damn nice update, but i was hoping for some info (or at least acknowledgement) on the 3 new games

I just wasted months get all my 50's and 5 star general AWESOME FREAKING UPDATE!

Could we increase the frequency of BR's on Pit, decrease the frequency of Shotty Snipers and Last Resort in Social Slayer? Shotty Snipers is fun but it does get old. Fast! I can play an entire night of H3 and see the pit twice and I get Last Resort probably every other game. I'm sure I will not get any response to this but I figured I would get this out because its driving me nuts. Other than that Halo is fun GT: ShootsQuick

Is the reason that "Heavies" is not being added to social MM that you guys want some sort of reason for us to play the decrepit Ranked BTB? By trying to support that inherantly-prone-to-failure playlist (no party restrictions=epic failure for single players who just want some big battles, party restrictions=epic failure to groups) you only take away from the experiences that could be had elsewhere. Instead of trying to lure people into ranked just to keep that titanic playlist afloat, you could add a new larger group playlist (perhaps 3 teams of 4, 4 teams of 3, ect) to ranked, and then take all that was good about ranked BTB and add that to social (ie heavies.) Though it may be hard to take RBTB of the iron lung of desperate short sighted revisions, it will be for the best.

I think it's great, this will "hopefully" take care of some of the hysteria surrounding a rank. It's just a symbol. Now, if you play enough, you can get a rank higher than what you normally would. (Assuming I understand what they were saying.) I think it's a great new addition and am looking forward to it.

Hey, It says on the double exp weekend one of the play lists is called living dead. What is that? Is it infection or something?

Im so excited about AU2 becuase Im level locked, so this will give me a chance to rank up..maybe...

[quote]Q: OK, I’m really, really, really sorry that I filled my File Share with pictures of naked women. I won’t do it again. Can I have my File Share back please? A: lololololol[/quote] LMAO Thats just made my day. :P "AU Deuce"Can you really speck french or are you messing with us? Anyway great update, i love it when you end on a cliff hanger. Edit: I like the idea of being able to track my progress though each playlist even social, i always wanted you to do that in halo 2. . [Edited on 08.02.2008 8:19 AM PDT]

Once again you've proved how many idiots work for your company. Hey here's an idea...Lets make everyone who has a lower level than the person they are fight against have a little more damage resistance so bad kids can feel good about themselves and WE CAN ALL BE GENERALS!!! LOL Oh yea, way to mess up a perfectly fun playlist like team doubles. If I wanted to play objective then i would head over to team objective...make sense? MLG only from now on. Its sad, but they know what people want from your own game more than you do.

