Are we actually serious about this? The basic, core game mode of Halo is not going to be included in Infinite as its own playlist? This is mind boggling. I’m actually going to have to quit playing infinite and go back to older games to play the mode that has been the main point of this entire series.
I mean, the baby has officially been thrown out with the bath water. Somehow, in this shuffle, we’ve taken however many years to arrive at a point where the game is literally not playable for the massive swath people whose interest in the last 20 years has been fun, competitive ranked slayer. No “hng the plasma pistol is unbalanced” unplayable-literally not an option to play.
I can’t believe I’m going to abandon infinite less than a month in as a lifelong, thousands and thousands of hour Halo fan, but here we are.
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I used to only play Slayer, but I much prefer Objective now. Feel your pain though, it’s the most popular playlist in every single Halo game. It needs to be added asap. I’d rather have Quickplay Slayer and Quickplay Skirmish.
That way I can just play Skirmish and you can just play Slayer 
I’m happy to keep ranked and big team mixed as historically that has been the case. Once they determine how they want to move forward with ranked I want to see more playlists. Am happy to have crossplay on.
We will be waiting for your return when the slayer playlist arrives with open arms.
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Ranked slayer should be the first playlist they add to the game. I didn’t play anything else in Halo 5. 
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Ranked Slayer would be pointless. What’s next… Ranked Grifball? Ranked Fiesta? Nah man.
I personally think that only HCS/competitive should be ranked.
Edit: the fewer ranked modes the better. It is hard to have a large enough playerbase to sustain a lot of ranked modes.
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I remember seeing a stat for one season showing 600k unique slayer players and the only other playlist that was close was SWAT. Breakout and Solo Arena had like 60k.
Team Arena was also very popular. I feel like ranked Slayer isn’t essential, as much as something like SWAT because slayer does fit nicely into Arena/HCS.
Definitely would be good to split it in social for those that want the option.
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I like how you named 2 ranked playlists out of your 3 - jokingly - as if to say they haven’t been major ranked playlists in previous games.
But I get your point - but right now we have 1 ranked playlist, having team slayer is a no brainer - you could even randomise that to have different variations to keep it in one playlist too, stops loads of different queue-able ones.
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I’ve said this in a few topics but I think their apprehension was due to navigating how/if to split the player population. Right now we have 3 playlists for 1. So of we had 3 playlists in the same format that would be splitting the population 9 ways.
They are definitely approaching this cautiously and imagine holding off on any updates so they can have a better data set to make their decisions as to how best to proceed.
I would argue that as far as Slayer goes, Infinite is horrible. Only great map is maybe Aquarius? 2 maps wouldn’t be worth including (Behemoth/Launch site) so you have 4 maps in total. Bazaar is a terrible Slayer map too but its serviceable. So you have a playlist with like 4 maps? You don’t think that’s boring? Well okay.
Swat/Snipers are both fun modes, but I just don’t see why they need to be ranked.
I personally just want to see HCS (which we already have basically, although Behemoth isn’t technically in HCS) FFA (for solo queue players exclusively) and even a ranked BTB mode or maybe just a BTB mode where you need 8 or more to play (Warzone Warlords was like this IIRC)
Like I enjoy Team Snipers a lot, but if they had like 10 different ranked playlists matchmaking would be substantially worse, so I just want a handful at most. This in no way means that Social Slayer shouldn’t be done btw.
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I think it’s such nonsense to assume they’re holding back STAPLE playlists and modes in fear of “splitting the player base” like they had to have known making halo MP F2P they’d have some of the biggest population numbers of all time. It would make more sense to start the launch with ALL MODES and playlists and work back from there if population dwindles in a certain mode or playlist. There’s got to be a different reason they just aren’t telling us about. I think it’s more likely they’re holding back stuff so they can drip feed it to us and put it in an event playlist tied to the challenge and monetization system
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That’s what I mean by including game-modes like SWAT and Snipers in Slayer - if it’s randomised within 1 playlist then you’re likely only going to get a handful of them in a session (Assuming there’s a few other choices like rockets, normal team slayer etc.)
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yeah but that would be horrible for Ranked. Swat/Snipers/Slayer all in the same playlist? None of your skill in any one of those modes carries over (directly) to the others. Again, they’d be awesome for Social though.
Ranked (at its core) is a bit different than Social playlists. It isn’t crazy for players to spend hundreds of hours into a Ranked mode, so you want a mode with tons of replayability (different gametypes and maps) but with the same overall experience (hence why Swat/Snipes/Slayer all being in one playlist would be bonkers)
I said Grifball and frankly I could see Grifball being better in this game than Slayer is, but the fact remains that the amount of people that actually want to spend dozens if not hundreds of hours playing it has to be almost nil. Amount of people that would do that in HCS settings is substantially higher I’d imagine.
