Before I begin, I want to give some information about myself so people understand where I come from. I definitely support both sides of the community, being the casuals and the tryhards. I am more of a tryhard myself but definitely want 343i to please both groups.
With that said, I think it’s safe to say that Reach would definitely benefit off a better competitive experience than the dreaded “Arena” system currently in place. I believe that some of the following additions would make many “Halo-quitters” come back and give Reach the population of a true Halo game.
THE CURRENT ARENA SYSTEM
My goodness, what the hell did you do Bungie?! In theory, Arena was supposed to take the competitive side of the community and split them up into divisions rather than apply a digit rank to each individual. This wasn’t a bad idea in theory and I’m glad Bungie tried to innovate, but the system sucks. You aren’t ranked for the first 4 days of playing and your rank updates daily rather than after each game. To me, right there is a huge negative. As a player, I want to see progress now, not tomorrow or a week from now when I log in again. So instead of splitting players with a rank scale of 50, they cut it down to 5, then added a percentage system within each. I cannot stand being Onyx along with all 7 other players in a game, then having to navigate layers and layers of menus to the “percentage”. My good god! The system was extremely easy to destroy (I myself hitting 7% Onyx in season 7) without ever partying with a solid group. The previous systems were significantly more entertaining and did a better job with match-ups than this sh**.
WHAT COMPETITIVE REACH NEEDS
For Reach to bring back its competitive players (such as myself), it needs a system much like the previous games. We all saw how long Halo 3’s population lasted 3 years into its life span because of the competitive community (Ranked Team Slayer always at a pop greater than 30K). This system was far more entertaining for myself and offered much more gratification. Was it not fun trying to “hit that 50”, or “hit that Brigadier” or “get that 30 in SWAT”. If offered a good, and large challenge to the “talented” players of the game and Reach should definitely take from its previous instalments. The only issues with these systems were the boosters and the derankers. I don’t find boosting unfair in the slightest. If that person wanted to purchase a whole new subscription just to rank up his friend, he paid for the right to do so. Derankers however can be handled with banhammers implements such as punishing people that consistently deal damage to teammates or finish games with a kil count of 0 or less.
Realistically, it offered a way for competitors to reach the top of their game and to put their abilities to the test. It gave people something to shoot for and the current Arena system just doesn’t cut it. Get rid of this season crap, this isn’t Major league baseball or hockey, it’s an FPS, it’s Halo and lets keep it that way.
WHY BLOOM NEEDS TO GO
Bloom in theory, was a good idea- to add another layer in the skills gap. Pace your shots and you will be rewarded. Spam, and you will lose. The idea was good, but bloom does no such thing. Whether I spam or pace, I should flip a coin because I could lose either way to a spammer who’s shots still connect. Why should I pace, when I’m losing to spammers. Bloom does not do it’s job and just slows down gameplay catering to casuals and doing nothing more than being noob friendly. Bloom could stay in social playlists, but should not exist in the competitive ones.
ARMOR ABILITIES
These definitely brought a fun layer to Reach and made it entertaining. It was nice to see Bungie try and give their players more to work with but I feel like they said “Okay, classes work for COD, lets give it a go”. If I wanted a game with things that break height control and things that say “I’ll punch the ground and wait for a teammate to rescue me”, I would play casual games like COD. I like Halo for its skill gap that was evident in previous instalments. Like Bloom, AA’s are nice and entertaining, but need to get out of the Hardcore, competitive/ranked playlists.
WHY THE cR RANKING SYSTEM IS A JOKE
I’m sure that everyone has concluded that the cR ranking system offers no accomplishment other than time played. All you need to rank up is just play and play and play. It’s sad that Firefight offers more cR / hour than player vs player but hey, whatever. To me, a Noble is just a kid who plays way to much firefight and not enough skill based MM but once again, Reach doesn’t really maintain much of a skill gap. Bungie should have focus less on a “COD ranking system” and brought back the competitive ranks but the casual community does deserve their own system should they want it.
A LITTLE GOES A LONG WAY
As well as a new ranking system and a playlist with either reduced or no bloom and the removal of annoying, noob friendly AA’s, 343i needs to add a quickview-service-record where one can quickly view a player’s highest skill, win/loss ratio, and K/D ration. I don’t want to search through layers and layers of menus just to estimate the skill level of a player.
FINAL THOUGHTS
The casual community and the tryhard community always seem to argue over subjects like bloom, AA’s, and other game mechanics. As a tryhard, all I want to see is a playlist for the tryhards to utilize (and not that Arena sh**). I’m glad to see that 343i is running the TU update playlist to test the new ideas and I don’t want the tryhard community to take over Reach. I just want a section of the game for us to enjoy. DO NOT TAKE AWAY BLOOM FOR ALL PLAYLISTS, just remove it from the hardcore ones!
With a new, better functioning ranking system, and an upgrade to menus and other features in Reach, I definitely believe that players will come back and 343 will get some population back!
PLEASE…
Do not get angry and shoot around hate text. I’m just offering my opinion but I think it’s a fair analysis. Please comments below and offer your own feedback and remember, I’m not trying to ruin the experience for one side of the community, I’, just trying to make it better for another.
Shoutout to HyperNinja - Ninja - Reach Needs Ranks
Give him a look, I know people are sceptical of MLG but he does speak some truth 
