How Competitive Rank should work in HI

Games Halo Infinite
1

There’s a lot of talk about competitive play in HI–will it be old school? New school? Something in-between? Who knows?

I’m here to discuss how Rank should work in the HI Competitive Playlist.

Seasons

There should be Seasons. Why? Because this gives players a “fresh start” every-so-often and keeps people coming back for more. Seasons are pretty much expected in competitive games these days. There will be rewards at the conclusion of each Season.

During the Season, you will be matched against players based off of connection and proximity (adding a solo or team filter could work as well). As you play the Season, your Win/Loss record determines your Rank, only increasing in Rank as you win more games, never “losing” Rank when you lose games.

Playoffs

Seasons “build-up” to the Playoffs. There will be high-level rewards at the conclusion of each Playoffs, based on ending Rank. After the Season ends, the Playoffs begin.

Everyone with “x” amount of wins, will be placed in the appropriate Bracket to face-off with each other and find-out who the cream-of-the-crop is. The bottom level Brackets will do the same and will only be matched-up with players in their respective Win/Loss Bracket (i.e., if you have 100-120 wins, you will play against people who have 100-120 wins for the duration of the Playoffs–same goes for those who have 20-30 wins, 50-60 wins, etc.). The Season is the precursor for the Playoffs and you must “earn” your way to the Playoffs. The Playoffs will be a “Best of 3” scenario for each team match-up (i.e., first team to two wins gets the Win).

The player(s) with the most total Wins (Season + Playoffs) earns an exclusive reward (the exclusive reward will be awarded to the best player(s) in each Win/Loss Bracket).

Earning Rank

Your Rank should be determined by total Wins and nothing else. You should not be “punished” if you lose a game (i.e., you shouldn’t lose Rank because you lost a few games). Your Rank should only go up, not down–there’s nothing more frustrating than watching your high Rank plummet and having to “earn” it back again. This means you will have a Win/Loss record–only advancing in Rank as you win games and never “losing” Rank. There will be no “streak” incentives/penalties (i.e., you won’t rank-up faster because you win multiple games in a row–again, Rank is purely based on Wins/Losses and nothing else).

The folly of Matchmaking

There will be no like-skill vs. like-skill Matchmaking. Why? Because a true competitive landscape doesn’t match like-skill vs. like-skill (any pro sport proves this). However, the Playoffs WILL match you up against like-skill vs. like-skill at the end of each Season, which will effectively solve the “I shouldn’t be playing those guys!” problem.

The “Regular Season” is there to prove that you have what it takes to compete against the best. Even “lower Rank” people will get the chance to dominate in their respective Playoffs bracket.

Side Note: using a “matchmaking” algorithm is an exercise in futility. With how many variables are involved with determining who should play whom, “matchmaking” is a false flag–throwers, smurfs, fake accounts, etc. all but guarantee that the matchmaking algorithm isn’t accurate. Matching players based on quality of connection and proximity will give the best game experience possible, without “pretending” to match like-skill vs like-skill.

This is how Rank should be implemented in HI.

2

Using wins or win / loss tends to work in live leagues and sports for reasons that don’t apply online. Including fixed teams, fixed expectations about teams, a fixed number of matches, a fixed schedule, skill-based bracketing being pre-determined by a rigorous, selection process, and the players either paying or being paid to show up.

You say, “any pro sport proves this” which ironically completely disproves your whole suggestion because being a “pro” requires you to qualify, which is the same as skill-based matchmaking. You can’t even play in matches (e.g. matchmake) against pros unless you’ve proved you’re a pro. That is where your skill-matching happens. Players are put into major, minor, farm, and city leagues in “real” sports based on their skill, and are promoted / demoted as appropriate. So, yes, “pro sports” prove you need matchmaking.

Online throws all the things that make win-based systems work out the window, and make it so your suggestion just won’t work. Teams are the opposite of fixed, even matches and even teammates are expected (which using win-based matchmaking categorically will not give you), players can play as many matches as they want, players often don’t show up, and no one is paying / getting paid to play a specific set fixed number of games. You can play any time. If you DO try and use fixed times, players again, don’t show up (happened all the time in tournament systems I’ve worked on).

You can’t use number of wins. It’s just a bad skill measure. Take pro sports again. Who cares how many wins a pro team has if 20% of them were against 8-year olds (that’s the kind of skill gap we deal with online). And number of wins is wrong all the time when you consider some mediocre players just play a lot more games than some “Pro” level players, and will have more wins than them.

Even more importantly, # of wins is bad at predicting who will win between two teams, which means it’s not predictive of who is a good team / player, since being able to win is the most important skill to have. If you matchmake players using a system that’s bad at measuring player skill (like win count), quit rates skyrocket if you have a competitive game. Like, why would any 8-year old little league player want to play a full game against major league players? It’d just be dumb.

We see overwhelming evidence that if the other team is better than you are, you have a sky-rocketing chance of just quitting out early. This leads to everyone have a bad experience. Unfortunately, win count won’t catch that. You need something like TrueSkill. It’s even worse if one team is better than the entire other team. Can’t even play if everyone is quitting. Even if they don’t quitting out of a given match, they stop playing after that and don’t come back. And then you don’t have any kind of competitive experience because no one is playing — I’ve seen this in several older games before solid matchmaking was developed.

So you need a good measure of skill to matchmake well.

You should also use a good measure of skill to rank your players, otherwise no one will care about the ranks.

Ranking based on number of wins in a system that allows everyone to play as much as they want (unlike live events) is the same as ranking based on # of games played, and quickly becomes meaningless and a measure of who has more time to play, instead of a measure of actual skill.

