Handicapped Halo Reach has a fatal flaw.

Sarcastic Gamer bring up a rather valid issue with Halo Reach Multiplayer. Why does Bungie insist on living in the Past?

Excerpt- "I, like many others, have been playing Halo Reach since it came out. I’m not sure if it’s the daily challenges, or the accumulation of credits to buy that next piece of useless armor that keeps me playing. However, none of that helps when faced with the franchise’s biggest and most ridiculous flaw. This flaw has plagued the franchise since the first game was released on the Xbox. Why Bungie would decide to use this outdated system is beyond me. Every other game has changed to adapt to the growing industry. It’s an insult and pretty much a deal breaker in any long term appeal Halo Reach has to offer.

What could be so crippling? Find out after the jump."

[LGFreedom]

very annoying to get stuck on a team in slayer and two people quit out and you get destroyed...

[RedDead]

Just finished a match of team objective(flag collecting one), it was 4 versus 1 and the score ended 10-0 to my team, that sucked greatly.
For the most part this doesn't happen so I don't care much and when the game works lik eit should, it is in my top 10 list(Surprised me)

[-Alpha]

It doesn't happen much, you are right, but it's annoying when it does.

I don't get why Bungie hasn't done what Naughty Dog has done though. When someone quits, readjust the objective for the handicapped team. So if the goal is to get 50 kills, and someone on the red team quits, the red team should only have to get, say, 45 kills.

It's much better than the time-out session because the time-outs don't compensate the teammates of a quitter. The ban system is much more complicated doesn't always punish players. I feel that adjusting the objective is a much better way to solve the problem.

[RedDead]

ND did that? Wow, I shoulda played U2 online a bit more.

Your right, that is the best way for the players who are actually affected by losing a member of their team. PM bungie? I might go on the forum and suggest it

[-Alpha]

Yup, ND did that. They implemented it in a patch some time ago.

UC2 MP is real fun, and despite the game suffering from ND's inexperience with doing online they were able to implement a system that Bungie with their experience should have had already.

I suggested it in the forums already:

http://www.bungie.net/Forum...

Reply/vote if you guys don't mind. I don't want it to get buried by another person threatening to sell their game because they wrongly had their rank reset.

[Shepherd 214]

This isnt fatal. Its been like this since Halo 2.

Trust me, there is still plenty, and i do mean plenty of fun to be had in Bungie's Matchmaking system. It does suck when your teammates quit, but it doesnt happen that often. Normally if it does happen, only one or two guys quit at a time and if your a good player it wont make too much difference unless you are left alone.

[dragon82]

Since Bungie helped Naughty Dog create the MP in Uncarted 2 you would think they would know a little about what ND had in mind for match making. Maybe it never came up while they were helping I guess??

[pimpmaster]

well i get really pissed off when people n my team suck or quit. but at the end i remind myself that its all about the kills/ killstreaks which give you xp, not so much about winning.

[TheLastGuardian]

Nice bubbles.

[Eamon]

yeah it is annoying. But when it happens to my team and I win, then I know I played well.

When it happens to other team... well, I make sure they're in for a genocide =P

[pustulio]

Alpha

That wouldn't work on Halo if one team is doing Team Work and you are alone no matter how good you are you're gonna get raped but still Bungie can try and maybe it comes out being quite effective.

BTW have people noticed we always get "GT5 Fails" and "Halo: Reach Fails" at least once a week?

[SonyPS360]

It could also be argued though that, in modes like slayer, the bigger team has less people to kill if someone leaves the other.

Regardless, that doesn't count for other game modes, so yeah this is a big problem that I've found annoying.

[BeOneWithTheGun]

I am playing the crap out of the game for another week (have to send back to gamefly to get Fallout) and totally agree. It has happened to me a few times now; being in a match where half my team leaves and I am left with some no-mic kid from Utah and a homophobe to hold off 6-8 other players in CTF. It really sucks.

The game itself is pretty fun. I enjoyed the SP and for the most part the MP is fun. Matchmaking could have been better.

