We Are Not a "Vocal Minority"

Games Other Halo
1

Before I get started, I wanted to throw a shoutout to this article which is now famous for this quote “We hired people who hated Halo” because for me it kind of shows with how Halo 4 has turned out.

I just did a check on game populations and here are the results.

Halo 4: 24,508

Halo Reach: 19,678 (counter broken, but more people play Reach than GOW3)

Halo 3: 7,408

And has sold: 8,150,000 copies world wide.

In total 27,086 would rather play a previous Halo game over Halo 4.

In short, we are the voice of the ones who prefer not to play Halo 4; trying to speak on behalf of the people who don’t bother going on forums, or do but just get beat down for voicing their opinions and for ourselves.

And as it stands, from the peak population, we have lost about 75% of the players? Somewhere about there I believe. And yes, I am aware there would be a substantial drop from the all time peak players, but the population of Halo 4 is lower of that which Halo Reach was at prior to Halo 4’s release.

So what I’m getting at is 343i should not ignore the complainers simply because we are or might be a vocal minority. They should seriously and honestly consider what we say as valid points.

I will give a brief history of my relationship with Halo Matchmaking right now.

Halo 2: I started at the end of Halo 2’s life, did not get a chance to truly play it but I knew I loved the game.

Halo 3: My first true expereince with the Halo matchmaking, I could honestly play the game for hours on end without getting bored or super frustrated. I would also get irritated if I was unable to play online with my group of friends for a day or more.

Halo Reach: Overall I enjoyed the game, though I would often want to smash my controller due to the frustrating Armour Lock and Jet pack, I still could play the game hours on end without getting bored and I would get mad if I missed a night playing.

Halo 4: I entered this game wide-eyed and joyous, this game is a sequel to Halo 4, was “brought back to it’s roots” and was going to be the bees knees. But now I get bored within an hour playing, I get fed up almost every game due to global weapon placement and ordinance. Messed up objectives which are simply not fun anymore. The list could go on.

Before, I could play 2-3 hours a night normally without fail, so about 21 hours a week.

Now with Halo 4 I play on average 6-10 hours a week. I often don’t bother playing the game some days because I just don’t have the urge to play it.

So with that, I want us to discuss our own personal problems with this game, both covering the campaign and matchmaking in a calm fashion.

Everyone interested in providing constructive feedback, please list what you like and dislike. And mention what you would like see changed or removed.

If this can’t be done for Halo 4, it can be possibly done for Halo 5.

2

Before I post this I wanted to throw out some quotes from the site I linked you all to.

“There were a lot of mistakes we made along the way in which we knew weren’t necessarily the right way to do things,” says Wolfkill of the steep learning curve. “But given what we had to deliver and our timeframe, we accepted that these are necessary mistakes, and we acknowledged and cataloged them.”

“We had people who we hired who hated Halo because of ‘X,’” says O’Connor. “But what that really meant was, ‘I feel like this game could be awesome because of ‘Y input’ that I’m going to bring into it. I want to prove it, and I’m passionate about proving it.’ So we ended up with a bunch of people who were genuinely passionate about the product. That is a huge advantage, and that helped in hiring and forming our team.” - Personally most of the changes that came out I don’t really like, when you tinker with near-perfection to much you end up being able to throw the oddball across the map.

“It’s during that time you’re questioning yourself: 'How is this going to work, will it be as I envision it in my head?” says Holmes. For Halo 4, he says there were a few epiphany moments that helped boost the morale of the team. One of the earlier ones that Holmes recalls was when the team completed a small piece of the Halo experience that he described as a “very traditional” Halo. <mark>User research showed that people thought it was a lot of fun,</mark> and it showed that the team was capable of making a Halo game that was true to what the series was about.

<mark>343 scrapped it, Holmes says</mark>, as it was too traditional. But that first build showed the new team that this amalgamation of different studio cultures could work together and achieve a common goal."

3

Please, we do not need to rehash that article AGAIN.

I’m all for calmly talking out differences of opinions with what directions people think the game should go, but prefacing the thread with such obvious negativity toward an article that has clearly been taken various ways by various people is not starting out on the right foot.

I only see this thread becoming another hate filled cesspool.

4

> I only see this thread becoming another hate filled cesspool.

Justified hate or what I would say complaints from those who are concerned about the changes Halo 4 has made to the Halo series and how they play. I do not hate anything, only state what I think and correct those who speak falsely.

