Big Team Battle Refresh Feedback

UPDATE 5/20/2019

We are putting out a last call for feedback on the refresh in advance of our plan to move BTB from Social to Ranked with the season roll in June.

Design is currently taking feedback on the maps and modes, but is no longer taking feedback on the starting weapons. While we appreciate the discussion there, please move that to a different venue in order to focus on feedback that design is likely to act on.

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As some of you already know, we have been working on a Big Team Battle Refresh.

We're now at the point where it would be great to hear some feedback!

Please post your feedback, ideas, and wish list items in this thread and we'll read through them and see how they fit into what we're doing right now.

We're especially curious right now about:

• Starting weapon ideas (though keep in mind we can't change the behavior of specific weapons)
• Vehicle gameplay: How do you feel about the Warthog right now? Are there enough larger maps to really enjoy vehicles in general?
• What about mode preferences?

Thanks in advance for your input!

This post has been edited by a moderator. Please refrain from making non-constructive posts.
*Original post. Click at your own discretion.

I would like to see either extended barrel BR or stabilizer BR as primary. Current BR is useless outside of close range.
For a secondary weapon would love to see the magnum added. It's fun, well balanced and extremely competitive weapon.
Please take out Ancestor. That map has more vehicles and power weapons than players in the lobby. Has no flow to it and isnt fun to play at all.
Would like to see a remake of Blood Gulch make it in or at least one new map.

I'll write something more detailed in the future that expands on my general thoughts/ideas on this refresh topic (see HERE), but I wanted to provide my immediate feedback to your curiosities.

Starting Weapon(s):

• Long-Barrel H5BR (& AR) - It returns the hip-fire Red-Reticle-Range (RRR) of 12 world units to the H5BR. This provides the utility weapon for the Big Team or "Battle" mode with a niche area of strength at mid-range against the more lethal Carbine & Light Rifle precision pick-ups. It also ensures that the utility weapon won't become overly effective outside its RRRs because of the vertical recoil.
  
  This may also be partially influenced by what type of playlist we end getting. A ranked 6v6 (Squad Battle) playlist could potentially make the Stabilization Jets H5BR an option as the utility precision weapon. Not necessarily advocating for it, but assuming there'd be more smaller maps means it's increased effectiveness beyond RRR should be a bit mitigated and if it helped attract more population to the playlist due to creating more enjoyable gun-play that should be an offsetting good thing for the game-play.

Vehicular Game-play:

• In my opinion, the Chaingun Warthog is a very solid vehicle. But vehicle choice is also going to be heavily dependent on the design of the map and mode, so it's hard to offhandedly recommend or not recommend the Chaingun Warthog when we're not speaking specifics. There’s also the environmental variants which are a little more resilient and might be a slightly better option for the game-play.
  
  The question about whether there's enough large maps to really enjoy vehicles (in general) is a bit odd. Yes, there are plenty of Forge maps that make good use of vehicular combat, but potential frame-rate issues on Forged maps can somewhat restrict how big and heavy you can go with traditional vehicular game-play. And the primary reason to really focus on super heavy vehicular combat is if you're trying to create a more social Big Team experience like Big Team Heavies or Big Team Super Fiesta. These are the modes where truly big and open vehicular maps belong. Are there enough of those? Yes and no. By the way, can the Warzone maps be re-purposed without the AI & REQ system? That would go a long way toward providing truly BIG maps without performance issues.

Mode Preference:

• In my opinion, the current modes (Slayer, Multi-CTF, Neutral Bomb, & Strongholds) are the ideal modes for a competitive environment featuring vehicular combat.
  
  I think the current BTB playlist has a very solid mix of modes; though, perhaps it could be spread a little bit more even between them depending on the chosen maps. In the future, I'd love to see regular refreshes (perhaps quarterly or bi-annual) that manages to rotate in and out a collection of maps that are maintained and kept ready for inclusion -- including returning past maps. Maybe they return completely overhauled or with minor tweaks or with a different mode or just the same. But, this regular re-shuffling process would help keep the playlist fresh feeling from a long-term sustain perspective.

I agree with Exo Bigg on this one Would be cool if u had BTB ranked and a Social playlist or some of what he just said and as for the BR if ur could be a Jet BR or if any way possible at all have the Old BR from H5 release date THX! 😍

1. The current br is to inaccurate compared to the carbine and dmr, even the pistol is better to use. Most of the BTB community has tested the stabilize br on most of the BTB maps and would love to see it implemented. The current br is rarely use when other mid range weapons are available. The long barrel br barely increases the red ridicule range( only about 10 feet, we've tested it in custom games)plus barely effects the way the br functions. Stabilized Br and AR starts would be perfect.

2. Take out some of the maps in BTB,some of the maps are easily made one sided. Dispelled with the spawns and the vechiles can easily be made into a farm fest or just makes it easy to win. Altar's spawns are just to all over the place and with the banshee and all the power weapons make it to easy to become a onesided match. Viking is a good map but I would like to see the gauss hog turn to a regular chain turret hog.

3. The matchmaking peramiters are a little to strict for the remaining player base left for BTB. Myself and my spartan company (Fatal) have a hard time even searching with 4 people and will match full teams of 8, while getting matched with randoms that will maybe get 5-10 kills or even contribute to the objective. If there's a way to make the matchmaking peramiters less strict or make a inside rank placing people in a "below average","average","above average" rank or just let teams match other teams to help find games quicker.

Thank you for reading and I hope you consider some of the things in this message.

Rooster🐔

Weapon starts: I really like the H2 BR or The Long barrel attachment. Stabilization jets (coupled with the 0 bullet spread the first round of weapons changes gave us) makes it probably the most powerful option. Secondary - either SMG or gunfigher mag.