[StanLee]

Halo is one of those games that really penalizes you for playing alone and that's unfortunate. Matchmaking works well in that it matches you with other players of similar skill but it can't and wont get you better teammates. The best solution is to find a core group of players on your friends list who play the same time as you do and are good at teamwork and you'll see how your experience changes.

[Spydiggity]

there are 3 types of games. ranked games, games that reward points, and custom games. you can come and go in custom games as much as you want with no penalty. the other two, however, you get a penalty which makes perfect sense. it's a way of protecting against ppl who wanna bail because they are out-manned, and it's a way of protecting against the thousands of pricks out there that get off on just being an annoyance. you know that type of person i'm talking about. one example is the douche that just plays music really loud til the match starts, then leaves intentionally once the round starts just to piss off ppl he doesn't know.

if you actually agree with this article, you obviously just didn't put any thought into the system that is in place. i am glad bungie does it the way that they do. it's one of the systems i wish more games would employ.

[GamerSigma]

Rage quitters aren't the problem. A lot of people quit out during the process before the game starts. then, because no new players are allowed to be added, you get stuck in a 15 to 20 minute Team slayer match and you can't quit to go find another game without getting penalized.

Bad system. You're short sighted spydiggity.

[Spydiggity]

team slayer rarely takes 10 minutes (15 or 20 is just a gross exaggeration). i agree quitting sucks, but to give someone the option to leave with no penalty is far worse. then ppl will leave a LOT more often. and since the matches don't last long...what will this resolve? someone quits...3 minutes later another person joins, then the game ends and he/she had time to shoot at one person.

as i said, there is a mode for drop in and drop out play. just not in the matchmaking...and i'm glad for that. you want the COD system, go play COD.

[Imperator]

I really enjoy Reach, but I completely agree with this. I don't know if it's just me, but this happens to me a lot. Normally it's 3 vs. 4 or 2 vs. 4. That's is just full of fail. Yet still I keep playing it, lol. Hopefully Bungie can fix this issue.

[Elvfam511]

Hated that in gears 1... But you should setup traps in halo like when somebody goes for a top gun wait and frag him with a sticky and so on...

[frostypants]

To me the biggest flaw is the ridiculously overpowered pistol when playing Infection or SWAT.

Also, while the inability to jump into a game mid-match is indeed exceedingly stupid, the search preference and map voting system is far better than anything in those other games.

[frostyhat123]

But I HATE!!!! When i get put in a game with 2 minutes left down by 20 kills. So I like starting in a new game every time.

[EVILDEAD360]

Who cares if people quit and get penalized and your stuck with a lopsided team..it's still a million times better than trying to get into a game and ending up being inserted into a game that is lost only seconds before the game ends.

Bungie's matchmaking is still easily the best out there at pitting you against similiarly skilled players..and that is what matters..

Evil

[P1NKY]

I haven't played Reach, but I played Halo 3. Every game is different. I personally think its down to Halo being quite competative and the fact that winning/losing a match directly affects your level. How annoying would it be if you were placed on the losing team in a match with only seconds left and the result is that you go down a level?

Whereas this doesn't happen in games like COD where you are basically playing for yourself, the more kills you get the more XP you get whether you win or lose the match.

[RedDead]

I think that goes for reach aswell? Reach has a differant ranking system than 3, it's more like cod I think...

[kaveti6616]

But there's no fun in COD for that same reason. A mediocre player can prestige in COD just by playing it long enough. It takes no skill, and the medals mean nothing. In REACH, there are definitely the negatives, but the positives are in this matter that anyone who quits the match is punished severely for quitting, and players with skill are rewarded and recognized.

[RedDead]

I agree with this, I liked the ranking in H3

if you're on your own in Halo nd it's 4 on 1 in TS, hide and sneak attack, if you hget a kill or two and then die, it's worth it,you'll win.

[BeOneWithTheGun]

Being put of probation then banned for 15 minutes is not really a punishment. All you have to do is go make a sandwich and you are back at it. Now, if they banned them for 15 DAYS, then yes, it might be incentive enough to curb the early quitting.