Again, you need your ranking system to be predictable of who will actually WIN, since otherwise, that’s not skill, just participation trophies.

Also again, live event sports have a fixed number of games to play, so win count is the same as win%. Even win% itself is bad unless you play a correct sample of opponents at the correct skill-level. In major league sports, the teams all player each other, sometimes many many times, so win% is a great measure of skill.

But online, you can go a whole season without seeing the same team twice, so you need something smarter than just wins or even win%. Also, online, the opponent difficulty can be all over the place, subject to the whims of the current population. Which is why you need something smarter like TrueSkill to adjust for schedule difficulty.

So, yeah, there are important reasons why what works for live sports doesn’t work online.

3

I honestly don’t care what they do as long as they get rid of the Bronze-Champ system which is in so many other games. Halo used to have a unique ranking system that no other game had, so why on earth would Halo 5 implement a system that’s exactly like LoL, Gears of War, Rainbow Six Siege, Overwatch, and more?

I mean, at least give it a skin or something. Even when Halo Reach ditched the 1-50 system and went a more Call of Duty style ranking system, they still kept it Halo by having things like Noble, Mythic, and Inheritor.

To me it’s just common sense that Halo needs a ranking system that’s unique and different that literally every other competitive game out there.

I mean it is a military shooter right? so why the hell don’t they just implement military based ranks instead of SR 1-152?

instead of boring, why not make… fun, cool, something other than just the same exact skill ranks and the number 1-152? Am I asking for too much?

4

> 2535448062173159;3:
> I honestly don’t care what they do as long as they get rid of the Bronze-Champ system which is in so many other games. Halo used to have a unique ranking system that no other game had, so why on earth would Halo 5 implement a system that’s exactly like LoL, Gears of War, Rainbow Six Siege, Overwatch, and more?
>
> I mean, at least give it a skin or something. Even when Halo Reach ditched the 1-50 system and went a more Call of Duty style ranking system, they still kept it Halo by having things like Noble, Mythic, and Inheritor.
>
> To me it’s just common sense that Halo needs a ranking system that’s unique and different that literally *every other competitive game out there.*I mean it is a military shooter right? so why the hell don’t they just implement military based ranks instead of SR 1-152?
>
> instead of boring, why not make… fun, cool, something other than just the same exact skill ranks and the number 1-152? Am I asking for too much?

The H5 rank system is better than the old ones IMO. Your skill based rank outght to be a real rank of some sort because it is truly earned. Your XP “rank” essentially goes up as long as you play the game. It really should be some arbitrary number.

As far as how skill rank is decided I want it to lean more towards individual performance and not necessarily just on win/losses.

5

I can’t believe I’m saying this but…that 1 to 50 system was flawed and outdated. I actually like the new ranking season from Halo Wars 2 and Halo 5. This post actually inspired me to play some HW2.

6

> 2533274816788253;4:
> > 2535448062173159;3:
> > I honestly don’t care what they do as long as they get rid of the Bronze-Champ system which is in so many other games. Halo used to have a unique ranking system that no other game had, so why on earth would Halo 5 implement a system that’s exactly like LoL, Gears of War, Rainbow Six Siege, Overwatch, and more?
> >
> > I mean, at least give it a skin or something. Even when Halo Reach ditched the 1-50 system and went a more Call of Duty style ranking system, they still kept it Halo by having things like Noble, Mythic, and Inheritor.
> >
> > To me it’s just common sense that Halo needs a ranking system that’s unique and different that literally *every other competitive game out there.*I mean it is a military shooter right? so why the hell don’t they just implement military based ranks instead of SR 1-152?
> >
> > instead of boring, why not make… fun, cool, something other than just the same exact skill ranks and the number 1-152? Am I asking for too much?
>
> The H5 rank system is better than the old ones IMO. Your skill based rank outght to be a real rank of some sort because it is truly earned. Your XP “rank” essentially goes up as long as you play the game. It really should be some arbitrary number.
>
> As far as how it’s decided I want it to lean more towards individual performance and not necessarily just on win/losses.

did I say anything in my comment about the operation of the ranking systems? No. I just said that having the same exact Bronze-Champ system is boring because it’s the same thing that so many other games have, and I stated that they should return military style rankings in Halo because it is a military shooter. are you going to say that you want the same exact system as so many other games and for Halo to, yet again, just cut and paste features from other franchises into its own?

The skill system works fine so as long as you don’t consider smurfing, occasionally poor matchmaking (ie, a gold matching with a champ), and the nonsense that a Champ 120 can have a worse W/L ratio than me when I’m a Diamond 1.

I’m saying that they need to make it unique to Halo, like Halo 2, 3, and even Reach was.

There is nothing in your reply that even suggests you read what I said. I said nothing about the functionality and accuracy of Halo 5’s (and LoL, GOW, R6, Overwatch, AND CS:GO) rank system vs the 1-50 system.

7

1-50 also was not unique to Halo, Halo did it because the designers liked it in Warcraft III. WC3 may have had the first 1-50 system. Although their 1-50 system actually had a hidden MMR (called ELL or expected ladder level) that they matchmade on instead of the actual visible 1-50, similar to how we do that as well. Although it could get a lot more visibly out of sync in WC3 (even though the mm could still be good).

The reason Halo adopted it is because it has become the recognized standard across the industry, and it didn’t really copy it either. When I designed it for Halo 5, I only really copied it from myself since I also designed it for Starctaft 2 (which started the trend) and Black Ops 2.

