The following matchmaking system should be implemented for Halo 5.
To start off, I’d like to point out that Infinity Slayer does work on some levels, but it is important to take away some of the bad things.
Let’s say sprint and instant respawn are gone for Halo 5.
When you go into the lobby menu, you can create ONE custom loadout that DEFINES your Spartan. Of course, only getting to choose from one loadout is silly, but I also suggest that we remove many of the options currently available in the loadout editing process.
Your loadout would be the tools you get to bring into INFINITY gametypes only.
INFINITY LOADOUT OPTIONS -
Primary: AR, BR, Light Rifle, Suppresor, Carbine, Storm Rifle, New Human Weapon?, New Forerunner weapon?
Secondary: You do not get to customize this, everyone starts with Magnums
Grenades: 2x Frags, 1x Pulse, or 1x Plasma
Armour Abilities: Thruster Pack, Hologram, Regen, Autosentry, Hardlight Shield, 1-2 New BALANCED Abilities
Perks REMOVED.
There would be a couple sets of gametypes available in Matchmaking:
Normal Gametypes- (i.e. Team Slayer, Team Slayer BR’s, Objective Gametypes)
These gametypes would be the core gametypes that the game is based on. AR/Pistol Starts (BR/AR for Objective), Radar On, and You get to choose an Armour Ability Halo Reach style.
Pro Gametypes - No Radar, No AA’s, BR Starts only
Infinity Gametypes- Go into combat with your designed loadout, personal ordnance disabled
Basing matchmaking around these gametypes would create an experience that stays true to what is Halo as well as introduce some new concepts to the mix.
Lets talk ranks.
In this system we have Social Rank (Corporal, Captain, General, etc. Same system as SR 1-130, a progression system) and Competitive Rank (CSR 1-50’s)
Playing in ANY playlist, Social or Ranked will improve your progression system, this unlocks you AA’s and Weapons for your Infinity Loadout, as well as armour for your spartan.
The CSR however, is IN GAME and is a mixture between The Arena and Halo 4’s CSR system. Lets talk seasons.
Seasons
Seasons are what define a competitive game, its similar to having a circuit of tournments. Someone may perform extremely well at the Columbus event, but someone beats them at the Chicago event.
It is an incredibly rewarding system for competitive gamers and here is how it could work for Halo (5).
RANKED PLAYLISTS (WHICH I WILL GET TO SOON) ARE BASED OFF OF HALO 4’S TEAM SCORING CSR AND ARE RESET EVERY 3 MONTHS TO CREATE 4 SEASONS IN A YEAR
After each Season everyone’s 1-50 ranks would be reset and they would all start from scratch (however TrueSkill ratings would not be reset,just the number, to keep a consistent matchmaking experience)
These resets would prevent the people who want to buy an account, because even if they had the 50 they bought from season 1 in their service record (something i’ll touch on soon) they wouldn’t be able to keep up with getting consistent high ranks, and people would know they bought an account. Same goes for boosters.
Here’s something 343 could do to not only keep people playing the game and keep steady population numbers, but also make people want to compete in ranked playlists.
Seasonal Awards/Rewards:-
343 could create a reward system to reward the best players for certain playlists, they could even have a sponsor like MLG or -Yoink!- Gaming sponsor the ‘tournament’ to get a decent prize in their like money or a physical reward.
Example: Halo 5 releases and you open up Matchmaking, a big pop up comes up that says $10,000 Team Slayer (Season 1) Tournament!
To participate in the tournament, you have to play the Season 1 Team Slayer playlist (anyone can play this playlist still) but upon playing and reaching a CSR of 50, you will be eligible to play in a playlist that launches the last week of Season 1. The playlist would be called Team Slayer Championship and only CSR 50’s (for Team Slayer) would be able to compete in that playlist. You would have to search with a team of 4, and the top 4 people with the best win/loss ratio at the end of Season 4 would split up the 10,000 prize.
This is just an example of how they could reward players.
Then of course they could have custom medals and awards for player’s service records like in Halo 3 how it showed you completed campaign or the basic training, only this time it would be a custom designed badass graphic that says like “Team Slayer Champion (S1)”
I’m sure this would make more people want to play the game.
Then for the next Season they could have a new set of tournaments like
Team Snipers (Season 2) - The top scorer of the Team Snipers Championship playlist will receive a custom designed Halo Sniper replica made by the 405th
Rumble Pit - The top scorer or the Rumble Championship will receive the UNSC Ford Raptor
Catch my drift?
Alright, next up is Service record, then Playlists.
Service Record:
Something that I felt was done very well in Halo 3 was the service record, I could find someones Highest Skill level achieved with a mere two clicks.
How this service record would work is that you would have a player card, similar to Halo 3’s that shows your Spartan, Gamertag, and other shtuff. In the middle of the card it would say: Current Highest Skill Level (Season __) and it would display the skill level for your best playlist in the current season.
Below that it would say Rank: Captain (or whatever Progess Rank you have)
You could then go further into the Service record to see Campaign Progress, Firefight high scores and stats (bring it back 343), Social Stats, and Ranked Stats. Everything would be pretty basic, K/D, Win/Loss, all that jazz.
However in the Ranked section, when looking at just the Ranked tile, you could see stats that they’ve accumulated over the entire time playing in matchmaking (lifetime K/D, etc.), however you could view stats per Season as well, view what their highest skill was for each Season, in what playlist, their K/D for their best playlist, their Win/Loss for their best playlist, and then their overall K/D and Win/Loss for that Season.
Time for playlists