

> . The fact that two people can exchange fire at medium to long range and someone can spam away and get a lucky 5 shot kill. There is no logical counter to that point.

But that’s how Bloom works. It’s that Halo isn’t a one-shot-kill to the head at all times that causes it to seem different than playing CoD or BF. The functionality remains the same. Through bloom when firing from the hip, and by the recoil action when aiming down sights, bullets randomly fire ANYWHERE within the targeting reticle. The skill is in controlling this feature.

Removing it doesn’t increase skill gaps, it levels the playing field. The same to which DMR/BR starts already do. They’re meant to level the playing field so that even when a player dies, they respawn with the only penalty being to map position and not to their ability to fight.

It’s about allowing a less skilled player to flourish on their reflexes alone. To be honest, if you thought the “young kids” were dominating before, wait till you see what happens now.

566

> > . The fact that two people can exchange fire at medium to long range and someone can spam away and get a lucky 5 shot kill. There is no logical counter to that point.
>
> But that’s how Bloom works. It’s that Halo isn’t a one-shot-kill to the head at all times that causes it to seem different than playing CoD or BF. The functionality remains the same. Through bloom when firing from the hip, and by the recoil action when aiming down sights, bullets randomly fire ANYWHERE within the targeting reticle. The skill is in controlling this feature.
>
> Removing it doesn’t increase skill gaps, it levels the playing field. The same to which DMR/BR starts already do. They’re meant to level the playing field so that even when a player dies, they respawn with the only penalty being to map position and not to their ability to fight.
>
> It’s about allowing a less skilled player to flourish on their reflexes alone. To be honest, if you thought the “young kids” were dominating before, wait till you see what happens now.

Well it’s not “young kids” exactly. But if they suddenly are better and doing better than before then I’d say that the skill gap was increased.

The skill is supposed to be in controlling the feature, but the problem is that someone can disregard the feature entirely and still end up with a lucky kill. The feature is fine, but it’s implemented badly.

567

> Well it’s not “young kids” exactly. But if they suddenly are better and doing better than before then I’d say that the skill gap was increased.
>
> The skill is supposed to be in controlling the feature, but the problem is that someone can disregard the feature entirely and still end up with a lucky kill. The feature is fine, but it’s implemented badly.

Spamming isn’t disregarding the feature, it’s spamming. The concept isn’t broken, it’s not liked. You don’t have to make up factoids to explain the preference.

568

> > Well it’s not “young kids” exactly. But if they suddenly are better and doing better than before then I’d say that the skill gap was increased.
> >
> > The skill is supposed to be in controlling the feature, but the problem is that someone can disregard the feature entirely and still end up with a lucky kill. The feature is fine, but it’s implemented badly.
>
> Spamming isn’t disregarding the feature, it’s spamming. The concept isn’t broken, it’s not liked. You don’t have to make up factoids to explain the preference.

I still don’t understand what possess people to react like this because they are hiding under the guise of anonymity. I wasn’t making up factoids. It is an actual fact that someone can spam from a longer range and get a 5 shot kill. Denying that fact is crazy.

I was doing everything in my power to be civil and respectful to you so relax a bit, no need to accuse anyone of making stuff up (especially since I didn’t make anything up, what I said is common knowledge).

Also the concept isn’t broken, the implementation in Reach is what’s broken. BIG difference that apparently sailed right over your head.

569

> I wasn’t making up factoids. It is an actual fact that someone can spam from a longer range and get a 5 shot kill. Denying that fact is crazy.

I never denied that, I stated that’s how the system works. There is a less than 1% chance someone can spam the DMR across Hemorrhage and get a kill because of bloom. Without bloom, that chance is much, much, much, much greater. At medium range, if both players do not move at all, there’s a 24% chance the the spammer will win.

That’s the system working, not breaking. I don’t know about you, but I have never treated Halo gameplay as though I’m standing and spamming. I never play any game at its mercy.

I would ask, why do you misread things or assume variables?

570

> > . The fact that two people can exchange fire at medium to long range and someone can spam away and get a lucky 5 shot kill. There is no logical counter to that point.
>
> But that’s how Bloom works. It’s that Halo isn’t a one-shot-kill to the head at all times that causes it to seem different than playing CoD or BF. The functionality remains the same. Through bloom when firing from the hip, and by the recoil action when aiming down sights, bullets randomly fire ANYWHERE within the targeting reticle. The skill is in controlling this feature.

If only controlling this feature was the optimal choice, but unfrtunately, this is not the case. I can fully control the DMR bloom, and hit every single shot, but still lose to someone doing absolutely nothing to control it. That’s ridiculous, that’s not how bloom should work.