So, we've got a lovely new rank in each playlist? I fail miserably to see the point. Now when we enter a match, we have to select each opponent to see what level of play they really are. This still fails to solve the true-skill problem. Matchmaking would be great if it did one thing: judged a book by its cover. If someone is a 45 in lone wolves, they can shoot. They can melee. They can stick like a god. Why, then, in god's name would someone who's a legitimate 25 get matched against them? Oh, yeah, because they're only a 25 in team doubles. The current system punishes the many because the few don't play every playlist to get their skill level up to the highest it can be. Again, look at big team battle. Wonder why we don't play it? Because we keep getting matched up against generals. The second problem is when going into matches with mixed parties. I have a bunch of friends that don't have time to play like i do. When I do get to play with them, it always matches us up against someone close to my rank, around the mid-30's. That's fine, except both players on the other team are in the mid-30's. Yet, my friend is a lowly 15. He can't keep up. He can barely put his armor on. We get torn up...and it's just not fun. Instead, the system should do an average skill level. You say that true skill is working in the background, but I've yet to see it work right, particularly with mixed parties. The truth is easy to spot when my party of 5 gets matched up against a party of 2 generals, 2 brigadiers, and a colonel, when the highest skill level on my team is a 40, the lowest a 20. Tell me how true skill is working then? The only reason we'd match with them is it's a social match, or because the highest player on our team is a 40. The game should at least average the party's highest skill level in any playlist to come up with a party average...then match equivalent parties. For instance, you've got a party with a 15, 20, 25, 30 and 35 in it. It averages to 25. This would balance with a 5 person party where everyone is a 25. AND, it must take into account their highest skill level. Some who's a 50 in team slayer is still going to dominate in team skirmish even if he's only ever played it twice. The third problem is handling new gamertags. You guys could come up with a algorithm that boosts a player's skill level faster when they dominate in matchmaking. For instance, some gets a new gamertag. This newbie play lone wolves and wins by a spread of 15. Uhmm...that's a clue. Then, the second game they win by a spread of 13. Another clue. The game accounts for this and boosts him 3 levels instead of one. In short order, he's going to fly up the level lists. I've played against lieutenants in team slayer matches who could win by a spread of 20 or more. Considering his skill was an 18, mine a 35, do you think this is balanced? Nope. So when matchmaking again links up my mixed party with another mixed party of new gamertags, we get destroyed. Buy guess what? Because both are mixed parties, the ranks don't move much. We don't go down. They don't go up. So, often we get matched up again! What happens the second time? Total destruction of our team. After having this happen three or four times my friends who don't play often quit out. It's not fun for any of us. I don't mind losing, but the number of times we get destroyed is absurd. And, I don't like playing against a team that i can destroy with my little toe. It gets boring fast. We have come up with a work-around. Nothing original. I'm going to get a second gamertag that i can use when playing with my low-ranked friends. That way we're more likely to get matched with people his skill level. Too bad that dilutes the effectiveness of matchmaking. You guys have the best matchmaking system around. Please make just a little bit better. Thanks for letting me vent. Btw, I've been waiting for objective games in Doubles...Thanks for bringing it!

Wow...way to go once again Bungie. You should change the name from " Update " to " We've figured out ways to make matchmaking even worse...again." You take team doubles and throw in some -blam!- people dont want to play. That WAS my favorite playlist. I'll stick with H3 customs from now on so I dont have to play this bull-blam!-. Keep catering to nubs Bungie and you'll see your elite gamers head for GOW 2 upon release.

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Locc4 Another completely useless update by Bungie. Let's not fix the BR spread, the unregistering sniper headshots or the netcode that actually REFUNDS bullets because even it knows how much people sponge bullets, let's just cater to the total nublets in the game that probably play once every week. Us generals now need to re-do EVERYTHING we've done already? I worked for my general, other people worked for their generals, and in one swift move Bungie un-do all that work. We don't care if it shows on our service record lukems, people very rarely look there. I reached prestige 10, 55 in cod4 so quickly, and actually left the game because there was nothing else to do. I came back to halo, got my 50 and tried for 50's in other playlists. A general is a status symbol - You can out play many people and have put up with the awful flaws in the game, such as having to PERFECTLY 6 shot somebody with a BR off-host. Sure, it'll stop the "I played 15 games and didn't go up" threads. But now we'll get, "I'd rather play 15 games and not rank-up than have to play 600games AND WIN just for a general in that playlist; which I'll probably never play again since I need a general in 20 other playlists." If people would do some research on how the trueskill rating works, these threads wouldn't be everywhere, but no - Bungie want to keep their fanboys happy and give them the easy option. Now we'll have level 15's giving us 50's grief in playlist because we're a 50 captain, and they're an oh-so-mighty level 15 general in social slayer. Well done bungie, you've destroyed you're ranking system - you've employed a World of Warcraft style of leveling. Grind, grind, grind. If you grind enough you might hit general. Press ranked, change playlist and grind, grind grind. Level 50 now means nothing, all of our work gone - just because bungie wants to keep their "oh bungie you can do no wrong i love you, im an AR pro" community happy. God, if it wasn't for MLG - halo would be dead. Bungie are actively trying to kill their own game; sabotage it if you will. Thank god for customs - MM is a disgrace. Bungie I cannot even begin to imagine the warped sense of gaming that you seem to think when implemented will improve a game that is inferior to halo 2. Halo on the PC and halo 2 were just incredible. They worked, people knew the worked. But you have strayed far off the path with halo 3. It's just...not the same - all the little things ruin it. The BR spread, the textures on walls which make your grenades bounce back and hit you, the pathetically small radius of rockets and explosions, no REAL pistol, the awful way in which the game picks host....I only have 7,000 characters left so I'll not list all the faults. Bungie Fanboys - you're pathetic for letting your "Gods", if you will - continue their reign of destruction on this game.[/quote] I'd have to agree with most of the points in this post. It took me a long time and a lot of playing for the status I have now. And although being a general doesn't get you anything in real life of course, it's nice to have that status in game. Now people won't see that unless they look at my service record, and honestly who does that often?

