Social doesn't mean Casual

Games Halo 5: Guardians
1

This is an infuriating sample quote for many, myself included:

Leave Sprint, PoDs, RoDs and Start AAs for Social playlists in Halo 5, and let Competitive not have it, that’s what they want mostly.

This, is infuriating because many on these forums seem to keep failing to understand or plain do not know these main points:

  1. There were more social players than competitive ones on Halo 3, and that group was ALOT bigger than the population of Halo 4. Most Social playlist players in Halo 3 also hate Infinity stuff as much as the Competitive side, the majority of Halo fans preferred the old Halo cause it was an Arena shooter.

  2. People who more or less recite this are frustratingly grouping together social and casual, here is the full difference.

Social Player: Someone who enjoys the games style above other games, but does not take intrest in MLG, Tournaments outside of a group of friends, competitive clans (may join a forger clan), loves the lore etc.

Casual Player: Plays the latest biggest names or up and comers for no real reason than they are newer than the previous title, flit between games every few months, no real interest in a games lore by die hard standards and may or may not enjoy clans etc.

People need to learn to stop grouping the Social and Casual together.

2

Social is Casual.

A ranking system is meant to ensure that pros are paired with pros, and noobs are paired with noobs. It’s meant to ensure that you and your opponent are equal. It doesn’t always work out that way, but it’s an imperfect world we live in.

Social players just want to stomp on anyone due to ranks being irrelevant, similar to Casuals who don’t give an ounce about game balance. Frankly if you don’t even care about balanced matchmaking, why would you suddenly care about balanced settings? The end result is imbalance either way.

I will say social and modern are not the same, nor are competitive and classic the same. But social is still casual.

Which by the way there’s nothing wrong with being casual. They are rather vague terms regardless, as not everyone fits solely into one or another. A social player might not care if one match is challenging and another is easy, a ranked player might want all matches to be difficult or all matches to be easy.

3

I don’t like your definition of a casual player.

A casual player is a player looking for a casual experience and enjoys playing the game. If you are not looking for a competitive experience, you are looking for a casual experience. Social is pretty much the same.

4

I agree. A casual player is by definition not competitive. Most (old) Halo players are in between professional and casual: they love Halo and its competitive settings and almost daily play the game, but they have no ambition for going to tournaments. I wouldn’t call these “social players”, I would prefer the term “Halo fans”. In Halo 3, the “Halo fans” were split into ranked and social between those who cared about ranks and getting better, and those who didn’t care.

But in a game where the competitive playlist is basically a different game than the casual playlist, such as Halo 4, this separation is much more than just between those that want to work on their rank and those that don’t want to worry about it. The separation nowadays is between gametype preferences.

It is very hard to take infinity slayer seriously as a competitive gametype. I call it casual. The only really competitive part in Halo 4 are the throwdown and team doubles playlists. But it is very hard to get into with the skill levels in there and thus it has a low population. The problem now is that there is nothing in between to satisfy the “Halo fans” from Halo 3. We don’t have a social playlist that plays like Throwdown. And that’s frustrating to the competitive non-professional Halo fans.

For Halo 4, I would say that “social/Halo fan” and “casual” is the same, since it is either one way or the other. 343i basically grouped the two together by separating the game into two entirely different settings. Ironic, isn’t it?

For Halo 5, 343i needs to return to the way it was before concerning playlists. Ranked playlist for commitment, to make an addictive system that encourages you to get better. And Social, for those who don’t care about ranks, but do care about Halo. Both need to have the exact same settings right out of the box, so that the Halo fans don’t have to play two entirely different sets of settings when they play what they feel like. Otherwise, history will repeat itsself and everyone that doesn’t commit themselves fully to the game to compete in tournaments will be called “casual” wrongly, which is what is happening right now.

5

> Social is Casual.
>
> A ranking system is meant to ensure that pros are paired with pros, and noobs are paired with noobs. It’s meant to ensure that you and your opponent are equal. <mark>It doesn’t always work out that way</mark>, but it’s an imperfect world we live in.
>
> Social players just want to stomp on anyone due to ranks being irrelevant, similar to Casuals who don’t give an ounce about game balance. Frankly if you don’t even care about balanced matchmaking, why would you suddenly care about balanced settings? The end result is imbalance either way.
>
> I will say social and modern are not the same, nor are competitive and classic the same. But social is still casual.
>
> Which by the way there’s nothing wrong with being casual. They are rather vague terms regardless, as not everyone fits solely into one or another. A social player might not care if one match is challenging and another is easy, a ranked player might want all matches to be difficult or all matches to be easy.

