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[Hard Way]

How to Communicate Well In Halo

Communication – it’s the single most important asset you can give to your team.  This one facet of gameplay can turn an otherwise poor player into a threat to the other team.  A good player communicating well to his lesser- skilled teammates can make them more dangerous, and seem to extend his presence across the entire map.  Communication can turn a team of skilled individual players into an unstoppable unit.  And it's a lot more fun to play on a team that communicates well, because your awareness, organization, and efficiency are amplified greatly.  But strangely enough, solid communication seems to be the rarest quality among most Halo players.  I can say from personal experience that I just didn't know what good, efficient communication sounded like until I saw how pro players did it.  Once I was exposed to that as a referee at MLG events, I saw how gameplay could be taken to the next level.  This is some of the stuff that I learned by watching the best in the world play the game.

The first major difference I noticed between amateur teams and pro teams was morale.  Particularly in the Open Bracket, I saw a wide variance in team’s morale, and event after event, I watched teams with poor morale get weeded out very early on.  I feel that morale is the single most important aspect of your communication with your team, because it plays an absolutely pivotal role in whether or not you win.  It encompasses your whole team for as long as you let it, and if you’re playing over LAN, it has the opposite effect on the other team.  If you and your team have poor morale, the other team will take notice and become energized.  Teams that respond to adversity calmly and with confidence will often end up regaining control.  But teams that respond to adversity with anger or despair rarely climb out of the hole before the end of the game.  Poor morale will quickly turn a four kill deficit into a 10 kill deficit.  It creates more mistakes.  If something bad happens in a game and momentum swings in the enemy's favor, you have to keep that instance in perspective.

“It was an isolated incident,” or “They won that one, single exchange” are both the kinds of mental responses seen from players with the proper perspective.  If you keep your morale high, a team will prevent that bad isolated incident from easily repeating itself.  It's harder to beat a team with high morale because you have to beat them for the entire game.  A team with fragile morale can be beaten early in the game because that team doesn’t give its best effort after it’s broken.

The cool thing about morale is that one person can have a massive positive influence on his team at any given point.  Positive energy is very contagious among your teammates.  A player can use practically any positive in a game as an excuse to get excited and get his team fired up.  Whether it be outshooting someone, getting a power weapon, going up in numbers, securing map control, or any number of things, find something to spark enthusiasm if your team needs it.  Once your team hears you get excited, almost regardless of why, it will get them excited too, and they will play better.  Excitement and confidence go hand in hand, and confident players are harder to kill.

The confidence levels of each of your teammates typically fall during low morale, and that will cause their individual play to suffer.  Good communicators know they need to not only keep high morale, but also instill confidence in each of their teammates.  Compliments are a great way to do that.  Complimenting someone on a precise callout, helpful damage dealt to an enemy, shot accuracy, timely assistance, or any number of things will make them feel good, have fun, and play better.  Jokes can have the same effect.  Just a general lightening of the mood will benefit a team, too.  It seems to reduce the pressure that players put on themselves, and it creates a fun atmosphere.  And if the atmosphere of your team is fun, it will play better, longer.

That influence goes both ways though.  If your team is in a relatively neutral state of morale, negative comments, finger-pointing and blaming, anger, body language, and even silence can cripple that morale.  Your team will not play its best for the entire time morale is low.  If you notice your team has low morale, you need to stop contributing to it immediately, and begin looking for an excuse to get excited.  This can be one of the most difficult things to do in Halo.  You have to consciously think about being positive, and work on it every time you play.  Find a way to spark enthusiasm and lift the mood, and you will instantly notice improvement in your team's performance.

In general, you want to foster an air of positivity around your team, even when things are neutral or you are behind.  Being upbeat and positive will soften the blow negative things have on your team and allow you to rebound faster.

