Bloody Initiate

That would be a good "Legendary Duelist," and you could set up the spawns so eventually everyone faced everyone else at least once. I know you were joking, but I might be a bit annoyed with 343's awkward inability to really get comfortable with their standard gametypes, hence my suggestion of something more extreme. I don't really like that they have "casual" slayer, "competitive" slayer, and are now apparently trying to find something in between both. I think there are other avenues to explore than the "Casual-Competitive" spectrum. I feel like they aren't exploring much or thinking creatively, they're just reading playlist numbers or something similarly removed from the game and then working off of that.

While I understand that many minigames are "mini," and I think a lot of them do look like fun (I even wrote down a list to DL one day), I will never understand the fascination with elimination gametypes. If you have just 1 life, that means you run a high chance of spending most of the game not playing. How is that fun? I don't expect an answer to the question, there are tons of people who like 1 life gametypes, but I think they're all a bit silly. Yeah it's more challenging and consequential if you can't come back, but it's a lot less fun too.

If I made a gametype called "Legendary Slayer" everyone would have max range enhanced motion trackers and nav points over their heads, 1 second shield recharge wait, full range of AAs and loadout options, bottomless clips, and at least 110% speed. No running or hiding, just who's the best "Slayer?" Which weapons would be available is a trickier question, I think I'd pick one of the "No ________" options for ordinance so you wouldn't see a lot of rocket launchers but you would see weapons that gave an edge in the right situations with their own strengths and weaknesses (Shotguns yes, Sniper rifles yes, Incineration Cannons No). It would also be FFA since teamwork is a different skill than point 'n' click. If I'm going to put an ambitious adjective like "Legendary" in front of something I'm going to make that gametype the very definition of the word. "Slayer", pure "Slayer," is just FFA with as much luck taken out as possible (Hence the motion trackers and nav points and fast recharging shields; each fight has to be decided on the details specific to that fight, not the one before.), it's a bit tricky since FFA is already influenced by luck quite a bit, but if you put a team in then other skills than slaying show up. Before MLG I'm pretty sure Lone Wolves was the hardest playlist in Halo 3, because you only had yourself to depend on, and there were more people trying to kill you than in any other ranked playlists (Except the brief lives of Ranked BTB and Squad Battle). It didn't make you a complete player though, just a good slayer. It wasn't the hardest thing you could do in Halo (That would probably be a 15v1) but it was as close as you could get without making people quit the game. So for "Slayer" to be "Legendary" it needs to be FFA with as little luck and cheese as possible.

Never understood it and I've only ever done it as a joke with friends (For example, we vastly outnumbered an enemy team once, something like 8 of us and 1 or 2 of them, so I suicide in the corner of our base, respawned, and spent the rest of the match teabagging my own corpse. I could have gone out and added to the massacre, but I just didn't see the point). It doesn't annoy me on an individual basis. People do it to taunt you and get you to play sloppy, that part doesn't work with me since I usually play such large games you can't hope to find vengeance on the battlefield. Especially if you're actually playing Battlefield, there are 12 enemy players on a massive playing field, you can't hope to find someone specific on the other team let alone guarantee a kill on them. but I admit the frequency and severity of it are starting to bother me. What I mean by that is the trend I'm seeing for nearly every kill to merit a teabag, and for several seconds. That's really stupid, and makes me worry that the new generation of shooter fans think their crouching ritual is a necessary part of each kill. I don't want my teammates to sit there teabagging every time they kill anyone. If the enemy team wants to do it that's just fine, that's several seconds spent not defending themselves, but with so many people doing it and my teams being composed of random players, that's a LOT of idiots I have to make up for on the scoreboard. I'm above average skill, but I'm not the best, and I'm definitely not good enough to win every game on my own while each of my teammates treats each kill like they won the superbowl. For me the fun of shooters is shooting the other players. It's not trashtalk or teabagging. The more time I spend shooting (and preferably killing) other players, the more fun I have. I don't find crouching repeatedly fun. I'm an above-average player in any shooter I spend the time to learn, so I can generally let the stats speak for themselves. I wish other players would get better at the game and stop teabagging.

