Maybe this whole game was just an experiment for 343. I don’t know. But, what I do know is that I have never had so many “grief” games as when I started playing Halo 4. We don’t have a visible rank system, but we do have a visible K/D system. Simple logic would tell you that competitive and stat-oriented players are going to use that for bragging rights.
343i, you cannot and will not ever blow away the competitive aspect of a video gamer. It is in our blood, it is human nature. We will always find a way to showcase how good we are and how much effort we put into our games. When there was a visible 1-50 rank system, people tried their damnedest to win games. Now that that has been taken away, people are now trying their damnedest to get the best K/D and to play objective-based games like it is slayer. People also talk stuffs in the pre-game lobby about each other’s K/D, which is part of the reason you decided against a visible rank.
I challenge you to put more effort into your matchmaking decisions instead of coming up with quick ideas during Monday morning meetings.
I give Halo 4 a pass because I firmly consider it a giant experiment. It was never going to succeed like past Halo titles because it’s an end-console offering. It’s ceiling was never as high as Halo 5 would be.
So it’s not inconceivable that 343 threw a lot into the H4 experiment because they could afford to.
Halo 4 flops on the 360, very little harm done. But Halo 5 flops on the XB1 and you have a huge problem on your hands.
So kudos to 343 for trying the crazy stuff now. Extra kudos to them if they can apply the lessons learned and give us something less bloated and more streamlined for the XB1.
I can’t claim to know with any certainty how any particular stat system drives specific behaviors. I can only tell you that a traditional 1-50 system has so many problems of its own that two successive versions of Halo (under two different studios) have chosen to do away with it. Those of you who are old and have long memories will know exactly what I’m talking about.
It seems to me that as Halo, gaming and society in general evolves, people are choosing their own way of play, their own reasons for play, and are ever more resistant to the traditional motivations and constraints of Bungie’s (and now 343’s) matchmaking model.
The only specific example I can give is my own. Yes, I’m that guy you dislike who only plays for k/d. Yes, it drives me to do all the things you described in your post, plus several things you didn’t mention but might find even more odious. But, no, I have no illusions that anyone else will bother to look at my stats or care what they see if they do. I know that a good k/d in and of itself is meaningless. But that doesn’t mean that I will ever be able to change the way I play even if I wanted to, no matter what stats are made visible or invisible, or what ranking system you adopt. Side note: the old 1-50 rankings drove far more people to far worse excesses than anything I get up to in this game.
In short: be careful what you wish for because you might just get it.
> I can only tell you that a traditional 1-50 system has so many problems of its own that two successive versions of Halo (under two different studios) have chosen to do away with it. Those of you who are old and have long memories will know exactly what I’m talking about.
Like what? Buying/selling accounts? Who cares about that? I sure didn’t. If someone wants to pay money for a rank they didn’t earn, that’s on them. It doesn’t take TrueSkill very long to figure out where a person’s actual skill lies.
I would much rather have a visible ranking system with all the flaws in Halo 2 and Halo 3 than a mindless grind for Commendations and unlocks, which is what we have in Halo: Reach and Halo 4.
Of course CSR should be visible. Since Menke is on the team, we are hoping for a much better ranking system than simply 1-50, though.
I don’t think KD should be displayed in the game. It leads to people not caring about winning–the main objective-- and rather getting the highest KD.
I wouldn’t have a problem with KD being visible if meaningful, visible, ranks were back, however, for people would then (at least in ranked playlists) care more about the win than their stats.
Overall the issue of KD appearing isn’t that big of a deal to me. If there’s no ranks, who really cares if people KD -Yoink!- and not go for the W because it doesn’t matter if you win the game (Reach/Halo 4).
If there are ranks, that are in-game, people will play to win.
There should be visible ranks in Halo 5. There’s no excuse, 343. I have no faith, though, because they can’t even deliver what we want and Halo 4 was absolutely terrible.
Let’s pull a full reversal: visible CSR and invisible K/D, and make elapsed time in matches affect the magnitude of a CSR change.
Hopefully, that’ll motivate excessively-stat-oriented players to take all the energy they put into HTO spawnkilling, and instead put it into winning as many matches quickly as they can.
> Why did this get moved from Matchmaking to Halo XBOX One? I am confus.
I’m not the one who moved it (I can find them and ask for you if you like), but it probably is better suited to this section. This doesn’t seem like something they can change for Halo 4 anymore, but it is a change they could make for the next Halo game.
> Maybe this whole game was just an experiment for 343. I don’t know. But, what I do know is that I have never had so many “grief” games as when I started playing Halo 4. We don’t have a visible rank system, but we do have a visible K/D system. Simple logic would tell you that competitive and stat-oriented players are going to use that for bragging rights.
