CSR Ranking System is Horrible

Games Other Halo
1

I must say when I first heard that the 1-50 ranking system that I had come to love in Halo 3 was making a less prominent return in Halo 4, I was excited. Unfortunately, it has major flaws. For instance, multiple times I have been on the winning team in a swat game and have gone positive and ranked down. How is this even possible? My team won the game and I obviously helped by having a positive k/d spread.

I think I have figured out what the problem is: The system/algorithm relies too heavily on if you are at the top of your team or not. In slayer though, this is a terrible representation of who is actually better and/or playing well. In playlists like SWAT, BTIS, and IS it should focus a lot more on who has a better k/d spread, not who gets the most points.

I’m completely sick of this ranking system favoring a guy who goes 24-21 over a guy who goes 19-8, or ranking me down when my team wins a slayer match and I go positive. Anybody else with me? Or are you guys not having similar problems? Let me know!

2

> For instance, multiple times I have been on the winning team in a swat game and have gone positive and ranked down. How is this even possible? My team won the game and I obviously helped by having a positive k/d spread

You are playing in a playlist where your team’s score does not affect your rank. Whilst having more points than another player may not indicate you have done better (as in your example), having a positive kill death ratio does not mean that you’ve played better than half the players in the game either.

Without implementing a complicated algorithm that factors in all sorts of variables 343 cannot satisfy everyone. And if they implement a complex algorithm, the ranking system loses all transparency. Right now it is easy enough to look at a scoreboard post game and say which players are going to rank up and down, and thats how it should be IMO.

3

Yeah, it doesn’t really work for individual scoring.

If you want a challenge try a team scored playlist.

I checked my big team slayer rank and I’m 50.

4

> You are playing in a playlist where your team’s score does not affect your rank. Whilst having more points than another player may not indicate you have done better (as in your example), having a positive kill death ratio does not mean that you’ve played better than half the players in the game either.

You just said that my teams score doesn’t matter but then say that my teammates scores do? It is completely possible to have a system that doesn’t care how many people in the lobby ranked up after a game. If six people in the game played well, six should rank up (or just have their rank positively affected), that is more fair. Confining positive rank ups to only four players in a game of SWAT is unfair, and certainly isn’t “individually based”.

How about this, a ranking system where if you go positive in a slayer game it is impossible for that game to negatively affect your rank. It might not positively affect it either, but it is ridiculous that a positive k/d spread in a slayer match gets a derank if the system is truly just based on how you individually do.

Or just simply a ranking system that just looks at the ranks of the enemies you played and your individual stats of the game. Don’t worry how my teammates did or how the enemy did. That would fix a lot of the problems…

Or just make the system like Halo 3 for every playlist…

5

> > You are playing in a playlist where your team’s score does not affect your rank. Whilst having more points than another player may not indicate you have done better (as in your example), having a positive kill death ratio does not mean that you’ve played better than half the players in the game either.
>
> You just said that my teams score doesn’t matter but then say that my teammates scores do? It is completely possible to have a system that doesn’t care how many people in the lobby ranked up after a game. If six people in the game played well, six should rank up (or just have their rank positively affected), that is more fair. Confining positive rank ups to only four players in a game of SWAT is unfair, and certainly isn’t “individually based”.
>
> How about this, a ranking system where if you go positive in a slayer game it is impossible for that game to negatively affect your rank. It might not positively affect it either, but it is ridiculous that a positive k/d spread in a slayer match gets a derank if the system is truly just based on how you individually do.
>
> <mark>Or just simply a ranking system that just looks at the ranks of the enemies you played and your individual stats of the game. Don’t worry how my teammates did or how the enemy did. That would fix a lot of the problems…</mark>
>
> Or just make the system like Halo 3 for every playlist…

Yes, “your team’s score” and “a teammate’s score” (not that I ever repeated the word “team”) are completely different things. One is the score of a team and one is the score of an individual that happens to belong to your team.

I’m not saying this system is perfect, but the solution you just presented is MASSIVELY flawed, which is my point, there is no nice solution.

In your system. 4 players can go 20-21, and the other 4 go 1-0. Now you’re saying that the 4 people who went 1-0 did better than the guys who went 20-21. And I’m saying its not that simple.

<mark>To the bit I highlighted:</mark>

That is exactly how it is now. The system does not care how your teammates and enemies do, it just cares about other players.

If you are suggesting it should not care about ANY of the other players in the game, well just think about what you’re saying, that’s nonsense. You have to be ranked against other players. That or the devs create some ‘average player’ model to rank you against. They can either rank you based on the actual game you just played, or they can rank you against some 1,000,000,000 game average stats. The former is clearly a more accurate method.

EDIT: upon re-reading I see what you mean in highlighted section. You want your score to be ranked against the enemies only.

The reason that is a bad idea is purely because it makes the rank less accurate. You’re still going to have people on your team steal kills from you, not because they want to score higher than you, but they still want to score as much above the enemy as possible.

Say you finish a game 5-3

All 4 enemies were 1-25.

Ranking you only against the enemies puts you massively in the lead. But in reality, the enemies died 100 times, and you only got 5 of the kills. You did rubbish, and whilst you should (and currently do) rank above all the enemies, clearly your team mates were the key to victory and to not rank you against them puts you at a huge (undeserved) advantage.

6

CSR needs to factor in a player’s contributions and detriments to his team. A player who gets 25 kills and 30 deaths is more of a hindrance to his team than an asset because he is giving the opponents 5 more kills than he is earning for his team. This works the same for individual playlists as each player is essentially a one-player team.

As is currently works players are rewarded for helping their team but are not punished for hurting it. Players on the same team are not allies working towards the same goal, they are competitors. As such CSR encourages aggressive, selfish and reckless play.

7

They should definitely all be based alone on Win/Loss. That makes games more fun. Higher stakes are better. I want to be playing well, of course, but I want my team to do well too. I want to know that if I’m trying to kill a guy, someone else will help me kill him even though it only gets them an assist. Not wait for the guy to kill me and then kill him, so that he gets the kill himself.

Halo 3’s system was perfect. 343 are slowly, but surely heading in the right direction with Halo 4. I just hope that we can offer them the constructive criticism that they need.

8

> EDIT: upon re-reading I see what you mean in highlighted section. You want your score to be ranked against the enemies only.

Not exactly. What I want is a system that merely looks at my enemies 1-50 rank and then looks at my personal stats for the game. That’s it. Don’t look at the enemy’s stats, don’t look at my team’s stats, don’t look at my team’s ranks. This way the system knows roughly what skill level I’m playing against but that I only get judged on how I do.

I don’t care if two of my teammates go 20-0, if I go 15-3 the system should look at that and say “Wow, that’s a good game” instead of saying “Wow, your teammates deserve the rank up”. The system I’m bringing up is truly an individual system.

> In your system. 4 players can go 20-21, and the other 4 go 1-0. Now you’re saying that the 4 people who went 1-0 did better than the guys who went 20-21. And I’m saying its not that simple.

No, I’m not saying that. I believe k/d spread should be more important, but not the only thing. With my system the people who went 20-21 would see their rank stay exactly the same and so would the people who go 1-0.

> Say you finish a game 5-3
>
> All 4 enemies were 1-25.

My system would look at the enemies ranks, then look at my score and say “+2 k/d spread but only 5 kills, you are exactly where you belong” Then it would obviously rank up the beasts on my team that went ultra positive. The big point is that it DOESN’T worry about my teammates score when it is deciding what to do with me. It only cares how I did and who I did it against. A much more individually fair system.