Hi all,
i believe i have finally found out why people are placing too low in ffa placements after finishinh their last season so much higher (such as routinely beating diamonds but placing plat 1). And i believe there are 2 main reasons for it: a ranking cap on onyx 1700 filtering down and cos 343 are forcing us to play more for our ranks! I also believe placement results probably dont impact where you place unless its your first season). This is a theory so please provide constructive critique. IMPORTANT NOTE: MY THEORY WOULD WORK BEST IF YOU HAVE REACHED YOUR TRUE CSR MAX ONE SEASON (AROUND 100 MATCHES). OTHERWISE USE YOUR LAST PLACEMENT AS A BEST GUIDE (IT WOULDNT CHANGE MUCH WITHOUT A HUGE CSR GAIN BETWEEN SEASON END CSRS ANYWAY, as explained at the end).
I believe that in essence we are placed giving us roughly 2/3rds our highest csr score, or where you play less what you normally place at. This is from looking at lots of data on halo5arena.com on my opponents. So a player who qualifies and ends a season at onyx 1800 would place around diamond 1 or 1200csr. This fits very closely with my experience. If you havent played before then your qualifying rank would be 2/3rds your estimated mmr (true csr potential) and so your placements would be similar if you play only the 10 games each season.
Now cos a player has that high mmr from the previous season in getting onyx 1800 but not the csr score, it needs to catch up. So the system ‘gives away’ csr so long as you dont place 6th in your next games. That way your csr catches up to your mmr score (or true csr that hasnt been capped). So 5th place gains 5 or so csr for no reason at all and games become a bit of a joke as you will rank up more for playtime than anythimg else as the system still owes you csr (unless your mmr drops from constantly losing). This will continue until your csr matches your true mmr score and as it nears it your 4th place finishes may start costing you csr (so a 1200 player nearing their potential 1300 rank would start finding ranking up from 4ths or 3rds only). Then at your true csr you need 3rd place finishes to rank up. Long story short is you are forced to play tons of matches to get your true rank with little to sweat about as you are given it bit by bit the more you play regardless almost of results.
The caveat would be if you finish one season at onyx 2000 and the next season had a rank 1670 or so but a hidden mmr (or potential score of 2050 from winning more matches). Then your qualifying rank would probably use your highest csr or potential csr for calculating your next placement rank.
If this theory holds then using your highest csr you could estimate your division by diviing your csr by 3 then multiplying by 2. Note each divison goes up by 300 csr, so bronze 1 at 0, silver at 300, gold 600, platinum 900, diamond 1200 and onyx 1500. Each sub rank up by 50, eg silver 2 is 300+50= 350csr.
Using my theory for each rank your hughest csr needs to be is:
Bronze 0
Silver 1 = 450 (silver 4)
Gold 1 = 900 (plat 1)
Platinum 1 = 1350 (diamond 4)
Diamond 1 = onyx 1800
Onyx 1500 = onyx 2250
Onyx 1700 = onyx 2550+
If you end seasons with a similar csr you will get similar placements anyway. To gain each sub rank you would need to gain:
One sub rank: improve csr by 75
Two sub ranks : improve by 150
Three sub ranks: improve by 225
Four: by 300
Five: by 375 csr
Division: by 450 csr.
So poeple will probably place where they did the previous season as these are huge numbers to overcome. But it explains why some players jump up entire divisions in placements where othere do, cos they do increase their max csrs by that amount.