I completely support this… HCS settings are fine but everything that makes H5 different from the rest of Halos have been darkened by turning competitive and normal Arena into a Hardcore experience with overweighted Slayer and Magnum only starts (not to mention there are no autos in the maps and the Sputnik is so overpowered in my opinion).
First of all, the delicate balance between weapons, fun, competitiveness and armor abilities was in the old playlist, but sadly we can’t play that anymore. A flag that kills in one melee, Spartan Charge to quickly ruin a close capture and an AR/SMG when you run out of yor pistol ammo are really important. As I see it, Reach MLG playlost suffered from something very similar, they entirry removed bloom and abilities, so it was more like Halo 3 than Reach. It lost its identity and same is happening to H5.
On the other hand, I think the problem started since the huge balance update H5 got a few years ago; everything aside from the Magnum was nerfed or saw its efectiveness decreased to certain encounters, while the Pistol was transformed into an old utility weapon that outperforms everything in the map with a bit of precision and luck. Personally, having a good weapon to start with is important, but the ones in the map should be undoubtedly slightly better to have a point to pick them up and not to rely totally on your loadout (SMG, BR and such are pointless, just to name a few). Even using your AR as it stands right now is pretty risky unless you’re at close range.
To sum up, the only way to fix this is to return to the old balance that H5 had before the update (it was perfect, everything was useful and your starting weapons still had some power to defend yourself against superior guns on the field). Earn and control your weapons, don’t start with them already. After that, split up HCS and Normal competitive settings in Arena. In addition, get rid of the huge amount of Slayer in every playlist (even fast Social match doesn’t feature CTF or Territories), and make them in parity with Objective playlists. Team Arena should be Objective based with a little bit of underweighted Slayer (to prevent its death), Team Slayer should offer Slayer only, and HCS Arena should offer everything but with Hardcore settings. And please add Objective to Fast Match… Come on, slayer is cool but it’s just shoot and kill.
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And a little bit off-topic… why are people in Bronze, Silver and such getting paired with Diamonds and Onyx? Who thought that was going to be right?