Halo: Reach Forum
This topic has moved here: Subject: How To Improve the Multiplayer For Reach
  • Subject: How To Improve the Multiplayer For Reach
Subject: How To Improve the Multiplayer For Reach

Alt+F4=secret weapon in Halo PC!

Extremely long and whiny post ahead. Avoid at all costs.

1. A Ranking System That Works.
DON'T reward players for creating new accounts. I want to see people either staying on their new accounts or not playing at all. New accounts ruin the game for newer players as they get absolutely dominated, and wreck the intentions of the fatally flawed TrueSkill system. The easy way to do this? SImply make a set number of games to rank up. 1 win per rank up to level 30, 3 wins a rank from 30 to level 40, 5 wins a rank from 40 to 45, and 7 wins a rank from 45 to 50. This comes out to 120 wins to get a 50. No more second accounts (except for the minuscule percentage of the community that creates and sells 50s) because there would be no advantage to it. Reasonable?

2. Create A Real Skill Gap
Here comes the controversy... Before you call me an elitist, let me explain why this would benefit everyone from the pro players to the person who picks up a controller for the first time in his life.

A large skill gap creates division between players of varying skills.
Combined with a decent ranking system, a large skill gap quickly separates players of varying skills. Let's say there are three main components to a game that take skill. Let's say these gameplay mechanics are BXR, the BR, and grenade throwing. The player who has mastered none of these remains at the bottom of the ranking system with the rest of the players who haven't mastered any either. He never gets frustrated, because he isn't playing against people who are destroying him with the aforementioned mechanics. He doesn't even know they exist. But let's say this player watches a video on YouTube of someone doing a BXR, and becomes inspired. He masters BXR, starts to win games because of him mastery of it, and quickly ranks up beyond his previous ranks of people who knew nothing of BXR. He levels out in ranking because he starts to play with others who have mastered BXR, and no one gets frustrated in those games either because they are all on the same skill level.

A large skill gap keeps people interested.
This is pretty obvious. Knowing there is always one more technique to master keeps people playing and keeps the game interesting. Look at running. Millions of people time themselves and try to increase their times.

As you can see, a large skill gap can only help. It won't hurt the new players because they'll almost never encounter a player with far superior skills to their own (except for the occasional jerk who thinks it's cool to ruin a game by creating a new account and beating up on new players), and it helps keep people interested in the game.

3. FIX THE NETWORKING!!!!!.
A lot of people will argue that the networking works great, but this is simply false. Bungie themselves have said the system is not perfect, and unless we want to settle for mediocrity that means the system needs to be improved.

FACT: Your shots sometimes don't make it to the host. This happens all the time due to network packing i. e. your packets get lost somewhere in the 100s of miles that your packets may often have to travel. THIS IS A FACT OF NETWORKING.
OPINION: Bungie needs to accept that we don't all live in Boston and have fiber optic internet lines and develop some sort of work around to at least REDUCE the amount of bullets not registering (Package the BR burst in 1 packet to reduce the chance of a crucial packet being lost?) so that I don't throw the controller across the room when I lose a game 49-50 because my last bullet got lost somewhere in the magical cloud knows as the internet.

FACT: Halo 3s networking let's the host decide who lives and who dies. Halo 3s networking is set up so that the host looks at the information available to it and decides what is going on in the game from that. This can create some highly annoying effects such as a sniper bullets appearing to go through someone's head (the player will even see blood spurting from the person's body). This happens because the on the clients screen, he had a clear shot from on the host. However, in a lot of situations, the person's head will be in a slightly different place than what the clients screen is showing (depending on lag) and the client will get a nice big bloodshot on the person's head because the host decides that the shot registered in a different place that what the clients screen showed.
OPINION: This is the worst decision Bungie made with Halo 3. It makes me have to seven shot people, sniper bullets not register, and generally create more frustration that should even be necessary. I know that we don't live in a perfect world, but SURELY there is a better way of setting up the client/host system that what Halo 3 has today.

FACT: People's shots will appear to do absolutely nothing on their screen sometimes. I just explained the two main reasons why; in a nutshell, packet loss and host.
OPINION: To me, there is NOTHING more frustrating that seeing a blood shot with a sniper or watching my last BR bullet disappear into thin air. I feel like I'm being cheated. I know that this is taking the game a little seriously, but that's just the way I'm built. I take everything I do and do it to the top of my ability, from running to Halo. Think of it this way. Imagine it's game 7 of the World Series. Cubs vs Yankees. The Cubs are down 1-4. The game count is 3-3. The bases are loaded. It's the 9th inning. Alfonso Soriano steps up to the plate. The pitch is thrown, and Soriano cracks one down right field line! It's completely out of the park ladies and gentleman, the Cubs have won the World Series off a clutch grand slam! Suddenly the HAND OF GOD reaches down, grabs the ball from the air as it's flying over the park and deposits it neatly into Derek Jeter's hand. The crowd is silent. Someone stands up and yells "WHAT THE -blam!-?????". Okay, maybe I exaggerated, but you get the picture. The point is, it's incredibly frustrating to have what seems like the hand of god ruin a game for you.

