Not at all what Darwi meant. Taking his words a little out of context. Halo can be seen as a sport. But I see socials more as a game of pick-up basketball than NBA. Some people are gonna take it super serious, some are gonna have fun with it. Just how it is.
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I know exactly what he meant, and I think itâs an absurd and laughable argument to suggest that silly casual game modes in a video game ought to be governed by the same principles as physical competitive sports.
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Absurd and laughable is a bit harsh. Look for the context.
Does Lawn Bowls fit your world view better? Darts? Maybe a backgammon club. The point is that you donât rock up to these sports / hobbies (is that better) and they then go out of their way to humiliate you.
Thatâs the absurd and laughable bit. Thinking thatâs the way to nurture and sustain a healthy population.
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its not the SBMM, you guys dont understand that the game is just too easy. There is NO SBMM IN SOCIAL.
I think the biggest problem with Social is that it tends to mimic Ranked too closely. Even the most chilled of skilled players tends to bring the play style of Ranked with them. ITâs ingrained muscle memory.
When you think about the maps / weapon placement / timers etc⌠are all designed to promote competitive play.
I think the best thing for social would be to make it all multi-team. 4v4v4 (or 3v3v3). Straight away you increase the chaos by adding players. Your normal ranked strategies fall apart when you are outnumbered 2:1.
Take the focus off power weapon and equipment spawns. These are the focus of sweaty play (go hard, win the rocket launcher, and then dominate for 5 minutes). Do something to break it up - remove them⌠or have multiple of them⌠etc.
And finally add a handicap rule of some sort. If your K:D is < 1 then buff the player (damage or shield boost). If your K:D is > 2 then do the opposite. If you die twice without getting a kill you spawn with overshield. etc.
Mix up the scoring rules. Move to damage over kills. Make it so you get more (or only get) points for killing players equal or above you on the skill ladder.
Just throwing out ideas. Just make it different. Encourage the fun.
How to say youâre new to Halo without actually saying youâre new to Halo 
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Yeah its bad and needs toned down. My friend was playing this morning having a blast then i got on to play with him and it immediately went downhill for him. He ended up quiting 3 games in because everyone on the enemy team was going super hard. This was big team battle btw. Also i may add if your going to throw me into an mlg tournament, give me teammates that have actually played a video game before.
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Yeah. I think this is the biggest problem with it. Friends of varying skills are having trouble playing together because the current matchmaking makes the lower skilled players miserable when they try to play with higher skilled friends.
Do you think part of it is unrealistic expectations?
When I play with my sons - who are way better than I am - I have to change the way I play. I know that I am going to be targeted by the opposition as the lowest common denominator.
My first priority is not to die⌠and to support the better players (covering fire). I donât expect to get hold of power weapons or equipment - that would be a waste (although they often give me the camo). I do try and identify the oppositionâs weak link and they are the only ones I go head to head with.
If I try and play the same way I normally do Iâm going to get smashed.
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I wouldnât consider it at all unrealistic to NOT go against the top 20% skill bracket every single gameâŚyet here we are 
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Iâve always been 100% for SBMM but reading your argument convinced me, it does definitely need to go in Social playlists.
That point about not really being able to fully experience getting better at the game because you quickly start getting matched with equal players, is a good one.
90% of games in Infinite feel super tight. The SBMM is almost too good lol
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I guess if you think my enjoyment of BTB in MCC set unrealistic expectations for what BTB should be like in Halo Infinite then maybe I have unrealistic expectations.
I guess what Iâm saying is that I prefer that atmosphere for social BTB. Sure sometimes you get stomped and sometimes your doing the stomping and sometimes there are really close matches. I find that more enjoyable for social playlists then for every match to be a sweat-fest.
Otherwise whatâs the point of differentiating between ranked playlists and social playlists.
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This is one of my main issues. Ranked provides an experience where almost all games are somewhat close and competitive.
But if social is just ranked but with SBMM applied to teams but not individual players, which is what it is currently, then every game mode winds up feeling same-y eventually.
I would gladly have social be a game mode where I stomp on noobs 30% of the time, have close games 30% of the time, and get absolutely trashed 30% of the time.
As it is, itâs just kind of uninteresting.
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Seems like it only works for the other team and not mine 
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Honestly I hadnt even thought about this until i read it. Ive had a number of game where i just get stomped all over and a hand full of games where I dont do too bad. I dont think Im good at the game but i love it. And I completely agree with all your points. It makes a lot of sense. I wonder if they could write in a piece of coding where the game behind the scenes has every player in a specific pool. It could be based of an average of their KDS, or something like that. then place player into a match with two high and two low on each team. This would absolutely make things a lot more fun and dynamic. Well written and well said!
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Just get rid of SBMM in Socials/Unranked, this is ridiculous. I canât stand this game with SBMM.
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You clearly havenât played enough, or arenât aware of what SBMM is, nor what it does. Every playlist has SBMM.
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The problem is that the maths doesnât work.
For someone towards the tails of the curve there is no âsometimesâ. Itâs all the time.
I canât vouch for the SBMM output of MCC vs Infinite. Iâm sure they are looking at the post game data to see where adjustments need to be made.
The differentiation is that Ranked should be tightly matched on the individual (ideally every player on both teams would ideally be the same level). Social should be matched on the teams (across a wider range of individual skill levels).
Logistically this is difficult / unrealistic for anyone that isnât smack in the middle of the skill curve. If someone is mid-Diamond or above I imagine it would be quite difficult (if not impossible) for SBMM to produce this outcome.
The idea of SBMM is to remove the âstompingâ and the âtrashingâ.
Yup, thus making a game where every mode basically feels the same. Having a 50% chance to win in every game mode regardless of how competitive or silly/casual it is is stupid.
I donât remember Halo 2 or Halo 3 having a player retention problem with their social game modes. This is just modern game developers solving a problem that doesnât exist.
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This may not be popular opinion given the much discussed and criticised level and progression issues, but one of the best thing they could do to Social is to remove or reduce the incentives to play Social.
A lot of players play Social to pad their KD, boost their stats and do challenges to rank up their levels. If you remove KD and other stat records from Social and limit them to Ranked then there would be a big shift of the higher skilled players to play Ranked game modes.
Similarly, there would be an even greater shift to Ranked if XP rewards and challenges were weighted heavily towards Ranked. As an example, if Ranked games received double XP than that of Social and completing challenges only applied to Ranked games then there would be more of a casual player base and feel to Social.
Once you do that, you can also wrap the lower skilled players in protective blankets by implementing level differentials (ie Bronze to Silver would never meet Diamond and above).
Also worth noting that a lot of you are jumping on the âstomp on bad players is funâ theory when thatâs not what balancing and removing SBMM Social is about or what players are asking for. The majority of the player base will be between Gold and Platinum so letâs not get wrapped up in the extremities of the lowest populated skill levels (ie Bronze and Diamond/Onyx) which will be few and far between on the whole if placed in a random matchmaking system without SBMMâŚbasically itâs highly unlikely you will run into teams full of Diamand/Onyx players game after game, and a protective blanket can be implemented to protect Bronze.
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