Halo Why do you vote Infinity Slayer?

[Sgt x Slaphead]

I personally am not a fan of this luck based game mode yet everyone seems to vote it all the time. For me all the random elements do not make it fun. I am not biased and I respect other people opinions so I am interested to see what it is people seem to like about Infinity Slayer.

 

[Psychoduck]

This is an excellent question, and I think I have the answer. The average Halo player at this stage is a casual one. Most of those who play more competitively and who put the time into understanding the Sandbox were so alienated by Halo 4 that they rarely venture into matchmaking anymore. To the average player, Infinity Slayer doesn't present an issue. The broken, luck-based game mode doesn't appear to be problematic because most players don't understand how important balance is. These players judge the game only by their own experience, and they love being able to use broken, exploitative loadouts and drop in power weapons. Basically, if you're playing with your brain turned off, Infinity settings are more "fun". Now that most of the thoughtful players have been driven off, Infinity settings appear to be popular. This is going to send a message to 343 that these settings should be the focus.

It's really unfortunate to see Halo reduced to a random, casual, and ultimately broken game. Halo 4 sacrificed what has always made Halo games work in order to appeal to a new audience. This new audience left as soon as CoD Black Ops II was released, leaving us with a Halo game that wasn't designed for Halo players and which failed to capture the additional targeted audience. Unfortunately, the game sold well and 343 doesn't have much reason to make a good Halo game next time around either. All we can do is continue to vote for real settings when we go into matchmaking. Several Community Cartographers and I are pushing to get a Legendary variant in the CTF playlist, and Legendary Dominion will be making its debut shortly, but if you read the voting thread on Waypoint regarding the Dominion update, you should be prepared for disappointment. The real issue is that players don't analyze the sandbox before deciding what they think they want.

Here are some frightfully ignorant posts from said Waypoint thread which help to illustrate my point.

Spoiler

theres hardly any difference between legendary and normal dominion

Anything but pro, I don't know what it is, I just hate pro gametypes. I voted for legendary dominion.

oh h*** no, not more pro & legendary types.
that's challenging, but seriously no fun.
i voted shotty-snipes, because it rocks in team-snipers
and would rock even more in an objective-based playlist.
but it looks it's gonna be legen...wait-for-it...boring-dary !

I voted for Shotty Snipers.

Legendary and Pro are pretty much the same thing, and are really boring, and my friends and I never ever play those settings.

Shotty Snipers doesn't sound interesting at all, but it definitely sounds a heck of a lot better than Legendary/Pro.

TBH, I'm kinda upset with these options. For one of my most favorite playlists in Halo 4, and the only choices are either Legendary, lesser Legendary, and Snipers. Disappointing. Should've been better options.
Like, firstly, why is Pro an option? It didn't exist in the other votings, and it's completely pointless to be an option when Legendary is also an option.
Secondly, some better gametypes would've been nice. Like, how about taking Shotgun Ricochet settings, but make it as Shotgun Lockdown? Or even better, Scattershot Ricochet, where you get a Scattershot, Pulse Grenade, and Thruster Pack. That would've been awesome and fun.

Again, for one of my most favorite playlists in Halo 4, I'm disappointed with these voting options. Me, nor my friends, no matter which option will win the voting, we won't play them. Default Dominion and Lockdown are way, way better gametypes than these voting options.

I thought these choices were kind of boring
If i may suggest, how about a high impact dominion type with just gravity hammers, concussion rifles and grenades???

Shotty Snipers baby! I honestly mind if any of the others win, but I enjoy blasting folks' heads of with the shotgun! Haha

Eh, I honestly want Shotty Snipers; namely because it seems to be the most fun out of all of the settings.

Not much for Legendary or Pro, they seem a little too... Try-Hardish for my tastes. No offense to anyone, I've just never liked either game type, nor the over-competitive feel they seem to bring, not that I play Dominion much in the first place.

But i want shooty seem so much more fun.