I kinda and others made sure it was that way in halo 3.

6

> but they have no ambition for going to tournaments.

I wouldn’t classify competitive and professional as being the same thing.

Competitive is a mindset, professional is a status.

Though really, the terms competitive, casual, and professional are ambiguous and a result of the shift in game design in the past twenty years. Gaming wasn’t mainstream and you usually played games intensely or did not play them.

> But it is very hard to get into with the skill levels in there and thus it has a low population.

It’s a vicious cycle / catch-22 though.

Bad players don’t play Throwdown because no other bad players are in it.

No bad players are in it because the population is low so they only get matched with good players and end up quitting.

Because they end up quitting there’s a low population of bad players.

If every social player was to play Throwdown, most of the time they would get matched up with other social players.

7

> > but they have no ambition for going to tournaments.
>
> I wouldn’t classify competitive and professional as being the same thing.
> Competitive is a mindset, professional is a status.
> Though really, the terms competitive, casual, and professional are ambiguous and a result of the shift in game design in the past twenty years. Gaming wasn’t mainstream and you usually played games intensely or did not play them.
>
>
> > But it is very hard to get into with the skill levels in there and thus it has a low population.
>
>
>
> > It’s a vicious cycle / catch-22 though.
> > Bad players don’t play Throwdown because no other bad players are in it.
> > No bad players are in it because the population is low so they only get matched with good players and end up quitting.
> > Because they end up quitting there’s a low population of bad players.
> > If every social player was to play Throwdown, most of the time they would get matched up with other social players.
>
> That’s actually what I was saying or trying to say. My main point is that if there were no difference between the competitive settings and the social settings, then the problems we are having now would not occur. Which is basically the same as having every social player join the competitive playlist from a matchmaking point of view.

8

> I will say social and modern are not the same, nor are competitive and classic the same. But social is still casual.

I see what you’re saying, but I think “social,” according to OP’s definition, are players who prefer “classic” settings, but don’t consider themselves “competitive.” Thus, we could say that social players are casual, but not all casual players are social. At this point though, I think we’re pretty much just coming up with our own definitions for words.

If we wanted to come up with definitions based on the actual meanings of the words, “casual” means the player really doesn’t care about anything, they just want to have fun playing the game, whatever that means to them. “Social” means the player plays with friends, to meet people, or to laugh and have fun with the crazy stuff that happens in the game. These definitions describe mindsets though, not gameplay preferences.

> But in a game where the competitive playlist is basically a different game than the casual playlist, such as Halo 4, this separation is much more than just between those that want to work on their rank and those that don’t want to worry about it. The separation nowadays is between gametype preferences.
> …
> For Halo 5, 343i needs to return to the way it was before concerning playlists. Ranked playlist for commitment, to make an addictive system that encourages you to get better. And Social, for those who don’t care about ranks, but do care about Halo. Both need to have the exact same settings right out of the box

Right. I think one of the reasons Halo 3 was so successful was that whether you were playing ranked or social, you were playing the same game. If I felt like being a tryhard and winning, I would play ranked. If I felt like relaxing, I could play social. Either way, my experience within the game was the same; the difference was the types of players that I was matched with. In Halo 4 though, since all playlists are unranked in-game but ranked on Waypoint, you have competitive-minded and casual-minded players being thrown into the same bucket. Regardless of skill similarities, this creates bad experiences with other players and imbalanced teams, since a CSR 44 may play like a CSR 33 when he’s playing casually or socially.

9

> the majority of Halo fans preferred the old Halo cause it was an Arena shooter

Exactly.

However, ask yourself these questions without bringing in your own love for the Halo franchise.

1: Is Halo as a whole still as relevant as back in the heydays of H2 and H3?

2: Is the subgenre of “arena shooter” still popular amongst mainstream gamers?

Answer to both questions, objectively, is probably “NO”.
Every big franchise suffers from becoming “irrelevant”. Sure, people will still want a new Halo. Sure, a new Halo will receive hype and a lot of attention. But it’s not longer the juggernaut game that is more important than anything else out there. Its no longer the game people will play en masse for longer than 2-3 months.
It happens to every franchise, except for GTA perhaps. Metal Gear? Not nearly as popular as back in the PS2 years. Gran Turismo? Same. Tomb Raider? Same. And the list goes on.

