Bloom of DMR, NR, sniper, and magnum

[vokain]

How does it work? Will the shot randomly fall anywhere in that circle as it widens? This really frustrates me sometime moving from BFBC2 where I can consistently pull off heashots hipfiring a 1911 from 20 meters away

[skitrel]

Yup, it's entirely random.

Your shots always hit the target provided your target (and bloom) is within your non-moving crosshairs. When the bloom expands outside of your crosshairs you start to get random misses.

The net effect of this is that generally you can fire 2 shots at a time that always go exactly where you aim, any shot after this without waiting for the bloom to reset does not go straight.

Unfortunately, due to the element of randomness those of us who always pace our shots still occasionally get beaten by noobs who just spam the trigger and get lucky.

There's some massive complaints going on in the community because it doesn't really create a skill gap, it allows newbs to beat skilled players through pure luck. Voting polls over on bungie started by the MLG crowd are massively in favour of making the bloom different. They want shots to NEVER go centre if the bloom is activated by being outside of the reticule, this means that spammers are severely penalised.

Who knows what Bungie will do though, patch 1.1 is coming early October.

[acidsnow]

Sept 22, 2010 10:15:06 GMT -5 skitrel said:

They want shots to NEVER go centre if the bloom is activated by being outside of the reticule, this means that spammers are severely penalised.

That sounds like the stupidest suggestion ever, all those MLG guys can go hump eachother. The bloom is fine.

[individual]

MLG tends to be about changing the game in order to fit in with skills they've already acquired. In any game, they're hostile to changes or weapons which are situationally effective.

They often call a tactic noobish merely because it works in a given situation.

Peoplw who spam shots are already penalized.

BTW, I've noticed that on some weapons the reticule doesn't seem to accurate reflect the amount of bloom. Don't remember which one it was, though, but I'll be doing more tests on that soon

[mannon]

Given how many shots it takes to die compared to CoD if you're getting spammed by a "noob" and die it's your own fault for not using cover.

[soi]

Crouching reduces bloom on the DMR. Useful to know.

[n1gh7]

Unfortunately this isn't Shadowrun and it isn't very useful in a realistic situation.

[vokain]

Especially when you're getting grenades spammed out the ass. That's my only real gripe, grenades explode way too fast.

but it's nice to know crouching helps, thanks soi

[soi]

It isn't useful to crouch in your average 1v1 DMR battle. But if you are perched up somewhere taking long shots at someone across the map, crouching makes a difference.

[xeros612]

Sept 24, 2010 4:23:16 GMT -5 soi said:

It isn't useful to crouch in your average 1v1 DMR battle. But if you are perched up somewhere taking long shots at someone across the map, crouching makes a difference.

1v1? How often do you run into 1v1 conflicts in Halo without specifically starting a 1v1 game?

[nimrod6134]

Oct 1, 2010 17:14:35 GMT -5 xeros612 said:

1v1? How often do you run into 1v1 conflicts in Halo without specifically starting a 1v1 game?

I find myself in 1v1 situations quite often actually.

Also, I can't really figure out what I am doing wrong. My bloom seems to always be completely reset before I can fire another dmr shot. I guess I am just misunderstanding the crosshairs or something, but I don't see any negative effects of the bloom..?

[individual]

Unlike COD, most of your engagements SHOULD be 1v1, if you're doing it right.

In COD:

-Turn around a corner, see two enemies, "RATATATATAT" (both enemies dead)

In Halo:

-Turn around a corner, see two enemies, "Oh snap!!" (run away, toss grenades to protect yourself, maybe crouch if you have a shotgun or sword, cry to your teammates for help)

[xeros612]

I don't know guys, at least 60% of my encounters back when I played Halo were me vs 2 or more enemies at once.

[mannon]

You must have died a lot.

I'd have to agree, it's better to retreat than fight it out when outnumbered in Halo unless you really have the drop on them and can even the odds quickly. TTK is very long compared to CoD and you are rarely going to be able to kill multiple players before they can kill you with twice or more the firepower... unless they just suck or you get lucky.

[individual]

Oct 2, 2010 11:47:36 GMT -5 mannon said:

unless they just suck or you get lucky.

Armor lock-->EMP--.Beatdown enemy 1

Armor lock-->EMP-->Beatdown enemy 2

Them: "WTF just happened??"

