Forums / Community / Matchmaking Feedback & Discussion

[Locked] MATCHMAKING FEEDBACK UPDATE – November 5

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11/5/2018

l3ackdraft

Recruit - Gold

There is no point in arguing with 343 on this matter. Someone on twitter said it and menke never responded to it. 343 already admitted they would rather lose their hardcore players that bought the previous halos and grinded and took pride in their skill. Bungie wanted players to take pride in their skill, 343 wants a player base they wanna keep that small base of super fiesta players so the game doesn’t officially become a ghost town. They gave up they are salvaging what they can. They can play ignorant all they want but halo 5 at this point is a meme. So since call of duty Black Ops 4 came out and it’s far superior to halo 5 let’s just all not play halo since we don’t matter to 343 and let them keep their 300 players world wide count. I’m sure they will sustain themselves with such a small community. Thanks :)

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11/5/2018

l3ackdraft

Recruit - Gold

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

Spoiler:

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11/5/2018

eLantern

ODST - Bronze

ShellCracker wrote:

Start a search, find a match (I think) - get a message that you've lost connection to the server and get kicked to the main menu - start the search again, get a second message that was related to the first search and not your current search - and then usually I'll find a game. This just started happening to me recently, and I haven't seen anyone else report it - so maybe it's just me.

I’m faced with this the first time I try to play a match after logging in. After that first instance I’m usually good to go for my play session. It’s a very annoying bug. I’ve reported this problem a couple times before. Got zero follow-up from 343i.

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11/5/2018

l3ackdraft

Recruit - Gold

This post has been edited by a moderator. Do not make non-constructive posts. Please do not repost content a moderator has removed, repost a topic that has been locked, or post about forum moderation decisions. If you have a question or concern about a forum moderation decision, please private message the applicable moderator.
*Original post. Click at your own discretion.

Spoiler:

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11/5/2018

LUKEPOWA

Spartan - Gold

ZaedynFel wrote:
There's a difference between making everything SF, which we're not doing, and making something obvious SF after careful consideration and suggestions from our larger SF player base.

What was considered in that decision? Why was only the SF player base taken into consideration and not the BTB player base? That seems like pretty bias decision making if true.

Quote:
Whether we keep a playlist up or not has to be judged on the merits of the playlist though, and whether or not there's enough people playing it to keep it active.

Why does FFA get a free pass, but BTB can't even though they're both core playlists and BTB has been significantly higher up on the popularity list than FFA since those lists have been shown? BTB is also the only permanent social playlist with objective modes in it (which I'm wondering if that was even considered) and it has more people playing it so I'd say that gives it plenty more merit than FFA.

Quote:
We're not talking about a small difference in pop between BTB and BTSF either, we're talking about orders of magnitude, as in the outcry would be much larger and the effect on retention a lot more negative in removing BTSF vs. BTB, so that's not really an option. Also, BTSF is not behaving like a rotational. Rotationals, even super popular ones like Castle Wars, always have huge drops in pop after the first few weeks. BTSF hasn't had that.

Of course it's going to be a big difference because Super Fiesta and Slayer are the most popular playlists and it's probably very likely the same results would happen if this was implemented in a different playlist as well.

What bothers me is how you wouldn't have seen this coming and now you're using it as justification to get rid of a core playlist. Super Fiesta is going to be a playlist killer in anything you put it in that isn't already really popular. I don't understand how anyone wouldn't see that from the get go! It's obviously going to destroy any middle of the pack or lower playlist that you put it in, so I don't get why you would even compare it to the original in the first place. That's why it just needs to stay rotational otherwise we might as well make every less popular playlist Fiesta while were at it since it's obviously going to have a better population than the original *cue my previous post*.

Quote:
Again, we wouldn't take down a wildly successful list like BTSF to save a list that wasn't even half as popular even WITHOUT BTSF.

So a core playlist doesn't mean anything at all just because it's social? BTB is more than just Slayer and it's certainly more than just killing each other with random REQ weapons. BTSF can be a variant of BTB, but it's definitely not fit as a permanent replacement for it better population or not.