Shotty sniper is the way to go!! what's wrong with those who want legendary or legendary pro? If you'd like to play a game without armor abilities or using special little add ons go play another FPS for peeks sake. what's halo without a shield?...and the new thrusters they added in Halo 4 are BEAST. love those little things lol =)

Notice how not a single one of these posts contains any evidence of critical thinking. These are people who have given no thought whatsoever to game balance and who merely base their opinions on the shortsighted, subjective idea of what would be "fun". What they don't realize is that balanced settings allow everyone to have the most fun, rather than only rewarding those who benefit from the random elements or who exploit the customization options.

 

[a Chunk]

Here are some frightfully ignorant posts from said Waypoint thread which help to illustrate my point.

Shotgun starts in Dominion...

Psychoduck nailed it. The majority of the remaining Halo 4 population have more fun playing a luck-based game than a skill-based game. I honestly don't mind either, as long as I can choose when I play each one. I strongly prefer the way playlists were organized in previous Halo games where I could simply jump into Action sack or Multi Team if I had an itch for something less balanced than the core playlists, and I could jump into the MLG playlist if I wanted something super competitive.

The lines between luck and skill are currently too blurred in every single playlist. Though I generally have a preference for skill-based play, a clearer separation of playlists would benefit EVERYONE, as seen in the quotes provided in the spoiler. Just like I don't want to be stuck playing Infinity settings when I'm in a certain mood, other players don't want to be stuck playing stripped down settings. Hopefully 343 will recognize the problem created by blurring the lines between the two, and keep that in mind when organizing their playlists/gametypes for the next Halo game.

 

[Psychoduck]

Having the balanced settings occupy the third voting slot is not an acceptable way of separating these settings. If the random settings must exist (and at this point I think they must, removing everything added in Halo 4 would likely piss a fairly large gorup off) they need to be put in their own playlists. Players should never be forced to play random settings.

Also, yes, shotgun starts in Dominion The camping would be appalling. Then again, this wouldn't be much worse than having plasma pistol and plasma grenade starts in modes which incorporate vehicles.

 

[AnotherClaymore]

It's simple, people like variety. MLG (and all the crappy competitive rip-offs) that take everything fun out of the GAME is boring.

 

[Skyward Shoe]

It's simple, people like variety. MLG (and all the crappy competitive rip-offs) that take everything fun out of the GAME is boring.

By crappy competitive rip-offs, do you mean basic Halo gameplay?

 

[Epichair]

It's simple, people like variety. MLG (and all the crappy competitive rip-offs) that take everything fun out of the GAME is boring.

Aaaaaand you just proved psycho's theory of the fact that there are barely any critical thinkers in today's halo community.

 

[Squally DaBeanz]

People vote for Infinity Slayer because a bunch of CoD 12 years olds occupy the Halo servers now, and they have NO knowledge of proper game balance, weapon balance, map flow, or anything like that. People don't want to WORK for rewards in games anymore. Competition and balance mean nothing as long as the idiots out here are having "fun" with random and broken game elements. RIP Halo. 2001-2009

 

[ChewyNutCluster]

This is an excellent question, and I think I have the answer. The average Halo player at this stage is a casual one. Most of those who play more competitively and who put the time into understanding the Sandbox were so alienated by Halo 4 that they rarely venture into matchmaking anymore. To the average player, Infinity Slayer doesn't present an issue. The broken, luck-based game mode doesn't appear to be problematic because most players don't understand how important balance is. These players judge the game only by their own experience, and they love being able to use broken, exploitative loadouts and drop in power weapons. Basically, if you're playing with your brain turned off, Infinity settings are more "fun". Now that most of the thoughtful players have been driven off, Infinity settings appear to be popular. This is going to send a message to 343 that these settings should be the focus.

It's really unfortunate to see Halo reduced to a random, casual, and ultimately broken game. Halo 4 sacrificed what has always made Halo games work in order to appeal to a new audience. This new audience left as soon as CoD Black Ops II was released, leaving us with a Halo game that wasn't designed for Halo players and which failed to capture the additional targeted audience. Unfortunately, the game sold well and 343 doesn't have much reason to make a good Halo game next time around either. All we can do is continue to vote for real settings when we go into matchmaking. Several Community Cartographers and I are pushing to get a Legendary variant in the CTF playlist, and Legendary Dominion will be making its debut shortly, but if you read the voting thread on Waypoint regarding the Dominion update, you should be prepared for disappointment. The real issue is that players don't analyze the sandbox before deciding what they think they want.

