This has come up a few times, so I figured I’d give it a separate post.
Most recently, in here and later in here I expressed concerns about splitting populations between ranked and unranked. It necessarily makes matching worse.
What I would prefer is for everything to be ranked - unless it qualifies as an “Action Sack” game. Needing to “warm up” or “practice” or “learn” prior to playing ranked lists is often given as a reason for splitting a regular playlist (like 4v4) into ranked and unranked variants, but I think there is a better way to do this.
Rather than splitting the playlist, consider offering players the ability to select “warmup” when searching playlists. Players who select that will be matched with others who selected it, using much looser matching criteria if necessary. When playing “warmup mode”, everything else is the same, except that match stats and commendation attainment (if retained) are not recorded. It gives both experienced and new players alike the ability to practice and try new things before having their attempts officially recorded on their service record.
Were something like this to be incorporated, there would be no need for ranked and unranked variants of the same game. Those who wish to play casually all the time would be served by the skill matching system pitting them against other players of the same skill. They would play using the same settings as everyone else, so when they decide to play more competitively, they are intimately familiar with how to do so. Skilled and competitive players do not have to fight against an ever-shrinking pool of players in their list, so good matches will be found deeper into the life of the game. And if they feel a need to get back their groove before having to record actual stats, warmup is available as an alternative to an unranked list.
Anyway . . . no one knows ahead of time how the MP population for H5 will fare. I sincerely hope that it does better overall than H4, and something like this to ensure better matching even with a lower population may go a long way toward keeping the numbers higher.
There was never an issue with ranked vs. social in Halo 2 & 3. Just depends on if the population of the game is good. I prefer ranked and social and really don’t like the everything ranked idea.
> There was never an issue with ranked vs. social in Halo 2 & 3. Just depends on if the population of the game is good. I prefer ranked and social and really don’t like the everything ranked idea.
Just curious as to your reason, as social is actually ranked (required for skill matching), and being in a ranked list does not mean you’ll play people of higher skill. You’ll still play people with your skill ranking either way.
It seems kind of pointless to me because all it does is rename “social” to “warmup.” You still have players split into two matchmaking pools; it’s just not as obvious to the player.
Moreover, I would want to know how many players were are were not in warmup mode so I can be sure I’m getting a good match (or understand why matchmaking is taking so long). But if a population counter was implemented, we have the exact same problem we had before.
Here’s my idea: Before a match, there would be a short, 90-120 second long “warmup round”, similar to Ghost Recon Phantoms. Points and score in a warmup round would not count towards the match, and you would not get any EXP or medals during it.
Not so sure how it would affect the flow of the game.
> It seems kind of pointless to me because all it does is rename “social” to “warmup.” You still have players split into two matchmaking pools; it’s just not as obvious to the player.
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> Moreover, I would want to know how many players were are were not in warmup mode so I can be sure I’m getting a good match (or understand why matchmaking is taking so long). But if a population counter was implemented, we have the exact same problem we had before.
There is quite a big difference. With “social”, you have a whole group of players who play social only and never venture into ranked. With allowing a warmup, only those players who specifically select warmup are unavailable to the regular matching pool. Warmup also:
- Does not count any stats - including commendations
- Uses looser matching criteria
These two things will keep warmup being used for its intent - as a warmup. There will be far more people available to the main matching pool this way than if the lists are split.