A Needed Change

[Houdini]

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.

That is a good point. The War Director(s) should be involved to ensure fairness.

It's also worth noting that I made the assumption that it would be the FMs doing the drafting for the sake of the argument; however, there could also be some sort of pre-draft to get each armies HC picked and then have the HC members assist the FM during the draft.

[Houdini]

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.

I never really thought of this as an issue mostly because I have idealized this as us all hopefully finding a way to be friends. How is this any different than having your fire team determined by the squad leader on Battle nights? You have no control (almost no control) over who you are playing with on Battle Nights, but everybody is still willing to play for the sake of their army (or maybe because they just ant to have fun). This would just be a slightly larger scale (image a squad of 16 people).

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.

I think this is one of the biggest problems with FC. Players should not be feeling an emotional connection with their army. They should have an emotional connection with the community. Your bringing up one of the reasons I think a squad draft would be extremely useful for us. When you have an emotional connection with your army, you are less likely to compromise for the sake of the community because you are simply motivated to do what is best for your army. If we remove those connections we'll have a lot less nitpicky issues on battle nights because people want to see what is best for the community as a whole.

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?

Isn't this what we have seen during the last war (and the last several wars for that matter)? We've been addressing these same problems time and time again with squad transfers. Now look at the progress that has made... We still have the issues and if anything, the community is even smaller. The failure of squad transfers may very well be your point about motivation (who wants to be shipped off to a different army to play). One of the biggest issues with squad transfers is that you are losing the granularity necessary to make an optimal decision. If the transfer is on a player by player base, the HC/WC/WD/FM have more control over making the balance changes maximally effective in all categories.

Maybe I missed it, but what was your alternative suggestion to the problems I presented and you agreed with as being problems?

[Houdini]

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.

What squads would we even use in a squad draft? Redd Mix, Blue Mix? With a community this small, we hardly have enough people to make 2 squads per army and most of the squads are extremely polarized and/or fragmented. We would have to force squads to combine before it would even make sense to do a squad draft. Then we're doing the same thing of forcing people to go places without the precision control a player draft has.

Why would you no longer be friends with/play with your closest friends if you weren't in the same squad? All that should change is that you'll make new friends and play with slightly different people on Battle Nights. At least for your individual case, you play with people who aren't in your squad in HC tiebreakers on battle nights. Why aren't you vehemently opposed to the tiebreakers breaking apart squads?

[NervyDestroyer]

What squads would we even use in a squad draft? Redd Mix, Blue Mix? With a community this small, we hardly have enough people to make 2 squads per army and most of the squads are extremely polarized and/or fragmented. We would have to force squads to combine before it would even make sense to do a squad draft. Then we're doing the same thing of forcing people to go places without the precision control a player draft has.

Why would you no longer be friends with/play with your closest friends if you weren't in the same squad? All that should change is that you'll make new friends and play with slightly different people on Battle Nights. At least for your individual case, you play with people who aren't in your squad in HC tiebreakers on battle nights. Why aren't you vehemently opposed to the tiebreakers breaking apart squads?

Tiebreakers? What are you talking about? When we (Renegade) do bad, we deal with it together. When we do good, we celebrate. I play with many other people from FC. What you're proposing is to force people with other people with no regard to compatibility. You're not going to like everyone you meet in FC. This is am attempt at Socialism and as history had dictated for many many years, Socialism does not work. Simple.

[Houdini]

Tiebreakers? What are you talking about? When we (Renegade) do bad, we deal with it together. When we do good, we celebrate. I play with many other people from FC. What you're proposing is to force people with other people with no regard to compatibility. You're not going to like everyone you meet in FC. This is am attempt at Socialism and as history had dictated for many many years, Socialism does not work. Simple.

I'm sorry I misunderstood what you were saying.

I understand you point behind wanting to stick with a squad and bond, but doing that creates a negative atmosphere for the community in general. When conflict comes up between squads it is much easier to resolve the conflict if you have good friends on both sides. That is one of the goals of a player draft is to remove this I like my squad and only my squad so we have less drama overall.

