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The Official Halo 3 Thread

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sixthsubset said:
matchmaking is in flames.
sixthsubset said:
matchmaking is pretty terrible compared to what it could but probably never will be
Halo 3 has been the most-played game on Xbox LIVE for the past two weeks, and in the top 3 for its entire 18-month lifetime.

At what point do you stop and say to yourself, "gee, I'm playing this game I think totally sucks - why don't I move on?" At what point do others say that?

If your response is "well, it's sucks, but it's still better than anything else," I'd like to suggest that your command of the English language needs work. (Unless someone's holding a gun to my head, I don't do ANYTHING that 'sucks' for 18 months straight. Remember life before video games? If they ALL suck... go do something else.)

If your response is "Oh, I don't really play any more - it DOES suck" - why the fuck are you here? Aren't there other threads worth reading/contributing to? Do you really have SO much free time in your life that you can afford to hang out in a thread devoted to a game you hate?

There are a few dozen people who post here regularly. A significant percentage like using words like 'terrible', 'awful', 'sucks' - these are words I reserve for stuff like mass genocide, or cleaning up dog vomit. If I felt the need to use them regularly about a video game I played... I'd stop playing that video game. Life's too damn short.

(I'm not saying that you can't complain about a team of 3 getting split in 3-ball (that's pretty fucking stupid, although it's not Shishka's fault), or that it's not annoying to get the same map 5 times in a row, or that you wish there were different starting weapons on some maps/gametypes. I'm saying that if you make the SAME COMPLAINTS FOR MONTHS AND MONTHS AND MONTHS... maybe it's time to do something else.)

And I'm saying that the few dozen people expressing their opinions here are not even REMOTELY indicative of the 3/4 of a million people that play Halo 3 every day.

Can matchmaking be made better with tweaks? Almost certainly, yes. Will everyone playing agree on which tweaks are good tweaks, and which ones are bad? NOPE.

Is gameplay at the 45+ level (where 5-10% of all players reside) the same as gameplay at the 30- level (where 70% of all players reside)? NOPE. So making a game that plays more fairly for those at the top of the scale... might break things for people down below. Someone (kylej?) posted a link to a game of 2 Flag Heavy on Standoff, where someone got a pair of Exterminations on a team of 8 with a Gauss Hog. How often has ANYONE seen that happen? Why did it happen here? Because a team of Generals and Brigadiers was matched up against a team of Majors and Captains, and set up some nasty spawn traps. This happens... but pretty infrequently. When 45+ players match against each other, this NEVER happens. When Major/Captain teams match against each other, this NEVER happens. So the solution here is to try and keep such mismatched teams from meeting each other, rather than suggesting that Heavies is a broken gametype and should be removed.

And so on. (I can't actually provide any real statistical data, because Bungie doesn't release it - but anecdotal experience suggests that more people enjoy Heavies than not.)
 
Loius Wu its like we see the potential and we care about the game so we complain, when we stop complaining is when Bungie should be worried.

"Fundamentals, fundamentals, fundamentals. You’ve got
to get the fundamentals down because otherwise the fancy stuff isn’t going to work. And the other
Jim Graham story I have is there was one practice where he just rode me all practice. You’re doing
this wrong, you’re doing this wrong, go back and do it again, you owe me, you’re doing push-ups
after practice. And when it was all over, one of the other assistant coaches came over and said,
yeah, Coach Graham rode you pretty hard, didn’t he? I said, yeah. He said, that’s a good thing. He
said, when you’re screwing up and nobody’s saying anything to you anymore, that means they gave
up. And that’s a lesson that stuck with me my whole life. Is that when you see yourself doing
something badly and nobody’s bothering to tell you anymore, that’s a very bad place to be. Your
critics are your ones telling you they still love you and care."

~Randu Pausch "The Last Lecture"

Heavies is good but does seem unpopular around here, I enjoy it.

And oh I've added #19 to my list.

19. Ban all booster accounts with ridiculous -EXP in playlists. First just ban everyone with -50 in a playlist.

Boosting accounts with neg exp are from players who have ruined a long list of games for other players to get a ruined playlist score so they can boost and SELL (very often) level 50 accounts to players who don't deserve them and in turn ruin MORE games for people who should be ranking up to 50 but get ass teammates.
 
Is matchmaking satisfactory in its current state? I say yes.

