So you’ve wanted to get out onto the Covenant ship? You’ve wanted to fly around more freely in the Sabre? Here’s a neat trick to do so. It will require you and another person (or second controller).

I off to go play some LNOS!

Okay, this week’s weekly challenge is EASY. It just takes time is all and not as much as you might think.

My gawd, I hit over 31 million credits banked over the weekend in Halo Reach. That means along with the credits I’ve already spent to get to 100% armory completion, I would have hit Inheritor twice over now. Yep, it’s official, I have no life…

Okay the title IS misleading. I created a small map for Double Team. I call it “Archive.” It’s supposed to represent an area where there is an archive of information stored in a shield world. Similar to the “index,” but not used for purposes of firing a Halo ring.

It uses a portion of Tempest not often used. However, my map looks nothing like Tempest in that most of it is covered up with the exception of the Power Core near the back of the map.

With some lighting effects and the use of the Juicy filter, I feel I’ve come up with a map that doesn’t look like the normal multiplayer maps seen.

I’m going to put it in my fileshare later today, but for now here are some screenshots I took. Let me know what you think of it.

Via Halowaypoint.com: http://halo.xbox.com/blogs/Headlines/post/2012/02/02/The-Halo-Bulletin-2112.aspx

February Matchmaking Playlist Update

Speaking of being eternally grateful, the team that designs the Halo: Reach playlists always appreciates the feedback you leave in the Matchmaking section of our forums. They’re looking for additional feedback this month, though, so let’s dip into the specifics of the February Matchmaking playlist update, which is slated to go live on February 7, so you can find out yet another way to make your voice heard.

• Grifball updated.

Map changes include Radiant being removed and Impact Arena (Grifball) and Sierra Vista (Grifball Dash) being added. One additional change to this playlist is that Blargball variants will now appear in voting slot three only. Semi-related, to vote for that choice, you must say “wort wort wort” into your mic while simultaneously selecting that option. Please note that saying “wart wart wart” will render your selection null and void.

• Squad DLC updated.

Squad DLC’s population is dangerously low. To breathe some life into this list, we’re making a few changes. Anniversary maps have been set to optional, and Noble and Defiant maps continue to be required. We have also heard your concerns in regard to a few achievement-friendly game types still being difficult to find. In response to that, we’ve added the following objective game types to voting slot three:

Multiflag on Highlands, 1 Flag on Highlands, 1 Flag on Condemned, Invasion on Breakpoint, Crazy King in Breakpoint, 1 Flag on Breakpoint, 1 Flag on Tempest, Multiflag on Tempest, Crazy King on Tempest, Neutral Bomb on Tempest, Multiflag on Condemned, Crazy King on Condemned, Crazy King on High Noon, 1 Flag on High Noon, Crazy King on Breakneck, 1 Flag on Breakneck, Stockpile on Ridgeline, Neutral Bomb on Ridgeline, and Crazy King on Ridgeline.

• Rumble Pit updated to TU settings.

TU game types are our standard Reach Matchmaking settings with the Title Update changes. Those changes are: damage bleed enabled, modified reticle bloom, sword block removed, Armor Lock modified, and Active Camo modified.

• Infection updated.

Map changes include Sword Base being removed and The Cage replacing Uncaged. Also, we’ve noticed some feedback coming from both matchmaking and internal playtests about players getting betrayed by teammates at the beginning of games. Since that sometimes results in a less advantageous respawn position, we’ve removed friendly fire in an attempt to cut down on that particular form of griefing.

P.S. One final effort is all that remaaaaaaains, so please, dear players, just focus on the braaaaaains.

• Banshee replaced with Revenant on Breakneck.

The classic Gauss ’Hog vs. Banshee battle on Headlong will continue. We bid adieu to the flying purple thing on Breakneck, though, and welcome its hovering brethren in its place!

• Rocket ’Hog Race weighting reduced in Multi Team.