Here are some frightfully ignorant posts from said Waypoint thread which help to illustrate my point.


Notice how not a single one of these posts contains any evidence of critical thinking. These are people who have given no thought whatsoever to game balance and who merely base their opinions on the shortsighted, subjective idea of what would be "fun". What they don't realize is that balanced settings allow everyone to have the most fun, rather than only rewarding those who benefit from the random elements or who exploit the customization options.

^^^^^^
This, this, a million times THIS!

 

[Epichair]

The people pyscho quoted in his "spoiler" are exactly the kind of stubborn, "MLG cause im at SR130" type of people who are bringing halo to its knees, if halo stops being what it used to be, a classic fun game, that's BALANCED , then it joing the COD crowd and players move off it everytime a new unbalanced fps come into the marlet. The fact that it was balanced set halo apart from other from other FPSs, thats what made the game enjoyable to those who played it back in the classic days. People think if you add a new gun, or a new perk,make the game more enjoyable, but whats the reason we play halo? Yes tp have fun, but also to WORK for our goals, of getting to the highest rank, but in halo 4 players got to the highest rank not by skill, determination, and getting better, they just played infinity, so that they had tje advantage of their choice of weapons, grenades, perks etc. Take away custom loadout s and you grt a fair balanced game where evrerybody has an equal chance of competing, whether it be for obkectives or pwer weapons, all players get an equal chance on the battlefield, and yes, if you have worked to become a great player then you will beat the opposition, but the opposition will learn from it,, they can adapt to how to beat you, with infinity, they don't know whats coming at them next, they can't learn how tp evade or produöe fire,, they only have to hope for the best and shoot wherever they can, basically, with infinity settings, players get unfair advantages over one another, player cannot develop because they cannot learn how to overcome a single weapon tactic, and it ruins the competitivity of the game and causes the true halo fans to leave and shake their heads at what has become of their beloved franchise. Picture an amazing player, who will most likely beat everypne else on the battlefield, going up against a new guy, this pro player may be about to kill the new guy, but the new guy sticks him with a plasma grenade, this is not competitivity, this is downrighy unfair and biased. I didnt expect to write this long a paragraph with so many mistakes but I'm too tired to change them now. So yeah, that is all I have to say for now, not sure if it's right, @Pyschoduck will have to verify, but I think ive done alright, anyways, nanight.

 

[Epichair]

*@Psychoduck

 

[RogerDodger]

This is how I rank the competitiveness of Halo gametypes (most to least competitive):

1. Team Throwdown BRs / UNITY / Pro (Precision weapon or AR + 1 Frag)
2. Legendary (AR and Weapon Pickups)
3. Team/Big Team (Infinity with no AA's, forced Frag and Magnum)
4. Any pseudo-non Infinity Slayer mode that includes loadout Plasma Grenades, Plasma Pistols, or Armor Abilities
5. Infinity Slayer

There's definitely a place for all of these modes. I'm not going to ostracize one or the other and say that it's completely worthless.
That being said, we need and needed to have access to all these options. I would speculate that a happy medium would be Option 3, although 4 would be okay for non-vehicle games, and 2 may work better for the likes of Blood Gutch.

 

[ChewyNutCluster]

The big problem with Halo 4 isn't just that infinity slayer was added. "Fun", crazy, unbalanced, casual gametypes have existed in Halo before (look at action sack). The main problem is that Infinity Slayer was introduced as the focal point for Halo 4.

I imagine that, if 343 launched the game with the classic team slayer as the "main game mode", Halo 4 would have been received much better by the community. Most classic Halo fans would still have hated the addition of Infinity, but without being forced to play it it wouldn't have mattered much.

It's just like how some players hate oddball. Those players don't hate Halo because oddball is in it, they just avoid that particular gametype. 343 made the idiotic mistake of replacing the main game mode that pretty much every player likes. I DON'T THINK I'VE EVER MET A PLAYER WHO SAYS THEY HATE SLAYER!

