Just a place to discuss playlist fixes that Bungie ought to make. Here are some of the things I've noticed this past week, playing some playlists (Big Team Battle and Multi-Team especially) that I was not too familiar with before. 1. In Big Team, one flag on Paradiso has to go. One flag is boring on this map - I can't believe Bungie didn't spot the problem before they put it in the playlist. Simply put: the flag is in a base structure in the middle of a wide-open field with no cover, and very few options for getting in and out. Unless the entire defending team leaves, it is about impossible to get in, get the flag, and get out, even if your team is massacring them, because they still spawn all around the flag and will prevent you from getting far. The beauty of CTF on the best maps (Valhalla, Avalanche, one flag on Last Resort) was that you could use a number of different approaches to trying to get the flag. A full team slaughter was effective, but you could also ride in with 2-3 guys on a mongoose or warthog and have success; you could even sneak in by yourself sometimes, and get the flag out single-handedly while the entire defense wondered what the heck just happened. On Paradiso, only one strategy is even possible, let alone effective, and it's spawn-raping the defenders endlessly while at least half your team bum-rushes the base. Even THIS approach won't even work against most. It's a 0-0 tie game most of the time, which makes it pointless. 2. On a similar note, CTF on Hemmorhage is pretty horrible, and one flag is all-the-way horrible. I used to love playing two-sided CTF on Blood Gulch, but we were playing 4 on 4 and it was way more possible to infiltrate. With 8 vs 8 and so many vehicles, you have kind of the same problem as Paradiso. There is at least a decent way out (the teleporter) if you don't have a ride, but the approach is unforgiving. One-flag is far worse though, because at least in regular CTF there's the possibility of them leaving too few people on defense. In one-flag, with all those vehicles and all that open terrain, you will never get to the base unseen or unmolested. Again you are forced to adopt one tactic: everybody on your team has to slaughter everybody on their team. But since it's asymmetric you have only four minutes to make this work, so basically you have to succeed on the first attempt. You should put out of your mind any thought of making a sneaky backdoor run with a warthog or something - any competent team will shut this down. 3. In multi-team, rocket hog race on Paradiso is just terrible. Who thought this was a good idea? Halfway through the game I was just staring at the screen in horrified frustration as four hogs jammed against each other in the middle of a clump of rocks and blasted rockets every which way. I am not a frequent quitter, but if I ever get this map/game combination again I will quit out instantly. 4. For that matter, rocket hog race in its entirety could use some tweaking. This gametype is just not fun once the novelty wears off. The original rocket race on mongooses mops the floor with it. Rocket race was only annoying if someone decided to grief all game long, but rocket hog race gives you two options: a 25% chance of being the lucky hog that sails around getting all the checkpoints, and a 75% chance of being part of the cluster****. Once that cluster**** starts up, it tends not to stop - there are too many rockets flying. This gametype would only be fun to me in a map twice as big and wide open as Hemmorhage (maybe something like Sandtrap), and with it set up where the rockets would actually kill you (plus instant respawn) so you don't get trapped in a minutes-long struggle to just get out of the mess. 5. One-flag on Spire is uninteresting. I've at least seen more scoring in this game than in the likes of Paradiso, but there's exactly one thing that happens in a flag cap in this map: you run it out the front door and then daisy-chain it to glory while the defenders desperately slaughter you with DMRs and vehicles for 1-2 minutes straight. Spire is much better suited to slayer and invasion, both of which are pretty fun, but as an asymmetric CTF map it really lacks. It plays more like Conquest than flag. 6. Time to end the great headhunter/stockpile experiment. I've played fun games of both - I don't hate the gametypes. But flag and assault are simply better. They are easy to understand, no matter how you tweak the variables, and on good maps the games can play out a hundred different ways despite the simplicity of the game itself; that is the very essence of a great gametype, in my mind. Headhunter and stockpile are too complicated, so A) most teams play poorly, especially teams of randoms; and B) nobody WANTS to play them and they get voted down time and again. I played big team most of this week and the group voted for Headhunter exactly once. Admittedly it ended up being a pretty fun game, but still, it's clear that the community doesn't care for this, whereas the old objective games were pretty popular in the Halo 3 big team playlist. We need more CTF and assault in big team battle, and less (i.e. almost no) headhunter and stockpile.
These are all your opinions. Headhunter and Stockpile are favorites of mine. Additionally, I think Hemmhorage could hold some fantastic Multi-flag games given the vehicles were changed around. Just too many heavy vehicles.
