I might get heat/hatred for this, but I honestly think that Halo 5 had it better with its idea of mode settings. That there shouldn't be so much of a dichotomy between Ranked and Social, that there should be more parity. Ranked shouldn't suffer for Social, I get it, but core Halo Social also shouldn't just be so damn stupid IMHO.
AR + Pistol starts in this game could be good, but they've clearly designed both of those weapons in such a way that the AR is stupid easy AND stupid effective, while the pistol is mostly worthless outside of cleaning up kills or getting right in any enemy's face and spamming the trigger.
I personally think that the game would play best across all modes, Ranked and Social, if they just gave the player a more competent, 2X scoped, but not overly effective pistol while keeping the AR easy to use but reducing its lethal effectiveness. Basically making it so a novice would be primarily running around with the AR out as their primary off spawn, the pistol as a back-up, with skill players reversing the role preference of the two guns. That designing these two guns in this way, while leaving the BR as a more niche, but also potent vertical upgrade from the starting loadout would be a better way to go for the game.
I was secretly hoping that they would unveil a new magnum or a semi-auto, lower powered, slower shooting rifle to be Ranked setting's primary utility precision weapon rather than the BR. But I knew that was a total pipe dream. I just think the BR is too good/easy to use honestly, and that there's a space for a weapon that has more utility off spawn than the current Sidekick, but isn't quite as easy to use as the BR or as strong potentially as the Commando. Basically a slightly less effective H5 Magnum weapon archetype.
I think that friendly fire and no grenade hit markers should be the default across both Ranked and Social. Same for teammate physical interaction.
I also don't really care for the fact that maps in Social have changing weapon spawns while Ranked maps are totally fixed. Though this isn't that big of a deal tbh.
Controversially, I think that both ranked and social should just use the combat sensor radar as, to me, it's the perfect compromise between giving more info without giving too much (see: forcing both slow and fast play to be more considerate in use), while allowing for outplays/flanks yet punishing extreme aping aggression. Like Sal's jump from bottom mid to Stronghold A with sword looks cool, flashy, and skilled, but honestly it's kind of obnoxious IMO (especially for that guy defending A lol). To me, that just made me think of jetpacks on Boardwalk from Reach, and how if the combat tracker was a thing, he'd be less likely to do a move like that because there'd be more risk for the hyper aggression and instead he'd be more likely to actually navigate through the map's geometry up to A (or use the more obvious and potentially riskier grappleshot to do the same kind of cross map skip).
I just think that the combat tracker's effects on the game's pace is the perfect sweet spot, where motion tracker slows things down way too much and no radar's pace might potentially be too fast. Without radar, I figure the pace of this game's Ranked meta will get to a spot similar as what happened in H5 where players are just flying around maps like crazy, with less of a focus on methodical play. That was precisely why the spartan ability tracker became a thing in H5 after awhile. We'll see though.
With the combat sensor being a thing, and just the general game design/balance, it def feels like there was an internal struggle over this exact kind of philosophy for the game. Of whether they should have parity between Ranked/Social or if they should hard cleave a dichotomy between them. That the people arguing for mode settings differentiation were the ones who succeeded, and as a result the radar got reverted to motion tracker cause why the fuck not? If Social is going to be stupid/brainless, might as well go all the way, right?
Oh well, it'll be fine. I'm sure most of the competitive community is more than happy with this. But as someone who probably spends their time about equally between Ranked and Social playlists, these setting choices are kind of frustrating to me personally. I just think that both Ranked and Social would just work better with settings parity and an AR/Pistol/semi-auto utility starting loadout that wasn't obviously designed to be the kiddie pool/training wheels. That the AR can still fulfill that "training wheel" role without being so effective lethally, and the pistol can be more effective, without going into H5 mag territory where in the right hands it can best any other on map weapon (aside from power weapons) in the majority of on map combat ranges.
There's shit I like and dislike about both settings styles in this game, and it's honestly pretty frustrating but oh well! Like why does Social settings have to be brainless and bad, while Ranked settings are the polar opposite end? Can't there be more of a happy medium for the core game's identity?
This all said, the Social standings as they are right now are definitely worse.
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