Will the top players NOT be bored when their only competition is their own friends list?
Will newer and the lesser skilled NOT get frustrated when they constantly play against far more skilled players and teams of 4/6/8, get steamrolled, and always have to quit?
Will there be players with absurd win/loss ratios (eg. 100-0 235-5) because they always match terrible opponents?
Will the decent player playing alone NOT be punished because his teammates are playing their 4th game ever while him and others in the game would have much more experience?
Will every game NOT be one team completely dominating while the other gets steaked?
Will there be more 50-48 Slayer games that were ever so often in Halo 2 and Halo 3?
Having a larger multiplayer population for as long as possible will clear up these issues.
Having less splintering in the playlists and settings will clear up these issues as well.
Almost everything players complain about regarding TrueSkill is more to with who is online and available for matching games at that time combined with skill and party restrictions.
In fact TrueSkill used to be so accurate players hated it and xbox themselves had to update it to make it less strict.
If 343i add in some filters to toggle on/off how strict the skill matching and widening of matches is during matchmaking finding games then players like yourselves can wait as long as they like for the game match ups they seek.
Without the population or toggles to control the matchmaking criteria players will experience such issues again and it has little to do with TrueSkill itself.
First Reach did have Trueskill, every game on Xbox does, it’s just reduced and I blame that on the community complaining about previous games search times.
Second 343i has already stated Trueskill In Halo 4 doesn’t work like it did in Reach and that there will be a skill based ranking system.
> Having a larger multiplayer population for as long as possible will clear up these issues.
Trueskill works in a small population.
> Without the population or toggles to control the matchmaking criteria players will experience such issues again and it has little to do with TrueSkill itself.
It has a lot to do with Trueskill. You mention toggable options, but what will be behind that? Trueskill.
> First Reach did have Trueskill, every game on Xbox does, it’s just reduced and I blame that on the community complaining about previous games search times.
Reach’s Trueskill may as well not exist. I can recall one, ONE single game in Reach where I had a close game. It’s was the most fun I had in Reach. I don’t care if I have to wait another 15 seconds to find a game, I don’t even recall anyone complaining about search times, and that’s not a good enough reason for near removal of Trueskill.
It does work… It’s just Bungie/343i’s always start to “turn it off” after a set period of time. Less players = less of a chance to find similarly skilled/good connection/etc., so they make it a lot less strict.
Actually Halo: Reach had a fantastic system for the first few months. But then they slowly started “turning it off” and all of a sudden I’m playing 8 man full parties. It was around January/February. It really sucked.
Halo 2/3 had largely broken systems…
So much so, Halo 2 had to completely reset everyone’s rank (The system was lumping all the players from level 10-25 or something). Not to mention it was based off of the ranking system in chess… It was only able to accurately track the skill of 1v1 matches. Anything else was just pure chaos. Anyone who says Halo 2 had a good system is factually wrong. Period.
Halo 3 had the most unreliable level’s. It didn’t matter if I had all 50’s or all 15’s… You never really knew how good someone was until the game is over. Someone would play Team Slayer in the first month (When everyone knows plenty of terrible players just pick up the game and play for a month then stop), get to a 50, and never touch it again for fear of “losing” that 50. Second accounts, rank locking, deranking, boosting, etc. It was a terrible, terrible system.
Both were horribly flawed.
I would hate for 343i’s to try to go back to one of those broken ranking systems. Let’s see what they churn out this time (Something new hopefully) and for the love of glob STOP TURNING IT OFF WHEN THE POPULATION TAKES A DIVE! If I want to wait 15 minutes for a decent match instead of 2 minutes for a bad one, just let me wait!
Implying and assuming 343 will even bother putting “Trueskill” into the game.
“Trueskill” is quite contradictory to it’s name, as it doesn’t actually determine your true skill level. It takes the average of an uncertain degree of your possible skill.
> > Having a larger multiplayer population for as long as possible will clear up these issues.
>
> Trueskill works in a small population.
It does work, but it will increase search times dramatically.
