Now before anyone posts "yOur’Re JuST bAD: or “JuST pARty up” read my post first. To address these points first because there’s always that one person:
#1 Every one of my friends and honestly me included have basically stopped playing this game just for how many problems it has. So long story short I hardly get anyone to play with anymore. #2 I almost never use my K/D to prove a point as in the long run it doesn’t matter and since I can’t use Infinite stats to share as there aren’t any, but literally every Halo game I’ve played my K/D is usually pretty positive so I wouldn’t say I’m bad at the games.
Now to my actual post, this is going to be a bit of a rant but it is a valid concern:
I’ve hardly played this game for about a month just with all the issues that plague this game and I popped on to try and do some of the event and out of the 10 games of Attrition I’ve played yesterday and today, I’ve won only 2. Not to mention the game continuously keeps pairing me against teams of people while my last game I was literally the only person on my team with any kills like seriously?! I’m not a sweaty gamer and I try to relax when I play games but when the game feels at every turn it wants to screw you over 5 ways to Sunday at every turn, it’s hard not to get frustrated.
Like after getting curb stomped for around 5 matches in a row at least you’d think the game would register to pair the teams a bit better but I guess that’s not how SBMM works. This isn’t even specifically directed at Halo as games like COD have this same issue, but how is it companies 10+ years ago had balancing done right but for some reason modern companies can’t seem to figure it out? One big thing I think is that social isn’t actually social anymore for how strict the SBMM feels (whether its to loose or restricted w/e it’s implemented bad regardless).
Not everyone wants to sweat it out when they play games, that is what Ranked is for! like this is the most sweaty game no matter what you play that I’ve played in a long time and 343 needs to understand that not everyone wants to be the nest esports pro!
Rant done but seriously this game has a balancing problem that needs to be addressed before the population really starts to drop off which from what I’ve been seeing has been starting to do.
Your k/d is 1.22 across all games and your win ratio is 46.3%. That win ratio is about what is expected for most solo players in mainly social.
I’d say you’re doing pretty fine overall. Just sounds like a bad night is all.
I’ve had some nights where it feels like I couldn’t even pay the enemy team off to get a win. Don’t worry you’ll get better games of Attrition. I’ve found there does seem to be some very skilled players in the playlist. I’ve had to really sweat in a lot of games to take the win, and tried my best and lost many more.
Yah I find myself often times either dominating matches or getting dominated by obvious party teams who are communicating and playing close net which is needed to win at this game. There’s really no in between anymore and that just drags this game down alongside the many many issues still present. I just don’t see myself in those matches that are close and extremely fun anymore, even in BTB it’s always a domination on some front. This is definitely the case when referring to objective game types because dear lord is that painful to play with randoms more than ever.
I feel this is just a flaw with matchmaking in general, a limitation more or less, that I’ve honestly always felt with matchmaking since Halo 2. One I feel that will never fully get addressed. Which is why I almost always recommend people play games like this with friends and not rely on solo queuing, other wise you’re going to have a rough time regardless to it being Social or Ranked.
There’s only so much an AI matchmaker is going to be able to factor in when trying to pair people together. It cannot read minds and find you the perfect soul maters for your team. Only you can really do that, which is why partying up is so much better in the long run then relying on the matchmaker to try and get you teammates yourself.
If people want a real social match, we need to try and entice 343i to get us a custom server browser list like Reach has. You’ll get a far better social experience if one of those get included into this game. More so one where people create the rules of the match and not just get stuck with presets that 343i gives to us themselves.
I honestly never felt it was right even when matchmaking first kicked off. People just weren’t as good back then so the balance between people was more relaxed and easier to pair up with. The problem is that people generally get better over time if they enjoy a product or not, most at varying paces. As time goes bye, you start seeing the differences between different people and it is very noticeable.
The thing is, social is for everyone… Including those who want to win by a noticeable margin. As people get better and better, you’ll notice them more and more. A good scene that showcases this well is Smash from Nintendo, where people will obliterate you regardless of where you play, because people became really really good at that game.
They don’t have an interest in just moving to ranked either, nothing is stopping them either from just staying in social. They’re sort of forcing people to get better at the game, or they get curbed stomped every match, so those people either leave or get better themselves and thus, you get more people who are butchering people left and right now.
Going by the description of TrueSkill 2 which underlies the SBMM in Halo 5 and presumably Infinite in an evolved form, the skill is calculated at least on a Game Mode basis and I believe also a playlist basis. I remember that my first games also went quite similar - matched up against premade teams.
The more recent games where mostly ok when it came to team composition. Once one team figures out that they need to stay together while the other does not (which I see happen regularly) it tends to get pretty one sided fast.
The whole issue is more transparent when you start in ranked, because you don’t get a rank before completing ten matches. For the system you’re a wildcard unless it knows which people you can win against and match you up accordingly. I don’t think it was as extreme as in atrition in any other mode - but I guess that it’s due to how heavily this one favors teamwork.
Maybe it is just my luck and it’s just really bad, but when it feels this way practically every time I try and play this game you really start to question if there is an underlying issue and/or what the issue is which I feel is how the game is balanced.
To update to my post I took a break for a bit and came back and played 6 more games and I won the first match but it was an absolute sweat fest, and every game after that was like earlier where the teams weren’t even remotely balanced. I’m not saying I want to do the curb stomping but it really starts to make the game feel more like a drag than it honestly already is. Like you said maybe it’s my luck and it’s just horrible, but this really seems like it happens way to often compared to other games.
Honestly on MCC I only do normal matchmaking when I’m trying to do challenges but other than that I go on the CGB because as you said that’s more of a social experience than social MP. I really hope Infinite gets one around the time forge launches.
I know each game has some form of SBMM but from what I’ve heard the older games prioritized connection over skill (I could be wrong) but I honestly think that would work better than what they have now if that’s possible with it running on servers, I’m not a game designer so I don’t know how all this works. Even a search preference for the game to prioritize matches based on skill, quickest, or by connection I think would work wonders. Every Halo since Halo 3 had this I’m pretty sure (Not sure about Halo 4 and I didn’t play Halo 2 online so I can’t say).