Obviously they're just my opinions. But I tried to give reasons for them. If you disagree, please give your reasons. As for Headhunter and Stockpile though, that goes beyond "my opinions." Like I said, I enjoy those games reasonably well when I play them. But I seldom play them because everybody votes against them. That's not opinion; it's what actually happens every time I go into any playlist where those gametypes come up. Bungie should reduce their frequency in the playlist because clearly people want to play other things instead. I might agree with that. The wraiths, revenants and large number of warthogs make it really hard to get the flag out unless you have overwhelmed the other team and destroyed all their vehicles while keeping at least a couple of yours operational.
And I will agree with you on the fact that people veto them and go for other things... However, that being said, people veto most anything that isn't Slayer DMRs. I can't remember the last time people actually voted for the more interesting gametypes.
i think one of the main problems with any objective BTB gametype is that most players do not play for the objective. because of this, all of the problems you mention are ocurring. For example, if players didnt sit back and play it safe to rack up kills, and instead were going on flag runs, sending guys out to sneak in to the enemy base, and all such things, then there wouldnt be such an impenetrable defense at the enemy base every single time. Paradiso... i wont even mention because of the multiple layers of terrible. But even then, it really comes down to players. People dont play objective gametypes for the glory of the flag run and capture anymore. There aren't any commendations or rewards for capping a flag, or getting an objective win.
1. Bro CTF 2. Bro CTF 3. I agree hogs don't have much freedom to move on paradiso. 4. Two different multiteam playlists 5. Put the flag in the spire how it's meant to be. Bungie fails at taking advantage of the inherent abilities of an asymmetric map. 6. The variety is nice. They rarely show up anyways.
I disagree completely with 1 and 2. I agree with 3 kind of, but only because Rocket Hog race sucks in comparison to rocket race. I disagree completely with 5 and... I disagree completely with 6. Its not doing any harm, if you don't like a gametype, you shouldn't play it. But there are those (Like myself) who enjoy headhunter and stockpile.
Why? Have you played one flag on Paradiso? I could see liking it on Hemorrhage with two decent teams playing, but that game type on Paradiso is just ridiculous. Please tell me what I'm missing. What was great about (just to name one example) CTF on Valhalla was that there were ways to approach the base without being seen, as long as you understood lines of sight and spotted the defenders before they spotted you. On Paradiso, if you go for the flag, you're in a big empty space. Full stop. It is utterly pointless to try for the flag by any means except for a full team assault, and you won't get it back out unless the entire other team has left the base or is getting relentlessly spawn-killed. Why? Have you played a game of one flag on Spire where the flag was capped by any means other than running it out the front door and dying a lot as you advance it slowly toward your goal? There's no sense trying to do anything else with it based on where the flag and goal points are located. I don't know why I explain things when I just get responses like this one. I *like* playing Headhunter and Stockpile. The reason I say they need to scale it back is because these game types never get voted for, especially in big team battle. Admittedly Slayer is more popular than anything else. But if you play a lot of multiplayer, you quickly get a feel for what the community likes, what they're OK with, and what they dislike - and in my experience, Stockpile and Headhunter almost NEVER get voted for. Slayer is more popular than CTF, but at least CTF gets voted for on occasion - yet I see stockpile and headhunter come up as choices as or more often than CTF. I don't know what the exact weighting is, but those two gametypes should come up much less; they are just wasting slots in the voting rounds when they will never get selected. The other day I had a game where the first voting round was Headhunter, Stockpile, Headhunter; the second round was Stockpile, Headhunter, Bro Slayer. Guess what we ended up playing. Based on community preferences there should be less stockpile and headhunter simply because people always vote against them - and for that matter, where is assault in big team? That's a fun game that was fairly popular (for an objective gametype anyway) in Halo 3, and I don't even think it's in that playlist in Reach.
the only thing we can agree upon is that rocket race is much better than rocket hog race. the hogs don't have the speed or agility of the mongoose, and they are much bigger targets. as for everything else, i disagree. 1) I love one flag on paradiso BECAUSE its next to impossible to score. When I manage to get the flag carrier out of there on a mongoose or something, dodging tank and banshee fire, and we BARELY make it back with our lives intact (sometimes not even that) its a hell of an adrenaline rush. 2) same thing goes for hemmorhage. I enjoy all the vehicle battles, and I enjoy barely being able to get the flag out. I've had plenty of games that were very close, or ties (not 0-0, but 2-2). same goes for one flag. I think the problem is with an objective gametype you have to accept that its going to be VERY difficult to succeed with an 8v8 game, and you're probably going to die. A whole lot. 3. as for stockpile and headhunter, what do you mean by "end the great experiement"? Take them out of matchmaking all together? I'll admit most players don't want to play them in big/multi team, and they get voted down a lot, but most objective games do. Its always been that way. When you DO get a game of headhunter on big team, if its a close game at all, you get that pool of skulls constantly moving around the map, and everyone trying to get them, and the pool just grows.... Maybe its because I enjoy really hectic chaotic games where you will be lucky to get ANYTHING done because there's so much fire going on. I love games like that. I think you'd be surprised how many people do. You even said that when you DID play it, it was a fun game! so if its doesn't get voted in.... people don't want to play it! and if it does.... than they do want to play it! why should it not be in the playlist? the voting kind of takes care of itself. thats the point, isn't it? If big team was all flag and slayer, than it would get BORING.