Admittedly the little bit of time I spent in it in a BTB game was fun enough, however as I said above I have a dispute with efforts to make BTB too infantry-focused. Infantry are absolutely necessary, I understand that, and large scale infantry combat can be fun, I just don't find it very fun in Halo. In BTB I tend to want to either be in a vehicle or be on foot fighting over power positions on the map. I don't want to just be in a large paintball court, I want it to matter when I knock the enemy team off a certain point and I want it to matter when they try to do the same to me. Halo 4 maps are mostly just paintball courts, I dislike most of everything about their design (Overlooking their aesthetics completely because I'm busy shooting people), and I don't want to spend a lot of time in the smaller ones. The smaller Halo 4 maps (Of which Complex is one, even though it has a lot of volume it's all confined volume or useless empty space) all promote the kind of idiotic gameplay I don't enjoy. The playable area in Complex is much smaller than the volume of the actual map. That dirt bowl in between the bases only ever has any traffic because the spawns force people to cross it on their way to the buildings. If you had a choice you'd never go down there. There's nothing to gain, you wouldn't even cross it to get to a better position. In a way it's too vertical, if you're down there you have no shot at anyone and they all have shots at you. That happens to be where the ghosts WOULD play if it weren't so deadly, it also creates a detour dimension which isn't any good for anything other than making sure players can't gain a defensible position, which is exactly what most of Halo 4's smaller maps do.

By definition the average has to be somewhere around 1.0, but since there are ways to die without getting a kill and no ways to get a kill without someone dying (Vehicles don't count towards your career K/D I don't think, at least if I was calculating it they wouldn't.) the average would actually be something like 0.99999. All the kills and deaths in the game have to be account for and spread amongst the players, the average has to be around 1.0, and can't be far from it. It's worth noting that you can get at least 3 different K/Ds from Halowaypoint. They'll list your career K/D on your war games page, they'll list another in a stats summary that's immediately available upon seeing your gamertag, and you'll get your own third K/D from looking at your total kills and deaths in War Games and doing the math yourself. I don't know why the three numbers are different, perhaps they update at different times and/or use different criteria, but I know that the numbers don't line up. Mine ranged from 1.49ish to 1.72ish when I discovered this discrepancy. I suspect the one was using destroyed vehicles or something similar among your kills, but I can't be sure. Keep in mind also that most stat-tracking systems couldn't or wouldn't bother tracking this accurately, because to do so you need to track multiple kill reports and all the guests people bring. A guest could come into a game and go -99 and that means the enemy team collectively just got a 99 kill boost to their average K/D, but that guest and their stats will vanish as soon as the players logs off. Actually with that in mind I'll correct my earlier statement and say that the average is probably still right around 1.0, because overall guests probably contribute kills to the player population without contributing their deaths (Because the player who gets the kill carries the kill stat, but the player who died to create that kill carries the death stats, so the guest deaths leave the community pool but the kills stay). Certainly there are guests who go positive, but overall they probably go negative. Teamkills contribute deaths to the pool but no kills. It's all getting very interesting to me which means it's time for me to shut up. As soon as you feel your inner numbers-nerd start talking and you want to share every cool detail you thought of... you know no one wants to hear it.

I like the weapon updates. The hog can actually be a threat again, the BR stands a chance at its intended range, and the Mantis isn't helpless if someone gets within its motion tracker range without walking into a rocket. The speed boost works very well in Big Team, but I can't speak for how it's influenced smaller playlists. It makes a lot of sense in BTB (For the same reason that any non-vehicle loadout in BTB starts with Mobility and works from there), but if it's present in smaller playlists I can see how it would be a problem (Players already got around the maps plenty fast imo, although they couldn't strafe worth a damn). Speed boosts present a problem because they further enhance sprint, when really what you want is EITHER a higher base speed OR an available sprint. I prefer a higher base speed, but the Halo community has spoken multiple times for keeping sprint, and generally speaking mobs don't grasp anything but the simplest ideas. "ME LIKE GO FAST" is all they have, which when combined with "ME DON'T LIKE MOVING TARGET" creates the catastrophic system we have, which is: You can go fast when you want, but you can't shoot at the same time. That may sound "realistic" or something else equally stupid, but it creates a certain kind of binary gameplay where you get the pleasure of moving around the map quickly AND easy kills because players who can shoot can't move fast, and vice versa. The thing that frustrates players like me is we prefer a blend. We want kills to be challenging because then we can be a challenging kill. We're happy to work harder for our kills just so long as we can make you work for yours. That's not what the mob wants though, and that's not what they asked for, so that's not what we get.

