A Needed Change

[Houdini]

There are three main issues that seem to cause problems in FC.

1. Numbers Balance:
Nobody likes waiting for matches. This has been a persistent issues for a long time and has not been fixed despite multiple attempts of transferring squads.

2. Skill Balance:
Nobody likes losing every match (and most people don't like winning blow out matches). FC is suppose to be about having fun. It is hard to have fun when the other team has 10x as many points as your team.

3. Drama:
There are many issues in this community; we shouldn't be making more by causing drama.

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If anybody has a better suggestion for how to fix these issues, please share. If you want to dispute that these are problems that need to be addressed before the next war, I'm more than happy to point you to plenty of evidence about why these are problems in our community.

My solution is simple, albeit highly controversial: a FC player draft.

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Things to consider:

1. How do we determine who is eligible to be drafted?
This is something that would need fine tuning and much discussion. I think a good starting point would be using the voters in the FM elections. If you are active enough to vote for FM, you are active enough to be drafted into an army. In addition, if you played during the last war you are probably active enough to be drafted. It would be up to the discretion of FMs to determine how heavily to weight skill, predicted activity, and leadership abilities when picking players.

2. How do we handle new recruits?
The easiest solution is to move away from the "Redd Enlistment Office" and "Blue Enlistment Office" and move towards a "Forerunner Conflict Enlistment Office". Attendance would be taken after each battle night, and the army with the lower attendance would be given the new recruits. When the army numbers are balanced alternate army destinations. New members joining to play with friends could be handled by a mutual agreement between the FMs to make an exception.

3. Who does a player draft hurt?
Higher skilled squads and established squads of friends will be separated. There really isn't a good solution to this issue. As somebody coming from a well established squad (I'd also like to think I'm somewhat skilled), I feel strongly that higher skilled and well established squads are the best candidates to bear the burden of a change to improve the community. Skilled players will be skilled regardless of their teammates, the only difference is that they won't dominate every match (this is a good thing). Established squads have friends in FC. They will still be friends no matter who they are playing with on battle nights.

4. Who does a player draft help?
Fragmented squads, new members, and weaker squads benefit. Fragmented squads will be replaced with newly formed squads of members with a variable level of skill. Those players will have new friends and hopefully a good system of squad leadership. New members will not be intimidated by long standing cliques of squads and will be welcome into the new squads like any other community member. Weaker squads will be disbanded and replaced with more moderately skilled squads alleviating blow outs on battle nights.

5. Why a player draft is reasonable?
According to the definition of a squad listed in the forums, a squad is 8 people (CO, XO, 6 enlisted). We are struggling to get 20 people at battle nights at times. Let's say we have a draft pool of a little over 32 people. We'll have 2 squads per army. With a community this small, there should be no issues with people making friends and playing with whatever small portion of the community they don't already know. We are here for the same reasons (fun, respect, halo). We should be able to find a way to play together.

6. How to distribute players into each squad?
How the drafted players are distributed into the two squads within each army is crucial for the success of the draft. If squads are polarized by skill, the draft loses it's effectiveness. The FMs need to assign a squad for each player drafted preferably in a systematic order (1st pick squad A, 2nd pick squad B, 3rd A, 4th, B, etc.).

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How a player draft is a solution to the three problems I identified at the beginning of this post:

1. Numbers Balance:
Clearly all numbers balanced problems will be fixed if the players are selected one at a time. The only potential issue with numbers balance would be if the FM makes poor decisions when selecting his army. Essentially the numbers issue would rest solely on the FMs to have done enough research about the activity level of the players they are drafting.

2. Skill Balance:
This is similar to the Numbers Balance. In an ideal system this would be resolved trivially. How effective a draft is at resolving skill balance would depend on how effectively the FMs research the player pool and make educated decisions about who to draft.

3. Drama
The only way I know of resolving drama is to have everybody be friends. Numbers are low in the community right now, if we can't find a way to be friends when we can barely get 20 people to show up on battle nights we have a problem. I truly believe there will be less drama in FC if more people are friends with each other and have the FC first mentality instead of an army first mentality. A player draft will break established squad cliques and will compel players to make new friends in the community. Of course everybody who is already friends will still be friends and will probably still play together, but now everybody will have new friends in their new squads.

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Overall, a squad draft puts the burden on the higher skilled, well established squad cliques at the player level and on the FM at the leadership level. Those are the right groups to be bearing the burden of a change because they have the best chance of handling the burden successfully.