[Double Toasted]

I disagreed kaveit, because the longer you play a game the more skills you develop. That was the reasoning lacking in your statement.

On topic: Bots! I often wonder why most console shooters don't have them. Gears 2 has them and I thank Epic for making it happen.

[kaveti6616]

@double toasted

You're wrong. Everyone has a plateau. With Halo 3 I reached my plateau at the rank of Major. My friend became Brigadier General and he's been playing the game since day 1, same as me. You're not going to acquire all the skills and be the best player possible just by continuing to play. Everyone has their limits, but Modern Warfare 2 doesn't represent that because all you have to do to get credit is to continue playing. Even if you suck and lose every game, you can still prestige.

[TROLL EATER]

good point der.

[frostypants]

Simple fix, P1NKY: just don't count any match where a player enters mid-round against his win-loss record.

And don't forget, Reach does punish people for quitting games. If you quit too many times within a match, you get temporarily banned. Pretty cool. Combine that with the above and I think they'd have a perfect system.

[P1NKY]

There's a slight problem with your "simple fix". After every match on Halo 3 you are matched up with different people. So if the game was to keep putting you mid-way through a game then you would never level up or down. Im not sure if Reach is the exact same as Halo 3, but it's similar.

[Garrus_Vakarian]

"No one likes to be in a game where it’s 2v4. To make matters worse, you get penalized for leaving if you don’t want to play in that match anymore. I have no idea what the threshold is to put you on probation as I have not passed it yet, but it’s rather idiotic to punish you for leaving a lopsided game like that."

This. 100x this. The quit ban is a band-aid fix. And it's short-sighted.

[frostypants]

No, the quit ban is perfect. It just needs to be combined with some means of allowing replacement players in.

[pixelsword]

Sounds like someone got their rank reset.

Just kidding.

[embop]

That actually probably true

[Lucky1]

He didn't :)

[Trizard]

It really erks me when a random guy betrays me twice in a row because I sprint and beat him to the sniper (and get no boot menu) and then when I accidentally shoot a guy who respawns right in from of my crosshairs while zoomed in (with sniper) and get instantly booted makes no sense to me at all.

[DarkBlood]

yeah it really grinds my gears and im nice to them when I get betrayed but oh hooo NOOOOOOOOO when its the other way around ur booted just makes me want to blast a F@#$@#ing shotgun to thier face ^.^

[Imperator]

Yea I just boot anyone who betrays me. I mean what's the point. If I betray someone they're probably going to boot me anyways so why should I be nice?

[peeps]

because maybe it was an accident? and you've only gone down by one kill...

[Imperator]

But still, what if it wasn't an accident? Sure, if I see who shot me and I see that he/she didn't do it on purpose then yea I won't choose to boot them, but I don't see it, I just boot them.

[The Lazy One]

because it's bad for your team. Every time you boot someone you go down a man putting you at a disadvantage. If you boot someone for little reason, you are pretty much saying, "I want to lose and probably get a shitty k/d"

I got booted once for throwing a grenade, and as I threw it my teammate jumped, the grenade hit him in the back of the head off to the left, and he proceeded to run right on top of the grenade and boot me. At the time I was +5. Explain how booting me helped in any way?

[DARK WITNESS]

totally agree, this is what gets to me the most as well.

if you ask me, they should have a system were by if a player is continuously shoots at you and betrays you ( eg with a DMR ) the menu should pop up straight away to boot, because for the person to have been continuously shooting it must have been with intent.

if you betrayed with an instant kill like say a one shot sniper or something then it should take like 2 or 3 before they give you the option.

[RedSoakedSponge]

bungie said its based on a 'damage done to team mates' system where u dont have to kill loads of your own team to add to the booting option. if youre doing loads of foolish things that end up weakening a team mate, then as soon as you get your first betrayal, the boot option pops up. if you dont damage team mates and then accidentally kill a team mate without doing harm to team mates prior, then the option wont show.

bottem line is dont be careless with grenades/rockets etc. check your radar for info on nearby team mates.

