TU and the future of matchmaking

F111F_19740186 · February 16, 2012, 4:56pm

343,

As a long-time and very dedicated matchmaking player, I certainly hope that you guys are paying attention to what’s going on. If you aren’t, than you are going to run off a rather large portion of your matchmaking population and fan base.

If TU is the future of multiplayer matchmaking, then you can count me, and a large chunk of my friends out of the Halo Universe. Several others have already left shortly after TU and Anniversary, and they didn’t leave to play COD either.

I’ve been playing Halo matchmaking for nearly 6 years starting with Halo 2, and I have preordered every title with the exception of Halo Wars, and I still have my copies of every one of them as well.

At this point in time, you can count me as one of the people who won’t be preordering Halo 4. I’m going to take the wait and see approach this time. I would rather save my money than play the formerly fun Team Slayer hopper, or some COD version of Halo.

I would much rather have the bloom settings stay the same as they were when the game was released, and I can live with the armor abilities or would be fine without them as well. Having bloom, makes the shooting far more realistic, plus it helps neutralize the jerks that think it’s funny to play matchmaking with modded controllers that have rapid fire. It puts a premium on aim accuracy, and forced me to stop being a trigger spammer like so many of us were in previous versions.

The shenanigans that go on in Anniversary, TU, and ZB matches, are excellent reminders of why I hate COD and haven’t purchased one of those titles since Modern Warfare, and I really regretted buying it afterwards.

Just as a side note, I have noticed that since Anniversary/TU, that the average rank of players in matchmaking had been dropping like a rock, and most aren’t new accounts either. If anything, that ought to be an indication that you have taken the fun out of matchmaking. Don’t forget to screw with Griffball hopper, so they get a chance to be pissed off like the Slayer folks have been for months now!

I’ll admit that I was one of the people who wanted AL toned down, but I’d rather deal with it the way it was.

On a final note, it would be nice if you could make this web site play a little nicer with IE8, as some of us are forced to use it because our work computers run XP. It’s a joke that a MS firm can’t get that right. It’s better than it was a few months ago, but the fact that it locks up, or you can’t navigate at times is extremely frustrating. But I’m sure Bungie has enjoyed all of the players visiting their site to see their stats instead of dealing with the glitchiness of this site. Too bad current stats that will no longer be available there after March 31. Who knows, I might not be playing Halo anymore at that time. Not to mention the first attempt at posting this by hitting the POST button resulted in clearing everything I typed and not posting. Good thing I had copied it before clicking the button.

What the hell is up with all the laziness of having many of the same daily challenges day after day?

So 343, are you going to be the next Netflix and run off a bunch of customers, or are you going to get your -Yoink- together???

Oh, and EA thanks you for screwing with matchmaking, as I purchased a copy of Battlefield 3 on Monday after a week of being thoroughly feed up with matchmaking. It’s the first game I’ve purchased since preordering Halo Anniversary, and that was the first game I had purchased since preordering Halo Reach. That ought to be a good gauge of how pissed off and fed up I am!

Sincerely,

F111 19760186

This post has been edited by a moderator. Please do not purposely bypass the word filter.

carl_crunk · February 16, 2012, 5:00pm

> 343,
> I would much rather have the bloom settings stay the same as they were when the game was released, and I can live with the armor abilities or would be fine without them as well. Having bloom, makes the shooting far more realistic, plus it helps neutralize the jerks that think it’s funny to play matchmaking with modded controllers that have rapid fire. It puts a premium on aim accuracy, and forced me to stop being a trigger spammer like so many of us were in previous versions.

how have you played halo for 6 years and then come up with something this ridiculous is beyond me.

goodbye, you won’t be missed.

ps.
i stopped reading after the part that i quoted you, only to read the rest later, here is my response

*facepalm

SitriStahl · February 16, 2012, 5:02pm

I know “many of my friends” would quit Reach if the TU was removed. The settings are far superior.

