[360] Halo Reach: Ghosts of GFF

There's a video up on Waypoint called "Way of the Ninja" under intel that outlines taking a group int Nightfall and finishing the whole mission (no skipping segments) using only assassinations/melee and some insane teamwork. We definitely need to try this.

I was speaking idiomatically.

You lost everyone at "teamwork."

Also bad news regarding Challenges. So some of us were doing the usual bitching about Challenges sucking and/or being recycled on GAF, and urk commented that the Challenges were actually built in; they cannot insert new scenarios. So the ones that they've already programmed is it; they cannot take feedback or add new ones. urk said he would check on the total number they built on Monday, for what it's worth someone who knows Luke Smith over on GAF said Luke told someone else there was 500 Challenges built in. If true, that would mean we've seen about a fifth of them (we've seen about 97 unique Dalies and 8 Weeklies). Epic, epic disappointment for me. The Challenges (and hopes that they would improve them) were the main thing keeping me coming back. I will still probably putz around some with Challenges and maybe hop on if people invite me, but otherwise I'm pretty much done for at least a while. Without any new hope of improved Challenges based on all the negative feedback, the game just feels like a grind at this point, and matchmaking has so many problems that it doesn't appeal to me at all.

That said, we did actually manage to get a full 8-player group last night and were dominating people for a few hours, that was good fun.

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by SailorDaravon

You lost everyone at "teamwork."

That's what makes it so funny. It'd be great.

FELIPE NO

I'm imagining m00 trying to assassinate a Grunt, failing, and having everything go to shit.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

"COME ON, ASSASSINATE!" alerts every other enemy in the vicinity.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Wow, Daily AND Weekly Challenge are garbage; in about 20 minutes I got all 4 Dailies AND the Weekly. God damn it Bungie.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

I THOUGHT YOU WERE DONE WITH HALO

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

SailorDaravon, your attitude really stinks.

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so.. if there are 400 challenges you havent seen.. exactly why wont you play to do them? Dont get the reasoning here..
also new dashboard can suck it

Additional Spam:
lol first time i did all the challenges, first time i did a weekly too lol, all in the same day. Cant believe i spent a 20 min just reloadingt he first part of Nightfall and meleeing the elite hs the sleeping grunts and get the few down below lol.

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Chances are though, the rest of the unseen challenges are as bullshit as the existing ones. They won't have put in anything truly hardcore for a shit ton of credits so we'll see similar variations on a theme over and over.

That the challenges are the same for everyone though suggests it's a server-side issue so I don't really understand how they can't fix that with a small patch. Even if they're hard-coded on to everyone's disks, I can't imagine it would take a coding master to change where the game looks for challenge data and make it somewhere online where they can edit and customise them.

Obviously I know nothing about video game programming but surely if they can change the layout of the maps for everyone, they can change the challenges because even for someone like me, they're fucking pointless at present. Personally I'll get the ones you can get from Firefight, swerve the multiplayer ones and maybe do the campaign ones. So far nothing has popped up that made me really want to play the game a different way, especially as the credit boosts have been roughly what you get from two or three Firefight matches anyway so far.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by Raptorfox

I THOUGHT YOU WERE DONE WITH HALO

No asshat, as I clearly stated in my post I will putz around with Challenges and maybe hop on if I'm invited. I would think that spending 20 minutes to complete 4 Daily and the Weekly Challenge then getting off constitutes putzing around, no?

Originally Posted by Shake Appeal

SailorDaravon, your attitude really stinks.

You know what, against my better judgment I will respond to this. I've posted repeatedly that I'm disappointed with how Bungie has handled Challenges as well, and gone into a great amount of detail about specifically why, and also specifically why the news about the Challenges being static was the tipping point for me just throwing my hands up in the air and basically saying fuck it. I did not say that I hate the game or that I will never play it again or anything like that specifically. I also like how every single day on GAF when there are shit Challenges like today multiple people post more or less the exact same sentiment, and I don't see you calling out anyone there. Sorry for voicing disappointment in how something is being handled along with an actual explanation why, god forbid you actually engage any of my points with actual discussion (like people on GAF actually have by the way) rather than be a bad internet kid. Just for you, I will break down in excruciating detail my problems with the game, why it frustrates me, how most of them are (or should be) easily fixable or at least addressed by Bungie, and why Challenges were the biggest motivation in keeping me playing.

There is no way you can look at the following and it doesn't read like a hate letter. I would like to re-emphasize that at least some of this is personal opinion or things I would like to see, but some are factual flaws. Barring something unexpected happening before the end of the year, Reach is still my Game of the Year for sure. For as long and nit-picky as this list is, I could come up with one twice as long with things that I like or love about the game, or it handles well. Again, these are issues I currently have with the game that over the course of the ~1,100 games I have played across all gametypes that have currently piled up that cumulatively really dampen my desire to play the game.

Playlists

-Firefight Versus; remember this? Remember how it was a big announcement and they showed it off and played it? Where is it?