Aside from the increased movement speed I have no idea why they included a no-motion-tracker gametype in BTB or why they put Complex in BTB. I like the increased movement speed, but vehicle play without motion trackers is just dumb, forget skill, it's just dumb. Like taking off auto-aim. If you've ever tried that you learn quickly that despite requiring more skill it's not fun and kills take forever. You can also play blindfolded, but that would be stupid. Play sticks and triggers only? Sure until you find yourself face to face with your enemy, both of you snarling threats while you reload because you finished your clip without finishing your kill. Vehicles without motion trackers just kind of fumble around, perhaps getting a kill or two before they die to a non-threat that has everyone asking "WTF?!?" (Even the player who gets the kills will likely think "That was uncool and unfulfilling"). Crippling the player seems to be what the Halo community loves, which is probably why it's one of the dumbest player communities I've ever encountered (Although to be fair, from what I can tell, shooter communities in general prefer moronic gameplay. This is tragic for a shooter fan like myself who believes in layers and complexity. People just love their twitch/rush gameplay though, even if it requires very little skill or thought and favors the lucky). Sadly there are a lot of people who genuinely believe that the only measure of your skill as a shooter-player is your reaction time and your aim. The trouble with that is there are actual professional gamers in the world, and every one of them is more well-rounded than that. Reaction time is very important, as is good aim, but so is thinking, awareness, teamplay, communication, etc. The game doesn't stop at making everyone moving targets. Unfortunately we have lots of idiots who can't expand their skillset, so they need everyone to have tunnel vision like they do in order to feel like the game is working right. Just because you're too damn dumb to use your motion tracker doesn't mean the game cheated you when the other guy DID use his motion tracker. And just because you can crank your speakers or wear headphones doesn't mean everyone else should have to play without a motion tracker so you can feel capable. Sorry, I felt the need to rant a bit about idiots who think on-screen indicators like motion trackers and minimaps somehow make games worse. I suffered a lot of Halo 4 and some BF3 Close Quarters because the shooter world is full if 8-year olds who don't want to do anything but sprint around corners and spray at moving targets before resuming sprinting. The most limited, luck-based, instant-gratification, no-skill gameplay available is the most popular and that makes me sad. Complex is not right for BTB (I dislike no-or-low-vehicle BTB, I don't think 8v8 Infantry-only Slayer DMRs is very interesting or rewarding). The few vehicles that are in Complex (Ghosts mostly) already get completely wiped out if they're EVER caught in the open IN 4v4! How on earth are they expected to make a difference in 8v8?!? 3-4 DMRs can often kill a ghost before it can disengage and grab cover, 5-6 will just make it pointless. I can make a ghost work in BTB, and in most playlists/maps, but only because the map isn't stuffed to the brim with players. It's a hit-and-run flanking vehicle, if you can't flank because the enemy is everywhere and you can't run because the map is too small and the enemy is everywhere, how can you hit-and-run? You can hit, then get hit, hit, hit, hit, dead.

That was the original design of a lot of weapons. The DMR original had 15 rounds in the clip (3 kills per clip at 5sk) and BR was always 4sk before Halo 4. The Carbine was originally a 6sk which gave it 3 kills per clip, but they nerfed it to 7 with a faster kill time than the BR. 343 took rounds out of the clips to force earlier reloads before completing kills so you can't do as much damage before you have to reload. It's the same reason they made the shield recharge delay 6 seconds, so that you can win one fight, and then you're low-or-no shields for 6 seconds and therefore an easier kill. In more than one way Halo 4 is designed to let players get 1 kill then die. That way everyone gets a kill and goes home happy. No one excels very much, but at least no one feels left out.