I think this game type should be renamed “Spawn in the Passenger Seat Every -Yoinking- Time.” That has absolutely nothing to do with the reweighting, by the way. I just don’t want the impending name change to take you by surprise.

• Zero Bloom moved to Competitive category, and Beta category hidden.

Zero Bloom Slayer is popular enough to be moved to the Competitive category. We’re working on what will be in the Beta category next, but it needs a little more time to marinate in order to reach its maximum important status. Keep an eye out for its return in the near future.

• Classic game types removed from Anniversary Squad, and One Bomb Damnation moved to Anniversary Classic.

Classic game types are being removed from Anniversary Squad, and One Bomb Damnation is moving to Anniversary Classic. What? I already said that? Fine then. Moving on.

• Team Slayer changes. Make your voice heard!

We are in the process of deciding if the Team Slayer playlist will be updated to TU settings. This continues to be one of the most popular playlists, so we are not taking this decision lightly. In an effort to get player feedback that’s as accurate as possible, we are going to pull voting data over a two-week period.

To do that, we’re removing one of the voting choices. That will leave you with one vanilla choice and one TU choice. We realize that ties default to the highest voting option, so in order to balance the results, vanilla will be the top selection for the first week, and TU will be the top selection for the second week. Once the results are in, we’ll analyze the data and make an informed decision.

So, participate in the Team Slayer playlist starting on February 7, and make your voice heard! Because the other option, of course, is forever holding your peace….

• Team Hotshot added to Action Sack.

Right about now you’re probably asking yourself, what is Team Hotshot? To answer that question, I grabbed the playlist designer that created this game type, and asked him a few questions.

Mr. L, I’d like to ask you, on behalf of both people reading the Bulletin this week, what exactly is Team Hotshot?

Team Hotshot is a new game type in which a player’s damage output is tied to the number of successive kills the player has achieved. When you spawn, you’re at level zero. One kill progresses you to level one, the next kill progresses you to level two, and the third kill progresses you to the third and final level. We call this the player’s “heat.” The twist is that players will notice their speed is tied to their heat level.

Congratulations on doubling your readership, by the way.

Why, thank you! Back to business, though. How did you come up with this game type?

My original idea for Team Hotshot was to have the person get stronger with every successive DMR bullet that hits a target. What it eventually morphed into was players getting stronger as they get kills. So it’s not every shot you land, but every kill you get. The tricky part was that you have this rich-keep-getting-richer economy, and there needs to be a balance for all the players who are suddenly stronger than their opponents. So, the idea was much like working your way up the weight classes of boxing; the stronger you are, the slower you are. The heavyweights in a boxing match don’t throw 120 punches per round like the featherweights do. But when you get hit with a haymaker from a heavyweight, it puts you out. They throw fewer punches but have more power behind them. Hotshots are similar. They can’t move around as quickly, but they can do more damage.

What is a good strategy when playing Team Hotshot?

You want to work with your team to protect the slower players who are putting out more damage. You also want to get those people power weapons. Here’s why: when you’re at the third level of heat, you are doing significantly more damage than a player who just spawned. For instance, one sniper shot anywhere on an enemy player will kill them. That brings up another point. Players who are ascending through the heat levels need to be more careful about their ordnance output. When one grenade can kill an enemy player, it can betray a teammate just as easily.

I wanted to help illustrate your point, so I made this rocket damage chart. I was attempting to show the radius being the same but the damage output increasing. I think I just ended up drawing a rainbow, though.

I would say A for effort, but that’s really bad. To make up for that, here are the specifics for each heat level.

Heat 0/3: 100% D.M. 100% Speed
Heat 1/3: 115% D.M. 90% Speed
Heat 2/3: 130% D.M. 85% Speed
Heat 3/3: 145% D.M. 80% Speed

Another fun thing about this game type is that players will be able to adjust heat level traits in custom games.

So, if people want to mess around with the settings themselves, they should grab the game type when they see it in Action Sack?