-They could really use a 5v5 Playlist, a la Social Slayer from Halo 3. Not a major gripe, but it seems like we frequently only have 5, and Invasion seems to go poorly when you don't roll in with a full squad. Also very generally speaking you tend to get the more hardcore kiddies in Team Slayer that don't feel like actually competing with the really good people in Arena, so going into Team Slayer with an unbalanced party does not end well 90% of the time. I've gone in there with Shimms and some of those guys and personally gotten 25 kills and gone +15, but still lost because everyone else goes -10. The game seems to do a worse job of bringing in balanced groups in this playlist more than any other for some reason; not sure if it just has a harder time balancing skill disparity or what.

-Remember Weekend Playlists? Where are they? Yeah, they didn't do the greatest job in Halo 3 with them as there were a ton of repeats, but it was a good way to get some variety in there. Having Infection as a Weekend Playlist would also probably make it so they could kill the Living Dead Playlist, as they arguably already have too many playlists and that's one less community splinter. As a related aside, they could also rotate Grifball, Action Sack, and other playlists back into there which would be great to break things up right now.

-Remember how they said Invasion would be 8v8 in the final game? Notice how it's not? What the hell happened there? The game begs for more players in that mode, and so much of those maps already goes to waste space-wise (and still would in 8v8, but not quite as bad). This is one of the few things that I cannot comprehend why it is not in; I can't possibly imagine it's a technical issue, or if it somehow is that's a pretty bad fuckup.

-I don't understand how it's taking Bungie weeks and months to fix the simplest and most obvious issues that the entire community screams about from day 1. And I'm not talking about somewhat subjective things like reticule bloom or Armor Lock, but completely broken things like frequently getting 4v4 matches on Hemorrhage or broken spawns on half the maps. They've made a big deal previously about being able to update playlists on the fly without having to do Title Updates, and they made changes to Halo 3 so I don't understand the big delay. Some things are subjective or I could see how they could require some testing, but some not. When in the first few weeks after release they're talking about "working on" things for Season 3 and 4 of Arena like no-radar playlists that's fucking absurd.

-They desperately need more (and really better) maps in BTB and Invasion; I get into this more on the specific maps, but it's more of a problem with the way the maps are currently used rather than the actual map itself. It's a Godsend that the DLC has 2 BTB maps (with one also being in Invasion), but it sucks that's paid content.

-The human/infected team selection in Living Dead continues to be fucked. I've seen people be chosen to be survivors every single round; I've seen on multiple occasions where people with 20+ kills a round be a survivor every time. If the game is supposed to rotate infected based on the scoreboard it's not working, and if it's not set up that way to begin with I don't know why the hell not. They also need to build some unique obstacles with geometry and other objects like they did in Halo 3; just about every map in the current playlist has super exploitable spots, even moreso than Halo 3 did.

-I love Elite Slayer, but it currently pops up and wins votes way too often, especially in Team Slayer in Multi-Team. Almost wonder if at this point it needs to be it's own Playlist, but then I also wonder what that would do to those existing populations.

-On a similar note I love Multi-Team and is my Challenge go to, but realistically they should probably remove one of the teams. It's a hilarious clusterfuck, but it is kinda jacked and spawns are almost always broken to some extent.

Maps

Boneyard
-Half of the map is completely not used outside of Invasion and Invasion Slayer, and in both of those that back half is used extremely minimally (only if Elites in Invasion are getting spawn killed bad, and very rarely in Invasion Slayer the drop point will be on the back bridge which I've seen happen all of twice).
-IMO on Invasion Slayer the either need to scrap the DMR/Needle Rifle spawns completely, or put up some sort of wall/field at the ship. It's currently ridiculously easy for the Spartans to spawn kill the Elite team if they're at all decent. The Needle Rifle spawns really don't do much as the Spartans have the high ground and very easy retreat/cover.
-The team spawns on non-Invasion are still hilariously broken, with the team spawning at the cliff at a horrible disadvantage in both location as well as initial access to power weapons. The current team spawns also further illustrate how a good portion of the map is completely unused. I'm not sure why they couldn't completely rebalance the map using the ship as either the middle ground, or alternatively having one team spawn in the ship and the other team in the base, but giving the base-spawning team slightly closer access to power weapons/vehicles or something along those lines to balance it.

Hemorrhage
-Invasion Slayer on this map desperately needs Mongooses available at the get go. 6v6 on this map with everyone on foot with no ranged weapon starts outside of the starting Sniper (IIRC?) is fucking terrible.
-Baffled that there's no aerial play on this map at all outside of Banshees from drops in Invasion Slayer, unless I'm drawing a total blank on a variant that does have that.
-IMO they should rebalance the map to have a Plasma Launcher at each base, with the Rocket Launcher replacing the Plasma Launcher that's in the middle currently. With the vehicle madness that most gametypes on this map become, this would give each team a decent but not super overpowered way to even things out, and the Rocket Launcher would be a good 3rd addition that could be fought for but that doesn't totally make or break either side (which is why I would do Rockets instead of a Laser).

Spire
-They need to kill-field the very topmost part of the spire that you can jetpack to; it's currently way too easy for people to get sniper or other power weapons up there and just destroy anyone who lifts up.
-I could be wrong on this one as it's off the top of my head, but IIRC this map is where on the BTB version you do not get a Grenade Launcher loadout. This is a problem in particular on this map because if your team's Falcon gets taken out and you don't have the Rocket Launcher, you are completely and totally fucked if there Falcon pilot is not a complete retard. Allowing a Grenade Launcher Loadout would provide some defense against this.

