343’s community manager, John Junyszek, uploaded a new Halo Waypoint post explaining the changes. One of the biggest takeaways is that players might have to find themselves a full rank lower going forward after placement. According to Junyszek, Halo Infinite’s “Competitive Skill Ranking” system was “overly generous”. 343 blames this systematic issue for the imbalance of player skill across Halo Infinite’s competitive matches. 343 is hoping to solve this by changing the CSR for a more accurate reflection of a player’s skill. The silver lining here is that 343 raised the cap on how high players can rank after playing their first ten placement matches. Instead of the Diamond 1 placement cap, players can go up as high as Diamond 5 after placement. 343 added that this will minimize the disruption the rankings reset will cause and make it so that Onyx players “spend less time in Diamond since the system already knows that they are likely an Onyx player.” Unfortunately, Junyszek clarified that this isn’t the only time that 343 is going to reset ranks mid-season. Specifically, Junyszek said this is “only the beginning” with “more to go after.” If it’s any consolation, 343 promises to consider player feedback and in-game data before making changes. This means that, if fewer players complain about the skill disparity in Halo Infinite, 343 won’t have to reset the rankings again so soon. At the end of the day, Halo Infinite players should be thankful that 343 is so concerned about maintaining a competitive and healthy matchmaking system. In other news, Paramount+’s Halo series got a new trailer ahead of its March 24 premiere. Unfortunately, it appears that Halo Infinite is losing traction among players. Although it’s not bleeding users nearly as much as Battlefield 2042, Microsoft’s marquee shooter lost 90% of its player base on PC with similar numbers on the Xbox consoles.
