Ranked Matchmaking will be based on CSR instead of MMR

Games Halo Infinite
22

I guess it would be very easy to use both. Just weighted enough towards the CSR that you can use the term “primarily”.

And I don’t think it would necessarily make a huge difference to most people - when your MMR and CSR tend to stay pretty close anyway.

Where it may feel strange is for some people in game modes where your MMR is an outlier from your CSR (which follows the average of all your modal MMRs). The classic example would be someone who tends to excel in Slayer (higher MMR in this mode than their CSR) or someone who isn’t into team communication and is poor at CTF (lower MMR than CSR).

And I don’t think the ranking system wants that either. “Upsets” vs “belief” are the core of how it works.

What would be interesting is letting the two teams know before the match who is the favourite and by roughly how much. I’m sure the benefits would be outweighed by quitters though.

As I mentioned in a previous post… the general population doesn’t care about educating themselves into the how and why. As soon as we get the first match with players getting unequal amounts of CSR we’ll be straight back into post after post about “KD is all that matters” or “Objective players are ignored”.

:frowning:

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23

i think its going to be same csr per win unless i imagined it.

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24

“What would be interesting is letting the two teams know before the match who is the favorite and by roughly how much. I’m sure the benefits would be outweighed by quitters though.”

If people knew their chance of winning/losing before going in it might negatively affect the team’s confidence in winning the match if the game gives them a low chance, kind of like a self-fulfilling prophecy.

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25

I don’t care WHAT my CSR is, I just want to know how players will oscillate after matches. I think a consistent (exact same) number after a win loss will let me put my tin foil hat away finally

26

i was just thinking, in order for a back up system to work, it would have to take a snapshot of your mmr when you were winning too much and then stick to that mmr snapshot forever. The only way to use a new snapshot is if you lose too many matches or start winning too many matches.

hmmm. something like if you win 7 out of 10 matches, you get a new mmr snapshot. You lose 7 out of 10 matches, you get a new mmr snapshot. basically your matchmaking mmr stays the same forever or it could change every 10 games based on your wins.

The only way to start matchmaking based on csr again is if you are winning 6 out of 10 games until your csr meets your mmr snapshot.

i think i cracked the code. This goes in reverse too. if you lose 4 out of 10 games, you will derank csr slowly until it meets your mmr snapshhot when you were losing too much. its like a perfect system unless i’m overlooking something.

this also naturally controls win rate between 40% and 60% so that no one is losing or winning too much unless your god or a person with no thumbs.

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27

You would be surprised how many layers a tin foil hat can have.

That -yoink- is like onions.

That seems like a waste of the MMR. It can detect changes in form (or smurfing type behaviour) in one or two games.

But of course it can be left to be volatile (like Halo 5 and Infinite) or made more static (like Halo 3). It’s all about the sigma value. If 343 allow it to fall then the MMR won’t jump around as much - and it will be easier for the CSR to match it. You just wont get the match making adjustments to form and/or personal mode bias that we have now.

The easiest control overall is to manage the rate of change in CSR. And that has kind of been the role of the CSR all along - to provide a smoother journey.

But 343 stuffed up the narrative. Woefully.

We’ll have to wait and see how they are going to support this iteration. The danger of course is people are going to be frustrated by their rank. It’s hard to accept that you have a limit. And a plateau.

And you can’t rank up on the basis of beating a side ranked below you. At least not significantly. Even if you have a day out on whatever metric you hold personally dear to you.

If that’s not clearly explained - and 343 continue to encourage the weird concept of “grinding” your skill rank - people are going to get upset and frustrated. And the tin foil hats will come out again. In force.

It’s all on 343 and how they continue to have an open dialogue.

We desperately need a Josh Menke type here to Q&A us as we go.

I would be delighted if they have found a way to make CSR gains and losses more consistent. And I emphasise the losses. Because what upset people was grinding up and then falling back. The better way is to have the ups balanced with the downs.