4. Derandomize Everything.
I know this sounds kind of picky, but randomizing things like the BR spread is kind of stupid. Seriously, why should I lose a battle where everything from the network to my aim is perfect because I just get really -blam!- luck and my last shot's random spread screws me. There's probably a couple of other things that could be derandomized (maybe the spawn cycle?) but I'm just saying everything should work in a fairly predictable fashion that an intelligent player should be able to figure out.

Well that's the end of my post. Congratulations if you've made it this far, I apologize for any grammar mistakes or whatnot I have made. I would go back and edit, but frankly I don't have the patience. If you have a point to make, I would be extremely interested to hear it, but if you're going to just come in here and tell me I'm a loser for caring so much about the game then keep it to yourself.

Didn't mean to end on a negative note there, so let's end with "Thank you Bungie for creating the greatest game series ever created".

[Edited on 09.06.2009 1:11 PM PDT]

  • 09.05.2009 7:43 PM PDT
Subject: My Wants for Reach
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Your linear ranking system would need to be improved. 120 wins is a pretty easy feat to accomplish, essentially defeating the purpose of trying to create a skill gap amongst players.

  • 09.05.2009 7:50 PM PDT

Alt+F4=secret weapon in Halo PC!

It would only be 120 wins if you won every single game. Obviously unless you're cheating or God you would lose some games.

My point is that the amount of games it takes to rank up should be SET, whether you have zero EXP or 10,000 and no matter the relative TrueSkills of the players you're playing are.

  • 09.05.2009 7:54 PM PDT

"People can have the Model T in any color they want, so long as it's black" - Henery Ford.

China called, they want thier wall back.



On a more seriouse note, it seems like what you want is just better online experiance. the problem is, only so much can be done before things just stop making a difference. no matter what you do there will ALWAYS be a host advantage. You can not just "make a workaround." It is not something thats just a snap of the finger. Something like that may simply just not be possible. As for the rest of your stuff, it essentially stems from the networking and hosting issues - you're right, it is not perfect, sometimes it even sucks, but in the end there is only so much bungie can do.

Edit: i forgot about the skill stuff. That is slightly simialr though, there is only so much bungie can do to create a good matchmaking system, and no matter what they do, its still a system. that means that it can be manipulated to do what it is designed, but in a way favorable to the user. maby in ten years it will be significantly better and more accurate, but for today, we just do not have the library of information that is needed to predict such a human aspect in a digital fashion.


Note that this does not mean that Reach multiplayer will be just like Halo 3, it will be better! the only question is how much (do not expect to much).

[Edited on 09.05.2009 7:59 PM PDT]

  • 09.05.2009 7:56 PM PDT
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Posted by: frogpjb
It would only be 120 wins if you won every single game. Obviously unless you're cheating or God you would lose some games.

My point is that the amount of games it takes to rank up should be SET, whether you have zero EXP or 10,000 and no matter the relative TrueSkills of the players you're playing are.


I don't get what you're saying. Do you have to win 120 consecutive games, or just 120 games? The former option will make achieving a 50 a fantasy, but the latter is extremely easy. Any decent player will have have won that many games in at least 300+ games. At least from my experience.

  • 09.05.2009 7:59 PM PDT

Alt+F4=secret weapon in Halo PC!

Posted by: Josh 22 T
I don't get what you're saying. Do you have to win 120 consecutive games, or just 120 games? The former option will make achieving a 50 a fantasy, but the latter is extremely easy. Any decent player will have have won that many games in at least 300+ games. At least from my experience.

Let's say I win 2 games at level 35. I need one more to rank up. However, I lose a game. I now need 2 games to rank up. Simple as that. It would work exactly as Halo 3s ranking system works, the only difference being that the number of games you have to win to rank up is SET, with your exp and your Trueskill having no effect on how many games you need to rank up. Basically I'm trying to eliminate the whole "I have to create a new account to get a 50 because my account with 2500 exp takes 20 wins to rank up while a new account ranks up in 3" mentality.

  • 09.05.2009 8:03 PM PDT
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I think your post is great and I agree with a lot of what you said. There is one thing I would like to ask, how do you propose Bungie fix the networking system?

  • 09.05.2009 8:06 PM PDT

"People can have the Model T in any color they want, so long as it's black" - Henery Ford.

