Halo and Barriers to Entry

[Devaneaux]

Disclaimer: Keep it civil or I'll personally ask the mods to lock and delete this thread.

 

 So, quick story first. This Sunday I passed by the local MIcrosoft Store and noticed they had a Black Ops 2 doubles tourney going on. The setup was pretty sick (portable gaming rigs) and spectating on the big screen. There were roughly 13 teams playing and the avg. age across the board was probably between 12-15 years old. As I watched these people yell and scream at each other, I would ask them between matches if they played Halo and if they didn't play, I would ask them why. Other than the obligatory, "that game sucks," I got a couple of meaningful answers that kept repeating themselves. They were:

 

 

- "That game is too hard."

 

- "None of my friends play it."

 

 

 See I think these two answers share something in common.

 

 

 As you can see, the social aspect of games has always been incredibly important to having a strong and consistent population. As an example, WoW has done so well because it's formed communities both on the macro and micro scale of the game (having a group of 5 friends that you run dungeons with, a guild that runs 25-man raids, an entire faction, etc.)

 

 Halo is currently playing catch-up in this regards. We recently have gone into the media aspect of gaming (streaming, youtube content, social media, etc.) and we've had to make leaps and bound to make our content professional and watchable. Still, we are struggling because other games have been and are still making this effort to nourish their respective communities (and with years of experience at that).

 

 The reason that having a strong social/media presence in a community is so important is that most new players to a franchise immediately (if they are interested enough) look up tips/tutorials/strategy/etc. in order to further understand a game. If a game has a difficult time conveying exactly how skilled players should play their game, then the new players won't learn exactly what they should be working on to improve themselves.

 

 In this regard, Halo fails miserably. Other than the most basic tooltips, there is no playlist, no real source of basic Halo Multiplayer knowledge readily available to interested new players. The community can do all it can to supplement that content, but at the end of the day, a game as old and illustrious as Halo should have a wealth of information on how to play its' game on the most basic, competitive level.

 

 This is where the notion that competitive Halo has massive barriers to entry comes into play. For clarification, barriers to entry in terms of gaming refers to the ease with which players can pick up a game and understand exactly what they have to do. If a game has large barriers to entry, then gamers have to seek out other sources of information or just go through trial and error till they maybe figure it out for themselves. This is a big maybe considering the patience of most new gamers nowadays. 

 

This is evident in the popularity of Team Slayer vs. any objective gametype. Slayer has always been the essential "foot in the door" playlist for Halo, but other than just firing your gun at players that cause your reticule to turn red, there is nothing in-game that describes Power-Up/Weapon timers, Shield mechanics, Grenade/Weapon mechanics, Team shot, Power positions etc.

 

 Going back to WoW and my experience with high-end arena, the arena system was brutal. Nothing else in WoW even hinted at how to do team-based pvp, how to form good comps (Team Composition), how to cc (Crowd Control) and burst (cause high damage in a short amount of time). The game overall has become more and more casual because rather than providing this information to reduce the barriers to entry with WoW arena, Blizzard has consistently dumbed down their game mechanics/depth to try and make it work. This results in a severe reduction in the skillgap and the game becoming more dull overall.

 

To clarify, I am not asking Halo to be made easier in terms of mechanics. I am suggesting the fact that we (the competitive community) generally take Halos mechanics for granted and don't even make an effort to bring in or teach new players how to play our game. 343i kind of made an effort in this regards solely with Power Weapon indicators on maps, but this is clearly not enough.

 

 This isn't a plea to content creators, nor is this a rallying cry for our community/343i. I'm just stating from prior experience and analysis that the competitive aspect of games can grow exponentially when the barriers to entry are significantly minimized. 

 

If you've gotten this far, I appreciate taking your time out to read this thing. I've been meaning to post this for awhile now but I finally had a good amount of time to sit down and write it out. Please, share your thoughts and discuss.

 

 

TL;DR - Halo has massive barriers to entry that inhibit population growth and don't allow new gamers to easily grasp how Multiplayer should be played. This causes a huge disparity between vets and new players that prevents smaller sub-sections of Halo (like the competitive community) to acquire new, interested players let alone grow the overall game population.

