- last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT
Bare with me for a moment as I attempt to answer the OP's question... I am sure I am not alone when I say, people are growing tired of Bungie's online grief-making system.
Personally, I'm tired of dealing with 2nd accounters. Those who should be playing at a higher level due to greater skill deciding to play down, by way of a 2nd account, in order to beat up on lesser skilled players.
I once had trust in matchmaking's ability to find me a fair match based on the merits of TrueSkill. However, with little or no incentives for players to stick with and play upon their primary accounts, players, left and right, are starting over.
It is the rare game where I don't bump into a 2nd accounter. Again, I'm not trying to win every game. I'm in it to have fun. These days, such a thing (fun) is a difficult to quantify when I am being smacked down at every turn due to playing a supposedly evenly matched team of nothing but heavily skilled and experienced players.
As to the OP's initial question: when I had seen that ODST will bring with it a new mode (Firefight) which allows me and my buds the ability to play online against AI in a constantly changing battlefield... I LOLd.
I can imagine playing ODST Firefight a whole heck of a lot. I can imagine playing this kind of mode more than matchmaking in general. That is, at least, until Bungie finds a way to provide incentives for players to stick with their primary account and not play down in order to grief the average gamer.
As to the competition to such a gamemode. I grew tired, quickly, of fighting wave after wave of the same old zombies in COD. Horde mode, at least in terms of variety (both in the form of levels and monster type) was an improvement over COD. Firefight, from what I have seen, trumps the competition.
1) The Wave / Round / Set model encourages team work by developing a sense of finite resources. Since, as Bungie has stated, teams won't receive a resupply until the each Set has been completed.
2) The inclusion of vehicles... Enough said.
3) The inclusion of vehicles... Such a point merits being repeated
4) The events of Firefight aren't scripted. Every Firefight will be unique.
5) Medals
6) Progressive point system
7) Online Stats / Leaderboards
8) Multiple maps ( in both day / night versions )
9) Customizable armor permutations which can be unlocked via the campaign...
10) Skull modifiers controlled by the Firefight game engine...!
....
I haven't given up on Bungie's ability to fix the woes of matchmaking brought on by mistakenly thinking EXP + Skill = Reward will keep people in their first accounts. I will, however, spend most of my time amassing a chest of medals based on my ability to defeat wave after wave of, ever varying, Covenant scum...
[Edited on 06.05.2009 11:45 AM PDT]