Proof the Rank System Needs an Upgrade

Games Halo 5: Guardians
#1

I just wanted to test the idea that the rank really doesn’t matter, and it was a fairly simple test: I did not shoot a single bullet or kill a single person. I ran around and got killed a few times, so I wasn’t AFK. In response, guess what had happened? I got ranked up to Gold 6 from Gold 5.

Now I’m not saying, “Omg the ranking system sucks! You suck at making games 343!” They did an incredible job with making this game. I’m just saying that it is really ineffective right now. If I could play a game without killing anybody, then what’s the point of seeing what my competitive rank is? If it is based on wins, I could just go to my profile and see how many games I’ve won and lost.

I’ve seen a few threads that have tried to address this, so I know that there are people out there that want a performance-based system, or at least have performance somewhat influence the competitive rank, and I definitely agree with them. 343, please try to address this concern or at least give us an explanation as to why you chose the competitive ranking system that you did.

#2

> 2533274859413227;1:
> I just wanted to test the idea that the rank really doesn’t matter, and it was a fairly simple test: I did not shoot a single bullet or kill a single person. I ran around and got killed a few times, so I wasn’t AFK. In response, guess what had happened? I got ranked up to Gold 6 from Gold 5.

Don’t test your theories in Ranked Games and leave your teammates hanging. You are the worst. Ban Hammer should eat you.

#3

> 2690096563135647;2:
> > 2533274859413227;1:
> > I just wanted to test the idea that the rank really doesn’t matter, and it was a fairly simple test: I did not shoot a single bullet or kill a single person. I ran around and got killed a few times, so I wasn’t AFK. In response, guess what had happened? I got ranked up to Gold 6 from Gold 5.
>
>
> Don’t test your theories in Ranked Games and leave your teammates hanging. You are the worst. Ban Hammer should eat you.

Calm down. I don’t ever do this. This was a single test and now I know what I need to know. Besides, I could tell from the start that our team began to eat up the other team, so it seemed like the perfect opportunity.

#4

You’re right it is based strictly off of W/L and nothing else. The hard to explain comes in when I win 8 of 10 games in Breakout qualifying and end up in Gold 2. I know it’s based on competition but can you really control matchmaking? Our team rolled in our wins so it should’ve been higher than Gold. It’s things like that that leave people scratching their heads.

#5

A fairly simple test yes, but not a fair test, and not proof of anything.

You carried out an experiment with only one roll of the dice. It’s like you flipped a coin once, it came up heads, and you said aha! It will always come up heads.

You’re saying, “If I go into a game and don’t play, I will either win, lose, or tie; my rank will go up and down depending on the results of these games, independently of my actions”.
In reality, you not playing does have effect on the game, your team will be more likely to lose. If you were to keep doing your experiment over 100 games, you would be more likely to lose each game, and lose a higher percentage of these games. Overall your rank would gradually decrease more and more until you were vey near the bottom of the ranking system.

I’m not saying you should go into matchmaking and just idle for more games to further your experiment.

#6

> 2533274821087387;5:
> A fairly simple test yes, but not a fair test, and not proof of anything.
>
> You carried out an experiment with only one roll of the dice. It’s like you flipped a coin once, it came up heads, and you said aha! It will always come up heads.
>
> You’re saying, “If I go into a game and don’t play, I will either win, lose, or tie; my rank will go up and down depending on the results of these games, independently of my actions”.
> In reality, you not playing does have effect on the game, your team will be more likely to lose. If you were to keep doing your experiment over 100 games, you would be more likely to lose each game, and lose a higher percentage of these games. Overall your rank would gradually decrease more and more until you were vey near the bottom of the ranking system.
>
> I’m not saying you should go into matchmaking and just idle for more games to further your experiment.

