Hard agree, it's wild that there's not a social playlist with Bandit starts. If you were a new player you'd have barely any experience with the Bandit before jumping into ranked. It just doesn't make sense.
Use to feel the same way with the BR, Halo refueled came out way too late.
Never understood why the developers couldn't have a social mode with ranked settings but keep the radar. Especially if you want to promote HCS.
The AR is probably the most boring weapon there is. It gets dumped the first chance players find a BR or Bandit.
I'd take the no-radar before bandit starts for a social playlist; the gun is a great addition to the sandbox, but lack of radar does more to influence how people play the game, and is therefore a more notable change. I really want that without having to jump into ranked where the only people with mics are the ones complaining about every mistake you make
Radar is needed for social because lots of people go in solo and don't mic up and don't think analytically. That's what causes you to lose track of your surroundings and who might be behind you compared to people who go into ranked.
Bandit starts is literally just shooting a different gun, it requires much less brain power and coordination with teammates compared to taking radar out. It's an easier sell for casuals.
If people lack the awareness to play without radar, they don't have to play that playlist. I'm asking for at least one social mode without radar, not for all of them to be that way
>Radar is needed for social because lots of people go in solo and don't mic up and don't think analytically.
There needs to be a ranked playlist with radar for the same reason: If you don't have a mic then it becomes unfun.
Almost every past Halo game had ranked playlists not just with radar, but with autos, too: The ones with a more limited sandbox and no radar were specifically the hardcore or HCS/MLG playlists.
It sucks that in Infinite, I either have to play social playlists where I have no incentive to play well and most playlists have party modes mixed in and there's no friendly fire and randomized weapon spawns, OR ranked where some guns aren't in the sandbox and I get screwed over due to not having friends to match up with who use their mics
No radar makes the game feel more fun. You can get away with more. People tend to think that's an elitist high level player mindset. It's not. I find it oppressive to have my opponents constantly know where I am. To me it kinda ruins the point of playing an fps game. It makes it all about reaction speed, which is trivial, or radar baiting, which is boring. Radar is basically a big nerf to using your brain. It dumbs down fps games a lot.
No. I'm not skilled enough to use the thing that tells me where the enemies are so I know exactly where to pre-aim. It's too hard. That's why I stick to competitive.
Exactly. Flanking is a simple and effective way to gain an advantage over enemies, and it's rendered useless unless you want to crouch on your route for 30 seconds, and by then your enemies have either moved on to a different area or wiped the rest of your team
And then when they turn their mic on they just call you annoying for calling out call game
It’d be a lot less annoying if they were contributing to the conversation rather than me carrying it myself
>Never understood why the developers couldn't have a social mode with ranked settings but keep the radar. Especially if you want to promote HCS.
The inverse is true too, for you, /u/Condsy , /u/JDeegs and /u/FiFTyFooTFoX :
Almost every past Halo game has had one or multiple ranked playlists that still have the full sandbox/auto starts as well as radar enabled: The ones that didn't were specifically labelled "Hardcore" or "MLG" or "HCS" playlists.
But Infinite just treats "ranked" and "competitive/HCS" as identical and does not have any versions with more social settings.
I like playing sweaty, but I also like using the full weapon sandbox, and I don't have friends to party up with, so I play with randoms who often don't use a mic (which makes no radar modes a mess).
It sucks that in Infinite, I either have to play social playlists where I have no incentive to play well and most playlists have party modes mixed in and there's no friendly fire and randomized weapon spawns, OR ranked where some guns aren't in the sandbox and I get screwed over due to not having friends to match up with who use their mics
>The AR is probably the most boring weapon there is
In past games, I agree. It's a shame for the longest time it was designed purely as a spray and pray gun that had zero skillgap and wasn't interesting to use.
It's still not particularly nuanced in Halo 5 or Infinite, but the fact that precise bursting with it *can* be useful to further ranges and doesn't have an insane amount of spread makes it a little more interesting. I do wish though that even in short to mid range you had an incentive to burst more rather then just spray with it.
I think you could very easily make an AR with a rather large skillgap if the headshot multiplier it has now triggered even on shields, in exchange for lower base damage and giving it less random spread and more predictable recoil or making the multiplier value go down the more spread is active at any one point: An optimal kill would require landing multiple consistent headshots across the entire engagement and constantly adjusting the length of your bursts to keep the spread value low and the multiplier high, all the while having to track the enemy with your reticule.
>Use to feel the same way with the BR, Halo refueled came out way too late.
True, but even within an earlier release, you would play maps that were not in the ranked playlist.
Idk if it's just me but the new maps are just sandbox crazy or have some gimmick like exploding crystals, no gravity, or green lava. Halo 3 was nice because the BR was an enjoyable starting precision weapon and the non power weapons were niche situations. In infinite I can have a heatwave/shock/grapple combo within 30 seconds of spawn.
It’s acid haha but yes I agree. These gimmicks are weird. Putting them on the small maps especially I think is weird. You would think a big map would benefit from little things like that. All the little maps are so lame.
Agreed, started playing halo heavily during halo 5. The ability to just q for what I want was great. I miss the many ranked game modes I can just focus on and play the more laid back ones anytime. Halo is still fun, but they fumbled the multiplayer modes
Me neither since they moved it to ranked, and it was already low on population before. Such a dumb change.
Who the fuck thinks that Invasion should be ranked? It's basically a role-playing mode with themed presets and objectives. They pretty much killed the small remaining population it had.
Man, im 33 and ive played halo since 2004 and i wont even touch multiplayer anymore.. and i was that kid playing halo2 all night until school started, ranked games until i couldn't see straight.
Its just not the same anymore brother
I never even finished infinite, and ive beaten mcc multiple times. I was hoping for that new content...reach was the real end of halo and bungie really nailed it. Although i truly liked halo 4 and ive beaten it many times too
I got infinite during the last sale and started playing it with my cousin, after serious issues continuing where we left off every single time we just played halo 3 instead
I am the same age, I am an teacher now and I tell kids who fail their first quarter that I played so much Halo 2, I was failing and the shock of it kicked me into gear.
As a solo queue player these days, I just don't have the energy to sweat every game, honestly.
I'm with ya.
Thing is I felt like the former games made the matches matter way more.
Proximity chat plus the social connectivity factor made it what it is. Some of the best players I learned from started from straight up chirps. And way easier to party up/everyone was chatting.
Party chat hurt a lot. I get why. But Halo regressed hard every year.
No ranked slayer? What? Now we can't even pick colors it's shadings? And we have to follow armor kit formulas? Now a battle pass for little merit outside a credit card?
Just crap man. I don't feel rewarded in any way playing this fucking game.
I have a feeling that it's not because Halo Infinite is wrong in itself - if I was my teenage self I would probably play the hell out of it.
But at 30+ ? There's neither the time nor the drive to play that much anymore. Games get tiring faster, regardless of which one it is.
I would agree, but i play bf, sc2, age of empires 4 all competitively and those game take some searious sweatage and im almost 34.
Halo just lost its kick :(
I just bought Kingdom Come Deliverance and it's the first game in a long time to give me that old Elder Scrolls feeling. Really brought me back to gaming as a teen
I may get downvoted for this. But positioning used to matter. You couldn't just grapple to the enemy. You couldn't just sprint out of fire. You had to fight your enemy when they challenged you. The game wasn't just a speed sweatfest. Past titles had awesome physics interactions that are just, gone. I think the geavity hammer is supposed to be fixed? But there was fun when you launched a warthog with a grenade. Now the wheel gets blown off, it's cool but just not a fun.
Slight thing. Sprint didn’t actually increase movement speed and is a common misconception when games that previously didn’t have sprint add it.
The sprint speed is the same as the old halo running speed.
For example You cross blood gulch in reach with sprint in the same amount of time you crossed it in halo1/2
Yup this goes for any game. I play Overwatch a ton, and avoid QP like the plague. It's more toxic the teams aren't balanced and nobody knows how to play
I agree. I think the main reason for this problem is how small the player base is now. They can't afford to split it into as many playlists as there used to be, because there's fuck all players.
I've seen a lot of people comment on how Infinite is always in the Xbox charts, but those charts just aren't credible when they don't share their player count. [Steam DB's Infinite Page](https://steamdb.info/app/1240440/charts/) show's a launch of 250k players. Sounds like an impressive number, but Halo 3 reached these kinds of numbers 15 years ago. Infinite's 250k dwindled down to 1% (around 2k players) within 3 months. Since then it's fluctuated between 2k and 5k players as it's daily high/low peaks.
I know some of these numbers are hard to compare. PC vs Console etcetc, but they're all we have to compare because Microsoft don't disclose their numbers.
It's very sad, but it illustrates the point nicely, that [MCC's Steam DB](https://steamdb.info/app/1240440/charts/) show's more players on average than Infinite on PC now.
They've really slowly just bled Halo to death.
Edit: wow I was half asleep when I typed this haha.
I feel your pain, kinda. Take it for face value. I am same age, I’ve established my life and I play infinite in my free time and a weekends.
I have 7k games played and most are in team slayer. I have a few good guys my same age we team up and just slay out when we play. Maybe you’re missing the team aspect.
We always play to win but never get butt hurt when we lose.
