I want to provide a little feedback on Warzone. I’ve been playing Halo since Halo CE. My record may not say it, but well, I wasn’t big on Xbox Live at the time. Only got really into it around Halo 3 after playing couch coop and system link matches on Halo CE and Halo 2 so please don’t take anything I’m about to say as blind fanboy love, veteran hate, or anything else for that matter. Take the feedback for what it is or please begone from this thread. I don’t mind people sharing opinions but this thread is for constructive feedback only. If you want to flame it out take it elsewhere. Now to begin.
The Good: I like the higher player count. Its hectic, and in some moments really epic. This feels like it will fit quite nicely next to big team battle once it is added to the playlists. For the most part weapons themselves are very well balanced and in the right hands comebacks are fully possible I’m sure though I haven’t experienced it myself. I also like that everything that’s in Halo 5’s armory is present. I enjoy spawning in a tank as in pretty much any other playlist aside from heavies the Scorpion gets inevitably removed. Seems these days that the scorpion is reserved for vehicular destruction in select campaign bits, but I am glad the scorpion has a home in multiplayer, even if it may or may not appear in BTB.
The Bad: I haven’t had played a lot of Warzone, only a couple matches, but already I am having a hard time having fun in warzone matches. Despite the higher player count and being able to spawn in to matches whatever I feel like as long as I have the req there are some balancing problems when it comes to the reqs which I will get to shortly. Before I get there though I notice one thing. Bosses are critical to success in matches. The ability to rob the boss kill at the last second with a well placed shot can really turn matches against a team that is already struggling to keep up. Morale is a huge factor in battle. One need only look so far as the Battle of Agincourt in French and English history to see this in action. A beleaguered English army rallied to victory after a storm muddied the battlefield resulting in a long slog for the French army if they wanted to reach them. By the time the French reached the English during the battle they were tired and the hail of arrows from English long bowmen depleted both their numbers and morale. Despite being heavily outnumbered the English won a crushing victory in that battle. So when something screws over a team like a storm at Agincourt, or a boss stolen in warzone morale will be depleted. Its great for the team thats ahead as they just padded the lead. But it falls under the same concept as running up the score in sports.
The Ugly: Ok this part will probably be the longest but stay with me. Now I was open minded coming into Halo 5 when it came to Req packs. I thought they were interesting and could be pretty cool. However, in playing Warzone there are a few inherent problems the Req packs cause.
Limited Use - Ok so let me make an analogy here. How many times in games do you pick up that big bad weapon and then fight your way through the level waiting for that perfect time to use said weapon due to its limited ammo constantly refusing to use it subconsciously because you fear that if you use it one moment that you will round the corner to find something you needed that weapon for more than the fight you just expended it in. The same thing happens in warzone. Due to the limited nature of the req packs involving power weapons, boosts, vehicles, etc. players can be either very liberal with them, or very stingy. If a player spawns out with a vehicle and gets struck by a rocket or splaser seconds after spawn then they will probably be less inclined to roll out that vehicle again. Even small arms fire can mow down vehicles very quickly with 12 players if they focus fire. I spawned a tank in and the abundance of power weapons reduced it to rubble very quickly. Due to this reality players can be really uncertain of when to spawn vehicles or power weapons in with their single use cards as if they spawn in and get killed seconds later that req card or cards are a complete waste. Now imagine if you used a super rare legendary req and that happened. That super special weapon you spent days, weeks, months is now gone in the blink of an eye because you spawned and got sniped in the head a second later because your luck sucks when you spawned. That will frustrate a player to no end and make them leery about bringing out the big guns so to speak.
Liberal/Conservative req use - As stated above the limited use really influences how players use cards they collect. The problem this causes is that while some players will be very liberal with them not caring whatsoever how long the req they use lasts before they either die or expend it. On the other hand you have players that get very conservative not wanting to waste req cards, especially high level ones. They will be very methodical and calculating on what cards they use when. Due to this reality a team that is very liberal with their card use against a conservative team will win. The ones who are liberal with their cards will roll over the conservative players because they aren’t spawning things in. As things get worse off the conservative players don’t get more liberal with their cards, they get more stingy.
