what do you guys think so far!?! Spoiler Goodbye, Arena. Hello, The Arena! Speaking of improvements, Jeremiah has been hard at work and the Reach sustain team has now begun working in earnest to bring some significant changes to the Arena. Next week won’t be graced with a matchmaking playlist update, so you’ll have to sit tight just a little while longer than we’d like. Since that leaves you with a little bit of time, ponder the list of proposed changes below, knowing of course that anything can happen between now and then (whenever then is), and that nothing is ever final until Ninja presses the big green button. All of the existing Arena playlists will be replaced with a single playlist called…The Arena. We’re simplifying the format of Arena and keeping the core 4v4 configuration. A new competitive Double Team playlist will be created to replace the Doubles Arena. The Arena will have Seasonal lengths of 3 months. This will allow you to make a longer investment in maintaining your Divisional placement. The Arena will still have Player Ratings to represent your individual skill in each game you play, but this rating will no longer be used to calculate who won the game. Your skill will be judged by whether your team wins or loses. You can still track your daily rating to see how well you’re doing. The formula for Player Rating will be modified to reduce the value of assists and remove the effects of the loss scalar. Loss scalar will no longer be necessary because the Player Rating will no longer be used for TrueSkill calculations. The gametype used will have the following basic settings: DMR/AR/1Frag/Sprint, Evade, Jetpack, and Hologram with Motion Tracker ON. This is closer to the Team Slayer experience, which is the gameplay experience that The Arena is intended to represent. I have no idea what a loss scalar is. Jeremiah says it’s the thing that made the losing team’s MVP become even more frustrated with his teammates. Makes sense, I guess. There’s math involved, and numbers always make my head hurt. Oh, and I can't take any of the credit for the new name. It'd take a certified genius to plop a remarkable re-branding like that out of his think box. In other matchmaking news, we fired up the first batch of our Community Cartographer’s findings in an official playtest this afternoon. You’re going to be very happy with their work. Good times were had by all. Expect more explicit details in the weeks ahead. in my opinion this is the worst update yet...when will the arena be playable again? but i think the worst part about this whole thing is a play 95% of my HR time in the arena, and about 80% of that is in doubles.... man this sucks. oh, and evade is a terrible add on. it turns into (gears of war) shotty-rolls, or also the even worse yet sword-roll....lol oh man so whats your guys' take on this!
The whole Arena concept was an epic fail IMO. It had the least players by far and the whole division system was kind of stupid.
agreed that the ranking system was stupid, but it was the ONLY ranking system...to me it was the only part that made HR competitive, b/c i cared if i won or lost. its like playin social in H3 now....i could care less the outcome, which in return makes the game boring after a few games. i was on last night and havent checked it today....has anything changed?
New Arena is hilarious. It's currently flooded with dreadful players. That said, I've never enjoyed Arena more than I am at the moment. They've nailed what makes Reach good, and taken out things that promote noob tactics, ie. Armor Lock & 2 Frags. Furthermore, everyone i've played with has been very friendly, and yet competetive. It's a great community, and I'll be playing a lot more arena in the months to come.
Feeling like it's worth shooting for the win in Arena is a nice change. I used to play mostly Dubs since I generally only have 1 guy to play with on at a time and enjoyed Dubs much more than in H3, so we'd always go for the win anyway even if it meant one of us going down by ratings, but it was pretty disheartening when that happened even though the win meant more to us. I'm finally enjoying 4v4 Arena and have had people on mics trying to win for the first time, well, ever in Arena. However, just as I suspected, Bungie have made the new Dubs playlist AR starts, though even I didn't think that they'd make it solely AR starts with no DMR start gametypes at all. Thank you Bungie, for fixing one playlist and completely ruining another one that I enjoyed. There are now only 2 playlists with DMR starts as standard, why are they so opposed to having any DMR start playlists other than Arena/BTB? Dubs with DMR starts was fantastic, now a thing of the past.