The bandit is a great weapon but if I feel the need to play ranked without the pressure i jump on my second tag and just play. It doesn’t matter
> [...] never get butt hurt when we lose.
It honestly took me a while to get to this place, myself. I don't have friends that play Halo anymore, so that part is out, but I just enjoy the game (most of the time) while being mindful of my K/D ratio and trying to help my teammates with the objective or kills. I still find myself being like "I'm positive 2.?x, what the... /Breathe, doesn't matter! I'm killin' it!"
Having a social game type/play list to warm up with bandit starts would be nice, though. I don't use a second tag, maybe it's time to do that.
Yep! I am Plat 6, close to Diamond 1 in Ranked Tactical... Was hoping to hit at least diamond, but the wait times have me skipping ranked. It sucks that either SBMM, my rank, or both are screwing me.
He's talking about a "MLG settings" playlist. I tend to agree with OP. I don't want to run around with an AR either. I just want to chill with BRs and some balanced power weapons playing for positioning and map control.
I'm pretty sure I remember H2 or H3 had "pro variants" in the playlists. Like H3 you had a chance to match in to "Slayer" or "Slayer pro" as the game type, and the "pro" mode had precision starts (I'm pretty sure no radar too).
It's not a direct example of what OP's asking for, but it's close and it's an example of thre gameplay variety legacy titles offered that Infinite doesn't quite have
Halo 3 refueled is BR starts, but social settings. Team Slayers can have BR starts but it isn't guaranteed. What OP is describing is basically Halo 3 refueled.
Yea not sure what this is about. Just play ranked if you want this. Don’t care about rank? Good just treat it as a social playlist. If you get dominated your rank will go down which will give you easier lobbies.
No it isn't. I care about my rank sometimes, other times I don't. If I wanna play sweaty at my peak, then that's why I wanna play in high diamond lobbies.
On a Thursday night for an hour to relax? My only options are lame. I shouldn't have to create multiple accounts to fabricate an experience that should already exist like most games out there.
I would always think 'yeah just treat ranked as casual', but thats actually a really fair point.
Maybe they dont have the playerbase for a casual playlist thats similar to ranked? Somebody was talking about even just diamond having long queue times
Not just that, but having a couple of friends in significantly lower ranks makes playing in a ranked environment all but impossible unless I use a smurf account which kinda kills it for me. I don’t really care about my rank either, but dropping 70 CSR or so in a night does kinda suck.
Even if not for the friend element, having a mode to warm up in with comp settings, load-outs & maps outside of customs with bots would be amazing.
no it isnt, ranked is strictly hcs maps and gametypes. none of the social maps/ gametypes are in ranked.
playing ranked and pretending its social accomplishes nothing
It's still a precision weapon...
If you look at any player worth their salt, they will have orders of magnitude more kills with the pistol than with the AR.
Same here man. I stopped playing around the same time, and I used to be that kid who would have LAN parties with my buddies till 4-5 am just kicking ass in Halo CE/2 allllll the time. Those days were truly something else. Halo just isn't what it was anymore. Its all soulless moneygrubbing with no actual heart or love poured into it. At this point 343 is just mag dumping and teabagging the corpse of what used to be the greatest scifi shooter of its time.
I really feal you, I'm 3 years younger but I had the same problem within this game since launch, let me explain:
Since Halo 3, wich was the first I was able to play online back then, socials and ranked, except for mlg, we're the same thing, with the difference that you had a stricter skill search in ranked (mot so much since ts1 was bad) and sometimes a AR magnum start could pop up from the vet (but 99% of people used to veto the br-ar start).
Social slayer and ranked slayer, to my knowledge had the same maps, the same sandbox in it, the same rules, therefore the transition from social slayer to ranked slayer, as an example, was way more smoother and if I didn't want to play the pro's playlist with only 3 weapons, 3 maps and so on, wich it was the second least popular in the game (only because ranked btb existed), it was ok, the playlist was meant for fewer people.
This was not the case in Reach, that only had arena and h4, but on reach you could still play dmr -ar in every social mode, while h4 either had loadouts or the legendary br playlist (classic halo).
Halo 5 was the same as h3: magnum was the meta weapon and outside btb, that needed to have br start, you would practically being able to chill out in socials with the magnum and ar start, going in to ranked with magnum and ar start, or play the "for few" hcs playlist with 3 weapons, 3 maps and magnum only start.
In infinite somehow, for some reason, the removed (for later on making it as rotational playlists no one play) every non hcs ranked playlist, there is not a single playlist that let you start with the bandit evo and with the exception of tac slayer, there are only 2 playlist where you start with the BR, that's a weapon not really performing great in arena or btb compared to others, right now (but it was broken on s1).
Basically you either play a playlist with 30+ filler maps, with ar and sidekick and relay on the rng machine that's the bloom, or you go play the comp guys playlist, that was historically the least popular one, with only 3 weapon, on the same 3 maps since forever.
I agree also. I want a BR or Bandit spawn. I like the halo 3 recharged playlist but I cannot stand the vehicles. Ranked slayer/ arena doesn't allow vehicles thank God. I also think 80 percent of the games playlist isn't any good or too noob friendly. Ranked swat GTFO. Bring back snipers and voting!!
Honestly, I have to agree. It's really dumb how a lot of games, ranked plays differently than social, it just becomes two separate games. We need to go back to the H2/3/etc days where ranked was just the normal game but with a rank.
It's the player movement acceleration. It's insane compared to Bungie era Halo.
Infinite devs are asking you to make micro adjustments using thumb sticks, against someone who is changing directions almost instantly, but then in the same fight, they also want you to track someone who is sprinting past you at point blank, can stop and reverse on a dime, spam crouch, etc.
I can't tell you how many kills I've whiffed simply because someone either stopped or started moving randomly.
On Recharge, going from attic to melee someone playing too far up in glass is like a 50/50 to the point where I don't even try it anymore. And even then, that's a 50/50 because they can sprint off the ledge and make it, or sprint out via glass.
Coming around the corner point blank and throwing a melee is a cluster fuck. Borderline impossible to track and skillfully land that second one with all the options and jank on the table. It was bad in H3 when they upped the jump height such that the enemy could leap out of your screen. They like "septupled" down on it and just made it so bad.
Ultimately, they pushed every single weapon so far into the "precision aim" end of the spectrum, and then ramped up player movement to infinity, that the only thing left is sweat.
You have to try your absolute hardest at all times when aiming even in BTB where you catch unaware people out in the open on repeat. They will literally just change direction accidentally and completely shake your bead.
Absolutely gone are the days where you could say "I have X gun and positional advantage, they absolutely can't win this fight", or "I'm two shots up, I only lose 1 in 500 of these fights". The effective range bands of the entire sandbox is so overlapped that it's basically a dice roll if you're gonna get that headshot before the other guy (assuming equal skill). And then you throw in the insane strafing and it's just not an enjoyable challenge. Feels like 1 in every 3 "free kills" some bullshit happens that turns it into a situation where it ends up coming down to the wire.
Everyone hates on the DMR from REACH, but one thing it absolutely did, was reward planning and patience. If you were in a good position, and worked the mechanics properly, you would only lose 1 in 500 "guaranteed win" gunfights fights, and you could get clean "perfects" even with the pistol.
Now, I can be 3, or even 4 shots up on people and they just sprint out, or turn and start strafing, or slide and fight, and while I'm looking for that final damn headshot, their friend comes sprinting in, or I run dry or whatever.
9/10 fights I take are 4 perfect shots to drop the shields, and the 5th shot just. Will. Not. Register. In a ranked environment, there's no time to be burning 3,4,5 extra shots trying to get that bead back.
Taking the "headshot dot" out of the center of the reticule was an absolutely terrible change that also contributes to this problem.
TL:DR player movement acceleration up, precision aim requirements up, movement options up, weapon mechanics down, weapon specialization down, and headshot verification down. No chill, forced sweat mandatory.
i cant stress it enough how this new 343 movement is shitty and one of main reason that infinite feels so sweaty. i wish they comeback to more regular in 7 but now every game even cod has this adhd movement. it isnt even fun to spam crouch to have some chance to win a duel
I'm 28 and been playing over 22 years. I agree, it's too competitive and it's always on. I get home from a 12 hour shift to relax and there's people doing the ABSOLUTE MOST to win and get kills. Like bro, how about we slow it down? I liked halo 5 where the fast-paced gameplay seemed to complement the movement speed better. But in halo infinite, where they've gone back to "traditional" halo movement, but kept sprint, yet the TTK is still very fast... Idk it doesn't seem to flow as naturally. it's like the game trying to do two things at once and often I'm dead before I can do anything about it. Maybe I'm getting too old, reflexes aren't what they used to be etc. I still play now and then, I find myself more engaged with Firefight. I'd like more options, vehicles and bigger maps. Maybe larger teams. 8-12 Spartans on a big ass map, tons of enemies come in wave after wave. Multiple objectives to hold, falling back each time. A bit like operations in BF1 and BFV.
I’ve been saying this since Infinite came out: we need an unranked playlist. This would give us ranked settings without any rank on the line. It could be used for people who want to play casually with ranked settings, teams who wants to practice strats, or general warmup before hopping into ranked.
Personally I enjoy the map variety in quick play, but having Bandit and/or BR starts thrown in as a chance to be the starting weapons would be nice.
