Flash Potential the lack of a real ranking system, or at the very least the lack of a ranked play list, is one of the items that has created so much of the disdain I have for the game. It is truly hard, from what I read in these forums, for some people who don't have issues with problems or features to fully appreciate what it is like to play and try to support a game when you have inherent issues with it. I have from the beginning be an ardent supporter a separated social and ranked play lists like we have always had. Twinreaper refers to it in this statement:
"Hopefully in Halo 4, we can get the best of both worlds where casual guys like me can go online for fun, and you guys can go online and destroy, and we both never have to meet up and get pissed off." - Twinreaper
He is one who understands the differences from my talks with him on the subject. The current games, ranking system and implementation of matching players does have issues. If I play in a party that of four that has a truly casual player, two very good player and myself, the casual player will be matched against very hard opponents per their skill. The same applies if it is just one very good player, two like me and the casual. This is the norm in Reach where it was not the norm in Halo 3 for example. There is, in the "Competitive" play list, match making that pulls a much higher share of hardcore players due to the fact that their options of game types to choose from are all in "Competitive" do to the lack of ranked variants.