The Snowball Effect and Card Use - Players will behave differently depending on the state of the match. Players with low morale as discussed in point 1 will perform worse while a winning team with high morale will perform better. Due to the limited state of the req cards the player on the losing team will at some point stop using their cards because they feel the match is a lost cause. That point varies from player to player. If a match starts getting out of hand (a 200-400+ point deficit depending on the player) players will stop using their cards because they don’t want to waste req cards on a lost cause. This causes the team that is winning to be even more liberal with their req cards so that they can pad their K/Ds as they roll over the losing team for an easy win sometimes ignoring bosses as they repeatedly slaughter the opposing team. In both matches my team fell into a 500 point deficit. I looked at my reqs and saw that I could spawn in a mantis, but opted against it and just went out with my trusty BR because I didn’t feel like wasting a perfectly good mantis throwing it against an impenetrable wall of power weapons. The whole team did this and we lost horribly 1000-399. Its like a match of League of Legends. Once morale reaches a breaking point the team routes and the match has lost all purpose as it is no longer competitive. Players might even start throwing themselves at enemies with no intent of success just to hasten the match. Unlike LoL however, there isn’t a surrender option for the losing team to forfeit when they know the match is lost so that they can move on to the next match and not get tortured to pad someone else’s KD. This rolls into my next point.
> Once morale reaches a breaking point the team routes and the match has lost all purpose as it is no longer competitive. Players might even start throwing themselves at enemies with no intent of success just to hasten the match.
This is literally the summery of what Warzone is. Either high morale due to outstanding performance or as you say low morale due to routing and all care is thrown out the window turning the match sour and painful. The only reason that the gametype has any sort of value at this point is because of the high req payout regardless of a win or a loss.
No Comeback Mechanics - Once a match gets out of hand there isn’t really anything that incentives a rallying push. Maybe someone will step up on the mic and be the great general that leads the team to victory against impossible odds, but chances of that happening are pretty slim. Once things get to a certain point players stop using their reqs because there is nothing immediately apparent for them to make a comeback with. In MOBAS there is a progressively increasing respawn timer so that even if a team is getting rolled a good push against the enemy team and a decisive victory in a team fight can spell doom for the formerly winning team if they get wiped or largely obliterated. In Heroes of the Storm the objectives if used correctly can allow teams to make great rallying pushes by forcing huge changes in player behavior due to the sheer power of the objectives. Here in Warzone there isn’t any of that. Once the deficit gets large enough the 25vp bosses and 150vp bosses simply aren’t enough to close the gap and often the winning team will be so dominant that the other team simply can’t get a shot in on the boss. There needs to be something there for the losing team that can correct a large deficit and keep matches competitive or this mode could largely be snuffed out once BTB comes around, and that would be sad as warzone as the potential to be a great evolution of Reach’s invasion mode.
Req energy - In my latest warzone match I noticed a large disparity between my team and my opponents req energy levels. You know the phrase “the rich get richer, the poor get poorer?” Well that phrase applies really well here. This was a problem in Halo 4 as well with the ordinance drops. Players earn their req energy through their performance. I’m not sure if is on a personal or team level though so if someone could enlighten me there I would appreciate it so I can better understand the mode. The problem here is that if a team builds a large enough disparity in req energy then balance completely flies out the window. My team had level 3 reqs and were trying to get involved with ghosts while the other team was spawning banshees, tanks, and wraiths. How are we supposed to compete with that. Those not in vehicles were spawn killing us with sniper rifles and beam rifles. This enables the snowball effect in a major way. If one team gets ahead they start using higher level reqs and once a team loses the arms race they’ve lost the match. How can a team popping out with fuel rod cannons compete for a boss kill against a team that can just sit back, let them do the damage, and then pick it off with a tank shell, wraith blast, or banshee bomb? The very function of the req energy and the cards makes the game and arms race and once even a slight disparity grows between the req energies of teams things can get ugly fast. Going up from a warthog to the Wraith and Tank is a huge power jump and so that one or two req energy impacts the match in a big way.
I don’t know what the best solutions are but here are a couple suggestions.
Increase the respawn timers on the winning team variant on the point spread. A team winning by several, several hundred should have a very punishing respawn for overextending themselves. This would give the losing team a chance to push back and in the case of an absolutely massive deficit perhaps nail the core to tighten the gap or even take the lead if they really band together and rally.
