This isn’t an idea for a ranking system - ranking systems have been discussed at length by people who are much more knowledgeable than me, and I don’t think I could add anything to that discussion.
I’m all for Halo having a well-designed, competitive ranking system, but I’m assuming that such a ranking system would only show in ranked playlists. If Halo is to split the playlists into a “ranked” and “social” like they did in Halo 3 (which I believe they should), then what will they do for the social playlists?
Both Reach and H4 have featured an experience based system that mainly rewards one thing, and one thing only: playing time. This may have been on purpose… an incentive for players to keep playing the game for a long time, but in my opinion it’s just dangling a carrot in front of player’s faces. It’s what people are used to now, I guess, but I feel like they could design a much better system that would involve unlockables and ranks without basing it purely on how long you’ve played.
I mean, what’s the enjoyment of earning experience to unlock that new helmet or rank up to “General Grade 3”/Spartan Rank x, when you realize that literally NOTHING you do matters? When your team wins and you go 20-3, yet you still earn the same amount of points as if your team lost and you went 0-15, what’s the point?
Granted, it’s been a long time since I played Halo 4, so I could be remember the leveling system wrong… but as far as I remember, it worked basically similar to Halo Reach. The majority of points came from playing time, with a very small bonus for winning the match. It’s a linear progression that rewards the grind more than individual (or team) performance.
So why not make it purely achievement-based? I know that there’s the daily challenges, and the commendations, and those all provide xp boosts, but as far as I can tell, the main source of xp comes from just playing match after match.
How about little to no xp reward for playing time? Maybe a small amount of points, just it doesn’t feel like you aren’t going anywhere, but the majority should come from how you play. Get 3 double kills in a game, that’s some kind of in-game achievement, and you’re rewarded with 1200 xp (or whatever) and unlock a helmet that is tied to that achievement. Go on a sword spree, get more points, and unlock the sword spree helmet. Complete a wheelman achievement and earn the same. Get 10 wheelman awards and get the upgraded version of the item. Etc.
The point is to move away from rewarding mindless play time, and reward better play time. I could level up faster than someone who plays 5 matches simply by doing well and completing a certain achievement in 1 match.
To me, this would fix the mindless grinding that the leveling system is right now. I don’t want to sit there and play 10 more matches just so I could grind my way up 5 more levels and unlock x item. It just feels so meaningless when its only a matter of how much time I commit, rather than rewarding my personal contributions to a match. With this, unlocks would no longer be a linear progression, but something that you are rewarded based on completing various challenges.
This would also mean, that when you see a Brigadier General (I know Halo 4 doesn’t use those ranks, but this is my imaginary system), it means that that player actually achieved that rank. It’s not just that he has no life and plays 8 hours every day, but he completed these various challenges to earn that rank. He would also have that special helmet, or that special chestpiece, or weapon skin, because he completed that really difficult challenge that corresponds to it - not because, again, he plays for 8 hours a day.
This system wouldn’t put the pressure of a real ranking system on casual players, because they’re is no fear of losing, but it would still give some incentive to play better, and make the earnings more meaningful.
Thoughts?