[mannon]

Like I said... if they suck. If they are any good then enemy 2 at the least will back off and make you hurt badly as soon as you come out of the first armor lock.

[sanehedrone]

The Bloom is completely random. Its a shame really, because I've spammed the trigger at pretty far ranges and gotten a quick 4 shot kill, and other times I might spam the trigger at close range, but only land two shots.

Ultimately, Bungie should've gone with recoil. They didn't have to go with anything really (don't fix what ain't broke), but if they are going to insist, they should do something that isn't completely random, like Recoil.

[mannon]

It's basically just the same as the hipfire cone, and although the reticule didn't bloom it has actually been in every single Halo right from Halo:CE.

Try spraying the "Assault Rifle" full auto against a wall, then burst fire through a clip. It makes a big difference, and it always has, you just couldn't see it visually depicted in the hud before.

I really wouldn't expect Bungie to implement some sort of ADS into halo. Hell most of the alien weapons don't even have iron sights. It just is what it is, but people really should stop pretending that it's oh so different from every Halo game before it. I guess most people just didn't notice. I sure as hell did, though. Hence why I never did like the assault rifle. When you go full auto with the thing you may as well be farting in the general direction of your enemies for all the good you're doing.

I pretty much only cared for the AR dual wielded vs flood in Halo 2, or maybe noob comboing with a plasma pistol or rifle... though I really preferred the pistol for that even with the big nerf it got from Halo:CE to Halo 2. BR was probably my favorite weapon in Halo 2, though. For me it completely made up for the AR, (which is more like a spit wad smg... really it's like using a UMP with Vector damage but all the shitty recoil).

[Flubadoo]

Well that noob would have to be mighty lucky to hit a head within such a large bloom.

[skitrel]

Sept 22, 2010 17:39:55 GMT -5 individual said:

MLG tends to be about changing the game in order to fit in with skills they've already acquired. In any game, they're hostile to changes or weapons which are situationally effective.

They often call a tactic noobish merely because it works in a given situation.

Peoplw who spam shots are already penalized.

BTW, I've noticed that on some weapons the reticule doesn't seem to accurate reflect the amount of bloom. Don't remember which one it was, though, but I'll be doing more tests on that soon

I think you're missing the point here. They're complaining because it's random, people who spam shots are in fact NOT penalized at all, about 50% of the time at mid range a spammed dmr beats a paced dmr, this has been tested thoroughly.

This means that instead of skill winning, a noob can spam the dmr and still win versus pacing 50% of the time. This is unacceptable for competition as it means that basically all we'll see is spamming of the trigger, rendering the mechanic pretty pointless. What they want is the option to turn it off when forging game modes so that bullets simply go where they're aimed, meaning random luck won't play a part in winning.

It's not so much about changing a game to suit their play style, it's about removing as much randomness as possible to make the game entirely about team skill.

I myself am an MLG guy, we're not all bad, the bad image we get is from the few idiots that stray from our forums and just flame the game, the intelligent of us generally don't leave or even mention being MLG. I don't have anything against the game, I do think the mechanic could be tweaked slightly though, either to penalize spamming much more (like the needle rifle does) or to remove it entirely. These would both remove the luck element that's ruining competition right now.

Here's an example of spam luck earning this guy a perfection:

It's disgusting to watch. Useful reminder to those of you that still bother to pace your shots though.

[mannon]

Randomness has played a part of every Halo game from the very first one, and is a major part of most shooters ala MW2, ect...

How accurate or inaccurate and thus how reliable a weapon can be under given circumstances is all part of the game design. The game was not designed for the weapons to be 100% accurate while spamming them nor 100% inaccurate.

If you spam the weapon and kill 50% of the time then you also die 50% of the time. That IS the penalty of spamming your shots. It's the equivalent of going full auto instead of burst firing. Sure, when you're lucky you can win with it, but it'll get you killed just as often.

Halo:Reach was never intended to be a Quake Arena railgun fest. If you want that type of game I suggest you play Quake Live instead. If you're going to play Halo then I would suggest you learn to adapt your playstyle to the game in question's mechanics, rather than trying to get them to do it the other way around.

Yes... luck is and always was a factor. I understand that for competitive play you want to reduce the effect of luck, but the game never was and never will be designed primarily as a competitive platform for pro gamers... The game is meant for everyone.