The military ranks were part of a grind-based system which I also approve of, but I don’t think I would use them in a skill-based system because then you are locked out of military ranks that it would be fun to get. Keeping the ranks more recognizable across game makes it less of a big deal from a “gotta have them all” point of view when achievement-based players can’t ever get certain ranks, while at the same time it’s clear which ranks are above the others. Using random cool names from the Halo world can be potentially confusing even if you know the lore.

8

> 2535448062173159;6:
> > 2533274816788253;4:
> > > 2535448062173159;3:
> > > I honestly don’t care what they do as long as they get rid of the Bronze-Champ system which is in so many other games. Halo used to have a unique ranking system that no other game had, so why on earth would Halo 5 implement a system that’s exactly like LoL, Gears of War, Rainbow Six Siege, Overwatch, and more?
> > >
> > > I mean, at least give it a skin or something. Even when Halo Reach ditched the 1-50 system and went a more Call of Duty style ranking system, they still kept it Halo by having things like Noble, Mythic, and Inheritor.
> > >
> > > To me it’s just common sense that Halo needs a ranking system that’s unique and different that literally *every other competitive game out there.*I mean it is a military shooter right? so why the hell don’t they just implement military based ranks instead of SR 1-152?
> > >
> > > instead of boring, why not make… fun, cool, something other than just the same exact skill ranks and the number 1-152? Am I asking for too much?
> >
> > The H5 rank system is better than the old ones IMO. Your skill based rank outght to be a real rank of some sort because it is truly earned. Your XP “rank” essentially goes up as long as you play the game. It really should be some arbitrary number.
> >
> > As far as how it’s decided I want it to lean more towards individual performance and not necessarily just on win/losses.
>
> did I say anything in my comment about the operation of the ranking systems? No. I just said that having the same exact Bronze-Champ system is boring because it’s the same thing that so many other games have, and I stated that they should return military style rankings in Halo because it is a military shooter. are you going to say that you want the same exact system as so many other games and for Halo to, yet again, just cut and paste features from other franchises into its own?
>
> The skill system works fine so as long as you don’t consider smurfing, occasionally poor matchmaking (ie, a gold matching with a champ), and the nonsense that a Champ 120 can have a worse W/L ratio than me when I’m a Diamond 1.
>
> I’m saying that they need to make it unique to Halo, like Halo 2, 3, and even Reach was.
>
> There is nothing in your reply that even suggests you read what I said. I said nothing about the functionality and accuracy of Halo 5’s (and LoL, GOW, R6, Overwatch, AND CS:GO) rank system vs the 1-50 system.

The original Halo skill ranks weren’t that unique they were just a number 1-50. Even making military style rank isn’t that unique either as games use those as well. It’s not all that easy to make something totally original.

9

how could anyone possibly have fun with a rank system that only goes up? The ranking system should work like competitive games work such as league of legends or cs go. If those ranking systems werent in the game it was just based on total wins it wouldnt even be anywhere near as popular as they are / were.

10

> 2533274816788253;8:
> > 2535448062173159;6:
> > > 2533274816788253;4:
> > > > 2535448062173159;3:
> > > > I honestly don’t care what they do as long as they get rid of the Bronze-Champ system which is in so many other games. Halo used to have a unique ranking system that no other game had, so why on earth would Halo 5 implement a system that’s exactly like LoL, Gears of War, Rainbow Six Siege, Overwatch, and more?
> > > >
> > > > I mean, at least give it a skin or something. Even when Halo Reach ditched the 1-50 system and went a more Call of Duty style ranking system, they still kept it Halo by having things like Noble, Mythic, and Inheritor.
> > > >
> > > > To me it’s just common sense that Halo needs a ranking system that’s unique and different that literally *every other competitive game out there.*I mean it is a military shooter right? so why the hell don’t they just implement military based ranks instead of SR 1-152?
> > > >
> > > > instead of boring, why not make… fun, cool, something other than just the same exact skill ranks and the number 1-152? Am I asking for too much?
> > >
> > > The H5 rank system is better than the old ones IMO. Your skill based rank outght to be a real rank of some sort because it is truly earned. Your XP “rank” essentially goes up as long as you play the game. It really should be some arbitrary number.
> > >
> > > As far as how it’s decided I want it to lean more towards individual performance and not necessarily just on win/losses.
> >
> > did I say anything in my comment about the operation of the ranking systems? No. I just said that having the same exact Bronze-Champ system is boring because it’s the same thing that so many other games have, and I stated that they should return military style rankings in Halo because it is a military shooter. are you going to say that you want the same exact system as so many other games and for Halo to, yet again, just cut and paste features from other franchises into its own?
> >
> > The skill system works fine so as long as you don’t consider smurfing, occasionally poor matchmaking (ie, a gold matching with a champ), and the nonsense that a Champ 120 can have a worse W/L ratio than me when I’m a Diamond 1.
> >
> > I’m saying that they need to make it unique to Halo, like Halo 2, 3, and even Reach was.
> >
> > There is nothing in your reply that even suggests you read what I said. I said nothing about the functionality and accuracy of Halo 5’s (and LoL, GOW, R6, Overwatch, AND CS:GO) rank system vs the 1-50 system.
>
> The original Halo skill ranks weren’t that unique they were just a number 1-50. Even making military style rank isn’t that unique either as games use those as well. It’s not all that easy to make something totally original.

Unique: adjective.

