TL:DR at bottom.
You’ve probably heard these terms thrown around before, and you’ve also probably seen so called competitive people insult so called casuals, and heard varying arguments and so on and so forth. These two terms are rarely properly defined, and the actual line between these two groups is miscontrued. In this thread I want to clear some things up, and hopefully the term ‘competitive’ will not be such a naughty word in this game and on the forums. Let’s begin.
Competitives/MLG/Mouthbreathers/Super 1337 skillz00rs
This group of players favors predictability, lack of randomness, and skill above all else. They want to be able to time weapon drops, not have rockets fall into anybody’s laps all at random, etc. They favor maps that are balanced and encourage flow. They especially do not like ‘easy to use’ things like automatic weapons that have a lot of bullet magnetism and aim assist. Lastly, they favor game mechanics that encourage good play.
Casuals/Playing for fun/For funsies
This group of players don’t exactly have a predefined preference of the game. They’re just looking for a fun time no matter the settings. Weapons drop into their lap? Fun. Wandering across weapons? Fun. They jus’ lookin’ for a good time, bro.
Going from these definitions, I believe we can discover that these two groups can co exist. You see, if a game is simply GOOD, it doesn’t matter who’s competitive or casual, both can do what they want.
For example, a dude who just wants a good time is walking around a map and he finds a rocket launcher. Fun times for him, huh? Those rockets are a static spawn, they always spawn there, and they can be predicted. But thanks to the ranking system, it’s all casuals and no one is concerned about predicting that sort of stuff. So everyone just goes about their thing, finding seemingly random weapons to them. They may notice a trend of where they’re at, but that’s it.
Then we have example B. A dude is, once again, walking around the map having a fun time. A random ordnance drop just drops him a Binary Rifle and he goes to town. If everyone in the lobby is playing for fun, it doesn’t matter too much. Without knowledge or caring of where stuff spawns, it’s all the same to the casuals. They run across a ‘random’ weapon, or a real random weapon, they praise the Halo gods and go on with their match,
When we apply example A to both groups of players, it works for both, does it not? The competitives can predict it and make it a skill, while casuals run across a weapon and have fun.
Yet when we apply example B to both groups, it gets hairy. Casuals will still have fun and think not much of it. Then on the flip side, in a serious competitive scenario, a random rocket may spawn on one team’s side of the map and cause them to win the game when it’s tied. They didn’t earn it, or do anything for it. It just happened, it was random, and not skilled. It’s bad for those players.
With this knowledge we can apply it to other game mechanics. Such as weapons. If it’s random and inconsistant, it’s gonna what it’s gonna do and one group of people will have fun, while the others just can’t manage it because it’s conducive to skilled play. For example, the Scattershot. It may be a one hit kill from 10 feet away, and a three shot kill from 3 feet away. You can’t manage it.
Basically, competitives and casuals can co exist together if a game is GOOD. If it is good and promotes good play, competitives will be happy and casuals will play and have fun as they do with any game.