I still come back to Halo and play it pretty much every day and I mainly play matchmaking. That sounds satisfactory to me. I'll tell you what though, I'm glad there's an MLG playlist because I don't know if I would be playing matchmaking at all if it wasn't there...
 
Merguson said:
If the game sucks, stop playing it.

If the game is fun, keep playing it.


Logic.

If it's fun and can be improved, voice your opinion.

Don't let that stop anyone from writing a rant comparing posts in here to genocide though.
 
kylej said:
If it's fun and can be improved, voice your opinion.
Definitely. But politely, without getting personally insulting or calling for anyone to be fired. Right?

P.S. Put classic CTF in matchmaking somewhere please Shishka.
 
alisdair said:
Definitely. But politely, without getting personally insulting or calling for anyone to be fired. Right?

No because I think Shishka is awful at his job and should be fired. I'll give someone some slack 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 or hell maybe 7 months after release. Matchmaking still sucks a year and a half later while Shishka does nothing but release piddling updates and yells at Forgehub members. Forget a Forge playlist that's a goddamn pipe dream with this guy at the helm. We're still playing the same Double EXP gametypes over and over. I mean he can't even implement new temporary fun gametypes. Shishka should get a job in politics because that's the only place someone who does his job right 1/10th of the time could still be working.
 
kylej said:
If it's fun and can be improved, voice your opinion.

Don't let that stop anyone from writing a rant comparing posts in here to genocide though.

I'm perfectly fine with opinions on how to improve the game but why keep saying the game "sucks?" You keep playing it.. makes people sound more idiotic.
 
kylej said:
If it's fun and can be improved, voice your opinion.

Don't let that stop anyone from writing a rant comparing posts in here to genocide though.

I'm pretty sure he was comparing all your adjectives to words he would use to describe an event like that, not playlists in a video game.
 
Sai-kun said:
I'm pretty sure he was comparing all your adjectives to words he would use to describe an event like that, not playlists in a video game.
I'm shocked - shocked! - that kylej would take a lengthy and well reasoned post and try to deflect it through such a disingenuous response.

Oh wait.
 
I would like to know why we haven't seen some of the excellent Foundry maps submitted to ATLAS in matchmaking. Specifically:
All of these seem to be good submissions, although (probably because they've been ignored) there are some broken links. How long are mappers expected to keep all of the required data in their fileshares?

Shishka has been active in ATLAS, locking threads which don't meet submission guidelines, but he hasn't responded to any of those threads*. And yet all the maps seem to meet the guidelines, and play really well.

Why are Smashed and Anvil in matchmaking, and these great maps aren't? If there's a reason, why aren't the forgers told why their maps are rejected?

This is why I'm not working on another map, in the hope that I come up with something good and it gets into matchmaking. If these awesome maps get flat-out ignored, why should I (or anyone else) bother putting in the effort?

*Edit: actually, he did post in the Flux thread saying "needs more films"; the forger posted more the next day. So he knows the maps exist, they seem to meet requirements (threads not locked), and yet they're not in MM when other maps are. I just don't get it.
 
KevinRo said:
It's not that difficult to get a 50 in mlg. I've done it in my off time not even trying after not playing the game for over a year. You can ask tashi, I honestly go into games fucking around on my 50.

It's cool that you play mlg and stuff but I think it's bullshit that you come in here telling people that you are better than them. Leave that shit in matchmaking. It's embarrassing.

i didnt say it was difficult, and i didnt say i only have 1 account.

and i didnt come in to say that. but while im at it ill just say im better than you kevinro!! yay!

and wu, it doesnt really matter how much people play halo. its just other companies are alot more incompetent than bungie, save infinity ward, and ive met alot of people who left for cod4 because matchmaking in halo just isnt fun. the fact that people love the game is no reason just to be complacent about its problems... theres alot of room for improvement.
 
Matchmaking on the whole is pretty terrible, Team Objective/Squad Battle are pretty much impossible to play with a party once you make it past a certain level. Social Team DLC is completely void of any BR variants on large maps, and as most have said, the Double XP's are tired and played out.

Not to mention the party splitting, which seems to have gotten a billion time worse for me recently, me and Eazy were split up like 4-5 times out of about 8 games the other night in Mythic in a party of 2, I mean c'mon.