Evade is tolerable until some jackass with a sword is rolling straight at you. Otherwise I don't really care. This is getting a bit off topic, but two of my biggest gripes with armor abilities could be fixed the same way Bungie fixed an old problem in Halo 3. Remember how everybody complained that after you hijacked a ghost, the guy could whip around and either jack it right back (leading to a protracted hijacking circle jerk) or shoot/grenade you to death while you were trying to turn around? They fixed it by giving you the good ol' "stuck in the mud and can't do crap" thing for the first couple seconds after being kicked out of your ride. (I think that was slight overkill, but it worked - and they kept it for Reach.) Well two big, irritating issues with AAs are the evade-with-close-range-weapon thing, and the armor lock used as basically an offensive weapon - you can pop shields, move your aim, and shoot instantly coming out of it, meaning if you're any good and if your opponent is close an armor lock beats anything he can throw at you. How about in both cases, you just can't use the right trigger for a half second to a second after exiting the animation? The only downside I could see to this is that it would put a serious cramp on Infection - zombies don't need any further nerfing.
kids dont even try an pick up a MID/LONG range weapon now...just rush to stupid shotty or sword and retard jump at you! lol cant stand evade right now. i feel that evade recharges faster than sprint does, is that just me? i also assume bungie would make the distance you can travel by using double jump evade, would equal the SAME distance traveled if you where to use full sprint....im not sure if this is true, i believe evade is shorter distance traveled, but with faster recharge rate you travel further in the long run. i was hating jetpacks two seasons ago (still do) but id rather see kids fanny pack than evade...its really easy to DMR someone flying then someone doing the horizontal hustle (not sex) across my screen! Spoiler CAGE IS TEN TIMES BETTER!!!YAYAYAYAYAYAY BUNGIE...i swear they took every idea i had to improve the map and slapped it on!!! thanks bungie, love KiLLiN iT!
The ONE playlist I could get enough real-life friends for I'm disapointed with the change, doubles was my "competitive playlist"
Is it really that hard though to get a DMR or needle rifle on most maps in that playlist? I hate AR starts in larger games, but it seems like with only four players, it shouldn't take long to find a DMR if you know the map at all.
Agree on that. Also, I think the AR starts kind of promote some closer gameplay rather than just DMRing eachother across the map the whole time. But maybe i'm biased. i'm not super competitive and i kind of like the AR
OK, so my issue with AR starts in Dubs more than 4v4 is down to how you have to act as a player in 2v2. In 4v4, it's almost as if there's more going on so you're more free to move around without your every move being watched. This is less true in 2v2, pretty much every time you push out unwisely you'll be caught in a 2v1 situation, and even a 2v2 push when one team has the DMRs that map control brings just doesn't go well. In 4v4 you'll likely run in to enemies at different ranges off spawn, in a 2v2 you're much more likely to have both opponents aware of your approach and having an AR against that just gets outclassed if they know what they're doing 2v2 strategy-wise at all. Even if you play to the AR's strengths, this frankly creates a slower game since you have to force situations where range is close and the opponents can't escape or set up a teamshot, switching the situation. Dubs was already the slowest slayer playlist simply by merit of being 2v2, each death and each kill counts more in terms of controlling the map and keeping an advantage (in 4v4, one death on your team leaves 3 left, still capable of holding a set up even against a 4 up opposing team, in doubles one death leaves your team mate on his own, half the size of his attacking, more-likely-to-be-coordinated opponents, and the reverse in terms of getting one down on the other team). Making it even slower by forcing a passive, situation forcing playstyle, which is exactly what AR starts does, just seems stupid to me. Also, even then, why force AR starts every time? Even other Competitive playlists have standard, ... DMRs and ... Pro gametypes, yet doubles is solely ARs. Against even semi-decent players this is just to easy to exploit and have one team perpetuate their advantage. I agree that certain maps are better than others in terms of being able to find a DMR, but if you accept that the ones with only 1 or 2 are worse in terms of perpetuating an advantage, and having them easily accessible off spawn is a way to offset that, surely just having them when you respawn is the logical extension of that. Tbh I think close range play has been stunted a bit in Reach, however I think the AR is actually one of the shining lights in that sense. Melee is stupid, sticky spamming is stupid, sprint combined with either or any form of herp a derp is stupid, but the AR actually works just like a close range weapon should. I guess I just feel that Reach focuses enough on close range combat enough as it is, and forcing it as opposed to keeping it as an aspect just feels like something Bungie are doing more and more with playlist selection. Having to play 4v4 with AR starts on Hemmorhage in Team Obj emboides all that I find frustrating about an over focus on AR starts, walking around and gazing across large expanses of the map and seeing loads of enemies at various ranges but being able to do NOTHING about it due to the frankly useless starting weapons that you're given, then you get picked off by a ranged weapon/vehicle, rinse and repeat. Even when you do manage to get in to a close range battle, the problem with those is that they sort of force equality, in the sense that even a reasonable skill gap between you and the opponent generally still leaves you pretty damn weak, more likely to be cleaned up even if you kill them. At that stage you're still back to square one, starting back at your base, just feels like dying on Mario and having to start the level over again. Tbh I'd prefer if they just had AR secondaries rather than Pistols in DMR start gametypes so the AR got to see some decent action without feeling forced. I love the new Arena (and used to love FFA Arena for the same reason) because of their DMR/AR start setups. The AR is better in some situations and actually feels like a different weapon rather than the Pistol which is sort of just a worse DMR, true with some advantages in terms of close range spamming, but in general I prefer the AR as a secondary. Still, do people, even those who prefer the AR, not think that a SINGLE 'regular size' playlist with a focus or guarantee of DMR starts is just a little slim? True you have BTB, but as I've said the DMR starts in that case come out of necessity due to scale rather than catering to a DMR focus. Just something like Team Hardcore with Slayer and Objective games in one playlist, kind of like Bungie's own version of MLG but for regular MM settings, weapons and players etc. would be great as a playlist.
