So we all know very well that certain playcompositions at least seem pretty dead ( H2 classic BTB for example ) but what is suffering the most are the ranked playlists ( btw i think we should have some kind of indication if its even worth to start a search maybe like an expectet wait timer or something like that ). Halo CE , Halo 3 doubles and Halo 3 slayer seem to be playable but most other are largely dead. So i would like to brainstorm some ideas here how to revive the ranked experience and who knows maybe some 343 guy picks up a few of the ideas.
so first the playlists need some major changes. Invasion for example need to go into the soical , its never belonged into the ranked playlists in the first place as its way to niche for that and i think people would agree with me that this belongs into social , same goes to any H4 and H2A playlist they need to go too. we should unify other playlists , what i mean by that we do not need a seperate halo 3 slayer playlist , drop the mlg ruleset and put the maps from the mlg playlist together into a combined slayer/objective list. keep the playlists focused on popular options , alot of people seem to want a ranked FFA,SWAT and snipers playlist , the trick is to not spread the options too far, if a certain game has a dead ranked community the game has to go sadly , as we need to accept reality if they are not able to build up enough popularity. so i would say that the focus need to be defently on the first 3 halo games with major focus on Halo 3
further i like competetive to be somehow integrated into the current match composer , we should be able to select from the composer ranked options.
Proper Rewards : Give Ranked Matches more XP and a chance of earning spartanpoints , tie certain unlocks to ranked games , make the rank clearly visible and advertise ranked play. maybe have even have each hour an ranked playlist give additional reward xp and make it simply jump into search with the press of a button. this idea could also work to revive less popular composer options like mentioned H2 BTB
Link Halo Infinite Unlocks or progression to Halo MCC, ( i dont play infinite but imagine we could progress infinite Battlepass or what ever trough MCC ranked ) , give unique unlocks in infinite for ranked in MCC.
compress the ranks or spread the playerbase across it, while i am against creating ranking seasons maybe a rank in mechanism should be implemented , alternatively a more liberal rank matchmaking should be introduced. maybe the game could work on a ELO score system where a level 1 and 50 could be matched but the gained or lost points would be adjusted.
Literally everything that isn’t being done correctly right now…
Bring back the “Community Forge” playlist.
Bring back the “Multi-Team” playlist.
Create a dedicated “Race” playlist (featuring community-made racetracks old and new).
Create a dedicated “Insane” playlist (featuring all Darth Human maps lol).
Create a dedicated “Modded” playlist (featuring cut content).
More frequent variety of vanilla ranked playlists.
More frequent ranked rewards.
Spartan Points bundles as ranked rewards.
Special nameplates as ranked rewards.
Double XP events.
Doing literally any one of these things would have players flocking back to the MCC in droves just at the sheer incredulity of them being made official announcements for the game. But the MCC devs just seem allergic to spicing up the playlist selection beyond the vanilla Halo experience and what is already available. It’s truly baffling.
Halo: Reach was like the Italian Renaissance of Forge mode and it’s just mind-numbing how nothing from its Forge library has yet to be tapped into or showcased in any way on MCC even two years later.
H2BTB is only dead for solos. The only people playing it, are teams of 8 who play every day, or solos who just want to play H2 for fun, and then stop playing after they get stomped by a stackteam.
343i should make H2 a fulltime competitive mode, instead of it being rotational.
when only a few 8 stacks of dedicated H2 btb players are playing we can safely call it dead or near dead. i agree that h2 should have at least one permament competetive mode , if any playlist has to go its h4. halo 2 had a great competetive history ( altrough its an heaviliy discussed one because of stuff like button combos etc ) its basicly more or less the beginning of halo mlg esports widespread and it defently has a dedicated community who enjoy it. the low populariry in the mcc of halo 2 is in my opinion because halo 2 get kinda ignored and has still quite a lot of issiues , people often point to project catographer as an example but i cant judge that because i played exactly one round of catographer.
I think it heavily revolves around the leave-ban system in social playlists. Stacked teams can’t find games in ranked playlists because all the more casual players stick to socials, so they invade social playlists and stomp almost anyone they encounter. You’re forced to sit through a stomping in socials, and the game will match you against them the next game.
The SBMM is too strict in socials, forcing overly sweaty play, and the competitive 4-stacks are going to keep getting free wins by stomping less experienced or more casual players who don’t play often. Let the community police the socials matchmaking and things might return to normal.
tl;dr
Remove quit bans from social playlists to encourage competitive players to return to competitive queues. If they aren’t able to find games to stomp in socials, they’ll head to competitive and help to even out the player pools.
agree sbmm is kinda strict i am 90% of the time matched against an gigh skilled 4 man squad ( in 4v4) while i seem to be most often matched with only one good other guy and end up carrying with him the other two in slayer types ,it becomes problematic in objective gametypes. maybe its personal bias but it seems like that. while matches are exciting i cant really “chill” as i most foten need to play like its comp. its get more chill if i am in a grioup with less experienced players. the thing though wich counts for bouth casual and ranked is : if i am in a group of 4 and the other 3 are average but we are coordinated i will stomp any 4 squad of random matches , wich kinda works against the competetive and casual games because thats something the game cant really rate. teamwork defeats evrything so the solution would be to try archive parity in groups ie lets say any group size above two players there must be an equal group on the other side. so 4 stack vs 4 stack. i dont remember wich game it was , i think infinite where there were separet comp playlist for groups and solos.