The more people online, the better the chance another “group” of players will be equal to you in skill, and the quicker you get put into a match. If there is a smaller pool of players to pull from, then search times skyrocket, if the system remains very strict on matchmaking requirements.
Also, if you’re searching full party with three other “try-hards” the odds you’ll ever be put into a fair game is extremely low. Yes, you’ll probably get matched with above average players, but as far as a truly “fair” game goes, unless there are full party restrictions or you set-up a game against equally skilled opponents, you’d be hard pressed to actually play in one set-up by Matchmaking.
The fact is that trueskill (and no other ranking system at that) work well with a small population. Imagine Super Slayer (Least populated 4 vs. 4 playlists) as a room. There is one player with a 1.7 K/D and 80% win/loss. All the other players in that room (There are only 7 currently) have K/D’s of .95 or lower and win loss’ of less than 50%.
Now go and imagine a system that will get a fair match. Obviously this is an exaggeration, but not hugely considering a playlist like Super Slayer’s population which I believe includes the people in a game.
Following a tight restriction model (I believe early Arena had tight restrictions), those 8 players would be wandering aimlessly around the room, never finding someone. What happens then, they become bored or impatient and then leave.
If the trueskill isn’t visible I won’t believe it works. In Reach after 800+ matches it didn’t work so why should I believe it will be any better in halo 4?
I can already see it now. 300 matches in I’ll still get teammates who go constant -10.
If 343 isn’t willing to bring back 1-50 I really doubt we will get anything close to competitive ranked ever again in a Halo game and that sucks. I’m tired of this casual progressive rank crap.
> LOL
>
> “Trueskill is totally there guys, trust us, it’s just invisible” - Bungie
>
> “Skill based trueskill will totally be there guys, trust us, it’ll be invisible to everyone but you though” - 343
>
> Yeah, right.
>
> I’ll be ready to set up my custom games with friends so I don’t get bored with MM.
There never confirmed that it would be invisible. Someone just said that Frankie said that it was one of the things that they were looking at.
> Implying and assuming 343 will even bother putting “Trueskill” into the game.
>
> “Trueskill” is quite contradictory to it’s name, as it doesn’t actually determine your true skill level. It takes the average of an uncertain degree of your possible skill.
Obviously, no algorithm can find ones skill, but it’s much better than not having one. Good players match good player, bad players match bad players. Everyone’s happy.
There is also far more than just TrueSkill matching, you are not accounting for other factors such as:
Just having a bad game, so you think TrueSkill isn’t working.
Luck of power weapons can change the outcome and enjoyment of a game dramatically.
Voting for maps/gametypes that affect a players perceived skill for that one game you played them in. Next time you meet that other team or enemy it may be a different map/gametype and your performance may not be so hot.
Team match ups, over the course of many games that one enemy may party up with a variety of friends or teams. This will affect the perceived working conditions of TrueSkill.
Online play is never fair. You may simply get or be close to the game host and falsely assume less of the enemy(s) ability. In reality it’s the nature of online play, latency and netcode.
> 1. Just having a bad game, so you think TrueSkill isn’t working.
and in the long run will have no effect on Trueskill.
> 2. Luck of power weapons can change the outcome and enjoyment of a game dramatically.
Map control and timing PW’s, yes. Not luck.
> 3. Voting for maps/gametypes that affect a players perceived skill for that one game you played them in. Next time you meet that other team or enemy it may be a different map/gametype and your performance may not be so hot.
Good players can play on all maps, they’ll go up. Others will stay down. If someone can only play one map, they aren’t very good, are they?
> 4. Team match ups, over the course of many games that one enemy may party up with a variety of friends or teams. This will affect the perceived working conditions of TrueSkill.
If you’re talking about players playing together with very different skill levels. That can be fixed with using the average skill of all the players. This is really the only effect on ones trueskill.
> 5. Online play is never fair. You may simply get or be close to the game host and falsely assume less of the enemy(s) ability. In reality it’s the nature of online play, latency and netcode.
Netcode is always getting better. The advantages of host are far less than before.