  1. Being the only one of it’s kind, unlike anything else.

Halo 2 and 3 skill ranking of 1-50 was unique because there was no other console shooter that used the system. Halo 3’s PVT-GEN experience rank system was unique because no other game had done I think before, and if they did, well they apparently didn’t do thsy great of a job because being a 5 Star general in Halo 3 from 2008-2010 was what everyone in my gaming community revered.

Halo 5 is not unique because it uses the same exact rank system and every other competitive game in our current gen.

How many facts need to be presented to you before not you finally admit that Halo has become a generic as any other shooter on the market ?

It doesn’t even stop at the generic ranking system. The customization, the gameplay, the teammate callouts, magical weapon pads with some random announcer who tells both teams when power weapons are up, unfitting music before and after matches.

all of these things that got added to modern Halo were totally unnecessary and have just made titles like Halo 4 and 5 almost unrecognizable as Halo games.
Older Halos, much like their ranking systems, were unique. It used to be that Halo was unlike any other shooter, but now Halo is just like every other shooter. And the fact that people are just constantly defending decisions to fix things that were never broken is exactly why Halo’s population is dying at a constant rate.

11

> 2535448062173159;10:
> > 2533274816788253;8:
> > > 2535448062173159;6:
> > > > 2533274816788253;4:
> > > > > 2535448062173159;3:
> > > > > I honestly don’t care what they do as long as they get rid of the Bronze-Champ system which is in so many other games. Halo used to have a unique ranking system that no other game had, so why on earth would Halo 5 implement a system that’s exactly like LoL, Gears of War, Rainbow Six Siege, Overwatch, and more?
> > > > >
> > > > > I mean, at least give it a skin or something. Even when Halo Reach ditched the 1-50 system and went a more Call of Duty style ranking system, they still kept it Halo by having things like Noble, Mythic, and Inheritor.
> > > > >
> > > > > To me it’s just common sense that Halo needs a ranking system that’s unique and different that literally *every other competitive game out there.*I mean it is a military shooter right? so why the hell don’t they just implement military based ranks instead of SR 1-152?
> > > > >
> > > > > instead of boring, why not make… fun, cool, something other than just the same exact skill ranks and the number 1-152? Am I asking for too much?
> > > >
> > > > The H5 rank system is better than the old ones IMO. Your skill based rank outght to be a real rank of some sort because it is truly earned. Your XP “rank” essentially goes up as long as you play the game. It really should be some arbitrary number.
> > > >
> > > > As far as how it’s decided I want it to lean more towards individual performance and not necessarily just on win/losses.
> > >
> > > did I say anything in my comment about the operation of the ranking systems? No. I just said that having the same exact Bronze-Champ system is boring because it’s the same thing that so many other games have, and I stated that they should return military style rankings in Halo because it is a military shooter. are you going to say that you want the same exact system as so many other games and for Halo to, yet again, just cut and paste features from other franchises into its own?
> > >
> > > The skill system works fine so as long as you don’t consider smurfing, occasionally poor matchmaking (ie, a gold matching with a champ), and the nonsense that a Champ 120 can have a worse W/L ratio than me when I’m a Diamond 1.
> > >
> > > I’m saying that they need to make it unique to Halo, like Halo 2, 3, and even Reach was.
> > >
> > > There is nothing in your reply that even suggests you read what I said. I said nothing about the functionality and accuracy of Halo 5’s (and LoL, GOW, R6, Overwatch, AND CS:GO) rank system vs the 1-50 system.
> >
> > The original Halo skill ranks weren’t that unique they were just a number 1-50. Even making military style rank isn’t that unique either as games use those as well. It’s not all that easy to make something totally original.
>
> Unique: adjective.
> 1. Being the only one of it’s kind, unlike anything else.
>
> Halo 2 and 3 skill ranking of 1-50 was unique because there was no other console shooter that used the system. Halo 3’s PVT-GEN experience rank system was unique because no other game had done I think before, and if they did, well they apparently didn’t do thsy great of a job because being a 5 Star general in Halo 3 from 2008-2010 was what everyone in my gaming community revered.
>
> Halo 5 is not unique because it uses the same exact rank system and every other competitive game in our current gen.
>
> How many facts need to be presented to you before not you finally admit that Halo has become a generic as any other shooter on the market ?
>
> It doesn’t even stop at the generic ranking system. The customization, the gameplay, the teammate callouts, magical weapon pads with some random announcer who tells both teams when power weapons are up, unfitting music before and after matches.
>
> all of these things that got added to modern Halo were totally unnecessary and have just made titles like Halo 4 and 5 almost unrecognizable as Halo games.
> Older Halos, much like their ranking systems, were unique. It used to be that Halo was unlike any other shooter, but now Halo is just like every other shooter. And the fact that people are just constantly defending decisions to fix things that were never broken is exactly why Halo’s population is dying at a constant rate.

Just because no one is using it doesn’t make it unique to me. Not a whole lot of thought went into a simple number system of 1-50. No one really uses it because it’s plain and kinda boring. Also every Halo game brought changes some for good and some for bad. Halo has been on the what are other games doing trend since Reach. I am just saying it’s way better having your skill based rank as an actual rank like H5, sure they can dumb the whole bronze, silver , gold and what not for a more military style rank structure of some kind but I wouldn’t like them to make skill ranks an arbitrary number. Those should be used for the whole XP system which only reflects how much some one plays. I dont even like that they call the XP system Spartan Rank, it should be called something like Spartan Level. XP should be just arbitrary numbers.