>
> 343i, you cannot and will not ever blow away the competitive aspect of a video gamer. It is in our blood, it is human nature. We will always find a way to showcase how good we are and how much effort we put into our games. When there was a visible 1-50 rank system, people tried their damnedest to win games. Now that that has been taken away, people are now trying their damnedest to get the best K/D and to play objective-based games like it is slayer. People also talk stuffs in the pre-game lobby about each other’s K/D, which is part of the reason you decided against a visible rank.
>
> I challenge you to put more effort into your matchmaking decisions instead of coming up with quick ideas during Monday morning meetings.
343 removed because they wanted to make people abuse the system less and cheat less. It wasn’t to blow away the competitive aspect. People care more about the ranking system then they do stats , I don’t think many people would cheat get higher stats as they would for a rank. I personally never cared about being visible or not, but in my time of playing I don’t think I ever encountered a deranker/second account/ etc . But I think that one tournament had a lot of people making multiple accounts
> Side note: the old 1-50 rankings drove far more people to far worse excesses than anything I get up to in this game.
It made me want to keep playing the game, actually. I can’t say that about Reach (which the only fun I got was shooting zombies in the head on Ascension) or Halo 4.
Social players have always used objective games to farm kills. You generally only ever ran into teamwork in ranked and for players that care about that aspect of the game ranked should come back.
> Maybe this whole game was just an experiment for 343. I don’t know. But, what I do know is that I have never had so many “grief” games as when I started playing Halo 4. We don’t have a visible rank system, but we do have a visible K/D system. Simple logic would tell you that competitive and stat-oriented players are going to use that for bragging rights.
>
> 343i, you cannot and will not ever blow away the competitive aspect of a video gamer. It is in our blood, it is human nature. We will always find a way to showcase how good we are and how much effort we put into our games. When there was a visible 1-50 rank system, people tried their damnedest to win games. Now that that has been taken away, people are now trying their damnedest to get the best K/D and to play objective-based games like it is slayer. People also talk stuffs in the pre-game lobby about each other’s K/D, which is part of the reason you decided against a visible rank.
>
> I challenge you to put more effort into your matchmaking decisions instead of coming up with quick ideas during Monday morning meetings.
How the heck do you know what 343i’s decision making process is?
I challenge you to consider that 343i are professionals and know how to make a game better than you.
And if you think that you can do better, then I await the release of your AAA game soon.
> > I can only tell you that a traditional 1-50 system has so many problems of its own that two successive versions of Halo (under two different studios) have chosen to do away with it. Those of you who are old and have long memories will know exactly what I’m talking about.
>
> Like what? Buying/selling accounts? Who cares about that? I sure didn’t. If someone wants to pay money for a rank they didn’t earn, that’s on them. It doesn’t take TrueSkill very long to figure out where a person’s actual skill lies.
>
> I would much rather have a visible ranking system with all the flaws in Halo 2 and Halo 3 than a mindless grind for Commendations and unlocks, which is what we have in Halo: Reach and Halo 4.
And this is WHY we don’t have a 1-50 ranking system today. When TrueSkill is trying to figure out why a person with a 50 is playing like a 20, that person gets thrown out of the 45-50 matches (which doesn’t bother 45-50s) and now this guy is skewing matches for everyone else (which also doesn’t bother 45-50s). In other words, selling accounts made the game suck for anyone that was not past 45. This callous attitude that it’s OK to have a fundamentally flawed system because it managed to work for the smallest percentage of the population is one of the driving factors that lead both Bungie and 343i to avoid it at all costs.
The only thing that could possibly bring back anything like the old system is some sign from the community that it has matured. Had account selling been ostracized, had account sellers been exiled, and had the integrity of TrueSkill been a goal of the community, 1-50 would be here today. It’s the community’s fault it’s gone, and only the community can bring it back.
> > > I can only tell you that a traditional 1-50 system has so many problems of its own that two successive versions of Halo (under two different studios) have chosen to do away with it. Those of you who are old and have long memories will know exactly what I’m talking about.
> >
> > Like what? Buying/selling accounts? Who cares about that? I sure didn’t. If someone wants to pay money for a rank they didn’t earn, that’s on them. It doesn’t take TrueSkill very long to figure out where a person’s actual skill lies.
> >
> > I would much rather have a visible ranking system with all the flaws in Halo 2 and Halo 3 than a mindless grind for Commendations and unlocks, which is what we have in Halo: Reach and Halo 4.