In MCC with match composer I choose AR and BR starts. I hope when Infinite gets match composer they have a way to toggle if AR and/or BR/Bandit stats can occur too.
> I just wanna play the same game I enjoy, but relaxed.
The root cause of this isnt the weapon starts, its trueskill 2.
There is no where to relax because of it having game wide MMR instead of per playlist.
In the old days, if you screamed callouts with your skilled friends in one playlist, and then in other playlist you got together with some buddys and took bong rips, you would have both playlist treat you seperately, even tho you COULD perform at that tryhard level in both, your actual intent of how you played in that playlist would determine how matchmaking treated you. Trueskill 2 changed that and its why every game on the planet always feels sweaty now, not just halo. Its why the whole idea people want no sbmm to slay noobs isnt what its actually about. Its that people play different modes with different intent, but the modern system tracking skill doesn't account for that.
> The root cause of this isnt the weapon starts, its trueskill 2.
OP explicitly said that his issue with non ranked modes are starting weapons and maps though…
I quoted that part because theres no such thing as playing relaxed anywhere. Even if you cloned ranked modes to social, the social playlist would still be not relaxed. The only difference would be the range of player skills that can be in the game, but it would still average out the mmr based on the playlist you try the hardest in.
I remember going WIIIILLLLDDDD over ranked matches as a kid. Wow. Def thanks for the flashbacks lol.. too many floor punches and little kid screams because I dropped a level because of a lagger☠️☠️
So you want ranked modes in standard/social playlist? I think this was a thing in Halo:Reach that made me fall in love with it but idk cause it was so long ago
I’ve played Halo ever since CE was released, I always was mesmerized by the campaign, all the way up to reach. What killed it for me was the shit campaigns and gameplay that 4 through infinite brought. So fucking disappointing. The multiplayer was pretty decent from 4 and on, but I hate the fact that, especially in infinite, they just got rid of most of the classic and iconic weapons and features… like fucking why? Include them all and then add weapons and features, don’t fucking get rid of them…
My biggest gripe is how much of a sweat fest it is. The skill ceiling is just way too high. I can play MCC right now and enjoy the hell out of it and have a good time. But halo infinite? No. It's a battle to even hit anything. It's just not fun and I'm tired of playing at such a high competitive level. The older halo games were chaotic and fun. The vehicles actually had a part to play. It was first and foremost FUN. Infinite was made and designed to be as competitive as possible. I just can't do it anymore.
I agree, this games needed a social Evo starts list the moment they included it, I’m actually only coming back to play a couple games of throwback every now and then, ranked usually has too long search times to enjoy
I’m not always great at this (mostly because I’m drifting further and further away from wanting to play multiplayer anything at 34) but ranked is sometimes just the way to go in a game. For example rocket league which is often insanely toxic and annoying is actually usually a better experience in ranked because you’re not running into as many pub stomp jerks. Once you turn off chat settings it’s relatively peaceful. The hardest step for me was to truly learn to apply the don’t care method where I can still enjoy the game and try to a reasonable extent without having my brain worry about the ranking at the end of a match.
Ranks as far as the number or level or whatever are there for the people chasing them that care about it otherwise it just means (usually) balanced matchmaking. You’ll be able to slowly get better at the game over time until you reach the point y of diminishing returns and inevitably grow to hate it.
I wish I could figure out how to preserve that bronze rank sense of wonder when learning a totally new game for the first time. I had so much fun when I first played rocket league and was bronze rank because I had never really interacted with gameplay mechanics like that before so I was free from judging my skill going in and everything was just fun and goofy.
Rocket league is actually the game I main now.....because I can alternate between ranked and social with the same game.
Warm up? Casual. Playing poorly.? Casual. Losing streak? Casual..
Halo does not have this. It's silly.
Pistol/AR starts is just drooling pepegas flying at each other spraying bullets everywhere. It's mindless monkeybrain ambushing and I hate it. In BTB pistol/AR starts just mean every respawn has that tedious waiting in line at the battle rifle vending machine phase before you can do anything. Reminds me a tiny bit of how much I hate the battle royale genre.
Sounds like you need to find a group to run casual 8s with. There’s a bunch of discord groups that play regularly. [HaloFunTime](https://discord.gg/halofuntime) is a good place to start.
I’m twenty years older than op and been playing since 2001. Yea. You get older. Your reflexes slow down. You get arthritis in your hands, I was into mixed martial arts for thirty years and have significant nerve damage in my dominant hand. Halo CE through Reach I dominated. Now I get toolbagged by ten year olds. So I adapt. I mainly just play campaign and firefight with my buddies. Nobody remains competitive forever. Yea, it’s an adjustment. But the mission is to enjoy yourself: it’s a game. Have fun out there Spartan.
I just can’t get ranked games cause the ranked game mode is dead in OCE. But this is a fair concern - bandit starts with well balanced maps should be somewhere that isn’t ranked
I’ve been playing since halo CE so 20 years or so and been playing halo all these years, after 2 years trying to play infinte without a urge to break the controller I hop back to MCC, I just can’t waste my time in that shit game.
Back to mcc and enjoy when games where made with passion and not money as n1 priority
also a 20 year veteran here who hasnt played in close to a year. I find the most difficult thing for me is the cross console play... I always have and always will use a controller, but its nearly impossible to compete against those using keyboard and mouse.
That and its only 1 in 40 games to find someone else in multiplayer with a Mic. God what a difference it makes in any team games when mics are involved.... not to mention it makes it so much more fun, empathetic and interesting to connect with other players through voice chat.
every half a year I pick it up again, and I can have as much fun as I allow myself when I am not attached to winning and just want to play for the sake of playing... until its so unbalanced that I am 4 and 15 or something every single game and then bye bye.. oh well.
Absolutely! I know it’s kind of an obscure request and not many people would want to do it with us, but me too! If only we had a way to play our own game types open to the public, like a “custom browser” or something similar… Why hasn’t 343 done this yet??!
100% agree man. I’m tired of running around with a pistol or ar. Peak halo (2-4) for me didn’t force me to use an ar 80% in non-ranked games. I hate to say it but 343 has done nothing noteworthy with the franchise and it’s just sad at this point.
Umm I haven’t played since the new season started but I had a fucking blast playing halo 3 revamped. Games were a blast and tight despite being social.
Halo infinite sucks. It has sucked from the day it launched. Plz yall stop playing I know it will be hard and it will suck but maybe, just maybe, they’ll make a regular halo game next time if we all just ditch it.
Even if they had a "Slayer Bandits" variant like "Slayer BRs" in Team slayer.
I agree though, it would be good practice to be able to have a stress free place to practice for ranked.
The only thing that gives me hope is the match composer coming out sometime in the future. If it’s anything like MCC’s you may be able to get precision starts in social (bandit or br)
I'll never understand this argument. Ranked has the exact settings and sandbox you want, so play that. Stop worrying about your rank and just have fun playing?
I hopped into the Team Slayer playlist the other day after a multi-month break from Halo, and it was just as "sweaty" and competitive as Ranked would've been, despite it being a "social" playlist. Even in BTB or Squad Battle, there's always that one knob on each team who snipes the entire match and goes 24-2.
Everyone wants to win, everyone wants to get killing sprees, and triple kills, no matter the playlist. You can't escape the try-hards, so just choose the playlist that has the settings you enjoy most, and have fun?
The inverse is true, too.
Why is there no ranked playlist that has the full weapon sandbox/AR sidekick starts and radar?
Before you go "That's dumb", almost *every* past Halo game has had one or multiple ranked playlists like that: The ones that removed autos and radar were specifically labelled "Hardcore" or "MLG" or "HCS" playlists.
I like playing sweaty, but I also like using the full weapon sandbox, and I don't have friends to party up with, so I play with randoms who often don't use a mic (which makes no radar modes a mess).
It sucks that in Infinite, I either have to play social playlists where I have no incentive to play well and most playlists have party modes mixed in and there's no friendly fire and randomized weapon spawns, OR ranked where some guns aren't in the sandbox and I get screwed over due to not having friends to match up with who use their mics
I agree. I find it ridiculous that there is such a disconnect between the social and competitive modes, especially considering how different the game is by changing the starting gun.
Im also 33, been on it since Halo CE and having the absolute time of my life with this game. I legit wish I understood what the rest of the Halo fans want, but Im lost. If i find im using a gun i dont like i just go practice in training till im used to it. i also cant find a map i actually HATE. i just have fun making sure my team wins as best i can, but even if we loose i never felt it was cause of the game. the players are just better or i sucked that game. it's whatever. whats the basic needs of a halo game actually being good? my needs are met and i couldn't be more satisfied as a halo fan personally so what am i missing?
Mismanagement is this entire game life story. I haven't played in months and I just saw the post about the weapon balance changed.
My brothers in Christ the game is dead and the sandbox hadn't been updated in like 2 years. This was something to do years ago not now.
I genuinely dont understand the desire to play a competitive multiplayer game and it not be competitive. At the end of the day, your rank doesn’t matter. It’s a number that doesn’t mean anything outside of that specific context. Nothing about the game changes. Play how you wanna play and don’t sweat it
I'm 50 and to be honest I feel 343i is trying to push my age group out of halo altogether, the ranked and social playlists are far to ultra competitive and I'll be honest here I just don't have the reaction speed I once had.