Yup. I’ll also upload it to the Halo Waypoint File Share shortly after the update goes live on February 7.

Via HaloWaypoint: Kat-320 is born on New Harmony. She will become part of SPARTAN-III Beta Company, eventually placed on Noble Team.

She died on Reach August 23, 2552 and the age of 22.

The weekly challenge for Reach is 200 multikills. It’s worth a good 25K credits.

This may seem daunting to some, however there is a fairly easy way to get this. Though this will depend on your style of play and willingness to spawn kill…

If you dont’ have a problem spawn killing then the easiest playlist to get this in is Griffball. Beyond that you could try Multi-team and not go for objectives but rather slay. Really that tactic can work in just about any objective playlist.

This is really a matter of choice on your part. Do you play the game as intended and the multikills come slower or do you try a slaying or spawn killing tactic to hurry up those multikill medals?

I won’t say how I’m getting this week’s weekly challenge other than I know I’ll get it and I’m more than half way there. Had I not felt ill today, I’d already have it.

Good luck folks and if you want to game with me, shoot me a game invite on LIVE. My GT is HaloFanForLife1. Be certain to say you saw this post either from my blog, Facebook, or Twitter.

I saw this in a Firefight game I played the other day and just thought it was funny.

Copied from Halo Waypoint:

“Looking for the details of the December Halo: Reach Matchmaking playlist update? Here are the specifics, in one handy-dandy bulleted list:

• Team Objective, Squad Slayer and Multi Team updated to TU settings.

TU game types are our standard Reach Matchmaking settings with the Title Update changes. Those changes are: damage bleed enabled, modified reticle bloom, sword block removed, Armor Lock modified, and Active Camo modified.

• TU Beta updated to be ZB Slayer.

The Beta category is a place where we can develop and experiment with new playlists, game types, options, and settings. So you can expect this category to stick around and be updated regularly with different experiences.

• Zero Bloom secondary weapon updated to be an Assault Rifle rather than a Pistol.

• Premium Battle removed.

We’ve adjusted the Matchmaking algorithm to match players who have DLC with other players who have DLC more often than in the past. We’ve also upped the weighting for DLC in our playlists so that you’ll see the DLC in your voting options more frequently. Also, remember that all of the Anniversary maps have been added to the majority of the playlists. The combination of these things means that you’re going to be able to enjoy your premium DLC in Matchmaking much more often than ever before.

If you would like to continue playing the game types and maps featured in this particular playlist after December’s Matchmaking update goes live, here’s a handy-dandy cheat sheet to get you started on replicating that experience.

Slayer – Visit Team Slayer, Squad Slayer, and Big Team Battle, where DLC has been weighted to show up frequently.
Objective – Visit Team Objective and Big Team Battle, where DLC has been weighted to show up frequently.
Invasion – Visit the Invasion playlist, where Invasion Breakpoint has been set to show up frequently in slot one.

• BTB voting options updated so that a developer-created map will always show up in slot one. We also rearranged and reweighted voting options (including new DLC).

• Team Slayer voting options updated so that a developer-created map will always show up in slot one. We also rearranged and reweighted voting options (including new DLC).

• Pistol tweaked to return to pre-TU behavior in TU game types.

There was a slight variance between the damage output of the DRM and the Pistol. To bring them closer, we tweaked the Pistol to do slightly less damage in the TU game types. Four shots to the body and one to the head will kill the player now, as will seven to the body. The one small difference is that where four body shots would pop your shields previously, it will not now. That’s okay, though, as shield pop means significantly less in TU game types because damage bleed is active. In other words, a fifth headshot will still result in a kill.

• MLG and Grifball playlists updated.”

End Copy/Paste

Now with this all revealed, I’m not sure how to take it. I played today in multiteam, team slayer, team objective, double team and Anniversary Squad. Earlier in the day the changes seemed to be fine. Maybe it was in part whom I was gaming with. As I gamed into the night with other friends, the playlists seemed to be a little more difficult in some ways.

