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| Re: Hey Wu...? | |
| Posted By: Hoovaloov | Date: 3/22/12 7:26 p.m. |
In Response To: Re: Hey Wu...? (RC Master) : Matchmaking can never be perfect. Ever. It's just impossible to match : everyone on the skill curve, at every location, at every time of the day, : with good opponents that have good connections in a timely manner. It : cannot be done. No, matchmaking can't be 100% perfect, but you make it sound like if it can't be perfect, why even try? Matchmaking certainly can be better, probably much better. Let's start with having team/party size matching. That would certainly help make games more competitive and less "griefy." : Especially if you get new gamertags that you know literally nothing about -
If matchmaking was good, it could figure it out pretty quickly. How often do you see truly new (<20 games played) gamertags in Reach anyway? And yet we still have horribly matched games. : Given this knowledge, does it not make sense to engineer the gametypes in
It seems like you're saying "let's make the gametypes pick up the slack because matchmaking isn't doing its job." Why not fix the problem nearer its root cause (bad matchmaking)? That's not to say that the gametypes can't be tweaked to help the griefing problem as well, I just think that griefing is bound to happen when teams are very dissimilar in skill. : Fair point. I didn't mean to do it this way - originally it was going to be
Even if it was one big article, having all the ideas for improvement near the end would make it a pretty negative read. It's pretty discouraging to wade through 5000+ words before seeing the first constructive point. Mixing in the positive with the negative keeps it balanced and enjoyable. : Well by your definition of 'fun'... My definition of fun is variety. There is no variety in the first phase of Invasion encounters. : You're definitely underselling the gametype there. There aren't even any
No, but Spire has zero flanking routes for the territories in phase 1. Breakpoint is a much better map in this regard, but unfortunately I don't want to risk playing Boneyard and Spire so I just don't go into Invasion at all. : One battle bro in each squad should be acting as a mobile spawn point -
Mobile spawning isn't done properly in Invasion. In Battlefield, you can spawn on your squad mate at any time, even when they're firing/taking fire. In Reach, you are forced to wait until your team mate is not in the midst of battle. This encourages players to not engage the enemy until their battle bro spawns with them, slowing the game down and making defenders wait around for engagements. This is compounded by splitting the team into three squads of two teammates instead of two squads of three. Each squad is faced with a long hike if both of their members die, so one member from each squad is encouraged to hang back. This effectively removes half of the team from battle, severely handicapping the attacking team and encourages hiding and waiting. And finally, big red HUD markers are placed on enemies that are trying to spawn in their squad mate, making any sneaky mobile squad spawning practically ineffective. If Invasion let squad members spawn on their battle bros even during a fight, it would discourage the "hide and spawn" tactic, promoting more involvement in battles. Having two squads of three would decrease the likelihood of having to restart back at the original spawn point for a long hike, and would encourage all members to be more aggressive. Removing the red HUD marker would allow for more advanced/stealthy flanking maneuvers and further encourage aggressive play. : It's inherently roled with the default spawn positions: it makes sense for
I don't like being boxed into a role from the initial spawn. Having spawn-location specific squad duties (compounded by spawning in the wide open where the defenders can clearly see where the attackers are coming from) eliminates interesting tactics like a 6 man rush to one territory or the other. It really is just "left squad goes for left territory, right squad goes for right territory." There's no weapons to fight over, no vehicles. It's a really boring start to the gametype. : While you can wait in ambush on defense, it's often more effective to play
: Defending on Breakpoint for example, as a single aggressive player staying
: Map-specific. Not the gametype. The air vehicles can all be game-changers on
Breakpoint is better than either Boneyard or Spire mainly because the vehicles can play a suppression role, pushing the enemy team back far enough to protect the team mates going for the Core. Team mates in vehicles in Boneyard and Spire basically handicap their team trying to extract the Core by not going in and helping them. But once the Core is extracted, finally vehicles become useful. By that time, the game is well over 3/4 of the way done, so I am left feeling like I never got quality time in my vehicle. Speaking of no quality time, having the rounds end with a time limit can lead to insanely fast games with hardly any encounters. I much prefer Battlefield's replenishing ticket system with no timer, but I would suggest lowering those tickets to 25 or something per round for Invasion. Using replenishing tickets would make rounds that end in the 1st phase feel like legitimate games with quite a few battles, especially since the gametype switches sides. The tickets would also eliminate the need for sudden death as well. Also, I like Breakpoint's 2nd phase bomb plant better than Spire/Boneyard's territory mechanism. First, it adds variety to the objectives, but most importantly, it keeps the battles energetic. With territory points, the attackers have to sit inside and wait it out for 20 seconds. And because it goes faster with more team mates inside, it encourages as many people as possible sitting in a territory instead of duking it out with their gun. Contrast this with the bomb mechanic, where attackers can quickly plant a bomb and defenders can relatively quickly defuse it. This encourages creating perimeters and engaging the enemy instead of just running into the territory over and over again. I wish the bomb mechanic would replace all the territory mechanics for these reasons. : Well I'm not going to object to a Spartan Vs. Spartan Invasion-like gametype
That's why "Sangheili Don't Surf" looks so cool - the good stuff is available right away. : Well that would just be stupid IMO. Why would defenders spawn as far away as
No, it's more like 1-Bomb where the bomb is in the middle and the objective is further towards the defenders' spawn/base. So the attackers have to get the bomb and then gain enough map control to push up and into the defenders' base. The attackers could rush the bomb, but that would leave the power weapons/vehicles to the defenders, making it extremely difficult to get to the defenders' base safely. Or they could rush the weapons/vehicles, letting the defenders create a perimeter around the bomb. : One of the reasons that Halo 3/Reach 'Territories' is a bad gametype - since
I actually really enjoyed Halo 3's Territories. Because of the number of objective/vehicle/power weapon locations, both teams could devise complex rushes for certain strategies and adapt dynamically to the other team's tactics. There were so many options available to each team from the start of the game that it was always interesting to see which strategy/rush would be most effective. And then once the initial territories were captured, it was always a war of attrition to try and secure the remaining few since everyone became focused on one particular area of the map. Contrast this with Invasion, which has no variety in its early stages: there's no room for creative strategies or tactics, and the lack of power weapons or vehicles makes encounters extremely mundane. As for the "problem" of having territories closer to one team, that is truly the test of which is better at defending/attacking. It was always possible to skunk the other team and prevent them from taking any territories, it was just quite difficult. And that's the way it should be. There should be a huge credit bonus for sucessfully defending all 5 territories, or successfully capturing all 5. Those are not easy tasks, and to prevent griefing, the game should encourage quick resolutions to the gametype like that. Also, having it end when one team mathematically can't win would help eliminate griefing in Territory gametypes.
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