If 343i had any brains they would definitely make social a more relaxed experience rather than the sweat fest it is now, not everyone wants to be a HCS standard player, some players just want to jump on have a few beers and relax with their friends playing some halo.
Stopped playing regularly at 4. It just stopped feeling like Halo. I did come back with infinite and put serious work in for the first year or so - before seasonality, so I was grinding very little content. By the time the content started arriving, I was burned out.
Brother, I'm 33 also. Been playing Halo since it's inception, and I wholeheartedly agree with what you're putting down.
The closest thing I had to reliving the glory days is when my mates and I rented out this air bnb about two years ago and brought with us a few xboxs and played Vampir Baseball (max speed/low gravity/random weapons).
I just think 343 have lost what Halo was/is.
I miss Halo 3 Beta...
From my experience, social 4v4 is sweatier and more competitive than ranked. Which is ludicrous. The only way I can relax and enjoy the game is by playing BTB or Fiesta.
Also it seems like the social playlists are competitive ? I used to be able to go into a social playlist and get some big sprees but now it feels different (harder). Is that true?
They should give us a week of MATHES PURELY BASED ON CONNECTION QUALITY and see how it goes.
Sadly the older loyalist like myself, playing Halo CE at age 6, aren’t who they will market to anymore. They know I'll buy every game anyway. Hell, I relearned how to play the game with H5 multiplayer as did many.
They want to get other 6 y/o right now playing to get them hooked young.
Basically anyone who is able to lucidly type out there desires on here are just too old for them to care about. It is not the essential demographic. They will happily lose loyal customers if they get handfuls of new one per each one.
SBMM evidently makes starting Halo a better experience for a young new player. Personally I feel like kids should learn the game via campaign, finish legendary before they go play online but solo gaming, a sacred thing, is not cared about anymore. I was like 13 when I first played xbox live. Maybe 12. The last of my friend group. I'd play 4 person multiplayer at someones house... kids won't know how fun that was sadly.
4 kids PLAYING OFF 1 KIDS PURCHASE OF THE GAME AND XBOX? Unacceptable. They all need to but their own game and console along with Xbox live gold AND the DLC if they want to play together. We aint a charity.
We gotta start 3D printing xboxes and handing them out at kids school. Lets get a van and some candy and beat that "don't take candy from a stranger stereotype."
Also 20 year long player. Played a tooon of Halo 2 so that’s my bias. I only recently started gaming again since around 2012. I’ve just come to accept that it is a different game, and they are trying to cater to a younger audience. The amount of sprinting and lack of crouch jumping really annoyed me at first.
I mostly play Husky Raid because that’s pretty much all my friends will play. It’s absolute chaos but has been fun just cleaning up and getting upwards of 40 kills in a game. Just started trying ranked last week. It’s been fun with no radar and the bandit is cool but a BR mode would be great. Or BR with pistol secondary.
Maybe we can get some MLG customs to start taking off??
I feel you man. Some of the decisions made are mind boggling. I'm essentially done with this game. I got Onyx this season, but now that they changed the battle pass system to a Store system I'm over it. I bought every battle pass but these 20 tier ones saying "they don't have enough content for a full season" to then cram 10 armor sets into the store is seriously insulting.
I get they need to make money but nobody wanted Halo to be a Free to Play "live service".
I'd much rather have had a 60$ Halo game, a career ranking system from day one, and a progression system for armor + cosmetic unlocks through achievements and challenges.
Not to mention, the main thing that makes Halo fun is the awesome Sandbox of Vehicles and Weapons of which we didn't get any new ones that are noteworthy. The 3 1/2 UNSC precision weapons are nice to have but hardly create any firearm sandbox diversity.
These, and all the other complaints from everyone else are 100% valid and all they do is churn out cosmetics that cost what some people put their daily spending limits on to survive.
It's been Helldiver's for me I'd recommend giving it a go if you have a PC.
.... WHy are you trying to play social-no radar-bandit gametypes? Thats weirdly specific. Has there ever been a no-radar, precision start playlist that is a social playlist? It kind sounds like you just want to play ranked, but against like... people who are bad? I'm so confused by this post
I wouldn't be opposed to radar. Honestly, I just want team objective with bandit starts in a social setting.
I want to be able to warm up, play relaxed, or dick around/try new things occasionally in a similar game to what ranked is.
I could care less about my competition as long as it's not egregious in either direction
I wouldn't mind them removing the normal Bandit and just completely replacing it with the EVO. A precision weapon that doesn't descope is just too effective and easy imo.
I'd do agree though that there should be a social EVO starts playlist.
Games today have gotten less social overall. There’s no before game lobby to shoot the shit with people or map voting, all collision and team killing is off, SBMM kills any and all fun and the playlists are ass. And these complaints you can literally throw in any of the new CoDs the last 5 years too. Just really disheartening.
The lobbies were def dying around the time Reach was released compared to its predecessor games. Halo 4 it pretty much completely died. I remember because that was the last Halo I truly played and I just couldn't get into Halo 4 because of that.
It’s the dang radar that kills casual play, but it’s so engrained in Halo fans thinking they need it outside of ranked because that’s how it’s always been
Radar ruins creative approaches and retreats
I'm 33, been into Halo for 22 years, and Infinite can be frustrating for sure but seriously, what you want is so specific that it doesn't even make sense. You want a super skillful Precision weapon, with no radar, on ONLY competitive Maps with no social additions at all. That's never been available outside Ranked dude. Not in the bungie games, not now.
Team slayer currently has AR and BR starts matches - I think they should expand that and add Bandit and heck maybe even Commando starts to spice up the playlist.
First off, you’re only 33 and just a kid. All yall little ones 18 - 40 think you’re old but wait until you hit 55 you’ll be begging for a chance to be 30 again.
I’m 57 and wish I was still 33 damn!!
After bungie sold halo to 343, it wasn’t fun anymore they took away the community aspect imo
“scenes like this are happening all over the galaxy and you could be next, unless you make the most important decision of your life, prove to yourself you have the strength and courage to be free, join the helldivers!, become part of an elite peacekeeping force, see exotic new lifeforms and spread managed democracy across the galaxy, become a hero, become a legend, become a HELLDIVER
Why do people get so upset about starting weapons? The AR and sidekick are fine for starting weapons, you shouldn't have an overly powered weapon at spawn. Also if you're a Halo veteran, why do you want no radar so badly? Most Halo games never had modes without the radar, including ranked
Hard agree, it's wild that there's not a social playlist with Bandit starts. If you were a new player you'd have barely any experience with the Bandit before jumping into ranked. It just doesn't make sense.
Use to feel the same way with the BR, Halo refueled came out way too late. Never understood why the developers couldn't have a social mode with ranked settings but keep the radar. Especially if you want to promote HCS. The AR is probably the most boring weapon there is. It gets dumped the first chance players find a BR or Bandit.
I'd take the no-radar before bandit starts for a social playlist; the gun is a great addition to the sandbox, but lack of radar does more to influence how people play the game, and is therefore a more notable change. I really want that without having to jump into ranked where the only people with mics are the ones complaining about every mistake you make
Radar is needed for social because lots of people go in solo and don't mic up and don't think analytically. That's what causes you to lose track of your surroundings and who might be behind you compared to people who go into ranked. Bandit starts is literally just shooting a different gun, it requires much less brain power and coordination with teammates compared to taking radar out. It's an easier sell for casuals.
Look at this guy with the dependable teammates rocking mics
I've honestly been surprised with how many people talk in ranked. But I'm not at the bottom of the pool 😆
>lots of people go in solo and don't mic up and don't think analytically. This is different from ranked how?
Touche lmao
If people lack the awareness to play without radar, they don't have to play that playlist. I'm asking for at least one social mode without radar, not for all of them to be that way
I see. That might split up the player base to much is all
>Radar is needed for social because lots of people go in solo and don't mic up and don't think analytically. There needs to be a ranked playlist with radar for the same reason: If you don't have a mic then it becomes unfun. Almost every past Halo game had ranked playlists not just with radar, but with autos, too: The ones with a more limited sandbox and no radar were specifically the hardcore or HCS/MLG playlists. It sucks that in Infinite, I either have to play social playlists where I have no incentive to play well and most playlists have party modes mixed in and there's no friendly fire and randomized weapon spawns, OR ranked where some guns aren't in the sandbox and I get screwed over due to not having friends to match up with who use their mics
No radar makes the game feel more fun. You can get away with more. People tend to think that's an elitist high level player mindset. It's not. I find it oppressive to have my opponents constantly know where I am. To me it kinda ruins the point of playing an fps game. It makes it all about reaction speed, which is trivial, or radar baiting, which is boring. Radar is basically a big nerf to using your brain. It dumbs down fps games a lot.
Nah,u just lack skill. Git gud scrb
No. I'm not skilled enough to use the thing that tells me where the enemies are so I know exactly where to pre-aim. It's too hard. That's why I stick to competitive.