Yes, this wasn’t a fair test, but this isn’t about probability. This just tries to emphasize that when you win, you get rewarded. It doesn’t matter what you place. You will get rewarded, even if you did nothing. That was my point. Yes, if I repeated this, I probably would lose more and more. However, with games I would win where I did nothing, I would increase in rank. That is my point. Not “what happens if I continue to do nothing.”

#7

I don’t really like the ranking system - and I think its more because of the placement games. I miss the days of starting at 0 and working your way up the ranks in each playlist. The placement games take all the fun out of it. If I place in Diamond - It’s sort of like “great, I’m already where I want to be.” Maybe getting placed lower will give each ranked game that excitement back and the thrill of climbing the ranks?

#8

aint nobody got time for that

#9

> 2533274859413227;6:
> > 2533274821087387;5:
> > A fairly simple test yes, but not a fair test, and not proof of anything.
> >
> > You carried out an experiment with only one roll of the dice. It’s like you flipped a coin once, it came up heads, and you said aha! It will always come up heads.
> >
> > You’re saying, “If I go into a game and don’t play, I will either win, lose, or tie; my rank will go up and down depending on the results of these games, independently of my actions”.
> > In reality, you not playing does have effect on the game, your team will be more likely to lose. If you were to keep doing your experiment over 100 games, you would be more likely to lose each game, and lose a higher percentage of these games. Overall your rank would gradually decrease more and more until you were vey near the bottom of the ranking system.
> >
> > I’m not saying you should go into matchmaking and just idle for more games to further your experiment.
>
>
> Yes, this wasn’t a fair test, but the matter of the fact is that it gives the idea that you will be rewarded. The point is that if I do not have any effect on the game so long as the team I am on wins, I shouldn’t get rewarded. However, I did.

It doesn’t seem like you read what I said. The system is more mathematically complex than that.

The ranking system is a mechanical way to judge your performance over time. There is no human involved to judge your performance in each game, instead the machine makes its mind up about your performance over time, based on statistics.

Yes, you were rewarded, in the short term, but in the long term you would be punished with this approach.

#10

Also you’re assuming that you’re getting ranked up in gold league without doing anything, but in fact you had already played the game properly to get in to gold league.

If if you wanted to run this test fairly, you would have to start a new account and go through all your placement matches doing nothing. And you would get ranked bottom of the pile.

#11

> 2533274821087387;10:
> Also you’re assuming that you’re getting ranked up in gold league without doing anything, but in fact you had already played the game properly to get in to gold league.
>
> If if you wanted to run this test fairly, you would have to start a new account and go through all your placement matches doing nothing. And you would get ranked bottom of the pile.

I totally understand what you are saying. I do, I really do, but my problem is the short term issue. If I do poorly or do nothing, I should have a very little amount of rank increase at that moment, not have it gradually decrease over time. I do agree with you in the long term aspect, but what I am trying to argue is the short term aspect.

#12

> 2533274859413227;11:
> > 2533274821087387;10:
> > Also you’re assuming that you’re getting ranked up in gold league without doing anything, but in fact you had already played the game properly to get in to gold league.
> >
> > If if you wanted to run this test fairly, you would have to start a new account and go through all your placement matches doing nothing. And you would get ranked bottom of the pile.
>
>
> I totally understand what you are saying. I do, I really do, but my problem is the short term issue. If I do poorly or do nothing, I should have a very little amount of rank increase at that moment, not have it gradually decrease over time. I do agree with you in the long term aspect, but what I am trying to argue is the short term aspect.

But the short term is irrelevant. As far as estimating your skill is concerned, it doesn’t make a difference if you aren’t always punished for doing poorly. It doesn’t make the system any more accurate or faster in the long term, so there’s no point.

#13

> 2533274819848675;4:
> You’re right it is based strictly off of W/L and nothing else. The hard to explain comes in when I win 8 of 10 games in Breakout qualifying and end up in Gold 2. I know it’s based on competition but can you really control matchmaking? Our team rolled in our wins so it should’ve been higher than Gold. It’s things like that that leave people scratching their heads.