Before I go further on the specific changes let me remark on what the possible outcomes could be to these changes.

1) The pull back in gamers who left Reach because it wasn’t enough like previous Halo titles

2) It further divides gamers, those that left previously still stay away, some that remained also now leave making Reach’s gamer population take even more of a hit

3) Not much changes population wise, just gamers to. Some come back to Reach, some leave Reach. So it appears then that the update did little

It remains to be seen what effect the changes will have as it’s only the first day of them. I heard complaints and congrats on both sides. I’m in the middle so far and will continue to play. Though I may once again have to change my play style.

Now onto more specifics.

Team Objective, Squad Slayer and Multiteam having TU settings. Hmm, not really liking the changes to Objective. Multiteam seems to have gotten better though as I can kill quicker. I do not play much squad slayer so no comments there.

TU Beta becomes ZB Slayer. Um, ok, again didn’t play this much and likely won’t play it much due to the changes.

Zero Bloom weapons is now AR instead of Magnum. Well that’s ok. The ZB magnum is a powerful weapon. It’s more accurate without bloom and it shoots VERY quick, so I can see people taking advantage of that. (I did to a degree in the TU Beta playlist). So the AR takes it’s place. Meh.

Premium Battle removed….WHAT! This one I’m perturbed about. I LOVED playing Premium Battle. Now there is NO 6V6 playlist. Man this stinks. Very often I have enough friends to play Premium and we rolled in it. I’m not a fan of BTB so this was a great alternative. Now that it’s gone, I’m going to be severely limited in playlists I’ll participate in.

Since Team Slayer has those wretched fan-made maps (most I think are garbage with a couple of exceptions-those being Trident and Wayont). I know that with the update more DLC maps will be in and weighted more to show up and also the first slot to vote on will always be a developer map. Still though, there are TOO MANY  fan made maps. I believe 343 needs to make a Fan Made playlist. Then I can avoid those maps altogether. I want professionally designed and tested maps.

Lastly the daily credit cap has been raised. To what amount 343 does not say. As an Inheritor credits mean nothing to me anymore. I still do the daily challenges for fun though. Still, I will all the credits I’ve earned since getting 100% armory completion would be able to be spent on something. I’ve got over 19.5 million credits and nothing to do with them. I along with many were hoping for a secondary armory when Halo Anniversary came out, to no avail.

Bringing it back to the update. As it stands now, it’s just the first day. Halo Waypoint is alight with threads about the changes and MANY of them are negative about it.

I the following video I give a running commentary on how I play this map and gametype. Tips are given throughout to help you with learning which weapons to use, when to use grenades, where to defend from, and more. The clip is the entire 8 minute long match. I hope you enjoy and may learn something from it.

First thing I’m going to suggest is going into these playlists with friends. A full team of gaming buds will go a long way into getting these achievements. Having to not rely on randoms to help you in your quest is a big stress reliever.

Here is the list of the new achievements along with a note on how to get them. All of the achievements must be had on either the Anniversary or Defiant maps as listed. This does make them a little harder to get, but not impossible.

 License to Kill
 – Anniversary: Ran over 5 people with a vehicle in a matchmade game. 75G



This can only be obtained on Breakneck or Ridgeline. Either one works fine as there are plenty of vehicles on either map. I suggest going for this in a BTB setting specifically during an objective game. The reasoning for this is that if it’s a slayer game, it’s all out shooting and you will be targeted. However, if it’s an objective game, the opposing team has to not only slay, but consider the objective to be met. That splits their concentration and makes it easier for you to run people over.  Do note though that a bomb carrier or flag runner can hop onto a mongoose or in a warthog to get away.

