So, let me just preface this by saying, Warlords was an outstanding playlist and i think every player in the community appreciates that it was released. I have not had that much fun in Halo 5, it felt like going to the playoffs after over a year of training, practicing, and perfecting our strats. Even with no rewards other than some bonus exp, just the ability to play 100% competitive Warzone was a dream come true, and I think every team that’s been playing together with the ultimate goal of competing feel the same.
In addition, recognizing the threat Wasps posed to the Playlist’s meta after just one weekend of getting rolled by them is respectable.
Unfortunately, that is where my praise must end. 343 has made a knee-jerk reaction that has permanent damaged their reputation as a game developer with the implementation of a fireteam limit with no warning. This is unprecedented hostility by a game developer against their own community. This action is also rife with hypocrisy that it’s almost impossible to understand how a dev team decided to do it at all.
For 343 to tell spartan companies, clans, and large parties that because most of them are good enough to win consistently against randoms, and a few of them are extraordinarily dominant over all but the best of teams, are having too great a negative impact on player experience, and thus teams are being removed entirely from the only playlist large enough for them to play together, after a year of forming bonds, strats, and communities is ridiculous. But the hypocrisy is that 343 then tells us over and over that we are not a large enough segment of the population to justify getting any attention. They miss no opportunity, at every chance to use language that makes it seem like competitive warzone teams are only a “sliver of the population” Perhaps if most teams hadn’t been forcefully ousted from the game over a month ago, the population would have been even larger than the “higher than expected turnout” you had for Warlords weekend.
Never before in the history of gaming have I seen a game developer disband communities that have formed around their game because they got too good at it. It’s also highly suspicious that at the height of population and the height of farming in Warzone, with literally hundreds of teams farming on a daily basis, there was no action or word from 343. But as the population dwindled and teams, who have players with playtime that is 5x that of an average began to quick-core randoms instead of farming them, in the hopes of ending unfair games quickly so they could find real competition, 343 almost reacted immediately and banned all teams from the playlist. Players not using reqs as much as 343 wants APPEARS to be the direct causation for this decision, rather than the broken, weak, and extremely hypocritical justifications we are being fed by 343 in official announcements.
Let me say that the vibrant big-team Halo community is the thing that brings people back to Halo. People remember playing halo with friends. That’s what a game developer should want to encourage. Bring people together, so they can make memories and have fun. Build your community. Spartan Companies were the best thing for Halo’s community since Halo 2’s in-game Clan menus and bungie.net’s community support in Halo 3. The people that met in Halo 5, and formed teams around their favorite playlists, will be your pre-orders for Halo 6. They’ll be the people at the midnight release conferences and spreading the hype for the pre-release. The people who play Halo for the community are the loyal fan base that will always carry this franchise.
A lot of you, 343 were probably people like us at one point. But you’ve lost your way. halo 4 was lackluster in a lot of ways for the community, and the Master Chief collection was a complete betrayal. Those of us that stayed for Halo 5 found a great game and started to rebuild the community with fresh blood and new playlists and a new game to experience. But after a year of dwindling, as your most loyal players became a larger and larger percentage of the population, you decided to prioritize the micro-transaction money of randoms over the community that is the life-blood of the franchise. I believe a lot of people view being banned from playing in a team because they were too good at the game as the most absurd betrayal of trust ever propagated by a game developer against their own community.
With all that said, I don’t think there should be criticism without solutions presented.
To the problem of randoms feeling frustrated and helpless in the face of coordinated 12-man teams:
Add In-client Spartan company management. Allow companies to be created, and for players to be invited, ranked, and removed from the client itself. Suddenly, you will see an explosion of activity within your community. Players will rapidly begin to network and build teams, even if they were historically solo players. Make it easy for players to party up, and you will start building a community than will span years and games. The more you encourage community-building by helping people party-up, the less blowouts we’ll be seeing.
To the problem of the top teams being too dominant:
A number of great solutions have been presented. The most obvious being to tweak the algorithm so parties match other parties first. Another possibility would be the addition of Ranked Warzone or another playlist like Warlords that encourages the development of the competitive community. Some type of incentive would obviously need to be in place to ensure the long-term success of the playlist’s population, such as a seasonal ranking system. You would probably also need to combine WZ and WZ Assault into a single “Warzone Social” playlist to avoid overly-dividing the population of Warzone as a whole. There are so many good solutions the community has presented to this issue, please 343, just communicate what’s happening and help us help you help Halo. Right now communities that have been around for a decade now are decaying, with nothing to look forward to, no ability to play with their friends, and only the frustration of playing alone after years of playing within teams, there is a lot of pessimism and despair from players who never thought they’d be banned from playing Halo.
Also the Whiplash needs to be 5. That thing is dumb. It beats every vehicle and people on foot at all ranges. It’s on par with the Arc-light, and the regular Railgun is more on-par with the 4-req meta of the game. Just saying.