Zealot
-Is there any reason at all whey they haven't added the kill-field on top of the map to all modes and playlists?

Paradiso
-IMO they need to kill-field or block off getting up on the middle mountain. In most gametypes it's far too easy for a team to get Sniper/DMR/Needle Rifles up top and dominate an opposing team. Would be less of an issue in Invasion Slayer if the Banshees had any hopes of surviving long enough against DMR and Sniper fire to clear out the mountain. This would also (hopefully) encourage use of more of the map, as I've nevvvvvvver seen anyone use the tunnel that runs under the mountain for example (I run through there occasionally, but have never ever had an enemy encounter in there).

Atom
-Not gonna beat this one to death as most everyone hates it, but it's not a great map. Almost all (?) spawns are underneath the map and it's too hectic; it's way too difficult to get up top without getting killed unless you use a Jetpack, and with the amount of cover it's frustratingly difficult to kill people at any kind of range.

Cliffhanger
-Bad spawns largely caused by lack of cover; somehow needs safer spawns. It's currently way too easy to spawn kill, and due to the small size of the map the middle building is almost useless as it's basically a death trap, and doesn't really see any use because of it.

The Cage
-Don't want to beat this one to death either, but yeah the spawns are pretty shit on this one as well. And in Multi-Team they're super super broken, even for Multi-Team (which is saying something).

Boardwalk
-A very small suggestion, but I'd personally try moving the Rocket Launcher spawn elsewhere on the map, probably up top on the middle level (near where you drop down the fountain hole). Currently the team that spawns closest to it gets a pretty big advantage, especially in multi-team. Maybe it wouldn't work though, who knows.

Firefight

-Really could use some bigger maps; probably my only real disappointment with the DLC is that there's no Firefight maps in there. This would also allow for some more vehicle-focused maps like Lost Platoon from ODST which was awesome. None of the current maps are great for vehicles at all, and this would also let them work in the Gauss Hog or Revenant, or something.

-The Leaderboards are totally awesome....too bad almost no one ever ever looks at them because they're not shown anywhere in-game. Which is additionally weird because you get the score indicator of the person you're closest to while playing.

-Offhand my only map-specific Firefight complaint is for the love of God, get rid of the Needle and Focus Rifle Jackals on Asshole Mountain. Ridiculous broken, mainly because they are fucking psychic and no matter if you have 4 people and there's a million things going on they somehow know that you are going to aim at them.

Miscelleous

-Daily cR cap; why? I could understand why when they had the ranks capped, but with them removed now I don't understand the point. It seems like a ridiculous complaint being limited to 60,000 cR a day, until you factor in the Game Complete bonuses scaling up with your Rank. That's a good thing, but I know a Brigadier who is clearing over 2,000 per game on just the Game Complete bonus. Factor in Challenges, regular Commendation progress, and the Performance and Slot Machine bonus for every game, you are starting to very realistically look at possibly hitting 60,000 in a few hours of play at the very most. Even at a Colonel Grade 3 in a normal Matchmaking game I'm currently averaging 1,800 cR for a typical Matchmaking game, about 1,200-1,500 in Score Attack, and 2,500-3,500 in Firefight. You add in Daily Challenges which average about 3,000-5,000 a day, I'm probably already coming damn close to hitting the daily cap.

-Really wish there was a Commendation in Campaign and Firefight for melee kills, and I've heard the same complaint from others. Unless you're going to die and need to do it, I never melee because the game is essentially punishing you for not killing them another way since it rewards you for that and not the melee. Not a major complaint, but a weird omission that isn't in Matchmaking (I'd say Close Quarters suffices).

-They need to nerf the damage that the Sniper Rifle does to vehicles. I'm okay with the current damage that DMRs do; I personally think a team all concentrating fire on a Banshee should be able to take it out relatively quickly. But coming from someone who exploits it frequently, there's really no way I should be taking out a Warthog or Banshee out from across the map that easily. Hell, I've taken out Wraiths from across the map on Hemorrhage before they could even kill a single person. Seems a bit much.

-The quit penalty/ban thing does nothing. It's not an easy problem to solve and I'm not going to claim I have the answer, but people still quit super frequently. Would probably be much less annoyed if this didn't cause host migrations so often which seem to take a million years in Reach compared to Halo 3.

-The new 7,777 Jackpot thing is a fucking joke. Advertised as an incentive to not quit, it is apparently so rare as to not matter. I have only personally seen tale of 2 people getting it, and no one I know recently. I played approximately 90 games in a row without quitting or dropping after it went live, across nearly every competitive and cooperative playlist available, and got nothing and neither has anyone else I've known. I don't expect it to be common or for them to disclose the odds on how it triggers or works, but when virtually no one is getting it after dozens and dozens of games, why even bother?

