Three Bad Boys

Seriously? Removing the TU ZB playlist? I can just imagine how these meeting go... Boss: "Does anybody have any ideas on how to improve matchmaking?" Employee 1: "Well I've been playing Halo competitively since the original Halo and have a very good grasp on how to make a fun and competitive game. The trick is to reward players for learning the game and allowing for balance among different weapons. We should have both large maps and arena style maps. While bloom sounds like a good idea, it has serious flaws (namely, it cannot be perfectly handled no matter how much one plays). In fact, the Title Update and MLG playlists most closesly match the speed of play and overall style that made Halo so famous in the first place." Boss: "One more utterance like that and you're fired. Anybody else?" Employee 2: "I know! How about we add ghosts to all the maps, make sure armor lock is available in every playlist, eliminate the skill gap almost completely, and just generally disincentivize players from trying to learn the game really well." Boss: "Now that's what I'm talking about! That's the type of initiative that will get you to the executive offices in no time! How about you take the lead on Halo 4 multiplayer development?" Employee 2: "I'd love to! I have some great ideas, too. How about a random weapon drop system!? We'll market it as a way to 'even the playing field'. We can't give too much of an advantage to the people who play our game the most!' Boss: "Brilliant!" *Rest of employees clap enthusiastically* *Employee 1 jumps out nearest window* FML I have not once seen ZB in the Super Slayer playlist, and now MLG and Snipers are literally the only options for top tier players. So stupid.

At the same time they did away with bloom (after the end of last season in late 2011). It allows for more strategic gameplay that requires smarter thinking and greater teamwork. No longer can you charge mindlessly into the opposing team's base and grab the flag or sprint away the second you get shot after making a mistake.

And I didn't even mention your remark about MLG. I don't know when you've last watched MLG, but they definitely use zero bloom with no sprint, which resulted in by far the most intense tournament in Reach's history. That is one thing I can't understand. If bloom is so superior, why did the entire MLG community get out of bloom and into zero bloom as fast as humanely possible?

Wait, your argument is that the game should be played with bloom because that's how it originally came? So what if it had come out with zero bloom initially instead? Would that mean that you would support that over bloom? Furthermore, what if the game came out where the only starting weapon was assault rifles and needlers? Should we resist the addition of a DMR in that case? That is not a very good argument at all. Everyone knows Bungie employees were not good at their own game, so their first instinct is not going to be to create the most competitive game possible, such that they would not be as good at the very game they created! There's an obvious conflict of interest.

Haha okay I don't doubt it I am exaggerating in that regard, somewhat. But it is still much more difficult than in previous Halos. And again, this is only one aspect of my argument. I support zero bloom because of faster gamplay, quicker thinking required, being punished for making map movement mistakes, the necessity for perfect aiming, the elimination of randomness, being rewarded for learning the weapon (because there is always some randomness no matter how much you practice), and the overall feel that was lost from pervious Halos. The multikills is the end result of all these changes.

Oh yeah, you can definitely still get double kills and maybe even triple kills with grenades and catching people who are one shot. But as the guy above me said, I'm talking about running around corners and 4 or 5 shotting people before they have a chance to sprint away. In previous Halos, you could start a string of kills with sick aiming, even on people who were not originally injured. There is no way you are going to get a triple kill with just a DMR and no grenades on vanilla Reach. Or if you can, it is extremely rare. Now people take forever to die and sprint away the second they get shot.

We can play then. And no.

If one player is quite a bit better than the other, that person will not get more than 2 or 3 kills in a zero bloom game. And I don't have time right now either. We can play later, maybe over the weekend.

Okay fine, I will do a different example. I bet that a person who is significantly better than another player will win a bloom 1v1 15-6 ish, and will win the zero bloom 15-0 or 15-1 max. And I know this from personal experience. If you want, we can try out this theory...

I would argue that 5 shot kills times with the DMR closely parallel kill times with the 4 shot BR in Halo 2 and 3, and even slower than pistol in CE. Like I've said before, I hate that it's impossible to get multikills with bloom DMR, and how it is similarly too difficult for one player to dominate multiple players at once. Agreed though, good discussion. Hit me up online, and we can run some playlists together.

I'm not sure how I feel about this to be honest. I think if the weapons are balanced enough, then it could add a new layer of competition by allowing people on your team with different roles to utilize the optimal weapon for that role. For example, DMR could provide support from long range, whereas BR is for up close battles featuring strafing and juking. Balance and reward for practice are the keys. They've discussed random weapon drops in pods, and that absolutely makes me cringe. Attempting to "even the playing field" by eliminating the advantage of knowing maps like the back of your hand seems like an incredibly stupid idea. I'm also not sure how I feel about the unlocking of weapons/features to which they've alluded. That is starting to sound too much like CoD.

