Continuing the discussion from Skilled Based Match Making in Halo Infinite:
Here is an article going into detail about how the system works: https://www.halowaypoint.com/en-ca/news/closer-look-halo-infinites-ranked-experience
We just need a little more leniency in matchmaking, especially casual playlists. It feels as if I am punished for performing well consistently.
Again. It depends on what you mean by âpunishedâ.
Even in âsocialâ the game only owes you a 50% W/L and a K/D of 1.0
If it gives someone more than that - the corollary is that someone else is being âpunishedâ with less.
How much effort and sweat you put into that 50% and 1.0 is entirely up to you. The game will start to match and rank you around your efforts. If you start to put more effort in then you will perform better and attract better opponents.
If you are happy to chill and muck around a bit. Try different weapons. Jump into the warthog with a mate who you know is the worst driver ever (Snoozer22, Iâm looking at you). Then you will attract similar opponents.
The key, to get what you want from the system, is to play consistently. Find your level of chill vs sweat and just enjoy. You will be pitched appropriate opponents.
But you have to be happy with the 50:50 of it all - which is where a lot of innately competitive people break down - they just have to sweat a bit harder to get the win / high KD. They stop mucking around and starting playing semi-professionally. A compulsion to âcarryâ the team to victory.
And then they wonder why they have to play up a notch in the next game.
Well said Darwi. The system is design to provide the most amount of people an engaging match where a win may have been reasonably possible.
The real issue in my opinion is that thereâs not enough of a reason to sink time into the game. The current progression element essentially sucks. Especially with its tie-ins with a terribly executed challenge system.
I say bring back military-based progression ranks for playlists. Progress by earning wins. Every playlist should have it. Pair it with CSRs in the Ranked environment. And in my opinion they should use Halo: Reachâs military ranks to ensure a lengthy progression grind per playlist.
Yep. XP rank. Weighted to wins and medals. Associated with a military rank.
Problem (largely) solved.
Oh, character XP is definitely another thing sorely missing. Match performance-based XP shouldâve been a no-brainer foundational design.
Whoever the leadership person was that said no to it being in Infinite needs to be stripped of their leadership role.
The game âowesâ me???
Because having the game decide ahead of time whether you are going to win or lose is what people find enjoyable???
Yes, we must appease all the snowflakes and give everyone participation trophies. If I am better than 90% of all Halo players, the game is still going to try and make me lose half the time. This is what is wrong with this system.
What makes it worse is the implementation in Halo Infinite that makes this feel so artificial. I know that if I do really well in a game and my team wins, then I might as well go AFK in my next match because the system is going to match me against players much better than me to make sure that I lose.
Again, the problem with the way Halo Infinite has implemented this just makes it miserable for many people. Everyone that I know plays ranked matches as sweaty as possible. Because of the way Halo Infinite shares MMR data across playlists, it can be difficult to go chill in other playlists.
Iâm guessing this is at least part of the reason so many people are on the forums complaining how when they win a game, their CSR barely goes up; but when the lose a game, they lose a big chunk of CSR. All that goofing off in Fiesta and BTB has the game thinking their MMR is much lower because they play differently in ranked than they do in Fiesta and BTB.
It is also much more difficult to play with friends. If you play hard when you play on your own and then you just want to chill when you play with your friends, Halo Infinite has made that a miserable experience. Because of the strict SBMM, you canât relax and chill and your friends just get slaughtered by the opposition.
Social isnât supposed to be tight matches, it is supposed to be relaxed casual play.
Canât do that with the current SBMM, you could in past halos (H5 being the exception) but not in Infinite
The idea that a game should be forcing you towards a 1 kdr and a 50% win ratio is absolutely toxic to player retention. If good players donât feel good and see the pay off for their efforts then what is the point. It isnât like social gives you a visible skill ranking, so why are they trying to silo good players together. Personally, when I finish work I donât really want to play matches against full stacks of onyx and diamonds all the time. If I did I would play ranked.
Personally this is the KEY factor of whether I will still be playing this game in the long run. If they keep this strict SBMM in social then I will not continue. If I commit time and effort to getting good at this game there should be a pay off. The game should not manipulate it so that regardless of how good I get I will never do well consistently.
Bad players are bad players, and frankly I do not understand why they are being catered to in this degree. They will either stay in the game and get better, and it will fee rewarding, or in most cases they will play a game or two and then leave to the next big game. But yet the whole matchmaking system is based around protecting them, in social.