Modded controllers don’t work on the DMR, since it has a set rate of fire. Unless your fingers are that useless you can’t pull the trigger that fast. Bloom just gives bad players more time to line up shots, as opposed to rewarding players who can actually snap to targets.

Ever thought the low ranks are because the TU came out around the time of CEA, so new players were getting that and playing Reach MM. Or the new Xbox bundle that included Reach and came out right in time for Christmas?

Shouldn’t you be working at work, and not arguing with us on the forums?

343 has nothing to do with the Battlefield series.

RyanWXH · February 16, 2012, 5:18pm

> 343,
>
> As a long-time and very dedicated matchmaking player, I certainly hope that you guys are paying attention to what’s going on. If you aren’t, than you are going to run off a rather large portion of your matchmaking population and fan base.
>
> If TU is the future of multiplayer matchmaking, then you can count me, and a large chunk of my friends out of the Halo Universe. Several others have already left shortly after TU and Anniversary, and they didn’t leave to play COD either.
> Before the TU came out, Halo: Reach was barely hitting 100k players at peak times, bow it hits 120-130k every night at some point, the TU & Anniversary may not have done much to get players back onto Reach, but heck, an extra 30k players is fine by me.
>
>
> I’ve been playing Halo matchmaking for nearly 6 years starting with Halo 2, and I have preordered every title with the exception of Halo Wars, and I still have my copies of every one of them as well.
>
> At this point in time, you can count me as one of the people who won’t be preordering Halo 4. I’m going to take the wait and see approach this time. I would rather save my money than play the formerly fun Team Slayer hopper, or some COD version of Halo.
>
> Team Slayer hasn’t even become TU settings, it is still in the voting stages until next Tuesday I believe, if you want to preserve Vanilla settings within that playlist, go and make your votes known, vote for Vanilla, heck go in with a full team and vote for it, your votes count for the future of the playlist.
>
> I would much rather have the bloom settings stay the same as they were when the game was released, and I can live with the armor abilities or would be fine without them as well. Having bloom, makes the shooting far more realistic, plus it helps neutralize the jerks that think it’s funny to play matchmaking with modded controllers that have rapid fire. It puts a premium on aim accuracy, and forced me to stop being a trigger spammer like so many of us were in previous versions.
>
> Bloom is broken in Halo: Reach, more noticeably 100% bloom, 343 Industries said this themselves, bloom was intended to stop players from spamming their trigger and beating a player who paces their shots, which 85% bloom does a good damn job at, if you spam, you need to hit all your shots and get lucky on the final two shots. For more information regarding it, check here: http://tiedtheleader.com/2012/01/17/statistical-analysis-of-dmr-behavior/
> As for these ‘modded controllers’, there are modded controllers out there that have speed options to work perfectly with 100% bloom, give YouTube a quick search, along with Google, you will see.
>
> The shenanigans that go on in Anniversary, TU, and ZB matches, are excellent reminders of why I hate COD and haven’t purchased one of those titles since Modern Warfare, and I really regretted buying it afterwards.
>
> Keep in mind the following playlists don’t have TU settings: Action Sack, All FF Playlists(Not possible to add TU), Grifball, Invasion, Living Dead, Team Slayer (In voting process), Team SWAT and Squad DLC, out of all those playlists, you still have a Vanilla style of play in Reach.[/h]
>
> Just as a side note, I have noticed that since Anniversary/TU, that the average rank of players in matchmaking had been dropping like a rock, and most aren’t new accounts either. If anything, that ought to be an indication that you have taken the fun out of matchmaking. Don’t forget to screw with Griffball hopper, so they get a chance to be pissed off like the Slayer folks have been for months now!
>
> You will notice a lot of low ranks in the Anniversary playlists because they bought Anniversary and not Reach and have only played Anniversary multiplayer, meaning they will rank up a lot slower compared to those who have Reach and can complete all daily challenges, all commendations and such.
> If you ask me, this is just a big dump of your opinion, I am enjoying Reach a heck of a lot more than I ever was with TU settings because its a lot more competitive than 100% bloom & pre-TU settings was.
> As for the Grifball playlist, its run by Grifball Hub I believe, so any silly changes won’t be coming to that anytime soon.
>
> I’ll admit that I was one of the people who wanted AL toned down, but I’d rather deal with it the way it was.
>
> You’re in a minority there, six seconds on Invincibility is a joke, Armour Lock was originally intended to stop a large amount of damage and keeping you alive from it and hope your team mates clear out the troubles, with the TU Armour Lock, you get the same result, you just can’t stay in there for six seconds after absorbing the damage, therefore your team mates need to be quick in helping out, resulting in team work.
>
> On a final note, it would be nice if you could make this web site play a little nicer with IE8, as some of us are forced to use it because our work computers run XP. It’s a joke that a MS firm can’t get that right. It’s better than it was a few months ago, but the fact that it locks up, or you can’t navigate at times is extremely frustrating. But I’m sure Bungie has enjoyed all of the players visiting their site to see their stats instead of dealing with the glitchiness of this site. Too bad current stats that will no longer be available there after March 31. Who knows, I might not be playing Halo anymore at that time. Not to mention the first attempt at posting this by hitting the POST button resulted in clearing everything I typed and not posting. Good thing I had copied it before clicking the button.
>
> Internet Explorer 8 is a horrible browser to begin with, many modern websites, including this one, are designed to work with modern browsers like Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari, all of which are compatible with Windows XP.
> Trust me on this one mate, no one will give the slightest damn if you play Halo or not post-March 31st, you are just ONE player with one opinion, you are first I have seen whine about this as a whole making a big deal out of it, consider yourself in a minority again.
> The post vanishing bug is a known problem and it will most likely be fixed in the next site update on April 1st, why you expect everything to be perfect off the bat is beyond me, Bungie spent YEARS making their site perfect and their stats, 343i has only just begun and haven’t even released their first game yet and you expect it to be perfect, no, it doesn’t work like that.
>
> What the hell is up with all the laziness of having many of the same daily challenges day after day?
>
> So 343, are you going to be the next Netflix and run off a bunch of customers, or are you going to get your sht together???
>
> Oh, and EA thanks you for screwing with matchmaking, as I purchased a copy of Battlefield 3 on Monday after a week of being thoroughly feed up with matchmaking. It’s the first game I’ve purchased since preordering Halo Anniversary, and that was the first game I had purchased since preordering Halo Reach. That ought to be a good gauge of how pssed off and fed up I am!
>
> Sincerely,
>
> F111 19760186