The greatest advantage that comes from positivity and high morale is intensity.  A state of intensity among your teammates is absolutely devastating to the other team.   Intensity occurs when momentum swings in your favor, and you and your team are feeding off the positive energy of each other.  Morale is at a fever pitch.  Your callouts are loud, you're all getting excited when good things happen, and you're all hyper-aware of everything that's happening.  It's practically a frenzy of communication, excitement, and positive energy; and it’s insanely difficult to stop that momentum, especially over LAN when the other team can hear you.  A team can only attain intensity once momentum has swung in their favor, but if you can harness it when that happens, the other team will have an extremely difficult time regaining control from you.  Playing against a team that is riding a wave of intensity is one of the hardest things to overcome in Halo.

Skilled communicators have learned to manufacture this intensity with their team by getting excited when something good happens, using that excitement to help create another good event, and then being even more excited with each consecutive success that you earn.  Chaining together good events with increasing excitement in rapid succession will get your team fired up.  Once you’re all at that same intense mindset, you’ll notice that you will absolutely dominate for as long as you can sustain the energy.

Morale is the most important piece of communication because it encompasses all other pieces.  Everything that follows can be done during both high and low morale, but it is much more effective during high morale.  Now that I've covered that, I can get into the specifics of Halo communication.


When players are first introduced to competitive Halo, they will be exposed to callouts for the first time.  Callouts are just generally agreed-upon names for places on the map.  They're useful because if one guy sees someone, he can quickly share that awareness with everyone else on his team, which will often ensure that the spotted player dies.  Callouts are unique to competitive shooters, and at first they will seem like the most important part of communicating with your team because they are so apparent.  Often when playing online, you will come across a player that has learned all the callouts, but has not learned how to communicate beyond that.  Shouting nothing but locations all game is very elementary communication.  Callouts might take a few games to get comfortable with on each map, but once learned, your work is just beginning.  Callouts are merely a tool for efficiency.  Use them to supplement real communication; not as a substitute for it.

Callouts may be the term used for the part of the map someone is at, but saying the location is not how you call a guy out.  When you call an enemy out, you need to convey to your team as much information as possible in as few words as possible so your team has the necessary awareness to both kill him quickly, and stay alive.  Let’s say I'm in Pink Tower on Midship and I've just traded shots with someone in Red Window, and I know he has sword.  He pops my shield and I choose to disengage so that I don’t risk giving up my good position by dying.  But I've done three shots worth of damage and I want my teammate that’s in the best position to finish my kill.  I'm not just going to say "Red Window" to my team.  I'm going to say,

"*Teammate’s Name*, one shot with sword, Red Window going Car Side, *Enemy’s Name*."

By doing this, I got the attention of my teammate in the best position to kill my guy, I've told him where he is and where he is going, how much health he has left, what weapon he should expect him to have, and what his name is in case there are multiple enemies there.  That is how you call someone out.  That guy I called out is way more likely to die now, and my teammate is more likely to live, than if I had just said one location.

I touched on this briefly, but it is important to be aware enough to know who you're calling out to.  Sometimes it's appropriate to direct a callout to everyone, like if it concerns everyone (flankers, guys with power weapons or powerups, etc), or if you just aren't sure who is in the best position to respond.  But it is more efficient to call out to a specific person for several reasons.  The most obvious is that your callout is much less likely to be filtered out if that person knows they are responsible for responding to you.  Sometimes the person you’re calling out to wouldn’t recognize that they’re in a great position to finish your kill, so this will ensure that you get his attention and make him aware.  Lastly, direct callouts set you up for “small talk”.

Small talk is when two players are working towards the same immediate goal, and they are sharing absolutely every pertinent detail with each other to accomplish that goal.  It's like a mini-conversation in the middle of the game.  Small talk are the kinds of details that can be the difference between life and death in a fight if you are privy to them beforehand, but they are on such a micro scale that it's impossible to small talk throughout the entire game (unless you’re playing a 2v2, in which case you absolutely should be small talking through the entire game).  You will just have to recognize when you and another player are in a situation that allows for it.  If you can do that, you will almost always succeed in that situation.

One example of small talk is “cautioning.”  If another teammate and I are trying to kill a guy in cover, and I want to grenade him and I think my teammate might charge him, I want to small talk my teammate by telling him,

"Don't go, I'm ‘nading."