This is exactly what decreases the skill gap with bloom, it doesn’t matter can you control it or not, only thing that matters is your luck. I just can’t understand people who say that bloom is okay in it’s current state, that’s just unbelieveable.

But what comes to the concept, no one can say it’s bad, it’s just that the whole bloom concept is difficult to implement to actually punish the spammers.

571

> > I wasn’t making up factoids. It is an actual fact that someone can spam from a longer range and get a 5 shot kill. Denying that fact is crazy.
>
> I never denied that, I stated that’s how the system works. There is a less than 1% chance someone can spam the DMR across Hemorrhage and get a kill because of bloom. Without bloom, that chance is much, much, much, much greater. At medium range, if both players do not move at all, there’s a 24% chance the the spammer will win.
>
> That’s the system working, not breaking. I don’t know about you, but I have never treated Halo gameplay as though I’m standing and spamming. I never play any game at its mercy.
>
> I would ask, why do you misread things or assume variables?

I’m not misreading or assuming anything, actually. And if you’re ok with a 24% chance of the other guy killing you out of luck I suppose that’s your choice and the debate ends there. I prefer knowing that I was beat (or that I beat someone) without luck playing that much of a role. That’s my personal taste and I’m happy that 343i is accomodating that preference in the TU.

572

> If only controlling this feature was the optimal choice, but unfrtunately, this is not the case. I can fully control the DMR bloom, and hit every single shot, but still lose to someone doing absolutely nothing to control it.

Controlling this is the whole point!

If you’re a pacer, and you died to a spammer, then obviously you were too close them, you should have varied your rate of fire and moved about better.

573

> And if you’re ok with a 24% chance of the other guy killing you out of luck I suppose that’s your choice and the debate ends there.

I’m ok with having to use in-game knowledge skill to lower that number greatly. That is where you keep misreading/ignoring, both on Mat and myself.

574

> > And if you’re ok with a 24% chance of the other guy killing you out of luck I suppose that’s your choice and the debate ends there.
>
> I’m ok with having to use in-game knowledge skill to lower that number greatly. That is where you keep misreading/ignoring, both on Mat and myself.

I don’t misread/ignore that. That’s never even the concern. I can control Bloom myself all day long, anyone can. The problem is those who purposefully choose not to. You can sit there and use all the skill in the world to lower that 24% for yourself but the other person can throw caution to the wind and blow your brains out while you’re pacing your shots and it only happened because a tiny sliver of your head was in the fully bloomed reticle and the bullet happened to go there. THAT is the problem many of us have, it has nothing to do with controlling Bloom, it is the people who don’t and get away with it.

575

That would mean it’s not bloom’s implementation that you’re upset with, you don’t like it in Halo at all.

Honest scenario: even if the bloom stayed the same, but the DMR was buffed so that 2 shots dropped the shields, you still wouldn’t be happy with 1vs1 fights would you?
Because a 2nd player can still come in and get to spam you to death with their 3 shots from the get go, while you have to pause to gain your 2 perfect shots back. And because the 3rd shot still has that hint of miss that can happen 4 in 99 shots, it’s still “luck based.”

Or have I misread your views?
That the DMR fires somewhere in the centre of the small reticle when blue, and hits no matter what when red (that I still need to confirm) is your preference (and others of course) and not representative of the only way to game competitively. It’s gaming with perpetual comeback (something Chess has the opposite of, slippery slope gaming)
Much like the Pistol will be. Fires within the reticle when blue, hits 100% when red.

You know what I do like about that over the BR from Halo2 or 3? That no matter what, indeed I do miss, it’s cause I missed. Much like spamming a DMR. I know if I paced perfectly, and/or with a red-reticle, it’s a perfect shot. Anything else is not. I no longer have to gain a feel for distances, I know red=dead. Simpler and less knowledge is required.

576

> > If only controlling this feature was the optimal choice, but unfrtunately, this is not the case. I can fully control the DMR bloom, and hit every single shot, but still lose to someone doing absolutely nothing to control it.
>
> Controlling this is the whole point!
>
> If you’re a pacer, and you died to a spammer, then obviously you were too close them, you should have varied your rate of fire and moved about better.

You’re saying I should have varied my rate of fire, in other words, you’re saying I should have started injecting luck to my shots. What does that matter? The opponent could have injected even more luck to the shots, this could lead to a situation where both players are shooting at the optimal rate of fire which has a 54% chance to land your shots.

Now I ask: where is the concistency? If the optimal rate of fire is different than the most consistent, there is clearly something wrong with it. You see, this is exactly the problem. The problem is not a pacer vs spammer, it’s a person firing with x% chance to hit against a person firing with y% chance to hit.