I expect you to take at least thirty minutes to reply to this considering you have this to read as well: http://tiedtheleader.com/2012/01/17/statistical-analysis-of-dmr-behavior/.

Time_Glitch · February 16, 2012, 5:28pm

Weird…Because all of 343s changes have totally re-affirmed my faith in 343 for Halo 4.

Guess you just adapted to a bunch of bad mechanics and can’t re-adapt. Too bad for you. I’ll be enjoying Halo 4.

Plunderfull · February 16, 2012, 6:20pm

This anger is the result of having a product that was liked and enjoyed changed for the enjoyment of others that dont care for the product.

For everybody confused as to why this consumer is YOINKED!, I will attempt to draw a parallel so that you may understand just a little better.

When the transition between Halo 3 and Reach happened it became apparent that Bungie changed the basic formula of what Halo was and this angered many people, some left and some stayed and complained. This has now basically happened in a single game and the players that are going to be showing up here until the release of Halo 4 to complain are a direct result of this.

I am not one of the players that will be leaving or complaining over the next year, nor do I feel that 343 has broken Reach with the settings changes. However, for the players that want the TU so bad, threads like these are going to be part of the changes and we all may now enjoy a new group of freshly offended Halo players that have only begun to fight and post their complaints for the next year. Just like the last year.

sigh Welcome to Waypoint.

