Halo 4: Ranks - True Skill - Competitive

Games Other Halo
1

This thread isn’t made to start a flame war between those who play the game for fun and those who play Halo for the competitive aspect (MLG, Ranks 1-50, Ranked Playlist, etc). I am simply adresing the positives/negatives of Halo 3/4 (ranks, system, etc) to the flaming of Halo 4 and how it will turn out.

There are benefits to how Reach’s matchmaking system worked and how halo 3’s matchmaking system worked. Neither should be trashed as they both aid the community with their benefits.

Halo: Reach
Positives:

  • Fast Matchmaking.
  • Gaining EXP through time spent.
  • Meant to be “Fun”.
  • Appealed to the non competitive community. (More playlist’s and not pressured to get a high rank).
  • Got rid of host booters.
  • Easy to rank up due to an EXP system similar to Call of Duty’s.

Negatives:

  • Lack of TRUE SKILL***
  • Did not appeal to the competitive community.
  • Skill base was too widely spread.
  • Unfair teams (Too much skill vs No Skill/First time playing halo)
  • No division between players with skill and those who had considerably less. (Refers too: 1-50 system).
  • Did not match up TO3/TO4 with other TO3/TO4, but rather filled the empty spots for a game.

Halo 3
Positives:

  • Team’s balanced (Even social at times).
  • Rank up through EXP, but capped at a certain rank due to skill.
  • Gave favor for TO3 and TO4 to be matched with other TO2 and TO4.
  • 1-50 ranks for the more competitive community to be better matched together.
  • Encouraged people to “party-up”. (I think this is more of a feel instead of an actual bonus to H3 matchmaking).
  • Division between the competitive community and the social community.

Negatives:

  • 1-50 System encouraged Host Booting/Boosting.
  • Slow matchmaking.
  • Capped at a certain rank and could not move forward (EX: Brigadier General).

If you look at both system’s they both hold positive and negative aspects (I may have missed a few, don’t flame please). I will not talk about all the positive/negatives but will simply make an argument based on a few.

Halo: Reach
Reach encouraged a more social community that didn’t have players frown upon others due to a credit progression instead of a skill progression. Where it isn’t a trash talk war about who has the higher rank (1-50), because rank doesn’t matter in reach. It does not determine who is better and who is worse, but rather who has played more. The system was also faster and got rid of the point of host booting because it is no longer about “the win” but rather the credits you get. The problem with this system is that it did not appeal to the competitive community due to the lack of competitiveness within the game (Arena does not count, lol). You could not find other TO3/TO4 often and the teams where unbalanced throughout Reach.

Halo 3
Halo 3 appealed to both sides of the community, with it’s ranked and social playlists. Those who wanted to have fun would go to social, while those who wanted competition and a challenge would go to ranked. Then eventually both communities would be met with a cap on how they can rank based on amount of exp and your skill level. This system also facilitated To3 and To4 to be able to find other groups instead of single players as in reach, this is not possible. But with this system it encouraged cheating and host booting as a means of raising your skill. It also took longer to find matches and drew a division amongst the community.

*Concerning 1-50 and how it “damages” the community.

Quoted from: UNKNOWN iXi
Source: http://halo.xbox.com/Forums/yaf_postst82187_-How-does-1-50-HURT-anyone---Be-reasonable.aspx

  1. Boosters: So what? A booster has to go in with a full team in order to win games because obviously they’re not as good alone. Isn’t that the point of matching similarly grouped teams? If anything, that one bad player is easier to kill since they’re not as good. Also, why is the term “boosters” seen as a bad thing anyway? The person being “boosted” doesn’t necessarily have to be bad, but they’re still playing with a team and if they play people worse than them, they should win anyway. It’s really not like the same two teams are getting matched up every single game…

  2. Buying accounts: So what? How does this actually HURT you at all? Seriously, someone explain this to me. Just because some random John bought an account and never plays on the 50, doesn’t mean it should bother you. Worry about yourself and your own accomplishments.

  3. Stealing accounts: Don’t give your account away. Simple as that. That is not a problem with the system, that is a problem with ignorant/naive people. Again, that shouldn’t HURT you in any way.

As you see, you can all bash each other for why these aspects should not be in Halo 4. but, it is very hard to make a system that pleases to both the social/competitive community’s. All we can do is hope that Halo 4 will have a matchmaking system that takes aspects from Halo 3/Reach and finds a middle ground between the two. It would take me forever to list all the things that everyone want’s in Halo 4 and would probably cause a flame war if I did.

There are some people who have given sudgestions on what a new system could be like. I will list this in post 2.