----

Here is a suggestion. Since you won't get rid of it, why not combine them both instead? You can also add in a Heavies variant so now BTB has a lot more variety with the best of both worlds.

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OP 11/5/2018

ZaedynFel

343 Industries

The thing is, I don't see evidence that BTB has ever been a core mode in Halo 5. As a playlist, it's always been below average. So I see no reason to prioritize it. Yes, historically it did well in other titles, but we aren't those titles, and don't that same population dynamic.

Fully 25% of all gameplay in H5 is now a SF or BTSF, so, to me, that's what's at the core of H5 at the moment. And it's not a flighting fancy of casual players, Super Fiesta is, as I've said already, also the playlist with the most loyalty and returning players. That list has overall higher loyalty than even the Competitive core in Team Arena.

Super Fiesta has been consistently the most popular activity in Halo 5, which is why SF features get priority --- H5's audience has voted with its playtime strongly in favor of Super Fiesta, for whatever reason we've gotten here, here is where we are.

So from my POV, H5 core IS Super Fiesta. If our players would rather Fiesta everything and play that instead, I'm all for it. That's what they're voting for. Players actually came back to play BTSF, something no other refresh has done, including HCS settings.

FFA gets a free pass because we have live Competitions on FFA. But even there we compromise because the actual tournament settings themselves aren't popular enough.

So outside that, nothing should get a free pass, regardless of history or the path that led us here.

Any playlist that remains popular like a permanent list will stay up.

Any playlist that can't matchmake needs to go rotational.

Also, I see no reason to "protect" playlists at the expense of players who would much rather play another format because of history. We need population, not history. I don't see any justification for making compromises on lists that are more popular with players happy to play them.

Now if it turned out BTSF was just a fad, it would die over time like Castle Wars did. But so far it's running strong compared to the rest of the lists, so no reason to take it down. It's not diving down after keeping it up extra long.

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11/5/2018

ShellCracker

Recruit - Onyx

eLantern wrote:
ShellCracker wrote:

Start a search, find a match (I think) - get a message that you've lost connection to the server and get kicked to the main menu - start the search again, get a second message that was related to the first search and not your current search - and then usually I'll find a game. This just started happening to me recently, and I haven't seen anyone else report it - so maybe it's just me.
I’m faced with this the first time I try to play a match after logging in. After that first instance I’m usually good to go for my play session. It’s a very annoying bug. I’ve reported this problem a couple times before. Got zero follow-up from 343i.

Yes - it only happens once and then I'm usually good. I'm sort of glad it's not just me.

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11/5/2018

l3ackdraft

Recruit - Gold

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

Spoiler:

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11/5/2018

l3ackdraft

Recruit - Gold

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

Spoiler:

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11/5/2018

PACHUK C42

Recruit - Bronze

On the WZA subject, first try to give double xp or something like that, the playslist just died suddenly, i played it daily without problems at any time then it just disappeared, Any information of what happened?

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11/5/2018

LUKEPOWA

Spartan - Gold

So if you aren't down with Super Fiesta you get kicked to the curb. Okay. If that's the core population that's left, then something seriously went wrong with H5 and I'm sure we all know why, but I'm not gonna bother going into it.

I'd just like to point out that BTB was a solid above the middle of the pack 7 on the population playlist since the beginning of the year until the last list which was in July and I'm sure it would still be there if this SF playlist didn't happen so there is a player base that will play the original BTB. Sigh, no compromises and now I know where this road leads which is depressing. I guess it's back to MCC...

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11/5/2018

Tommi theKrogan

Marine - Silver

I think there is a lesson to be learnt here regarding BTB overall. I personally haven't ever truly enjoyed H5's / H4's BTB the same way I enjoyed Halo Reach's version. I could try explaining why, but it would add way too much length for the 'message' I'm trying to convey here.

Anyway, let's get on with it.

A few things first: using the argument of "Halo Reach's BTB was better than H5's BTB because it was more popular" is not exactly fair here, because both of these games certainly had a differing population over their lifetime and also different playlists in them to draw players away from BTB. So I won't use that. And I also cannot claim that Halo Reach's BTB would've been precisely as popular as it was if the game had a playlist that was an equivalent to H5's Super Fiesta in terms of popularity. Infection might come close to that, but then again H5 also has an Infection playlist. So I'm trying to be as fair as I can here.