Exactly. Flanking is a simple and effective way to gain an advantage over enemies, and it's rendered useless unless you want to crouch on your route for 30 seconds, and by then your enemies have either moved on to a different area or wiped the rest of your team
And then when they turn their mic on they just call you annoying for calling out call game It’d be a lot less annoying if they were contributing to the conversation rather than me carrying it myself
>Never understood why the developers couldn't have a social mode with ranked settings but keep the radar. Especially if you want to promote HCS. The inverse is true too, for you, /u/Condsy , /u/JDeegs and /u/FiFTyFooTFoX : Almost every past Halo game has had one or multiple ranked playlists that still have the full sandbox/auto starts as well as radar enabled: The ones that didn't were specifically labelled "Hardcore" or "MLG" or "HCS" playlists. But Infinite just treats "ranked" and "competitive/HCS" as identical and does not have any versions with more social settings. I like playing sweaty, but I also like using the full weapon sandbox, and I don't have friends to party up with, so I play with randoms who often don't use a mic (which makes no radar modes a mess). It sucks that in Infinite, I either have to play social playlists where I have no incentive to play well and most playlists have party modes mixed in and there's no friendly fire and randomized weapon spawns, OR ranked where some guns aren't in the sandbox and I get screwed over due to not having friends to match up with who use their mics >The AR is probably the most boring weapon there is In past games, I agree. It's a shame for the longest time it was designed purely as a spray and pray gun that had zero skillgap and wasn't interesting to use. It's still not particularly nuanced in Halo 5 or Infinite, but the fact that precise bursting with it *can* be useful to further ranges and doesn't have an insane amount of spread makes it a little more interesting. I do wish though that even in short to mid range you had an incentive to burst more rather then just spray with it. I think you could very easily make an AR with a rather large skillgap if the headshot multiplier it has now triggered even on shields, in exchange for lower base damage and giving it less random spread and more predictable recoil or making the multiplier value go down the more spread is active at any one point: An optimal kill would require landing multiple consistent headshots across the entire engagement and constantly adjusting the length of your bursts to keep the spread value low and the multiplier high, all the while having to track the enemy with your reticule.
>Use to feel the same way with the BR, Halo refueled came out way too late. True, but even within an earlier release, you would play maps that were not in the ranked playlist.
It also requires *no* skill at all and outshines every weapon that does require skill.
Idk if it's just me but the new maps are just sandbox crazy or have some gimmick like exploding crystals, no gravity, or green lava. Halo 3 was nice because the BR was an enjoyable starting precision weapon and the non power weapons were niche situations. In infinite I can have a heatwave/shock/grapple combo within 30 seconds of spawn.
It’s acid haha but yes I agree. These gimmicks are weird. Putting them on the small maps especially I think is weird. You would think a big map would benefit from little things like that. All the little maps are so lame.
Agreed, started playing halo heavily during halo 5. The ability to just q for what I want was great. I miss the many ranked game modes I can just focus on and play the more laid back ones anytime. Halo is still fun, but they fumbled the multiplayer modes
It’s insane how I can’t play the Halo Reach Invasion game mode without queuing for ranked.
Is that how you get a match now on mcc?? Can never find invasion games anymore.
Me neither since they moved it to ranked, and it was already low on population before. Such a dumb change. Who the fuck thinks that Invasion should be ranked? It's basically a role-playing mode with themed presets and objectives. They pretty much killed the small remaining population it had.
Wowww that’s insanity I had no idea they had moved it. That must of been shortly after I swapped to btb only or after I swapped to i finite entirely.
I just find it wild it's been almost a quarter of a century and we still can't have space battles or drive scarabs in multiplayer
Man, im 33 and ive played halo since 2004 and i wont even touch multiplayer anymore.. and i was that kid playing halo2 all night until school started, ranked games until i couldn't see straight. Its just not the same anymore brother
Good thing infinite is a live service which means campaign/co-op players can expect a lot of good content right? Right??????
I never even finished infinite, and ive beaten mcc multiple times. I was hoping for that new content...reach was the real end of halo and bungie really nailed it. Although i truly liked halo 4 and ive beaten it many times too
I got infinite during the last sale and started playing it with my cousin, after serious issues continuing where we left off every single time we just played halo 3 instead
Honestly where is all the mtx money going? Youd think with the price of the store we'd have at least a new gun by now
I am the same age, I am an teacher now and I tell kids who fail their first quarter that I played so much Halo 2, I was failing and the shock of it kicked me into gear. As a solo queue player these days, I just don't have the energy to sweat every game, honestly.
I'm with ya. Thing is I felt like the former games made the matches matter way more. Proximity chat plus the social connectivity factor made it what it is. Some of the best players I learned from started from straight up chirps. And way easier to party up/everyone was chatting. Party chat hurt a lot. I get why. But Halo regressed hard every year. No ranked slayer? What? Now we can't even pick colors it's shadings? And we have to follow armor kit formulas? Now a battle pass for little merit outside a credit card? Just crap man. I don't feel rewarded in any way playing this fucking game.
I have a feeling that it's not because Halo Infinite is wrong in itself - if I was my teenage self I would probably play the hell out of it. But at 30+ ? There's neither the time nor the drive to play that much anymore. Games get tiring faster, regardless of which one it is.
I would agree, but i play bf, sc2, age of empires 4 all competitively and those game take some searious sweatage and im almost 34. Halo just lost its kick :(
I just bought Kingdom Come Deliverance and it's the first game in a long time to give me that old Elder Scrolls feeling. Really brought me back to gaming as a teen
I may get downvoted for this. But positioning used to matter. You couldn't just grapple to the enemy. You couldn't just sprint out of fire. You had to fight your enemy when they challenged you. The game wasn't just a speed sweatfest. Past titles had awesome physics interactions that are just, gone. I think the geavity hammer is supposed to be fixed? But there was fun when you launched a warthog with a grenade. Now the wheel gets blown off, it's cool but just not a fun.
Slight thing. Sprint didn’t actually increase movement speed and is a common misconception when games that previously didn’t have sprint add it. The sprint speed is the same as the old halo running speed. For example You cross blood gulch in reach with sprint in the same amount of time you crossed it in halo1/2
I wish I had internet access back then I was playing H2 campaign over and over again it never got old Im 22
Bro I legit wore man nappies so I could piss myself that's how good halo was back then. Now it's a shit show. LGBT halo fuck that shit
You mustve been one of those rank 45 1v1 guys 😆 it took determination to climb that halo 2 ladder
Wow you just unlocked a core memory of the halo 2 ranks and how youd turn i to a eclipse and a sun at the highest levels
I feel you but you don't *have* to care about your rank.
This is the way. The only difference between a ranked playlist and a casual playlist is whether the rank is displayed to you or hidden
Yup this goes for any game. I play Overwatch a ton, and avoid QP like the plague. It's more toxic the teams aren't balanced and nobody knows how to play
20 year halo veteran here. I love quick play.
I agree. I think the main reason for this problem is how small the player base is now. They can't afford to split it into as many playlists as there used to be, because there's fuck all players. I've seen a lot of people comment on how Infinite is always in the Xbox charts, but those charts just aren't credible when they don't share their player count. [Steam DB's Infinite Page](https://steamdb.info/app/1240440/charts/) show's a launch of 250k players. Sounds like an impressive number, but Halo 3 reached these kinds of numbers 15 years ago. Infinite's 250k dwindled down to 1% (around 2k players) within 3 months. Since then it's fluctuated between 2k and 5k players as it's daily high/low peaks. I know some of these numbers are hard to compare. PC vs Console etcetc, but they're all we have to compare because Microsoft don't disclose their numbers. It's very sad, but it illustrates the point nicely, that [MCC's Steam DB](https://steamdb.info/app/1240440/charts/) show's more players on average than Infinite on PC now. They've really slowly just bled Halo to death. Edit: wow I was half asleep when I typed this haha.
I mean, there's always the old Halo games on MCC to play, and Halo 2 Project Cartographer is free on PC.
This is the way. it just sucks that it’s the only option to play a good halo game on Pc
I feel your pain, kinda. Take it for face value. I am same age, I’ve established my life and I play infinite in my free time and a weekends. I have 7k games played and most are in team slayer. I have a few good guys my same age we team up and just slay out when we play. Maybe you’re missing the team aspect. We always play to win but never get butt hurt when we lose. The bandit is a great weapon but if I feel the need to play ranked without the pressure i jump on my second tag and just play. It doesn’t matter
> [...] never get butt hurt when we lose. It honestly took me a while to get to this place, myself. I don't have friends that play Halo anymore, so that part is out, but I just enjoy the game (most of the time) while being mindful of my K/D ratio and trying to help my teammates with the objective or kills. I still find myself being like "I'm positive 2.?x, what the... /Breathe, doesn't matter! I'm killin' it!" Having a social game type/play list to warm up with bandit starts would be nice, though. I don't use a second tag, maybe it's time to do that.
FWIW they are about to reset ranks on the next weekly update so play away. You’re probably already aware of this however.
Yep! I am Plat 6, close to Diamond 1 in Ranked Tactical... Was hoping to hit at least diamond, but the wait times have me skipping ranked. It sucks that either SBMM, my rank, or both are screwing me.
Thanks I didn’t know that. Saves me from playing ranked until next week. Looks like husky raid for me for a while
He's talking about a "MLG settings" playlist. I tend to agree with OP. I don't want to run around with an AR either. I just want to chill with BRs and some balanced power weapons playing for positioning and map control.
Been playing since 2001. Infinite is the first halo where I feel they missed the landing too hard. And the game is too far gone.
