That is a good point. You fix one problem and create another.
I think fixing other issues with team comp like limiting rank differences will help with this. It won’t totally overcome the 4 stack vs solo queue team problem but if we can start seeing more players at the same skill in games, we should see better solo queue teams at higher levels and more players communicating as solo queue players moving up while people that don’t play as a team get stuck.
I have to admit, these are all good points that you make.
The ranking system in this game is not good, so adding a limitation that relies on being within a certain criteria on a poor ranking systems seems like a bad idea. Telling people that they cannot play full court basketball with friends and must play horse because it is social is absolutely crazy. AR starts are not the same game and if a lower skilled friend wants to play a real game I don’t care if their skill set is lower. As someone pointed out the higher level player gains little in these matches.
I am however all for a clan based systems that gets rid of individual performances and the team competes at a specific level. Halo has never been about individual KDR and the fact that this ranking system relies so heavily on it already skews how people play in ranked matches. And if it is such a problem maybe change solo/duo to simply solo so the players that this seems to be a big deal for don’t run into it.
I agree that this is not the only thing wrong with ranked that needs to be fixed. I still think ranked will benefit from a limiter and yes, 1000 times over, ranked is not a social playlist. People that bring unskilled players into high matches ruin the game for everyone else. Losing a game by a small amount because everyone did great except the silver that plays like a sliver and went 3 and 20 is unbelievably frustrating when you are trying to climb and lose a chunk of rank. It is ever so slightly less frustrating when the Diamond or Onyx player gets enough kills to outweigh their friend but that happens like 1 in 20 times. Not having a gap has also caused rank manipulation. As a P6 I got matched against an Onyx 1850ish and a Bronze 3 squad. The bronze 3 went 50-5. Clearly high Onyx like his buddy but using the rank average to play against Plat players.
I think the best answer that will make everyone happy is an Unranked mode. It plays exactly like ranked but does not affect your Ranked MMR or CSR and lots of people would use it to solo queue when they only want to play ranked in squads but still want the ranked feel or practice. Groups that are too far apart for Ranked can play Unranked and still get the experience of Ranked while playing socially.