5

> Please, we do not need to rehash that article AGAIN.
>
> I’m all for calmly talking out differences of opinions with what directions people think the game should go, but prefacing the thread with such obvious negativity toward an article that has clearly been taken various ways by various people is not starting out on the right foot.
>
> I only see this thread becoming another hate filled cesspool.

This is not a rehash, the main reason I posted the shoutout to is was that the thread was very valid in my opinion, but the OP was just discharghed because he can’t follow the rules and thus the thread was locked.

Everything in the article was a good read, I read it all and 343i did a good job on the whole for the campaign, they surpassed massive obstacles, but in my opinion they completely dropped the ball on matchmaking.

6

Honestly I’m just tired after all the forum BS today.

I’ve stated my positive opinions of the MM evolutions in so many threads that I feel like I’m shouting at a brick wall with angry face painted on it.

And then wall calls me an idiot. And says I have no idea what I’m talking about. Or that I’m nuts, or am not a true Halo fan.

It gets really old.

I’ll leave your thread in peace, have fun talking bad about the game.

7

> Honestly I’m just tired after all the forum BS today.
>
> I’ve stated my positive opinions of the MM evolutions in so many threads that I feel like I’m shouting at a brick wall with angry face painted on it.
>
>
> And then wall calls me an idiot. And says I have no idea what I’m talking about. Or that I’m nuts, or am not a true Halo fan.
>
> It gets really old.
>
> I’ll leave your thread in peace, have fun talking bad about the game.

Smart brick wall.

8

> > I only see this thread becoming another hate filled cesspool.
>
> Justified hate or what I would say complaints from those who are concerned about the changes Halo 4 has made to the Halo series and how they play. I do not hate anything, only state what I think and correct those who speak falsely.

I have faith in our communities ability to largely not go into rage mode over this.

I posted true numbers which you can check for yourself at any point. The numbers will always be difference and I pulled those at non-peak times for today because I couldn’t get on at peak times.

But it’s hard to argue the lack of players on Halo 4 vs the other games. If Halo 4 was an absolute smashing success Reach should be around 10k/closer to Halo 3 and Halo 4 should be around 40k on low peak hours.

But overall what I personally despise about Halo 4 is the shift between static and reliable gameplay to chaos.

We lost static neutral weapon and objective spawns to global ordinances dropping anywhere and dropping random stuff, to hand-gifted power weapons via personal ordinance.

There are times I feel like my avatar spartan regurgitates in his own helmet when playing BTB and getting spawn sniped three times in a row from two different players which got their extra-ammo’d sniper via personal ordinance.

These new features really grinds my gears… Rustle my jimmies. Ect.

9

> > Honestly I’m just tired after all the forum BS today.
> >
> > I’ve stated my positive opinions of the MM evolutions in so many threads that I feel like I’m shouting at a brick wall with angry face painted on it.
> >
> >
> > And then wall calls me an idiot. And says I have no idea what I’m talking about. Or that I’m nuts, or am not a true Halo fan.
> >
> > It gets really old.
> >
> > I’ll leave your thread in peace, have fun talking bad about the game.
>
> Smart brick wall. :stuck_out_tongue:

Yeah, kinda what I mean, this community is just full of self entitled children who think their opinion can only ever be the right one and anyone who disagrees is an idiot.

10

The idea moving forward should not be to completely remove everything they did though, like some people like to claim.

The idea should be to take the old and the new and meld them together better.

Create a better idea for all.

Just like I am still of the opinion that there should be 3 Classic Halo playlists in the current game, the Infinity Settings and playstyle should return in the next game aswell, even if it is not the main idea within the game.

Can anyone even agree to that?

11

Ka-blam!
Player Metrics Vs. The Vocal Minority

12

> > > Honestly I’m just tired after all the forum BS today.
> > >
> > > I’ve stated my positive opinions of the MM evolutions in so many threads that I feel like I’m shouting at a brick wall with angry face painted on it.
> > >
> > >
> > > And then wall calls me an idiot. And says I have no idea what I’m talking about. Or that I’m nuts, or am not a true Halo fan.
> > >
> > > It gets really old.
> > >
> > > I’ll leave your thread in peace, have fun talking bad about the game.
> >
> > Smart brick wall. :stuck_out_tongue:
>
> Yeah, kinda what I mean, this community is just full of self entitled children who think their opinion can only ever be the right one and anyone who disagrees is an idiot.

At no point have I said or insinuated that my ideas are absolute.

