- M1Silencer
- |
- Noble Member
Well as I woke up this morning, I had a strange dream of being a gamer in an empty grey room with other gamers walking around me. In front of us, there was a very large wall that was separated into three groups of colors with names above them: Education, Competitive and Fun. I don't remember why, but it seemed like I walked under the green Education banner.
At first this seemed to be a little strange dream, but then I had an idea. What if this type of "classifying" could actually be implemented into matchmaking and online on Bungie.next. What if the Personality Type option from Halo Reach could be expanded to not only pair a person up with other laid back, quiet, rowdy or competitive gamers, but also match them with other creative people or campaign oriented players. Have a way for forgers to meet other forgers online, or help players find others who like to play a lot of custom games. Bring gamers together who have similar interests and personalities, thus influencing gamers to have a better online experience by meeting new friends and creating real bonds not only online, but also in real life. It sounds a little cheesy, I know, but would you like a way to meet other gamers who are similar to yourself? We've been asking for a custom games finder for while, but what if we could just find a reliable player who will always have a fun custom game type ready to play, or even another competitive partner who could be our wingman amidst the chaos on the battlefield.
This is how I propose for this system to work:
*Note: I based this off of Halo since that is what I know and love.
Story Oriented
----- Track the amount of campaign missions that a player has played (Already done) and then compare that to the average amount. If they have multiple playthroughs even after completing the game, consider them a Campaign Oriented person. They like to delve into the story and get to know the universe behind it. If they ever go into matchmaking, they can choose to search for other story people.
Fun
----- Track how many times custom games are played (Already done) and then go even more specific as to see what types of games they play: Infection, CTF, Slayer, etc. Use this data to find the frequency with which they play these games. Again choice to search.
Competitive
----- This one might be a little harder to track considering that the definition of competitive gaming depends on the person. Some might think that a high k/d would show competitiveness, but I think while it is a factor, it cannot solely determine it. The amount of MLG-type matches that someone plays could also go into the determinants, but it still seems inadequate because you can be a competitive player and never play MLG. So this is what I'm going to say: Accuracy + K/D+ Types of matches played (MLG, SWAT, Team Slayer, Lone Wolves?) + Assists (For the competitive players that work together) should go into determining a player's competitive level. Perhaps if a terrible player somehow gets matched up with a good player, the better one can be kind enough to provide the terrible player with some constructive feedback after T-Bagging his body.
Creative
----- Track the amount of times played forge and theater along with the amount of maps, pictures and videos published/put on file share. Of course this will pull in all the creative people both awesome and terrible, but the focus of it is to bring together people who like to spend more time making things with the tools the game developers provided for them. Like competitive, the less skilled forgers/video makers/ photographers? could learn something from the more experienced players.
Education
----- I have no idea. Maybe this would be a section for new players or the under skilled to learn the ropes of the game and have a chance to improve. I guess this would be like a specific area for people to learn how to use weapons, vehicles, abilities, and strategies.
The player will have an option to "Match up with players with similar interests" somewhere in the matchmaking area.
I've thought this over, and come to the realization that while having similar players in the same game could improve the community aspects, playing online would eventually become stale because it would just be the same people over and over again with no variation in how the game plays (Thinking along these lines).We need the competitive's to play alongside the creative and fun players to still get that sense of "playing online". I think that randomness, while sometimes annoying, can be the reason why people still play online. Of course having similar personality people together would probably increase the amount of teamwork in-game. There just has to be a balance of when people get mixed and when they are matched.
I'm pretty sure that you, Bungie, are working on something that will let gaming bridge over to Bungie.net and have them influence one another, so I think that user forum interaction should also be a factor when matching people up. If two forum users tend to interact with each other positively and they have an option to "Find this player online next time I play", they could meet up if they so choose. I already can see how trolls might use this to further annoy people, so this idea will need to be adjusted.
I think that this system could work with other games as well, with adjustments made to fit those styles of gaming.
So all in all, I want players to have an easier way of finding other players who share their interests in gaming by taking the stats of what kinds of games they play and using that to determine their personality. Then match those people up if they so choose. If this already exists, then..... *sigh*