Another example is if my teammate is trying to engage a guy who has divided attention, I might small talk him by telling him,

"He's not looking, go now" or "He's looking for you, don't go."

Another common one is when you and a teammate weaken an enemy who takes cover behind something temporary, and you know he wants to make it around the next corner.  If you both grenade him, he could time it so that he runs to the next cover during your throw and neither of you shoot him.  And if neither of you ‘nade he could just sit in the current cover until he gets his shield, or make you give up your position by charging him (which usually leads to death).  You can use small talk to solve this by just telling your partner,

"I'm ‘nading", or "You ‘nade, I’ll shoot."

Another way to small talk is to use “play calling” with someone.  If you and a teammate are rushing someone who is behind cover, use small talk to coordinate a pinch on the fly by saying something like,

"You go right, I go left."

Flag and oddball throws are another great opportunity to call plays.  If I'm bringing in the flag through bottom mid on Midship and I see a teammate spawn in our base, I'll small talk him by telling him to catch the flag.  Or if I'm top mid on Midship and a teammate just pulled the flag, I might small talk him by asking him to throw it up to me.  Anytime you are running with another teammate, it’s a good idea to try to run a play with that person to ensure you succeed in that micro part of the game.  Your teammate will know to play off of you, and it helps him feel responsible for your life, so you are more likely to get help when you need it.

Timing is a big part of running plays.  What I mean by timing is being precise about when you and a teammate execute your play.  If I know a teammate is about to push into an enemy base and will likely engage, I might use small talk to coordinate our push by saying

"Wait *teammate*, I’ll be with you in three seconds. "

I’ve also seen teams use their death cam to provide precise timing for a teammate.  Once I saw Strongside die at his powerup on Narrows.  He used his deathcam to monitor the enemy running to flag through powerup.  He was talking the entire time to Walshy, who had just spawned at back flag, letting him know to grenade the ledge in “3, 2, 1.” If you can use small talk to time your plays well, you can execute your plays much more efficiently and usually avoid deaths on your team.

A very common and effective way to use timing is to combine it with distraction and redirecting enemy focus.  Let’s say an enemy gets the jump on me and gets me no-shield and I have to get behind cover and can no longer see him.  My teammate see's me get weak and engages my opponent from a different angle.  If I pop out too early, the enemy is still looking at me and he kills me.  If I pop out too late, I leave my teammate in a 1v1 where he might die.  If my teammate uses good small talk and timing, he can tell me exactly when our enemy has redirected his focus off of me and onto him ("he’s looking at me, pop out now"), allowing me to safely pop out and help double-team him with my partner.

Another great way to use small talk to maximize efficiency is to state your intentions to avoid redundancy.  A perfect example is when your team needs to return a flag, milk the hill, or hold ball. You can avoid a lot of redundancy and increase your team’s efficiency by simply saying,

"I've got the return", "I've got hill", or "I've got ball".

Another good time to state intentions is when going for power weapons.  Since they are usually in vulnerable positions, it's dumb to have two of you race for a weapon if only one of you will get it. Saying that you’re going for rockets should dissuade your teammates from doing it with you.  Stating intentions is absolutely vital in the new gametype Dominion.  You can do your part to avoid redundancy and make sure all the bases are covered by just saying,  

“*Teammate* and I are rushing C”

The next type of small talk is a communication trick that is specific to objective gametypes, and it works wonders for getting your team on the same page.  The trick is counting kills.  Any time someone on your team gets a kill, they should say,

“One down.”

Any kill earned in the next 10 seconds should cause someone to say “Two down, three down,” etc.  In objective games, it is usually only possible to make a successful play on the objective when the majority of the enemy team is dead.  Therefore, it is crucial that your team knows exactly when that occurs, or better yet, about to occur.  If your team always knows how many enemies are dead, they will know exactly when to push up and play the objective.  This will also help to funnel everyone’s attention to the remaining enemies and allow you to earn an “all-down” much more often.  If your whole team was aware of those kills, particularly the last one before an all-down, it also makes it easier to predict where the enemies will respawn, which will prolong your control of the map.  The simple practice of counting kills will seem to create a wider window of time in which to safely play the objective, and it’s an easy way to boost your team’s efficiency.  Use this trick in conjunction with building intensity!  It’s a great way to get your team fired up.

