Alright, here’s the deal. I used to love Arena back when Halo 5 first came out, but now I despise it and will only return when Infection comes. I realize that Arena is supposed to be the competitive side of Halo, but there’s just one problem…IT’S WAY TOO COMPETITIVE and I am a competitive Halo player. “So why do you despise Arena?” you may ask. Well, here’s why:
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Tryhards/Sweaties
Do these people think they’ll get into a professional Halo team if they try hard? Because truth be told, they most definitely won’t. These people are the main reason Arena aggravates me. I have obtained Onyx ranks in multiple playlists so I know that I will face really good players. That being said, even in the playlists that I have received platinum/diamond in, there are STILL tryhards in those ranks. Truth be told, there are just WAY too many tryhards in Arena. I will barely EVER find a game now where I can relax even in the slightest. If you aren’t giving every single game ALL of your effort, you’re going to lose, guaranteed. It’s flat out exhausting and stresses me out more than anything. -
Social playlists are overrun by the tryhards/sweaties
Remember the good old days when everyone would go into a social playlist and just chill, relax, and have a good laugh? Yeah, me neither, because now tryhards own these playlists looking for noobs to stat on and unfortunately every other tryhard decided to do the same thing so now social playlists are full of people who I’m pretty sure do not know how to relax. -
Big Team Battle
I miss the older Halo maps such as Valhalla, Blood Gulch, Exile, and Zanzibar. What happened to maps like those? Supposedly Basin in Halo 5 was influenced by Valhalla and I’m just sitting here going, “What are you talking about? This map looks NOTHING like Valhalla!” Plus, spawns are just flat out awful most of the time. I really wish the community made remakes would find their way into BTB because right now BTB has little to no appeal to me. Plus, there are WAY to many tryhards in this playlist. What a surprise. -
Reqs
You get ALMOST NOTHING for playing Arena. I usually don’t even get 1,000 XP or req points in Arena and that makes me feel like I should just go play Warzone Assault because I can get more than DOUBLE the amount of XP and reqs that I get in Arena in either the same or less amount of time. It feels like I am not getting rewarded at all for playing Arena and instead getting slapped in the face by more tryhards. -
The ranking system
I know most people disagree with this, but I hate it when my rank disappears every month. To me, it just feels like all of my work was wasted and now I have to spend more time getting those ranks back by playing against the sweaties that I mentioned earlier which just aggravates me even more. Oh and forget about playing against other unranked players. You’d have better luck trying to give a cat a bath. I always face Onyx and Champions when I’m unranked and then it just turns into a slaughterfest because my teammates are always unranked. Speaking of teammates… -
Unhelpful teammates
The one time i need my teammates to step up and actually try to help out, they usually go 1 and 12. They might as well have been AFK. Plus, quitting is always an issue because when a team gets slaughtered, people quit and now the teams are uneven.
And don’t even get me started on the teabbagers, trash talkers, etc.
Right now I am really not enjoying Arena. I really like most of the maps that 343 has created for Arena (the small ones anyways), but unfortunately due to the things I’ve listed above, I don’t see the appeal in Arena. Maybe when Infection comes out, I’ll give it a shot until the tryhards overrun that playlist. Until then, I’ll be in Warzone where I can at least have some fun regardless of how the game goes.