The reality is we all should be much the same rank as we have been in the past. Maybe a bit or up or down (there will be winners or losers). But Gold and Platinum players aren’t magically going to be Onyx.

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28

yeah they should still have that smurfing detection after 1 or 2 games. its possible to have both systems. a backup for a backup

if you get the same amount of csr per win for everyone in every match in this new system then the system that i described is what manages it.

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29

Oh I’ve learned how to quiet the voices… it’s the realization that I am always right and they are always wrong… although the voices still come back saying it’s everything else’s fault especially that hidden mmr :wink:

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30

Location/ping? That even if for a EU-player a match on a US-server would fit a little better with their CSR, they will still get the EU-server match, because the lower ping outweighs the otherwise slightly lesser CSR difference?

31

If you needed to weight for ping you could do it just as easily on the MMR. And likely with better accuracy / constitency.

Different populations will have different rankings. A 1500 on one server may be different to a 1500 on another.

And then they may well be very different on other sides of the world.

Matching more on CSR may expose those differences.

32

the system i wrote is kinda flawed. you can essentially get to onyx winning 6 out of 10 matches based on a low mmr snapshot that wouldnt change which is a huge flaw. In order to work, it would also have to be a new mmr snapshot if you win 6 out of 10, -when- you have a -lower mmr snapshot than your csr-.

On the other hand, if you lose 6 out of 10 -when- you have a -higher mmr snapshot than your csr- then you would need a new mmr snaphot so that you also cant do the opposite which would be reach bronze csr with a high mmr snapshot. sorry if im boring you with this.

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33

343: Great news! Your ranked MM will now be based on your ranking!

Everyone else: Uuuhhh… seriously? This should have been happening this whole time…:face_with_raised_eyebrow:

34

I just read through it again. I couldn’t find a reference in that regard.

I might be a bit distracted by the cricket though :slight_smile:

The CSR and MMR need to stay connected. So I can’t see how everyone can gain or lose the same amount of CSR.

What 343 need to do is add clear explanations to the game - so there is so ambiguity to why you did or didn’t rank up.

The thing is though… for most people, most of the time, the MMR and CSR are about the same.

So it shouldn’t feel hugely different?

Except where someone is flying or struggling with form. Whereas they used to be matched vs opponents adjusted to match your form - now you are locked to your CSR.

So if you are having a bad afternoon (and remember people’s form commonly swings by over 100 points) you are going to be stuck matched vs your CSR, extend your losing streak, and potentially de-rank faster.

The upside, of course, is that you may also rank up faster if you hit a vein of good form.

Swings and roundabouts. What you gain in clarity of CSR on each team you lose in mismatching accuracy of the MMR.

It will be very interesting to see how it all pans out.

I’ve set up my spreadsheet already… :slight_smile:

35

My system only lets your csr wander off so far from your mmr before it starts to auto correct and make them meet again. The whole point of the system is the illusion. It makes winning the most important goal. At the moment as 343 said, its too focused on personal performance which encourages bad behaviour and it only takes 1 bad apple to ruin a team. Also when someone is a bad apple, it means they have an unreliable mmr which hurts matchmaking even more.

36

The current system already stops the CSR from wandering off.

I can see what you are trying to do… but you are taking extra steps to get there.

Which I’ve never really understood. Why does 343 feel like they have to hide things?

Just explain things clearly.

Let us access the information we need to make sense of our rank. Eg. graphs of MMR vs games. And KPM vs opponent MMR. And so on.

It already is.

The misconception that it’s not is on 343.

They are the ones that encourage grinding CSR without clearly giving context on how each win affects the MMR.

They didn’t really need to change the system a whole lot - just explain the current one more clearly.

I fear they will just throw this one out there, with no actual explanation, and we will be back to square one very quickly.

If that is actually true, all they had to do was decrease the weighting for KPM.

The only thing that is currently encouraging bad behaviour is fake news. We know KD doesn’t matter. Never has. Yet it continues.