 

[Skyward Shoe]

The big problem with Halo 4 isn't just that infinity slayer was added. "Fun", crazy, unbalanced, casual gametypes have existed in Halo before (look at action sack). The main problem is that Infinity Slayer was introduced as the focal point for Halo 4.

I imagine that, if 343 launched the game with the classic team slayer as the "main game mode", Halo 4 would have been received much better by the community. Most classic Halo fans would still have hated the addition of Infinity, but without being forced to play it it wouldn't have mattered much.

It's just like how some players hate oddball. Those players don't hate Halo because oddball is in it, they just avoid that particular gametype. 343 made the idiotic mistake of replacing the main game mode that pretty much every player likes. I DON'T THINK I'VE EVER MET A PLAYER WHO SAYS THEY HATE SLAYER!

This is a big part of the problem. Slayer used to be one, main thing that everyone at least generally liked, it was the basis of Halo. Infinity Slayer has allowed players to hate plain old slayer, there are many who think that slayer without Infinity is "Competitive bullshit" in a way that never existed otherwise. If it had just been a game mode off to the side as an action sack style thing, few people would have cared that it wasn't balanced. But by forcing it into the slot slayer used to occupy, the entire game was negatively affected.

 

[EmbarkingZeus]

Honestly, I originally though Infinity Slayer was classic slayer. I was horribly mistaken. If I wanted to play a game with CoD type gameplay, I would play CoD. I will, to this day, never know what 343i was thinking when they decided that this was a good idea. They tried to "fix" something that didn't need fixing and broke it.
The people that Psycho quoted are exactly that, CoD player who have gotten bored of CoD (not that hard to do though) and wanted to try something else, and enjoy Infinity Dlayer because it was like CoD settings. And as a result they aren't used to any normal, balanced slayer settings, so they are hating it. So, for all those that enjoy Infinity Slayer, *Facepalm*

 

[ChewyNutCluster]

This is a big part of the problem. Slayer used to be one, main thing that everyone at least generally liked, it was the basis of Halo. Infinity Slayer has allowed players to hate plain old slayer, there are many who think that slayer without Infinity is "Competitive bullshit" in a way that never existed otherwise. If it had just been a game mode off to the side as an action sack style thing, few people would have cared that it wasn't balanced. But by forcing it into the slot slayer used to occupy, the entire game was negatively affected.

Good point! I always hear people now saying modes like legendary slayer are too competitive or for super try-hards. They act like the balanced gametypes are some pro mode that 343 created when in fact they're simply just the closest the game gets to the core Halo gameplay!

I imagine those players trying out halo CE - 3...."Hey where are the non-MLG gametypes?"

 

[Squally DaBeanz]

 

[Zandril]

I can't really say much about this. You guys pretty much covered everything one CAN say.

Also...

Spoiler

 

[Sgt x Slaphead]

This is an interesting point. A general opinion I see is that a balanced game is a boring game. Part of me loves something crazy like fiesta slayer once in a while but for me I like to feel like it is the player that impacts the result of the game and not randomness.

I completely agree. Balance means everyone can have fun. Unlike the time I joined an infection game on Reach to spawn at the end of a narrow corridor as a zombie to see the humans at the other end with machine guns. Has anyone else joined those horrible spawnkill customs?

No matter how hard you try mixing casual and competitive does not work. In the future we definitely need the halo 3 styled playlists. Social/Ranked

Wait its simple! We just force 343 to get THFE to design the Halo 5 multiplayer. I'm going to get my shotgun...

I like it also. My thread now has a cat which is why its da best!

Of course the average Halo 4 player thinks fairness is bullshit. I finally summarised what I wanted to say.

Just another thought. This may sound weird but do you think the arrangement of voting options has an impact on what gets played? Furthest to left gets priority when votes are equal. Something else I find is that the first thing to be voted is often the winner. It seems like people just press A on whatever has the biggest number! Am I going crazy? Perhaps.

Thanks to everyone that has posted here it made an interesting read.