Also on top of all that garbage, none of the maps are ever tweaked, none of the gametypes are ever tweaked, it's just a stale experience. Capture the Flag on Assembly should not have a flag return time of 10+ seconds or whatever the garbage is, it should be 5 at least or even lower. I've said it a thousand times, you want good MultiFlag/KOTH/Oddball settings, copy MLGs. You don't have to copy their style, you can still have radar and ARs, but their game settings are just head and shoulders above the standard MM stuff.

But in the end I don't think it really matters, most people are content playing AR starts on large maps and running around like a retard, so the vocal minority is pretty much out of luck if things haven't changed by this point, IMO.
 
kylej said:
No because I think Shishka is awful at his job and should be fired. I'll give someone some slack 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 or hell maybe 7 months after release. Matchmaking still sucks a year and a half later while Shishka does nothing but release piddling updates and yells at Forgehub members. Forget a Forge playlist that's a goddamn pipe dream with this guy at the helm. We're still playing the same Double EXP gametypes over and over. I mean he can't even implement new temporary fun gametypes. Shishka should get a job in politics because that's the only place someone who does his job right 1/10th of the time could still be working.
I do agree the playlist's suck in their current state. However Getting mad at someone because the community doesnt do their job in submitting the damn maps is wrong. I said it before im all for calling someone names because the Matchmaking model is broken, but in terms of these so called community map (forge) playlists, really how about actually submitting the damn maps, there is a reason "Atlas" exists. To be honest if many of the forge/ community members think like sixsubset, how he thinks its shishka's job to go out and find the best maps himself then we will never have a community playlist. Everyone has rules. how about following one and submitting something properly.

*was not meant to answer kyleJ, its just an general statement*

Don't forget Heavies. That shouldn't even exist in this game.

My Most hated Gametype EVER. VIP > Heavies. :p
 
Don't forget Heavies. That shouldn't even exist in this game. I'll just leave it at that since I think I've bitched about Heavies plenty on here.
 
backflip10019 said:
Uhhh, we've seen Amplified. It's in MLG.
No shit. I'm not talking about MLG, the contents of which are decided by the MLG organisation (Killa KC?).

I'm talking about ATLAS, where everyone is supposed to submit their maps for normal playlists. Why isn't the matchmaking version of Amplified in Team Slayer or SWAT or something?
 
Speaking of Amplified, it sure has some GREAT SPAWNS!

http://www.bungie.net/Online/Halo3UserContentDetails.aspx?h3fileid=70278570
alisdair said:
No shit. I'm not talking about MLG, the contents of which are decided by the MLG organisation (Killa KC?).

I'm talking about ATLAS, where everyone is supposed to submit their maps for normal playlists. Why isn't the matchmaking version of Amplified in Team Slayer or SWAT or something?
Maybe if you got the dick out of your ass, you'd be able to see how terrible Amplified would be in SWAT.
 
Amplified would be a nightmare in SWAT


So I checked on 6 different stores for the Limited Edition of Halo Wars. Sure enough, that shit is limited. No one fuckin had it. I really wanted to play that shit today. I'm gonna have to order it online.
 
alisdair said:
Amplified spawns are fine, unless you're too stupid to understand how the spawn system works. Are you too stupid? I think so!

maybe for a normal slayer gametype but I don't think it would work in SWAT. And don't act like you've never spawned directly behind some guy in Amplified or the other way around. Don't say they're "fine" when that shit happens.
 
alisdair said:
Amplified spawns are fine, unless you're too stupid to understand how the spawn system works. Are you too stupid? I think so!

Understanding them does not stop them fucking you over though. Regularly! Every game I've ever played on it has been a clusterfuck
 
I've been reading through Atlas a little bit these past couple of days and I must say that Shishka is at least responding to the map threads I've seen. He provided some great feedback to the Utah Mambo guy for example.

The short of it that I got is that a lot of the maps, although they look great do not meet MM standards in terms of how spawns are placed and managed.The almighty spawning system is what makes and usually breaks these maps.

Shishka is srs bizness in Atlas.
 
Take a read over the maps that have been successful in ATLAS. There was internal screening and play testing of a bunch of maps, only one or two made it through that entire process.

I wouldn't be surprised if Shishka is gathering maps for more internal testing sessions.

It's unlikely that he would command a group of play testers dedicated to forge creations, so I imagine the process of submitting a map and Shishka deciding the grand ole yay or nay takes some considerable time.

I'm still waiting for Shishka's Encyclopedia Spawnpointica.
 