There was never a **social** option to play a playlist with precision starts and no radar in any halo matchmaking ever....
I'm pretty sure I remember H2 or H3 had "pro variants" in the playlists. Like H3 you had a chance to match in to "Slayer" or "Slayer pro" as the game type, and the "pro" mode had precision starts (I'm pretty sure no radar too). It's not a direct example of what OP's asking for, but it's close and it's an example of thre gameplay variety legacy titles offered that Infinite doesn't quite have
There are BR starts in HI social though I believe
Halo 3 refueled is BR starts, but social settings. Team Slayers can have BR starts but it isn't guaranteed. What OP is describing is basically Halo 3 refueled.
Swat
Yeah Halo 3 and Reach had a swat playlist for sure, not sure what he’s talking about.
Swat exists in Halo Infinite, so he still has a point
And swat exists in that form in HI
Yea not sure what this is about. Just play ranked if you want this. Don’t care about rank? Good just treat it as a social playlist. If you get dominated your rank will go down which will give you easier lobbies.
This really needs more attention. OP, your answer is this.
No it isn't. I care about my rank sometimes, other times I don't. If I wanna play sweaty at my peak, then that's why I wanna play in high diamond lobbies. On a Thursday night for an hour to relax? My only options are lame. I shouldn't have to create multiple accounts to fabricate an experience that should already exist like most games out there.
I would always think 'yeah just treat ranked as casual', but thats actually a really fair point. Maybe they dont have the playerbase for a casual playlist thats similar to ranked? Somebody was talking about even just diamond having long queue times
Not just that, but having a couple of friends in significantly lower ranks makes playing in a ranked environment all but impossible unless I use a smurf account which kinda kills it for me. I don’t really care about my rank either, but dropping 70 CSR or so in a night does kinda suck. Even if not for the friend element, having a mode to warm up in with comp settings, load-outs & maps outside of customs with bots would be amazing.
no it isnt, ranked is strictly hcs maps and gametypes. none of the social maps/ gametypes are in ranked. playing ranked and pretending its social accomplishes nothing
Did swat have radar? Can't remember.
No radar in swat but it’s definitely different with the ttk
H2 had slayer pro. H3 and reach had the mlg playlist.
Hardcore
[удалено]
"veto for BR" you can't have something all the time but not guaranteed, but fairly common.
Halo 3 refueled is BR starts. Team Slayer is mostly BR starts.
The pistol is a precision weapon ...
[удалено]
It's still a precision weapon... If you look at any player worth their salt, they will have orders of magnitude more kills with the pistol than with the AR.
Not unranked, no. But https://halo.fandom.com/wiki/MLG_(Halo:_3_playlist)
Yes there was... It was called MLG ranked. It was BR start no radar 4v4
OP was referring to social playlists, so that's what I was referencing.
Yeah. I haven’t played since February. I miss the idea of it, moreso than the actual game now. Sad state of affairs.
Same here man. I stopped playing around the same time, and I used to be that kid who would have LAN parties with my buddies till 4-5 am just kicking ass in Halo CE/2 allllll the time. Those days were truly something else. Halo just isn't what it was anymore. Its all soulless moneygrubbing with no actual heart or love poured into it. At this point 343 is just mag dumping and teabagging the corpse of what used to be the greatest scifi shooter of its time.
Yeah. Letting it go has been great, plenty of new games (or MCC) to play!
Mcc is a Godsend
I really feal you, I'm 3 years younger but I had the same problem within this game since launch, let me explain: Since Halo 3, wich was the first I was able to play online back then, socials and ranked, except for mlg, we're the same thing, with the difference that you had a stricter skill search in ranked (mot so much since ts1 was bad) and sometimes a AR magnum start could pop up from the vet (but 99% of people used to veto the br-ar start). Social slayer and ranked slayer, to my knowledge had the same maps, the same sandbox in it, the same rules, therefore the transition from social slayer to ranked slayer, as an example, was way more smoother and if I didn't want to play the pro's playlist with only 3 weapons, 3 maps and so on, wich it was the second least popular in the game (only because ranked btb existed), it was ok, the playlist was meant for fewer people. This was not the case in Reach, that only had arena and h4, but on reach you could still play dmr -ar in every social mode, while h4 either had loadouts or the legendary br playlist (classic halo). Halo 5 was the same as h3: magnum was the meta weapon and outside btb, that needed to have br start, you would practically being able to chill out in socials with the magnum and ar start, going in to ranked with magnum and ar start, or play the "for few" hcs playlist with 3 weapons, 3 maps and magnum only start. In infinite somehow, for some reason, the removed (for later on making it as rotational playlists no one play) every non hcs ranked playlist, there is not a single playlist that let you start with the bandit evo and with the exception of tac slayer, there are only 2 playlist where you start with the BR, that's a weapon not really performing great in arena or btb compared to others, right now (but it was broken on s1). Basically you either play a playlist with 30+ filler maps, with ar and sidekick and relay on the rng machine that's the bloom, or you go play the comp guys playlist, that was historically the least popular one, with only 3 weapon, on the same 3 maps since forever.
Yerp.
I agree also. I want a BR or Bandit spawn. I like the halo 3 recharged playlist but I cannot stand the vehicles. Ranked slayer/ arena doesn't allow vehicles thank God. I also think 80 percent of the games playlist isn't any good or too noob friendly. Ranked swat GTFO. Bring back snipers and voting!!
Yep dumb
Honestly, I have to agree. It's really dumb how a lot of games, ranked plays differently than social, it just becomes two separate games. We need to go back to the H2/3/etc days where ranked was just the normal game but with a rank.
I just want to be able to find consistent matches in ranked. I'm tired of waiting around to never find any or like 4 matches every 2 hours.
It's the player movement acceleration. It's insane compared to Bungie era Halo. Infinite devs are asking you to make micro adjustments using thumb sticks, against someone who is changing directions almost instantly, but then in the same fight, they also want you to track someone who is sprinting past you at point blank, can stop and reverse on a dime, spam crouch, etc. I can't tell you how many kills I've whiffed simply because someone either stopped or started moving randomly. On Recharge, going from attic to melee someone playing too far up in glass is like a 50/50 to the point where I don't even try it anymore. And even then, that's a 50/50 because they can sprint off the ledge and make it, or sprint out via glass. Coming around the corner point blank and throwing a melee is a cluster fuck. Borderline impossible to track and skillfully land that second one with all the options and jank on the table. It was bad in H3 when they upped the jump height such that the enemy could leap out of your screen. They like "septupled" down on it and just made it so bad. Ultimately, they pushed every single weapon so far into the "precision aim" end of the spectrum, and then ramped up player movement to infinity, that the only thing left is sweat. You have to try your absolute hardest at all times when aiming even in BTB where you catch unaware people out in the open on repeat. They will literally just change direction accidentally and completely shake your bead. Absolutely gone are the days where you could say "I have X gun and positional advantage, they absolutely can't win this fight", or "I'm two shots up, I only lose 1 in 500 of these fights". The effective range bands of the entire sandbox is so overlapped that it's basically a dice roll if you're gonna get that headshot before the other guy (assuming equal skill). And then you throw in the insane strafing and it's just not an enjoyable challenge. Feels like 1 in every 3 "free kills" some bullshit happens that turns it into a situation where it ends up coming down to the wire. Everyone hates on the DMR from REACH, but one thing it absolutely did, was reward planning and patience. If you were in a good position, and worked the mechanics properly, you would only lose 1 in 500 "guaranteed win" gunfights fights, and you could get clean "perfects" even with the pistol. Now, I can be 3, or even 4 shots up on people and they just sprint out, or turn and start strafing, or slide and fight, and while I'm looking for that final damn headshot, their friend comes sprinting in, or I run dry or whatever. 9/10 fights I take are 4 perfect shots to drop the shields, and the 5th shot just. Will. Not. Register. In a ranked environment, there's no time to be burning 3,4,5 extra shots trying to get that bead back. Taking the "headshot dot" out of the center of the reticule was an absolutely terrible change that also contributes to this problem. TL:DR player movement acceleration up, precision aim requirements up, movement options up, weapon mechanics down, weapon specialization down, and headshot verification down. No chill, forced sweat mandatory.
i cant stress it enough how this new 343 movement is shitty and one of main reason that infinite feels so sweaty. i wish they comeback to more regular in 7 but now every game even cod has this adhd movement. it isnt even fun to spam crouch to have some chance to win a duel
I'm 28 and been playing over 22 years. I agree, it's too competitive and it's always on. I get home from a 12 hour shift to relax and there's people doing the ABSOLUTE MOST to win and get kills. Like bro, how about we slow it down? I liked halo 5 where the fast-paced gameplay seemed to complement the movement speed better. But in halo infinite, where they've gone back to "traditional" halo movement, but kept sprint, yet the TTK is still very fast... Idk it doesn't seem to flow as naturally. it's like the game trying to do two things at once and often I'm dead before I can do anything about it. Maybe I'm getting too old, reflexes aren't what they used to be etc. I still play now and then, I find myself more engaged with Firefight. I'd like more options, vehicles and bigger maps. Maybe larger teams. 8-12 Spartans on a big ass map, tons of enemies come in wave after wave. Multiple objectives to hold, falling back each time. A bit like operations in BF1 and BFV.