A great way to use small talk to make the most of an all-down is to guess where the enemy will spawn for your team.  If your team is counting kills and you know you’ve just earned an all-down, use the knowledge that the enemy will usually spawn away from their most recent deaths, and let your team know where you think that is.  So let’s say we’re playing Sanctuary, and we just killed two guys in the rocks, and then I get a double kill on their flag.  After telling my team about our all-down, I’m going to say,

“Probably spawning snipe or courtyard.”

In case my teammates didn’t see where I killed the last two guys, this eliminates any doubt and gets everyone on the same page for the upcoming spawns.  After your team develops this habit, you’ll notice that you’re able to keep map control for much longer periods of time.  This trick is especially helpful in CTF, because it will help your flag runner know which route to take.

The last small talk topic I want to go over is “baiting and switching”.  This is when a teammate is in a 1v1 with an enemy and your teammate gets weak and goes behind cover where the enemy can't see him (baiting him in).  Then you come in with full shields from the same direction while out of sight of the enemy and replace him in the fight (switching).  The enemy usually won't realize he's fighting a fresh guy until it’s too late.  It's more of a duo play, and good players will recognize these opportunities instinctively, but only when they are aware of each other's presence.  If you are coming up behind an engaged teammate, use small talk to let him know you're with him.   Then your teammate can decide whether he should switch out and let you take over, or push with you and 2v1 your opponent.  The key to the play is saying that you’re with him.

Invariably, some games it will feel like you're not getting enough help in your fights.  There are certain phrases you can use that are a non-hostile way of prompting your teammates to take responsibility for helping you.  When I get in trouble and I know I'm going to die soon if I don't get help, I like to say

"I need help at *location*.”

That will usually cause my teammates to look for me, and thus find my attackers.  But if your team is having trouble taking responsibility for certain tasks on the fly, a good way to fix it is by asking who can do it.

"Who can help me at S2?"

"Rockets spawn in 20 seconds.   Who's getting them?"

"Who's getting Overshield?"

This lets your teammates know that something needs to be done, but it’s not putting it on one guy.  That's good because sometimes you might ask the wrong guy and he'll get upset because he can't do it at the moment (weak, engaged, out of position, etc).  But it also prompts responsibility.  The request can't go ignored and just left hanging out there like saying "someone help me at S2" can, or "someone get rockets".  Someone has to step up and claim responsibility because it’s awkward if no one responds to the question, but it's not done in a hostile way.

And finally, that leads me to “responding.”  Every callout should be answered with a verbal response or acknowledgement.  Responding is a crucial part of listening.  It lets your teammate who is calling out know that he isn't being ignored, and it usually opens up opportunities for small talk.  If he knows he can trust you to react to his callout, it will have a huge influence on his next decision.  He may decide to push while half-shield because he knows he has your help, or he may just trust you to finish it while he directs his attention elsewhere.  But if you don’t verbally respond to the callout, he won’t know which decision is best.

Listening and responding to callouts is its own skill in communication, and it's every bit as important as anything discussed so far.  A callout is useless if no one pays attention to it.  You have to learn to process and respond to callouts in between making your own.  It's not easy to do in a fast paced game, but it's a crucial skill to develop. After all, if all of your teammates are communicating, you will be doing more listening than talking.

Teamwork is the greatest force in Halo.  When good players play each other, teamwork will decide the outcome.  I'd rather have great teamwork than great aim, great weapons, or great position.  It’s just how you win in Halo.  But teamwork is entirely fueled by communication.  Playing on a team with excellent communication is the most fun you can have in this game.  And the best part is you don't even have to be skilled in the game to be good at communicating.  Even if you’re having a terrible game, you can still be a huge asset to your team if you are communicating well.  Great communication is a rare skill, and it will give you the edge you need in a close game.  And if you're like me, you'll notice that once you learn to communicate well in Halo, you will find tons of opportunities to apply those skills in daily life.


