Competitive rankings, online play and numbers

Games Other Halo
1

Unlike my last post, this isn’t a satire. I’m going to discuss a serious topic with you folks and hope that everyone is mature enough to reply. If you disagree with me, that’s fine, just keep the discussion civil and I will return the same respect to you.

Competitive Rankings:

I’d like to give some thoughts on these. First of all, I’m a semi retired semi pro at a semi popular fighting game. Don’t believe me? Look up my forum name on YouTube. This isn’t just for my ego boost, I’m going somewhere with this.

In that community, online play is considered scrubby, irrelevant, and generally only good for sparring and practicing your moves. I’m seeing a lot of people anticipating competitive rankings, so I’m wondering if this community feels the same way or not.

I’ve been around since before Halo:CE. I remember when Mech Assault was different from RTCW. Shooters this generation are… well… all the same. But I digress. I am very interested in the competitive ranking system. I will enjoy logging on with my friends and teaming up to get some close games in with opponents from around the world. However, with the mentality that “my” community has, it’s all for naught. They feel as though true competition happens offline for money. I’m not sure where I stand with the issue. What are your thoughts?

Player Count:

This is something that baffles me to no end. I’ve seen threads that the population has dipped to 13 thousand. That’s 13,000 people playing. I’m not sure how that’s low, or too low. Why are people here so invested in the number of people playing Halo online at certain points in time? Go put in Army of Two for a second. THAT is something that should cause concern. Nobody is playing that. But 13,000 people, really? My point is that unless a lobby is impossible to find due to a low population, there shouldn’t be too much of a problem.

I personally don’t care who drops this game or why. If I can get a full match, I’m happy. With 13k+ online, I can get my full match.

So if you are one of the people who care about the population count, can you please explain to me why? I’m genuinely interested in learning about that perspective.

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Because they are worried about halo being the “best”. They can’t stand to see a game that made FPS shooters what it is today lag behind a game like “COD” for example. Honestly player count means nothing, but I haven’t seen it drop under 100,000 so I don’t know where you are getting this 13,000 number.

On to the point of ranked matches, also known as true skill, I would like to see it too, and its a good thing 343 wants the same. There will be an update early 2013 for True skill ranked, although it will ONLY show on waypoint. That’s fine by me though with the nice “SmartGlass” app, Xbox released.

Hope I answered something for you.

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I frankly dont care about population as long as I can get a game comfortably.

As far as ranking goes. Halo 2 revolutionized matchmaking on console. Halo carried that mantle for having the best competitive mode on console for a long time. Even if it isnt lan online play still provides the easiest way to match up against players all over the world.

Competitive halo took a major blow thanks to Reach. Many argue it was the ranking system but I think it was the mechanics of the game.

Halo 4 has the same ranking system roughly but I seem to have way more competitive games. Games are not about money for most people. Maybe to your circle of friends, but most people wont go pro in halo. Some of us like to play competitively like any other sport/game.

I like playing basketball competitively but Ill never go pro in basketball. Hope that helps

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Thanks for the replies, I understand a bit better now.

I didn’t know the TrueSkill rankings would only be up on Waypoint. That… meh. I mean I have a computer on most of the time and all but still. I like to see them in game when I’m in game, and be on the PC when I’m on the PC.