I know this topic may be old and and most ideas will probably not be put in by 343 but we can dream and it’s nice to have your ideas organized. So the point of this thread is to come up with ways to increase skill gap. If you want to increase something how much would you increase it? Would it be similar to Halo 1/2/3/Reach? Voice your opinion!
I would have it all the way up to the skillgap CE had.
The number one way of achieving this is by having good core gameplay mechanics. If these aren’t in the game, you can forget it, basically.
- fast movement accelleration ensures efficiënt strafing
- low auto aim
- low bullet magnetism
- responsive aiming, that means no aim accelleration smoothing.
- Other efficiënt ways to throw off aim: a high jump and a fast crouch. Combined they form good ‘ghandi hopping’.
- fast maximum killtimes, promoting situational awareness. However, they are hard to achieve (CE pistol, quadshot Halo 2 BR) so the average killtime is still high. (It’s a reward for perfect aim)
These ensure that every 1v1 is always won by the better person. There is no excuse for losing a 1v1 other than a lack of skill due to the consistent nature of the game. They enable individual play to make a difference in a team game.
The second way are things bound to maps and spawns.
- Perfectly balanced maps that can be (partially) locked down by the winning team.
- Power weapons and powerups or armor abilities appear on the map in such a way that each team has an equal chance of obtaining them at the start of a match. They also spawn at invariable intervals, so every time they spawn each team has the same chance of obtaining them in order to turn the tide or increase the advantage.
- predictable spawns so the losing team is punished for being wiped out.
- … Yet the map must enable the losing team to break away from spawn traps rather easily if they know what they’re doing.
- No inequality on spawn in the form of mini- powerups (armor abilities)
These ensure that matches are always won by the better team, the team that had the most control over the map and power weapons because of their better teamwork.
Other features aren’t absolutely necessary for skill gap, but simply make the game more fun by making the game fast paced.
- Again, fast killtimes. People die more, the game progresses faster.
- Fast base movement speed again, preferrably without sprint. Less escapes from death means more deaths and so the game progresses faster.
- Predictable spawns give a bigger advantage to the winning team in objective games so that they are won faster.
I’ll leave it up to the reader to decide where Reach and Halo 4 are breaking away from this.
> I would have it all the way up to the skillgap CE had.
>
>
> - Other efficiënt ways to throw off aim: a high jump and a fast crouch. Combined they form good ‘ghandi hopping’.
> - fast maximum killtimes, promoting situational awareness. However, they are hard to achieve (CE pistol, quadshot Halo 2 BR) so the average killtime is still high. (It’s a reward for perfect aim)
I’d like to focus on these two points more in depth. In another post I made I made the suggestion of an ability vaguely similar to evade as standard ability. Basically 1 use to prevent using it as a crutch. Further more it would be same distance as Reach’s or maybe a little bit less. Lastly I mentioned a mechanic that allows you to cancel the evade mid-use so that you only evade half-way. (However it uses up your evade usage still.) By introducing this mechanic I hoped to increase the depth of strafing making it instead of jump-walk-crouch it would be jump-walk-crouch-evade-half evade making strafing much more skill dependent. As for your second point I think it would also benefit faster maximum kill times if every shot with a precision weapon, hey maybe even automatic, did more damage if you shot the person in the head, even if they had full shields. Why is it fair that If i hit someone 4 times in the head with my BR, I get the same kill as someone who had 3 shots in the body but the last one in the head?
One more thing I’d like to add. I think changing weapons should almost be instant. THis would
-Speed up gameplay
-Make weapon combinations more effective (But you should keep this in mid when designing the PP)
-Make changing your weapon more effective when out of ammo
> I would have it all the way up to the skillgap CE had.
>
> The number one way of achieving this is by having good core gameplay mechanics. If these aren’t in the game, you can forget it, basically.
> - fast movement accelleration ensures efficiënt strafing
> - low auto aim
> - low bullet magnetism
> - responsive aiming, that means no aim accelleration smoothing.
> - Other efficiënt ways to throw off aim: a high jump and a fast crouch. Combined they form good ‘ghandi hopping’.
