Ranked Play Is Busted [FEEDBACK]

Games Halo Infinite
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#1

Hey all, Onyx The Wolf here again!

Today I wanted to discuss the progression within ranked play, as it seems to be grossly misbalanced in terms of how it decides how much progress you get toward your next rank.

First off, I’ve noticed that the higher you are on the leaderboard in terms of score on the winning team, the more progress you make. This by itself IMO, is not a bad system. Moreover, if you do well, and you lose, you are not penalized as harshly as people who did not do well. also fine.

All that said, there is a huge glaring issue with the way score is built up in matches, in that, the more kills you have, the higher your score will be, even if you never touched an objective. This leads to rather confusing looking leaderboards as, in example, a guy who has no kills in oddball but carried the ball the entire time, will end up in bottom ranking in terms of score, because the rest of his team was playing slayer while he held the ball, and will be correspondently be rewarded very little progress toward the next rank, even though he spent the whole match playing the objective.

In my humble opinion, the ONLY game mode that kills by themselves should matter in terms of your score placement on a leader board, is Slayer. Here are some changes I would make in order to better incentivize objective play in those modes, I will not be giving raw numbers, just conceptual structuring.

Oddball:
1: Remove the kill counter from the scoreboard entirely and remove score rewards for getting kills on the leaderboard
2: Make time holding the ball the primary means of scoring high in the game
3: Reward Defending the ball carrier whether it be in the form of staying near the carrier, or killing enemies while standing near the carrier, and of course, killing enemies directly attacking the ball carrier
4: Offer progressively increasing amounts of points for holding the ball concurrently without dropping it.
5: Record ball carrier kills and ball carrier kill assists on leader board and offer score accordingly.

Capture the Flag:
1: Remove the kill counter from the scoreboard entirely and remove score rewards for getting kills on the leaderboard
2: Reward defending the flag carrier by killing enemies who are attacking the carrier
3: Reward escorting the flag carrier by granting score for every second you are standing near the carrier, using a radius 50-100% larger than the flag reset radius (based on game feel) as your escort zone
4: Record flag carrier and flag carrier assists on leader board and offer score accordingly.
5: Reward skillful play like flag juggling by granting points for capturing a flag inside a certain time frame to all players who held the flag during this time
6: Reward Points for being the only carrier of the flag and not dropping it.

Zone Control:
1: Remove the kill counter from the scoreboard entirely and remove score rewards for getting kills on the leaderboard
2: Reward more score for capturing a zone.
3: Reward more points for securing a zone (resetting the capture progress) than you would get for capturing it
4: Reward points for killing enemies attempting to capture a zone.
EDIT: 5: Reward killing enemies while capturing a zone.

That’s all i have for right now, look forward to hearing thoughts, and ideas, and discussion.

See y’all starside!

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#2

Eh, for oddball, keeping the enemy team dead is just as useful - if not more so - as directly protecting the oddballer. With fewer attackers (since it’s an easy target and easily bombarded), it’s more likely for your team to stay alive if you’re taking would-be attackers by surprise. Killing is always a tactical advantage, and it’s pretty obvious when you get into a 3v4 what consistently having one man up does for the team.

I didn’t really read beyond that point, distracted

#3

Killing is useful, yes. but when killing becomes the primary metric for which people rank up, that is a problem. what good is a 40-10 K/D if your team never had the ball? this results in a kill farm on objective modes, hell the fact that ranked wants a good K/D AMPLIFIES this issue

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#4

Some good ideas but i dont agree removing the kill counter entirely. I had a problem that if enemies leave and we play 4 vs 3 and win the match, i’m losing my rank level even if i played well, seems abit odd.

#5

there is a reason I suggested offering score for actively defending objectives and objective carriers. its basically changing where you focus your killing.

protecting the flag carrier by killing or assisting in killing someone nearby or actively attacking them is a lot more valuable than playing slayer and hoping someone gets a flag cap for your team.

basically, objective modes should be about teamwork, and teamwork should be rewarded over personal stats in a ranked setting.

#6

True, although the K/D thing will never go away. Also this is largely a problem because of the playlists.
That being said, they could always give MORE points for things like holding the ball, defending the carrier, etc. I just don’t think getting rid of kill incentives is the way.

#7

Not only these, but what about the people the ranked games are matching you against. I played against the #38 player in open crossplay… and I’m not even onyx yet. Where’s the balance in that?

#8

if you read carefully, you would notice that im not suggesting get rid of kill incentives, im suggesting centering kill incentives around the objectives.

in zone control you could even add killing enemies while capturing a zone as a score modifier.

#9

And I’m saying add those in addition to kill incentives. If someone goes 40-0 because they’re killing the entire enemy squad before they even have the chance to get near your baller, they deserve to be rewarded for that. Your idea encourages playing oddball a specific way, namely chilling around the ball in a group, which is A legitimate strategy but not the ONLY effective strategy (and often ends by being bombarded into a team wipe).

Sometimes playing the objective doesn’t mean holding it yourself or staying right next to it. Sometimes it means just keeping the other team dead.

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#10

[This is a message in Onyx’s Stead - because Waypoint “is dumb”]

and on that, we agree. the problem is that as it stands, playing the objective is literally the least rewarding method of playing ranked objective modes. you get frack all for progress for playing objectives, but if you drop a 40 bomb and die 5 times, you go up in rank.

the other way to fix this issue is if your team wins, your progress goes up proportionately to how much you won by, and vice-versa if you lose.

i understand that the heart of the issue is that 343 has attempted rewarding leaderboard placement, but if they are going to do that, there needs to be some structure to how leaderboard is attained in objective modes.

#11

Sure, but that’s easily corrected by increasing scoring for playing the objective like you said. In ADDITION to normal killing. Not as a replacement.

For example, it’s better to kill someone before they even get the chance to begin capturing a zone than it is to kill them on it and then secure it. But you do need to be rewarded for making that happen as well.

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#12

i can see this. objective-based kills need to be FAR more incentivized than just raw killing. seeing as the objective should be the focus of an objective type gamemode.

and the reason i am so insistent about this is because kill farming has been a constant problem with objective modes. and while these changes may not necessarily be the thing that fixes that, i have too many times seen someone get dozens of kills in an objective mode and the team still loses because they refuse to actually play the objective.

and for the people who come to play objective modes to yknow. . . play an objective. . . this becomes a real slap in the face in ranked when you’re rewarded for essentially avoiding the objective and kill farming.

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