Over the course of the past month, the MLG community has been rallying support for having the MLG playlist given the Arena ranking system.
With a 94% approval rate and nearly 500 votes, I went ahead and emailed the MLG’s official playlist coordinator KillaKC, to see what he had to say about the matter. Well, turns out that MLG itself is also in support of having a ranking system for the playlist, but have no control over it.
Below is the response that I received from him earlier today:
> Ranking the MLG Playlist is not something we have control of. We would like it to be ranked just as much, if not more, than you guys do. We have expressed interest in this to Bungie and 343 in the past with no success. 343 is still looking to see if it possible for them to add a ranking.
>
> If I do receive an update from 343, I will make sure to inform the community ASAP.
>
> Thanks,
> Kasey
With that in mind, we now come to you, 343: the MLG community and staff are in need of a proper ranking system. It lies entirely your hands now. I encourage you to meet the community’s needs, for the better of all Halo fans.
The social matchmaking just does not work for such a competitive playlist as this. Professional teams get matched against complete newbies. NEITHER SIDE likes a game ending 50-0.
Listed below is a copy of the original thread for this support, as posted on the MLG forums. I encourage you to actually read it before posting uninformed responses and subsequently making yourself look silly.
> Disclaimer
> Please read a few posts before responding, as you may find that your original stance swayed either which way.
> I don’t want this to turn into a flamewar/super-biased OP so I will be adding the best of all arguments for EACH side of the debate as responses come in. I will accept all constructive feedback.
>
>
> Premise
> Right now, the MLG playlist is essentially social. Changing it completely (such as 1-50) would require extra work on 343’s side, which I doubt they would be willing to do (so let’s not get into a 1-50 discussion please). However, by simply giving it the same search parameters as The Arena, we can tighten up the skill restrictions quickly and easily, giving more competitive, fair matches.
>
> Edit: Keep seeing stuff about 1-50 and “Arena sucks” so I’ll add the “Why Arena?” as basically this:
>
>
> > Originally posted by Str8-Kong on 04 September 2011 - 04:58 AM, said:
> >
> > Something is better than nothing, I’ll take it.
>
> If you want 1-50 or something better then post on 343’s Halo 4 section. Reach likely won’t see any changes to ranking.
>
>
>
> Benefits
> - Much more competitive games due to increased trueskill restrictions
> - Teams match teams, randoms match randoms
> - Population boost, as even non-MLG, Arena-type players will want to get rated
> - No more mute bans, as you will not hear the opposing team anyway
> - Way to track skill progression/improvement (even if it’s not perfect)
>
>
> Negatives
> - Cannot search random 8’s
> - Elitism/rank trolling (though when does this ever not occur?)
>
>
> “Debatable”
> - Guests cannot play
> - Randoms cannot match pros
>
>
> Misconceptions/Invalid Negatives
> - Search times will increase, look at Arena
> The reason Arena takes so long to find games at higher Onyx is mainly due to the lack of parties of 4 (randoms do not have to wait nearly as long). As arena prevents 4’s from matching against randoms, it will in fact let a To4 wait 45+ minutes to find another team, which leads to people needing to abuse the 2’s trick. However, MLG does not suffer this issue. 4’s are MUCH more common in MLG, particularly at higher-level play that will be present. There will always be some team to face off against.
>
> - You can just use “search by skill” anyway
> That does not combat the issue of To4 facing randoms. Also, search by skill does not work half as well as Arena pairings.
>
> - People will stat ******
> The Arena is now 100% based on Win/Loss. Stats mean nothing. People will come to realize this very quickly, as the MLG community is generally much more informed than casuals/bnet and word spreads quickly.
>
> - Arena doesn’t work for objective gametypes
> Incorrect. The Arena is now entirely Win/Loss.
>
> - I want 1-50, Arena ratings suck
> That takes time. Arena would “tide us over” for now. Also, it seems more and more likely that they are not bringing back 1-50. There was no mention of it during Halofeast and they certainly won’t do it JUST for MLG. It’s not as simply as copy+paste.
>
> - I don’t care either way
> Think about it this way: even if you don’t care, other people do. Making MLG Arena-based will bring in (or more-so: bring BACK) more people, which will give YOU more and better matches.
>
> - Ratings don’t prove skill
> Doesn’t matter, they’re just for fun. Placement is Win/Loss based. See above.
>
> - Getting a division is annoying
> Matches are not found based on your division. Once again, divisions are just for fun. You are matched up based on your trueskill rank. Even if you never get a full 4 games of rating, you will still match up against Onyx players if you deserve it. Also, you are no longer required to play 1/3rd of the time (10 games throughout 30 days). The system has been changed such that you only need to be rated on 5 days per season.
>
> - My trueskill just gets reset after a month
> Arena ranks are now held for 3 months rather than 30 days. Additionally, trueskill is unbound in Reach so you will get fair matches much, MUCH quicker than Halo 2 or 3.