Big Team Battle

""Assorted games for full teams of 8 on 8. Work together, or die in a great big pile.""

- In-game description for Halo 3's Big Team Battle playlist

Description
Big Team Battle (or BTB as it is also known) is a matchmaking playlist intended for games of 8 versus 8. These games are either objective based or kill based. The maximum number of players per game is 16 (minimum is 10) while the maximum number of players who can join Big Team Battle in a single party is 16. The maximum allowable imbalance between teams is 1 player. It is the largest playlist in terms of number of players in each game. As such, it is only played on the largest maps.

Big Team Battle exists in Halo 2 matchmaking. In Halo 2, it is an unranked playlist, although it had previously been ranked. Ranked and unranked Big Team Battle playlists were recently retired in Halo 3 and replaced with Squad Battle. Bungie appears to have confirmed that it was retired in the September Auto Update. There is still a form of unranked Big Team in DLC, called DLC Big Team.

Halo 2

 * Assault - Headlong, Terminal and Zanzibar.
 * Multi Bomb - Containment and Waterworks.
 * Multi Bomb BR - Coagulation.
 * Neutral Bomb - Containment, and Waterworks
 * Neutral Bomb BR - Coagulation
 * One Flag CTF -[Headlong, Relic, Terminal and Zanzibar.
 * One Flag CTF BR - Burial Mounds.
 * Multi Flag CTF - Containment, Waterworks
 * Multi Flag CTF BR - Coagulation.
 * Flag Wars - Waterworks.
 * 3 Plots - Terminal and Turf.
 * Land Grab - Containment, Headlong and Relic.
 * Team Duals XTRA - Beaver Creek, Lockout, Midship and Sanctuary.
 * Gulch Wars - Coagulation, Containment.

Halo 3
(Note: The Legendary Map Pack map Avalanche will only appear in this Matchmaking playlist if only all players in the matchmade party have the Legendary Map Pack.)
 * Big Team Slayer - Avalanche, Last Resort, Rat's Nest, Sandtrap, Standoff and Valhalla.
 * Multi Bomb - Avalanche, Rat's Nest, Standoff and Valhalla.
 * Neutral Bomb - Avalanche, Rat's Nest, Sandtrap, Standoff and Valhalla.
 * One Flag CTF - Avalanche, High Ground (Beta), Rat's Nest, Standoff and Valhalla.
 * Multi Flag CTF - Avalanche, Rat's Nest, Sandtrap, Standoff and Valhalla.
 * Territories - Last Resort, Sandtrap and Valhalla.
 * 1 Sided VIP - Last Resort.
 * VIP - Avalanche, Rat's Nest, Sandtrap and Valhalla.
 * 2 Flag Heavy - Avalanche Heavy, Valhalla Heavy, Standoff Heavy, Sandtrap Heavy. (These maps heavily utilize Heavy Weapons and Vehicles.)

Currently, Big Team Battle is available through the DLC playlist, DLC Big Team.

Issues With Ranked Big Team
Ranked Big Team, in Halo 3 is much more of a stake and gamble to play, chancing experience and rank greatly. It holds roughly a 50% success rate for winning. It all depends on how good you and your teammates are, as well as your commitment and devotion to the game's objective compared with your opponents'. This is why many of people opt out of this playlist, choosing something much easier to win, such as Team Slayer, or even Lone Wolves. Another aspect, is that the Ranked Big Team playlist needs to match sixteen different NATs (Network Address Translator), thus the matches are prone to a very high level of lag. Another problem has been the difficulty in matching players, as the spread of true skill is high, and because of the "mixed team" restrictions, the matching time was further increased; However, in June all restrictions in Ranked Big Team Battle were removed to attract more players to this playlist. To further interest in the Ranked Big Team, it has been made into a DLC playlist.

Trivia

 * Since its removal in September 2008, Ranked Big Team has been replaced by Squad Battle, which features gametypes and maps similar to the former Big Team playlist, but the gametypes are restricted to Slayer, Capture the Flag and Assault. And new mid-large size maps like Isolation have been introduced to the playlist.