Time_Glitch · February 16, 2012, 6:28pm

> This anger is the result of having a product that was liked and enjoyed changed for the enjoyment of others that dont care for the product.
>
> For everybody confused as to why this consumer is YOINKED!, I will attempt to draw a parallel so that you may understand just a little better.
>
> When the transition between Halo 3 and Reach happened it became apparent that Bungie changed the basic formula of what Halo was and this angered many people, some left and some stayed and complained. This has now basically happened in a single game and the players that are going to be showing up here until the release of Halo 4 to complain are a direct result of this.
>
> I am not one of the players that will be leaving or complaining over the next year, nor do I feel that 343 has broken Reach with the settings changes. However, for the players that want the TU so bad, threads like these are going to be part of the changes and we all may now enjoy a new group of freshly offended Halo players that have only begun to fight and post their complaints for the next year. Just like the last year.
>
> sigh Welcome to Waypoint.

The only difference is that default Reach is a total outlier. Those who enjoyed and adapted to Reach made a huge mistake. 343 isn’t blind, and they have to have seen the fallout that happened right after Reach came out. I seriously doubt that Halo 4 will try to follow what Reach did to the Halo formula.

There will complaints that Halo 4 is not like Reach, but there will also be a huge surge of players that will be praising Halo 4 for returning to the traditional Halo formula. You won’t have the gigantic outrage that you did with Reach.

F111F_19740186 · February 16, 2012, 6:34pm

The Little Moa,

I’m an IT professional, and I program in C#, and have built many ASP.net websites and applications using Microsoft’s Visual Studio products. The reason this site has so many bugs is the result of poor planning and coding on 343’s part. I’m not bashing them on their content level, as I know that it takes a lot of time to build up your sites content level, but the fact that the site has buggy issues with navigation and postbacks should be a total embarrassment for them and MS.

The fact that they can’t implement and manage this web site properly, ought to give you some pause about their ability manage an even bigger project like Halo 4.

You assume that I have the ability to install and use some other browser on my work PC. The fact of the matter is that most companies don’t allow users to install software unless they are an administrator, otherwise the Desktop Support people would be spending all their time cleaning up idiot’s messes. That’s a very good policy to have.

TU would probably be fine if there was a better means of matching player skill levels. I have seen a tremendous amount of TU games that have one player getting the lion’s share (20+) of the kills for their team. This is probably great fun for them, but it sucks for everyone else on the team. It’s especially bad if the person gets that many kills but is either finishing with a negative or an extremely high K/D. More evenly matched (50 vs. 48 kills) are much more fun for everyone, after all it’s called Team Slayer for a reason.

The age of players is very diverse in Halo. I play with friend’s who are much older and much younger than me. One of them is almost 60 years old, and is a fairly decent player. There’s no way that a person 60 years old can play head to head with a 20 year old and compete at a consistently high level. The older player can probably strategize much better than the 20 year old, but in terms of hand/eye coordination it’s not even close.

Spamming or even firing rapidly with a real gun will result in mostly misses unless you’re within a few feet of the target. That’s how the game should play. Aim accuracy, not trigger pulling speed should win the day for you.

I may have the minority opinion on this message board, but I can tell you that I am not a minority in not liking the changes. I have been watching what my friends play and talking with them for years now, and the majority of my friend have been diehard Halo players. All but 3 of them are now playing other games most of the time. It’s not because they’re sick of playing Halo, they are sick of the crappy matchmaking.

It’s too late in the game to be making huge changes to Reach’s matchmaking, because most of the diehard players have learned how to pace their shots to get fast kills. All 343 is doing is alienating their base, and if they keep it up, then they will see the bottom-line results on Halo 4 release day sales numbers. I can guarantee they give a dam about that.

system · February 16, 2012, 6:38pm

One of the big strengths of Halo Reach is it rewards aggressiveness over camping, and that is something which doesn’t go acknowledged. My buddy and I play doubles and the best way to lose a game is to start camping. I think Reach actually has some elements of superior map-based gameplay because it rewards three things:

Weapon control
Map control
Skill

Not necessarily in that order, but the fact is certain parts of the map are more important than others.

