Honestly, the H3 system worked well (I don't remember how the H2 system worked), the only thing was that it was a tad bit confusing with playlist separate rankings.
The betrayals in Arena are complete BS. If I get the rockets and someone on the other team wounds me, my teammate will finish me off and pick them up. There is no real incentive to win, so nobody plays as a team. I can't stand the lack of teamplay in a team game. They have effectively cut down all the boosters and cheaters by making the game worthless to play.
They need to bring back the H2 ranking system for ranked games. They can easily tweak it to make it much better. This new system is beyond broken.
Other than that, I wasn't really impressed with anything. The story of Halo is pretty good, but I think Bungie is horrible at telling it. I don't know if it's just how they tell the story or they just don't give enough detail, but I've always found that when I finish a Halo game, I'm really not 100% on what I just did or what all happened. There's just something about how it's presented that it doesn't immediately click with me. I've heard this complaint from others before, so I'm not the only one.
I didn't get a chance to play H2 but from what my friends told me, if there wasn't cheating in H2, it would've been the best Halo so far.
Speaking of which, looks like the cap should lift pretty soon:
Level caps can make a game boring depending on how you play it. Were there no prestiging on CoD I probably wouldn't like it nearly as much, the fun of the game for me isn't in the winning and such, it's in starting from scratch and earning my gear. Heck, if I could just play levels 1-50 over and over I would.
Since I hit the level cap in Reach my interest has dropped noticably.
so level caps make a game boring? interesting..
If there is no end-game after hitting the level cap, I can see a game getting boring, unless you just like the gameplay that much. I'm one who needs the meta-game in order to keep interest in a title after beating it or playing a few rounds online. The advent of achievements and multiplayer systems as found in the newer FPS titles has really helped me get a lot more bang for my buck out of games.
If there is no end-game after hitting the level cap, I can see a game getting boring, unless you just like the gameplay that much. I'm one who needs the meta-game in order to keep interest in a title after beating it or playing a few rounds online. The advent of achievements and multiplayer systems as found in the newer FPS titles has really helped me get a lot more bang for my buck out of games.
i guess im more on the side of halo type fps where the weapons are on the ground and you pick them up... that or teamfortress like class based selection.
The only problem I have is there is no true skill based ranking system. The Arena rating is completely flawed and should be scrapped. The Halo 2 team win based system made for amazing high level play and kept the playing field extremely level. If you won you went up and if you lost you went down. It was simple and the flaws with the Xbox and the Live system at the time allowed cheats and exploits. Those problems have since been fixed and the days of a team based ranking should be brought back.
Sadly, everyone wants this XP grind out the next level no matter how skilled you are rank crap.
i guess im just a sucker for gameplay then. rpg elements in fps are just added stuff. thats the main thing i hate about cod is unlocking weapons. just give me everything.
i guess im more on the side of halo type fps where the weapons are on the ground and you pick them up... that or teamfortress like class based selection.
I have a good time with COD, but I enjoy team games more. COD is just a bunch of players split into 2 groups with each person doing his own thing. I hardly ever saw teamwork being used. I think its mostly because of how easy it is to kill or get killed. By the time you spot someone you are either dead or have already killed them. Theres not much point in calling out their position in most cases.
Really they need to look at kill ratio and win ratio more than levels. I played a game on MW2 yesterday where a 1st prestige lvl 20 guy was ahead of 2/3 of the other players. Rank means nothing.