12

> 2533274816788253;11:
> > 2535448062173159;10:
> > > 2533274816788253;8:
> > > > 2535448062173159;6:
> > > > > 2533274816788253;4:
> > > > > > 2535448062173159;3:
> > > > > > I honestly don’t care what they do as long as they get rid of the Bronze-Champ system which is in so many other games. Halo used to have a unique ranking system that no other game had, so why on earth would Halo 5 implement a system that’s exactly like LoL, Gears of War, Rainbow Six Siege, Overwatch, and more?
> > > > > >
> > > > > > I mean, at least give it a skin or something. Even when Halo Reach ditched the 1-50 system and went a more Call of Duty style ranking system, they still kept it Halo by having things like Noble, Mythic, and Inheritor.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > To me it’s just common sense that Halo needs a ranking system that’s unique and different that literally *every other competitive game out there.*I mean it is a military shooter right? so why the hell don’t they just implement military based ranks instead of SR 1-152?
> > > > > >
> > > > > > instead of boring, why not make… fun, cool, something other than just the same exact skill ranks and the number 1-152? Am I asking for too much?
> > > > >
> > > > > The H5 rank system is better than the old ones IMO. Your skill based rank outght to be a real rank of some sort because it is truly earned. Your XP “rank” essentially goes up as long as you play the game. It really should be some arbitrary number.
> > > > >
> > > > > As far as how it’s decided I want it to lean more towards individual performance and not necessarily just on win/losses.
> > > >
> > > > did I say anything in my comment about the operation of the ranking systems? No. I just said that having the same exact Bronze-Champ system is boring because it’s the same thing that so many other games have, and I stated that they should return military style rankings in Halo because it is a military shooter. are you going to say that you want the same exact system as so many other games and for Halo to, yet again, just cut and paste features from other franchises into its own?
> > > >
> > > > The skill system works fine so as long as you don’t consider smurfing, occasionally poor matchmaking (ie, a gold matching with a champ), and the nonsense that a Champ 120 can have a worse W/L ratio than me when I’m a Diamond 1.
> > > >
> > > > I’m saying that they need to make it unique to Halo, like Halo 2, 3, and even Reach was.
> > > >
> > > > There is nothing in your reply that even suggests you read what I said. I said nothing about the functionality and accuracy of Halo 5’s (and LoL, GOW, R6, Overwatch, AND CS:GO) rank system vs the 1-50 system.
> > >
> > > The original Halo skill ranks weren’t that unique they were just a number 1-50. Even making military style rank isn’t that unique either as games use those as well. It’s not all that easy to make something totally original.
> >
> > Unique: adjective.
> > 1. Being the only one of it’s kind, unlike anything else.
> >
> > Halo 2 and 3 skill ranking of 1-50 was unique because there was no other console shooter that used the system. Halo 3’s PVT-GEN experience rank system was unique because no other game had done I think before, and if they did, well they apparently didn’t do thsy great of a job because being a 5 Star general in Halo 3 from 2008-2010 was what everyone in my gaming community revered.
> >
> > Halo 5 is not unique because it uses the same exact rank system and every other competitive game in our current gen.
> >
> > How many facts need to be presented to you before not you finally admit that Halo has become a generic as any other shooter on the market ?
> >
> > It doesn’t even stop at the generic ranking system. The customization, the gameplay, the teammate callouts, magical weapon pads with some random announcer who tells both teams when power weapons are up, unfitting music before and after matches.
> >
> > all of these things that got added to modern Halo were totally unnecessary and have just made titles like Halo 4 and 5 almost unrecognizable as Halo games.
> > Older Halos, much like their ranking systems, were unique. It used to be that Halo was unlike any other shooter, but now Halo is just like every other shooter. And the fact that people are just constantly defending decisions to fix things that were never broken is exactly why Halo’s population is dying at a constant rate.
>
> Just because no one is using it doesn’t make it unique to me. Not a whole lot of thought went into a simple number system of 1-50. No one really uses it because it’s plain and kinda boring. Also every Halo game brought changes some for good and some for bad. Halo has been on the what are other games doing trend since Reach. I am just saying it’s way better having your skill based rank as an actual rank like H5, sure they can dumb the whole bronze, silver , gold and what not for a more military style rank structure of some kind but I wouldn’t like them to make skill ranks an arbitrary number. Those should be used for the whole XP system which only reflects how much some one plays. I dont even like that they call the XP system Spartan Rank, it should be called something like Spartan Level. XP should be just arbitrary numbers.

well if they polish up the Bronze-Champ system I’d be fine with it, but even as it is there are still many flaws with it. Me and my friend were like Diamond 2 or 3 in breakout and we were browsing through service records and noticed some Champ who had a win % almost identical to ours. People work the system and find some team to carry them through their qual matches so they can get champ and then at that point it’s way more difficult for them to lose their rank. Back in the Halo 3 360 days, my highest rank was a 46 in Slayer, but even then if I ever matched with a lvl 49 or 50 they were clearly much more skilled than me at the game, so how is it in Halo 5 I’m able to hold my own against champions even when I’m ranked a platinum or diamond? Not only that, there’s just so many times you’ll win a match and the little blue bar will go nowhere. NOWHERE. Sometimes I’ll win three matches in a row being one of the top two players on my team: no increase. Then I lose one match and my rank plummets to hell. I once finally got my Onyx back in swat and we won like seven or eight matches in a row, then we lost one match, ONE MATCH, and my rank went all the way down to Diamond 6 with the bar filled like 10%. The system is flawed!