There is already a place for âfairâ (i.e. mathematically manipulated) matches, it is called ranked. We do not need or want social to be ranked 2.0 but without any prestige.
In quick play it is not too bad, but as soon as you go in to team slayer or free for all you literally may as well be in ranked. If it isnât taken out I have honestly not got much patience left for this game.
Youâre failing to comprehend what Darwi is attempting to articulate.
The game is designed to provide everyone with a fairly balanced match, if possible. This is not done by forcing people into matches aimed at keeping them personally at a 50% win percentage. The system simply tries to give everyone a match with as close to 50:50 odds (to win) as possible based on its understanding of the player skills and their network connection. That doesnât mean every match has 50:50 odds. Nor does it mean that everyone in a match together will have perfectly similar skill levels. But, the healthier the population the greater opportunity for 50:50-ish odds.
The aim is to ensure that the difference between the team to team skill gap is as narrow as possible relative to an acceptable network ping and search time which are dictated by the available player pool. And when able, trying to keep the individual to individual skill gap within a reasonable divide.
Designing a matchmaker in opposition to this fundamental goal is outright foolish. Player retention, beyond highly skilled power users, becomes extremely compromised; especially, for those newer players and generally low skilled players.
The social environment simply puts a bigger emphasis on there being quick searches which typically entails looser SBMM (generally speaking) and perhaps higher potential network pings. The ranked environment simply puts a bigger emphasis on ensuring match quality (relative to SBMM and connection) which typically entails somewhat lengthier search times in comparison to the social environment. Of course, the ranked environment also provides visual Competitive Skill Ranks (CSRs) and more competitively focused modes/settings.
The parameter variability during a search, in either environment, is handled by computer learning; meaning, itâll adjust accordingly (in automatic fashion) per its recognition of the available player pool.
No thatâs my point. The game owes you nothing.
It certainly doesnât owe you an endless string of players to humiliate.
Ok.
And you clearly want it set up so that you win 90% of your games.
No matter how miserable that makes players on the left hand side of the skill curve.
Soundâs a bit exaggerated.
We know your MMR isnât going to change that much on a single game.
Unless of course you have a snapshot of you game history showing WLWLWLWLW with similar swings in your K/D?
Sounds like normal behaviour for a ranking system.
And human behaviour. Nobody comes to the forum to complain that their CSR went up a big chunk on a win, or that it barely moved on a loss.
Thatâs just the reality of life. If you want to play with your lower ranked buddies then they have to -yoink- it up. Why should the other side be pitched to their level just so that you can go on insanely long killing streaks.
The other argument is that having close and even games, for everyone, increases retention. Especially of new players.
Yep, cause as an average player - I canât wait to get home and get spanked by them.
I always find it weird that silver players just want to play silver, gold play gold, platinum, and so on. But all Onyx players want to do is play anyone but themselves.
Some would argue that the pay off is playing and competing against better players.
Wow. Bullying 101.
Alright, for those who are defending the SBMM.
Can you give me one reason why social is âsocialâ?
It is literally the same thing as ranked, just without the BR starts and no visible MMR (hidden one instead)
What is the difference? What makes them social playlists?
From a SBMM point of view - itâs all about looser match-making. More around the team than around the individual. So there can be a natural range to it.
Sadly, a bit like what is happening in ranked now because of the lower server populations 
But what makes Social? Thatâs a bigger question - and I feel it steps way outside of the match-making. It should be more about how the players approach and interact with each other.
I agree there should be more interaction between the players - before and after. Although I donât know the best way to minimise toxic personalities.
I think the basic game play is important. Itâs bewildering to me that we put the same maps, weapons, and game play structures into social and then expect the game to play differently. Like the ranked players are just going to magically not use the same movement patterns and tactics.
Social desperately needs itâs own maps and game-types.
Iâve said it before - but multiteam would be my first choice. 3v3v3. Itâs amazing how the extra player on the map changes things up. And being out numbered 2:1 means most of the ranked tactics about map and weapon control donât work - so just get out there and have fun.
I would love game styles that have a degree of handicapping. You donât need SBMM if the game some how brings everyone down to a similar level. My first scripting project for our custom nights will be a game that scores kills on the K/D of the victim - and everytime you spawn you get an OS proportional to how bad your K/D is.
And of course, I would definitely minimise the effect of your shared MMR parameters between social and ranked. I donât think they are as strong as a lot of people like to make them out to be - but regardless, it shouldnât even be something we are arguing about.