Based on Meltdown alone I gotta disagree. What you'd end up with is a Dominion map that plays like most Dominion maps, each team has an easy time capturing one of two bases: A or C, and then they fight like hell over Bravo. To make Ragnarok Dominion-ready I'd put a small shelter on the center hill about where laser spawns (to be equidistant from either side) and then put the capture station in it. That way capping it didn't mean you immediately died to the other team. I might put a shield merged on the capture point aligned so that you could see through but not shoot through, then either team could run up one guy and cap the point, but to defend it you need to have someone watching his back. Then I'd either leave the spawns as they are, rotate them to be on Pelican and Rockets (Adding cover to rockets if I took this option), or just add more spawns so that people losing their base aren't torn between 1.) totally screwed and 2.) spawning right back on it for an easy re-cap. The trouble I have isn't imagining how to make it work, it's figuring out why I'd bother. I don't do very well in Dominion and this is enough to make me happy not playing it. So having it on Ragnarok isn't therefore a big priority for me. Of course my very dislike and lack of love for Dominion may suggest that I'm far from the best person to judge a map's suitability for it, which is a fair criticism to make.

Well done! Thank you for creating and sharing this!

Once I got over my initial excitement about weapon rebalancing I hit a wall where I realized "Wait a sec, my shield will still take forever to recharge and the maps will still be those circle-jerk flankfests that force senseless gameplay." I did say I'd give it another try whenever the weapons were fine-tuned though, so I will.

I think the game should have spawn protection (It's right there in custom settings, respawn traits, 2 seconds, 2000% damage resistance), beyond that I think it's silly to expect players to behave any differently than what comes natural to them. It's like the people who buy a python and then are surprised and hurt when it tries to kill them one day. Players will do what players want to do, expecting or demanding anything different is just stupid. It's ESPECIALLY stupid when you consider the alternative: What are you going to do that ISN'T Spawn killing? Let them kill you? Back off and relinquish map control? It's a question with one obvious answer and a million stupid ones. Anyone who has ever spent some time killing people off spawn knows the situation is usually one of two: 1. It's you or them, or 2. It's fast and reflexive, and while you may feel bad afterward, you fired first and thought about later because that's what it takes to be good. There was never a choice, it was never about that, so either compensate for player instincts with things like spawn protection (Making you incredibly difficult to kill in the time it takes you to get your bearings) or just accept that not every kill feels fair or skillful in a game like this. BTW Bungie introduced spawn protection back in Halo 3 when they first made the SWAT playlist, players complained about it until it was taken out. Originally in the Halo 3 SWAT playlist you'd shoot a freshly respawned dude in the face and he'd survive, occasionally resulting in your death. People didn't think that was fair (I think it's fine, but the community is much harder to wrangle than the developer). In another game, Battlefield 3, you have something like 200-400% damage resistance for about a second and a half when you spawn as long as you don't move. 9 times out of 10 if someone is right there you still go down before you can think, and Battlefield 3 is a game that does a great deal to address spawn killing (Teams spawn in soft kill zones that affect only the other team, so you can't get up in their base and spawn rape them). Teams STILL shove each other back against the spawns and lock them down. You can't stop players from being players, you can make it harder to play cheap (Like Battelfield 3 does) but never expect a perfect solution.

I feel extremely vindicated, these changes are making me want to try the game again. Except for the Beam Rifle nerf and the Mantis Chaingun buff, I have suggested exactly those changes many times in these forums. I don't feel much opposition to either the Beam Rifle nerf or the Mantis Chaingun buff, I didn't use the Beam Rifle enough to feel comfortable discussing its future and the Mantis Chaingun really was there mostly to scare people while your rockets reloaded. I hope very much that the "proposed" buffs become code, because it feels good to say something over and over and over and OVER again in forums and then see it discussed by people who can make changes in the game. It's hard to ignore the urge to post quotes of my own posts all over the place bragging that I suggested these exact changes sooooo many times already.

If the BR and the DMR were the only weapons in the game than a simple 10% damage boost to the BR would make them balanced. A 10% damage boost makes the BR 4-shot, but doesn't improve its accuracy, spread, or high recoil. Thus the DMR would still win at range because its shots go where you think they will, and the BR would win at close and mid-range because its kill time would be much faster. They are not the only two weapons in the game though, which makes balancing them slightly more complicated. The BR SHOULD be 4-shot, but it should not keep its current rate of fire if it is made 4sk. There are other weapons to consider. The BR definitely SHOULD be 4sk, but the changes can't stop there.