2

> The point of this thread is to help 343 develop a skill-based ranking system that puts the emphasis on wins. 343 still has to come up with something it seems.
>
> I’m sure you’ve seen those, but here are some of Frankie’s comments on Halo 3’s 1-50 system.
>
> http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=37645428&postcount=16348
>
> http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=37645764&postcount=16363
>
> Even though Halo 3’s 1-50 system was great for me and a lot of competitive players, HE IS RIGHT. This can’t be denied. Halo 3’s Ranks just shouted “abuse me, please!” when the TU2 / playlist progression ranks were implemented and the correlation between power-leveling and searching with teammates with a lot of losses was found out.
>
> Therefore, Halo 3’s 1-50 in its current shape and form is OUT OF QUESTION.
>
> Going back to W/L Arena ranks is at the same time. The ranks themselves aren’t that bad, but are FUNDAMENTALLY THE SAME as Halo 3, becoming irrelevant as well.
>
> A stat-based system leads to selfishness and grief. No one wants that either.
>
> From here on out, I will, attempt list various tweaks and fix to the Halo 3’s system to prevent abuse. I hope that 343 can inspire themselves of these to create a skill-oriented ranking system.
>
> Before I do that, a GREAT idea would be to look at Halo 2’s 1-50 system, that I dare call a skill-based progression system (just because there’s XP involved).
>
> Halo 2’s Ranking System
>
> That system was near perfect. However, achieving the highest ranks required INCREDIBLE talent and dedication. Combined with the rampant cheating back then, it was near impossible, even for MLG pros. Perhaps lowering how difficult it is to achieve the highest ranks would be appropriate. Please do consider this option.
>
> Moving onto how we can improve Halo 3’s ranking system.
>
> Want it or not, I will have to reveal the “secret” behind abusing Halo 3’s ranking system in order to explain what would be appropriate to counter it. Skip the spoiler if you know it.
>
>
>
>
> Halo 3’s ranks are TrueSkill based. However, instead of earning a “set” amount of points (XP) towards ranking up, like Halo 2, TrueSkill calculates your odds of winning based on many factors. The most important is you or your team’s W/L record. That’s the main flaw. So all you have to do is trick the system into thinking that your chances of winning are also non-existant, and it will award you VERY GENEROUSLY (in rank increase) for a single win. That is done in a few manners;
>
> • Having a teammate with undetermined Sigma (Read more about TrueSkill)
> • Having a teammate with a VERY LOW win percentage or ranking
>
> …and so on.
>
>
> You may wonder what the problem is with this? Well, it is that it allows players to obtain the max rank with little to no effort, nor time. The direct consequence of that is, as stated by Frankie, the decrease of the relevance of the ranks. I mean, sure a manual Audi R8 is cool, but it’s not next to 10 others, or when driven by someone who can’t even shift gears. Get it?
>
> Here are some proposed tweaks for this.
>
> 1) The Matchmaking skill range “limit”.
>
> The name makes it sound quite terrible. The last thing we’d want is friends who aren’t allowed to search with more skilled friends because the Matchmaking skill range doesn’t let them find games of similar levels. At the same time, we don’t want a level 1 power-leveling with his max rank friend either. Here’s how this would work.
>
> With the “Matchmaking skill range limit” rule, when a team with mixed levels (outside one another’s skill range) would search, players whom ranks are UNDER the Matchmaking skill range limit would have their level TEMPORARILY changed to what the lowest level is that highest-ranked player can match.
>
> Example:
>
> Vetoed, Lv. 40
> Costa, Lv. 9
>
> The highest-ranked player (Vetoed)‘s Matchmaking skill range is 50-30.
>
> Whilst searching with Vetoed, Costa’s ranked would be considered a 30, for Matchmaking and TrueSkill calculation purposes.
>
> 1.b) Teammates’ W/L record / Sigma = irrelevant
>
> This would get rid of all deranker / Sigma abuse. It’s a simple fix to be honest. All it takes is for the players on the same team’s records to become irrelevant to one another. ONLY YOUR OWN PERSONAL record should affect the rate at which you progress. However, part #1 still remains relevant, to prevent “reverse” boosting, as in, searching with a max rank as a low rank to progress faster.
>
> 2) Various Formats > Seasons
>
> Now, people want various playlists in Ranked. None of this repetitive Arena-esque stuff. Sure, Slayer DMRs / BRs are fun and all, but it gets VERY repetitive in the same format, on the same exact maps, over and over. We need at least:
>
> • FFA (6-man)
> • Doubles (2v2)
> • Team Slayer AND Objective (4v4)
> • Squad or BTB (6v6 / 8v8)
> • MLG / “Team Hardcore” upon release?
>
> Snipers and SWAT can come later if competitive in Halo 4. But the important of having various playlists means that players don’t get tired of the same genre of competitive / ranked experience all the time. If Halo 3 Ranked had been Team Slayer alone, I’m sure it would have failed at some point, in a similar manner Reach’s Arena has.
>
> Thing is, with multiple hoppers, Seasons would force players to play their favorite playlists over and over due to the lack of time, and also wanting to be the best / highest rank in it. Fret not however, as in the next part, the purpose / idea behind Seasons returns.
>
> 3) Percentiles
>
> Inspired from Halo: Reach, each one of the ranks from 1 to 44 would have a certain percentile ranging from 95 to 5 within them. The percentiles for the ranks from 45 to 50 would become more precise (in a similar manner to Onyx division percentiles) meaning that instead of jumping from 10%, 5% then the next level, it would go 10%, 9%, 8% […], until 1% then onto the next level.
>
> With this, 50s who get them and stop from there would stand out by being in the lower tier of that rank, (decreasing the incentive to purchase accounts) whereas competitive players would strive to be the best of the best.
>
> However, this system implies “limited” spots within a rank / level, in a similar fashion to divisions. This would mean players would lose their levels after being inactive for extended periods of time, countering the need for seasons, as said before.
>
> To support this, the highest skill metric would not be permanent anymore. So if you were to lose your 50, your record won’t claim you are one.
>
> 4) No Progression System incentive
>
> Well seeing how a Reach-esque progression system returns, levels won’t be tied to them like in Halo 3. That means casuals won’t show as much of an interest to Ranked even though it allows them to find matches against similar players. Competitive players however, need to be able to compare skill outside of the actual Ranked playlists. How? Active High Skill on one’s nameplate or when hovering them in lobbies when on Xbox Live.
>
>
> That’s about all the ideas I have for now.
>
> Feel free to discuss or criticize in a constructive fashion.
>
> PLEASE DO CONTRIBUTE AND KEEP THIS ALIVE. 343 must see it.
>
> Thanks for reading.