-I said this even back in the Beta, but the current Player Investment in terms of the armor unlocks isn't a fantastic incentive at face value. Outside of maybe noticing a unique helmet (especially when people are first getting to those unlocks), you never ever notice a piece of armor someone is wearing in game at all. I'm not going to claim to have the answer to this one either, but I feel it's the biggest they should have addressed. I'm not sure if the could have done maybe armor camo patterns or your weapon has something on it (a la Black Ops), or what. The fact that they've outright said there is no additional armors coming via DLC is also disappointing. Halo is NOT Call of Duty where offering weapon or perk/ability unlocks would make any sense, but Reach seems to tip a bit too far on the other side of not mattering. I always want the next piece of armor, but once I get it I don't care about it anymore, and there's not really enough out there to keep that particular carrot on a stick going, as even semi-hardcore players will hit all unlocks (General) within 6 months or so. On the same note, also disappointed with the Elite customization, I really wish they had at the least offered the individual armor upgrades like they had with Spartans. You also unlock all of them ridiculously early.

-Another minor gripe, but I can't believe that Bungie didn't learn from the jacked up Halo 3 multiplayer achievement and has them again and in the DLC. To be fair this time they're not as bad, but it's crazy that arguably the ONE thing MW2 got right (not having any competitive multiplayer Achievements) Bungie continues to get wrong.

-How have they still not fixed your Spartan image on bnet? I mean really. The fact that their explanation is that taking it down to fix it could potentially take down or fuck up Matchmaking seems insane.

-This is more speculation than anything, but I find it interesting that Black Ops and other games allow you to upload videos directly to youtube, but Halo doesn't and you have to pay money to get them in a viewable format, at least without having capture equipment. Guessing it's an issue with how their engine is setup, or possibly a MS thing maybe?

Originally Posted by Zip

so.. if there are 400 challenges you havent seen.. exactly why wont you play to do them? Dont get the reasoning here..

Shin actually does an excellent tl;dr version of addressing this above. To expand a bit, aside from the completely insane fact that (apparently) they can't add or change any Challenges outside of the ones they programmed in on the disc, with how they've currently been handled you have two scenarios:

1)There's either a lot of variety in the Challenges that they haven't populated yet (like kills with different weapons than we've gotten, any levels on Legendary past the same 3 we've gotten repeatedly, etc) for some insane reason. If this is true, the obvious question is why would they give us the same level Challenge five times before giving us a new one? Why not rotate them to make it far less obviously repetitive?
2)The remaining Challenges (and again, we have no total # count, all speculation on the 500) are slight # variations on the ones we've already had, ex. get 10 assists in this mode, get 15 assists in this mode, etc. This seems completely insane and unlikely, but so does 1) as well.

Neither one makes any sense, but in both cases we're screwed. The good majority of the Challenges we've been given have either suck (40 assists in Matchmaking for a Daily? Really?), are boring/generic (kill X enemies in this mode, but at least these have a place and make sense), or are interesting but in most cases have been already recycled to death (Like doing ONI without dying). Obviously there's some exceptions to this, but they seem to be the minority.

All of that aside, we then get to the fact that the cR rewards are all over the place, sometimes even for the same Challenge. The fact that they can apparently alter the cR rewards, as well as the fact they fixed one of the Challenges one day when it was broken, makes the fact that they can't add new scenarios make even less sense. But for example, you had the ONI Challenge originally worth 1,250, but then got bumped up to 4,000. Or for example A Great Friend (30 assists in multiplayer matchmaking) was worth 1,200 credits on October 1st, but 5 days later it's worth 2,000. Then TWO DAYS LATER for 40 assists (40 is more than 30 for those keeping track) it's worth LESS at 1,500.

On top of the inconsistencies within the exact same Challenge in the span of a week, you then have gross inconsistencies from cR rewards from Challenge to Challenge. For example, this week's Challenge can be completed in less than 5 minutes for 3,000 cR. That's absurd for a number of reasons. And before anyone points out the obvious, even if you play that map normally and don't spam the restart thing, it would take you no more than 45 minutes or so to get those kills, I tested it. Even assuming you were really, really bad at Halo, there's no way it could still take you more than 1-2 hours, and that's honestly a stretch. And this is a Weekly Challenge. Then you have crazy shit like the one Weekly where you had to complete 50 games of Firefight Matchmaking for 3,000 cR which is obviously completely retarded. Especially within that same week, there was a Challenge for killing 400 enemies in any game mode which is easily doable in 4 games of Grunt Party, and it was 4,000 cR. There's no way you can spin that where that isn't the most retarded thing in existence.

The gross problems with Challenges highlighted there, prior to the unfortunate news that they couldn't add new Challenges the hope of myself and many others was that they would see these gross inconsistencies and see the feedback from people and make improvements. Bungie themselves pimped Challenges pre-release as a way to keep people coming back that might not normally otherwise, which was what I was doing as well. I'm somewhat OCD about numbers and Challenges and things like that, so I was trucking along doing nearly all of them because I knew it would add up, especially when they would start making improvements based on good feedback people had been posted on bnet, GAF, etc. I had seen and also contributed really good suggestions on Challenges like ones with different levels, weapons, a Weekly Challenge for maybe completing one match in every currently available Playlist, shit like that. But the news that we will see no new Challenges added or changed (again, beyond what's already in there which we have no firm number or details on) was soul crushing, and the final blow on top of all of my complaints above. Right now with all of the issues I have above, taken at face value outside of the cR/unlock system, there would probably be no way I would have played the game past the first few weeks. The Challenges, even though they were often shit or recycled, at least offered some sort of small reprieve and breakup to the monotony. But the news that it wouldn't get any better based on feedback, and the way that they've handled it up to this point indicating that what was programmed in is not likely to be much better was the death knell for me.