MLG already has it's own way of setting things up and there's now an MLG playlist so obviously Bungie is willing to do some things for you guys. On the other hand every little tweak makes the game less Halo:Reach and more Halo:MLG. Fundamentally altering the behavior of the weapons would be a huge change completely altering the very heart and balance of the game.

Personally if the game were altered to that extent in order to fit MLG's wishes I would no longer consider MLG competition's relevant since you guys would all be playing some other game, not Halo:Reach anymore. To me that's sort of like deciding to change all the rules in football like having walls instead of sidelines and make all sorts of other changes so that the version of football was no longer what the public considers football... (Yes that's a reference to the failed XFL.)

Besides, there's more than one reason not to completely remove luck as a factor aside from the fact that the game is supposed to be fun and not just a skillometer for people with no jobs or lives to pwn noobs all day in. For one thing, who wants to watch a complete blowout? Sure they may make for decent montage vids, but frankly who wants to watch the entire game when there's no suspense, just one guy or team beating the ever loving crap out of the other? Personally I kinda like rooting for the underdog and when they can get a lucky kill and then try to make a comeback by keeping that guy from retactical loitering his favorite weapon that to me is interesting. Watching the same guy use the same strategy every single game only to be outdone when somebody slightly more skilled than him fianally kills him and then uses exactly the same strategy... boring.

If MLG wants to be relevant then they should be thinking about viewers and fans too, not just the contestants. Because if the MLG games are A boring and B a totally different game than the one I play, then why on Earth would I give half a crap? Frankly I already doubt the relevancy of MLG. I didn't even know much about it before today, just seen the initials bandied about.

And I'm a little offended they claim to be the first pro gaming league when I know for a fact there were leagues before it like Cyberathlete.

Randomness has been a factor in nearly every single game that MLG has used.


Besides, there are more choices than spamming the trigger as fast as the weapon can possibly fire and waiting for the bloom to completely reset. If you're having some difficulties maybe you should adjust your timing and accept a little bit more risk that the shot might miss it's intended target in order to get your shots off a little quicker. Find your own happy medium between risk and reliability.

In the end it really doesn't matter whether it's better to spam or pace. One might be better than the other in different situations or all the time, who knows. It doesn't really matter... Good players should use whatever is best most of the time and learn to accept that sometimes you loose the coin toss, the wind blows the wrong way, the sun gets in your eyes, your racket slips, a butterfly flaps it's wings in china, and shit happens. If said player is actually better than said noob, it won't matter by the end of the match anyway... that is IF. If a few random deaths cannot be overcome then the skill gap really wasn't very big to begin with and the reportedly "skilled" player just wasn't really that much better after all.

Why doesn't MLG design their own game where randomness isn't a factor at all, and every single detail is skill based? Because it would be a boring, irrelevant game, and nobody would care who was best at it, like Crockey or something.

Halo isn't the 100 meter dash or the high jump, it's football, and soccer. It can be turned into a competitive sport, but it is at heart a game, and that, (as it should be) is the defining focus of Bungie.

[skitrel]

Firstly, it's good to see someone who actually understood the point for once, I see so many people jump on top of this argument saying "DMR ISN'T RANDOM! YOU HAVE TO PACE IT NOOB, IT TAKES MORE SKILL" having not actually understood the point.

I get where you're coming from but when it comes to competition you want it to be entirely skill based, surely you must see that. It might be cool to watch underdogs win over etc but anyone who enjoys true competition wants to remove all randomness from the game.

What people are also forgetting here is that one of the biggest fundamentals of game development is that a player should not feel cheated when they die. The book "Rules Of Play: Fundamentals of game development" outlines this in great detail, when a gamer dies they should always feel like it was their own fault, that it was neither game mechanics or a poor control system that caused their death.

While this remains entirely correct for a single player experience, it does not translate well into multiplayer, the vast majority of gamers being casual who never really compare to the much higher skill level seen in competitive gaming. This causes a big problem, if casual gamers are consistently destroyed in a game they aren't going to want to play it anymore, they do not feel rewarded by the experience and therefore do not enjoy it. Because casual gamers are the majority it is necessary to balance the game in such a way that casual gamers can consistently enjoy themselves - hence the random factor. This however is doesn't translate well into competitive gaming, there should always be a large skill gap between competitive gaming and casual gaming and thus small changes to the game are necessary to make it work at a professional level.

