- MADMAN Redux
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- Exalted Mythic Member
We're building a better world...all of them, better worlds.
Snowbound:The first thing that came to mind is I'd like to have the original Snowbound back in matchmaking. I really don't like HC Snowbound. Many players complained about the camping, but it is worse now, since there are less strategic options to combat it on the map, even though the shotgun was removed. I'd suggest replacing the bubble shield with another power drainer, so both teams have a very effective way to combat people through shield doors. But I really didn't think anything needed to be changed. The map was a thinking Halo player's map. It may have been slow, but that made every kill that much more important and, therefore, more exciting. And the plethora of strategic options available to both teams was something no other map offers.
Other map related:Epitaph is a map people widely dislike for varying reasons, but I don’t believe it is unsaveable. The shield doors are arguably the map’s killer, but many players recognize they simply change the way the game is played and add an obstacle to think around. It’s another thinking player’s map, but I think one change that would help it very much is to swap the rockets for something. More than any other map, it plays toward rocket launcher possession. They may not be the most important weapon on the map, but every match is a battle for rocket launcher possession just the same, which makes every match the same and makes gameplay undynamic
In terms of maps, there’s a split in the community over originals and remakes. Personally, I’d like to see more original maps, so Halo 3 will continue to have its own identity and offer us gameplay experiences no other games, including its predecessors, can offer. Let’s face it, Blackout is a nice looking map, and some of the changes, though subtle, may affect gameplay significantly, but the similarities to Lockout are so much so that Blackout’s gameplay became stale relatively quickly. It still promotes the same style of gameplay as Lockout, and that is a problem, in my opinion, that is inherent to all remakes.
Equipment:I'd really like to see the flare and the radar jammer come back to matchmaking as well. Sure, there was a glitch that allowed players to abuse them, but players can still do what the equipment allowed them to do. Taking them out was not a fix but a minor deterrent. Furthermore, they were one of the more interesting and useful equipment because they change the game environment.
Play lists:Halo 3 has A LOT of play lists, and I would like to see them consolidated and pared down. Some could be saved for double experience weekends. Rocket Race, for example, would be a prime candidate.
Speaking of double experience lists, why haven’t we seen a juggernaut list yet? It’s a game type that I think is underplayed.
To aid in giving play lists more mileage, why don’t you make more or all of the maps available for play in every list? What’s wrong with playing a double team match on Sandtrap? Or how about a big team battle on Guardian? There seems to be a standard pace setting that all Halo games are, for some reason, supposed to conform to. To me, that doesn’t make sense. Why would you limit a playlist so in terms of experiences? Sure, only having 4 people on Sandtrap may be a slow-paced game, but what’s wrong with that? Set the kill limit lower. Kills will mean more, and the game will be more about the anticipation of combat, which I actually prefer.
A case in point: head to head. The play list makes the leader’s position visible to the player who is losing. This was done in an attempt to curb camping (and it doesn’t work, by the way), which ultimately means it was done to increase the pace of the game. Why can’t we just accept a head to head game for what it is? It’s a slow-paced game where strategy and anticipation become more important than in “standard” play. The excitement in head to head should come from the knowledge that you are all alone and don’t know where your opponent is. A head to head game based on explosions just won’t work because there won’t be that many, and the action is over very quickly. Why do we have to try to make the experience the same as “standard” play?
Mixed-party restrictions: They were apparently reinstituted into Team Doubles, but I think the restrictions should be in all lists. Bungie cited this change originally to give us quicker matchup times, but I think it was an attempt to boost its matches logged data. Honestly, I think we’ll deal with having to wait a minute or so to get a quality match. Not having mixed-party restrictions means if we want to play with a friend who isn’t ranked in skill as high as we are, he’ll have to compete with players all of our level. That just isn’t fair to them, and it means we are less inclined to actually play with our friends, which should be against what Bungie is trying to do.
Community:I think Bungie should do more to support its community. What it is now is nothing compared to what it could and should be, considering the level of interaction they built into their game. For example, there is a whole Forge subcommunity that has surfaced, and there are some great maps out there. This subcommunity could be better, however, if Bungie gave players an incentive to use Forge and publish their works to the community files site. There also is Bungie Favorites, which is really no longer Bungie’s favorites. It’s other communities’ (outside of Bungie’s) favorites. Realistically, I don’t understand why Bungie doesn’t hire a group of people whose sole job is to keep Bungie Favs updated daily and to scour the community for good stuff. Furthermore, all of this stuff should take place here, on Bungie.net, not elsewhere.
Suggestions:
-Bungie Favs updated daily.
-Forge contests and/or matchmaking playlists
-Community spotlights on groups within Bungie.net
-More rotation of social lists
-A friend/clan/group finder
Finally, the Halo 3 forum really has gotten out of hand. I believe the mods tried to lock it down a few months ago by making it against the rules to post about certain “hot” topics except for in pinned threads. The repercussion, obviously, was that no one talked about said “hot” topics, and that was a shame. We go there to talk about what’s new and exciting, and there’s nothing wrong with people starting their own thread about it. Trying to consolidate them all into one huge thread was a mistake because things move too fast, and users were afraid of them. Since then, that restriction idea seems to have been abandoned, but so has the forum.
I think the solution should be that someone take the forum and make it their project, kind of like Shishka has done with Optimatch. He’s ever present and keeps a pretty good handle on things. The forum has benefited by increased usage, and there seems to be more mature conversation going on there.
Something needs to be done in the Halo 3 forum, but it shouldn’t be something resembling a tyrannical ruling.
Less MLG: I know this may not be a popular suggestion, but I really think there should be less MLG influence on the game. They have their own playlist, they play test, Bungie promotes their videos, etc. For the rest of us, it seems, to a degree, as if we are being ignored. Sure, MLG players may play this game very competitively, but that certainly does not mean they can speak for an average gamer. Furthermore, Bungie promoting MLG means other groups who may need the attention are getting ignored. Granted, MLG may one day be considered a professional sport, but Bungie’s endorsement, as much as it may make good business sense, seems a lot like riding coat tails to me. And it isn’t MLG that’s doing the riding.
One thing that I’ve always loved about Bungie is its independence. It’s always done with its games whatever the hell it wanted to. Now that it’s taking outside influence, it’s almost as if Bungie is admitting a weakness that they don’t know what to do, and this very thread is a perfect example of that.
Bungie, we’re all going to think this game should be a certain way. Simply asking us to give suggestions and analyzing the data from it and from the veto system may seem like the diplomatic way of doing things. The math can’t be wrong, right? But really, catering to the majority of players does nothing but alienate the minority. If you say, “this is how things are going to be because we want it to be that way” (like you used to), you’ll alienate everyone equally, but at least we will understand the changes come honestly and legitimately, not because the numbers say so.
In my honest opinion, the way to make this game better is if Bungie would get its balls back and allocate the manpower to do the job.