[Otis Spunks]

Are you suggesting a tutorial level? Where they say "use such in such button to walk here"  "Now press such in such button to crouch" "once activated wait such in such a time for it to respawn"  kinda thing? Where you go against bots? I'm not exactly sure how you would realistically relay the plethora of information halo contains with that kind of operation. At most I can see prima guides going into more depth and tool tips being more extensive. All I can see working is a background skill ranking system that constantly pushes ppl to play against players of their own skill so that the transition from less skilled to more skilled is easier and less unforgiving.

I mean I get where you are going with this, many of my friends dont play halo because they feel its too full of "Tryhards" and every game feels impossible to win. But I can't really think of anything to help them out other than teaching them or playing and carrying them which doesn't really solve anything.  

[Cursed Lemon]

Ranking system. 

[Sam]

Ranking system. 

A Ranked/Social divide is very important alongside a Ranking system for the Ranked portion IMO. Like in Halo 4, you have a Ranking system in every playlist, even Action Sack and Flood which means a casual, "fun" gametype is being treated as a very competitive one which should not be the case.

 

I feel that if there's a Social section, players can play there without the need to try their ass off, scream callouts and feel under pressure from teammates to win the game. 

[Cursed Lemon]

Yeah, but he was talking to kids at a CoD tournament. Obviously they're a little interested in the hardcore side of things. 

[Sam]

Yeah, but he was talking to kids at a CoD tournament. Obviously they're a little interested in the hardcore side of things. 

True, but if I was starting out at a new game, I would prefer to play in the Social section for a bit to learn the ropes before I went into the Ranked/hardcore section.

 

The people he spoke to are a small minority in terms of new players trying out/coming into the Halo scene. My point was just that it's imperative for there to be a divide in the next Halo. 

[Cursed Lemon]

Here's the thing. 

 

Because of CoD, kids are probably literally being indoctrinated into expecting there to be ZERO on-map objectives in any gametype whatsoever. They're also used to dying instantly and spawning instantly. 

 

So when faced with the prospect of learning weapon spawns/times, player spawns, and how to actually juke out a player in a 1v1, most kids just don' hav t!m3 fo dat. 

[msnjah]

- "That game is too hard."

 

People don't like having to headshot someone 4 times to get a kill and/or use team shots to get a kill.  The fact that it is much harder for someone to pub stomp in Halo is a barrier but it's also the reason I like Halo.  It's easy to pub stomp BTB with a DMR but that "skill" doesn't carry over to a 4v4/2v2 playlist.

[Devaneaux]

Are you suggesting a tutorial level? Where they say "use such in such button to walk here"  "Now press such in such button to crouch" "once activated wait such in such a time for it to respawn"  kinda thing? Where you go against bots? I'm not exactly sure how you would realistically relay the plethora of information halo contains with that kind of operation. At most I can see prima guides going into more depth and tool tips being more extensive. All I can see working is a background skill ranking system that constantly pushes ppl to play against players of their own skill so that the transition from less skilled to more skilled is easier and less unforgiving.

 

Sort of. Campaign always had those basic tooltips that tell you what each button does. What I'm referring to is a type of tutorial/playlist that teaches players the mechanics of Halo while still giving them room to grow. Overhead map overview with power weapon spawns while loading a game, Power Weapon indicators on map, a simple in-game guide to discuss shield mechanics and the concept of being "one-shot."

 

Give players enough,  but allow them to continue growing and learning. That's the idea.

 

Ranking system. 

 

It's a start, but it doesn't solve everything. New players that hit a wall in the ranking system would generally just give up. I know several people that have done just that in Halo 4. 

 

While a social/ranked divide is comfortable, it would need to be supplemented by other features in-game that allow players to pick up and understand Halo easily. Without it, the overall population doesn't grow and we rely on bringing back old blood rather than trying to grow exponentially.

 

If anything, Halo 3 had it right when it came to moving up the competitive ladder. Social => Ranked => MLG. The one thing it had in common? General settings that applied across the board. The turbo was a good start, but look at how different IS is from Throwdown? No in-between doesn't help either.