Decrease req energy costs for the losing team variant on the point spread. A team is screwed if they can’t effectively answer the power of another team. Its like a sub par defensive secondary trying to stop Russell Wilson and Marshawn Lynch or (much as I dislike them) Tom Brady and the Gronk. If I am trying to challenge tanks, mantises, banshees and wraiths with petty ghosts I’m going to lose. Haven’t we learned from campaign that “tank beats everything?”
Lockout reqs for the winning team on a raw non-point affiliated cool down timer when they use them. If a team is winning in a big way then their reqs should be harder to come by making them have to be more considerate of their use and more controlled in their team strategy. A team deprived of the “big guns” for a little while to allow the losing team a chance to comeback can keep games competitive so long as the timer wasn’t so large as to just cause a flipping of the tables. They shouldn’t be punished for playing well, but the shouldn’t be encouraged to drag out matches to pad their stats because they are playing well. Players getting tortured is no fun for the losing team. They stick it out for the xp and req points but have every moment of it.
Warzone has some major balancing issues when it comes to the distribution of req energy, and very reality of player psychology when it comes to the use of the req cards. One or two players not using their reqs can really hurt the team if the other team is pulling out all the stops. Say every player spawned a tank except for two players on one team. That team is down two tanks, and two tanks is a large gap in firepower. If we work together we can find the best solutions to balance the req system so that matches stay competitive in warzone and don’t snowball so easily.
Note: Don’t come into this thread and tell me just to get good. I’m not the greatest Halo player in the world, but I am fairly good when I play frequently. If you want to come into this thread and say sorry TL:DR well thanks for stopping by, feel free to see yourself to the door. I want to foster discussion here and help improve warzone. I don’t want this thread to become one of flaming others telling them they suck and simply need to play better or go back to COD like the twelve year olds scrubs they are. If you aren’t here to be part of the discussion then take it elsewhere and troll someone else.
> 2533274807540513;2:
> > Once morale reaches a breaking point the team routes and the match has lost all purpose as it is no longer competitive. Players might even start throwing themselves at enemies with no intent of success just to hasten the match.
>
>
> This is literally the summery of what Warzone is. Either high morale due to outstanding performance or as you say low morale due to routing and all care is thrown out the window turning the match sour and painful. The only reason that the gametype has any sort of value at this point is because of the high req payout regardless of a win or a loss.
Its a big problem in warzone that we as a community can work together to address and suggest solutions as players so that we can help 343i improve warzone patch to patch to make it the BTB Invasion hybrid it is meant to be.
Theirs some stuff i agree on and some i disagree with. On the Req system about how players who spawn with a ultra rare weapon and get sniped before using it. Well im afraid thats how the cookie crumbles. Sometimes you’ll win big and find 6 guys looking the other way while you have a sword and sometimes you’ll get royal -Yoinked!-. And about the balancing, why should the better team be punished for winning well ?
If the other team has let them get that far ahead then they don’t deserve to win. If i had worked hard to get a significant lead by out playing the enemy then im going to be pretty pissed when the game feels sorry for them and gives them a pity phaeton or something.
Personally I think Warzone needs tweaking to improve it. I’ve played a few games on it and still unsure how I feel about it. I just feel like its missing something.
Vehicles: Need to spawn and re-spawn at each teams Homebase (and maybe the occasional captured base) without using REQ Cards but REQ cards should be used to spawn special upgraded versions of vehicles. For Example at each Homebase a team will get 2 Standard Warthogs, a mongoose or 2, a ghost, maybe a Banshee or a UNSC Hornet (I miss that vehicle), these vehicles will re-spawn on their own after a length of time. REQ cards can be used to buy the Gauss Warthog and other variations of the Warthog (Flame Thrower?) plus the Tanks and Mantis. Plus some (not all) of the Bases that need to be captured could have their own Vehicle that spawns when captured.
Bases: When you capture a base it should have turrets and shield walls (like in Dominion on Halo4). A captured base should then allow a team to access basic gun racks of Assault Rifles, Battle Rifles (or DMR) and maybe Shotguns allowing quick ammo refills for these weapons. Plus maybe each base could have it’s own power weapon spawn on a timer - something basic like a Sniper or Railgun.