-Zach Johnson, (Hard VVay)

[Tennet]

Great read, definately need to step up my communication game more than anything else right now.

[Maagic]

This, in my opinion, is one of the best post on communication. Great job

[Hard Way]

Thanks guys.  I've wanted to write something like this for a long time, so I put quite a bit of effort into it.  I appreciate the kind words.

[TiberiusAudley]

There is one thing I will always disagree with about this post, and it's the most insignificant, Semantics nitpicking...


The latter half of your post... none of that should be called "Small Talk"...because none of it is.  THAT is how communication should be done.  Call-outs should come secondary to small talk.  Knowing where your teammates are, what your teammates are doing, and what your teammates are GOING to do is substantially more important than anything an opponent is doing or can do.


MLG Halo is a team game.  It should not be 4 versus 4.  It should be ONE versus ONE.  One TEAM, operating as a unit, knowing what its members will do...fighting another TEAM, also operating as a cohesive group...  Sure, individuals falter at times, but losses happen.  The better TEAM wins, though, not always the better players.

This scene will always stick out to me from Game of Thrones:


And it can be applied at a much smaller level.


But...my point is that...the most IMPORTANT part of communication is what the rest of you all label "small talk" -- "I'm with you" "I've got your help"  "I'm pushing left"  "I'm weak, I'm backing down"... all of these are way more important than "One shot bottom mid running away"...why?  Because they're PROACTIVE.  They're about playing YOUR game.

Call-outs are re-active.  They're responding to an opponent.  You're playing THEIR game, rather than your own.  The moment you start playing on an opponent's terms, you lose focus of your own game plan.  Sure, no gameplan is static (contrary to what the Voldemort of Halo thinks)...but it's a lot easier to make adjustments if you're talking to your teammates, rather than narrating the game.


I ended up rambling more than I meant to on this...  I've done a lot of ranting in the past about communication within my BTB team, Master Theory.  In BTB, where there are 8 players per team... it is ENTIRELY too easy to completely drown out each other with call-outs...but if you focus on talking to one another, calling out your own pushes and asking "Who's pushing with me" things free up a lot sooner -- you can ask Ryanoob and Assault, they both had the same reaction after their brief stint against Obey on the BTBnet map pool.


Still, semantics, but... what you call "Small Talk" I call "Proper Communication"


Work in a kitchen, be it fast food or fine dining...and you'll see the same style of communication out of the best workers.

[Hard Way]

Great post Tiberius.  I especially like the point about proactive communication versus reactive.  That makes a lot of sense.  I chose the term "small talk" for two reasons.  One is literal, to mean "micro".  The other is just that I once heard Flamesword call it that when interviewed about Status Quo. haha.  But I see what you're getting at, and I certainly didn't mean to downplay its importance by calling it that.

I work in a restaurant too.  When I expo, I can't help but think that my Halo experience has made me way better at my job.

[TiberiusAudley]

Hard Way, on 18 November 2012 - 01:20 AM, said:

Great post Tiberius.  I especially like the point about proactive communication versus reactive.  That makes a lot of sense.  I chose the term "small talk" for two reasons.  One is literal, to mean "micro".  The other is just that I once heard Flamesword call it that when interviewed about Status Quo. haha.  But I see what you're getting at, and I certainly didn't mean to downplay its importance by calling it that.

Yeah, you'll find most of the pro players call it "Small Talk" -- you are correct in its label.  But my gripe with it is that its label is... very poor.  But again, only Semantics...and does not take away anything from your point at all.

I briefly covered this subject a while back, but it is still relevant and still something a lot of players completely miss.  And you went much more in detail on the most important point than I had.


Flamesword, Elitest, and Instinct (including Towey) are a handful of players you can tell really "get it" as far as communication go.  If you see any of them streaming with their team, I highly recommend watching and listening to their words.  (They're by no means the only ones that communicate as this guide recommends, but they're players that stick out in my mind as excellent communicators.)