To me, we are talking about two different aspects of the game. There is the social aspect, which includes playing with more casual settings using a variety of weapon starts and game settings. This could mean playing on huge 8v8 maps, using assualt rifles, or playing with vehicles. That's fun and all, but it has no place in the competetive scene of Halo. There is virtually unanimous consensus among the top players as to what constitutes skill. Aside from map layout and team chemistry, there are certain weapons that do and do not belong IN COMPETITIVE PLAYLISTS. Those that do include: DMR (ZB) - hard to use and requires practice to perfect Sniper - even more extreme of the above Rockets - while it does take some limited skill, it's more related to map control Shotgun (maybe) - somewhat related to map control, but this is more controversial, as it leads to camping Needle rifle - similar to the DMR Plasma pistol - can be used in combination with DMR to create combo situations. I am a little more hesitant toward this one, but I can see the merit of the arguments. Pistol (if not overpowered) - I think everyone agrees that pistol is way too powerful under zero bloom. It was more competitive under bloom, but this is far overshadowed by the improvement in the skill of DMR under ZB. Guns that SHOULD NOT be included, ever: Assault rifle - no skill whatsoever --> "spray and pray" Plasma rifle - same as above Needler - not as bad as the above two, but still not skillful. There really isn't much of a "right" way to use it Hammer - this should be pretty obvious There are, of course, more weapons in the sandbox, but this discusses the major ones. Sword is somewhat controversial for the same reasons as shotgun. It was used in Halo 2, and I think Halo 3 as well (for MLG). So again, games that include the second list can still be really fun, especially for casual players, but they in no way prove skill. The correlation between skill and winning is MUCH lower when playing casual playlists vs competitive playlists. As for your question about recoil, if it is predictable and can be controlled, then I am all for it. Anything is fair game that can be perfected after much practice and still requires skill to use. The problem with bloom is that, no matter how much you practice, you are still never completely sure if you will get screwed over. My entire argument basically boils down to whether a player is rewarded for putting in the practice to perfect how to use a weapon. Bloom does not reward such practice fully. I agree it can somewhat, but honestly, bloom is pretty fricking random. And yes, I know that weapons in past Halos had bloom-like mechanics, but nowhere near vanilla Reach DMR. If I shot someone in the head who was one-shot in Halo CE, 2, or 3, they died. No questions asked. I miss that dearly.

Okay, I can tell from this post that you are ovbiously a casual player. I don't care. More casual players means more attention for the Halo series. And I totally understand why casual players prefer bloom and using other weapons such as the needler as you pointed out, since these virtually eliminate the skill gap. This in turn prevents them from getting dominated like in zero bloom. That's fine. I encourage you to have fun! But I'm speaking from the perspective of the skilled Halo players who enjoy a more competitive style gameplay. These nuances of bloom vs no bloom go over the heads of 95% of the Halo community. They would never notice a difference. And for that matter, I would argue that they only support bloom because Bungie implemented it. Had it come with zero bloom, they would fully support that instead. They really can't think for themselves. I'm not referring to you, since you are obviously more knowledgeable. But for average or casual players, they merely just support whatever the game developer deploys, which means there really is no merit to their argument. On the other hand, for players on the far right of the bell curve in terms of general Halo skill, there is no doubt that zero bloom takes more skill. So it really just gets down to whether 343i caters to casual vs competitive players. I know Call of Duty is successful because it's more casual, but it's 10x less skillful than vanilla Reach, and 100x less skillful that zero bloom Reach. I'm a finance student, so I understand the business perspective, of course. Hopefully they can satisfy both parties with Halo 4. Anytime they start throwing around the word "random" and take a socialist perspective of "evening the playing field" with random weapon drops (their own words), the competitive community cringes. Is this a joke? So if I play two 1v1 games, the first one being zero bloom, precision weapons only, on a small map like Asylum or Zealot, and I win this game 15-0. Then we play on Coagulation with warthogs and hammers and I happen to lose, then we are evenly matched since I went 1-1? Dude, just no...

Good post. There is one thing I have to add though. We may disagree about what takes more skill for an individual DMR battle, but we haven't really addressed the effects these individual battles have on overall gameplay. There is no denying that zero bloom leads to faster kills, which means faster gameplay, more multikills, quicker thinking, and more of an opportunity for one player to take over the game. One of my biggest qualms with bloom is that is slows the game down so much. Multikills are pretty much nonexistent, and individual battles take so long that, while you may have a plan in your head for how to take out the entire other team, you have no opportunity because the first of those kills takes too long to complete, such that the opportunity is long lost. It essentially delays the inevitable. This was something that was greatly missed in previous Halos. From a viewers perspective, I don't see how anyone could possibly enjoy watching bloom gameplay more at the competitive level. Just look at the recent MLG event in Columbus. Those matches reached a level of intensity that far exceeded anything that happened all last season. And the majority of this was due to zero bloom being implemented along with no sprint. It is simply way more exciting to watch (and, in my opinion, to play).

First, who cares what my medals are or what my k/d ratio is in matchmaking? I don't play matchmaking very often, so that's pretty irrelevant. And sniping is not "pure camping". I hate it when people say "all you ever do is snipe me" when I play them 1v1. That's insane, seeing as sniper takes arguably the most skill, rivaling a zero bloom DMR. Second, I will gladly play 1v1 if you think my claims are without merit. Third, answer this for me: what takes more skill? A situation where you know that the only reason you died was because you missed one bullet, didn't strafe well, or were out positioned....or a situation where you increased your CHANCES of winning a battle by pacing but the luck just didn't go your way that time? Personally, this is no comparison. Nobody has been able to answer this simple question for me. Why should I simply increase my chances of winning a DMR battle, when I can know FOR SURE?? It's like trying to build a rocket together, but we can't even agree on the answer to 2+2. Futhermore, the artists are trying to tell the engineers to design it differently because it doesn't look pretty enough. The engineers coudn't care less if it's pretty; they just want the thing to fly successfully. The artists have no right to try to tell the engineers how to properly build a rocket. This whole argument goes without saying in the competitive community. It's so well understood that nobody even has to say anything. They are so far removed from this discussion that they concentrate now on minor things like weapon placement. They would laugh at the very thought of someone suggesting bloom takes more skill. It's like when the engineers finally get to be alone and get back to determing the ship configuration, and not debating whether 2+2=4. I realize that there is an MLG and TU ZB playlist, but it would be nice to have a 2v2. Also, I realize that Halo 4 is coming out soon, but it's still important since you don't want that same menality of eliminating the skill gap to go into the design of Halo 4. I don't want to give up and just say, screw it: let the artists design the second rocket. Surely it will go better the second time around...