So i feel the need to add a little bit more after playing some more.
Idk if anyone has noticed but there’s no penalty for leaving games over and over again. So basically, if you or i enter a game where we’re heavily outmatched we can leave. People leaving the game can lead to an unfair advantage for a team. It’s fine i guess and it reminds of MW2 and BO2 when you could leave games with impunity. I honestly like that, especially for casual game modes.
A long time ago in the era of BO2 i remember joining games mid way through and helping my struggling teammates turn the game around. I also remember a lot of inability to deal with getting creamed. Id leave and join matches often enough that I’d usually end up in lobbies that i could enjoy after school and stuff.
It wasn’t like i was winning every game i joined either, but usually i’d keep going until i found a match that felt relatively even. (relative to a match where i get creamed)
Now that Im playing the infinite flight i get those vibes again. There is no way of separating pro players and casual players currently, so i find myself engaging in these old habits. which is fine, until your teammates are the ones leaving… and their spots don’t get filled.
picture a 4v4 slowly losing players until it’s a 2v1 25-15 kills in the match. the score increases marginally, and the game ends by timer. This is the reality of the skill disparity in current halo. (and perhaps other games as well).
Skill based matchmaking, for better or for worse, has allowed the separation of players within a few singular game modes/ playlists. Understandably this keeps the community from splitting up too much… but this is Halo.
This is a massive community, and each corner has its own interests… it’s own skill levels.
i could spend a lot of time arguing how skill based matchmaking is bad for the casual player, which i honestly believe it is.
But harken back to a time when games had a multitude of game modes, and different skill categories as well.
Black Ops 2 is my favorite example because i played that game a lot and it’s forever been one of my favorite experiences in gaming. Mainly for the multiplayer.
The community usually divided itself given what game modes were available. casual players would mainly stick to TDM and Domination, and occasionally switch to hardcore (from core) if they felt like getting a little sweaty. There also existed the league play game modes, which i didn’t play too much, but that was when i wanted to get seriously sweaty about my gaming. (that period didn’t last long). I digress.
Where casual players left a void in game modes like Search and Destroy and, to a lesser degree, Demolition… sweatier players filled that space. The people i knew who played those game modes liked it because it was hard. you had a singular objective and in SnD the margin for error was small.
I hardly played SnD bc i felt far too stressed, having one life per round and all. However i played a lot of demolition when i wanted an objective game mode. Demolition to me was the less sweaty little brother of SnD, and was where i spent time if i needed to complete weapon challenges but also wanted to challenge myself.
(i could go on to talk about party game modes like Gun game, but all i’ll say is they offered a fun break from the norm, while still maintaining an air of skills you needed to win consistently)
Now, in the current gaming atmosphere it seems the sweat is inescapable 
I will sweat sometimes, and i’ve dreamed of going pro, but most of the times i wanna play to have fun and learn to play the ins and outs of the game without worrying about getting 720 noscoped by the all out blitz of TylerDaGod42069xxx who’s been playing nonstop all morning.
i feel MCC has suffered the curse of sweat the worst, and i literally only play grifball and custom games there now.
Anyhow, this has been my rant. i’m tired of having to try so damn hard when all i wanna do is have fun. 343 when the full game comes out, find ways for people to play how they want, when they want:/
it gets old after a while