[VODE]

One simple example I will always use is instead of the useless UNSC rotating logo loading screen have a map overview with the weapon locations. No need for ordnance markers either that clutter up the screen. For forge maps a system could be made that makes creating overviews with spawn points possible. That's making the game more accessible in a good way.

 

Tell people what PW weapons are and where they are in-game. Also when they spawn.

Have a ranked section with visible seasonal ranks and a social section with an invisible (working) ranking system.

 

Done.

[makeitstop]

I like playing against people though who don't know about timing weapons.  

[Devaneaux]

People don't like having to headshot someone 4 times to get a kill and/or use team shots to get a kill.  The fact that it is much harder for someone to pub stomp in Halo is a barrier but it's also the reason I like Halo.  It's easy to pub stomp BTB with a DMR but that "skill" doesn't carry over to a 4v4/2v2 playlist.

 

I like playing against people though who don't know about timing weapons.  

 

It's not really a discussion on pub stomping though. :P Pub stomping will happen regardless. Is it easier in CoD? Certainly. Is that because CoDs mechanics stay true across the board? Possibly.

 

I've found that the competitive aspects of timing weapons, power-ups, map control, and power positions all generally apply to every playlist. Find a way to get people to learn this and you gain interest in the competitive side of Halo and the transition goes much smoother than ever before.

 

New IS player tries Throwdown, gets his shit pushed in hard. Stops playing it. Period. There's no desire to learn there because the jump is too drastic i.e. Throwdown/Halo has a ton of barriers to entry.

[makeitstop]

It's not really a discussion on pub stomping though. :P Pub stomping will happen regardless. Is it easier in CoD? Certainly. Is that because CoDs mechanics stay true across the board? Possibly.

 

I've found that the competitive aspects of timing weapons, power-ups, map control, and power positions all generally apply to every playlist. Find a way to get people to learn this and you gain interest in the competitive side of Halo and the transition goes much smoother than ever before.

 

New IS player tries Throwdown, gets his shit pushed in hard. Stops playing it. Period. There's no desire to learn there because the jump is too drastic i.e. Throwdown/Halo has a ton of barriers to entry.

throwdown has such a huge barrier because the population is too small for a decent rank progression.

 

I search in team throwdown alone all the time (if I'm online with friends we just play customs), and incidentally my csr is like a 20 in the playlist.   That doesn't stop me from getting matched with csr 50s though.

[Vegan Elite]

Ranking system.

Ranking system that starts you midway like all ELOs. So if we are talking 1-50 then you'd start off at 25.

 

This way a rookie will rank down until he plateaus. Afterwards he'll be garenteed to play rookies too.

 

H2 and H3 on the other hand starting everyone at 1 so if pros starting new accounts they'd be stomping people for a fair amount of time...

 

This was discussed in Katastrophes Ideal Ranking System

[Vegan Elite]

Generally a good game with a good ranking system will go a long way. Suprise Halo 4 has neither so to you Deveauraux maybe thats why people aren't interested in halo anymore.

[Devaneaux]

throwdown has such a huge barrier because the population is too small for a decent rank progression.

 

I don't think it's just that though. Unfortunately, this community tends to boil down things to a general statement and leave it at that ("Population drop was because H4 sucks"). There are many underlying factors as to why something is and isn't popular. In terms of TD, you are correct in the low pop causing a lack of rank progression. However, you can also say that no one wishes to make the leap from IS to TD because there's no step in-between. We're seeing that now with Legendary BR's but that only serves to help people that have already been playing Halo 4. This is about teaching new people and bringing in a new generation of young (and old) fans to help fuel the franchise

 

This was discussed in Katastrophes Ideal Ranking System

 

Can you please link that? I never got to check it out. Also, we have no clue what Josh Menke is cooking up. Starcraft 2's rank system is fantastic, so hopefully we see something that good. Preferably, I would like a seasonal system the best.