I will still play some Halo; Grunt Party is still fun to do, and especially good for catching up on podcasts (since I can't really listen to them at work anymore). Campaign matchmaking is often hilarious, and Firefight is still pretty good, at least when it's not laggy. And like I said, for the laundry list of complaints/minor gripes I have above, I could have one several times longer for the things I DO like about the game. But right now I've gone from being on 24/7 and being the guy trying to rope other people into playing to being the guy who gets roped in instead.

That said, I'm done with this thread. I've gone into detail multiple times about exactly what my issues are in what I feel is a fairly reasonable manner, and gotten mostly tl;dr/u mad responses with only a few people actually engaging in any sort of actual discussion with what I was actually saying, instead of making a hilarious comment on my perceived intent. If you still have issues with that you can fucking blow me; I've got too much shit going on with stress, physical pain, and other bad shit on a daily basis to deal with retarded internet kids who can't read. The OP links to the main things you should need (The current Daily/Weekly Challenges, current Playlists setups, etc), hit roflfox up if they break for some reason.

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I've never played this game, so I can't comment on your points, but I will point out that arguing GAF as a place of internet sanity is pretty damned laughable. Also, this long a post because someone said your attitude sucks?

Really? You make some very eloquent and well reasoned points here, SD, but to make them and then take your ball and go home?

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Challenges.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I will read and/or respond to your hate letter at some point, Mr Daravon (and I'm sure I agree with the bulk of it*), but I'm pretty sure I've already made my position on cabbages clear a month ago or more on GAF: fun bonus, but not the reason you should be playing the game. If the main motivation for you to log on every day is to clear cabbages and fill bars, I can see why you would be disappointed with that aspect, and I heartily agree that side of things could have been implemented better.

But you complain, and GAF complains, about the cabbages every single goddamn day, without fail, until it has become a droning, infernal lament that will never quite reach the money throne upon which Bungie sit and scoff like lords. It's like you are collectively crossing your fingers and telling yourselves "today it will be different"... day after day after day. You should know you're disappointed by now, and yet each day you go back for more.

If the girl keeps breaking your heart, stay away, she's no good for you.

*I'm also pretty chill with it, because they've steadily addressed a lot of my problems with the game (I think the Arena's got better season by season, for instance, and they jumped on some of my very personal complaints like the spawn zones on Boneyard or the soft kill zones on Asylum), and will likely continue to. A lot of people on GAF seem to have forgotten how messy Halo 2 and Halo 3 were at launch compared to what they offered six months down the road. Is it bad that Bungie can't get most of these things right out the gate? Yes. But they will work on it.

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by SailorDaravon

No asshat, as I clearly stated in my post I will putz around with Challenges and maybe hop on if I'm invited. I would think that spending 20 minutes to complete 4 Daily and the Weekly Challenge then getting off constitutes putzing around, no?

True, but as Shake said (much more eloquently than I ever could, lovable Irish bastard) why are you going back so much to something if it only disappoints/pisses you off? This is something I've ragged on multiple people before (Hi Skills/Achivement folks) but I have never seen the point in what equates to cutting your own wrists. If I don't like/see the point in doing something you damn well won't see me doing it. Remember my thing about beating Eternal Sonata one day? When was the last time you saw me play it. If I run out of shit to do and get around to it I will, but at no point am I going to force myself to slog through something I'm not in the mood for.

Re: other shit

Firefight Verus: Agree completely. I would have actually liked to try this in a group at one point, but we're always focused on doing MM stuff.

5v5: Agree, but indifferent. We've discussed this before and if it happens it'd be great. If it doesn't it won't be the end of the world. Some of the maps here are actually small enough where 4v4 doesn't seem too bad.

Weekend Playlists: Weren't those introduced later in the cycle after they got a bunch of different gametypes and such ironed out? I'd like to see that too but it seems kind of early, in the same vein that they haven't worked Grifball back in yet.

Living Dead: Sucks. The maps aren't anywhere near as well designed for the game type as H3, I don't see why anybody bothers. They need to address that before spawning issues or whatever else.

Elite Slayer/Multi-Team: Yup and yup. I could do with them just toning down the weighting for Elite Slayer though.

Zealot: Wasn't Arena Zealot rolled out into everything? I could be wrong but I remember playing TS/Oddball shit where going into space nearly got me killed.

Cage: Can we just take this one out of the game. It makes me sad every time I have to play it, even on the rare occasion that I win.