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> > > > > > > I honestly don’t care what they do as long as they get rid of the Bronze-Champ system which is in so many other games. Halo used to have a unique ranking system that no other game had, so why on earth would Halo 5 implement a system that’s exactly like LoL, Gears of War, Rainbow Six Siege, Overwatch, and more?
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > I mean, at least give it a skin or something. Even when Halo Reach ditched the 1-50 system and went a more Call of Duty style ranking system, they still kept it Halo by having things like Noble, Mythic, and Inheritor.
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > To me it’s just common sense that Halo needs a ranking system that’s unique and different that literally *every other competitive game out there.*I mean it is a military shooter right? so why the hell don’t they just implement military based ranks instead of SR 1-152?
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > instead of boring, why not make… fun, cool, something other than just the same exact skill ranks and the number 1-152? Am I asking for too much?
> > > > > >
> > > > > > The H5 rank system is better than the old ones IMO. Your skill based rank outght to be a real rank of some sort because it is truly earned. Your XP “rank” essentially goes up as long as you play the game. It really should be some arbitrary number.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > As far as how it’s decided I want it to lean more towards individual performance and not necessarily just on win/losses.
> > > > >
> > > > > did I say anything in my comment about the operation of the ranking systems? No. I just said that having the same exact Bronze-Champ system is boring because it’s the same thing that so many other games have, and I stated that they should return military style rankings in Halo because it is a military shooter. are you going to say that you want the same exact system as so many other games and for Halo to, yet again, just cut and paste features from other franchises into its own?
> > > > >
> > > > > The skill system works fine so as long as you don’t consider smurfing, occasionally poor matchmaking (ie, a gold matching with a champ), and the nonsense that a Champ 120 can have a worse W/L ratio than me when I’m a Diamond 1.
> > > > >
> > > > > I’m saying that they need to make it unique to Halo, like Halo 2, 3, and even Reach was.
> > > > >
> > > > > There is nothing in your reply that even suggests you read what I said. I said nothing about the functionality and accuracy of Halo 5’s (and LoL, GOW, R6, Overwatch, AND CS:GO) rank system vs the 1-50 system.
> > > >
> > > > The original Halo skill ranks weren’t that unique they were just a number 1-50. Even making military style rank isn’t that unique either as games use those as well. It’s not all that easy to make something totally original.
> > >
> > > Unique: adjective.
> > > 1. Being the only one of it’s kind, unlike anything else.
> > >
> > > Halo 2 and 3 skill ranking of 1-50 was unique because there was no other console shooter that used the system. Halo 3’s PVT-GEN experience rank system was unique because no other game had done I think before, and if they did, well they apparently didn’t do thsy great of a job because being a 5 Star general in Halo 3 from 2008-2010 was what everyone in my gaming community revered.
> > >
> > > Halo 5 is not unique because it uses the same exact rank system and every other competitive game in our current gen.
> > >
> > > How many facts need to be presented to you before not you finally admit that Halo has become a generic as any other shooter on the market ?
> > >
> > > It doesn’t even stop at the generic ranking system. The customization, the gameplay, the teammate callouts, magical weapon pads with some random announcer who tells both teams when power weapons are up, unfitting music before and after matches.
> > >
> > > all of these things that got added to modern Halo were totally unnecessary and have just made titles like Halo 4 and 5 almost unrecognizable as Halo games.
> > > Older Halos, much like their ranking systems, were unique. It used to be that Halo was unlike any other shooter, but now Halo is just like every other shooter. And the fact that people are just constantly defending decisions to fix things that were never broken is exactly why Halo’s population is dying at a constant rate.
> >
> > Just because no one is using it doesn’t make it unique to me. Not a whole lot of thought went into a simple number system of 1-50. No one really uses it because it’s plain and kinda boring. Also every Halo game brought changes some for good and some for bad. Halo has been on the what are other games doing trend since Reach. I am just saying it’s way better having your skill based rank as an actual rank like H5, sure they can dumb the whole bronze, silver , gold and what not for a more military style rank structure of some kind but I wouldn’t like them to make skill ranks an arbitrary number. Those should be used for the whole XP system which only reflects how much some one plays. I dont even like that they call the XP system Spartan Rank, it should be called something like Spartan Level. XP should be just arbitrary numbers.
>
> well if they polish up the Bronze-Champ system I’d be fine with it, but even as it is there are still many flaws with it. Me and my friend were like Diamond 2 or 3 in breakout and we were browsing through service records and noticed some Champ who had a win % almost identical to ours. People work the system and find some team to carry them through their qual matches so they can get champ and then at that point it’s way more difficult for them to lose their rank. Back in the Halo 3 360 days, my highest rank was a 46 in Slayer, but even then if I ever matched with a lvl 49 or 50 they were clearly much more skilled than me at the game, so how is it in Halo 5 I’m able to hold my own against champions even when I’m ranked a platinum or diamond? Not only that, there’s just so many times you’ll win a match and the little blue bar will go nowhere. NOWHERE. Sometimes I’ll win three matches in a row being one of the top two players on my team: no increase. Then I lose one match and my rank plummets to hell. I once finally got my Onyx back in swat and we won like seven or eight matches in a row, then we lost one match, ONE MATCH, and my rank went all the way down to Diamond 6 with the bar filled like 10%. The system is flawed!

Yeah that is why I want the skill based rank to lean more towards individual performance rather than team W/L so players can’t be carried to higher ranks and some players who are good aren’t dragged down by bad teammates. Team based ranking only really works if you get to play with the same four players all the time and there can’t be very many who does that.