Fatal_Factor · February 16, 2012, 6:47pm

> This anger is the result of having a product that was liked and enjoyed changed for the enjoyment of others that dont care for the product.

This times a million. 343i took Reach and handed it over to the haters who will chew it up and spit in out anyway in about 10 month time.

Thats indefensible.

Floidberger · February 16, 2012, 6:47pm

> There will complaints that Halo 4 is not like Reach, but there will also be a huge surge of players that will be praising Halo 4 for returning to the traditional Halo formula. You won’t have the gigantic outrage that you did with Reach.

Really? B/c 343 thus far have been saying that Halo 4 will be it’s own Halo. So you have just as little a chance of it going back “to it’s roots” as with going back to Reach style.

Personally, I’d be happy if they gave a whole new setup and gameplay scheme. Make everyone start fresh.

Of course, the fanboys would whine and cry about being slighted…again.

Time_Glitch · February 16, 2012, 6:51pm

> I may have the minority opinion on this message board, but I can tell you that I am not a minority in not liking the changes. I have been watching what my friends play and talking with them for years now, and the majority of my friend have been diehard Halo players. All but 3 of them are now playing other games most of the time. It’s not because they’re sick of playing Halo, they are sick of the crappy matchmaking.
>
> It’s too late in the game to be making huge changes to Reach’s matchmaking, because most of the diehard players have learned how to pace their shots to get fast kills. All 343 is doing is alienating their base, and if they keep it up, then they will see the bottom-line results on Halo 4 release day sales numbers. I can guarantee they give a dam about that.

People stopped playing Halo because of Vanilla’s settings, not TU’s settings. If anything, TU’s settings brought a few more people back from the void. You couldn’t be more wrong in that regard.

343 is doing the exact opposite: They’re appealing to the fanbase that they LOST because Bungie made terrible decisions with Reach. If Halo 4 takes its cues from the Trilogy, Halo 4 will be far more popular and alive than Reach ever was.

It seems you have a very short attention span.

poppin_curbs · February 16, 2012, 7:01pm

LoL imagine how many players left after Bungie released Reach in the dog-poop form it was?

Cya, bye! Thankful Reach feels SOMEWHAT like a Halo game now.

F111F_19740186 · February 16, 2012, 7:04pm

Time Glitch

I didn’t mind matchmaking in Halo 3, so if they go back to the old real-time ranking of player for both social and ranked matches, then I’d be fine with that. Halo 2 sucked because of the shenanigans of a few players that ruined it for most. There were always crazy things going on like flying Warthogs, hiding bombs under the map, and crap like that. It was entertaining for a time or two, but it got real old fast.

Reach with no real-time ranking system and TU sucks for players who aren’t young cut throat players. Some of these guys will make fun of me because in their eyes, I am an old geezer at 40, but I get the biggest laugh when I look at my bank account and all my nice stuff that they don’t have. I wouldn’t trade any of it for faster reflexes and Ramen Noodles for dinner!

Retsuko_Rage · February 16, 2012, 7:16pm

This is the way i see it. Halo reach was BUNGIE’S GAME. the anniversary playlist and all that title update crap was done by 343. 343 needs to stop trying to put their influence on things bungie already did. If 343 wants to add -Yoink- to reach they have their own playlists they created to do that with. 343 i love your enthusiasm with halo but stop trying to be like bungie and fix -Yoink- that doesn’t need to be fixed. The halo reach playlists were fine how bungie made them. I don’t know whose bright idea it was to do away with sword canceling. All the title update has done is bring idiotic noobs to halo. the halo universe doesn’t need that. People play team slayer to get away from all the -Yoink- 343 is trying to do. 343 you have an anniversary playlist and you have a title update playlist to do all your -Yoink- to. Its not fair to make everything TU settings.

poppin_curbs · February 16, 2012, 7:33pm

Accuracy should win battles, and the problem with 100% Bloom is that it is RANDOM. The TU fixes things that were BROKEN. I don’t understand why everyone has an issue with it.