Wouldn’t this depend on who you win and lose against rather than how many wins you manage?

Win one match vs platinum quality players, lose 9 matches against onyx and champion players.

Think you deserve bronze after that?

Sounds the most logical to me that platinum or atleast gold would be an appropriate rank, even with only one win out of 10 matches.

> 2533274859413227;6:
> > 2533274821087387;5:
> > A fairly simple test yes, but not a fair test, and not proof of anything.
> >
> > You carried out an experiment with only one roll of the dice. It’s like you flipped a coin once, it came up heads, and you said aha! It will always come up heads.
> >
> > You’re saying, “If I go into a game and don’t play, I will either win, lose, or tie; my rank will go up and down depending on the results of these games, independently of my actions”.
> > In reality, you not playing does have effect on the game, your team will be more likely to lose. If you were to keep doing your experiment over 100 games, you would be more likely to lose each game, and lose a higher percentage of these games. Overall your rank would gradually decrease more and more until you were vey near the bottom of the ranking system.
> >
> > I’m not saying you should go into matchmaking and just idle for more games to further your experiment.
>
>
> Yes, this wasn’t a fair test, but this isn’t about probability. This just tries to emphasize that when you win, you get rewarded. It doesn’t matter what you place. You will get rewarded, even if you did nothing. That was my point. Yes, if I repeated this, I probably would lose more and more. However, with games I would win where I did nothing, I would increase in rank. That is my point. Not “what happens if I continue to do nothing.”

You did something.
-Distractions
-Drew enemies out
-Influenced spawns
-Perhaps acted as bait

For you to do nothing to influence a match, you are to not participate at all. You didn’t do poor enough to drag the team down to a loss.

#14

> 2533274821087387;5:
> A fairly simple test yes, but not a fair test, and not proof of anything.
>
> You carried out an experiment with only one roll of the dice. It’s like you flipped a coin once, it came up heads, and you said aha! It will always come up heads.
>
> You’re saying, “If I go into a game and don’t play, I will either win, lose, or tie; my rank will go up and down depending on the results of these games, independently of my actions”.
> In reality, you not playing does have effect on the game, your team will be more likely to lose. If you were to keep doing your experiment over 100 games, you would be more likely to lose each game, and lose a higher percentage of these games. Overall your rank would gradually decrease more and more until you were vey near the bottom of the ranking system.
>
> I’m not saying you should go into matchmaking and just idle for more games to further your experiment.

That’s not necessarily true. My K/D is under one, so if I were to hang back and do nothing, i would probably die less increasing my teams chances of victory

#15

> 2533274859413227;11:
> > 2533274821087387;10:
> > Also you’re assuming that you’re getting ranked up in gold league without doing anything, but in fact you had already played the game properly to get in to gold league.
> >
> > If if you wanted to run this test fairly, you would have to start a new account and go through all your placement matches doing nothing. And you would get ranked bottom of the pile.
>
>
> I totally understand what you are saying. I do, I really do, but my problem is the short term issue. If I do poorly or do nothing, I should have a very little amount of rank increase at that moment, not have it gradually decrease over time. I do agree with you in the long term aspect, but what I am trying to argue is the short term aspect.

I see what you’re saying, and I agree to a point.

Let’s look at team based ranking vs individual ranking for a second:

If you look at the Halo 3 ranking system, you’ve got a system that bases your rank off team wins and losses: you go up when the team wins, and down when it loses. The result is a potentially frustrating and slow ranking experience, as if you are a skilled player you can be stuck playing with less skilled players for longer; it can take longer for your individual skill to be rewarded (statistically).