14

The best of the best always get sorted out in team based winning/losing. You dont climb the ladders in cs go or league of legends if youre not good. If youre a diamond level players you will eventually get to diamond. If youre a gold level player you will be gold. If youre a challenger level player you will reach challenger. Its a good system that sorts out where everyone should rank with playing. Having it be an individually based performance just promotes playing to boost stats such as going for a kill steal while at the same time costing the game. Halo is a team game, it should always be based on the team’s effort and if that means sacrificing the kda to accomplish the object then so be it.

15

Hot Chili Fries, if you see someone higher-ranked than you with a lower win%, that does NOT mean the system isn’t working right, it means that player has had a much harder schedule than you have.

Proper skill-systems are built precisely because you can’t trust win%, otherwise we’d just use that. Win% is misleading and too dependent on matchmaking, whereas TrueSkill correct for all of that, as do the ranks.

If a player has a lower win% than you but our predictions of them and you are also accurate (which they are, we have a high accuracy on who wins your matches and your individual performance in those matches), then the player is still better than you.

If you fight your way into Onyx only to fall right back out, it’s because you don’t belong there in the first place, and just lucked into it. All Diamond players sometimes play like Onyx players, but unless it’s the norm you won’t stay in Onyx.

Here’s your own performance over time in SWAT. While you’ve had some spikes up into Onyx, and while your most recent performance has been high Diamond, you are, on average, a mid-Diamond player and have been getting worse over time.

1139×739 53.4 KB

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> 2533274839818445;15:
> Hot Chili Fries, if you see someone higher-ranked than you with a lower win%, that does NOT mean the system isn’t working right, it means that player has had a much harder schedule than you have.
>
> Proper skill-systems are built precisely because you can’t trust win%, otherwise we’d just use that. Win% is misleading and too dependent on matchmaking, whereas TrueSkill correct for all of that, as do the ranks.
>
> If a player has a lower win% than you but our predictions of them and you are also accurate (which they are, we have a high accuracy on who wins your matches and your individual performance in those matches), then the player is still better than you.
>
> If you fight your way into Onyx only to fall right back out, it’s because you don’t belong there in the first place, and just lucked into it. All Diamond players sometimes play like Onyx players, but unless it’s the norm you won’t stay in Onyx.
>
> Here’s your own performance over time in SWAT. While you’ve had some spikes up into Onyx, and while your most recent performance has been high Diamond, you are, on average, a mid-Diamond player and have been getting worse over time.

So we can say the same about champion and onyx players who get stomped on by diamond and platinum players? That they just got lucky and don’t deserve the ranks? I think I’ve seen one champion in swat who actually dropped down to diamond before, the rest just continue to maintain their ranks, regardless of losing half the time I see them, and even in some games being the worst performers.

Of course youre going to have more knowledge about how the ranking system works because you’re a designer, but when you get a layperson like me who just buys and plays the game, I’m going to be rubbed the wrong way when my rank goes up 0% after I win three games in a row against players at the same skill level as me. When things like this happen and there isn’t any clear explanation, it discourages players from playing at all. That’s coming from me and pretty much every person I’ve played Halo 5 with., we’ve all had similar experiences with it.

Many of them are not like me and will just rage quit after their rank severely drops after losing one game that ended their winning spree. Why? Because even if the system is working correctly and they indeed did deserve a plummet in rank, the player is going to have a different interpretation and feel like the game told him or her to go screw themselves.

If there was some way to explain to the players why the ranking system does what it does in a transparent Barney style way, then there would be a lot less controversy over this issue and a lot less people begging for the 1-50 system to return.

Also, like I told Lethal, my main gripe about the ranking system wasn’t its functionality but just the fact that it is so similar to many other games as far as aesthetics and design goes. Do you know how proud player were to finally hit General in Halo 3? Or how proud Jimmy or Kayla must have been when they became “Inheritors” in Halo Reach? Probably a lot more than when people people reached lvl 100 or 152. I guarantee you people would have more desire to reach max experience rank in Halo 5 if they could have a cool symbol next to their name instead of just a number.
For the skill ranks you could use the same exact system but give it a skin. Example:
Bronze = grunt
silver = jackal
gold = elite
platinum = hunter

maybe not this exactly but something that stands out and gives a player an identity related to Halo and not just some mineral or precious metal.

17

It just seems very convoluted to me. Also, doesn’t seem like it would really work because you would need players consistently playing all the time (like in a real league). Online players are too often in and out of the game. Simply put, I think Halo should stick to the accessibility and ease of the 1-50.

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> 2533274839818445;15:
> Hot Chili Fries, if you see someone higher-ranked than you with a lower win%, that does NOT mean the system isn’t working right, it means that player has had a much harder schedule than you have.
>
> Proper skill-systems are built precisely because you can’t trust win%, otherwise we’d just use that. Win% is misleading and too dependent on matchmaking, whereas TrueSkill correct for all of that, as do the ranks.
>
> If a player has a lower win% than you but our predictions of them and you are also accurate (which they are, we have a high accuracy on who wins your matches and your individual performance in those matches), then the player is still better than you.
>
> If you fight your way into Onyx only to fall right back out, it’s because you don’t belong there in the first place, and just lucked into it. All Diamond players sometimes play like Onyx players, but unless it’s the norm you won’t stay in Onyx.
>
> Here’s your own performance over time in SWAT. While you’ve had some spikes up into Onyx, and while your most recent performance has been high Diamond, you are, on average, a mid-Diamond player and have been getting worse over time.

ZaedynFel, saying someone coincidentally earned a high rank, only to fall out of that rank, only shows that the system wasn’t working to begin with. That player should never have earned Onyx, if they were truly a Diamond player. Is it possible that a Diamond player should be a Onyx player, but never gets the lucky string of games to earn their way there? If so, what’s the point of rank?