Posted by: matdandaddy
I think your post is great and I agree with a lot of what you said. There is one thing I would like to ask, how do you propose Bungie fix the networking system?


Thats exactly what I was saying, they can only do so much until it no longer becomes thesable and cost effective. It will be better in Reach, but not perfect.

  • 09.05.2009 8:09 PM PDT
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the br is out forever YAY

  • 09.05.2009 8:10 PM PDT
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Posted by: jahbrook1
the br is out forever YAY


What the hell are you talking about?

  • 09.05.2009 8:12 PM PDT

Alt+F4=secret weapon in Halo PC!

Posted by: matdandaddy
I think your post is great and I agree with a lot of what you said. There is one thing I would like to ask, how do you propose Bungie fix the networking system?

They could fund a global improvement of the internet. Just kidding, just kidding.
I realize Bungie can do nothing about the packet loss problem, but they could do a couple things such as making the BR burst one packet instead of three; i. e. 3 packets per pull of the trigger x 12 bursts in a clip = 36 chances for packet loss could be reduced to 1 packet per burst x 12 bursts = 12 chances for packet loss. Also, the whole "Host decides what's going on" system could be greatly improved. For example a system where the client tells the host "I just shot that guy four times in the head" would, in my opinion work better that what we have now. Or at least Bungie could create some sort of a hybrid system.

[Edited on 09.05.2009 8:14 PM PDT]

  • 09.05.2009 8:13 PM PDT
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Posted by: frogpjb
Let's say I win 2 games at level 35. I need one more to rank up. However, I lose a game. I now need 2 games to rank up. Simple as that. It would work exactly as Halo 3s ranking system works, the only difference being that the number of games you have to win to rank up is SET, with your exp and your Trueskill having no effect on how many games you need to rank up. Basically I'm trying to eliminate the whole "I have to create a new account to get a 50 because my account with 2500 exp takes 20 wins to rank up while a new account ranks up in 3" mentality.


So, in the case of being a 45, to get to a 46 means that I must win 7 games. So, if I win 4 games (meaning I must win 3 more games to rank up), losing once means that I'll have essentially won 3 games instead of 4. At that point, if I still want to rank up, I must win 4 more games. Correct?

This will not stop second accounting. Some multi-accounters don't create multiple accounts just to get to a 50. Some like getting crazy medals, some have fun stomping on players worse than them, some sell them, e.t.c. However, I'd really like to see multi-account abuse non-existent, so I commend you for your attempt.

  • 09.05.2009 8:20 PM PDT

Alt+F4=secret weapon in Halo PC!

Posted by: Josh 22 T
So, in the case of being a 45, to get to a 46 means that I must win 7 games. So, if I win 4 games (meaning I must win 3 more games to rank up), losing once means that I'll have essentially won 3 games instead of 4. At that point, if I still want to rank up, I must win 4 more games. Correct?

This will not stop second accounting. Some multi-accounters don't create multiple accounts just to get to a 50. Some like getting crazy medals, some have fun stomping on players worse than them, some sell them, e.t.c. However, I'd really like to see multi-account abuse non-existent, so I commend you for your attempt.

That's exactly what I'm saying. It's basically the same way ranking up in general works in H3 (you win you get closer to ranking up you lose you get closer to ranking down). While there will always some of the immature people going onto new accounts to make somebody's day worse, the majority of second accounters I see are there to get higher ranks.

  • 09.06.2009 12:51 PM PDT
Subject: How To Please Everyone With Reach

Ugh...

First on a BWU.. yeah, I'm cool.

ODST;MYTHIC Screenshot winner! One of the first to get their hands on the mythic map pack.

It is impossible to please everyone, your title is invalid.

  • 09.06.2009 1:01 PM PDT

A linear ranking system is not a ranking system. It's a leveling system and it rewards streaks and short periods of good play.

  • 09.06.2009 1:24 PM PDT

Add in level-modified exp gains (any serious ranking system must have it) and loss/gain reducers for low/high levels and you've got the Halo 2 system with a skewed distribution. We know that it just doesn't matchmake as good, and matchmaking is more important than the visible ranks.

  • 09.06.2009 1:34 PM PDT
Subject: My Wants for Reach

Posted by: Chobo 66
So here's some advice. Hookers. You give them your money. they give you a few moments of happiness. Then you go home. The way it was meant to be. Posted by: Blackbird42
Actually I listened to the audio and he said something about the body rewarding social interaction because is was necessary to survive... well so was the appendix, and now all the appendix does is explode and kill you.

I'd like a consistent BR please.

  • 09.06.2009 2:09 PM PDT

I fancy Elders.TV and Turtle's mom.

I'd like customizable button layout please. That is all

  • 09.06.2009 3:01 PM PDT