As for the Arena shooter…unfortunately it also is no longer popular amongst the population that bring in the big money: the mainstream gamer. The lack of mainstream interest also is the biggest reason H4 is just…“empty” now.
I mean, do we still hear abour Unreal Tournament? That was THE arena shooter!
It has all shifted towards a faster gameplay a la COD/BF.

A shame, yes. But nothing 343i can counter to be honest. Nothing Bungie would’ve been able to counter also…unless they would have made Halo be what Destiny is going to be (which is something I have been wishing ever since H3).

The reason for people wanting to leave AA’s etc in is far simpler.
This community is splintered and has been denying each different group their specific way of playing for far too long.

Making matchmaking mostly “classic” like H2/H3 (without trying to be a 100% replica of either of those!) is the way to go. And yes, you’re right: social =/= casual, but there should also be playlists that DO include the post Reach inclusions. Because, to be honest, there are gametypes that are insanely fun with them.

Diversity is better than a single forced playstyle that alienates, yet again, a certain part of this community.

Halo is doing bad, and instead of uniting and trying to help it survive this community is kind of destroying it from inside.

Also: casual =/= Halo players.
Casual gamers aren’t “gamers”, they’re the kind of people that play mobile games like PvZ and Angry Birds.

10

> Right. I think one of the reasons Halo 3 was so successful was that whether you were playing ranked or social, you were playing the same game. If I felt like being a tryhard and winning, I would play ranked. If I felt like relaxing, I could play social. Either way, my experience within the game was the same; the difference was the types of players that I was matched with. In Halo 4 though, since all playlists are unranked in-game but ranked on Waypoint, you have competitive-minded and casual-minded players being thrown into the same bucket. Regardless of skill similarities, this creates imbalanced teams and bad experiences with other players.

Agreed, the experience was the same. It was what we bought the game for and what we expected from a Halo game.

I think Halo 4’s problem concerning ranks is not necessarily with everything being ranked. It’s that there is nothing in-game to show us “this is ranked, this isn’t”. There’s also no point to working for your rank if you can’t show it off in game. Visible ranks allow you to brag and be satisfied, but also to see if TrueSkill has done a good job matching you up with others.

But I think that it is first and foremost the gametype settings that attract players to their preferred playstyle, rather than just ranks. For Halo 4, that almost exclusively means that competitive minded players or those that simply want balance are pulled towards throwdown, and that those who do not care about balance, or do not recognize imbalance, play everything else. And what about those who want to play balanced settings but simply aren’t good enough for Throwdown and don’t have the time to become better? They can either play the game in frustration like I did for a long time. Or quit, like I eventually did.

My point is that the division is no longer 50-50 like it used to be. It is now 5% hyper competitive in throwdown and 95% in everything else. Which is why the “everything else” has such poor matchmaking: like you said, semi-competitive and casual are thrown into one bunch. the semi competitive don’t have a place to play in Halo 4 and that hurts everyone. So a bigger issue for Halo 4 is currently the matchmaking playlists, and not just the ranks imo.

Though Halo 5 will need both to succeed.

11

> 1: Is Halo as a whole still as relevant as back in the heydays of H2 and H3?
>
> 2: Is the subgenre of “arena shooter” still popular amongst mainstream gamers?

Of course not. Do you know why? Because Halo wiped them all out. Unreal Tournament, Quake, and even newer games like Nexuiz pale in comparison to even the worst Halo games.

So now, when the monopolist giant of the arena shooter subgenre falls, who is left standing? No one, of course.

It really doesn’t matter whether an FPS is arena, class-based, or loadout-based, because first-person shooters as a whole are still incredibly popular. Games like Zelda and Tomb Raider died because their entire genres (action/adventure and platformer, respectively) died. The FPS genre is still alive and well, and so any FPS game has the potential for success as long as it is fun.

> Every big franchise suffers from becoming “irrelevant”. Sure, people will still want a new Halo. Sure, a new Halo will receive hype and a lot of attention. But it’s not longer the juggernaut game that is more important than anything else out there. Its no longer the game people will play en masse for longer than 2-3 months.

And do you know why? Because it alienated its entire fan base. Halo had built a pretty large following over the course of ten years, but when Halo 4 released, it was nothing like its fans had come to expect, so those fans left Halo 4. Unlike Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, Battlefield 3, or even Halo: Reach, Halo 4 did not have years and years to develop a following around its particular style of gameplay, and so it may as well be considered a standalone game in its own franchise. Halo has two options right now: go back to its arena roots (what it’s good at) and gain back its massive fanbase, or continue on in Halo 4’s direction and hope the style eventually takes off.

