I’ll start by saying I think it’s fantastic and that many of the new additions are completely welcome. I think it’s important to add variation to the series without changing the base formula too much. I think they’ve manage to capture that perfectly with this.
Saying that, one feature which I doubt they’ll remove in the final product, but I’ll mention my distaste for anyway, is the fact that it announces when weapons will spawn and has a timer. Back in the older days of Halo, now and again you’d get teammates who sit on the weapon spawn waiting for your teams sniper to come back. It seems a bit more prevalent now that teammates will just sit on the sniper spawn for the entire 30 seconds waiting for it. It also takes away the skill aspect of timing weapons.
The other, which I think if enough people mention it, they would happily fix, is the way that they match people who are unranked with people who are ranked. It seems like people have been playing under 10 games and are appearing in your matches. At times even people with 0 games have been put into matches with all Onyx/semi pro players and the result is always the same, a 0.1 k/d with one player completely letting their team down. This could be avoided by making it so for the first ten games, players only match in the bronze to silver brackets or a similar system. This game is the most team focused Halo yet so having one exceptionally weak player completely breaks down your side.
I don’t see it as a problem.
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> I’ll start by saying I think it’s fantastic and that many of the new additions are completely welcome. I think it’s important to add variation to the series without changing the base formula too much. I think they’ve manage to capture that perfectly with this.
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> Saying that, one feature which I doubt they’ll remove in the final product, but I’ll mention my distaste for anyway, is the fact that it announces when weapons will spawn and has a timer. Back in the older days of Halo, now and again you’d get teammates who sit on the weapon spawn waiting for your teams sniper to come back. It seems a bit more prevalent now that teammates will just sit on the sniper spawn for the entire 30 seconds waiting for it. It also takes away the skill aspect of timing weapons.
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> The other, which I think if enough people mention it, they would happily fix, is the way that they match people who are unranked with people who are ranked. It seems like people have been playing under 10 games and are appearing in your matches. At times even people with 0 games have been put into matches with all Onyx/semi pro players and the result is always the same, a 0.1 k/d with one player completely letting their team down. This could be avoided by making it so for the first ten games, players only match in the bronze to silver brackets or a similar system. This game is the most team focused Halo yet so having one exceptionally weak player completely breaks down your side.
On your first point, I like that they have an in game way to track when weapons come back. I think it’s too readily available, however. Here’s what I think would work pretty well. Have the indicator and the timer when you’re close to the weapon like it is now, but have the audio cue work differently. Instead of announcing to everyone as soon as it’s 30 seconds out, have the audio cue only when you or a teammate are close enough to see the timer. At which point, you get a “Power weapon soon” announcement to you’re team only (unless the other team has a teammate that sees the timer), then when it spawns have it say to the team “Power weapon is up.” This way, you have to be moving around the map and, if no one on your team goes to check on it, you don’t know it’s up. That’s my idea for the power weapon announcing.
On your second point, I kind of like the idea. Why team up people are trying to earn rank with those that already have a rank. If the game doesn’t know the rank of the player, why potentially put a really bad player with a bunch of other good players, or vice versa? That just ruins the experience for both parties. However, I think everyone with a rank should be in the same system. If the matching system works, you’d only be matched with people of similar skill anyway so I don’t see the need for different brackets.
Also, props to posting a level headed feedback thread.