 

One simple example I will always use is instead of the useless UNSC rotating logo loading screen have a map overview with the weapon locations. No need for ordnance markers either that clutter up the screen. For forge maps a system could be made that makes creating overviews with spawn points possible. That's making the game more accessible in a good way.

 

This is exactly what I'm talking about. 343i tried accessibility by dumbing down certain aspects of Halo. We need to return to that classic halo scheme but allow for newcomers to actually learn our game to the point where they can become engrossed in the competitive community and then help grow the game overall.

 

 Responses in bold. Good input.

[Hard Way]

Great post man. I've thought this for a while too. When I was in basic training this spring, I spent a lot of time thinking about a YouTube channel I want to make when I get out of AIT in October. Ive got it pretty well fleshed out, and I'm excited to start when I get home. It'll address exactly what you're talking about in this post. I've always wanted to teach people how to play.

[Otis Spunks]

Ranking system that starts you midway like all ELOs. So if we are talking 1-50 then you'd start off at 25.

 

This way a rookie will rank down until he plateaus. Afterwards he'll be garenteed to play rookies too.

 

H2 and H3 on the other hand starting everyone at 1 so if pros starting new accounts they'd be stomping people for a fair amount of time...

 

This was discussed in Katastrophes Ideal Ranking System

This is what I was trying to get at. A proper well thought out ranking system will help players match against those of their own skill lowering the possibility of being stomped on by second accounters. I mean having more ppl is cool and all but I dont want the whole game dumbed down just so its easier on the less skilled. One of the main reasons I enjoyed halo was the learning curve. So I am not too sure on the whole additions to the mechanics in order to make it easier to learn... I hate weapon waypoints and hit indicators, free camo.... we keep going down this road and I will never touch this game again. 

[ssj]

Are you suggesting a tutorial level? Where they say "use such in such button to walk here"  "Now press such in such button to crouch" "once activated wait such in such a time for it to respawn"  kinda thing? Where you go against bots? I'm not exactly sure how you would realistically relay the plethora of information halo contains with that kind of operation. At most I can see prima guides going into more depth and tool tips being more extensive. All I can see working is a background skill ranking system that constantly pushes ppl to play against players of their own skill so that the transition from less skilled to more skilled is easier and less unforgiving.

 

I mean I get where you are going with this, many of my friends dont play halo because they feel its too full of "Tryhards" and every game feels impossible to win. But I can't really think of anything to help them out other than teaching them or playing and carrying them which doesn't really solve anything.  

Tekken Tag Tournament 2 has a legit tutorial that teaches you what's necessary to play the game "properly". They even have a little strategy guide book that comes along with it. 

 

Layout of the map before the game - They should have an out look of the maps in the game before it loads and a section to just check out. It would show where the weapons on and there spawn times. 

 

Tutorial video - tutorial video isn't hard to make to teach people stuff like strafing and jumping. If it's in game, the players will take the tips more seriously and won't shit talk the competitive community. I

 

 A guide book -If they gave  a little guidebook saying stuff like "the AR is great for people who are new to Halo and is used for QCQ" and then go on by saying how the BR(or whatever utility weapon is in the game)is probably the better choice if you're a more experienced player. 

 

I they had little things like that, i'm sure it would help out the competitive community greatly, and those who don't know a lot about "competitive" gaming.

 

 

It would also be nice if they had bots you could play against like how Blacks Ops had. That's where you could do a lot of tutorial stuff and just practice. 

[Ender]

When you're waiting in the lobby, they should have real quick 5-10 second Theater clips of starting strats, nade spots, juking, peek shotting, ball tossing, flag juggling, etc. Just imagine how awesome those things would seem to new players, even those who may not necessarily be interested in becoming pro or attending tournaments. Even the average casual player is interested in learning more about the game and being able to implement a few cool tricks that give games more meaning to their wins and losses.

 

Players have become so complacent with results because devs have been pushing scrub-friendly games like it's the only way to make a profit. Sure, you could dumb down your game and just market the shit out of it so people play it, but that's why people get bored. They aren't invested at all in whether they win or lose, so playing the game is done to pass the time as opposed to people wanting to make time to play the game. The whole idea behind making games scrub-friendly is to prevent noobs from getting wrecked every game, but if you have a ranking system that never becomes a concern in the first place. Noobs will play other noobs, pros will play other pros, and everyone wins ~50% of the time while still being able to enjoy a game with concrete depth and longevity.

