First of all, let’s make sure that we all agree on the definition of the word in question.
Compete: to strive to outdo another.
Competition: the act of competing; rivalry for supremacy.
Competition is, according to the dictionary, the act of striving to outdo another. Therefore, in order for rules to be considered competitive, a player must be able to beat the other through supremacy and superiority alone. In order to prove your thesis that Infinity settings are more competitive than the traditional settings, you must prove that skill and superiority is more important and more of a determining factor in Infinity settings than in traditional settings.
> first of all loadouts; loadouts as they are now require so much thought and planning for teams to be successful with. Teams must carefully consider each team member’s gear and all craft loadouts that work well together, with the map, and just for that player.
Choosing weapons and equipment appropriate for the map and gametype and perks appropriate for my weapons, equipment, and playstyle isn’t difficult at all. Of course I’m not going to use a Jet Pack on Ragnarok, and of course I’m not going to use a Light Rifle on Skyline. Of course I’m not going to use Wheelman on Adrift and of course I’m not going to use Nemesis… well, ever.
Moreover, when all players on a team “specialize,” they are forced to play that role even if it is unnecessary at the current point in the game and are unable to fill in for a teammate’s role. If a player fails in his specialization or his specialization is unnecessary, the time your team spends readjusting your strategies and loadouts is time the other team spends gaining map control, regrouping, or just picking you off.
Because of the way Halo 4 is built, even in Infinity settings, specializing works against the team more than it works for it. Halo’s gameplay rewards coordination of positions, map control, and team-shooting (2 or more players shooting the same enemy), all of which can be done whether all team members have identical loadouts or unique loadouts. Coordinated loadouts are unnecessary and meaningless in Halo regardless of what settings you play.
> loadouts let players play how they want to, how they are comfortable, in a fair and balanced way. The inflexibility in this area of past halo games is astonishing.
Same starts make sure that everyone is being judged on common skills. Perhaps an BR player consistently defeats an AR player; who was the more skilled? You might say that the BR player was more skilled because he consistently won the engagements. But what if the BR doesn’t require as much skill to kill as the AR does? Is he still more skilled? Well, now it’s impossible to tell; we are comparing apples to oranges. Even the answer to which weapon is more skillful differs depending on who you talk to.
If you give everyone BRs, yes, players have less flexibility in which weapons they use. However, because everyone is judged according to their ability to use the same weapon, deciding who is more skillful is no longer as imprecise; we are comparing apples to apples. Because you can tell with absolute certainty who is superior, same weapon starts are more competitive.
> personal ordnance adds lots of competitiveness.
Because it is random, Ordnance is by definition noncompetitive. You can’t outdo another in getting a good or map-appropriate weapon any more than you can outdo another in a coin toss.
> if I get a sniper in my package and I know one guy on my team is an excellent sniper ill call out to him and meet up with him to give him the sniper. The idea is you want every player to have a good weapon and need to share the wealth if you already have one and get one in a package. Requires lots of good teamwork and communication.
Also requires you and said teammate to take a 10-15 second break from the game while you both find each other, share, and then get back into positions.
Or
The player who’s good at sniping can just go to the Sniper Rifle spawn as soon as it spawns on its predictable timer. It is much more convenient, doesn’t interrupt the flow of the game, and isn’t random (and, by extension of the definition, noncompetitive).
> Also teams are encouraged to get kills and assists with personal ordnance which of course is highly competitive as they play much harder.
Why in the world do people need more incentives to shoot other players? Halo is a shooting game. Killing other players is the entire point.
> Lastly ordnance keeps the game fresh and exciting.
Because we’re talking about Infinity settings in the context of competition, I don’t think that’s relevant.
> unpredictable global ordnance is perhaps the most competitive thing infinity settings brought to the table in a long list of competitive things brought to the table. Every single player must constantly be on high alert ready to react fast to get over and secure an unpredictable ordnance when it drops. It requires very fast reaction times and paying constant attention to your surroundings.
No, it doesn’t. Regardless of how much faster than my opponent I reacted to the Random Ordnance, my skill and superiority in such is meaningless if the drop was on their side of the map. Though reaction to drops is important in RODs, much more important is the location of the drop, which is completely out of the players’ control. If the drop was always equidistant from both teams, than I would agree that the superior player, the one with the quickest reaction time, best movement control, and best knowledge of the map would emerge with the power weapon. Unfortunately, more often than not, who gets the drop may or may not have been the quickest, smartest, or most superior; he was simply and incidentally in the right place at the right time.
Because RODs can be (and usually are) given to players without a competition for superiority, they are noncompetitive.
In closing, based on your OP and subsequent posts, you really didn’t talk about Infinity’s competitiveness at all. More often, you talked about how Infinity provided “variety” and traditional settings are “boring.” You did not explain how Infinity settings are better for finding the players with the most raw skill, which was essentially your thesis.