If Reach would’ve came out the way it is now, a lot more players would still be playing IMO.

The reason Reach is so frustrating/annoying is that with Vanilla Reach there’s barely a skill gap. (Which is good for casuals, but bad for “good” Halo players). They catered to the casual by adding AA’s and having a weapon you couldn’t be accurate with.

What they didn’t expect was for everyone to leave because this made the game NOT FUN. It’s so frustrating to have someone one shot and then all of a sudden they turn into an invincible rock, or fly outside of the map. Or actually try to pace your shots and lose a DMR battle to somebody whos just spamming.

*Vanilla Reach players do not like the TU because they DIE TOO QUICK. Well, SORRY, because if it wasn’t for your little rock you turned into, or flying ability, you should’ve been dead EVEN SOONER.

It’s too Random for competitive matchmaking. For me personally, the reason I like Halo more than COD is the fact that it is: Red vs. Blue, everyone starts even (same loadouts/weapons) and you fight over power weapons. Well, Reach ruined that to say the least. Sure the game is evolving, but it’s just a playground now.

Time_Glitch · February 16, 2012, 8:10pm

> Time Glitch
>
> I didn’t mind matchmaking in Halo 3, so if they go back to the old real-time ranking of player for both social and ranked matches, then I’d be fine with that. Halo 2 sucked because of the shenanigans of a few players that ruined it for most. There were always crazy things going on like flying Warthogs, hiding bombs under the map, and crap like that. It was entertaining for a time or two, but it got real old fast.
>
> Reach with no real-time ranking system and TU sucks for players who aren’t young cut throat players. Some of these guys will make fun of me because in their eyes, I am an old geezer at 40, but I get the biggest laugh when I look at my bank account and all my nice stuff that they don’t have. I wouldn’t trade any of it for faster reflexes and Ramen Noodles for dinner!

I didn’t really care for you, and now I really don’t like you. Anyone that judges their worth as a human being based on how much crap they have is automatically a rotten egg in my book.

I think I understand why you don’t see that the TU is better for the game as a whole: You’re the kind of person that can’t look past their own two feet. You just like the game the way it is and anything outside of what YOU want is automatically bad.

Your kind sickens me.

system · February 16, 2012, 8:17pm

[deleted]

poppin_curbs · February 16, 2012, 8:19pm

> Time Glitch
>
>
> Reach with no real-time ranking system and TU sucks for players who aren’t young cut throat players. Some of these guys will make fun of me because in their eyes, I am an old geezer at 40, but I get the biggest laugh when I look at my bank account and all my nice stuff that they don’t have. I wouldn’t trade any of it for faster reflexes and Ramen Noodles for dinner!

You have more money than a 14 year-old. Congrats, you’ve made it in life.

Floidberger · February 16, 2012, 8:43pm

> > Time Glitch
> >
> >
> > Reach with no real-time ranking system and TU sucks for players who aren’t young cut throat players. Some of these guys will make fun of me because in their eyes, I am an old geezer at 40, but I get the biggest laugh when I look at my bank account and all my nice stuff that they don’t have. I wouldn’t trade any of it for faster reflexes and Ramen Noodles for dinner!
>
> You have more money than a 14 year-old. Congrats, you’ve made it in life.

He has a point though. The majority of the people who are up in arms about this - look at how much time they spend complaining about it. WAY TOO MUCH. Nobody realizes that once their opinion/idea/whathaveyou are posted - that’s the length of it. It’s a coin toss to whether it gets used or even looked at seriously.

A person like me isn’t going to spend hours upon posting and wasted time building petitions for something that actually isn’t going to be around in 5+ years. Either a new system will be implemented or a whole new game takes over. It’s about long term AND appeasing EVERYONE.

In the long run, I’d rather adapt and enjoy the actual sweets of life than whether my bleedout percentage isn’t working the way I want.

Again, if you literally aren’t on the dev team, own stock in the company, etc - You really shouldn’t be taking a Video Game ever so seriously.