What we’re seeing now isn’t Halo not being relevant; we’re seeing Halo 4 not being relevant.

12

> I don’t like your definition of a casual player.
>
> A casual player is a player looking for a casual experience and enjoys playing the game. If you are not looking for a competitive experience, you are looking for a casual experience. Social is pretty much the same.

This. ^

Social and casual are pretty similar in defining a broad spectrum of gamers.

13

> Of course not. Do you know why? Because Halo wiped them all out. Unreal Tournament, Quake, and even newer games like Nexuiz pale in comparison to even the worst Halo games.
>
> So now, when the monopolist giant of the arena shooter subgenre falls, who is left standing? No one, of course.

Not really sure I agree with that statement.

Halo is for the most part a console FPS, while those games are pretty much exclusive to the PC (they have console ports, but those ports are mediocre).

Something else killed off that sub-genre.

> Games like Zelda and Tomb Raider died because their entire genres (action/adventure and platformer, respectively) died.

This makes me depressed.

When I was a kid you could find a wide variety of games on the PS1, PS2, and Xbox. Now the market is pretty much homogenized, with Generic AAA Shooter 1 and Generic AAA Shooter 2 vying for the top on a constant basis.

When the -Yoink- will we get new games and get new IPs? I do get tired of playing shooters after awhile.

> What we’re seeing now isn’t Halo not being relevant; we’re seeing Halo 4 not being relevant.

Meh. Wish 343I would release a classic spin-off just so we can prove this argument right or wrong once and for all.

14

> > Games like Zelda and Tomb Raider died because their entire genres (action/adventure and platformer, respectively) died.
>
> This makes me depressed.
>
> When I was a kid you could find a wide variety of games on the PS1, PS2, and Xbox. Now the market is pretty much homogenized, with Generic AAA Shooter 1 and Generic AAA Shooter 2 vying for the top on a constant basis.
>
> When the -Yoink!- will we get new games and get new IPs? I do get tired of playing shooters after awhile.

Luckily, I think this is what we’re starting to see now. Instead of games just trying to make look-alikes of other, more popular games and subsequently failing, they’re doing things completely different. Titanfall and Destiny are both first-person shooters unlike anything we’ve ever seen in previous FPS games, and Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls actually started a completely new genre.

But honestly, I prefer what we have now to what we had back then. Instead of ten sub-par games that are slightly different, we have two (for example) amazing games that are slightly different. Quantity vs. quality.

15

All of this labelling is sad…

Still in 2014, we have language such as noobs, pros, casuals, competitive all used deridingly to refer to a sub-section that one group feels better than…

16

> And do you know why? Because it alienated its entire fan base. Halo had built a pretty large following over the course of ten years, but when Halo 4 released, it was nothing like its fans had come to expect, so those fans left Halo 4. Unlike Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, Battlefield 3, or even Halo: Reach, Halo 4 did not have years and years to develop a following around its particular style of gameplay, and so it may as well be considered a standalone game in its own franchise. Halo has two options right now: go back to its arena roots (what it’s good at) and gain back its massive fanbase, or continue on in Halo 4’s direction and hope the style eventually takes off.
>
> What we’re seeing now isn’t Halo not being relevant; we’re seeing Halo 4 not being relevant.

It has not alienated me… So I suggest stop making blanket statements.

Also, it may just surprise you that many people play Halo for the campaign firstly…

17

>

You speak the truth and I wish you were wrong. Halo will never quite be the juggernaut it used to be. But Halo 5 can become one of the most played games on the Xbox one for years after its release. That is our goal.

343i should invest in the things that warrant longevity of the game. 343i tried to do this with map packs, spartan ops and most recently a skin pack. A wrong approach in my opinion, since they serve only to gain more money without adding much to the game.

The best way by far to increase the life span of a game is instead to have a competitive setting going. Competitive multiplayer is what makes a game popular. Look at Counter Strike, more than a decade old and still extremely popular. All they changed from the very first installment was some weapon mechanics, some maps, and recently skins for your weapons. That’s fantastic if you look at all the alternatives out there that could attract gamers. This is only possible because there is no game out there that closely resembles counter strike. Counter strike is unique, both in the size of its skillgap, and in the way the game plays.