Things like 110% damage and speed are added in order to speed up the pace of the game in order to keep the game flowing at a good pace with few lulls in combat. The biggest gripe of the competitive community is randomness in a game, if Bungie were to allow bloom manipulation in custom game creation then the MLG community would be incredibly happy, removing the luck factor entirely makes it a player's own fault if they die and thus removes all complaints.

That's the point. The BR in fact was found to NOT be random at all in the end, online it was due to hitscan lag causing sponging but over lan leading an enemy player would 100% consistently cause 3 bullet hits per shot.

I have no intention of changing the heart of halo at all, I thoroughly enjoy casual play just as much as the next guy but when I play competitively I want every death to be the result of player error, not the result of a random game mechanic. At the highest levels of play almost all individual players are equal in skill, without a random factor it is entirely down to teamwork, communication and decision making that decides a winner. A random element upsets this and can cause a a good team to beat a great team purely because of better luck. I don't want to watch the pro matches and think "He got lucky there, and there, and there, which caused them to win". I want to see wins occur purely because of amazing teamplay - as it should be. Surely that makes sense to you?


On the point about MLG being the first professional gaming league, I'm not sure who might've said that to you, I've never heard it said, CPL were certainly the first back in 1996. MLG were however the first 'North American' professional gaming league and that is what they state officially, I can understand how a few people may have made the mistake of omitting that point though.

[nimrod6134]

Oct 3, 2010 17:46:18 GMT -5 skitrel said:

Here's an example of spam luck earning this guy a perfection:

I understand why spamming doesn't work at a distance with the bloom but do you really advise not spamming in a cqc situation? It seems to me when in a room or just close up, aiming for the head and firing as quickly as possible only makes sense. With the bloom creating randomness with every shot, even aimed shots may miss, so more bullets in the air with a minimal decrease in accuracy can only be to ones advantage.

I'm simply asking this as a first time Halo player. Trigger control in cqc scenarios just doesn't seem logical to me.

[mannon]

Why is a little randomness in Halo such an unforgivable thing but nobody complains about it in Gears of War, Rainbow Six: Vegas, CoD4, and their sequels? Why is everyone acting like Bungie is suddenly doing something completely new and unheard of?

Frankly to me the BR being 100% accurate sounds OP to me. Granted I loved using the BR in Halo 2, mainly because the AR has always been such a ridiculously inaccurate piece of trash.

How fast you pace your shots is all about risk management. You can take a gamble and fire quicker, or you can slow it down and go for the sure thing. The funny thing about risk is it requires uncertainty. It's still possible to have professional level competition even when there is some level of random chance in the mix or haven't you ever heard of a poker tournament? The loosers don't complain about the randomness of the game in poker and how that noob only won because he pulled a strait on the river and how you shouldn't be allowed to win on a hand you didn't already have on the flop... No, they play the game they've been given along with all the random chance and they each manage their risk according to their own style.

Spamming the gun as fast as you can isn't noobish... it's risky. Some people are willing to take bigger risks and hope for a good payoff. The thing about risk is it's never consistent, and it will turn against you. I'd say that it's pretty gosh darn golly gee whiz rare for all the stars and planets to align and have random chance go your way for a whole match, much less a whole string of matches.

Luck may favor one opponent over another in any one engagement, but the next go around you have to throw the dice again and eventually it evens out. Risk management is part of the game, and it involves uncertainty and random chance. Yes, that makes it slightly harder to attempt to determine scientifically who the more skilled player is. And yet every other sport in the world deals with it, so can this one.

In my opinion if the MLG doesn't like the game they are given then they are welcome to use another game, or make their own. If you go tinkering with Halo:Reach and altering the fundamentals of it's game mechanics just for the MLG then exactly how can you still claim they are playing Halo:Reach at all? Hacked Halo:Reach is no better than MLG making their own game.

Surely they have the money to build a game that could perfectly suit their needs for skill and no randomness. They wouldn't need all the fancy graphics or a storyline or anything, after all. Oh yeah... but who'd care, or watch?

