The ranking system is very good. It’s a lot like halo 3 and that worked pretty well until the higher levels 47+. At that point cheating and exploits accounted for almost 50% of the games I played as a 47/46. This system looks to be almost Identical, different math but same big picture idea. I think it suffers a bit in the sense that good player can be pinned down at incorrect levels because of the nature and style of lower level gameplay. It’s supposed to represent a individual players skill in team games and allow you to be matched evenly to have close and competitive games. In reality thou, it also is a representation of the luck you have been getting as a player joining matchmaking.
My example goes like this. I picked up a controller after not playing games since Halo 3. I deservedly do very bad in my first three or four games getting the hang of Halo again. I am given Silver 3 which again I deserved. No problem, as I gain my old skills back and start to get the hang of the new balance and maps and weapons I start to go positive in ‘almost’ every game. I’m having fun running around trouncing on players and running up my score. The crappy part is my teams keep losing and not for lack of effort on my part. I gave my team mates cover, power weapons, tried to help them control areas even saying call outs on midship without any of them communicating back. For the life of me some games just cannot be won no matter how hard you try to help your team mates succeed. As this keeps happening my rank starts to slide and instead of being matched with other silver 3’s and golds. I am now getting bronze and newbies. I continue to go very positive and now I am starting to feel bad for the lower ranked folks I am slaughtering, and also getting frustrated and bored because the lower level games are messy and scattered and random. At this point winning and losing might as well be a coin flip. I can go 25-7 and still have three team mates going more negative than I can go positive. So I lose even more often.
This forces my hand, the folks here will shout. It’s a team game and you are a lone wolf that can’t win. You just need to get some peeps together. ect…ect…That thinking is flawed. The ranking systems purpose is to match me with players of similar individual skills FOR ME. So I don’t have too. So I can just log in and have fun playing with folks at my skill level.
So…after watching the screen that gives and takes away points; I see you can gain or lose approx 10-20 points each game. (for the example I am going to use 10 points for a win or loss) This Idea is for SLAYER GAME TYPES ONLY.
Add the ±KDA number to the existing points.
LOSS and go +10.
-10 for losing
+10 KDA
= 0 Final points. Fair enough not every player deserves the penalty.
LOSS AND go -10
-10 for losing
-10 KDA
= -20 Points drop in skill. Again fair because you pulled the whole team down.
WIN and go +10
+10 for winning
+10 KDA
= +20 points gain. You could be too good for this level and you move up fast.
Once you are at your correct level overall it will make next to no difference as you KDA will move closer to 1.0 as you are surrounded with people of your skills.
WIN and go +1
+10 for winning
+1 KDA
+11 almost the same as the original system when games are even.
This would help the system move players to the correct respective ranks faster and not penalize people for not having a dedicated halo team.