I have tried to introduce some of my friends to Halo multiplayer and it has generally been a disaster. They get destroyed and that’s the end of it. I saw a statistic once that something like 80% of people (this is from memory here, so the number may be off, but it’s high) try online multiplayer, get no kills and then never play again. The reality is that it isn’t fun getting wiped out. TrueSkill is supposed to negate this problem, but I don’t think it works well at all - it is highly overrated (having a math degree, I also have some issues with the assumptions underlying the statistical model, but that is a whole 'nother discussion).
So, how about something like boot camp for multiplayer? There are a lot of things that you could do with this concept, but the basic idea would be that you train good hand eye coordination first (i.e., player movement + aim control = good e-athlete) followed by combat with computer controlled enemies that replicate various levels of human ability (start out w/ noob level computer opponents) generated from statical models of actual online play, and map walk throughs showing how weapon spawns work, tactical considerations, etc. (keep in mind that new players don’t even know about weapon spawns). You could say, well, why not just use real people, but of course they will lie about their abilities to noob farm just like de-levelers do now. As far as the e-athlete training goes, I realize that campaign does this to some extent, but you can’t improve your skills with various guns quickly unless you shoot them a lot and measure player progress. Campaign enemies also act nothing like human players. For starters they rarely chase you very far.
For weapons training you can let players pick what weapon they want to train with and then supply fixed and moving targets (slowly moving at first) and then provide measures of how much they are improving (i.e., hit accuracy statistics and quickness on target to show progress). This would also be useful for veterans who want to train with new weapons like the binary rifle. In short, utilize some of the techniques used, for example, in music training to train people in Halo. There are training maps out there, and some are pretty good but because they aren’t in game most new players don’t even know to look for them.
In any case, just an idea, as I think one of the problems Halo might have is that they have too many veteran players who come into each new Halo with a considerable skill gap compared to players who are just starting off. I think they may be killing people off…literally.