In Halo: Reach’s ranking system, the system ranks you based on individual merit more: You go up when your team wins, and down when they lose, but if you are on the losing team and you have a high K/D, you go down less than your other team members, and if you are on the winning team and have a high K/D, you go up more than your other team members. The result is a faster ranking experience: if you are a skilled player, you can rise up the ranks faster than in Halo 3, and your individual skill is recognised more quickly. But, players are being rewarded on individual merit in a team game; the system is encouraging selfish play, not team play. The game is also rewarding more aggressive players and punishing the more passive players, when in reality the teams performance is not just dependent on this (other details are getting missed).

In Halo 5, it seems there is a combination of team based and individual ranking. During the placement matches, you are judged on individual performance as well as team performance, allowing a skilled player to be rewarded quickly and placed straight into Diamond league for example, without having to climb the slow ladder we had in Halo 3, and from that point, they stop being judged on individual skill, and team performance is the only factor for them ranking up or down. Once the placement matches are complete, theoretically the better, more serious games can be had, between players of similar skill level. Team play is encouraged, not individual, selfish play.

For that reason, I think the Halo 5 ranking system is a great one. The placement matches allow you to quickly get placed near your skill level, and then all subsequent matches allow the statistics to kick in and slowly fine tune your ranking over multiple games. This model of ranking system is sensible, and is also highly successful and previously tested. Look at Starcraft 2 for example, where this type of ranking system has been going strong for years.

#16

> 2533274927650671;14:
> > 2533274821087387;5:
> > A fairly simple test yes, but not a fair test, and not proof of anything.
> >
> > You carried out an experiment with only one roll of the dice. It’s like you flipped a coin once, it came up heads, and you said aha! It will always come up heads.
> >
> > You’re saying, “If I go into a game and don’t play, I will either win, lose, or tie; my rank will go up and down depending on the results of these games, independently of my actions”.
> > In reality, you not playing does have effect on the game, your team will be more likely to lose. If you were to keep doing your experiment over 100 games, you would be more likely to lose each game, and lose a higher percentage of these games. Overall your rank would gradually decrease more and more until you were vey near the bottom of the ranking system.
> >
> > I’m not saying you should go into matchmaking and just idle for more games to further your experiment.
>
>
> That’s not necessarily true. My K/D is under one, so if I were to hang back and do nothing, i would probably die less increasing my teams chances of victory

“until you were very near the bottom of the ranking system”

#17

I agree. K/D should have an impact if you rank up or not. When you see diamond players going 2-13 and still ranking up, there’s a problem.

#18

> 2533274970658419;17:
> I agree. K/D should have an impact if you rank up or not. When you see diamond players going 2-13 and still ranking up, there’s a problem.

They might have had a bad game, but they are still Diamond rank players or thereabouts.

And maybe it was their first time playing that map, maybe they just had a headache, maybe they are drunk?

In this case, they have been rewarded in the short term, but if they continue to play badly, they will be punished in the long term.

#19

I’ve had faith in the ranking system from the start even though I wish it was based more on individual performance but something the other day tested my faith a good bit. Me and three of my friends played team arena to all get ranked. None of us played a game in it yet. One of my friends just got the game the other day so he was not good to say the least. Meanwhile my other friend was on a tear that day at the top or near the top of the stats in all 10 games while my noob friend averaged a -10 k/d and was consistently the worst of us four. My noob friend ended up with a silver 6 and my other friend that played out of his mind got a silver 3. I had a similar performance being right behind my better friend every game but got a gold 6. So with all that, I’ve become throughly confused with their system and I’d like it if they at least gave us more insight on how the system works. Don’t get me wrong, I think the system, when everyone is ranked, works great. The most close games I’ve had in any fps, but I feel like there should be a more individualistic, straightforward way of ranking.

#20

A buddy and I play a lot of Holiday doubles and both got ranked at the same time. Same amount of wins, same amount of losses, but I ranked two ranks down from what he got ranked. Its confusing bc I thought it went off of wins and losses as well. Maybe when you are qualifying for a rank its different? not sure. I like the ranking system, I don’t see any issues with it at all. Good job 343i.