Thanks for all your responses to last week’s post. Here’s what I’ve been thinking this week.
One high-level question asked is if any of these suggestions are doable in Halo 5. Here’s the safest way to set your expectations on that:
But, yeah, if there are some sure things coming down the pipeline, we’ll let you know.
Smurfs
Some of you suggested we track who has already played Halo 5 on their Xbox and prevent them from playing with new accounts after a certain point. Dest1nedxKNIGHT suggested a cooldown which doesn’t allow you to play ranked on a new account for a month after making another one. CaptNorm22 had some solid suggestions as well. I thought they were all interesting. I sort of combined the various ideas and I have a new one to propose to see what you all think:
After playing with 2 accounts on the same machine, additional accounts need to be at least SR 30 to play ranked.
No barriers to ranked for the main use cases, and a definite barrier outside of that. The numbers could be changed (e.g., 5 accounts, SR 5, etc.). We feel this has potential, but the messaging would have to be very clear to avoid confusion. Though, to be honest, it would be mostly power users encountering it anyways, and they should be mature enough to understand.
I still need to follow up and see if that is even possible with the current tech, but I at least like the high-level goal: Don’t bother most people, put a doable barrier up in the other cases.
Leavers
We understand the frustration when players leave a match We’ve heard the suggestion to increase the penalties, but it can be a little tricky to tune. Not everyone quits intentionally, so we try and strike a balance that dissuades intentional leaving, but forgives the occasional network hiccup or family emergency.
One good question we can ask back to you is, “Why do you quit?” We have our own thoughts internally, including early perception of an unfair match, but I think it’d be worth getting some or your thoughts.
We can be ineffective if we focus too much on treating the symptoms (quitting) with penalties instead of addressing the root causes.
Some solutions we’ve heard:
Warlords Skill Matching
Some players have asked if we can turn on skill matching for Warlords. I totally understand that the most-skilled teams are coming to Warlords for a challenge. It looks like players had a great time in Warlords for that weekend. The problem here is:
Partying up post-game
I mentioned I was following up on this one. It looks like a feature that is generally liked here and has support behind it. It’s not something we can do in Halo 5 though.
Party Chat pre-game lobby
Same as the previous issue. We like it for sure, but we won’t be seeing it soon.
Map Vetoes
The community is a bit split on this one. Internally, the feeling is that it doesn’t add enough to justify the complexity. There are higher priority features we’d like to focus on instead, and it would be better to focus efforts on keeping the pool and rotation of maps enjoyable.
One high-level question asked is if any of these suggestions are doable in Halo 5. Here’s the safest way to set your expectations on that:
- Some are almost definitely not doable.
- Some have a small chance, but we won’t create false hope unless it’s for sure
- Any that will get done, we’ll let you know once it’s a pretty “sure thing”
But, yeah, if there are some sure things coming down the pipeline, we’ll let you know.
Smurfs
Some of you suggested we track who has already played Halo 5 on their Xbox and prevent them from playing with new accounts after a certain point. Dest1nedxKNIGHT suggested a cooldown which doesn’t allow you to play ranked on a new account for a month after making another one. CaptNorm22 had some solid suggestions as well. I thought they were all interesting. I sort of combined the various ideas and I have a new one to propose to see what you all think:
After playing with 2 accounts on the same machine, additional accounts need to be at least SR 30 to play ranked.
No barriers to ranked for the main use cases, and a definite barrier outside of that. The numbers could be changed (e.g., 5 accounts, SR 5, etc.). We feel this has potential, but the messaging would have to be very clear to avoid confusion. Though, to be honest, it would be mostly power users encountering it anyways, and they should be mature enough to understand.
I still need to follow up and see if that is even possible with the current tech, but I at least like the high-level goal: Don’t bother most people, put a doable barrier up in the other cases.
Leavers
We understand the frustration when players leave a match We’ve heard the suggestion to increase the penalties, but it can be a little tricky to tune. Not everyone quits intentionally, so we try and strike a balance that dissuades intentional leaving, but forgives the occasional network hiccup or family emergency.
One good question we can ask back to you is, “Why do you quit?” We have our own thoughts internally, including early perception of an unfair match, but I think it’d be worth getting some or your thoughts.
We can be ineffective if we focus too much on treating the symptoms (quitting) with penalties instead of addressing the root causes.
Some solutions we’ve heard:
- Surrender. Basically, allowing players to end a game early with a loss if everyone agrees. This simple sounding feature is deceptively complex, though worth considering:
- Players still need to take the usual CSR loss to discourage surrendering to avoid it.
- People who quit before surrendering still take a full CSR penalty.
- Requires new UI / UX complexity and exceptions (do we need surrender in social?)
- A full party can surrender immediately. Is that OK?
- Consider only during “surrender situations” e.g.: 2v4, or an early large score differential.
- Forcing players back into the same match This is another deceptively complex solution.
- Do you want someone back in your match who doesn’t want to be there?
- Would it better to just make them not be able to play until the match is done?
- Would this only be in Ranked since Social backfills?
Warlords Skill Matching
Some players have asked if we can turn on skill matching for Warlords. I totally understand that the most-skilled teams are coming to Warlords for a challenge. It looks like players had a great time in Warlords for that weekend. The problem here is:
- There are only so many full 12-player fire teams.
- There are even less full 12-player parties of high skill.
Partying up post-game
I mentioned I was following up on this one. It looks like a feature that is generally liked here and has support behind it. It’s not something we can do in Halo 5 though.
Party Chat pre-game lobby
Same as the previous issue. We like it for sure, but we won’t be seeing it soon.
Map Vetoes
The community is a bit split on this one. Internally, the feeling is that it doesn’t add enough to justify the complexity. There are higher priority features we’d like to focus on instead, and it would be better to focus efforts on keeping the pool and rotation of maps enjoyable.