Can I face my Division? Is that too much to ask?

Games Halo 5: Guardians
1

I am a Diamond in most playlists and I am so sick of unfair matches. I tried playing “Team Arena” over the weekend and almost every game I am matched against Onyx kids, often full teams. This is insane.

Again I ask, what is the point of “Divisions” if I am not going to face people within my Division. As a Diamond, I should be facing Diamonds. I know, ridiculous request right?

Not only am I routinely matched against Onyx kids, but HIGH Onyx (1700+). I can understand a 1500-1550 here and there, but why in the hell should I face High Onyx teams, and rank down when I lose? This needs serious attention as it is incredibly frustrating. Why would anyone want to play this game when you just got stomped by higher ranked opponents. I sent Bravo/Quinn 10+ screenshots of incredibly unfair games over the weekend. 1 here or there would be ok, but every game is unbearable. I had to put BLOPS in.

If everything is going to be “Ranked” in this game, then make it fair. I’m consistently being demoted as a Diamond for losing games that are unfair from the start.

Onyx should face Onyx. Diamonds should face Diamonds. And with “double XP” in Arena there is no way it is a population issue. The entire point of Divisions is to prove your might against your division and work yourself up to the next one. There are 6 tiers of Diamond to match me with, it shouldn’t be that hard.

Tighten this up 343, it’s common sense.

2

Agree with that.
I was ranked diamond 2 in slayer…
My team:
Unranked
Unranked
GOLD 6
Me

Enemy team:
Diamond 2
Onyx 1700
Onyx 1700
Champion

Needless to say we got REQd

3

I agree, that’s really annoying.

4

There’s so much wrong with this.

  1. Unfair, miserable matches

  2. Onyx ranks shouldn’t be getting easy W’s and going up from this

  3. Lower ranks shouldn’t be going down for this

  4. If you do manage to win, it should be a major boost in rank up. Essentially you beating an Onyx team is the same as beating all Platinums which is insane.

  5. It makes players “stuck” where they are due to unfair matchmaking which is out of their control.

I literally went from a Diamond 6 to a Diamond 3, probably 12 losses in a row, 90% of which were unfair matches from the start. I was matched against FULL Onyx TEAMS, when I’m a rando Diamond. And I go down. Like really? Say that out loud, doesn’t even sound right.

5

I’m in silver tier, and I have been regularly facing golds and platinums. This is frustrating, but it would be less so if I ever got put up against some bronze teams.

6

> 2533274873204041;5:
> I’m in silver tier, and I have been regularly facing golds and platinums. This is frustrating, but it would be less so if I ever got put up against some bronze teams.

I just don’t understand how it’s so hard. The game puts LeBron up against a college kid, then punishes the college kid for losing. Unbelievably frustrating.

7

> 2533274827089748;2:
> Agree with that.
> I was ranked diamond 2 in slayer…
> My team:
> Unranked
> Unranked
> GOLD 6
> Me
>
> Enemy team:
> Diamond 2
> Onyx 1700
> Onyx 1700
> Champion
>
> Needless to say we got REQd

Oh yeah I forgot about the “unranked” people getting on my team. I’ll face Onyx teams and get a rando in his first Arena game. I’m surprised more people don’t bring this up…it’s game breaking for me.

8

OP, I think you are confusing your rank with your skill.

(people in qualifying matches aside) the game is usuing the xbox trueskill to try to match you with people of similar skill.
Your Rank is a like a badge of how high you managed to climb. More Skilled players should generally be able to climb higher BUT to reach higher ranks you will need to roll with a team. Otherwise you have to view each season as a personal challenge to see how high you can climb as an individual but not be too fixated on it because random factors will affect it.

There is no way that a rank determined by win/loss in a team playlist can determine your individual skill.

The game should not match teams against randoms though to try to maintain fairness. (At least not this early in a games life when there is a decent population)

In summary, you may be Diamond but your individual skill (whatever that means) may be equivalent to an Onyx.

or even a Bronze, lol

9

> 2533274962785885;8:
> OP, I think you are confusing your rank with your skill.
>
> In summary, you may be Diamond but your individual skill (whatever that means) may be equivalent to an Onyx.
> or even a Bronze, lol

And this is exactly what is incredibly backwards, infuriating, and downright STUPID. So the game thinks I’m Onyx skill, yet places me in Diamond, yet puts me up against Onyx. So I’m essentially getting shafted in Diamond, when I should be Onyx to begin with.