This is literally how online gaming has worked forever. You start bad, lose and get better to be able to compete. It is only a relatively recent phenomena that new players are put in their own play pen with their fingers in their ears so they canât hear other players.
Iâm not against some level of very light skill based matchmaking in social, but as it is it is just making social virtually indistinguishable from ranked. So what is the point in ranked?
As a middle ground I think there should be a period of 20-30 matches at the start where new players are tightly matched with other new players. After that they should be pushed in to the general population. To me that is a nicer solution.
And yes, as a Diamond/ Onyx player I occasionally want to have a more casual experience. The game doesnât allow that and it is driving people away in droves. And quite frankly, the community that actually keeps a game alive beyond the first few months tend to be the people who put a lot of effort in. Disillusioning them all to cater to the droves who have a two month attention span will backfire in their face, it already is.
People do not agree with you, and the population is indicative of that. I understand your argument, you want perfectly balanced games all the time, I just donât agree. Halo was a far more varied and fun experience when it used to allow for a wider pool of players to play together in a social setting.
Iâd like to think we can learn from our mistakes. 
That would at least be a better start then just throwing them to the wolves.
I think it at least has to be moderate.
Statistically each Division has a 1:3 chance of beating the division above it. ie. A Platinum player should beat a Gold player 75% of the time.
So is within 300 MMR points ok? Probably too much?
And I appreciate where you are coming from. In our weekly Halo group I have to try and balance Gold to Onxy players. Itâs tough. And without Forge/Customs we are really struggling with Infinite.
Iâve always been amazed that the beauty of Halo is itâs huge and customisable sandbox - and the best they can serve up for Social is essentially ranked with different starting weapons. And they wonder why games deteriorate into festivals of sweat.
There is so much you customise for a player; their shields, health, damage output, starting weapons, what they can pick up or use, their respawn time, etc. There is plenty they could play with so that players of all levels could run around and be competitive vs each other.
There is so much more they could do with variations of Fiesta, Infection, King of the Hill, Juggernaut, etc. More inclusive game types that cope with wider ranges of âskillâ. Try and make the fun part the chaos and weird stuff happening. Anything to take the focus off an individuals K/D.
It really isnât any looser.
(back when the game had a population) Social matches were just as tight as ranked for me.
Weâre talking about the SBMM and gameplay here, not social features, donât try and divert the subject.
Glad we agree that social and ranked are the same thing!
Seriously?
Not everyone likes multi-team, sure, it is a really fun mode but not for every mode.
If the only way you can make social playlists different from ranked is to turn all the playlists into multi-team variants, than somethingâs not right.
And yet more words that donât explain what makes social different from ranked.
So here is the TL:DR
Social is literally no different than ranked other than BR starts and no visible MMR.
Probably because you approached both with a similar mindset.
But I think a big part of social is the atmosphere / feel. Itâs more than just the SBMM.
Wasnât suggesting it had to be for every mode.
But they need to break up the ranked mind-set.
And at least you acknowledged it was a really fun mode. Imagine if they had 4 or 5 such things in their arsenal. They may even be able to create a social environment where everyone can chill and have some fun.
Yep. But it only seems to be a problem for a certain demographic. Most of whom are skilled and super competitive and feel the only way to relax is with a double figure K/D.
So my words were just trying to try and work out the essence of what makes social just that. How to include everyone.
I think some sort of handicapping system would work perfectly in Social. Where everyone could run around on a relatively level playing field. Onxy (nerfed) going toe to toe with Bronze (buffed).
We had a script running in Halo 5 that compared your score to the current leader and you applied different traits (shields and damage output). It was essentially a dynamic process that changed through the game. It was great. Silver players going toe to toe with Onyx.
The good players usually still came out on top⌠but everyone was kept engaged and had some fun.
Um, no, I approached social with the mindset," I go to ranked if I want to sweat, I go to social if I want to relax."
Boy did I get hit by a freight train.
Yeah, but we arenât talking about the atmosphere, weâre talking about what makes social different from ranked based on SBMM and gameplay
Last time I tried ranked, I got Gold 3 or something, lol
Thatâs still gonna be a sweaty experience, lol
The inherent problem with wanting social to be an ego boost to your K/D is that it relies on a mirror demographic who doesnât mind being regularly humiliated.
I just donât see how this is healthy or sustainable to a gameâs population.
Ok?
We clearly have a different definition of sweaty.
Having to put in a consistent effort doesnât mean you canât be having âfunâ.