[Seerow]

I am for this though I will say I think a war director should be involved in the drafting part of the plan. preferably one that knows most of our skilled veteran and can also gauge our newer members decently. (is now waiting for someone to scream something about firestorm.)

[Breezy]

I'm am also for this Houdini. I really don't have much to say but clearly you took it all out of my mouth.

[Seerow]

besides, I feel were gonna need something like this come Halo 5. we dont want to put the influx of new members in some half dead squad. that'll discourage them from wanting to stay and with decrease in blow out victories/losses I think it provide funner nights for both new and old members.

[W3z4b1]

The only way I know of resolving drama is to have everybody be friends.

Why can't weeeeeee be friends

[Silko]

Well atleast this one suggest a solution and doesn't play the he said she said game. I'm too out of touch with the feel of the community to make a comment about if this would work or not at this point. It is refreshing to see someone actually try to bring positive change to the community rather then just moaning about it and asking others to fix it.

[Legendary Nova]

While I agree to an extent with the problems you have pointed out, I must disagree with your solution. Although it would work perfectly in theory, a draft of any kind always forgets about a crucial point: Human Nature.

Humans, by design, are naturally stubborn. We are hard-wired to want, and try in all our power to get exactly that. We also feel the need to be in control of our surroundings, and in siuations where we are not in control we feel unease. Online, this is much more severe, as we are left mostly without consequence for wanting and trying. This loss of control is what would happen were we to do an FC wide draft. Taking people from the squads they have chosen based on their own will and placing them in another squad/army, no matter how optimized or perfect it would be in theory, is going to cause unrest in the members you have moved. You have taken their ability to choose their squad and army, and they won't like it because they're no longer in control.

Secondly, the same sort of human nature can be used to explain motivation in FC. When an FC member chooses their army and squad, they're choosing it because they like it or they think they'll fit in there. This positive initial connection with one's personal choice sort of self-motivates them to invest time and effort into said choice, because as I've said, it's their choice. Player drafting once again removes this, and members will be less inclined to invest their personal resources in something they had no choice in being a part of. You choose things based on positives. When you're placed into something without input, you'll much more easily be able to point out the problems and they become much more noticeable.

The last thing about this ties in with both my motivation and control points. When there is something you don't like but have to do, one of two things will happen: You'll either keep on doing it, getting more and more frustrated with each time you do it, or you'll stop doing it and remove yourself from whatever is telling you to do that thing you don't like. In FC, this same thing will happen: The members who have more willing to stay invested in this community will stay, even if they don't like it, but they'll definitely not enjoy themselves. Week after week they'll get more and more upset about it. This usually leads to the other way of dealing with something you don't like. Once the dedicated members have lost enough interest, or for the less inclined members, what they'll probably do straight away, they'll just get up and leave, dropping the numbers even more than they already are. This is especially true on the internet. All you have to do is click that little button in the top right of your screen or that glowing white sensor on the front of your console, and you're out. No more being told what to do, no more loss of investment, no more frustration. They'll just leave for good. Why would anyone want to stay in something that they lose investment in and receive little benefit? This whole point is very clear when you compare the drafting with something like MCC vs Firestorm*: It sucked, it didn't work, barely anyone liked it. The devs/HighCom thought it would be a great idea. It didn't work, the fanbase/community got smaller and smaller, the more invested players stayed, albeit with increasing levels of frustration, and it messed up the Halo/FC community a lot in the process. You've seen how many people have left FC thanks to MCC, imagine how many others would go too if they have their freedom in the community stripped by a player draft...

*We all knew someone was going to bring it up

[Solus Exsequor]

It's a great idea, do it. I think I suggested it many months, maybe over a year ago. Something has to change

[silversleek(GEN)]

*hisses from the shadows*

and yet,

Well atleast this one suggest a solution and doesn't play the he said she said game. I'm too out of touch with the feel of the community to make a comment about if this would work or not at this point. It is refreshing to see someone actually try to bring positive change to the community rather then just moaning about it and asking others to fix it.

[NervyDestroyer]

If this happens I'm leaving. Simple as that. I am vehemently opposed to this. A squad draft could be considered, but if you try to make a player draft and tear apart my squad whom I consider some of my closest friends, I will take it as an attack. That is all I'm saying on the matter.