I could maybe see Snipers being a legit Ranked playlist, if only because they could mix it up with Shock Rifle instead of regular Snipe, so it would have a bit more variance than something like SWAT which would be nothing but BR fest, even then I just wonder how dynamic/interesting it would be long term.
Edit: my main point is that anything could be Ranked, but not everything should be, as odd as that may sound.
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Why would the most popular game type, that’s been the core of the series since it started, not be a fit for ranked?
Do you seriously think a poll of ranked players right now would show ranked players don’t want the ability to separate ranked and objective modes?
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Have you played any past Halo games? Halo 3 had like 8 ranked playlists as I recall, and I could still easily find matches on all of them like 2 years after the game released. I don’t think having more ranked playlists will hurt the game at all. The lack of individualized ranked playlists is holding some people like myself back, I was ranked Onyx in SWAT in Halo 5, which meant I would be able to get the Onyx exclusive cosmetic in Halo in Infinite, but because I’m awful at Objective gametypes this current mixed ranked playlist is holding me back from getting the Onyx exclusive cosmetic.
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So you think that just because a mode is popular that it should be in Ranked? Infection should be Ranked? Action Sack? BTB heavies? etc.
Let me give a bulleted list of reasons here.
- Infinite is not suited for Slayer only playlists, especially not ranked.
- Ranked modes are complicated. They need to be fun to play for hundreds of hours. Ranked Slayer would not be.
- it just hurts HCS as a Ranked mode. It would divide playerbase.
Also no poll will change my points my dude. I’m still waiting for the collision poll to pay dividends lol.
Halo 3 was effing huge in terms of population numbers. Infinite is by no means dead or anything, but this is like comparing current Halo to Fortnite, sounds nuts…
Halo 3 had like 150k players on at any given time like 2 years after it released and even with just 150k players I could find matches on the various playlists pretty easily. Infinite has a very healthy population right now, daily peak concurrent players on Steam is around 110k and the game is currently 3rd place on Xbox’s Most Played games list, only behind Fortnite and CoD Warzone, it’s beating Apex, Roblox, GTA V, CoD Vanguard, Battlefield 2046, Dead by Daylight, and more currently on Xbox. Being F2P it is going to attract alot more players than Halo 5 and MCC did, especially once they fix these current issues with the progression and monetization.
I don’t remember having any issues finding matches on most Halo 5 ranked playlists for the first year at least, and 5 was alot less popular than Infinite is.
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Well, its important to note that current population does not reflect aggregate (I’m using fancy words to sound smart here, I meant average over a long period of time) so yes its popular now but most games are popular for the first month or two, do I think it’ll sustain that popularity? No. But if it does then it can support far more playlists/modes obviously.
Let’s be clear. By popular, I mean the most people play it. Slayer has traditionally had what, ten times the player base of the niche modes you’re talking about? The guy above posted stats. So that argument makes no sense.
To your bullets–
- just a statement of opinion that Infinite, all of a sudden, departs from previous entries and magically shouldn’t have a core playlist
- ranked slayer had the most players of any ranked playlist in the most recent game and it wasn’t close, so objectively this isn’t true
- they coexisted in the most recent entry, so again, no
I’m not trying to come after you. I just don’t understand why a wildly popular mode wouldn’t have ranked. I feel like the burden of proof here is on the person saying we shouldn’t have ranked for the core game mode, get what I mean?
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No. My point here was that the core mode isn’t bolstered by the map selection. If you seriously believe 4 maps is enough for a playlist then I won’t argue with you.
So popularity alone warrants a mode should be in matchmaking/ranked? Well okay.
Coexisting does not mean they were good for one another; I sound like a relationship therapist here.
I’ve had this argument before many many times over the years, a common complaint was always that X gamemode should be in matchmaking, I think Ranked should have like 5 playlists at most (for the reasons I’ve already articulated) and Social should have like 10 at its highest.
…yes, the most popular playlist that’s been the backbone of the entire series should have ranked. I guess we disagree on that point which is surprising, and I’m not totally following how you’re arguing against it other than your subjective opinion that certain maps aren’t good for it and, therefore, nobody should be able to play ranked like they all have in the past. And apparently the number one playlist is not on your top five either which is kind of hard for me to comprehend.
And again, “number one” is not my opinion or some poll. It is by far the most played mode in the game and has been for the last 20 years. Just want to make sure we’re clear on that.
But think we’re pretty much talking past each other. Others can weigh in.
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Well to say that Behemoth/Launch Site are subjectively bad is wrong. They could include them, but boy would them maps be ‘exposed’ real quick in Ranked Slayer. Launch site would just be everybody hiding in corners and would likely never go to 50 kills, Behemoth would just be whoever gets good vehicle wins.
It probably should be, but later on once this game has more maps. I can’t wait to see the storm of complaints about it otherwise.
Love.
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