Weapons: I think maybe in a secret passage/tunnel or even right out in the open on a crossroads there should be a couple weapon spawns dotted about to discover and fight over.
Warzone is amazing for the most part. boss scoring needs a major overhaul. Can list my idea if requested. And warzone assault needs it’s own maps. there are at least 3 “maps” for it that it’s horribly imbalanced to the point that one wonders how it even got past certification.
I’m not saying give the losing team a free vehicle but a boost to allow them to stay competitive. Its only fun for one team if its a slaughter. And I do agree with you on the subject of “things happen” when it comes to great success or waste of reqs. I’m just stating that there is a psychological aspect if it happens a lot in a match to where people stop using reqs so as to not waste them.
So in essence while we don’t want to punish the winning team, we want to help the losing team so that it stays competitive. What football games are usually more fun to watch. The close ones or the blowouts. They are great every now and again but the close ones are the really fun ones.
> 2535422112705145;7:
> Warzone is amazing for the most part. boss scoring needs a major overhaul. Can list my idea if requested. And warzone assault needs it’s own maps. there are at least 3 “maps” for it that it’s horribly imbalanced to the point that one wonders how it even got past certification.
What idea do you have good sir. I’m all ears. The only bad suggestion is one not said.
I thought I would love Warzone, and I should because I LOVE coop modes and the concept of Warzone sounds really cool. But something feels off. Part of it is the aiming/controls doesn’t feel like it did in the Beta but I obviously need more time to get used to it.
This is a really great in depth post, I appreciate it. I thought I was going to love warzone but I just find myself longing for BTB again. I hate the no weapons or vehicles on a map. I’ve found myself stop using my req cards. I agree that it needs an overhaul, especially the scoring system. I was thinking if a boss is worth 50 points and I do 50% damage then I should get 25 points even if I don’t kill him.
I hate how you cant use the “biggest maps yet”. With constant fights for outposts, where the team thats currently holding it will spawn and the other theam will rush to get there, you cant use the scope of the maps. Why do you need a fast vehicle to travel the map when all the action is located at one point anyway? When I call a vehicle it spawns at home base so the only driving i do is from home base to the outpost and thats it. I then only drive back and forth a bit to let my shields recharge.
In comparison big team battle did a way better job of creating the sandbox feeling of big maps and lots of players.
I agree with most of what you have said, the only thing I gotta add here is the super high end req cards really need a change. I got a ultra rare mantis that requires req 8 to use, the problem with that is by the time my team gets to req 8 there is only a few minutes left and its not even worth using the card by then because you wont get much out of it so the card has no use to me. Yes, yes I can sell it but that defeats the whole point of the card.
With that out of the way, I was in a match where the other team got such a super jump on our team so fast that we were all trapped in our spawn base for the rest of the match they had us surrounded with tanks and snipers an such, you could not get out… we could keep them from the core but that was about the extent of our ability. That was a very frustrating game that seemed like it would never end so I agree this kind of issue needs to be addressed.
I think friendly fire should be disabled in Warzone. I don’t know about everyone else but I’ve had too many deaths already due to clueless nooby teammates who mistake me for an enemy.
I have to agree in that the way warzone’s objectives function it does get focused in certain areas and as a result deaths happen insanely quickly and as a result one is far more likely to waste a power weapon than in other game modes, and unlike other game modes if you don’t have req cards of decent quality, you are basically useless to your team. Part of the problem is that the team that is succeeding is raking in kills, req energy, victory points, and map control while the losing team is burning through req cards trying to answer them to no avail. After so many cards are expended people won’t keep using them so as to save reqs for other matches. Thats where it gets to the point where players that could turn around a match with a tank, wraith, or other major req card hold back and doom their team because they determine that it isn’t worth it to spawn that tank as they feel the match is lost. In BTB if that player passed on the tank someone else would hop in and go to town doing whatever they can. The reality is that because of the single use card system there is that desire to save it for the perfect time like I described with power weapons in campaign. This creates a lot of teammates that aren’t contributing as well as they could be because they don’t feel their high level reqs are worth expending if the match isn’t favorable. It’s like, "I have one scorpion in my inventory, I could spawn it, but my team is 300 points behind. They are carrying rockets and snipers up the yin yang, so is it really worth it to spawn in this tank?