> - fast maximum killtimes, promoting situational awareness. However, they are hard to achieve (CE pistol, quadshot Halo 2 BR) so the average killtime is still high. (It’s a reward for perfect aim)
>
> These ensure that every 1v1 is always won by the better person. There is no excuse for losing a 1v1 other than a lack of skill due to the consistent nature of the game. They enable individual play to make a difference in a team game.
>
> The second way are things bound to maps and spawns.
> - Perfectly balanced maps that can be (partially) locked down by the winning team.
> - Power weapons and powerups or armor abilities appear on the map in such a way that each team has an equal chance of obtaining them at the start of a match. They also spawn at invariable intervals, so every time they spawn each team has the same chance of obtaining them in order to turn the tide or increase the advantage.
> - predictable spawns so the losing team is punished for being wiped out.
> - … Yet the map must enable the losing team to break away from spawn traps rather easily if they know what they’re doing.
> - No inequality on spawn in the form of mini- powerups (armor abilities)
>
> These ensure that matches are always won by the better team, the team that had the most control over the map and power weapons because of their better teamwork.
>
> Other features aren’t absolutely necessary for skill gap, but simply make the game more fun by making the game fast paced.
> - Again, fast killtimes. People die more, the game progresses faster.
> - Fast base movement speed again, preferrably without sprint. Less escapes from death means more deaths and so the game progresses faster.
> - Predictable spawns give a bigger advantage to the winning team in objective games so that they are won faster.
>
> I’ll leave it up to the reader to decide where Reach and Halo 4 are breaking away from this.
I wanted to put my 2 pennies in the jar here. Okay i like all what I’m seeing from this but just one thing. If you haven’t heard the balance aspect is stilll in play in Halo 4. How you may ask. Well let me show you. If you look at what we have seen so far everything can cancel each other out. Am i wrong? i have no idea. The on;y thing we can do is wait and see what 343 industries has to show for this. there is always a 50-50 chance in Halo no matter what. i think they will keep it at core of 50-50. If not then we still have custom games and probably a Classic playlist. MLG seems to like it, so lets give it a chance?
Who knows this game could end up just like Brink… a sad sad story
^ Even if everything has a counter that just makes for rock, paper, scissors gameplay. It’s completely random. IN NO WAY should what you spawn with have any affect on gameplay.
Edited by Moderator - Please do not discuss leaks, real or fake.
Just a thought: If you increase the skill gap too much you end up trying to spread too little butter over too big a piece of toast.
> Just a thought: If you increase the skill gap too much you end up trying to spread too little butter over too big a piece of toast.
Care to explain? Skill gap holds in players as they’ll constantly have room to improve. It increases the enjoyment of the game as you see progress in yourself, and other things mentioned in various topics.
> Just a thought: If you increase the skill gap too much you end up trying to spread too little butter over too big a piece of toast.
If by butter, you mean the player population, and by toast you mean the matchmaking playlists, you suggest that it will end up like Reach’s MLG: low population in a high skillgap playlist, meaning you either get stomped entirely or you win easily. (besides the low population, that’s actually quite fun if you don’t always lose. But whatever)
With Halo 4 announcing the features it has announced so far, on top of being as competitive as we describe here, i’m sure it would attract a wide player base. Both casual (new super cool features!) and competitive (balance) Meaning there’s enough butter for your toast…
The game should innovate to have enough butter, but it should also be competitive (so it can be spread out nice and thin) so players keep playing the game for years. (like the classic Halos) Because they want to belong to the better half of the toast. Keeping the toast (amount of playlists) small also helps to ensure it can be filled easier.
> > Just a thought: If you increase the skill gap too much you end up trying to spread too little butter over too big a piece of toast.
>
> Care to explain? Skill gap holds in players as they’ll constantly have room to improve. It increases the enjoyment of the game as you see progress in yourself, and other things mentioned in various topics.
Who cares? TOAST!!!
OT: I don’t think skill gaps as we used to know them, will be around for much longer.
Change is everywhere these days, games and players are no different. People are too lazy or busy to improve nowadays, games are more “pick-up and play” now, people get frustrated if they take lots of time to get good at.
Now, if we had a half-decent MM system that was able to match players with equally skilled players so there’d be no butt-kickings, this wouldn’t be as much of an issue. But, that’s a rant for another topic and a dream for another decade.
