This thread is about casuals and competitives and my take on the whole debate about it what it means etc. But before i dive into that I want to touch briefly on the newest bulletin. I liked everything i heard honestly. We needed more playlists spasifically multi ones. an odd ball only playlist was nice indeed but we (due to the 10 playlist limit) had to drop playlists that i was fond of (KOTH for example) So thats good news to me. Anyone else pleased about the bulletin news? Anyone lets jump into this.
What it means to be casual/competitive: I don’t know how to start explaining honestly. People use both terms as an insult. And i can’t help but wonder how it all got started. What bothers me even more is how wrong people are about these terms. Lets look at casual for instance, In definition its of something that someone does off handedly. Something that is done with ease for recreation. Not something taken seriously. But…People use the term to label people in forms of ignorance or lacking in “skill” or simply to mean lack of caring. One of the things that people seem to feel is that a casual can’t understand the meta game. Or to put it simply casuals arn’t expected to know what makes for good fair play and balanced play. But in reality a casual player or a player with terrible “skill” CAN understand. Just lacking the ability to do. Thats a completely different part that has nothing to do with knowledge. Frankly i don’t understand how people got the knowledge mixed in with the ability to do.
Now lets look at competitive…In definition Its someone or something that means to do with effort of winning. As in something like person A is very competitive at football. They put effort in doing or knowledge into gaining a win. Your in it to win it simply. Now what people seem to associate competitive with is a certain set of rules. Or that because someone is competitive they understand the game better. People also use it as an insult. Like making an assumption that all competitives are tryhard self rightious A-holes. What is even more confusing is how people assume there is only one way to be competitive. Yes i am refering to MLG. Remember competitive is about winning and caring about winning to the point that you put in time to get to winning. Now with the formalities out of the way.
What does this mean for halo?: Your probably wondering what any of this has to do with halo. Well its simply really, people seem to feel that halo 4 is casual only and that you can’t play competitively in halo 4. I want to tell you that THAT IS WRONG. You can still play to win. There is NOT one set of rules on how to be competitive. There is NO right or wrong with what is and what isn’t competitive. People have these mindsets built that MLG is the deciding factor that…there is only one competitive way to play. People have expectations on how things should be and use the terms casual and competitive wrongly.
MLG did not make halo. Halo was fun before. People played to win. People played to screw around. Now there is all of this fuss about MLG not being in halo 4. Big. Deal. It generated a horrible mindset. Halo was and still will be halo without MLG. And before someone goes off on me i am well aware not all MLG people are trash talking 12 year olds. I know and have talked to some MLG players. Real players not gamebattle players. But regardless of the good people the idea of MLG itself spawned this negative ideal of what is competitive. Let me level this. the idea of competitive or competition is one player versus another and the better player wins. Now maybe the winner happen to get lucky and get a rocket launcher from his ORD. But if he managed to out play you each time enough to earn that drop chances are he’d have won still without it.
People need to stop having expectations about whats pro and whats scrubby. Whats competitive and whats not. Halo has always premoted the aspect that the better player wins. And even though somethings are abit more random then before this logic still applies. People look twards weapons mechanics etc to blame instead of admitting defeat. Now if you want to set rules of engagment to play against others thats fine. You have forge and customs. But what you define is not what you should not push on others. 343 designed the game. Not you. MLG was not the only competitive scene. Nor was it the right one. It was simply an area that people who felt the need to have terms set in place could go to.
What to take away from all of this?/TLDR: Basically I want players t understand that halo 4 can be competitive AND casual. Its not one or the other. If you feel the need to have a different set of rules to figure out whos the better player you have customs and forge. Your ideals are not the right ones so don’t force them on others. If your a casual your not a bad player your not incapable of understanding. You simply just play. If your a competitive your not an elitest your not a Jack hole. You just want to win. You want to prove yourself. Neither side is bad or wrong. So can we drop the mentalities and formalities and play?
> Small, they said.
xD it turned out to be longer then i thought 
i still had 2000 some characters left.
TL;DR
But read the short and sweet bit.
My take on this is that we seperate them. I’m a casual player and I get paired up against vicious players. I love the competitor’s spirit but some people take way too far. Hell I’ve been made fun of because of my K/D spread, which I care nothing about. I could say something witty and we’d get into a argument on who’s better.
Point is some people do not want to be sucked into this… thing. Argument/debate/whateverhellitis. What some people want? Is to PTFO. I want to join a game where everyone is one the same page, I WANT PEOPLE WITH MIKS AND FOR TWIT PROES TO STOP TRYING IMPRESS EVERYONE. I don’t need to hear ‘I want the sniper, you suck at it’. I just want to win a game for once without being told how much I lack in playing because if I were in a real game? You get bet your damn KD that I can win it.