If you are this opposed to a player draft, what is your proposed solution(s) to fix the numbers and/or skill balance and also decrease drama in the community?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Guzzie]

You are heavily overestimating the "positives" of what a draft would potentially do to the community and heavily undermining the negatives it would bring to our community.


Before you counter my response with "If you are this opposed to a player draft, what is your proposed solution(s) to fix the numbers and/or skill balance and also decrease drama in the community?", I will say this. There is not clear cut “fix” to the issues the community is currently going through. If there was one, we would have implemented it a long time ago, even before the current issues with the MCC surfaced.


There are multiple things to keep in mind that you seem to be missing on your suggestion. The first thing is, there will always be drama. No matter what you do, given the natural setting of a war sim community (placing a group of individuals, together against another), drama is a natural byproduct of putting people of different backgrounds, ideologies and ages into one melting pot. Suggesting a “change” that has been problematic in the past and saying it will eliminate drama is a bit presumptuous.
Another thing to consider is the number of people that are with us right now, more specifically, the people that are sticking with us through a decaying Halo community and a broken game. A lot of them are veterans, or at least, have been in the community for some time. A lot of them have formed friendships and bonds with other community members, and the only reason they show up on Sundays is because their squad mates/squad leaders are asking them to. Take that away and there will be no reason for some to show up at all.


One last thing I would like to mention is the state of the Halo community overall. The latest matchmaking numbers showed that the MCC is not even in the top 10 games being played on Xbox live. There are barely 2000 players playing MCC at a given time. MCC is being beat by BF 4 and BF hardline, both games that are technically the same. (keep in mind these figures are pre the new map and ODST release, but I highly doubt these “new” features will affect matchmaking numbers dramatically. Personally do not feel inclined to go play ODST or MCC because of these "new" features and I am sure many others feel the same way). Add factors such as army specific recruitment efforts and you have a slight difference in the inflow of new recruits as well as the retainment of said recruits. Number imbalance in my mind is a non-issue compared to the actual number of active community members. As a community, we have made internal fixes to this many times, having individuals and whole squads transfer to keep the numbers as equal and balanced as possible (Latest example of this was Equinox being sent to Redd army).

I do appreciate the effort you put into your thread, but such a drastic/problematic measure, with no guarantee of actually working and with plenty of negative precedent behind it is something that we should try to stay away from. Specially given the state the community (both internally and externally) is currently in.

[Drth spartan]

So What if we did this draft but then do not make it mandatory (At first) So that we can say "hey this leader wants you to be part of his squad, this is who is part of the squad do you want to join it" and see if people do change voluntary thus making teams more even but then if no one moves then make it mandatory.

just a thought

[bazongaman502]

As I recall the last time this happened, it split the community even further apart and pissed a lot of people off

[bazongaman502]

So What if we did this draft but then do not make it mandatory (At first) So that we can say "hey this leader wants you to be part of his squad, this is who is part of the squad do you want to join it" and see if people do change voluntary thus making teams more even but then if no one moves then make it mandatory.

just a thought

^^^ Because that is what lead to Firestorm and it pissed just about everyone off causing even more problems (including drama) than what was trying to be fixed.

It sounds like a good idea, but this will not fix anything. Just gonna cause more people to be upset and eventually cause people to leave. I know me as well as others would not want to go through 2 Firestorm in our careers

[Maxdoggy]

Basically what Guzzie said.

Legacy already doesn't really show up for battles. If you try to split up the mainly non-attending remnants of that squad, you're gonna have no Legacy at all. I predict the same would happen to a group like VbD and Bellator, where there are legit IRL ties to other members.

A volunteer draft would be fine if it was completely optional. Say a player wanted a fresh experience but didn't know where to go, he or she could put his name in the proverbial hat and the two FM's could draft them into an army. I'd be fine with that (for those individuals who would want such a thing).