>
> And this is WHY we don’t have a 1-50 ranking system today. When TrueSkill is trying to figure out why a person with a 50 is playing like a 20, that person gets thrown out of the 45-50 matches (which doesn’t bother 45-50s) and now this guy is skewing matches for everyone else (which also doesn’t bother 45-50s). In other words, selling accounts made the game suck for anyone that was not past 45. This callous attitude that it’s OK to have a fundamentally flawed system because it managed to work for the smallest percentage of the population is one of the driving factors that lead both Bungie and 343i to avoid it at all costs.
>
> The only thing that could possibly bring back anything like the old system is some sign from the community that it has matured. Had account selling been ostracized, had account sellers been exiled, and had the integrity of TrueSkill been a goal of the community, 1-50 would be here today. It’s the community’s fault it’s gone, and only the community can bring it back.
>
> What’re the odds?
A person that wasn’t originally a 50 never dared to play on their 50. That’s why they bought one in the first place, because they couldn’t get it legit - They wouldn’t then start to play on it, to lose it again. Almost every fake 50 plays Social or another ranked playlist where they have yet to get a 50. That is not to say that real 50’s doesn’t play Social because they do, but it is very easy to tell a real 50 apart from a fake one.
> A person that wasn’t originally a 50 never dared to play on their 50. That’s why they bought one in the first place, because they couldn’t get it legit - They wouldn’t then start to play on it, to lose it again. Almost every fake 50 plays Social or another ranked playlist where they have yet to get a 50. That is not to say that real 50’s doesn’t play Social because they do, but it is very easy to tell a real 50 apart from a fake one.
Then please explain to me why there were so many 50’s in my low-level Halo 3 games that didn’t appear to be any better at the game than I was?
What would be the point of having a 50 account if you never used it in matchmaking?
I would prefer if CSR is hidden in the lobby but shows up in the post game carnage report. Instead of K/D and Rank on the player card we should have things like playlist specific Win%, and applicable stats or medals. Other aspects should be customizable (favourite weapon, map, playlist etc.).
> Then please explain to me why there were so many 50’s in my low-level Halo 3 games that didn’t appear to be any better at the game than I was?
Not everyone performs at their best all day, every day. I don’t know how many times you ran into underperforming 50s, but if it wasn’t an insane number of times, then you could’ve just been running into people who were having bad days/luck.
> What would be the point of having a 50 account if you never used it in matchmaking?
> > > I can only tell you that a traditional 1-50 system has so many problems of its own that two successive versions of Halo (under two different studios) have chosen to do away with it. Those of you who are old and have long memories will know exactly what I’m talking about.
> >
> > Like what? Buying/selling accounts? Who cares about that? I sure didn’t. If someone wants to pay money for a rank they didn’t earn, that’s on them. It doesn’t take TrueSkill very long to figure out where a person’s actual skill lies.
> >
> > I would much rather have a visible ranking system with all the flaws in Halo 2 and Halo 3 than a mindless grind for Commendations and unlocks, which is what we have in Halo: Reach and Halo 4.
>
> And this is WHY we don’t have a 1-50 ranking system today. When TrueSkill is trying to figure out why a person with a 50 is playing like a 20, that person gets thrown out of the 45-50 matches (which doesn’t bother 45-50s) and now this guy is skewing matches for everyone else (which also doesn’t bother 45-50s). In other words, selling accounts made the game suck for anyone that was not past 45. This callous attitude that it’s OK to have a fundamentally flawed system because it managed to work for the smallest percentage of the population is one of the driving factors that lead both Bungie and 343i to avoid it at all costs.
>
> The only thing that could possibly bring back anything like the old system is some sign from the community that it has matured. Had account selling been ostracized, had account sellers been exiled, and had the integrity of TrueSkill been a goal of the community, 1-50 would be here today. It’s the community’s fault it’s gone, and only the community can bring it back.
>
> What’re the odds?
He/she is only “skewing” matches until they go down in level to where they belong. If they aren’t a real 50, they aren’t going to be any more or less challenging to you because they have a bigger number next to their name. Guess what? Before hidden CSR was introduced, the matches were more skewed than they ever were with a 1-50 system, because the game assumed all 130s were even in skill. But, wouldn’t you know it, they aren’t! Everyone gets there eventually in a credit-based system.
EDIT: These people also rarely, RARELY if EVER played on the 50s they bought because they knew they would lose it if they did. So you saying your matches were getting skewed is a lie. If you ever got matched with a 50, that means you were high enough in level to contend with them. If that were the case, you would be laughing at how bad they were, not complaining.