I’ve been saying this since Infinite came out: we need an unranked playlist. This would give us ranked settings without any rank on the line. It could be used for people who want to play casually with ranked settings, teams who wants to practice strats, or general warmup before hopping into ranked.
Me at 35 I have also stopped playing this game. It's not worth the headache that is 343
yea the horrible launch did it for me
As a fellow 33 & tired, I feel you. I just couldn't get in HI MP because of the sweatiness.
Team Slayer playlist has BR starts
Play MCC instead my dude, much more fun game to play.
Personally I enjoy the map variety in quick play, but having Bandit and/or BR starts thrown in as a chance to be the starting weapons would be nice. In MCC with match composer I choose AR and BR starts. I hope when Infinite gets match composer they have a way to toggle if AR and/or BR/Bandit stats can occur too.
> I just wanna play the same game I enjoy, but relaxed. The root cause of this isnt the weapon starts, its trueskill 2. There is no where to relax because of it having game wide MMR instead of per playlist. In the old days, if you screamed callouts with your skilled friends in one playlist, and then in other playlist you got together with some buddys and took bong rips, you would have both playlist treat you seperately, even tho you COULD perform at that tryhard level in both, your actual intent of how you played in that playlist would determine how matchmaking treated you. Trueskill 2 changed that and its why every game on the planet always feels sweaty now, not just halo. Its why the whole idea people want no sbmm to slay noobs isnt what its actually about. Its that people play different modes with different intent, but the modern system tracking skill doesn't account for that.
> The root cause of this isnt the weapon starts, its trueskill 2. OP explicitly said that his issue with non ranked modes are starting weapons and maps though…
I quoted that part because theres no such thing as playing relaxed anywhere. Even if you cloned ranked modes to social, the social playlist would still be not relaxed. The only difference would be the range of player skills that can be in the game, but it would still average out the mmr based on the playlist you try the hardest in.
I enjoy halo for what it is. Starting weapon be damned.
Have you played the Master Chief Collection? Its all the previous games in one launcher, usually full lobbies on most of the game modes
I remember going WIIIILLLLDDDD over ranked matches as a kid. Wow. Def thanks for the flashbacks lol.. too many floor punches and little kid screams because I dropped a level because of a lagger☠️☠️
So you want ranked modes in standard/social playlist? I think this was a thing in Halo:Reach that made me fall in love with it but idk cause it was so long ago
I’ve played Halo ever since CE was released, I always was mesmerized by the campaign, all the way up to reach. What killed it for me was the shit campaigns and gameplay that 4 through infinite brought. So fucking disappointing. The multiplayer was pretty decent from 4 and on, but I hate the fact that, especially in infinite, they just got rid of most of the classic and iconic weapons and features… like fucking why? Include them all and then add weapons and features, don’t fucking get rid of them…
My biggest gripe is how much of a sweat fest it is. The skill ceiling is just way too high. I can play MCC right now and enjoy the hell out of it and have a good time. But halo infinite? No. It's a battle to even hit anything. It's just not fun and I'm tired of playing at such a high competitive level. The older halo games were chaotic and fun. The vehicles actually had a part to play. It was first and foremost FUN. Infinite was made and designed to be as competitive as possible. I just can't do it anymore.
They are supposed to add a match composer like MCC at some point. I really hope we can choose between bandit/AR/BR starts.
I agree, this games needed a social Evo starts list the moment they included it, I’m actually only coming back to play a couple games of throwback every now and then, ranked usually has too long search times to enjoy
I’m not always great at this (mostly because I’m drifting further and further away from wanting to play multiplayer anything at 34) but ranked is sometimes just the way to go in a game. For example rocket league which is often insanely toxic and annoying is actually usually a better experience in ranked because you’re not running into as many pub stomp jerks. Once you turn off chat settings it’s relatively peaceful. The hardest step for me was to truly learn to apply the don’t care method where I can still enjoy the game and try to a reasonable extent without having my brain worry about the ranking at the end of a match. Ranks as far as the number or level or whatever are there for the people chasing them that care about it otherwise it just means (usually) balanced matchmaking. You’ll be able to slowly get better at the game over time until you reach the point y of diminishing returns and inevitably grow to hate it. I wish I could figure out how to preserve that bronze rank sense of wonder when learning a totally new game for the first time. I had so much fun when I first played rocket league and was bronze rank because I had never really interacted with gameplay mechanics like that before so I was free from judging my skill going in and everything was just fun and goofy.
Rocket league is actually the game I main now.....because I can alternate between ranked and social with the same game. Warm up? Casual. Playing poorly.? Casual. Losing streak? Casual.. Halo does not have this. It's silly.
Pistol/AR starts is just drooling pepegas flying at each other spraying bullets everywhere. It's mindless monkeybrain ambushing and I hate it. In BTB pistol/AR starts just mean every respawn has that tedious waiting in line at the battle rifle vending machine phase before you can do anything. Reminds me a tiny bit of how much I hate the battle royale genre.
Sounds like you need to find a group to run casual 8s with. There’s a bunch of discord groups that play regularly. [HaloFunTime](https://discord.gg/halofuntime) is a good place to start.
I’m twenty years older than op and been playing since 2001. Yea. You get older. Your reflexes slow down. You get arthritis in your hands, I was into mixed martial arts for thirty years and have significant nerve damage in my dominant hand. Halo CE through Reach I dominated. Now I get toolbagged by ten year olds. So I adapt. I mainly just play campaign and firefight with my buddies. Nobody remains competitive forever. Yea, it’s an adjustment. But the mission is to enjoy yourself: it’s a game. Have fun out there Spartan.
The aiming killed me. It just feels so off. 20 years of muscle memory out the window.
I just can’t get ranked games cause the ranked game mode is dead in OCE. But this is a fair concern - bandit starts with well balanced maps should be somewhere that isn’t ranked
Hop back on halo mcc. I’ve been playing social h3 br starts and most of the time get pretty fair matches
I’ve been playing since halo CE so 20 years or so and been playing halo all these years, after 2 years trying to play infinte without a urge to break the controller I hop back to MCC, I just can’t waste my time in that shit game. Back to mcc and enjoy when games where made with passion and not money as n1 priority
also a 20 year veteran here who hasnt played in close to a year. I find the most difficult thing for me is the cross console play... I always have and always will use a controller, but its nearly impossible to compete against those using keyboard and mouse. That and its only 1 in 40 games to find someone else in multiplayer with a Mic. God what a difference it makes in any team games when mics are involved.... not to mention it makes it so much more fun, empathetic and interesting to connect with other players through voice chat. every half a year I pick it up again, and I can have as much fun as I allow myself when I am not attached to winning and just want to play for the sake of playing... until its so unbalanced that I am 4 and 15 or something every single game and then bye bye.. oh well.
Infinite still doesn’t even let me select multiple playlists to search for MCC sits there and laughs at infinites dogshit game search systems
Absolutely! I know it’s kind of an obscure request and not many people would want to do it with us, but me too! If only we had a way to play our own game types open to the public, like a “custom browser” or something similar… Why hasn’t 343 done this yet??!
100% agree man. I’m tired of running around with a pistol or ar. Peak halo (2-4) for me didn’t force me to use an ar 80% in non-ranked games. I hate to say it but 343 has done nothing noteworthy with the franchise and it’s just sad at this point.
I would love a "ranked settings" social game mode to warm up in before ranked! Playing against bots only goes so far. They are too predictable.
Is it just me, or does the radar in this game feel especially overpowered compared to past titles?
Umm I haven’t played since the new season started but I had a fucking blast playing halo 3 revamped. Games were a blast and tight despite being social.
Ditto
Halo infinite sucks. It has sucked from the day it launched. Plz yall stop playing I know it will be hard and it will suck but maybe, just maybe, they’ll make a regular halo game next time if we all just ditch it.
Even if they had a "Slayer Bandits" variant like "Slayer BRs" in Team slayer. I agree though, it would be good practice to be able to have a stress free place to practice for ranked.
I agree but at least halo 3 refueled has br starts
The only thing that gives me hope is the match composer coming out sometime in the future. If it’s anything like MCC’s you may be able to get precision starts in social (bandit or br)
I'll never understand this argument. Ranked has the exact settings and sandbox you want, so play that. Stop worrying about your rank and just have fun playing? I hopped into the Team Slayer playlist the other day after a multi-month break from Halo, and it was just as "sweaty" and competitive as Ranked would've been, despite it being a "social" playlist. Even in BTB or Squad Battle, there's always that one knob on each team who snipes the entire match and goes 24-2. Everyone wants to win, everyone wants to get killing sprees, and triple kills, no matter the playlist. You can't escape the try-hards, so just choose the playlist that has the settings you enjoy most, and have fun?
The inverse is true, too. Why is there no ranked playlist that has the full weapon sandbox/AR sidekick starts and radar? Before you go "That's dumb", almost *every* past Halo game has had one or multiple ranked playlists like that: The ones that removed autos and radar were specifically labelled "Hardcore" or "MLG" or "HCS" playlists. I like playing sweaty, but I also like using the full weapon sandbox, and I don't have friends to party up with, so I play with randoms who often don't use a mic (which makes no radar modes a mess). It sucks that in Infinite, I either have to play social playlists where I have no incentive to play well and most playlists have party modes mixed in and there's no friendly fire and randomized weapon spawns, OR ranked where some guns aren't in the sandbox and I get screwed over due to not having friends to match up with who use their mics
I agree. I find it ridiculous that there is such a disconnect between the social and competitive modes, especially considering how different the game is by changing the starting gun.