Your “skill” should be your Division. Period. If you put me in Diamond, let me face Diamonds and work my way out of that Division quickly.

10

I will have to agree. You should only be playing with players in the same division as you. Example DIamond 1-6 should all you play with if you’re in DIamond. Once you hit Onyx I don’t mind playing with/against Champion because it’s all point based at those ranks anyways.

11

Absolutely agree and have routinely had similiar issues.

12

> 2535422278693562;11:
> Absolutely agree and have routinely had similiar issues.

It really deserves much more attention, it makes Arena unplayable.

13

> 2533274832697531;9:
> > 2533274962785885;8:
> > OP, I think you are confusing your rank with your skill.
> >
> > In summary, you may be Diamond but your individual skill (whatever that means) may be equivalent to an Onyx.
> > or even a Bronze, lol
>
>
> And this is exactly what is incredibly backwards, infuriating, and downright STUPID. So the game thinks I’m Onyx skill, yet places me in Diamond, yet puts me up against Onyx. So I’m essentially getting shafted in Diamond, when I should be Onyx to begin with.
>
> Your “skill” should be your Division. Period. If you put me in Diamond, let me face Diamonds and work my way out of that Division quickly.

The game thinks you are “insert your preferred skill level here”. Your rank is Diamond. The two are connected but not the same.
Increase your rank by winning.
If the game matched you with people of exactly your skill level all the time, on both teams, you would only win 50% of games and not go up in rank.

Again, matching full teams against randoms is wrong, and the algorithm for making “equivalent” teams from the players available does seem ‘iffy’.
However, provided you play a large number of games should balance out. You will however remember the unfairness against you more than the unfairness against the opposite team because you are human (i assume)

I felt halo 4 was also very poor with regard to matching even teams, with a seeming excess of matches with one side utterly dominant.

14

Definitely frustrating for solo queues. I 90% of the time will get 2 or more unranked players on my team (I’m on Gold division) and most are on their 1st game so pretty much it’s a loss most of the time. Why can’t I get other golds on my team or even silvers rather than unranked 1st game players?

Pretty much forces me to find a fire team somewhere and commit to playing with them.

15

> 2533274832697531;9:
> > 2533274962785885;8:
> > OP, I think you are confusing your rank with your skill.
> >
> > In summary, you may be Diamond but your individual skill (whatever that means) may be equivalent to an Onyx.
> > or even a Bronze, lol
>
>
> And this is exactly what is incredibly backwards, infuriating, and downright STUPID. So the game thinks I’m Onyx skill, yet places me in Diamond, yet puts me up against Onyx. So I’m essentially getting shafted in Diamond, when I should be Onyx to begin with.
>
> Your “skill” should be your Division. Period. If you put me in Diamond, let me face Diamonds and work my way out of that Division quickly.

i understand your frustration. i have played onyx players even as a gold or platinum. the ranking system does seem to be flawed. i still think people should be able to go back down from a certain tier if they are doing poorly, but that is just me.

your main problem is that you are rolling alone while you are a diamond. if you had a full team to strategize with you might be winning those matches, as is it is very difficult to rank up running solo in the team playlists. but that is the nature of the game, once you get to around diamond everyone you play, even platinums, is trying hard to rank up. why would you expect to rank up quickly in diamond? that seems to be your concern is you’re not ranking up to onyx soon enough, but if you had ranked up quickly through onyx you’d be an onyx already and you’d be playing the same people. so whats your real problem here?

your pissed your still in diamond because you haven’t played diamonds so you have been ranking down against unfair teams. i get that, the MM and rankings needs to be tweaked. but you shouldn’t have the expectation of ranking through diamond quickly. you will play some onyx players when you get higher up in diamond, you should expect that. you should try and find a team to roll with as it will increase your chances of winning team playlists. one way i do this if i don’t have a group already is just wait until you are randomly placed with a good team and then invite them to play after. i guess this is the best suggestion i have.