I can understand wanting to mitigate random variables, but I think that attempting to alter the roots of how the weapons work in the game is going about it the wrong way. Especially when those fundamentals are all locked up into the very balancing of the weapons. If you change how that works you essentially change the entire game.

Frankly I don't much care one way or the other if Bungie does or doesn't give people (MLG included) the ability to futz with it for custom games. I do know this, though. While I might find MLG matches interesting as long as all they are really doing is banning some things like a few weapons, vehicles, and such, if they are going so far as to alter the root mechanics of things then no MLG match whatsoever has any interest for me, because as skilled as the players may be, they aren't playing the same game anymore as far as I'm concerned, and thus how should I even relate what they are doing in that game? If I can't relate to it and compare it to my own lousy performance then what value is it? I suppose I could probably play the MLG variant of the game to find out what it's like... and probably not even live long enough to learn anything from the experience getting pwned against all the pro gamer wannabe's. Even if they weren't a lot better than me (by a miracle) it still doesn't sound fun enough to spend any time on.

You know... honestly... I hope Bungie does give MLG what they way, just so this discussion can go away and I can continue to ignore MLG for being as irrelevant as they are to real gaming... you know, the kind done by real people, for fun.

I don't have anything against pro gaming. I'd even kinda like it to succeed. But I don't see it ever succeeding playing different or altered games from the rest of us. I like playing lots of games and I might find it interesting to watch some of the best players in the world play the same games I do and see how they play... But, it's not relevant at all if they aren't playing those same games anymore... So Bungie can go ahead and give all the MLG gamers exactly what they want for all I care... but if they do, why should I remotely care what MLG gamers are doing with it anymore?

If you replaced the pitcher in baseball with a robot so that every time at bat you were presenting the most accurate test of skill for the batter every single time then baseball games would be a lot more consistent and accurate with regard to the skills of their team for only the sacrifice of one overly glorified position... but who the feck would watch a single game?

I don't know... I just don't see what the big deal is now all of a sudden and not 10 gosh darn golly gee whiz years ago? Hell the pro gaming circles flocked to Counterstrike away from the likes of Quake and CS fundamentally has randomness in pretty much every weapon in the game. Why didn't anybody complain then? Complaining about it now is too gosh darn golly gee whiz late. This is old news. It's been a major part of nearly every FPS game's design for at least a decade.

Risk management and not merely aiming skill is a fundamental part of games now. It goes right in there with tactics, strategy, and teamwork. If you want to know who the truly best players in Halo:Reach are then they have to actually play Halo:Reach. But if this is too big a pill for MLG to swallow then I encourage MLG and all it's players to petition Bungie for permission to get whatever changes their hearts desire and ride their custom game into obscurity. May the next league show more vision.

[mannon]

I didn't really address the dying thing. It's true that when you die in a game it shouldn't be just 100% random.

But you have to remember, it isn't 100% random. A big part of the game is risk management. When you get into a one on one fight with someone you're betting that you can take them down before they can take you down, but you don't know it for a fact. You have to guess at your odds of coming out ahead given the whole realm of possible ways they may respond to you and if you don't like your odds, then you should disengage and work to find a fight that does favor you.

When you play a hand of poker the cards fully 100% mechanically by chance determine which player should win that hand. But poker players don't play the cards, they play each other. The same happens in a firefight. I think that the disconnect here is in skilled players assuming that they who pace their shots should win by default instead of recognizing that in going up against a player that is not pacing they are accepting the risk that they may lose that fight due to random chance. The key here is you don't always have to get into that situation in the first place. Sometimes you may get cornered into it, but then again, that too can be seen as your fault for getting yourself into a bad position and not leaving yourself a chance to escape.

The point is, this isn't just some random coin toss that happens whenever the game decides it's going to happen and if it comes up tails you die. It's a situation you know from the beginning might very well happen. For that matter you can use it too. It's a gamble, but don't be fooled into thinking risk management it-self requires no skill. It's one of the most difficult skills to master.

This is why I am not in favor of games being dumbed down to almost pure hand-eye coordination battles. I like games that test a players tactics, risk management, and other purely mental skills. It's harder to measure those consistently, but in my opinion far more rewarding.

Pong would suffice for a pure hand-eye coordination test.

