No, they don't. Last time I went in Rumble Pit, infection was the chosen gametype I think 4 out of the 6 games I played. Now I do grant you some people will vote for other variants, but most people won't.
So I suppose I should rephrase my statement...

More than 50% of the people that will actually vote, will vote for Crazy Variants almost all of the time.

If you don't believe me, go into Multi Team (Otherwise known as Rocket Race) and go into Rumble Pit (Otherwise known as Infection). You might see some Rally games in it though.


I'm not saying that they're the same, I'm just saying, you look at what everyone votes for in Rumble Pit and such, it's almost always the crazy out of the ordinary gametype.

Note the crazy gametypes posted about are Rocket Race and Infection. Both of which need their own playlist, anyway. There should be a Race playlist and there's going to be an Infection playlist.

Right. The thing is you're seeing people vote for the infection gametype a lot right now because it's what they really want to play and rumble pit is currently the only place they have to play it. Soon there will be an infection playlist, which will result in infection being removed from rumble pit.

Ultimately what I hope we'll see is something like this in matchmaking:

Community Category
- MLG
- Grifball
- Infection
- Racing
- and so on

I think it's a good possibility Bungie will break things down like that. Each gametype has a strong following and community to merit having the separate playlists.

We'll have to wait until the playlist update comes out this week to see how voting changes in Rumble Pit. Then, from there, we can decide (based on if the voting changes) how it would affect Grifball in its own playlist.

You may see people voting often for the "crazy" gametypes in the beginning because they'll want to try them out and see what they are, but eventually I think you'll see the numbers sway towards the more traditional gametypes.

I just don't want Grifball to turn into Arielball is all. I'll obviously keep playing, and I'm not gonna cry and rage if you put crazy variants in, I just don't feel they belong in matchmaking is all.
But that's my personal opinion.

So long as there wasn't always a set crazy gametype everyone would always pick. Rocket Race was recently added and that was a set gametype for multi-team - it was always the 3rd choice, and a lot of people chose it. If you can add some changes to the crazy gametypes, so people wouldn't always pick the last option, that'd help mix things up a lot more.

I'm sure you've already thought of that though.

The thing is whether they do or don't belong, I think Bungie would like for some to be included to help give the playlist more variation.

That's why we'll be looking for a lot of feedback as we begin to really start identifying possible gametypes. We'll ask you to play them, we'll poll you for your opinions and so on. If the majority response we get on a gametype is that it sucks, well, we're probably not going to include it.

Well, I'll most definitely be willing to test out some gametypes.

What I would like to see from Grifball in matchmaking is this:
I would like to see the standard setup of three maps/gametypes and then none of the above. In the slots, this is what I would like to see:
1) Always have this slot be the Vanilla Grifball gametype with no AA's and just have the map rotate if none of the above is chosen.
2) Have the standard grifball variant of Evolved or Dash here (or whatever else we may come up with). Then if none of the above is chosen, the map would stay the same, but the gametype would switch to the other gametype. So, if Evolved was the first choice it would switch to Dash and vice-versa.
3) This slot would be for one of the other variants like Jetpacks or something to that effect, and it would have the map to go along with it. Then if none of the above was chosen, the map and gametype would switch.

And for the love of god, make sure betrayal booting doesn't get turned on by "accident". That's a nightmare when playing Grifball, especially with randoms.

As to the point about the oddballs always being chosen; from my experience, race and rally are NEVER chosen now in the Rumble Pit, which is a shame - I quite enjoy them as I've always prided myself on my driving ability - I was one of the first to come up with a Warthog Demolition Derby, for instance. Infection is quite often chosen. And I hate it. I think it's pants personally, but people want to play what THEY enjoy. So, gimmick gametypes will only be chosen on a regular basis initially and THEN if they have genuine appeal to a large number of people.

I personally would like to see the Voting ordered as Evolved, Classic (please don't call it vanilla - makes no sense in the UK ), then the gimmick variant. For matchmaking, I think the maps should be chosen according to which gametype they best carry as opposed to whether they are standard courts or experimental. Notregrif is going to be my home away from home.

Just as a note - I prefer sprint to evade in Grifball. I think you should just disable it for the Grif, and set his speed slightly higher than Sprint speed of other players.

The other things that need to be highlighted is that the playlist will need to be updated when and where possible with new maps and variants, to keep it fresh, particularly in the gimmick choices and arena choices for Evolved and Classic. And betrayal booting needs to be, as Taco noted, very firmly OFF.

I got the impression from our contact with Bungie that updating the playlist isn't something we'll be able to do often or very easily, unfortunately. We'll see if there's any wiggle room there though. I would hope that we could at least have the opportunity to do it each time they do a playlist update.

I figured that would be the case, whenever possible will have to do. Surely all you need is a contact within Bungie that can take any new map/gametype combos and add them to the pile for the next update? I appreciate that the community wouldn't have a great say on when this occured, however.

It would be a great thing to have Grifball in Matchmaking. Reach needs it to add on to the other great things it's got going. My vote is: YES

I just played some of the handegg one, with the golfball on the map, and it was a lot of fun. But, somebody managed to hit the golfball out of the map, which would be a problem if the ball guy died rather than scoring. I don't know how it happened, but can try to look at the replay and see what happened. But I think it should be included as one of the "crazy" variants.

I'm not as big a fan of the jetpack one, I think it's too difficult to have stops, and in most of the games I've been in whoever gets the ball first basically scores.