> > > Just a thought: If you increase the skill gap too much you end up trying to spread too little butter over too big a piece of toast.
> >
> > Care to explain? Skill gap holds in players as they’ll constantly have room to improve. It increases the enjoyment of the game as you see progress in yourself, and other things mentioned in various topics.
>
> Who cares? TOAST!!!
>
> OT: I don’t think skill gaps as we used to know them, will be around for much longer.
>
> Change is everywhere these days, games and players are no different. People are too lazy or busy to improve nowadays, games are more “pick-up and play” now, people get frustrated if they take lots of time to get good at.
>
> Now, if we had a half-decent MM system that was able to match players with equally skilled players so there’d be no butt-kickings, this wouldn’t be as much of an issue. But, that’s a rant for another topic and a dream for another decade.
Care to explain how being “good” is the reason why people play certain games? That is just the biggest cop-out when I hear “Games are being dumbed down because people dont want challenging/skillful games” that is such BS. Dark Souls and Sc2 were bought by millions of people and they are “challenging games” and not very “noob friendly”. Heck, I LOVED Dark Souls, because it was a VIDEO-GAME that I LIKED, not because of the difficulty. Its just such a stupid reason to dumb down a game, and then think automatically it will SELL MORE UNITS BECAUSE ITS MORE NOOB-FRIENDLY. That is the casual game way of thinking, last time I checked Halo was a competitive shooter WHY IS DIFFICULTY EVEN FACTORED INTO GAMEPLAY DECISIONS?
NOBODY here picked up Halo or X game, played a week and then continued playing said game because “They were good at it” IMO. People play specific games because THEY LIKE THE GAME.
I for one am HORRIBLE at Golf, but does that stop me from playing on a weekly basis? NO, because even though I suck, I LIKE to play Golf and I WANT to IMPROVE.
I am not very good at Tribes: Ascend a new shooter I recently starting playing, but does that factor into my decision to play? NO, because I like the game and I dont have to be going positive every game to like it.
Its just so stupid to me that making a game more noob-friendly is automatically thought to increase appeal of said game in today’s money driven industry. Why do some hardcore games sell more than most casual games then? Why is Starcraft the most played RTS? Why is WoW the most popular PC game yet more player hours has been recorded in it than any other video-game?
God, it just makes me mad that hardcore gaming is being taken over by this totally “casual” mindset of “Easy is automatically better”, “Everyone HAS to be a winner”! You’re not developing for first-time gamers here who dont know how to shoot the gun, you’re making a competitve game for a fanbase that has TONS of experience with Halo dating more than a decade. Most people who buy it will not be a noob, and even if they are how challenging/skillful it is WILL NOT be the deciding factor in if they keep playing or not.
^ The thing is MS really only needs to make people buy the game, which they do with cool looking gimmicks. After the novelty runs off you realize the game isn’t that great, but you already brought the game, and even if you rage quit that’s just better because it makes the servers easier to run.
> ^ The thing is MS really only needs to make people buy the game, which they do with cool looking gimmicks. After the novelty runs off you realize the game isn’t that great, but you already brought the game, and even if you rage quit that’s just better because it makes the servers easier to run.
That works for year releases.
3 year cycles? No chance. That theory works for yearly releases.
They need copies alright, but they need longetivity. Imagine if Halo 4 is still in the top 3 XBOX live games in 3 years? People are itching for a new release, Halo is still played and talk about, DLC is getting paid, Xbox live golds are getting bought, websites have more traffic, Competitive leagues keep it in tournaments which are streamed all over the Internet and to other competitive leagues, people make more content on youtube, which helps extend all of the above. If more people are playing it in 2 1/2 years, word of mouth/peer pressure allows more copies to be bought.
Think the Starcraft 2 model, that game will still be bought in 5 years time.
> Just a thought: If you increase the skill gap too much you end up trying to spread too little butter over too big a piece of toast.
Why artificially crunch the skill gap, when a tight matchmaking and/or ranking system can do that for you and match similarly skilled players.
> > Just a thought: If you increase the skill gap too much you end up trying to spread too little butter over too big a piece of toast.
>
> Why artificially crunch the skill gap, when a tight matchmaking and/or ranking system can do that for you and match similarly skilled players.