Then you and I are just in fundamental disagreement about this. I think objective games are pointless when you know going in that it is 95% likely to be a 0-0 or 2-2 tie. For the same reason I was never crazy about one-flag on Ghost Town in Halo 3 - with two reasonably competent teams, both sides scored twice, because once the flag got even one inch outside the base it was impossible to stop the other team from daisy-chaining it all the way back. But that was a treat compared to one-sided VIP games, where the VIP died in every round literally every single game I ever played except for one. For me, the possibility (even if a slim one) of having an exciting game and being able to win, or even lose in a ferocious battle, is why I play objective games. If it's just a maelstrom of bullets and a guaranteed tie, and tactics don't really make any kind of difference, I don't see the point - I'd rather play slayer. Of course - but I have played a crapload of big team objective games starting with Halo 3, and most of them are not nearly as impossible as Paradiso one-flag (which I think is the new gold standard). I got flag caps on Avalanche by myself a bunch of times. Valhalla was a little harder but I pulled that off too. On both of those maps, which were GREAT flag maps, it was possible to get into the base unseen if you were sneaky enough, and it was possible to get the flag pretty far away before the enemy could get you, thanks to mancannons and teleporters. Rat Race was another good flag map where a few or even one player could conceivably cap a flag all by themselves. By comparison, I don't see anything happening in Paradiso except a wholesale slaughter focused around the defending base, and nobody scoring. Nah, just reduce the frequency they come up by a lot. For one thing, people might be more inclined to vote for them if they saw them less often - it would just be a change of pace thing. And for another, they are currently just wasting slots that could be taken up by more popular game types that stand a realistic chance of being voted for. I agree! Which is why I'm glad to see bro slayer and would like them to add in assault (plus one bomb and neutral assault). I also like big team KOTH, and Territories is OK. Variety is good. I just think it's weighted too much towards the new gametypes right now, because Bungie obviously likes their new toys and wants us to play with them. The trouble is, most people don't want to. It's a shame to me that I see stockpile and/or headhunter in big team about every other game without them ever getting voted for, and yet assault isn't even in the playlist, I don't think. [br][/br]Edited by merge: Speaking of that last subject, this reminds me of something I have thought Bungie should do since Halo 3 - and it's even more relevant now that we have real voting and not just one veto. The weighting of maps, gametypes, and especially map/gametype combinations, should fluctuate in real time based on voting results. In that way the community would determine the playlist weighting on its own and Bungie wouldn't have to do so much manual tweaking. They can build in safeguards if they like - for instance if a gametype starts at 20% likely to appear, it will never drop below 10% or go above 30%. But the bottom line would be game options that are much more in line with what people actually want to play, while still offering some variety to keep it from being all slayer all the time. An unpopular game and map combination (and I hope rocket hog race on Paradiso qualifies) would eventually almost never come up any more simply because it got voted against every time it appeared. That clears room for more popular maps/gametypes, and also for Bungie to add new stuff into the playlist to replace or augment the selections whose weighting has naturally bottomed out.
I will admit the routes into the bases on paradiso are lacking. you need someone covering your approach in a vehicle or you won't make it. Maybe they play better with actual teams of friends, with randoms... not so much. I can concede that. I usually play with a big party I can also agree with that. I miss big team neutral bomb, especially on valhalla.... i think that would play extremely well on blood gulch, because its about taking the base and planting the bomb rather than getting to the base and getting all the way home with an object. Might even play okay on paradiso too. I do think we disagree on whats fun though, I enjoy a next to impossible challenge sometimes
AR starts on 4v4 Hemmorhage need to go. Completely. I'm not going on an anti-AR start rant, but decisions should be made contextually, in exactly the same way that BTB is DMR starts across the board. Being given two guns off spawn that are close to useless as possible (ok, so if I were given a shotty, sword or hammer of spawn the it'd be worse, but aside from that...) on the map with the longest lines of sight in the entire MM experience (and, more importantly, next to NO short lines of sight aside from bases and caves) is a ridiculous decision.
LUCKY! /Napoleon Dynamite Totally agree. I'd love to have the big team assault games back. Neutral on Valhalla was hard but SO fun. That was a perfect game where it was very very difficult, but usually at least one score would happen before the game wrapped up. [br][/br]Edited by merge: I agree with this 10000%. If they keep AR starts there should be 20 DMRs sprinkled all over the ground close to every single spawn point. Which is to say, it should always be DMR starts.