3

How about if you win you go up, if you lose you go down? Why is that so hard?

4

> Negatives:
> - Division between the competitive community and the social community.

I don’t see what was bad about this…

5

You can find/discuss more about that thread here.
Source: http://halo.xbox.com/Forums/yaf_postst81851_TrueSkill-System-Solutions.aspx

In conclusion,

All I can say is that I myself am a competitive player who highly enjoy’s MLG and the old 1-50 system and in Reach I did not like being mixed with bad players while I played good ones. But people need to be opened minded and actually look for a middle ground when it comes to the new Halo 4 Matchmaking system.

It is stated that it will be a exp progression system with “spartan points” and unlockable weapons which is like Call of Duty. But, maybe this is a middle ground in the community that they see as “just”. We do not know all the aspects of the new system but from what we see they are trying! So please stop the flame wars amongst the two Halo communities as it does nothing. But try suggesting useful and mature non childish argument’s to 343 because who want’s to listen to a ten year old?

If you want to suggest any information to 343, please post and any opinion on what you think would be a balanced system for Halo 4.

  • If you wan’t to flame me for what I wrote, I will simply not respond or troll I couldn’t care less.
6

> > Negatives:
> > - Division between the competitive community and the social community.
>
> I don’t see what was bad about this…

I agree also, sorry it is easy to mix things up when writing. Fixed it.

7

> > Negatives:
> > - Division between the competitive community and the social community.
>
> I don’t see what was bad about this…

Division:
a. Variance of opinion; disagreement.
b. A splitting into factions; disunion.

CommUNITY:
a. A group of people having common interests: the scientific community; the international business community.
b. A group viewed as forming a distinct segment of society: the gay community; the community of color.

Unity:

  1. The state or quality of being one; singleness.
  2. The state or quality of being in accord; harmony.

Still don’t see what’s so bad about it?

8

The problem with Halo Reach was not the lack of 1-50, but the lack of true skill.
True skill doesn’t need a visible number to work (although some think it does), all it needs is to be enabled, which it ain’t in Reach, to reduce MM search times. Only way to fix the search times, while offering balanced teams, would be to use dedicated servers.
Halo 4 won’t, and hence either matchmaking will be slow, unbalanced or very laggy. Probably a combination of all 3.

9

> How about if you win you go up, if you lose you go down? Why is that so hard?

Sometimes I do amazing and still lose…

10

> - Got rid of host booters.

No, it didn’t.

I still get hit offline in Reach social.

11

I was with you until you started quoting other people.

Their posts were dealt with in their own threads.