I think this would help both casual and competitive gamers. You can play a competitive game casually but not vice-versa. Bad players won’t have to worry about getting beaten by MLG players who got map contrl in 50 seconds flat and Competitive players won’t have to worry about teammates who walk into their own grenades. Everyone’s happy. Of course assuming a new trueskill system is in place this can work better than in Halo 3, which was an excellent example save boosters and derankers.
So its better that you sell a truckload in the first month, then the game dies out. Then you expect that to all happen again in 3 years.
Nice business plan you got there.
> So its better that you sell a truckload in the first month, then the game dies out. Then you expect that to all happen again in 3 years.
>
> Nice business plan you got there.
I don’t know if there’s a website or something I can check with detailed stats but if you Make 10 mil in 1 month that’s better than 1 mil 1 month and then another 1 mil each month for the next 5.
> > > > Just a thought: If you increase the skill gap too much you end up trying to spread too little butter over too big a piece of toast.
> > >
> > > Care to explain? Skill gap holds in players as they’ll constantly have room to improve. It increases the enjoyment of the game as you see progress in yourself, and other things mentioned in various topics.
> >
> > Who cares? TOAST!!!
> >
> > OT: I don’t think skill gaps as we used to know them, will be around for much longer.
> >
> > Change is everywhere these days, games and players are no different. People are too lazy or busy to improve nowadays, games are more “pick-up and play” now, people get frustrated if they take lots of time to get good at.
> >
> > Now, if we had a half-decent MM system that was able to match players with equally skilled players so there’d be no butt-kickings, this wouldn’t be as much of an issue. But, that’s a rant for another topic and a dream for another decade.
>
> Care to explain how being “good” is the reason why people play certain games? That is just the biggest cop-out when I hear “Games are being dumbed down because people dont want challenging/skillful games” that is such BS. Dark Souls and Sc2 were bought by millions of people and they are “challenging games” and not very “noob friendly”. Heck, I LOVED Dark Souls, because it was a VIDEO-GAME that I LIKED, not because of the difficulty. Its just such a stupid reason to dumb down a game, and then think automatically it will SELL MORE UNITS BECAUSE ITS MORE NOOB-FRIENDLY. That is the casual game way of thinking, last time I checked Halo was a competitive shooter WHY IS DIFFICULTY EVEN FACTORED INTO GAMEPLAY DECISIONS?
>
> NOBODY here picked up Halo or X game, played a week and then continued playing said game because “They were good at it” IMO. People play specific games because THEY LIKE THE GAME.
>
> I for one am HORRIBLE at Golf, but does that stop me from playing on a weekly basis? NO, because even though I suck, I LIKE to play Golf and I WANT to IMPROVE.
>
> I am not very good at Tribes: Ascend a new shooter I recently starting playing, but does that factor into my decision to play? NO, because I like the game and I dont have to be going positive every game to like it.
>
> Its just so stupid to me that making a game more noob-friendly is automatically thought to increase appeal of said game in today’s money driven industry. Why do some hardcore games sell more than most casual games then? Why is Starcraft the most played RTS? Why is WoW the most popular PC game yet more player hours has been recorded in it than any other video-game?
>
> God, it just makes me mad that hardcore gaming is being taken over by this totally “casual” mindset of “Easy is automatically better”, “Everyone HAS to be a winner”! You’re not developing for first-time gamers here who dont know how to shoot the gun, you’re making a competitve game for a fanbase that has TONS of experience with Halo dating more than a decade. Most people who buy it will not be a noob, and even if they are how challenging/skillful it is WILL NOT be the deciding factor in if they keep playing or not.
Whoa Whoa Whoa, Calm down.
I’m not that good myself at Halo, My stats say it all. But, I’m talking about other people. Lots of people don’t want to take the time to improve. It’s a fact: Not everyone has the patience to get better, in truth, most don’t.
If you went 5-27 for 5 Slayer matches in a row, would you quit Halo? Judging from your post, probably not. I think most would, it’s what their used to. They want to do SOMETHING instead of just standing there, dying all the time.