[frostypants]

I question how "accidental" this is for you. I have yet to get booted and I'm just about to Warrant Officer I. And I've had people wander into my grenades many times.

[AKissFromDaddy]

if Bungie converted Team Slayer to have a Join-in Progress function for ranked matches, then the matches would be more balanced.

[Weaksauce1138]

I would prefer they just give the disadvantaged team over shields or better default weaponry. In progress joining blows, I hate it when I get dumped into a game with 5 kills left

[The Lazy One]

or if it's close, and you spawn without knowing who has power weapons etc. All of a sudden you're -2 and your team lost it's advantage because you have no idea where anything is.

In CoD you spawn with your weapon, so it doesn't make as big a difference.

I do think the spawning works a lot worse in reach than in 3. I find myself spawning on grenades or in the middle of fights a lot.

[thesithfreak]

i hate how you are forced into certain game modes even if you dont like them. like swat, or elite slayer. Let me pick a playlist of just classic slayer, and just have choices of maps. its ridiculous, i pay for halo, and i get told what to play.

[m23]

They are taking SWAT out of team slayer and adding a specific playlist for it. You can't really expect to get the exact gametype you want every time. What's ridiculous is what people expect for $60.

[thesithfreak]

on uncharted, if i want deathmatch i get it, if i want plunder i get it. it's possible, make playlists for certain things. i dont see what the big deal is about that

[m23]

You can try team arena, I think that's just pure team deathmatch games.

[The Lazy One]

They're adding more playlists over time. They are keeping them basic at the beginning so everyone can get a taste of everything. They said this in one of their weekly updates.

[m23]

I hated that system in Call of Duty. I always get placed on the losing team. Another thing in Halo is that even if you are down one or two players, you still have a chance to win. I've had two people quit from my team and we still come out on top. The drop in drop out would hurt their system in my opinion. They should keep Halo, Halo and COD, COD.

[00]

I noticed that if people quit from the game you get a big boost in credits, so it doesn't really bother me.

[peeps]

I can see for for and against. I suppose they are trying to make it competitive and in general most gamemodes in halo don't last too long however it is true that most games will finish with less players than when it started.

What's worse is not having a separate playlist for the inclusion of guests. Too many times i've played a game where there will be a person and their guest. The person rage quits and then their team has lost half the team in 1 go!

Also i would have hoped they would have put more thought into the matchmaking in terms of maps and modes e.g. ending up playing a 3v3 snipers on the largest map in the game

[thegreatest7884]

I totally agree, Bungie made a perfect game except for this. It's incredibly annoying to be handicapped from the get-go just because someone didn't get a game mode they wanted and rage quits. Even when you're on the other team, when you're playing BTB 12 vs 1, with the last enemy player refusing to quit. You play out the entire 30 minutes or whatever it is, and get like 2 kills because you can never find the guy.

[Paradise Lost]

Then im guessing it's not a perfect game>

[Neko_Mega]

Mag let's other people jump in if people quit a game, it is really nice but in the same time you would have to hold of the other team.

[dkp23]

I get annoyed by quitters too and also get annoyed with the constant swat games...God I hate that game...If I wanted to play one shot kills, i'll play CS or COD...

[likedamaster]

Valid argument, but Halo could never be like MW2. Halo has an actual ranking system, not just leveling up to unlock new weapons.

[CrzyFooL]

Sarcastic Gamer is Sarcastic!!

[zerocool3397]

ok so this can be annoying when it happens which isn't very often. Its still better than COD with its lag and campers. People hanging over the spawn points is also annoying. Good and bad for all games, its hardly segregated to just the one. This is also the reason why I play with mates or if I'm on my own free for all, that way I always have a team

[thor]

Matchmaking sucks anyway - I much prefer to have a list of servers.

[frostypants]

Last console shooter I know of that had that was Warhawk, but yeah, I agree completely.

