Ranked System - The Good, The Bad, and the (possible) Solution

[JMertz22]

I have only won 11 out of my last 40 games since finally breaking back into Diamond 1. This is a 27.5% win rate. Over these last 40 games, my net CSR loss is 19. This obviously makes me very happy with the system. It recognizes that I’m at the rank I’m supposed to be, or below it, so it is minimizing my losses. Of these 29 losses, there were 9 instances where I lost zero CSR (this even includes a few DNFs). I could, in theory, get back to a net positive with 2 wins. Look at my HaloDataHive profile (JMertz22) to see just how crazy this looks.

Most people only see the inverse of this, and are rightly upset. If I won 72.5% over a 40 game sample, I’d be quite upset if I only gained 19 CSR. The worst part is that this could be wiped with 2 losses, leaving you net negative over a stretch where you won 69% (nice) of your games. This is what most are experiencing, and is the cause of most of the frustration with the system. We need to find a way to eliminate this frustration.

I’ve seen @Darwi suggest that they get rid of the CSR “number” and just show what Tier and Division you are in. While this would clear up the game-by-game frustration of trying to understand your gains/losses, I do like being able to see just how close I am to ranking up or down. I don’t want that to go away. What I’d like to suggest instead, is for the system to stop limiting your CSR gains on wins and CSR losses from defeats. I recognize that this would make my current streak very frustrating as I’d likely be back to at least Plat 2 or 3, but I also recognize that once I get back into winning form, I can jump back up. The inverse to this is, of course, that you would get rewarded during your winning streaks (as you should!) and then naturally come back down as you play tougher opponents and lose a few.

Naturally, this means your CSR could drift even more wildly from your MMR. Perhaps matchmaking could average your CSR and MMR, and match your games based on the midpoint between the two. This would mean that if you’re on a losing streak like I am now, you would gradually play weaker and weaker opponents until you can string together some wins and bring your CSR back up. If you lose these games, your MMR drops as a result. Inversely, if you get on a heater, you will gradually play better and better opponents until you begin to lose and bring your CSR back down. If you keep winning these tougher games, your MMR goes up. Not drastically different from what we have now, but can help alleviate the frustrations players currently have with the system. I feel like a sign of a big problem is that players who are winning are frustrated with a system that keeps them down, while players who are losing such as myself, are happy with the system that holds them up. The winners should be happy and the losers should be frustrated, this is backwards.

[xSnarfblat]

I feel as if we should know that if we win we go up x number of points and if we lose we go down y number. Same every time. Predictable and fun. The current system parallels schizophrenia

[Raansu]

As long as unranked is calculated into your MMR the ranked scene is going to continue to be a mess. Not that I care though since there’s still only a single playlist in ranked. I refuse to play ranked until they split the playlists so I can play ranked slayer or ranked swat. I have zero interest in playing garbage like oddball in a ranked setting.

[esnoox]

It’s actually pretty easy. reward players for playing good (medals, accuracy, objectives, 1on1 wins, call outs, damage and overall win/loss). same in the other direction. Have the MMR in the back for finding opponents to get to a 50% win rate.

I know… pretty heavy task with only 6 years time to develop.

[Pheinted]

The curreny system basically just heavily looks at who you’re winning or losing against. You’ll get some wins where your team was heavily favored. Understandable that you don’t get much for these right? The issue is when you get too many of these matches, and then bam you have a bad game. There goes the red derank bar of death we all hate, or…we see the onyx numbers fall.

There should be an outside reward/progression/commendation system that is not affected by your rank. So all the wins and playing still count towards sometthing else. Not just these challenge things…which me for one…i honestly have never even looked at them. I just play ranked and custom games.

The current system tries to watch for hot and cold streaks. Kinda annoys people. It wants to make sure you’re just not having the best day ever for a change, or the worst day ever. So sometimes I believe thats why we see some losses not just substantially boost us up even when our team is the underdog. It may take a series of matches to budge the mmr far enough to warrang more rank up progress.

There could be the ouside progression system where its like halo 5s spartan rank. So finishing a match is a static positive. Winning the match gives bonuses, and overall score can do more maybe?

(I know in a sense we have something like this already but for some reason it just doesn’t feel good how its all done. )

[xSnarfblat]

I got 14 360s in a ranked game this morning lol

[Darwi]

@JMertz22

It recognizes that I’m at the rank I’m supposed to be, or below it, so it is minimizing my losses.

It’s kind of how ranking system’s behave. It recognises that your rank shouldn’t change on the whim of form fluctuations.