Not really going to go through the rest as it'd be nitpicking (though a daily cap lift and a larger firefight map would be awesome but we've discussed this stuff in game before) but what it sounds like to me is a lot of people are using the cR/Commendation system as their sole reason for playing (in addition to shaping the way they play around it), at which point the game just becomes a chore and there's no point. I dick around with them for sure, but that's usually as a warmup/while I'm dicking around online waiting to see if I'll hop into the Arena or whatever that day. I guess you could say H3 kind of had the same idea with the ranks and whatnot but I know for me personally, the Ranked grind to Brigadier was about competitive play (which I am a total masochist for) and improving myself and my gameplay as opposed to getting handled all the time by people better than myself and complaining (heard a lot of this).

It also feels like the voice of dissent is greater than the voice of praise, but maybe that's just me. I genuinely enjoy the experience thus far. It needs work, but I know a lot of people could probably better spend their time learning maps, various techniques and such to better themselves (which eventually leads to a better enjoyment of the game as everyone loves winning) instead of GOTTA FILL THOSE BARS everyday. Bars are neat and all, but there's gotta be more to it our you just won't have fun anymore.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

It helps that I mostly play the Arena this point (or other 4v4 stuff where possible, because that is where the Halo games have always been most fun for me). If I played BTB/Invasion regularly I would go insane because I find the maps and gametypes and the whole organization of those playlists is for the most part wretched. I played some BTB with the Eurogamer guys last night and even with 14-16 of us going into the playlist (and me donging on all but one or two of them like Brainboy and Sparrows), I just didn't have a very good time. The number one thing I agree with you about is the map selection being awful, especially the BTB selection. It was the thing I was most worried about prerelease (and urk was all company with it: "no, it's fine, the Forge World maps are the real deal!"), and my worst fears have pretty much come true. Luckily for me, the best maps (Countdown, Asylum, Powerhouse, Zealot...) are sized for 4v4.

Worth pointing out that most of those Eurogamer guys I mentioned are still warrant officers or below; they love the game but play it once or twice a week at most. I imagine they're more representative of the bulk of the fanbase. Hardly anyone is going to make General inside six months, and I think your perception of what 'hardcore' is is skewed by posting on and reading Internet forums. Remember how shocked everyone was when Bungie put up the graph of how few people had hit Lt Colonel? Yeah. We hear a lot of whining on GAF because that's a place populated by really dedicated, bar-filling guys. I was one of them for the first few weeks because I just loved any excuse to play the game incessantly, but it's dropped off now and I get my kicks just from the matches themselves, with challenges as a bonus; at this point you've done 60 dailies and 4 weeklies more than me. The variability of cR and difficulties, and the repetition, all of it... I can see why it's disappointing, but I just can't imagine getting so mad about it that you would dump your own thread as a consequence.

(And from Bungie's point of view, it's gotta be demoralizing to put up this side attraction that you never considered the main show -- something that's entirely optional -- and have people just rail about it endlessly and do everything they can to exploit and grind it.)

I mean when you say you wouldn't melee an enemy because it won't work towards a commendation or earn as much cR... dude, I just want to hug you, because that way madness lies.

How ya doing, buddy?

Daravon, I think you overdosed on matchmaking. You've spent so much time in it that it seems that all the little things that aren't right are just giving you a hair trigger.

Find a group of people to play custom games with. I know some of the most fun I've had playing Halo has been with goons, where a custom lobby gets set up and we start playing 4 team Fiesta Slayer on Mario Kart's Block World map, or Falconry, an absolutely ridiculous map where there are 4 falcons, 8 mongeese, a bunch of plasma pistols and one laser running around. It's totally stupid but totally hilarious.

My original goal for the commendations was to unlock them all, but once I saw just how much effort that'd take, I decided to look at them more as a way to track how I'm playing. I noticed my sidearm commendation was rather low, so I've been trying to remember to switch to pistol in regular Slayer to pop someone who's low on shields. That's getting my commendation up and my skill up.

I realize all this stuff is sort of tangential to your problem. You have perfectly valid points about what needs to be fixed. I'm just, in my usual way, trying to point out that while there are plenty of wonky things about Reach, they're not absolutely breaking the game, and there are other reasons to play the game aside from credits. Taking your ball and going home just because we're telling you to calm down a bit seems a bit excessive.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by Gentry Rejected Friend

4 team Fiesta Slayer on Mario Kart's Block World map

I need to play this. It sounds amazing.

I'm sad I got in on the Goon Metatags so late. I forgot mainly because I was playing with the dudes here. The GAF dudes need a tag too so I can infiltrate it and armor lock dong all over their faces.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

The GAF dudes do have tags, as far as I recall. It's probably easier to just join in customs on a Saturday night and then sling invites.

Also I am iron in the Arena despite doing the best I have ever done. I guess not enough people are rated yet?

FELIPE NO

Iron again? You are cursed for real dude. You're doing just as good, if not better than I am.

Last season I placed Silver and had to work my way up to Gold. Playing patiently, sticking with teammates more has seemed to help. I have no idea why the Arena hates you so much.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

First season I placed silver and bounced back and forth between that and bronze, then finished bronze. Second season I placed bronze and stuck there, but should have kept playing because I was top 10%. This season...£*@?!

Jam it back in, in the dark.

God damn it people, if anyone had actually responded to any of my previous posts with this kind of actual discussion you wouldn't get longass whiny posts from me.