 Don’t Touch That!
 – Defiant: Prevented the attacking team from touching the flag in a matchmade 1-Flag CTF game. 25G

Okay, there is a stipulation here that is and isn’t told at the same time. You can not let the opposing team touch the flag during the ENTIRE game. Not just one round. If they touch it once, forget it, you won’t get the achievement in that game. This one is only tough to get due to the map and game type restrictions. It’s hard to get 1-flag on either Condemned or Highlands. Don’t forget that Uplink (the variant of Condemned) is okay for this achievement too. I would suggest  Highlands for this as I think it’s easier to defend even though it’s a bigger map. The reasoning is that you typically can see and react to an enemy quicker. On Condemned the map is small and an enemy using evade could quickly get a touch on the flag before you even see him. Since the flag is higher up on Highlands, it’s much harder to sneak up to. Just watch that grav lift in the base! Also of note, 1-flag PRO works for this achievement. I got this achievement on Condemned 1-flag PRO.



 From Hell’s Heart – 
Anniversary: Killed an enemy with their own Plasma Grenade that was stuck to you in a matchmade game. 15G

This is really EASY. If someone sticks you, simply run TO them. Yeah, you’re going to die, but you will anyway, so why not take them with you and get the achievement?

 

Paper Beats Rock
 – Defiant: Assassinated a player that just exited Armor-Lock in a matchmade game. 15G

I found this one very easy as well. I became used to using Armor Lock on Countdown, so I was well prepared for this. Use Armor Lock yourself, then when someone goes into it, get right behind them and go into armor lock as well. The moment they pop out of armor lock, you do the same. You’re EMP blast will take their shield down and BAM easy Assassination!

 All Alone – 
Defiant: Was the last surviving uninfected player in a matchmade Infection game. 10G

Here is another one with a stipulation. It’s not just being the last man standing but you must SURVIVE the full round too. So, just because you’re last man, doesn’t mean you’ll get the achievement. That can sometimes be hard enough. Lasting to the end of the round is much more difficult, hence an achievement is awarded. You’re going to have a tough time getting the right map/gametype combination. I suggest Rumble Pit. Good luck!

 

Dive Bomber – 
Anniversary: Performed a Beat Down on an enemy player while using the Jetpack during a matchmade game. 50G

This can be easy if you’ve been using Jetpack. OR it can be hard if you don’t normally use it, or like a friend of mine, use bumper jumper and can’t seem to get used to jetpacking with that controller configuration. I’m a natural at jetpack, so this came easy to me. First, try to do some damage to your target so that the beat down will kill him. Also, be sure NOT to try for the assassination. It’s been glitchy it seems as to people getting it for a full assassination versus the quick beat down.

 Emergency Room
 – Anniversary: Infect 3 players in a single round in a matchmade Infection game. 15G

Pretty straight forward here, again the only issue is getting the right map/gametype.

 Bounty Hunter
 – Anniversary: Captured 10 skulls at once in a matchmade Headhunter game. 25G

Can you say SKULLIMANJARO! Since this is on an Anniversary map, it can be hard to get. Again, go into Rumble Pit. Beyond getting the right gametype, the hard part is that only ONE person can get this in the game in a Rumble Pit match. Once you get 10 skulls at once, the game ends. It’s not like in a team Headhunter game where you can score 10 skulls and keep going. Rumble Pit is 10 at once and done. A true Skullimanjaro!

 Top Shot
 – Anniversary: Earned 3 headshots in a row in a matchmade game. 50G

VERY easy to get this. With the Magnumbeing overpowered on Anniversary maps, just pistol away.



Stick it to the Man! – 
Anniversary: Kill the flag carrier with a Plasma Grenade in a matchmade game. 20G

Another very easy achievement. Flag matches abound, you just need to find a sticky and kill da man.

I hope this quick guide to the new Reach Anniversary achievements has been helpful. If so, please post a comment. As always you must have a wordpress account first to be able to post.

I was flying around on Installation 04 last night in theater hoping to get some nice screenshots when I found Spartan Bob. He’s on each of the new Anniversary maps, though I hadn’t seen him yet on Installation 04. I’m not yet sure if he can be had while playing a game on the map. I’m just glad I found him.

Here he is close up then zoomed out so you can find him too.