I will keep playing Halo until I’m one of the best at it, but lots of people won’t. And that’s fine. I’m just saying that people like to do something their good at more than something their bad at. And in this day & age, patience is in short supply, so if someone isn’t good (Or at least not terrible) at something after a short amount of time, they quit. I see this happen all the time.
Yes, some people will stick with it and enjoy it regardless of if their good at it or suck at it. I don’t deny that, but most people just aren’t like that.
> > > > > Just a thought: If you increase the skill gap too much you end up trying to spread too little butter over too big a piece of toast.
> > > >
> > > > Care to explain? Skill gap holds in players as they’ll constantly have room to improve. It increases the enjoyment of the game as you see progress in yourself, and other things mentioned in various topics.
> > >
> > > Who cares? TOAST!!!
> > >
> > > OT: I don’t think skill gaps as we used to know them, will be around for much longer.
> > >
> > > Change is everywhere these days, games and players are no different. People are too lazy or busy to improve nowadays, games are more “pick-up and play” now, people get frustrated if they take lots of time to get good at.
> > >
> > > Now, if we had a half-decent MM system that was able to match players with equally skilled players so there’d be no butt-kickings, this wouldn’t be as much of an issue. But, that’s a rant for another topic and a dream for another decade.
> >
> > Care to explain how being “good” is the reason why people play certain games? That is just the biggest cop-out when I hear “Games are being dumbed down because people dont want challenging/skillful games” that is such BS. Dark Souls and Sc2 were bought by millions of people and they are “challenging games” and not very “noob friendly”. Heck, I LOVED Dark Souls, because it was a VIDEO-GAME that I LIKED, not because of the difficulty. Its just such a stupid reason to dumb down a game, and then think automatically it will SELL MORE UNITS BECAUSE ITS MORE NOOB-FRIENDLY. That is the casual game way of thinking, last time I checked Halo was a competitive shooter WHY IS DIFFICULTY EVEN FACTORED INTO GAMEPLAY DECISIONS?
> >
> > NOBODY here picked up Halo or X game, played a week and then continued playing said game because “They were good at it” IMO. People play specific games because THEY LIKE THE GAME.
> >
> > I for one am HORRIBLE at Golf, but does that stop me from playing on a weekly basis? NO, because even though I suck, I LIKE to play Golf and I WANT to IMPROVE.
> >
> > I am not very good at Tribes: Ascend a new shooter I recently starting playing, but does that factor into my decision to play? NO, because I like the game and I dont have to be going positive every game to like it.
> >
> > Its just so stupid to me that making a game more noob-friendly is automatically thought to increase appeal of said game in today’s money driven industry. Why do some hardcore games sell more than most casual games then? Why is Starcraft the most played RTS? Why is WoW the most popular PC game yet more player hours has been recorded in it than any other video-game?
> >
> > God, it just makes me mad that hardcore gaming is being taken over by this totally “casual” mindset of “Easy is automatically better”, “Everyone HAS to be a winner”! You’re not developing for first-time gamers here who dont know how to shoot the gun, you’re making a competitve game for a fanbase that has TONS of experience with Halo dating more than a decade. Most people who buy it will not be a noob, and even if they are how challenging/skillful it is WILL NOT be the deciding factor in if they keep playing or not.
>
> Whoa Whoa Whoa, Calm down.
>
> I’m not that good myself at Halo, My stats say it all. But, I’m talking about other people. Lots of people don’t want to take the time to improve. It’s a fact: Not everyone has the patience to get better, in truth, most don’t.
>
> If you went 5-27 for 5 Slayer matches in a row, would you quit Halo? Judging from your post, probably not. I think most would, it’s what their used to. They want to do SOMETHING instead of just standing there, dying all the time.
>
> I will keep playing Halo until I’m one of the best at it, but lots of people won’t. And that’s fine. I’m just saying that people like to do something their good at more than something their bad at. And in this day & age, patience is in short supply, so if someone isn’t good (Or at least not terrible) at something after a short amount of time, they quit. I see this happen all the time.
>
> Yes, some people will stick with it and enjoy it regardless of if their good at it or suck at it. I don’t deny that, but most people just aren’t like that.
Il say it again
Why artificially crunch the skill gap, when a tight matchmaking and/or ranking system can do that for you and match similarly skilled players.