Originally Posted by Denicalis

I've never played this game, so I can't comment on your points, but I will point out that arguing GAF as a place of internet sanity is pretty damned laughable. Also, this long a post because someone said your attitude sucks?

Really? You make some very eloquent and well reasoned points here, SD, but to make them and then take your ball and go home?

The post was because people were giving me shit for bitching, despite the fact I was backing up said bitching. I would never argue that GAF is a place of sanity, but that I was actually getting better discussion on my points there than here. I was taking my ball because there's not much point in posting if no one's going to respond to what you're actually saying; had nothing to do with me quitting Halo or anything like that.

I also feel obligated to point out that I made that post while at work when our systems were all down.

Originally Posted by Shake Appeal

I will read and/or respond to your hate letter at some point, Mr Daravon (and I'm sure I agree with the bulk of it*), but I'm pretty sure I've already made my position on cabbages clear a month ago or more on GAF: fun bonus, but not the reason you should be playing the game. If the main motivation for you to log on every day is to clear cabbages and fill bars, I can see why you would be disappointed with that aspect, and I heartily agree that side of things could have been implemented better.

But you complain, and GAF complains, about the cabbages every single goddamn day, without fail, until it has become a droning, infernal lament that will never quite reach the money throne upon which Bungie sit and scoff like lords. It's like you are collectively crossing your fingers and telling yourselves "today it will be different"... day after day after day. You should know you're disappointed by now, and yet each day you go back for more.

This isn't my MAIN motivation, but it's a big one and why I'm so disappointed. They had touted it prior to release, and it was one of the biggest things I was excited for. Generally speaking I'm not a super hardcore FPS guy, and the only only FPS I've ever stuck with for any length of time was Halo 2 and 3, but even then that would be like 3 months of us playing followed by 8 months of not playing it at all and repeat. The core concept on paper of Bungie incentivizing you to keep coming back with new and unique things and ways to play the game and different modes while also making it "worth your while" was highly appealing. Since so many of the people that I play with are mostly casual (you and roflfox are literally the only two people I know who really play Arena), the idea of us hopping on as a group and rolling along and knowing that we would always be progressing even if we were losing or did individually poorly is appealing to a lot of players. It's probably the main reason we played MW2 as long as we did, because that game (for it's many, many faults) did a good job of giving you a non-stop stream of cookies. Even though some of the people I played with were completely terrible, you were always progressing forward so it wasn't a big deal.

I'm not really the kind of person who will play a game long term just for the "competition" or whatever; you'll almost never see me playing an online game (especially a FPS) by myself, I'm almost always playing with friends. It's also why I don't really play Arena; during the Beta I could actually tell it was making me better at the game and really think about what I was doing, and I think I did well (Gold maybe?), but it was super stressing me out. Maybe I should try giving it a shot again or something though. With Reach though for some reason I never feel a sense of "accomplishment" for getting better like I have for every other FPS I've played. I've been having a discussion with someone on another forum about how AA's appear to have had a negative impact on Objective games, as practically no one wants to play them anymore in Reach. I don't feel that AA's are necessarily cheap or a bad addition to the game, but they've changed things in a way I can't quite put my finger on.

Anyway, I think the key point here, and the only reason anyone is even still around to bitch about cabbages, is that's Bungie. They've always delivered the goods, and to hear that there will be no more deliveries, and hey the goods you have now kinda suck is pretty disappointing. Your point about how Halo 2/3 launched is good and I meant to bring that up actually. While that's completely true, at the same time as the owner of said content it may be unrealistic to launch a product that is better than the previous one was after years of refinement, that's still the consumer expectation. I expected some rough spots, but this is still pretty bad. This is like the next Xbox launching with a version of Xbox Live that is worse than the one we have now; realistically there may be good technical reasons, and you may not have years of that evolution under your belt, but it's still ultimately disappointing to the end consumer. The fact that they literally cannot add new Challenges discourages the idea that things will get better down the road. As an amusing aside which sort of illustrates and sums up my whole problem with Cabbages, I enjoy how broken today's duplicate Cabbage is.

Originally Posted by Shake Appeal

It helps that I mostly play the Arena this point (or other 4v4 stuff where possible, because that is where the Halo games have always been most fun for me). If I played BTB/Invasion regularly I would go insane because I find the maps and gametypes and the whole organization of those playlists is for the most part wretched. I played some BTB with the Eurogamer guys last night and even with 14-16 of us going into the playlist (and me donging on all but one or two of them like Brainboy and Sparrows), I just didn't have a very good time. The number one thing I agree with you about is the map selection being awful, especially the BTB selection. It was the thing I was most worried about prerelease (and urk was all company with it: "no, it's fine, the Forge World maps are the real deal!"), and my worst fears have pretty much come true. Luckily for me, the best maps (Countdown, Asylum, Powerhouse, Zealot...) are sized for 4v4.

