Hello Community,
This thread will be a discussion on the current iteration of the Halo 5: Guardians competitive skill ranking (CSR) system during the qualifying phases of each season (ie the first 10 matches you finish). It will address what is right, wrong and everything in-between about the system, as well as everything that is not technically or directly involved with the CSR system but holds weight over the ending result like the connection, population and servers etc. This thread is merely to acknowledge the practices involved but also inform 343 Industries of possibly alternate ways to improve the system put in place.
Current Iteration of the CSR System
> **First Season -**A new player who has not played in any other season will not have a hidden skill rank (or rather they have one but it is technically unranked), due to this the player will play his ten qualifying matches against low - mid ranked players, which usually results in Bronze 1 - Platinum 6 ranking, based off how the matches and player progressed and finished.
>
> **Continuing Seasons -**A player who has played in previous seasons will have a hidden skill rank, which is the retaining rank from previous seasons and dictates who they will compete against in their qualification matches (ie finished Diamond last season, player will verse platinums, diamonds and onyxs in the qualifiers etc.), based off how the matches and player progressed and finished, they will be ranked accordingly.
Now I have found that two issues lie ahead:
- I don’t see any problem with the continuing season CSR system but the new season CSR system is flawed. The fact that new players who could be coming from older Halo’s can only be placed as high as Platinum 6, even if they are competing quite well, is not a skilled system… there needs to be an allowance of qualifying higher.
- Now being a year and a bit past development, Halo 5: Guardians has suffered a population drop and may continue to? The idea behind this is that the system needs to be able to find players fast and in a larger pool base for lobbies.
For example, rather than thinning the population across all six ranking tiers where matches take significantly longer to fill lobbies, why not just dilute them a little more at the higher ends… the idea is that even though they technically shouldn’t be there based off skill from when the population was high, they still are at the bottom of the ranks…
ie Diamond 1 - Bronzes, D2 - Silvers, D3 - Golds, D4 - Platinums, D5 & D6 - Diamonds, Onyx - as usual etc.
This would vastly improve the search times in matches, and the above is a tightened example but it would spread itself out based off skill.
Then you’d run into the people complaining out Diamond level guys roflstomping the Bronzes.
> 2576836393959214;3:
> Then you’d run into the people complaining out Diamond level guys roflstomping the Bronzes.
Sorry wasn’t quite finished yet… got tired.
> 2576836393959214;3:
> Then you’d run into the people complaining out Diamond level guys roflstomping the Bronzes.
Okay I didn’t really explain it that well, will try to show you better. 
Now that players can rank back down tiers for losses there is really no reason at all for the monthly resets. For the vast majority of players if the system is working correctly and you play once in a while your rank will be where it should be. Why reset it? The only reason to do it is to artificially slap players down a couple tiers to give them incentive to play their way back to their proper rank. I believe this has the opposite effect of discouraging players into dropping the game. Champion is a different story. CSR there is often based on time played rather than skill and it gets so high that it becomes unattainable even for players who are actually better than the top Champs. So under the current system CSR would need to be reset back to 1700 each month (similar to the current 1200/Plat 6 limit for brand new players).
I don’t see anything wrong with a Plat 6 limit on a brand new player (smurfs excluded, but how can they tell?). The learning curve for H5 is quite steep and a player would have to be experienced at other Halos or multiple FPS, spend a ton of time in customs, tutorials and unranked practice to jump into ranked for the very first time and get high Diamond or Onyx. My issue is that rank should be skill based rather than on a point system that rewards time in game and playing in groups (both designed to artificially increase population). Factors to look at are weapons used, shot accuracy, KDA, objective goals, etc. If that’s what 343 is looking at with the hidden MMR I just don’t understand why it’s hidden. They know who the most skilled players are are, but they don’t tell us and those players don’t get that satisfaction. Kinda sucks tbh. Instead of an honest number system we get flashy, jewelry stuck on a competitive ‘skill’ rank that doesn’t make sense or even match up well in game. Skill based ranks would also go a long way toward fixing the solo que issue or at least making it easier to implement a solo vs team que because players who get carried wouldn’t end up playing way above their skill level.
I actually believe the system looks at whether you run as a team in your placements, especially in TA. I’ve noticed that a squad that does ten placements together can lose quite a bit and get higher ranks than solo players who win most games at the top of the leaderboard. The current system seems solely designed to motivate group play and lots of time in game.
> 2533274873172929;1:
> Hello Community,
> This thread will be a discussion on the current iteration of the Halo 5: Guardians competitive skill ranking (CSR) system during the qualifying phases of each season (ie the first 10 matches you finish). It will address what is right, wrong and everything in-between about the system, as well as everything that is not technically or directly involved with the CSR system but holds weight over the ending result like the connection, population and servers etc. This thread is merely to acknowledge the practices involved but also inform 343 Industries of possibly alternate ways to improve the system put in place.
>
> Current Iteration of the CSR System
>
> > **First Season -***A new player who has not played in any other season will not have a hidden skill rank (or rather they have one but it is technically unranked), due to this the player will play his ten qualifying matches against low - mid ranked players, which usually results in Bronze 1 - Platinum 6 ranking, based off how the matches and player progressed and finished.***Continuing Seasons -**A player who has played in previous seasons will have a hidden skill rank, which is the retaining rank from previous seasons and dictates who they will compete against in their qualification matches (ie finished Diamond last season, player will verse platinums, diamonds and onyxs in the qualifiers etc.), based off how the matches and player progressed and finished, they will be ranked accordingly.
>
> Now I have found that two issues lie ahead:
> - I don’t see any problem with the continuing season CSR system but the new season CSR system is flawed. The fact that new players who could be coming from older Halo’s can only be placed as high as Platinum 6, even if they are competing quite well, is not a skilled system… there needs to be an allowance of qualifying higher. - Now being a year and a bit past development, Halo 5: Guardians has suffered a population drop and may continue to? The idea behind this is that the system needs to be able to find players fast and in a larger pool base for lobbies.
>
> For example, rather than thinning the population across all six ranking tiers where matches take significantly longer to fill lobbies, why not just dilute them a little more at the higher ends… the idea is that even though they technically shouldn’t be there based off skill from when the population was high, they still are at the bottom of the ranks…
> ie Diamond 1 - Bronzes, D2 - Silvers, D3 - Golds, D4 - Platinums, D5 & D6 - Diamonds, Onyx - as usual etc.
> This would vastly improve the search times in matches, and the above is a tightened example but it would spread itself out based off skill.
How much has the population decreased? It would be a good idea for 343i to start adding new objective modes to spice up the game. Like king of the hill, oddball, juggernaut, vip, and more. Maybe to attract new people to buy the game they can make like a bundle deal where they get the game plus 10 free gold packs to start off. I love the Halo franchise and would like for it to become the “king” of first person shooters again.
With the ranking and the lower population maybe we need to redefine what would be considered a high rank among the remaining players.