How does this update change things?

Have 343 specifically said KD is irrelevant? Have they made any effort to explain KPM and how it affects MMR. Have they actually detailed how the MMR is going to work with the CSR?

Nope. The devil is the details. And we don’t have a lot.

The MMR is always going to be a more reliable indicator of form than the CSR.

We know form can vary a lot. And CSR is limited in how much it can change per game. So you are going to get more good and bad apples in each team because the CSR isn’t going to reflect those changes in form.

In most games it will probably even out. But you aren’t suddenly going to get everyone performing as advertised by their CSR.

It will be interesting to see how it pans out.

37

Its really simple. winning does not matter because losing does not matter. Players know if you perform well in a losing match, you can keep your rank steady. This mentality in the first place could be what causes your team to lose. bad behaviour. winning is what needs to be on players minds when the going gets tough. Not being worried if they play terrible with risky plays trying to go for the win.

38

Again. A misconception that could have been easily cleared by more communication from 343.

Or actual access to our MMR over time.

Sure. If you lose with a solid KPM you will lose less MMR. That can “protect” your fall.

But also, that’s very hard to do unless you are actually relatively skilled.

And on the same token, winning with a low KPM would also gain you less MMR.

So the weighting. And it is only a weighting. Works in both directions.

But people were convinced it was all about KD or KDA. And protecting that is actually toxic. It’s kind of hard to not smash a KPM and not actually carry the team (even in objective games).

343 needs better communication;

  1. KPM is not the same as KD. Not by a long shot.
  2. It is only a weighting.
  3. Winning (against better teams) is still the primary key to ranking up.

And today’s update still doesn’t clarify how KPM affects your MMR. Or how your MMR affects your CSR. So things may not have changed that much?

39

So don’t get me wrong.

I welcome any potential improvements to the system.

But there are still so many details we don’t know. And I’ll guess we’ll have to see how it plays out.

And it’s not to say 343 won’t have to tweak parameters as they go to get the overall effect they are looking for. So be prepared for it to not quite work as well as it should out of the gate.

What I want to know;

  • has the MMR volatility (minimum sigma?) changed at all?
  • how does the MMR keep the CSR under control?
  • has the KPM weighting changed?
  • have any other personal metrics been added or removed?
40

only takes one bad apple. teams consist of a variety of skills.

This is about people gaming the system and getting high kpm during wins and losses. you havent proved that winning matters EVERY game.

41

I’m just not sure how the new system curtails that.

It doesn’t.

I’m not sure what I’m supposed to “prove”.

You can read the TrueSkill2 paper - where it details that KPM is just a weighting.

The focus on ranking is still the same. Beat teams ranked above you. Lose to teams ranked below you. It’s literally how ELO type systems are defined. And on which TrueSkill is based.

It is theoretically possible to lose the game but have a high enough KPM to push your MMR up. But that’s only if your MMR is suitably volatile (eg. placement) and your KPM is exceptional (you really are a big fish is a very small pond). The problem is that 343 once mentioned it could happen and now everyone thinks that it’s the “norm”.

The key is KPM is just a weighting. Set specifically to speed up the ranking process. Faster, not higher.

And it works specifically because you can’t game it. Try and get a good KPM vs a team that is ranked the same or above you. You can’t. Because it reflects your 1v1 ability vs your opponent. The idea is that a Diamond playing Diamond has the same KPM as an Onyx playing an Onyx.

If you are genuinely that rank. And playing against that rank. Your KPM will fall naturally into that cadence.

As opposed to KD, KDA, K-D etc. All of which can be gamed. It is possible to play in a way to farm your KD, even against better opponents. But usually to the detriment of the team.

And that’s what we need to stamp out.

And again. Without clear communication from 343 it won’t take long before someone notices a team mate with a higher KD get more CSR points than they did. Cue a long thread about woe is me. And we are right back where we started.

It’s so frustrating.

If people just played the game properly. As a team. To win. The world would be a happier place.

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