Posts on Current Forum | Archived Posts
|
|
|
||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
| Frequently Asked Forum Questions | |
|||
|
||||
|
|
|||
| ||||
| ||||
| ||||
| Search Older Posts on This Forum: Posts on Current Forum | Archived Posts | ||||
| ||||
| ||||
| ||||
| Re: Halo 2 Matchmaking: Setting a precedent | |
| Posted By: Count Zero <countzero@bungie.org> | Date: 2/4/05 10:57 a.m. |
In Response To: Re: Halo 2 Matchmaking: Setting a precedent (gregnnn) : 1) Fun Phase
Or perhaps melancholia, anger, and jealousy? :P This is the best response I've seen so far, and it perfectly captures how a "career" in the H2 ranking system seems to work. Players start out by rising almost meteorically from rank 1 to the high single digits- this feels good, since you're "pwning noobs" left and right. After a streak of victories, you start to encounter people who know how to fight back, and you notice that you have "lost" the ability to kill everyone you encounter in a matter of seconds (only not really- it's just that your enemies have gotten better at stopping you from doing that). You also start to lose fights that you feel you should have won, either because you made a mistake or because the other guy really was better than you (a difficult thing for most players to admit). Sooner or later you reach your ideal rank, and then 2 things happen- you start losing half the time, and that little number next to your name stops increasing. Modern games hardly ever stop rewarding the player in this fashion, so no one is used to the feeling of hitting a brick wall and being unable to proceed no matter how hard they try (hell, it takes every bit of their skill to just retain their current rank). Games have always been made to be beaten- to be played until you max out every possible statistic it can keep about your performance. Halo 2 does not do that, and it's hard to adapt. Even other games with online stats rarely shove them in your face the way H2 does. Once you reach this point, you should accept that you're going to be there for a long time, and realize that it doesn't make the mechanics of the game- the running around trying to kill people, plant the bomb, capture the flag, etc) any less fun. If you can make this jump from being frustrated by your advancement slowing and stopping to a steady state of challenging games that you don't always win, you'll enjoy Live. | |
|
| Replies: |
The HBO Forum Archive is maintained with WebBBS 4.33. |