I think the req cards are creating an over saturation of power weapons and it degrades vehicular play. Why spawn a vehicle in if it will be torn to shreds in seconds by 12 players at once with small arms fire (ghosts, mongooses, and even warthogs to some extent), or be peppered with rockets seconds after spawn in the late game (Wraith, Mantis, Scorpion, Banshee, Phaeton).
The desire to be a pack rat has to be removed. Players should want to bring the biggest guns they got to the fight but right now, it the match isn’t looking great people simply won’t risk wasting their best reqs on a chance that they might turn around the match. They would rather suffer the loss than waste that big ticket req. This is even more true if they are of the type that the micros transactions target. When real money is being equated people will be even more stingy since if that req is instantly wasted that has a real dollar price that just got wasted. Say I spent $10 on reqs. Now say in each match I play it becomes a spawn kill snowball where I’m on the losing side. Every time I decided to spawn with one of my reqs I died in half a second because the other team is armed to the teeth with rockets and sniper rifles. Now I am out $10 and that $10 spent yielded nothing in return because I wasn’t able to capitalize on those reqs due to the snowball effect so prevalent in Warzone. I use the req points, but there are plenty of “wallet warriors” as they are so called out there. The micro transactions degrade warzone as a whole because it makes people stingy with their reqs since real money is being spent. They want to get value out of however much they spend and so if they feel they would be wasting money by spawning that tank or power weapon then they won’t do it. They then become a liability to the team because they won’t use their reqs because the stars haven’t perfectly aligned for the use of whatever req is in question.
On the subject of the AI I have to agree with the sentiment on their overall contribution to the match. With the overabundance of power weapons and vehicles in warzone matches the AI are wiped out in a manner of seconds and as such rarely have any impact on the match. Often times the petty 25vp guys go unattended for awhile because of where they spawn. They are out of the way and usually a fair distance from the larger fight at hand between the players. I think we wiped out Warden Eternal in about 5 seconds when he spawned once during a March on Stormbreak match before turning our eyes back to the other team. Even dropping him didn’t save us from the 400 point hole we were in.
The same problem occurred in Halo 4 with ordinance drops. The players who were succeeding got all the drops whereas those who were having a rough match or weren’t as skilled spent their time getting mown down by power weapons. So when AI spawns in and a team is winning by such a degree, their arsenal of weapons will wipe the AI in seconds while also vaporizing the enemy team 2-3 times over. And while everyone is respawning they just restock at the req station.
I hate doing this, but I am going to self bump this thread as there is some great discussion going on and would hate for it to get buried beneath the mindless hate and non constructive threads that so rapidly accumulate.
> 2533274837767430;9:
> > 2535422112705145;7:
> > Warzone is amazing for the most part. boss scoring needs a major overhaul. Can list my idea if requested. And warzone assault needs it’s own maps. there are at least 3 “maps” for it that it’s horribly imbalanced to the point that one wonders how it even got past certification.
>
>
> What idea do you have good sir. I’m all ears. The only bad suggestion is one not said.
Splitting up the points into 3 sections. overall points, team points, final shot bonus.
Overall points which is the biggest chunk of the points go to whichever team did the most damage.
team points are rewarded when 2 or more spartans on a team work at shooting the boss. the more of your team shooting it the bigger the bonus.
and final shot bonus. awarded to whatever team got the final shot. not worth a ton of points. but a decent amount.
In situation A I alone drop the boss down to 10% health and 3 enemy spartans finish it off together. they’d get a 10-30 point bonus for the final shot and a 20-25 point bonus for the team effort. but i’d be getting 70+ points for the overall points because I did the most work.
Situation B 6 of blue teams spartans and 6 of read teams spartans shoot the boss and do equal amount of the work. blue team got the final shot. both teams would get a 50 point bonus for overall damage. both teams would get a 20 point bonus or more for team effort. blue team would get like a 10 point bonus for the final shot.
This allows everyone who works at the pve side to be awarded for the effort. not just people who sit out of sight waiting to drop the last DMR shot to swing the entire match. and because it’s no longer easy heafty points people will more then likely start to flock back to holding bases and killing enemy players. thus making all aspects of warzone important. not just boss killing.