The Halo Council - Do You listen to it?
#1
Thu, 04/12/2012 - 08:19
The Halo Council - Do You listen to it?
For those who do not know, this show is primarily MLG-centric in its discussion.
Mostly the show's content enrages me, as many things MLG do, but I give it full recognition for being a valid outlet for a segment of the Halo community. I also give it credit for helping to boost the MLG playlist population in MM.
Halo, in all of its releases, must have benefited from competitive processes behind organizations like MLG.
At least for now, I stand in Halo community solidarity with MLG. What you don't see is me punching them in the back of the head while the picture is being taken.
I've never listened to the Halo Council and do not have much of an understanding of their purpose.
So what is it they talk about that "enrages" you?
MLG in Halo 3 was quite different from standard MM gameplay. I did not and I do not agree with this approach to creating a large inclusive competitve process for Halo.
MLG in REACH was even more different than standard MM gameplay. The MM playlist was proof nobody wants to be that different.
Listening to THC some of them sometimes say things I agree with. Some of them even understand standardizing the sandbox between MLG and standard MM. All too often they can't get their collective heads out of their Halo 2 asses.
When MLG peeps say, I say
"No Sprint" - "fuck off door nob".
"No AA" - "fuck off door nob".
"Faster run speed" - "fuck off door nob".
"Health different" - "fuck off door nob".
"Shields different" - "fuck off door nob".
"One weapon to rule them all" - "fuck off door nob".
"No vehicles" - - "fuck off door nob".
Nobody listens to me but I think MLG has gone completely down the wrong path. Tried to be too big too soon. Tried to make super stars before there weren't any Little Leaguers. Tried to be too much about big money.
I think the Halo competitive process should remain as much as possible within the venue of the average MM player. Create official regional grass roots leagues that don't offer a lot of money but do identify official winners. These official winners just keep moving up the ladder until the really big events occur and the advertisers pay to show them playing. I
I offer Canadian Curling as an example. I've played with World Champions in my local Curling Club. People I have played with have made it to the National level. The big money (still not a lot of money) doesn't even kick in until the National and World levels. More people than ever are sitting down for two hours and watching the big events. In any given year a person with skill can put a team together and make to the worlds (doesn't happen often).
Halo should be the people's FPS first if it wants to be continuously successful.
Yeah, never heard of them.
I agree with you DEEP. All the things that MLG types like, I find extremely boring.
Camping timed weapon spawns - boring.
Using 1 weapon the whole game - boring.
No vehicles - boring.
Smal maps / running at a snails pace - boring.
Learning spawn points and spawn trapping - boring.
I would agree that Reach is a different kind of Halo; and I loved H2 but maybe we'll just have to accept the fact that life can't always be CTF on Midship -sometimes we have to endure some neutral bomb on Water Works too.
But that's just me...
I certainly understand your point in that we should play the game we are given instead of making a game that suits certain individuals.
MLG is a business and they need the game to be competitive for "pros" and offer a certain amount of excitement for the spectators. In all honesty, Vanilla Reach is just boring to watch. Can you imagine watching a game of Team Slayer on Asylum with people jetpacking, armor locking and sniping while invis the whole game?
I watched a fair amount of the Columbus tourney and most of what I saw was actually entertaining. Removing the randomness of the DMR bloom and various Armor Abilities really made it more about the teams.
Perhaps Reach getting dropped would be the best thing for Halo at the moment, instead of trying to apply band-aids to a game that doesn't work for MLG's purposes. I really couldn't care less about if Halo is part of MLG. All I want is for Halo 4 to kick ass!
Never heard of it.
We'll never see eye to eye on your laundry list. We'll never see eye to eye because you're firmly entrenched into the camp of "fuck off door nob".
Well, it's not like you guys don't have your laundry list of dislikes about Halo through the years. You don't like how the vehicles handle and all that jazz.
Although I also find the placing of Halo 2 on the pedestal to be kind of annoying as well. I mean, it's when MLG started and they couldn't tinker with advanced settings and maps and what not, so I think a lot of nostalgia peppers their experience.