[ddelella]

Being able to join mid game makes sense for social but never for ranked. Bungie has already said they would be punishing quitters with bans. I haven't seen to many yet. The part where halo matchmaking excels well beyond the rest is the party system, use of forge mode, and amount of updated playlists. The biggest problem I see is the horrible playlists lately. Why does big team not have more king of the hill, territories or stockpile? They need to rename Team Big Team to Team Vehicles because it is just absurd at this point to even play. Other than that they just need a lot more maps because some of them are rather unbalanced now. I think they need to remake some more originals and release them for free. I also think they need to increase the forge limits on parts so we can make better maps.

[ZILLA]

UNCHARTED 2 has set the bar on what a REAL shooter is(period)

[OC_MurphysLaw]

Early quiters with a full game as in Halo or jump into a match as it ends on the fly like BFBC2 style MP. It's just preference...play what you like. To me....Halo is just fine.

[ASSASSYN 36o]

If the game becomes unbalanced then it becomes a slayer game for me. It is a reality with the game I am used to by now. Fight harder and make up for the weak people who left or whine about it in an article. And the real crappy people are the ones who ARE in the game and just stand there handing out deaths. Understanding how you manage to join a game with no intent to play is beyond me.

[Paradise Lost]

The online is really getting me frustrated with people quitting and myself included because it's so unfair.

The booting system is 100% flawed i mean , the people that i play with are so retarded!

[dkgshiz]

I didn't see your comment before I posted my last one. It is broken.

[dkgshiz]

If you accidentally kill one of your team mates expect to be booted instantly. The other day I accidentally hit someone on my team with a ghost. It was totally unintentional. Then he booted me. Plus the maps are really bland an boring.

[Paradise Lost]

Same shit, in hemmorrhage i think it's called. I took a ghost and went all the way to the far right side of the map where people get teleported. The second the guy came out of the teleport i splattered him my accident :@

[The BS Police]

I've never been booted and I have betrayed a few enemies by accident aswell, Bungie did state though that the betrayal system is being tweaked.

[PS360PCROCKS]

ya I know I got booted because I threw a grenade at a guy and my player jumped right by him at the same time it blew up. I have never booted anyone for unintentionally killing me, it's lame. if someone is blatantly shooting at me we have another story

[FatGuyStrangler47]

Somebody's mad because they're account got banned for cheating haha

[Mattey]

this guy does not get it. w/e, he can thank halo for matchmaking. but to say its gotten worse since halo 2... this guy is just raging because he had quitters on his team, and he decided to rant on the internet.

[Xander756]

I love how Bungie's answer to dealing with people quitting out of games was to ban them and NOT to implement a system where you can hop into games in progress. LOL

[Hurmun]

What's wrong with punishing people for rage quitting? Nothing at all.

[PS360PCROCKS]

The ban system is lame. I quit out of some matches in 4vs1 situations and some SWAT matches because it was like the 3rd time in a row it was picked. Now I get a warning "if u quit anymore you'll be banned" I see it every time I start the game for the past WEEK! I haven't quit in like 8 days and I still get the message. So if I don't wanna play SWAT i just stay and give away kills. That's much better, right Bungie?

[Hurmun]

I don't think that type of matchmaking would work with the Halo universe. Joining and dropping in and out of matches just doesn't fit with the series. It's not like these maps are as large as those in MW2 or BFBC2.

This also eliminates the possibility of joining into a match and then seeing the other team is one kill away from winning. Don't act like that isn't annoying.

In Halo, people quit out all the time for some reason. Ever since H2, people who don't do as well as they want rage quit and move on. The quitting penalty helps with that and if you don't like it, then stop quitting. Ruins it for everyone else who is there to have a good time.

[Dr Face Doctor]

I don't see why we moved on past dedicated servers. It's a great system, just executed poorly on consoles. If we had official dedicated servers we could pick from from a list, were a game ended when we were bored with it instead of match-by-match, all would be right in the world. Sure, it doesn't work for the rank-up system found in many games today, but it's a stupid system anyway. I want non-elitist, non-ranked, always on servers that I can just have fun in.