there are times when the servers try to match solo players against other solo players, so maybe your just encountering a low number of diamond players that aren’t already in a full team. this would make sense because most people in diamond and onyx are at least with a couple friends trying to hold down strategies. instead of putting you against a full team of diamonds maybe they put you against a couple onyxs because they are also running solo? idk just wondering

to reiterate i agree with you overall on the fact that the MM/ranks are just consistent; you should be playing more diamonds while you are a diamond than onyx players. however diamond as we know is right below onyx, so you shouldn’t be that surprised that you are facing them. also, you should get used to it if your expectation is to just blow through diamond and be an onyx, right?

16

I’m still not entirely sure your visual ranking and matchmaking ranking are the same thing. Halo 3’s ranking’s biggest problem was coupling those two numbers together. Too troublesome to do that.

If I had to guess, I’d say you have a persistent matchmaking rank independent of your visual rank/division. I think it’s too troublesome to reset matchmaking figures every season to actually do it that way.

As an anecdote, I got progressively better at Team Arena in the pre-season as my rank moved from Platinum and up. In the January season I did worse overall, winning maybe 50% of my games with a K/D hovering around 1.1, yet was placed in Diamond. My suspicion is my matchmaking figure outpaced my visual ranking in the preseason, and I performed just well enough in the January season while matched against other Diamonds to hold that ranking.

17

> 2533274962785885;8:
> OP, I think you are confusing your rank with your skill.
>
> (people in qualifying matches aside) the game is usuing the xbox trueskill to try to match you with people of similar skill.
> Your Rank is a like a badge of how high you managed to climb. More Skilled players should generally be able to climb higher BUT to reach higher ranks you will need to roll with a team. Otherwise you have to view each season as a personal challenge to see how high you can climb as an individual but not be too fixated on it because random factors will affect it.
>
> There is no way that a rank determined by win/loss in a team playlist can determine your individual skill.
>
> The game should not match teams against randoms though to try to maintain fairness. (At least not this early in a games life when there is a decent population)
>
> In summary, you may be Diamond but your individual skill (whatever that means) may be equivalent to an Onyx.
> or even a Bronze, lol

Okay, yes, this is what I suspect as well, but I haven’t seen 343 discuss it outright (as Bungie did in the past). Is TrueSkill even still in use? That may be what they’re using for your invisible matchmaking ranking, or maybe some variant of CSR/MMR.

18

I’m not sure if they’ve outright said it or not, but based on my experiences, they have to be using the true skill. I’m fairly quick to pick up on most fps and do well, COD, titanfall, halo, sporting usually a 2+ KD and a similarly good win ratio (average halo stats on main halo account tho).

So on my main account (this one), for example, I went 5-5 in team slayer placement games with a 0.95 KD (give or take) and I was placed diamond 6. Which is awesome for me because it eliminated the onyx grind because I was only 2 or so wins away.
But on my backup account (sup4h1337k1LLa) that I’ll use if I have no one on, I went 9-1 with a 3.0+ KD, averaging over 22 kills a game, I was placed plat 5. Then I played arena, went 10-0 with a 3.0+ KD and was placed plat3. Figure those out.

The last one, and still maybe the worst. On both of our main accounts, In team doubles, a friend of mine who I played the placement games with (who used to be a champ in breakout so he is a better player than I), and we both went 9-1 (might’ve been 10 but can’t remember exactly), our KDA’s were within less than 1 of each other. His was 12.x and mine was 11.x, both had similar actual KDS of 1.3+. He was placed diamond 5 and I was placed plat3. We played the same 10 exact teams, both played extremely well, yet I got screwed over.

The whole placement system is a joke, as well as every other aspect of the ranking system

19

During my time playing team arena, I often get paired up with players who hadn’t even qualified for a playlist rank. Right after I worked my way up to platinum 5, I was put in a match on “Truth” where one of my teammates passed the controller over to their friend who had never played Halo before. Needless to say, we lost that game.

20

The population is very low. Get used to it.