Vehicles: I love the warthog and most maps I think it works well...others not so much. I can't find the official list, but off the top of my head, here's how I would rate hogging maps:
Viking - 5/5
Boulevard - 5/5
Port authority - 3/5
Dispelled - (5/5, undrivable if tanks are up however)
Guillotine - 3/5
Deadlock - 4/5
Altar - 5/5
Ancestor - 1/5
Eagle Square - 4/5
Echoes - 2/5 (to narrow IMO)
Entombed - 2/5
Fracture - 1/5 (hog is basically a mobile rocket turret
Recurve - 4/5
Risen - 3/5
Scavenger - 5/5 (I might be in the minority on this one, but I love hogging on this map)
Traffic Jam - 2/5

I think some of the problem is alot of the current maps aren't big enough to accommodate hog play. Fracture for example, it's quicker and safer to run the flag back than it is to get in the hog.

I think some maps it might be interesting to try an Oni or needle hog out to counter banshees a little harder. Another idea I'd like to see would be larger square maps (like despelled) that have some room for tank play with a Hog in secondary for when tanks are down.

Game modes: I think all current game modes are great. If possible, adding in 1flag/1bomb or neutral bomb game modes would be the bees knees. I also like the spread of game modes. I think it's a good mix of slayer and objective. I might suggest even lowering the slayer percentage since the community doesn't have a dedicated objective playlist. Also - I might be in the minority here again - but make slayer 75 kills instead of 100 with a shorter match duration. Often times if there are people that quit on the other team and you have that last guy sticking around...it can be a long boring game mode where it's not fun for the winning team and certainly not fun for the guy getting farmed.

Lastly, please make this playlist ranked...atleast for 1 season. I think it would be great to see teams comeback to push champion rank and we can get some friendly rivalries/competitions going again. That said, the lobby freezing glitch needs to be looked at. It's going to be really frustrating keeping a lobby together when we have to worry about ranks being affected. I think you'll end up seeing more and more people dashboarding to avoid the match quitting penalty if someone on their team doesn't load in...which makes streaming this game very difficult as well.

MAGNUM/AR STARTS - on some maps...This needs to happen, and it would reallyhelp diversify the BTB experience. (Ancestor, for example, was originally designed with that in mind) However, some maps may play better with the BRs...so I think having a mix would be great, depending on the map.

WARTHOGS are fine...vehicle gameplay is fun, but especially in Halo 5, tons of vehicles should never be thrown onto already existing maps just for the purpose of throwing on more vehicles...oftentimes maps in H5 work really well with certain vehicle combinations, but can be ruined by vehicles which don't suit it. I think Dispelled and Ancestor are great examples of 'BTB heavies' maps, and Scavenger is a great example of a good warthog/light vehicle map.

MODE PREFERENCES...1-flag CTF would be awesome and tons of fans are requesting it!

With love,
JurassicWeeMan (previously weeeeemann)
Co-forger to D4rkDeath (BTB Ancestor)

Feedback:

• Map Rotation - Maps that I believe should be removed - Risen, Recurve, Dispelled, Altar (Dispelled and Altar rarely result in close games due to the map control snowball)
• Map Rotation - Maps that I believe should be brought back - Basin, Antifreeze, Estuary
• Map and Gametypes - I think we want more variety in map selection, not necessarily game mode. It seems like Dispelled and Eagle Square is played more than any other maps because there currently is three different game types associated with it - Slayer, CTF, and Assault. Whereas maps like Entombed and Guillotine only have one game type associated with it making them the least played maps. I think there should be even chance of getting a different maps ONLY, not map+gametype.
• 15/16 glitch - if it can't be fixed, loosen the matchmaking to allow the spot to be filled quickly. Otherwise, reduce the length of the matching timeout (currently at 4 or 5 minutes?) Seriously this is pushing people away from the playlist.
• Match teams of 6 or more against other teams of 6 or more, regardless of skill.

Ideas:

• Higher XP Reward for games
• Shorter time limit for CTF and Assault - reduce from 16 to 12 minutes (3 min OT remains). 15 minute MAX
• Shorter respawn time (5 seconds)
• Sprinkle a higher tier WZ weapon in each of the maps (i.e. arclight instead of rail gun on some maps especially recurve)
• Similar to Warzone Warlords, bring out a BTB Battlelords playlist for a weekend or week! Bring the Team back to Big Team Battle!

Wishlist:

• BTB Battlelords for a week or weekend (teams must search with 8)
• Ranked BTB for a season
• Swap out the BR for something else
• Release a refresh on a Thursday or Friday so people can start playing it on the weekend

Quote:

Please post your feedback, ideas, and wish list items in this thread and we'll read through them and see how they fit into what we're doing right now.We're especially curious right now about:

• Starting weapon ideas (though keep in mind we can't change the behavior of specific weapons) - H2BR or Stabilized Jet BR
• Vehicle gameplay: How do you feel about the Warthog right now? To be honest, a lot of people are commenting that its too easy to be shot out of the gunner. I believe a simple fix would be to replace normal warthogs with rally warthogs. Rally warthogs are faster, would be easier and quicker map traversing and would also make it more difficult to shoot out the gunner. I think more people would be tempted to use it. Are there enough larger maps to really enjoy vehicles in general? Yes, in general I believe there are enough larger maps to enjoy vehicles in general.
• What about mode preferences? I am happy with the game modes as of now but would love if BTB Heavies was sprinkled in as a game mode. Similar to BTB Fiesta but instead of random weapons, ONI Tanks, Temple Wraith, Banshee Ultra, ONI Gauss, etc.

Add some larger maps that aren't as confined. If I wanted to play in small maps and run around narrow hallways, I'd play a 4v4 game mode.