Which brings me back to Halo: The next Halo must be as competitive as possible with a high skillgap if we want it to become popular again. And I suggest that 343i follow what Counter Strike did. It is fine for Halo to return for its roots, because it is still a pretty unique game. If Halo 2 were released today, it would still be pretty damn unique. I don’t know of any modern shooter where it is as important to know the map as in Halo. Where you need to learn how to control the map and especially the power weapons by timing them, in order to become the best. Where you need to know how to work with your team as well as individually outskill your opponent, both in slaying and completing the objective.

A working model in my opinion would simply be a similar playlist setup than the one that existed in halo 3. Ranked and social would play the same besides slight nuances (AR starts appearing more frequently in social, for instance). The community would be presented a single matchmaking experience. “This is what we offer.”

This model is exactly what H4 didn’t do. H4 provided a hopeless mixture of small variations to each gametype. With a major emphasis on mechanics that make the game easier for newer players. As a result, the community is fractured. And exactly THAT, a fractured community, is what brings the downfall of Halo.

What if Halo 4 Team Throwdown settings were awesome and perfectly balanced? As good as Halo 2 used to play? I believe that the game would be as abandoned as it is now. You cannot have a game featured in MLG to popularize the game, if the game people are playing at home plays entirely different from what the professionals are playing. Competitive minded people don’t have the chance to improve because once they set foot in the high-skillgap Team Throwdown playlist, they get demolished. They’re simply not used to the settings and so they get discouraged. That’s why the community has always felt separated from the small amount of professionals. The effect of tournaments in popularizing the game is entirely lost. Looking back at Counter Strike, daily I see professionals streaming, and I can learn a lot from it since they play the exact same game I play on my computer. It’s inspiring. On top of the entertainment value of course.

So while I agree with your whole thought process, I have to disagree on making the social half include the infinity settings. The infinity settings should be included for custom gametypes, although designing such a big part of the game just for custom games is a waste of resources. That is why I say it is one way or the other…

There is no easy solution, but the easiest and best would be to return to the roots and invest in new, creative additions that don’t take away anything from the old Halo. I’m thinking of spectator mode, new powerups, a very wide sandbox, plenty of good quality maps, new gamemodes.

18

> Still in 2014, we have language such as noobs, pros, casuals, competitive all used deridingly to refer to a sub-section that one group feels better than…

  1. No one is “deriding” ITT. Read in context. Don’t just assume that because someone used the word “casual” in their post, they were automatically using it in a derogatory way.
  2. People will use names as insults until the end of time. There’s nothing special about 2014.
19

Titanfall and Destiny are overhyped if you ask me.

One is just a Mech + Infantry game which has been done before quite often, the latter is essentially Borderlands.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m at least glad they are new IP’s though with their own feel to them and not CoD15 / Halo 8 / Battlefield 6.

To be honest, I don’t feel as if I’ve played an ‘amazing game’ since around Halo 3’s time period.

> Still in 2014, we have language such as noobs, pros, casuals, competitive all used deridingly to refer to a sub-section that one group feels better than…

Am I not supposed to draw a distinction between good players and bad players?

The casual - competitive argument isn’t as clear cut and generally relies on stereotypes though. Simply put, not everyone enjoys the same level of challenge so it’s not really a good idea to slot everyone into two groups.

Even some self righteous ‘competitive’ players would feel alienated if they were put into a more difficult game than the one they currently play.

> Also, it may just surprise you that many people play Halo for the campaign firstly…

I retort with “yeah, and?”.

Let’s not just talk about Halo for a second. I used to buy games for their campaign, but over time I’ve stopped buying campaign titles.

Why? Because it’s not worth it to spend $60 for a campaign title that I will play through once and never touch again. Most campaign titles only offer a few hours of content and that’s it. Seriously ask yourself, how many times do you replay Halo 4?

If campaign titles want to thrive, they should follow Bethesda’s example, i.e. offer hundreds of hours worth of entertainment. Otherwise, I simply don’t see any reason to shell out that much money when a multiplayer game costs the same and delivers far more in hours of entertainment.

20

My point is more about people who say that Infinity should be Halo 5’s social playlists, and as Daitor says, this is a bad way to for the reasons he stated. Its not just the competitive fans who hate infinity, its the majority of the Halo community, and the competitive isn’t the majority. so social should not be infinity, as it is clear just cause you like the social playlists, doesn’t mean you want infinity.

I can quickly prove Halo is still VERY relevant as a franchise. Halo 4s initial sales, before we saw how bad a Halo game it was, were the best of the series, proving Halo is still relevant, but that Halo 4 is not, considering it’s popularity, that is to say, very little.