But.. Even taking those things into consideration, Halo Reach is an 8 year old game where you can still find games in its BTB playlist, and I truly do believe that the game's BTB was designed in a superior way over H5's version. Still, I'm not going to demand change solely based on my preferences of BTB. All I ask for is that the people designing the BTB for Halo Infinite would look at all the previous iterations of the playlist, find all the things that made it great and popular and find all the things that caused harm and hindered its potential, and try to combine the best of both BTB worlds, Bungie's and 343's. Because there are good design choices in both versions without a doubt. And as we all know, it's impossible to please everyone, but the significant troubles of H5's BTB 3 years after the game's release (and even before that) speaks for it self. In my opinion 343 simply didn't manage to please enough people with their iteration of BTB in H5, that's all there is to it. BTB Super Fiesta is not responsible for the critical state of BTB either. It might be a symptom, but BTB has struggled through almost the whole lifetime of H5 on its own merits alone.

Something else.
It speaks a lot when me, a person who hates Fiesta and Super Fiesta so much that I never play them, would rather play BTB Super Fiesta over basic BTB. H5's BTB is that non-enjoyable for me, but at least BTB Super Fiesta has proper presence of great vehicles, and it really is fun to play often enough. Guilty as charged though, I do prefer BTB with lots of great vehicles over super sliding around the maps with a BR on my hand.

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11/5/2018

Afro Thunda X

Marine - Onyx

PACHUK C42 wrote:
On the WZA subject, first try to give double xp or something like that, the playslist just died suddenly, i played it daily without problems at any time then it just disappeared, Any information of what happened?

The same thing as usual: Squads (vs Solos). Well, the really good ones, at least. Seems to be what's killing the game more than anything else from my point of view. Solos don't want to play squads because the chances of getting curbstomped skyrocket. So if they end up in enough of those types of games, they start quitting the playlist. Now Squads don't have that many people to go up against. After all, it's not like there's that many squads (of similar skill) running around in every playlist at any given time. So now they end up quitting the playlist because they can't get matches. And so on and so forth until you get what WZA is now. At least that's how I believe it wound up this way.

Double XP would only be a band-aid fix. It certainly wouldn't solve the problem. Solos still wouldn't want to match Squads.

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11/5/2018

Tommi theKrogan

Marine - Silver

Danny denied

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11/5/2018

LUKEPOWA

Spartan - Gold

Tommi theKrogan wrote:
Something else 2.If you truly want to save H5's BTB though.. The only way I see is combining basic BTB with BTB Super Fiesta, having 50/50 chance to play each version. It would be like Halo Reach's basic BTB and BTB Heavies combination. Not everyone's going to like it, and I surely won't when I 'get' to play basic BTB, but I'd still play the combination playlist.

I suggested that and Josh said he wasn't going to compromise more popular playlists. I think it's a mistake to not even consider trying it out.

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11/5/2018

PhysicalFungus6

Recruit - Bronze

I have nothing to add that hasn't already been said - this sucks. The only good thing about Halo 5 has been the people I've met playing. I'm sure most of us can agree that you guys don't really care what we think - you pretend to be open minded but at the end of the day, despite us all wasting our breath, you're going to do what you want. I never thought I'd see the day where halo 5 competition would be "participation-award" based .. A SAD DAY.

I've grinded BTB for too long to try and improve my skills to then see this happen.

I thought I'd resent purchasing COD but I don't now; especially hearing this. You're already less than 100,000 players on the regular & less than 500 viewers on Twitch -- OUCH.

I would like to thank Halo 5 for allowing me to get my twitch affiliate and am happy to take my viewers over to COD -- no skill but lots of entertainment!