[skitrel]

Hmm, while you have used some awful comparisons, I actually agree with you on your entire point about risk management. I agree that it's a necessary part of the game, but risk management is still present in the game even if you remove the luck factor. Like you said, you're still going up against the many possibilities of what could occur during the exchange.

I'm not going to touch on your comparison with poker, I think that's completely irrelevant, the same comparison was made in this discussion on MLG and many poker players jumped on top of it as being just plain stupid. I can understand that you're trying to find something with real world relevance to being a professional game based on chance, but it bares no other similarities.

The baseball scenario is just silly, there's no luck involved here, it's pitcher skill versus batter skill. Why would anyone suggest removing pitcher skill from the equation in favour of a machine? There's no luck involved between a batter and a pitcher. I understand that you might be trying to suggest that the decision making between whether he might pitch a ball or a strike is a factor, but psychological decision here is a skill, not luck. When compared to Reach, there is no skill in deciding what might happen in a 1v1 confrontation of paced DMR vs Spammed, the situation is entirely based on luck and is almost split 50/50 at mid range. This means that 2 skilled players up against each other (pros rarely miss aim and thus the mitigating factors can be ignored) will always be luck based. A team playing worse than a good team WILL win on occasion thanks to simple luck. That's just cheating a better team out of their deserved win.

On your Counter Strike comparison, actually, CS has never been random, not one bit. The bloom on CS weapons is entirely predictable, the bullets from different weapons are entirely focused into different areas of the bloom, it was a skill in itself to be able to control where you bullets go while on full auto. There was no luck involved in CS at all I'm afraid, this is why it was the king of competitive fps for so long. I still drop in now and then, although I suck these days and I swear it's still full of aimbotters.

"This is why I am not in favor of games being dumbed down to almost pure hand-eye coordination battles. I like games that test a players tactics, risk management, and other purely mental skills. It's harder to measure those consistently, but in my opinion far more rewarding."

While I agree with you on your points about risk management, I believe all of these things are still entirely present when you remove the element of luck. Without luck the skill gap becomes bigger, players with more skill will always win 1v1. I think we're in total agreement that 99.9% of competitive fights are NEVER 1v1 though, thus they still have all the other risk factors. A skilled player is a poor player unless he's great at teamwork. A team of mediocre players with great teamwork will always beat skilled players with no teamwork.

[nimrod6134]

Oct 4, 2010 21:53:25 GMT -5 skitrel said:

A team playing worse than a good team WILL win on occasion thanks to simple luck. That's just cheating a better team out of their deserved win.

Couldn't this be applied to just about every form competition?

And for the sake of argument, since one can't quantify luck or even prove it exists, saying some wins are due to luck seems completely irrelevant.

[skitrel]

Oct 5, 2010 18:06:33 GMT -5 nimrod6134 said:

Oct 4, 2010 21:53:25 GMT -5 skitrel said:

A team playing worse than a good team WILL win on occasion thanks to simple luck. That's just cheating a better team out of their deserved win.

Couldn't this be applied to just about every form competition?

And for the sake of argument, since one can't quantify luck or even prove it exists, saying some wins are due to luck seems completely irrelevant.

You can certainly quantify luck when it comes to a video game that employs a random number generator as a factor. Being lucky simply implies that in said game you won due to getting multiple dice rolls in your favour.

[n1gh7]

This is why skill gap is important. Luck.

[mannon]

Of course my examples weren't direct corollaries to the game. I can't really think of any that are. I only used them to make some points and didn't want to sit here thinking up better examples.

I still think they are relevant, though. For the baseball one it is your contention that the batter vs pitcher dynamic is purely based on the skills of the players, but I assure you it is not. There is no pitcher in the world that is absolutely 100% consistent every time. Sure, the more skilled they are the more consistent they get. But some level of physical inconsistency is simply part and parcel of using a human to do a physical task. Not to mention factors such as weather, wear and tear and defects in equipment, ect... In fact these are very much the same sorts of random factors that affect the firing of a weapon and someone's ability to compensate for the recoil, which is what is being modeled by the bloom effect in game. Granted it is a simplistic model and not a simulation, but then it is a game and not a military training device.

I was merely pointing out that every single physical competitive sport in the world has random variables... and yet they manage.

As for poker, I'm not comparing halo to poker. I merely use poker as an example of a game with a huge level of random variables that can be decisive, and yet it is entirely possible to have professional level competition without the need to remove those variables.