By now im starting to think that absolute segregation IS the answer though. Somehow.

12

>

People that were more competitive in nature didn’t have to worry about constant idiots and people that didn’t care about winning in their games.

H3 Ranked and Social did this.

13

> You can find/discuss more about that thread here.
> Source: http://halo.xbox.com/Forums/yaf_postst81851_TrueSkill-System-Solutions.aspx
>
> In conclusion,
>
> All I can say is that I myself am a competitive player who highly enjoy’s MLG and the old 1-50 system and in Reach I did not like being mixed with bad players while I played good ones. <mark>But people need to be opened minded and actually look for a middle ground when it comes to the new Halo 4 Matchmaking system.</mark>
>
> It is stated that it will be a exp progression system with “spartan points” and unlockable weapons which is like Call of Duty. But, maybe this is a middle ground in the community that they see as “just”. We do not know all the aspects of the new system but from what we see they are trying! So please stop the flame wars amongst the two Halo communities as it does nothing. But try suggesting useful and mature non childish argument’s to 343 because who want’s to listen to a ten year old?
>
> If you want to suggest any information to 343, please post and any opinion on what you think would be a balanced system for Halo 4.
>
> * If you wan’t to flame me for what I wrote, I will simply not respond or troll I couldn’t care less.

I would not consider myself a competitive player nor would anyone else. I however enjoyed the 1-50 system, and to a degree the Arena system. I did not however enjoy Halo:Reach’s overall ranking system. This is not to say I hated it. I just could take it or leave it. Truth be told I never really think about it. This is the problem. There may be incentive to progress but there is no enjoyment while doing so in my mind(I enjoy Halo:Reach just not the Ranking system in utilizes).
Win or lose in Halo:Reach, I am still progressing at similar levels. In Halo 4 I do hope this is not the case. I enjoy seeing my rank increase when I am playing well and decrease when I am not. I am not advocating a return to previous systems but I am as you suggest hoping they find a common ground that is enjoyable to both sets of player. I am very anxious to see how 343 deals with this issue.

14

i kind of liked reaches i only think when you do amazing like lead your team you should of got like 1000 more credits than you do normally

15

> i kind of liked reaches i only think when you do amazing like lead your team you should of got like 1000 more credits than you do normally

OMG extra 1000 credits!?! GREAT IDEA!

16

> How about if you win you go up, if you lose you go down? Why is that so hard?

17

> > - Got rid of host booters.
>
> No, it didn’t.
>
> I still get hit offline in Reach social.

  • In Arena in Reach people still host boot

Nothing will stop this unless 343i implements a GREAT banning system

18

Problem with the Halo 3 system OP, is that it does NOT appeal to both sides of the community, although this is a misconceptions often spoken of as a fact by those who favour the Halo 3 system, for some strange reason (pun intended).
Halo 3 rank locked you very early on, and no matter how much you played you’d never get a “good” rank or unlock any cool stuff, which is necessary in FPS days these days, even Halo 4. Easiest way, encouraged by Halo 3 system, was to buy a 50, brag/pretend to be good on forums and trash everyone who’s not a 50, and never play ranked again due to your lacking skills so instead you move on to CoD where you have fun.

Yeah, that’s the main issue. The Reach system was equally bad but in another way, ranking still took ages, and boosting was encouraged. Most of all, winning was pointless, all that mattered was k/d and stats.
Funny thing, just about every other FPS manages to get a good ranking system but Halo. Social rank should be quite fast to get, no horrible “play 1 enternity, gain 1 rank” as in Reach, more CoD or Gears 3 style where you always feel that you’re progressing.
Secondly, prestige or similar, when you’ve hit the top you can reset and try again and again, it gives a massive replay value to the player, makes it fun and worth winning, not just stat camping.

However, competitive players need something else. Arena was good in theory, but sadly only in theory. There should be many “ranks”/leagues to play so that one can progress, more like Halo 3. However, just as in Reach, ranks should reset every now and then to encourage to keep playing, and to prevent boosting/buying/selling which makes True skill and MM worthless…
The most important part of ranked/arena is not the visual rank/skill, a simple Win/loss would be enough. No, the most important part is finding good games, equally skilled teammates and opponents, to play in a highly competitive environment where people won’t kill you for the sniper or similar, to test your skills.
As I said, a simple “games played, games won” would do very much, as it would encourage winning and teamplay above all. This “rank” is only visible in ranked, since it has no place in social and vice versa, I’d even say keep it in it’s unique playlist. A 95% winner in ranked snipers might be horrible in ranked objective and vice versa.

19

I love your solutions about a Ranking system