[Hard Way]

That was a good read.  Lol, we're definitely on the same page.  My biggest struggle, and it has been since I first started playing 9 years ago, is not letting my frustration contaminate our team's morale.  I know I'm bad about that, and I work on it every day.

I haven't played BTB at a high level with a steady team, so the concept of timing a vehicle death so you can steal it later never even occurred to me!  Haha I'm totally going to start doing that.

Thanks for the stream suggestions.  I don't watch streams often, but that is definitely the type of player I'd like to watch.  Walshy is pretty great in that regard too.

[shzlss]

Great read. I wish more people knew how to communicate like this

[Hard Way]

Lol that's the idea! haha thanks man.

[Akuma Matata]

Good info!

This should really be in the frontpage

[Jmacz]

This may be the best post I've ever seen on any Halo forum, kudos to you sir. You put a lot of thoughts that I used to try to convey to my teammates but you put it in a much better way. I've been to a few tournaments with pretty bad results, but there has always been times in games where we get into that "zone" you were speaking, and it's one of the most enjoyable states to play Halo in, but it's such a rare occurance in the open brackets.

[bbkdragoon]

Extremely well put together and thought out. Thank you for this, many helpful things that I will review and try to use within my own play. The morale topic is so crucial as you stated

[Uncouth]

Dude...........thank you for this.

[Hard Way]

Thank you guys.  That means a lot.  I really hope this helps you and your teammates.  I just wanted to share how eye-opening that referee experience was for me.  It was just like, "Whoa, THIS is what makes a team good."

I saw aPK's post about writers for the site, and front page written content.  I'm trying to get this article featured on the front page!

[Akuma Matata]

Hope you get to do that!  The article was very well done and a nice read.  Will definitely read other articles you make

[Uncle]

good shit

[CHa0s]

Wow, decided to read this post and you totally surprised me with the detail, including the "psychological warfare" of getting pumped up, etc. I just had a very nasty experience tonight where someone on my own team was totally ranting because we weren't playing up to his standards, and it's not easy to focus through that and continue doing your best when a teammate is going on like that.

I started out as a very, very weak slayer, and supplemented this by becoming good at callouts. It showed because, while for a long time (H2, H3) my K/D was always negative, my W/L was in the positive. I truly believe that Callouts are a Power Weapon!

Something else that comes to mind whenever I think of team communication is how a team must determine priorities. Things that are obvious to some seem not to be for others. For example, let's say you are playing Flag on a map with vehicles and your flag is away but the enemy is inbound with a vehicle to get your flag. In this instance, even if some of your team is almost to the their base to grab the enemies' flag, it might be in your team's best interest for them to stop what they are doing and help make sure they don't get your flag. Or say in a slayer game their sniper is spawn-killing your team, that should probably be your team's priority: take out the sniper.

I guess the above fits in with what Audley was saying about it not being a 4v4 but a 1v1. If that one teammate keeps running off to get revenge on the bolt-shot camper instead of helping take out the sniper who is spawn killing his team, he's not really being part of the unit.

It also can be really overwhelming at first for people who are lone wolves, to get into a team environment with heavy communication. But I'd like to encourage any who are experiencing this to stick with it: your brain will adjust. You WILL begin to hear all of it, in fact, it will become almost as if you have a mini-map of the entire map in your brain. It's amazing.

I also found it interesting where Audley remarks above that it's just as important to communicate your own actions. Only because most people I game with hardly respond to priority callouts. There is nothing like calling out an enemy's position and having the entire team kill him in one shot, but it's also nice to know who's got your back. But how many of you know people (or struggle with it yourself) who don't want to call out because they want to make sure that kill gets on their stats?

Yeah, not to go on a tangent with all that. Callouts are indeed a power weapon, but you also need teammates that use and heed them.

[Sgt]

Exceptional post. It was recommended by one of my team members. It will really help provide a baseline for use to build from.


Thank you.

[Hard Way]

I'm glad to see word getting around about this a little bit

[Molly]

Bump to include in new stickied thread.

[Hard Way]

Wow, thanks Molly!  I thought this had been forgotten

[Derrick]

Holy thread resurrection