A chess grandmaster shouldn’t lose their title on the back of a handful of bad games.

Infinite has limitations on rank locking. It’s no where near as notorious as H3. And the Seasons keep things refreshed - although they should be 3 monthly resets and not 6 monthly.

Josh Menke once mentioned that players can vary in form by plus or minus 150 points on any given day! I don’t know what that means in terms of daily MMR fluctuation - but the hard limit on CSR change does smooth things out for the user.

@JMertz22

I have only won 11 out of my last 40 games since finally breaking back into Diamond 1.

First congrats. Welcome to the Diamond club!

And then 11/40. As long as you went 50:50 in the evenly matched ones, won the easy ones, and lost the hard ones… your rank shouldn’t change too much. As you said, your CSR will drift a bit, but providing your MMR is stable, you will get it all back with a couple of wins.

@JMertz22

this even includes a few DNFs

Out of interest, if you just use the full matches - was the W/L a bit closer to 50%?

@JMertz22

We need to find a way to eliminate this frustration.

Reduce the scale of the CSR!

@JMertz22

I don’t want that to go away.

Boo.

@JMertz22

What I’d like to suggest instead, is for the system to stop limiting your CSR gains on wins and CSR losses from defeats.

The simplest way to do this would be just to show your MMR.

It would be all over the place early - and you may need to keep it hidden for longer than the current 10 placement games.

But you could just show it once it reached a certain level of stability. For some people this could be 15 to 20 games. Other’s may need the full 50 odd games that the system describes.

@JMertz22

I recognize that this would make my current streak very frustrating as I’d likely be back to at least Plat 2 or 3,

Not if you just showed the MMR. That wouldn’t move that much in such a relatively short period of time.

@JMertz22

Perhaps matchmaking could average your CSR and MMR,

Your MMR will still be the best source for match making.

And your global MMR has recent match data - so “form” is taken into account.

@JMertz22

I feel like a sign of a big problem is that players who are winning are frustrated with a system that keeps them down, while players who are losing such as myself, are happy with the system that holds them up. The winners should be happy and the losers should be frustrated, this is backwards.

I agree. It’s poorly communicated by the game.

Each game should tell you if the win or loss is significant. A comment or a symbol that tells us if the game was of ranking significance. Cool, you won or lost, but the game was equally matched. An awesome, well done, that was an upset win… you will be ranking up on that. Or a -yoink-, I can’t believe you lost that one. It’s gonna hurt.

At the moment we don’t get any of that info. If you go on a streak, good or bad, you have no idea if you are doing well, going to Hell, or just treading water.

[Darwi]

@esnoox

It’s actually pretty easy. reward players for playing good (medals, accuracy, objectives, 1on1 wins, call outs, damage and overall win/loss).

Sounds like the job for an XP rank!

@esnoox

I know… pretty heavy task with only 6 years time to develop.

Infinite may not have been in development for the whole time… but the data gathering for TrueSkill2 was continuing!

@Pheinted

The issue is when you get too many of these matches, and then bam you have a bad game. There goes the red derank bar of death we all hate, or…we see the onyx numbers fall.

Yep. You are at the mercy of the server population. The best players / teams at that time will struggle to find 50:50 games above and below.

343 just needs to reduce the scale of the CSR. Remove the frustration.

@Pheinted

There should be an outside reward/progression/commendation system that is not affected by your rank. So all the wins and playing still count towards sometthing else. Not just these challenge things…which me for one…i honestly have never even looked at them. I just play ranked and custom games.

Yep. I still can’t believe there isn’t an XP rank to grind. And if they weighted to wins, medals, scores, etc. People would be so happy. And probably less disgruntled with the actual skill ranking.

@Pheinted

The current system tries to watch for hot and cold streaks.

Kind of?

It’s mostly random numbers just evening out.

But the global component of your MMR looks for form. And TS2 is constantly expecting you to improve your rank (as opposed to TS1 which assumed the walk in both directions was equally likely).

And this is what you want. If you are having a good day… you want to be tested against better opposition to give yourself a chance to rank up (which is by playing and beating teams ranked above you). The downside, if you haven’t actually improved, is an end to your winning streak.

And overall streaks are bad. The main thing that keeps players playing is a sense of fairness in the game. And that’s Team vs Team more than your individual rank / performance. If you felt your team had a chance to win you are more likely to pony up for the next game.

@Pheinted

There could be the ouside progression system where its like halo 5s spartan rank. So finishing a match is a static positive. Winning the match gives bonuses, and overall score can do more maybe?

Yes please.