Also, Deep, it's not like you don't play against top tier players online. Your curling club experience is the same as MLG. Remember Final Boss, when they won everything (seeingly) during Halo 3? There've been more upstarts from Live getting into MLG than ever before.
Let me also add..."knob"....
Canadians ignore silent letters, hoser.
Take off, you knob.
http://bite-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Bob-and-doug.jpg
LMAO!!!
good stuff guys, good stuff.
My bad...
[img]http://fuuu.us/80.png[/img]
I have a love/hate relationship with MLG. I love that it's competitive and is extremely team-based. I hate that they strip it down to a few weapons, which make the gameplay rather dull and boring. It will be interesting to see if MLG drops Reach soon and if they do, decide to pick up or pass on Halo 4.
I dunno. I'd put the "one weapon to rule them all" on Bungie's shoulders. They never made viable long range weapons outside of the sniper rifle(s) and the battle rifle. The Covenant Carbide was just inferior. If the battle rifle and Covenant Carbide were laying there, you'd never take the Carbide. That's a balancing issue, if anything.
This. I don't think it's that they want everything to revolve around one gun (which is a huge exaggeration anyway, as MLG uses the DMR, Shotgun, Rockets, Sniper, Grenade Launcher, Plasma Pistol, and Needle Rifle I think). The problem is that they overthink everything ad nauseum, and nearly everything that wasn't in previous MLG settings is picked apart and any slight flaw disqualifies that thing from "competitive play." I would bet $1000 that if the rockets had been a new gun in Halo 3 or Reach, they wouldn't be in MLG's settings because they'd be considered to have no "skill gap."
Sometimes I wonder if MLG made their own game, it would basically be 6 Midship clones with only BRs.
But with that being said, Reach has put them in a conundrum. Make the game too different from the default sandbox and you lose casual viewers. But make it too much like default Reach and you've got a horrible multiplayer game. I won't beat a dead horse, but I can just look at my friends list and see how Reach has mostly killed (or at least seriously wounded) the Halo community. Most of my old Halo buddies don't like it and hardly play anymore (myself included). Default Reach multiplayer is a freaking joke.
I've got my fingers crossed so hard for Halo 4 they are turning purple. In at least a few ways, things are looking up for both default and competitive.
It really does behoove everyone if those two things are the same, or at least, pretty damned close.
I don't listen to them because I'm not a fan of MLG. Halo should be made first and foremost to be a fun game. If it is fun game and that can also translate to MLG then great but you should not build a game just for a small loud segment of the gaming community.
I listen in ocassionally. For you who don't know, The Halo Council (Gandhi with friends) started out basically with the sole purpose of getting the comp community (MLG) together to help ensure the survival of the game we all come to love. They discuss what they (we) as a community can do to make things better, the game itself and everything around it. Much the same as a bunch of GoW players did a couple of years back when GoW was taken out from the pro circuit. If you don't know...Halo is very close to be dropped by MLG if it hasn't already.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23XPl_DtViM
Friday it is.
http://halocouncil.com/content.php?175-JUDGMENT-DAY-MLG-answers-our-call-this-Friday&s=5693e1e665f0605476a5f8c40cabd3c4
One thing I wish MLG and friends would learn is that many things will balance themselves out if you give it time. Things that at first may seem unbalanced (like, say, the sword in H2) will often eventually balance out as players find counters (like team shooting the sword guy), develop strategies, and then counters to those strategies, and so on. It's how the game evolves. Sometimes strategies develop that break the game (Colossus Snipers), but a lot of times things will balance themselves. It's like a sailboat that's rocking back and forth in the weather. Sometimes it will capsize, but more often than not the ballast will bring things rightside up before too long. MLG tries too hard to keep the boat perfectly straight, and the first sign of any rocking back and forth, their quick solution is always to throw gameplay elements overboard until you're left with something that's basically BRs on a Midship wannabe (onslaught, amplified, etc.).