Good God I don’t know where that came from. Anyway there is something worse. Low ranked players being paired up with high ranked players. There should be some sort of beginner’s playlist like they have in COD and back in Halo 3. Remember? As soon as you hit Sergeant or a high enoygh level the thing gets blocked from your playlist? Remember how Grand halo 3 was? You get paired wiht someone whomatures your True Skill and Rank, mitch and match that too. If you;re not on enough or lose games you lost rank? Making you come back for more. Now Halo 3 had Casual and Competitive players in perfect harmony.
> TL;DR
>
> But read the short and sweet bit.
>
> My take on this is that we seperate them. I’m a casual player and I get paired up against vicious players. I love the competitor’s spirit but some people take way too far. Hell I’ve been made fun of because of my K/D spread, which I care nothing about. I could say something witty and we’d get into a argument on who’s better.
>
> Point is some people do not want to be sucked into this… thing. Argument/debate/whateverhellitis. What some people want? Is to PTFO. I want to join a game where everyone is one the same page, I WANT PEOPLE WITH MIKS AND FOR TWIT PROES TO STOP TRYING IMPRESS EVERYONE. I don’t need to hear ‘I want the sniper, you suck at it’. I just want to win a game for once without being told how much I lack in playing because if I were in a real game? You get bet your damn KD that I can win it.
>
> Good God I don’t know where that came from. Anyway there is something worse. Low ranked players being paired up with high ranked players. There should be some sort of beginner’s playlist like they have in COD and back in Halo 3. Remember? As soon as you hit Sergeant or a high enoygh level the thing gets blocked from your playlist? Remember how Grand halo 3 was? You get paired wiht someone whomatures your True Skill and Rank, mitch and match that too. If you;re not on enough or lose games you lost rank? Making you come back for more. Now Halo 3 had Casual and Competitive players in perfect harmony.
I had a TLDR at the bottom. It was even underlined. And no halo 3 still matched uneven players. I have had several games where i get less then average teammates which made me carry, put up against players that are way above my skill level. the 1-50 system was no where near perfect.
As for the COD playlist your refering to. Its a good idea but COD’s ranking system is based off of time put in. Not player skill. Youd have non prestiged players level 50 play against 10th prestige level 50’s and the 10th prestige players getting whooped.
So a ranking system is a fine idea when it actually works. Which is a 50/50 numbers vary per player experience.
Well put. I believe that both sides of the argument need to learn the word compromise. I think it’ll make for a phenomenal TU if they do.
I am a casual competitive player. I play for fun, but I also play to win.
OP, your post is good. Your title is misleading, though. Yours was the opposite of a rant!
Either/or language is popular because people actually like to rant, to get emotional feelings out there and get stirred up. Casual and competitive-settings players (it’s the settings most “competitive” people are arguing for) will continue to fight because fighting is fun. Not because the mentalities can’t co-exist. I agree with you, I think they can.
343 created too much randomness in Halo 4, which doesn’t serve any player, really. Even casual players would like to have their actions correspond to a reaction, not to a random event that you watch the kill cam to understand. It happens a lot.
The mistakes were 343’s, IMO, not the players reactions. Playing to belong, to have fun, or to win at any cost, it’s all good. A game that works the same foundational way, every time, doesn’t take away from any of these play styles. But Halo 4 is unnecessarily built on randomness and chaos. The number of one-shot weapons in the game, the randomness caused by rampant invisibility, and the random ordinance drops, hurt everyone, except the laziest player who uses chaos to cover up shoddy abilities. The real enemy is Halo 4’s multiplayer structure, not us.
This casual/competitive divide started in halo 2 and has only grown since.
> This casual/competitive divide started in halo 2 and has only grown since.
It was fine in Halo 3, because there were separate playlists. The trouble started when 3rd generation Bungie employees, basically generic devs with little passion for or knowledge of Halo, created Reach and threw everyone together. 343 continued this bad idea and now no one is happy. Then, I’m not getting paid six figures to screw up the franchise, so what do I know.
> > This casual/competitive divide started in halo 2 and has only grown since.
>
> It was fine in Halo 3, because there were separate playlists. The trouble started when 3rd generation Bungie employees, basically generic devs with little passion for or knowledge of Halo, created Reach and threw everyone together. 343 continued this bad idea and now no one is happy. Then, I’m not getting paid six figures to screw up the franchise, so what do I know.
Actually it started way before that in halo 2.
That was the first time I remember seeing people use the word “casual” as an insulte and if they were not competitive that they should not be allowed to post thoughts on game play on the bungie.net forums.
It was the same in halo 3
It got worst in halo:reach
and its all out war in halo 4.
ps. I am happy. I dont care if anyone is casual or competitive, I play to win regardless and I dont need a digital number to tell me if I am good or not.