My whole point on the subject that we are not simply a whiney minority. Most of us simply left without word. Quite honestly I would bet money most of the players don’t bother going on the forums at all.

But when a high level employee tries to brush us off as a nuisance I get a little urked.

Everyone who puts effort in posting something, whether it’s good or bad, has a point behind them. Whether it’s a stupid point and a rational one, it should be taken into account. And if a lot of different individuals say they don’t like something, then something is amiss.

13

> > > > Honestly I’m just tired after all the forum BS today.
> > > >
> > > > I’ve stated my positive opinions of the MM evolutions in so many threads that I feel like I’m shouting at a brick wall with angry face painted on it.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > And then wall calls me an idiot. And says I have no idea what I’m talking about. Or that I’m nuts, or am not a true Halo fan.
> > > >
> > > > It gets really old.
> > > >
> > > > I’ll leave your thread in peace, have fun talking bad about the game.
> > >
> > > Smart brick wall. :stuck_out_tongue:
> >
> > Yeah, kinda what I mean, this community is just full of self entitled children who think their opinion can only ever be the right one and anyone who disagrees is an idiot.
>
> At no point have I said or insinuated that my ideas are absolute.
>
> My whole point on the subject that we are not simply a whiney minority. Most of us simply left without word. Quite honestly I would bet money most of the players don’t bother going on the forums at all.
>
> But when a high level employee tries to brush us off as a nuisance I get a little urked.
>
> Everyone who puts effort in posting something, whether it’s good or bad, has a point behind them. Whether it’s a stupid point and a rational one, it should be taken into account. And if a lot of different individuals say they don’t like something, then something is amiss.

The problem with this forum is when a large group of people say they do like something, they’re treated like crap by the rest of the forum.

I even got accused of being a 343 employee twice today.

14

> The problem with this forum is when a large group of people say they do like something, they’re treated like crap by the rest of the forum.
>
> I even got accused of being a 343 employee twice today.

This forum is really weird. I’ve been attacked, not for disliking Halo 4, but because my reasons for disliking it are different from others reasons for disliking it.

15

> Ka-blam!
> Player Metrics Vs. The Vocal Minority

Good link, I do agree that you cannot take pure feedback at their face value.

> Needed: measurements of actual player behavior. The internet is a series of echo chambers where bias massively swamps any real signal about player behavior. The more specialized the community and the more that its interests are focused on activities other than the game at hand, the less meat there is in its mental models and proposed solutions.
>
> This situation puts game critics at a huge disadvantage. Their natural authority is inherently low and their comments are deeply and systemically disconnected from any sort of objective reality.
>
> I continue to listen to passionate players, but I more and more preference <mark>measurable and observable player behavior over rhetorical opinion</mark>. There are indeed moments of truth that lead to improvements in the game to be skimmed from the morass of disingenuous deceitful, warped, navel gazing and self-serving game commentary.

I used the player population data to back certain points I was trying to make. And I was trying to do it as unbiased as possible.

Clearly this is a tad lopsided in regards to player population. I wish there was a way to send a survey to every single player. A super quick survey, anything. That information would be more valuable than all the diamonds in Minecraft.

16

> The problem with this forum is when a large group of people say they do like something, they’re treated like crap by the rest of the forum.
>
> I even got accused of being a 343 employee twice today.

I see the same thing. And to be honest. I have a blast playing Halo 4. I can really have a good time.

But that is far to inconsistent.

I can play a BTB game and it will feel like the old days. Close score, clutch time, great fun. But then the next game the enemy is holding middle Ragnarok with what feels like 4 sniper rifles.

That’s what I really dislike about this game unfortunately.

17

> > The problem with this forum is when a large group of people say they do like something, they’re treated like crap by the rest of the forum.
> >
> > I even got accused of being a 343 employee twice today.
>
> This forum is really weird. I’ve been attacked, not for disliking Halo 4, but because my reasons for disliking it are different from others reasons for disliking it.

I’m curious now, what do you dislike which most of us find abnormal to dislike?

18

I always find it rather amusing when some one claims to be the voice of 1000s of people. When were the elections held? You are stating an opinion, do not try to present it as fact.

19

> And as it stands, from the peak population, we have lost about 75% of the player.

GFD.

20

> I always find it rather amusing when some one claims to be the voice of 1000s of people. When were the elections held? You are stating an opinion, do not try to present it as fact.

Take note I said “we”. And I also never stated any one part of my statements as absolute facts, many of them I stated as my own personal feelings and sentiment.