Look at how MLG handles remakes. Lockout was a solid map. Strategies evolved over hundreds of thousands of games over a 3 year period. BR Tower setups and counters, Green Room setups and counters, Snipe Tower setups (perhaps with one guy top blue to crossfire top glass), and so on. Then comes Blackout with the Library window blocked off. Now suddenly people say the map is worthless because it doesn't play exactly the way Lockout did, and those specific strategies that evolved over 3 years of Lockout games don't pan out quite the same way, so it's labeled as "broken" or "uncompetitive" and then scrapped completely. Who knows? Maybe if Blackout had been given a chance, some different setups and takeback strats would have evolved for it?
Ditto for new weapons (Spartan Laser?), Halo 3's equipment, new maps, etc. etc. Hell, I'd bet that even something as classic as the OS would have been deemed uncompetitive had it not been around since H:CE. I could just see people bitching that it gives the OS player an uncompetitive advantage compared to a straight 1v1 BR duel. But now it's OK because people have been adapting to and countering overshields since 2001.
Given all this, it's completely understandable why 343 would give up trying to please the MLG community. Almost anything they do is going to be picked apart and then thrown overboard for MLG's custom gametypes, which will probably just be more BRs on Midship clones. If I were 343, I'd be very tempted to say "Why bother? We'll just give them tons of custom game options and let them nitpick their own settings and bitch at each other."
This!
I wholeheartedly agree with that MLG, in their good intentions of making a great, balanced and competitive game, more or less killed it by trying too hard and not letting maps, the game itself and strategies evolve on their own. Today's halo doesn't offer many glorious moments like when you saw Lockout ball/green room setup for the first time and then watching the counter tactics and setups that followed!!! Idk, maybe there is and it's just me being sentimental?! Good times nonetheless!
I think we still could have that though, if it wasn't for MLG being too quick in disqualifying certain maps/gametypes they feel doesn't cut it. Forge and the ability to customize almost anything is awesome, BUT in some ways it's also a great example of that too many possibilites isn't always good. Just because you can doesn't mean you should. IMHO.
Not saying this alone killed (comp) Halo. Reach, as a game, has it's flaws no doubt. I mean, don't get me started on AA's...just don't.
E.
That's it guys. Let the MLG poison out. You too can become happy casual players. LOL
Actually you are bringing good points to the discussion. It's taken me a few years to reduce my hate for MLG processes and see the good in it. There's potential for MLG-like processes to be good for my favorite game's longevity so I must support them in theory.
In my opinion, and I've said this before, the base set of game settings should be the same between casual and competitive gametypes.The more casuals that get scared away the worse the end result will be for the game and any competitions. I agree some of the sandbox may need to be pared down a bit for competition but probably not as much as MLG folks think. Just as speed and and short games have been deemed a requirement for audiences I believe a little more flash/bang would be good too.
We, who have played the early Halos, have very fond memories of playing on the older maps. So we all asked for remakes. Then I noticed, almost no remake ever gets universal approval because much of what made it good has now changed in the new game. I don't mean just the map but all of the things in the programming that control activity. I believe remakes are also causing stagnation and turning people away. When we get a new Halo, new maps should be the priority. According to Frank O'Connor, the majority of all maps will be new. He let the door open a tiny crack for remakes but just barely.
343i staff really want Halo 4 to succeed. You can see it in their faces and hear it in their voices.
Would you guys pay for a disc/large download of, say, $50 for every map in every Halo game re-released in Halo 4?
I would probably buy it, but I wouldn't want that to happen. I suspect all the maps may not play well under the different mechanics/rules of H4. I want new maps, and maybe a few select remakes, designed around H4 gameplay.
Battle/Beaver Creek (Canyon), for example, has been a retail or DLC map in three Halo titles now. It's time for something new.
If it was available I would buy it but I do not want it available. We can't move on from our past if we keep dragging it with us. Too much baggage comes with it.