FourDoor said:
I've been reading through Atlas a little bit these past couple of days and I must say that Shishka is at least responding to the map threads I've seen. He provided some great feedback to the Utah Mambo guy for example.

The short of it that I got is that a lot of the maps, although they look great do not meet MM standards in terms of how spawns are placed and managed.The almighty spawning system is what makes and usually breaks these maps.

Shishka is srs bizness in Atlas.

Could you link to a post where he addresses this? I'm curious what mistakes users are making in terms of spawns.
 
Dani said:
Take a read over the maps that have been successful in ATLAS. There was internal screening and play testing of a bunch of maps, only one or two made it through that entire process.

I wouldn't be surprised if Shishka is gathering maps for more internal testing sessions.

It's unlikely that he would command a group of play testers dedicated to forge creations, so I imagine the process of submitting a map and Shishka deciding the grand ole yay or nay takes some considerable time.

I'm still waiting for Shishka's Encyclopedia Spawnpointica.
Dani, where have you been lately? Are you getting your Xbox back soon?
 
This Thread R serious business.

Lets get a few things straight.

-The game needs a lot of work in matchmaking.
-The game needs a new and eazy way to implement community maps.
-The double Exp lists need to be reworked. (griffball for the 100th time is not so fun)
-The game needs a new leveling system.
-


Might as well call it Halo 4.
 
Reminder: It came up a while ago that Heavies is one of the least vetoed gametypes. While most of us may hate it, the majority disagrees. As someone else suggested, grief the fuck outa newbs in Heavies until they hate it too, and thus will veto it.
 
PedroLumpy said:
Reminder: It came up a while ago that Heavies is one of the least vetoed gametypes. While most of us may hate it, the majority disagrees. As someone else suggested, grief the fuck outa newbs in Heavies until they hate it too, and thus will veto it.

no one vetoes is cause anyone can get decent amount of kills in a scorpion.
 
Insaniac said:
no one vetoes is cause anyone can get decent amount of kills in a scorpion.

And thus they find the gametype fun and will not veto it. We can't dictate what they find fun, but you can blow their Scorpion up over and over again.
 
Insaniac said:
no one vetoes is cause anyone can get decent amount of kills in a scorpion.
Scorpion rapes Sandtrap, Gauss Hog rapes Standoff, Laser rapes Avalanche... No exceptions.

I hate Heavies SO much.
 
I hope you guys have no misconceptions about how much of the population your opinions represent.



I honestly believe they have raw hard data that is, not surprisingly, a little more accurate than some statistics you guys pull out of thin air. If a good majority of these people didn't like these gametypes, they probably wouldn't put them in.
 
backflip10019 said:
Dani, where have you been lately? Are you getting your Xbox back soon?

Moving home. =)
I haven't the spare cash to fix up my brick yet, so It will be a while yet. I miss online Halo 3 action.

I'm surprised they haven't announced a release date for Mythic yet.
 
All the (Foundry) forge maps that have been picked for matchmaking SUCK. Seriously, just get rid of all of them. For all the things MLG does right (no radar, BR starts, no sword) they really dropped the ball by using these half-baked maps. Foundry just isn't big enough for decent maps.
 
xxjuicesxx said:
we care about the game so we complain
kylej said:
If someone didn't care about the game they wouldn't point out its flaws.
kylej said:
If it's fun and can be improved, voice your opinion.
sixthsubset said:
the fact that people love the game is no reason just to be complacent about its problems... theres alot of room for improvement.
I simply cannot, in my head, reconcile these statements with

kylej said:
Matchmaking still sucks a year and a half later
Ramirez said:
Matchmaking on the whole is pretty terrible
(And dozens more like them)

I never ever said you shouldn't complain when there are problems. I never ever said you shouldn't offer suggestions for improvement. What I said was, if you're using the English language the way I use the English language, you're totally wasting your time here. If you don't mean that it's a horrible game... don't say it's a horrible game.

How fucking hard is that to understand?

(If you're NOT using the English language the way I'm using it, you're doing it wrong.)
 
GavinGT said:
All the (Foundry) forge maps that have been picked for matchmaking SUCK. Seriously, just get rid of all of them. For all the things MLG does right (no radar, BR starts, no sword) they really dropped the ball by using these half-baked maps. Foundry just isn't big enough for decent maps.

really? I think Onslaught is pretty amazing.
 
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