Worth pointing out that most of those Eurogamer guys I mentioned are still warrant officers or below; they love the game but play it once or twice a week at most. I imagine they're more representative of the bulk of the fanbase. Hardly anyone is going to make General inside six months, and I think your perception of what 'hardcore' is is skewed by posting on and reading Internet forums. Remember how shocked everyone was when Bungie put up the graph of how few people had hit Lt Colonel? Yeah. We hear a lot of whining on GAF because that's a place populated by really dedicated, bar-filling guys. I was one of them for the first few weeks because I just loved any excuse to play the game incessantly, but it's dropped off now and I get my kicks just from the matches themselves, with challenges as a bonus; at this point you've done 60 dailies and 4 weeklies more than me. The variability of cR and difficulties, and the repetition, all of it... I can see why it's disappointing, but I just can't imagine getting so mad about it that you would dump your own thread as a consequence.

(And from Bungie's point of view, it's gotta be demoralizing to put up this side attraction that you never considered the main show -- something that's entirely optional -- and have people just rail about it endlessly and do everything they can to exploit and grind it.)

I mean when you say you wouldn't melee an enemy because it won't work towards a commendation or earn as much cR... dude, I just want to hug you, because that way madness lies.

I think you've highlighted a big difference in our perspectives; I play almost exclusively Invasion/BTB, since how I enjoy online games like this is to generally get a big group of people together and just roll around. I agree that at least outside of Arena, the 4v4 experience has not been bad, or is at least much better now than it was at launch. Not sure I agree on the rank thing; when urk originally posted that chart showing 1% of players at the cap, that was weeks before they raised it. The full 1-2 weeks before they raised the cap I would honestly say 75% or more of the players I saw in lobbies were at the cap. You could make the argument that was intentional due to player matching, but I've never seen anything that convinces me that matchmaking works that well to be honest. I could be wrong though; I'd really like to see them put up a new chart, but I don't think they will at this point.

The melee thing was a throwaway comment that actually came to mind because I've had multiple people make the same observation. It's just a weird omission from the game. Also I'd love to get in on GAF customs, but literally every time I ever had, everyone winds up getting booted in favor of the "regulars," so it winds up becoming a 16-player group of the core GAF players, with everyone else shunted off into 2nd and 3rd lobbies. I dunno if that's normally the case, but on three different occasions I tried getting into Halo 3 customs over the course of it's lifetime and that happened every time. I think if they had Action Sack and/or a Weekend Playlist going they could start inserting crazy shit like you see in some of the Customs that would break things up considerably.

If we had had this sort of actual discussion to my previous posts, I wouldn't have kept bitching about the Cabbages and would have let it go already. Felt like I was talking to a wall here, but now that we seem to all understand each other I'm fine now, at least regarding Halo.

Like I said I do really like the game, have obviously played it a shitload, and enough to make that kind of post. Again I want to re-emphasize that I wasn't quitting the game, was just disappointed with how they've handled it so far, and that Challenges will basically never get better. I will maybe try giving Arena a go and see how that goes. Also during any of this it doesn't help that some of the people I play with are terrible. I played a game of Invasion Slayer recently where Shimms went -18 and someone else went -23. How do you even manage that??

Originally Posted by a_lurker

I don't care what anybody says, this is post of the year '010.

I know what the ladies like.

Devo, I agree. I touched on it in my post, but it's got to be incredibly difficult for developers to properly balance and incentivize players. Flatout, if Reach did not have the Player Investment or cR system and worked just like Halo 3, it would have done considerably worse. Part of the reason stuff like MW has gotten so large is that even super casual weekend warriors can feel like they're getting something out of it even if they're getting owned. I do think that there are much better ways Bungie could be handling this, but since they can't alter Challenges and probably also can't alter Commendations, they're largely screwed there (although I think the fact that the game shipped that way is another issue). I've posted this before, but I think if the winning team in Objective games got a slightly larger Performance bonus at the end of a matchmaking game (maybe like 30-50%) it would encourage "proper" play, without being worth quite enough to force certain ways of playing or break the game.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

NEVER FORGET PEOPLE. NEVER FORGET.

How ya doing, buddy?

Dunno, maybe it's changed for Reach. Every time I was on when they first got started, and it was always everybody who wound up getting booted over time (not just me), so I'm not sure. I last tried about 3 months ago and it happened again. The guy running it from GAF (drawing a blank on his name) even kept telling people that he was sorry up front, but as regulars were getting on people were getting booted, I was about the 8th or 8th to go.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by SailorDaravon

Also during any of this it doesn't help that some of the people I play with are terrible. I played a game of Invasion Slayer recently where Shimms went -18 and someone else went -23. How do you even manage that??

See I'm one of those people who's terrible but I still really enjoy playing Halo, whether with people from here or on my own. On my own, I'm actually not that bad at Firefight and in BTB games you can always find someone who's fucking about to have fun with. With other people, the fact that I'm so shit just makes it that much funnier I find. Every SHIN WHY moment cracks me up (And there were quite a few this evening, I do wish Tails would stop running in front of my grenades) and I guess I gravitate towards the people who don't take the game too seriously or care about winning that much more than caring about having fun playing it. As a result I guess a few people don't like playing with me (Merk hates me for example) but I don't let it get to me. People play games for different reasons. I play for pissing about fun, you like winning and collecting shit. Neither of us is "Right" or "Wrong", it's just the way people are.

I was speaking idiomatically.