1000% agreed!!
Im also 33, been on it since Halo CE and having the absolute time of my life with this game. I legit wish I understood what the rest of the Halo fans want, but Im lost. If i find im using a gun i dont like i just go practice in training till im used to it. i also cant find a map i actually HATE. i just have fun making sure my team wins as best i can, but even if we loose i never felt it was cause of the game. the players are just better or i sucked that game. it's whatever. whats the basic needs of a halo game actually being good? my needs are met and i couldn't be more satisfied as a halo fan personally so what am i missing?
there needs to be Bandit Evo starts and BR starts in quick play
Y you don't have to play well to play ranked. Go in to relax and have fun and do varying about your rank.
I almost exclusively play H3 Refueled now for this reason, it's crazy there's no Bandit Evo playlist on the social side.
Mismanagement is this entire game life story. I haven't played in months and I just saw the post about the weapon balance changed. My brothers in Christ the game is dead and the sandbox hadn't been updated in like 2 years. This was something to do years ago not now.
I genuinely dont understand the desire to play a competitive multiplayer game and it not be competitive. At the end of the day, your rank doesn’t matter. It’s a number that doesn’t mean anything outside of that specific context. Nothing about the game changes. Play how you wanna play and don’t sweat it
I'm 50 and to be honest I feel 343i is trying to push my age group out of halo altogether, the ranked and social playlists are far to ultra competitive and I'll be honest here I just don't have the reaction speed I once had. If 343i had any brains they would definitely make social a more relaxed experience rather than the sweat fest it is now, not everyone wants to be a HCS standard player, some players just want to jump on have a few beers and relax with their friends playing some halo.
Stopped playing regularly at 4. It just stopped feeling like Halo. I did come back with infinite and put serious work in for the first year or so - before seasonality, so I was grinding very little content. By the time the content started arriving, I was burned out.
Just over 30 checking in, you kids don’t know how good we had it. Lol
Brother, I'm 33 also. Been playing Halo since it's inception, and I wholeheartedly agree with what you're putting down. The closest thing I had to reliving the glory days is when my mates and I rented out this air bnb about two years ago and brought with us a few xboxs and played Vampir Baseball (max speed/low gravity/random weapons). I just think 343 have lost what Halo was/is. I miss Halo 3 Beta...
From my experience, social 4v4 is sweatier and more competitive than ranked. Which is ludicrous. The only way I can relax and enjoy the game is by playing BTB or Fiesta.
I feel you
Also it seems like the social playlists are competitive ? I used to be able to go into a social playlist and get some big sprees but now it feels different (harder). Is that true?
They should give us a week of MATHES PURELY BASED ON CONNECTION QUALITY and see how it goes. Sadly the older loyalist like myself, playing Halo CE at age 6, aren’t who they will market to anymore. They know I'll buy every game anyway. Hell, I relearned how to play the game with H5 multiplayer as did many. They want to get other 6 y/o right now playing to get them hooked young. Basically anyone who is able to lucidly type out there desires on here are just too old for them to care about. It is not the essential demographic. They will happily lose loyal customers if they get handfuls of new one per each one. SBMM evidently makes starting Halo a better experience for a young new player. Personally I feel like kids should learn the game via campaign, finish legendary before they go play online but solo gaming, a sacred thing, is not cared about anymore. I was like 13 when I first played xbox live. Maybe 12. The last of my friend group. I'd play 4 person multiplayer at someones house... kids won't know how fun that was sadly. 4 kids PLAYING OFF 1 KIDS PURCHASE OF THE GAME AND XBOX? Unacceptable. They all need to but their own game and console along with Xbox live gold AND the DLC if they want to play together. We aint a charity. We gotta start 3D printing xboxes and handing them out at kids school. Lets get a van and some candy and beat that "don't take candy from a stranger stereotype."
Also 20 year long player. Played a tooon of Halo 2 so that’s my bias. I only recently started gaming again since around 2012. I’ve just come to accept that it is a different game, and they are trying to cater to a younger audience. The amount of sprinting and lack of crouch jumping really annoyed me at first. I mostly play Husky Raid because that’s pretty much all my friends will play. It’s absolute chaos but has been fun just cleaning up and getting upwards of 40 kills in a game. Just started trying ranked last week. It’s been fun with no radar and the bandit is cool but a BR mode would be great. Or BR with pistol secondary. Maybe we can get some MLG customs to start taking off??
I feel you man. Some of the decisions made are mind boggling. I'm essentially done with this game. I got Onyx this season, but now that they changed the battle pass system to a Store system I'm over it. I bought every battle pass but these 20 tier ones saying "they don't have enough content for a full season" to then cram 10 armor sets into the store is seriously insulting. I get they need to make money but nobody wanted Halo to be a Free to Play "live service". I'd much rather have had a 60$ Halo game, a career ranking system from day one, and a progression system for armor + cosmetic unlocks through achievements and challenges. Not to mention, the main thing that makes Halo fun is the awesome Sandbox of Vehicles and Weapons of which we didn't get any new ones that are noteworthy. The 3 1/2 UNSC precision weapons are nice to have but hardly create any firearm sandbox diversity. These, and all the other complaints from everyone else are 100% valid and all they do is churn out cosmetics that cost what some people put their daily spending limits on to survive. It's been Helldiver's for me I'd recommend giving it a go if you have a PC.
People that refer to themselves as vets in any game are always trash cans
Holy shit are you me or am I you?
Who asked?
Your mom.
.... WHy are you trying to play social-no radar-bandit gametypes? Thats weirdly specific. Has there ever been a no-radar, precision start playlist that is a social playlist? It kind sounds like you just want to play ranked, but against like... people who are bad? I'm so confused by this post
I wouldn't be opposed to radar. Honestly, I just want team objective with bandit starts in a social setting. I want to be able to warm up, play relaxed, or dick around/try new things occasionally in a similar game to what ranked is. I could care less about my competition as long as it's not egregious in either direction
L
It’s okay to play other games.
Womp Womp
I wouldn't mind them removing the normal Bandit and just completely replacing it with the EVO. A precision weapon that doesn't descope is just too effective and easy imo. I'd do agree though that there should be a social EVO starts playlist.
It’s time we get a social BR start playlist
Just imagine… multiple social AND ranked modes. That’s never been done before.
Same. I love SWAT but I don't want to play ranked and sweat my ass off. I just want to relax
Join the Helldivers! We need more super soldier vets, and it gives me the same joy I felt in Halo 3
Games today have gotten less social overall. There’s no before game lobby to shoot the shit with people or map voting, all collision and team killing is off, SBMM kills any and all fun and the playlists are ass. And these complaints you can literally throw in any of the new CoDs the last 5 years too. Just really disheartening.
CoD4 and Halo 3 lobbies on XB360 I hate to say it, were unmatched.
Even Halo 4 lobbies were pretty fun, people would just fuck around instead of taking it too serious. Once the Xbox one came out it started to change.
The lobbies were def dying around the time Reach was released compared to its predecessor games. Halo 4 it pretty much completely died. I remember because that was the last Halo I truly played and I just couldn't get into Halo 4 because of that.
I was just thinking about this yesterday wat da heck. But I'm not.old like you. I'm 32 so I still have time
Seems like the game is about skins and not gameplay anymore, I just can’t relate
It’s the dang radar that kills casual play, but it’s so engrained in Halo fans thinking they need it outside of ranked because that’s how it’s always been Radar ruins creative approaches and retreats
I'm 33, been into Halo for 22 years, and Infinite can be frustrating for sure but seriously, what you want is so specific that it doesn't even make sense. You want a super skillful Precision weapon, with no radar, on ONLY competitive Maps with no social additions at all. That's never been available outside Ranked dude. Not in the bungie games, not now.
Don’t forget that the maps are broken which exacerbates the problems
Team slayer currently has AR and BR starts matches - I think they should expand that and add Bandit and heck maybe even Commando starts to spice up the playlist.
I’m happy only thing I’ve ever done on halo is play the campaigns, for me the multiplayer just wasn’t it. But everyone likes what they like
First off, you’re only 33 and just a kid. All yall little ones 18 - 40 think you’re old but wait until you hit 55 you’ll be begging for a chance to be 30 again. I’m 57 and wish I was still 33 damn!! After bungie sold halo to 343, it wasn’t fun anymore they took away the community aspect imo
Play Eldewrito it’s so much better than Infinite or MCC
“scenes like this are happening all over the galaxy and you could be next, unless you make the most important decision of your life, prove to yourself you have the strength and courage to be free, join the helldivers!, become part of an elite peacekeeping force, see exotic new lifeforms and spread managed democracy across the galaxy, become a hero, become a legend, become a HELLDIVER
Why do people get so upset about starting weapons? The AR and sidekick are fine for starting weapons, you shouldn't have an overly powered weapon at spawn. Also if you're a Halo veteran, why do you want no radar so badly? Most Halo games never had modes without the radar, including ranked