 

Disclaimer: I realize the theater clips in the lobby thing isn't feasible to introduce, but even a weekly clip on Waypoint with that kind of tactical tidbit would be a great contribution. Just tell people they will get a bit of free XP if they download and watch it. Who is going to see "Level Up In Halo 4: Juking Enemies" and not want to watch a quick 30-45 second montage of awesome jukes (potentially submitted by actual players!)? What would that take, about 10 minutes of video editing?

[logan]

I feel like all that needs to really be taught is the spawn system. And it's simple to understand.

 

-A player has a positive effect for his teammates to spawn near him, and a negative for his enemy so they'll spawn away.

 

Then all that has to be taken into account is, my player is here, my teammates are here and here. So that means the enemy is most likely to be here or here. (Example on simplex slayer: I spawn at red base, I have two teammates at purple, and the last teammate top mid. The enemy is probably either Gold or Blue. So the logical play would be for me to push cautiously out of Red into Gold towards Blue).

 

This small understanding would literally make a huge difference in the competitive world of Halo if casuals understood it. Instead their strategy is to just run and gun.

[Solarity]

bring back basic training.

[ssj]

When you're waiting in the lobby, they should have real quick 5-10 second Theater clips of starting strats, nade spots, juking, peek shotting, ball tossing, flag juggling, etc. Just imagine how awesome those things would seem to new players, even those who may not necessarily be interested in becoming pro or attending tournaments. Even the average casual player is interested in learning more about the game and being able to implement a few cool tricks that give games more meaning to their wins and losses.

 

Players have become so complacent with results because devs have been pushing scrub-friendly games like it's the only way to make a profit. Sure, you could dumb down your game and just market the shit out of it so people play it, but that's why people get bored. They aren't invested at all in whether they win or lose, so playing the game is done to pass the time as opposed to people wanting to make time to play the game. The whole idea behind making games scrub-friendly is to prevent noobs from getting wrecked every game, but if you have a ranking system that never becomes a concern in the first place. Noobs will play other noobs, pros will play other pros, and everyone wins ~50% of the time while still being able to enjoy a game with concrete depth and longevity.

 

Disclaimer: I realize the theater clips in the lobby thing isn't feasible to introduce, but even a weekly clip on Waypoint with that kind of tactical tidbit would be a great contribution. Just tell people they will get a bit of free XP if they download and watch it. Who is going to see "Level Up In Halo 4: Juking Enemies" and not want to watch a quick 30-45 second montage of awesome jukes (potentially submitted by actual players!)? What would that take, about 10 minutes of video editing?

 

As i said in my post above they should just have a layout of the map showing where the weapons are and the times of when the weapons are up. I think having a video before a game is a little too much. 

[Ling Ling]

Counter-Strike: Bot simulation, Gamemodes like 1-site Demolition and "Arms Race" accurately, but discreetly teach new players how to play the game without making it feel like a boring tutorial nobody just picking up the game wants to endure.

 

TF2: Bot training, bot simulations class training, scrub friendly but balanced unlocks, constant tips teaching you each class.

 

Shadowrun: Bot training, bot simulations.

 

Halo: Nothing.

 

The OP may be on to something.

[Ender]

As i said in my post above they should just have a layout of the map showing where the weapons are and the times of when the weapons are up. I think having a video before a game is a little too much.

 

Well if it's a pre-game lobby video, it would just play while you're searching so you wouldn't be waiting for the video or anything. It'd also be really short, no more than 10 seconds. It wouldn't be a tutorial, just a demonstration of a cool technique. It's basically a video replacement of those classic "Did You Know?" quotes.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6keX-XGnydg

 

The other option (which is actually possible) is to have 343 actually edit together some quick minute-long videos every week/biweekly/month and do it that way to get people interested in more advanced stuff than holding up + spray 'n pray.