The problem here is, there is no situation where you are quaranteed to hit 100% percent of your shots and also have a 100% chance to win the situation. To be able to win the situation you have to take chances with the bloom. Let’s say person A fires so that they have a 64% chance to hit and person B fires so that they have 60% percent chance to hit. How can we judge the player with better bloom control skills when both players are almost taking the situation as a pure coin flip?

There is the problem: no matter what rate of fire I choose and how much chances I take with the bloom, there is always someone who might be taking even more chances by shooting with a faster rate of fire than me and still manage to beat me. That’s all because we don’t have a consistent rate of fire that actually benefits the shooter.

I can really keep trying different firing rates against different opponents and no matter what rate of fire I use, there is always someone who beats me by pure luck because they shot with a rate of fire faster than my, but also had smaller chances to land their shots. Who knows, maybe they even missed a shot or two, but still managed to win because they shot faster than me.

I will actually give you billion dollars if you can give me a rate of fire for the DMR that is consistent and optimal (quaranteed to win every situation as long as I hit all my shots). Seriously, I’m not kidding.

577

No, I’m saying you should have been further away from the spammer, thus guaranteeing your win.

578

> No, I’m saying you should have been further away from the spammer, thus guaranteeing your win.

So winning a DMR 1v1 requires me to be shooting the opponent from the other end of the map (Assuming it’s a mid sized map)? Oh yes, that sounds really fun and not restricting at all.

Let’s face the truth, most gun fights in Halo happen at mid range, other than BTB. And you know what, I have no problems with bloom in BTB, actually, I have a video where I get an Invincible with almost purely with DMR on Wayont. But default playlists have medium sized maps, the game really shouldn’t be forcing me to avoid every single DMR encounter at mid range. That’s just not how gameplay should work.

Unless by further away you mean only so much further that the spammer misses most of their shots, in which case that doesn’t help me because no natural law is restricting them to shoot at the exact same rate of fire and not adjusting it according to the distance. This is why bloom is only good at distances where pacing is the only considerable option. At mid range nothing can quarantee my win.

579

> I will actually give you billion dollars if you can give me a rate of fire for the DMR that is consistent and optimal (quaranteed to win every situation as long as I hit all my shots). Seriously, I’m not kidding.

Only if you can prove that at mid-range, the Halo3 BR is a 100% the time 4-shot killer.

By design, the DMR has no 100% guaranteed way of winning an encounter by purely shooting and not using ANY of the other in-game resources available. This was to promote team-play.
The Halo3 BR spread by design was to promote team-play.

Both are systems falsely accused of being bad for competitive play when they are features used by many competitive FPSs. That the preference is to not have them in Halo’s MLG-type competitive games is something completely different that what takes more or less skill.

And I agree, the Pistol and Needle Rifle are much better alternatives for medium sized maps and smaller. I wish the game didn’t force DMR starts on those maps.

580

> > I will actually give you billion dollars if you can give me a rate of fire for the DMR that is consistent and optimal (quaranteed to win every situation as long as I hit all my shots). Seriously, I’m not kidding.
>
> Only if you can prove that at mid-range, the Halo3 BR is a 100% the time 4-shot killer.
>
> By design, the DMR has no 100% guaranteed way of winning an encounter by purely shooting and not using ANY of the other in-game resources available. This was to promote team-play.
> The Halo3 BR spread by design was to promote team-play.
>
> Both are systems falsely accused of being bad for competitive play when they are features used by many competitive FPSs. That the preference is to not have them in Halo’s MLG-type competitive games is something completely different that what takes more or less skill.
>
> And I agree, the Pistol and Needle Rifle are much better alternatives for medium sized maps and smaller. I wish the game didn’t force DMR starts on those maps.

Both designs are bad. They don’t exactly promote team work, they only promote team shooting. What differentiates them is that team shooting is only the most basic form of team work. If team work is only restricted to team shooting, that’s very static form of team play because the players are too tied to their teammates to go alone to do tasks that benefit your team.

When team shooting isn’t the only option of team work, the team work becomes dynamic. Dynamic team work allows for so much bigger variety of options to help your team, because you are no longer completely tied to your teammates in order to survive.

Halo 3 and Reach force the team work down your throat while Halo CE and mostly 2 give the players the tools to do it and benefit from it when they want to. In no way does randomness promote team work, it only promotes team shooting that is a very dull and simple form of team work. The necessity to team shoot also leaves out other ways of team work, leading to very limited team work.

People always confuse team shooting to be the only form of team work, while it’s not. There is so much more to team work than just that, that everything is just restricted by randomness.