A Needed Change

[Legendary Nova]

Another thing that this whole draft hasn't really talked about is what happens after. If it were to happen, have you really thought about the next few weeks, because I don't really see a lot of good happening. First, the people opposed to the draft will leave, you can't pretend like they won't. After that, how will the squads truly be put together? Mixing skill levels doesn't sound like it would work too well. Imagine someone like me - that casual, non-caring type - being put into a squad with the hardcore players - the ones who sweat their faces off to be the best they can - to 'even the skill'. I'd be like that 10 year old cousin that your mom just said you have to play with on Halo, even though you're right in the middle of a 4-player LASO run. One of three things will happen:

1. You're forced to switch out one of your friends playing LASO for me. I die a lot, I get frustrated, you all get frustrated. Nobody has fun.

2. You lower the difficulty to easy. It is ridiculously straightforward and you're no longer enjoying yourself, but at least I won't go complain to your mom.

3. You give me a controller that's not connected and pretend that you're all playing with me, even though I'm obviously not, but from your mom's perspective, I'm still playing with you, so it's all good. (It's not)

Now translate that to the FC squad draft and you get my point...

[NervyDestroyer]

Listen, you all have good intentions and I respect that. But the methods are more important than the cause. You can't bring about peace by going to war. A draft sounds good on paper, but a great many things sound good on paper. I can tell you right now that a draft is a really bad idea. I'm not opposed to change, but there must be another solution. Forcing people to get along is not possible. Different cultures, different playstyles. Don't get into a "well come up with a better solution." That's settling. We don't just settle. There is a good solution. This is not it. Too many bads. If everyone here could just tolerate each other, we'd be in good times. You don't have to like someone, but tolerate them. A draft is not the solution. There are so many issues that WILL arise if we implement it...

[Rokkman X]

Halo is dead to me at this point. I'm probably just gonna end up having a yearly LAN party of Halo 2 with my buddies and dropping the franchise.

[Fuzzy]

Fuzzy:
I was under the impression that 2 squads were moved to red either as a direct result of or a side effect of firestorm. But it's really ancient history though. I was only saying things might have been different.

Thanks for volunteering for it Souls.

Ohhhhh you are talking about 'The Solution'. After the events of Firestorm, Mythonian and I devised a solution to try to balance the armies the best we could and to bring leadership into the ruins of REDD HC as the old REDD leaders had all left by this point. Resistance transferred two squads worth of people over to REDD and Myth and I were to take leadership positions to repair REDD as best as we could. I also believe Anarchy was part of the transfer to BLUE and he ended up being General over in BLUE. It wasn't perfect but it was the best we could do at the time to make FC fully operational again.

[Silko]

Please don't get Fuzzy started on the events after firestorm. He won't ever shut up about it. Trust me, I have hearing it for 3 fucking years.

[Houdini]

First, the people opposed to the draft will leave, you can't pretend like they won't.

This may be cruel, but people are leaving already. People are leaving because they hate MCC. People are leaving because of the drama and lack of respect in FC. People are leaving because their friends are leaving. People are leaving in general. More people leaving because of a draft probably will not change the mass exodus of Halo players from the community with the exception that we will be losing players who either oppose the change on the grounds that it is a change or people who oppose the change because they are no longer with their friends. As harsh as this may be, I would be okay with losing both of those types of people with the understanding that the war would run more smoothly with even numbers, even skill, and hopefully a more united community.

That said, losing people sucks. We are losing people already and if somebody has a solution that will retain all of the current community members and stop this exodus that would be pretty awesome. There really isn't a rush for a solution, but we need to start generating ideas if we are going to make any progress.

After that, how will the squads truly be put together? Mixing skill levels doesn't sound like it would work too well. Imagine someone like me - that casual, non-caring type - being put into a squad with the hardcore players - the ones who sweat their faces off to be the best they can - to 'even the skill'.

I don't really think that there is a significant difference between what is left of the casual community in FC and what is left of the ultra competitive community in FC. Yes, some people are better halo players than others, but the old stigma of being in that ultra-compettive group and not wanting to play with anybody else seems to have died off as all of those members have left because MCC is inherently not supportive of an ultra competitive environment.

With such a small community left, there really isn't a way to avoid either complete polarization because we have one skilled team and one unskilled team per army or integrating skilled and unskilled players into 2 equally moderately skilled squads. If people were to agree to play the same team over and over again (I would be in favor of this above everything else), then we wouldn't have any issues with skill (provided the armies had roughly equal skill in such teams <- this would be provided by a draft). Since the majority held belief is that everybody should play everybody on battle nights, we are either going to have to accept blow out matches with scores being doubled and people being spawn trapped or we are going to have to find a way to integrate the ultra competitive players with the casuals. I simply cannot see another alternative given the size of the community.

[Houdini]

Listen, you all have good intentions and I respect that. But the methods are more important than the cause. You can't bring about peace by going to war. A draft sounds good on paper, but a great many things sound good on paper. I can tell you right now that a draft is a really bad idea. I'm not opposed to change, but there must be another solution. Forcing people to get along is not possible. Different cultures, different playstyles. Don't get into a "well come up with a better solution." That's settling. We don't just settle. There is a good solution. This is not it. Too many bads. If everyone here could just tolerate each other, we'd be in good times. You don't have to like someone, but tolerate them. A draft is not the solution. There are so many issues that WILL arise if we implement it...

I don't think we should settle, but I would be shocked if whatever decision the community ultimately comes to doesn't have some negative consequences.

When I say come up with a better solution, I don't intend to imply that anybody should have some well thought out plan. I simply want to hear other ideas that we can discuss and work as a community to come up with the well thought out plan that is worth implementing. It is hard for us to have a conversation when there is a lot of negativity of people denying different things instead of having everybody constantly throwing out off the wall ideas. Honestly it doesn't matter if you think it won't solve every problem. If an idea solves a single problem, it is possible that it could be worked in to a perfect solution that addresses everybody's concerns.

It is hard (probably impossible) to come up with a solution that will please everybody if we don't have ideas.

[bazongaman502]

Ohhhhh you are talking about 'The Solution'. After the events of Firestorm, Mythonian and I devised a solution to try to balance the armies the best we could and to bring leadership into the ruins of REDD HC as the old REDD leaders had all left by this point. Resistance transferred two squads worth of people over to REDD and Myth and I were to take leadership positions to repair REDD as best as we could. I also believe Anarchy was part of the transfer to BLUE and he ended up being General over in BLUE. It wasn't perfect but it was the best we could do at the time to make FC fully operational again.

I was in REDD HC at the time, Ghost was FM. I remember he pulled his entire HC into a party chat and told all of us to step down until the balance issues are solved. I didn't really agree with stepping down, but I was kinda boxed into it because my only options were 1) Step Down 2) Become FM. And at that point, I didn't want to be FM

[MorphEEus II]

Hi I'm morpheenn I like to finally show up to battle nights when there's only me and one other guy from my squad, so we get put together with people I've never seen before. I had a lot of fun and I just learned how to spell, if people where more like me they would be happy, but I'm awesome so it's ok if your not like me. You guys need to be happy, join me next time during battle nights and you to can be happy.

[Anarchy]

Hi I'm morpheenn I like to finally show up to battle nights when there's only me and one other guy from my squad, so we get put together with people I've never seen before. I had a lot of fun and I just learned how to spell, if people where more like me they would be happy, but I'm awesome so it's ok if your not like me. You guys need to be happy, join me next time during battle nights and you to can be happy.

Give this man an award.