Please, blow my mind with Halo Infinite. Cheers!
-Shel

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11/5/2018

Tommi theKrogan

Marine - Silver

LUKEPOWA wrote:
Tommi theKrogan wrote:
Something else 2.If you truly want to save H5's BTB though.. The only way I see is combining basic BTB with BTB Super Fiesta, having 50/50 chance to play each version. It would be like Halo Reach's basic BTB and BTB Heavies combination. Not everyone's going to like it, and I surely won't when I 'get' to play basic BTB, but I'd still play the combination playlist.
I suggested that and Josh said he wasn't going to compromise more popular playlists. I think it's a mistake to not even consider trying it out.

Oh, okay then. Thanks for the heads up. I'll edit it out for Menke's sake.

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11/6/2018

Mint Blitz

Recruit - Bronze

Boomy EU wrote:
ZaedynFel wrote:
we keep Elimination up because it’s the only way to finish the Breakout Commendations.
Please remove extermination it requires a completely different game style and therefore doesn't suit the playlist. It also can be very frustrating in a competitive game because of the spawns.

This sounds like someone who can't adapt and wants a crutch, if anything Breakout 2.0 should be removed as well as shotguns.

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11/6/2018

Mint Blitz

Recruit - Bronze

Also have to say Halo 5 BTB was never made a priority compared to Warzone so of course it's not going to perform as well.
No dev BTB maps on launch on purpose to funnel players into Warzone was disappointing.
Also sf has had far more maps added to it than BTB has over the past few years.

It's fine to claim a playlist has never been strong but theres reasons on the dev side for that.
I'm sure if it was at the top of the social list like it currently is on MCC and was regularly updated it might be way further up the list.
Would be really good to see a refresh and a settings tweak / put it above super fiesta to see how it performs.

Again it falls on you guys to try to push out good updates that'll improve the game, just my two cents.

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11/6/2018

eLantern

ODST - Bronze

LUKEPOWA wrote:
So if you aren't down with Super Fiesta you get kicked to the curb. Okay. If that's the core population that's left, then something seriously went wrong with H5 and I'm sure we all know why, but I'm not gonna bother going into it.

I'd just like to point out that BTB was a solid middle of the pack 7 on the population playlist since the beginning of the year until the last list which was in July and I'm sure it would still be there if this SF playlist didn't happen so there is a player base that will play the original BTB. Sigh, no compromises and now I know where this road leads which is depressing. I guess it's back to MCC...

I support the compromise you mentioned as well as the ones I posted previously. Heck, add a (non-weighted) Heavies variant with access to a good variety of REQ variants to the BTB playlist while also adding some bigger maps to the regular SF playlist with REQ vehicles in order to diversify the tactical experience within it. While IMO it's not ideal to combine SF with regular BTB it’s certainly a million times better than seeing BTB become rotational.

Josh Menke’s argument on behalf of 343’s reason is quite short-sighted on this matter; in fact, in order to justify his/their position I’d recommend 343i provide permanent Super Fiesta playlists for:

FFA
Doubles
Arena
SWAT
Elimination
Quickplay
Infection
BTB

All at the same time while maintaining their normal lists so they can fairly gauge where the population chooses to diversify itself when faced with equal chooses across the board for more than a month or two. If all SF playlists steal 2/3rd of the pop from its regular counterpart while bringing new and old players back to the title then I suppose he’s got a point when he says H5 has one true core mode (SF) and perhaps the unthinkable should occur, but until then 343 has simply setup the environment to further undermine the retention of BTB before incredibly calling for its removal as a permanent option.

Oh, and statements from Josh like FFA & Arena have official tournament reasons for why they’ve been the exception to their short-sighted pop rules won’t hold up after the final H5 tournament. Also, in the case of Elimination he says there's specific commendations for why it's an exception which is odd because BTB is the only location to achieve commendations for the Assault mode yet that's conveniently being ignored or at least not acknowledged.

For me, personally, MCC is not the experience I’m looking for. I’d say anymore, but perhaps it’s more of an - at least until further adjustments are made related to control settings/options. I very much enjoy H5, but I guess this kind of decision will simply have me playing more CoD: MWR, CoD: WWII, and perhaps Destiny 2, Battlefield 1, plus Titanfall 2 until H5's Anniversary Throwback returns on rotation... if I’m paying attention. Sad times indeed... starting to really dislike 343’s thought process on H5 playlist management.

Maybe H5 needs a match composer?

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