Ok I've just read the update but not the 17 odd pages of comments. If this has been answered I'm sorry. So, my highest skill is 40. I know it's going to stay at that and still show in playlists. But will it say I'm a 40 in everything now instead of the playlist I got the 40 in? So I'll be a 40 recruit in Ranked Team Objective even though I've never played it? Thanks for any replies.

cool stuff again this week, Glad to see that the 'Banhammer or BanEternity' is becoming EVEN MORE affective, I'm totally behind it and banning people for violating the rules, People know exactly when they break any rule and I think they get more mad by protesting their innocence because their "shrewd" attempt at getting past it unoticed was foiled and it makes them feel stupid... and as HUGE as the Bungie and Halo 3 community is, there are always going to be the small percentage of players who cheat or violate the system in some way to hamper fun to others, so I'm fully behind it all.. and great new skills update, I'll check that out, I noticed that the last three times in a row when I popped Halo 3 into my machine, it needed an update... I guess that wasn't intended? but no matter, it works fine, still :)

At First I Was Like WA?!? But I Like The Sound Of The New Ranking System But The Question Didnt Come Up Say I Wanna Play With My Friend Whos A Colonel And Im A Commander Is He Still Able To Join Me In Ranked. Also I Love The New Stuff Youre Adding In Like Oddball And Heavy It Sounds Like Its Gunna Be Fun And Mayhem ^-^

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] xTr1GGeR HaPPYx Why don't you (Bungie) actually fix something thats broken for once. Fix the netcode. Fix whatever it is that causes sniper rounds to go through people and not damage them. Fix whatever it is that causes plasma grenades that have stuck someone disappear. [/quote] Lag?

Team Doubles ADDED Oddball ADDED King of the Hill ADDED 2 Flag on the Pit ADDED 1 Flag on Blackout Objectives on team doubles? That's -blam!- stupid. Same applies for this. MLG REMOVED MLG Blackout :(

wow... i sort of feel bad for whoever had modded pix in their file share. I think some of my friends had those... bummer. BTW, bungie said they put up a warning on this site... dont they realize that not everyone comes to this site? Just trying to defend my friends BTW, I DONT HAVE ANY MODDED PIX!

Is playing modded content in custom games on LIVE a bannable offense?

So, people who have pictures of naughty stuff they made in Forge will be banned? FINALLY!!! It's about time you guys are cracking down on the pervs! I can't tell you how many time I look at someones Fileshare, and seeing all that stuff. 'Bout time Bungie!

I guess this means I won't be playing with as many second accounters. That's good.

This is the update? You guys are really stretching it, even for summer. You could announce bans and playlist changes any day of the week...when can we get something useful and new?

im done with this game. if they're only gonna listen to nubs and idiots im done. this game is officially the biggest let down ever. bungie always builds hype then -blam!-s us over. im done

i dont like the idea about the experience and i think its a terrible decision to take blackout out of MLG

Why don't you (Bungie) actually fix something thats broken for once. Fix the netcode. Fix whatever it is that causes sniper rounds to go through people and not damage them. Fix whatever it is that causes plasma grenades that have stuck someone disappear.

is this gonna work the same as it did in h2 cause i think it would be a good idea if it was but if its just getting so much "experience" then any recruit with a high skill of 2 can get general and then all the good players will leave matchmaking altogether