I think we have two main points of disagreement here. The first and most fundamental is our points of view. You are focused almost purely on the competitive side of things and I obviously am on the other end of it, the gaming for fun side. What you want is a game to be what you see as the purest possible competition and I mainly want it to be fun, though obviously I also want skills and tactics, ect to be useful. I can understand your desire to have this mythical almost randomness free game for competitive use. The problem for me is, what does that have to do with Halo? MLG doesn't own Halo, and Bungie doesn't owe MLG a damn thing. Bungie made a game that's fun, for hundreds of thousands of fans to buy and enjoy. In my opinion if MLG chooses to use a game in their competitions then they should use the game as it was built and intended to be played by Bungie, not beg for the basic fundamentals of the game to be altered strictly for their use. That, to me, comes off as extremely conceited. MLG simply is not that important or relevant to me.

I also do not understand why now, why specifically Halo:Reach? FPS Shooters have had random variables to varying degrees from the beginning and it has been a major factor in where your shots land in pretty much every major FPS for the past decade or so. What, frankly, is so special about Halo:Reach vs past Halo's, Gears of War 1 & 2, and Rainbo Six Vegas 1 & 2? You say the BR was perfectly accurate and I don't dispute that, but that's only one weapon, and frankly, that very factor pretty much made the BR OP. Though for competition weapon balance really isn't relevant, in fact if everyone has the same weapon it actually just helps eliminate more variables.

As for CS I do understand that it did not use a cone of fire the way Halo's bloom, CoD's hipfire, and many other games do, but it still had random variables even if recoil tended to make a T shaped pattern that was more predictable. In fact if anything the predictability just made it easier to go flat out full auto rather than pacing shots to mitigate the effect. In other words the more predictable the recoil is the less relevant it becomes. If there is no penalty for going full auto then why bother modeling recoil at all? The very point is to add a penalty for firing a weapon at it's maximum ROF.

But this brings me to our second point of disagreement. Your contention is that spammers aren't penalized, that they just ruin the game. Your example of a pacer vs a spammer having 50/50 odds seems a vast oversimplification of the gameplay ramifications of bloom.

Whenever the bloom is smaller than the size of the target it is technically possible to achieve a 100% chance of hitting the target, at least with theoretically perfect aim. The more distant the target the smaller the bloom must be to achieve this, or whatever desired level of reliability is desired for any given shot and thus the slower the pacing should be. It is not simply a matter of pacers vs spammers. Everyone should spam at point blank range and then as range increases begin pacing their shots slower and slower, eventually winding up at full pacing where bloom has contracted completely. Exactly how much one should pace their shots for a given range, however, is entirely up to the operator and their own assessment of how much risk of missing any given shot they are willing to accept.

Is there a point where full blown pacing vs full blown spamming will result in 50/50 outcomes? Sure, it will be a discrete range. Anything inside that range and the spammer would have an edge, while outside that range the pacer would have the edge. But then again, at the said 50/50 range neither full blown pacing nor full blown spamming would achieve the best results. It should be possible to find a half pacing measure in between the two which on average beats both full pacers and full spammers.

All of that is completely range dependent and both the size of the bloom as well as how fast it recovers has been tweaked to give the weapons specific levels of reliable and unreliable lethality at different ranges.

If you remove the bloom and allow a weapon to fire at it's full rate of fire with no penalty then you vastly OP that weapon at long range.

If you slow down the maximum ROF for a weapon so that it can no longer fire before the bloom has rest then you have massively nerfed the weapon in close range.

The bloom is an integral part of the game mechanics and balancing.


Here's where we go back to our different points of view. Your contention is that it is possible to build a game without the randomness of the bloom mechanic that still has tactics and risk assessment, ect. I don't dispute that, but I do believe simply taking it out of an existing game designed around it will hurt that game and the tactical and risk assessment possibilities within it. I contend that it is possible to have professional level competition even with the random variables that the bloom mechanic introduces, and that when it comes to dealing with an existing and predesigned game it is better to leave well enough alone and deal with it.

I do understand your desire for what you see as the ideal game or as close to it as you can get for competition, but I do not see why any specific game should be expected to cater to those desires unless it was specifically commissioned and paid for by MLG. (Which, frankly, might not be a bad idea.)