What does “the norm” mean? 10 games? 30? 100? On a timeline long enough, wouldn’t the outcome (i.e., lose/win “x” amount of games) look the same whether you were using matchmaking or not using matchmaking?

If the point of matchmaking is to “normalize” win/loss ratio, then there’s no point to having matchmaking at all–you’d get the same “normalization” pairing players based on game connection/proximity as you would with matching players on similar skill levels.

Also, I’m curious to see how successfully matchmaking can predict the outcome of each game. I can flip a coin and get the same odds of “guessing” who wins what game.

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> 2625759425622793;18:
> > 2533274839818445;15:
> > Hot Chili Fries, if you see someone higher-ranked than you with a lower win%, that does NOT mean the system isn’t working right, it means that player has had a much harder schedule than you have.
> >
> > Proper skill-systems are built precisely because you can’t trust win%, otherwise we’d just use that. Win% is misleading and too dependent on matchmaking, whereas TrueSkill correct for all of that, as do the ranks.
> >
> > If a player has a lower win% than you but our predictions of them and you are also accurate (which they are, we have a high accuracy on who wins your matches and your individual performance in those matches), then the player is still better than you.
> >
> > If you fight your way into Onyx only to fall right back out, it’s because you don’t belong there in the first place, and just lucked into it. All Diamond players sometimes play like Onyx players, but unless it’s the norm you won’t stay in Onyx.
> >
> > Here’s your own performance over time in SWAT. While you’ve had some spikes up into Onyx, and while your most recent performance has been high Diamond, you are, on average, a mid-Diamond player and have been getting worse over time.
>
> ZaedynFel, saying someone coincidentally earned a high rank, only to fall out of that rank, only shows that the system wasn’t working to begin with. That player should never have earned Onyx, if they were truly a Diamond player. Is it possible that a Diamond player should be a Onyx player, but never gets the lucky string of games to earn their way there? If so, what’s the point of rank?

That’s exactly what I was thinking. How is someone going to claim that the matchmaking system works properly while at the same time discrediting someone’s effort to get to Onyx and saying that they just “lucked out” and shouldn’t have gotten the rank at all? Lol not only is that pretty insulting, but it’s just flat-out admitting that the system doesn’t work and that the rank next to your name doesn’t mean all that much.

If the game is going to deny me the Onyx rank because I’m apparently not worthy, while at the same time putting me in matches with Onyx and champions while I’m a diamond, then something isn’t adding up.

According to a Luke Thenotable vid I watched, he explained how there’s some hidden rank that keeps track of how skilled you actually are and that explains why in some games you see Silvers and Golds being matched against Onyx and Champs. The way he explained it made perfect sense, but it had me thinking.

__Why not make that hidden skill rank visible to the players.__Transparency and simplicity would go a long way for a lot of players.

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> 2625759425622793;18:
> ZaedynFel, saying someone coincidentally earned a high rank, only to fall out of that rank, only shows that the system wasn’t working to begin with. That player should never have earned Onyx, if they were truly a Diamond player. Is it possible that a Diamond player should be a Onyx player, but never gets the lucky string of games to earn their way there? If so, what’s the point of rank?

If it takes a lucky string of games for someone to get into Onyx, then they aren’t really an Onyx player. Player performance can vary widely from game to game; sometimes a Diamond player can play like an Onyx, and sometimes they can play like a Platinum. But just because they play like an Onyx 1 game out of 10 doesn’t mean they should be Onyx rank. If they play like an Onyx 6-8 times out of 10, that’s a different story, but at that point, it’s not really luck. The point of rank is to give as accurate label as possible of where your skill as a player falls against the entire population of players.
Another thing is that population doesn’t always support the ability for players to match opponents who are evenly skilled. Sometimes, the game has to pair you against weaker/stronger opponents. That’s just a reality of skill-based matchmaking: it’s quality goes down with population. But the game is still able to determine whether you should be Onyx in those cases, because it knows how an Onyx player should play against both weaker and stronger opponents.

> 2625759425622793;18:
> Also, I’m curious to see how successfully matchmaking can predict the outcome of each game. I can flip a coin and get the same odds of “guessing” who wins what game.

Trueskill 1 was able to correctly predict the outcome of a match (i.e. who wins) ~50% of the time. Trueskill 2, when it first came out earlier this year, was able to correctly predict the match winner 68% of the time, a major improvement. TS2 was also able to predict player performance (i.e. how many kills/deaths you’d get) for a match. Since it’s implementation in H5, Trueskill 2 has been made even better at predicting match outcomes.

> 2535448062173159;19:
> __Why not make that hidden skill rank visible to the players.__Transparency and simplicity would go a long way for a lot of players.

One of the reasons for keeping skill (MMR) hidden is that it is a very dynamic value. It can change wildly from game to game, based on player performance. The greatest change in MMR from one match was 1200 points; that’s like going from Bronze 1 to Diamond 1 in one match. Having such a wildly changing value as a public, visible rank could be very disheartening when you have a bad game. Also, it wouldn’t necessarily be accurate all of the time, for instance whenever you have an uncharacteristically good/bad game. Public ranks in Halo 5 (CSR) don’t change as rapidly from game to game as MMR; it’s a more stable value, making it more suitable as a visualization of rank. But since it closely follows the direction of any changes in skill, then it will eventually match your actual skill and stay around there, only going up and staying up if you actually play consistently better than you had been before (same with the downward direction).