Ranked CSR Changes

Games Halo Infinite
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(TL:DR at bottom)

Heya! I’ve been playing a lot of Ranked games lately, and I have a few things to say about it.

First off, I’ll give a bit of background on me. Feel free to skip this paragraph. At the time of me writing this, I have 132 hours clocked on Halo Infinite. I play with mouse and keyboard (I know, I know, everyone uses controller, but I prefer M&K). I have played Halo Infinite pretty much daily for about 5 or 6 weeks now, with maybe 2 or 3 weeks of that being mostly ranked games. My initial ranked placement was Silver 6 (I think?). I have also been playing the past 3-4 weeks with a broken wrist (In a cast for 2 or so weeks and currently playing with a brace on my mouse hand), so I’m aware that I am doing worse than I would be if I hadn’t broken my wrist, but most of my grievances are independent of that.

Second of all, ranking up. I am not a big fan of the way that you gain CSR. From what I can tell, CSR is mostly gained through having a very good K/D. As someone who struggles with getting kills, this is obviously less than ideal. It also doesn’t make sense to me why kills are the main way to rank up CSR when the majority of the game modes are objective-based. Kill-based CSR gains make sense for Slayer, but for the rest, CSR gains should be based largely on objective time, as that is how the game is won. I’m not suggesting that K/D be ignored in objective-based matches, but that objective time in objective-based matches is counted the same as K/D in Slayer matches. I often finish ranked games with a negative K/D, but close to 1/3 of the match time on the objective or with lots of captures or steals, and even when winning a game, I find that I only get 1-3 CSR for that game.

I also think that CSR gain should be adjusted based on the skill of your opponents. Too often have I found myself (Low Gold) playing matches against High Plats or Diamonds and been able to hold my own decently well, regardless of the ranks of my teammates. To get such a small amount of CSR when consistently going against players much higher ranked than me is a real demoralizing experience. I know I’m no where near the best player out there, but it’s hard to see the progress when losing a match puts you so far back as well. It really pains me to see Ranked favor kills while players who are really good at supporting (objective holds, flag/ball carrying, softening opponents, etc) go unnoticed.

Another thing I have noticed is the blatant unbalance of Ranked matches when players leave. I haven’t noticed it as much recently, but I can recall several times where I have been in a match and two players have left, causing it to be a 4v2. Only once have I seen a team of two win against a team of four. I have been on both sides of that, and it becomes super demoralizing when you know you have a very slim chance of winning. It would be nice if the game ended without impacting CSR after two players on the same team leave. If that wouldn’t work, it would be nice if the team of two’s CSR is not affected by the match (I mean, come on. What else are we supposed to do? Leave? If you do that too much, CSR is affected)

I’m sure that with the new CSR fireteam limits, that some of this will be somewhat better, but honestly, I don’t have high hopes. What I am hoping for, however, is for 343 to make changes to how CSR is attained.

TL:DR-

  • CSR gain should favor objective times/captures/steals/returns/defends for objective-based game modes (the majority of Ranked modes)
  • Adjust CSR gain based on skill of opponents (low Gold playing against a team of high Plats/Diamonds should get more CSR, High Diamond playing against a team of Golds should get less CSR, etc)
  • 4v2 Ranked games should either be ended with no impact on CSR, or the CSR for the team of two should be unaffected
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CSR changes depend on;

  1. The result; goes up for a win and down for a loss.
  2. The opposition; the bigger the upset the bigger the change.
  3. The pull of your MMR; it moves faster towards it and slower away.

It has nothing to do with your personal performance. It’s not how it worked in Halo 5 and we’ve seen nothing to suggest anything has changed. And in another thread I showed over the course of 500 games that CSR change was very poorly correlated to all the measured performance metrics.

https://forums.halowaypoint.com/t/csr-gains-and-losses/519566

Your MMR is influenced by kills per minute and (to a lesser extent) deaths per minute.

Microsoft went back over millions of games of Halo 5 and found that none of the other metrics added any value to rank prediction. Some even made it worse! And they looked at pretty much everything; kills, deaths, assists, K/D, KDA, damage, objective scores, medals, etc.

It’s not saying those things aren’t important. Just that they are reflected in the result.

And when it boils down. The hardest and most important skill in Halo is winning a 1v1. If you can’t beat an Onyx player head to head 50% of the time, you aren’t Onyx.

If you want to rank up you have to get better at killing. Josh Menke once said that anyone can carry the flag from A to B, and that the real skill was clearing the path for them to do it.

The good players play both the objective AND the enemy.

TBH. I think players start to fall into the objective role when they start to drift out of their depth skill wise. I often play with my kids (who are a division or more higher than me) and I have to hold the skull because at that level of play they are much, MUCH, better at killing than I am.

Again, CSR is not based on kills or objective score. If you are only getting a few points then it’s because you just beat a team of similar or lower rank, or your MMR and CSR are pretty much equal.

There is a weighting for kills per minute on your MMR. So if you were pumping those tyres you could push your MMR up a bit and that would pull a bit harder on your CSR in your next game?

It is based on your relative skill.

But keep in mind that “holding your own” is pretty much kills per minute.

And it’s not about smashing players lower than you. It’s about matching the rank you aspire to. eg. If you want to be Diamond you have to maintain a kpm of 1.5-1.7 vs Diamond players.

It doesn’t go unnoticed. If you don’t win then you don’t get any CSR!

But if you want to rank up you have to play both the objective AND the enemy.

Shouldn’t affect your MMR much. And CSR will only drop harshly if your CSR had drifted above your MMR. And I’m not saying it’s not frustrating when that happens. But the damage to your MMR should be minimal.

I get this. As a proud objective player I really do. But the evidence (millions of data points) is that individual objective play does not reflect skill rank.

CSR does do this. MMR definitely does. But it’s based on the MMR value, not the CSR (which tends to be conservative).

TrueSkill2 treats a quit as a loss. So it hurts those who quit.

Unfortunately, to stop people cheating, it has to penalise everyone on the team. Thankfully, it’s minimal. If your MMR and CSR are stable then it’s usually only -3 points.