well pegasi - once again i have read a novel of yours. you make some good point their brotha! your right on 2v2 play styles. it is very crucial to hold/set up on maps, and every move you make could in return "break" your set up and then easily be flaked. so games were generally slower. which is great because i myself am i strategist, and think 5 moves ahead before i even make one move. this is why i LOVE TEAM DUBS! you have to be prepared for many situations...but now i find my self wondering a map with an AR not caring about getting into in open area....and even 2v1 situations i think are a lot easier to get out of (or win) simply b/c you dont have the firepower to finish, unless you pistol. with that being said, i have a explanation behind developing REACH the way it is... i feel that Halo 3 was more competitive b/c of the truskill ranking system (although flawed as well) b/c once you hit YOUR highest skill anything beyond that was just, well to hard. So lets use 35 for example. playing kids under a 25 was just too easy, kids 25-30ish where skillful but you could prolly handle your own, which ment more fun for you. kids 33-40 would prolly be right in your skill range, which in return would make it a lot more competitive, and you prolly are now looking at making more real-time decisions...and faster to outwit your opponent. Kids 45+ now thats a joke and FU bungie for matching you up with them, right? now thats just ranking - but the short version is that in reach more people from any skill level can play, AND WIN TOO! from the different AA's to Weapon bloom and even to "catch-up" punches *see spoiler for definition* i believe bungie did this so that everybody has an equal opportunity to win battles....once again no matter the skill. so by nerfing the game you can sell more copies and keep people interested b/c the pretty good at the game. all that brings me to my final point - by removing the arena playlist and mushing it into the competitive (social) playlist and allow guests into the room. then force AR starts......this drops skill level, makes the game more equal, which then takes the competive factor out....which then makes the games more fun....which ultimately allows people from any skill level to play, AND WIN! i hope this kind of made sense. and by no means am i slamming reach, i love reach. i also would love to go back to H3 i just hate the time and effort it takes to be good H3, a week off of H3 and my BR was broke playing 48+ skill levels, but a week off in reach, who cares...ill be fine! ps sorry for the lists and bad structure. i am a graphic designer, not a journalist Spoiler CATCH-UP PUNCH -the act of taking massive damage and getting your ass kicked in a battle because you are terrible and miss every shot on your target, but getting close enough to send and receive a melee. VUAH-LA...your shields are now equal, and you can now land the one headshot it takes to win.
The Arena is playable again!!! So yeah, some people aren't going to like the automatic weapons on the loadout equipment but I am so glad that the Halo Reach Arena is finally competitive ranked Halo Reach playlist! The Arena seemed to get worse with each season and it just seemed to come down to who is better with the DMR (either that or who can grab the power weapon first and hold on to it for the rest of the game). I admit, I'm not great with the DMR (is it me, or is there a slight delay between me pulling the trigger and the gun firing compared to the magnum?) so the Arena for me would always be a race to the power weapon and then get DMR'd repeatedly for the rest of the game. If I wanted a near-total DMR competitive game I'd play MLG. I think its great that the Arena is now more like the rest of Halo Reach, last night I ended up playing for more than the 4 games I needed, which is something I rarely did with the last few seasons. I wasn't on a winning streak, but it was a lot more fun than previous season. Also, Uncaged plays well, it just looks rather messy now