I am interested to hear all sides of this one. Why do people not want a ranking system? Why do people want a ranking system?
Please discuss
SaiNts
> Why do people not want a ranking system?
Nobody doesn’t want a ranking system.
Without one, the game would be utter chaos, filled with inconsistency as good players are matched against bad ones.
The only discussion comes down to how do you do it.
You can yell till your face is blue that there is a ranking system in the game right now. The fact is, you can’t see it. It doesn’t work and what is it even doing?
> > Why do people not want a ranking system?
>
> Nobody doesn’t want a ranking system.
>
> Without one, the game would be utter chaos, filled with inconsistency as good players are matched against bad ones.
>
> The only discussion comes down to how do you do it.
Soooo untrue. You of course have your own reasons for not liking the 1-50. Something is hidden in your sub-conscious, and that is why you cannot accept it.
For the Team Snipers playlist, when I was at level 48, every game was fun and competitive and featured some of the most skilled players.
When players reach their skill ceiling on the 1-50 is when it truly works.
> You can yell till your face is blue that there is a ranking system in the game right now. The fact is, you can’t see it. It doesn’t work and what is it even doing?
there are 2 ranking systems, or maybe 3…
- the arena divisions
- Cr rank
- hidden true skill rank
do they work?
well yes and no, the CR rank works as it was meant to, to keep people playing to game just so they can get a to a higher rank by earning Cr, just a gimmicky incentive.
the arena and and true skill how ever, they do work as they where intended but the problem is the overall low average skill level in the game so for the game to have faster search times it is going to match you against lesser skilled players while in the arena you can spend 20mins at a time to get decently matched up.
if your skill level is around average for the population then you can actually see the true skill system in effect since you don’t get matched against people lesser skilled then you even though they exist and instead get matched around people of your skill level.
> Soooo untrue.
Untrue?
> You of course have your own reasons for not liking the 1-50. Something is hidden in your sub-conscious, and that is why you cannot accept it.
No. I know exactly why I don’t like 1-50.
It’s a progression system that only the best players can ever finish. Ergo it’s a bad progression system.
> For the Team Snipers playlist, when I was at level 48, every game was fun and competitive and featured some of the most skilled players.
>
> When players reach their skill ceiling on the 1-50 is when it truly works.
ITT rose tinted glasses and nostalgia.
Around here the work “rank” has many meanings so these discussions get confusing.
Your character gets a military rank, but every time a new game comes out the method for awarding rank differs. Right now, with Reach, many players are stuck on the notion that rank = skill level, even though that’s not true.
It seems that what many players want is a “skill level indicator” that does not actually have to be a military rank but perhaps just a number (1-50). They want this indicator visible supposedly so that they can assess the ability (skill) of other players prior to a match. I personally believe that these players expect to achieve the highest skill level rating and they would like for YOU to know that they have.
TrueSkill is the skill level indicator, and in Reach it is hidden. The reason for that is because when players see it they don’t believe it, and then they figure out ways to manipulate it so that it goes high, at the expense of all other player’s online experience.
Reach has a skill-based rank system in The Arena, but your rank has to be maintained and apparently that’s just too much work. They would rather get to “50” once and then milk it for eternity.
I firmly believe that any “rank” should be for cosmetic reasons. TrueSkill should remain hidden so that the temptation to manipulate it is removed. If TrueSkill is working properly you should always be playing players at your level.
> The reason for that is because when players see it they don’t believe it
There are certainly some that felt that they didn’t deserve the rank they got in H3 and that they should be higher but that the game “rank locked” them because of poor performance starting out.
But the feeling I get is that people manipulated and abused TrueSkill in H3 because it was the only thing to work towards. It was effectively the only progression system. Individual playlist ranks weren’t added until the second Title Update in H3 IIRC and even then they were secluded, either hidden away on B.net or only visible in game in the aformentioned playlist.
Coupled by the fact that not everyone is good enough to be a 50 left many people with a bad taste in their mouth when they couldn’t progress in the progress system.
We need a skill system. All too often, skilled players get matched with unskilled players, and teams with randoms, causing matches that are unsatisfying for all involved. Skill-based matching is a necessity to prevent this, even if it comes with the cost of longer match times.
Further catering to competitive players is also clearly necessary, and so making skill visible would also be a necessity.
However, I’ve also found that visible skill – and indeed, publicly-visible competitive stats of any kind – have a tendency to promote all kinds of disagreeable conduct. Stat-trolling and stat-flaming on boards and in-game, from skilled and unskilled players alike. For every, “God -Yoink!-, we got matched with a bunch of Colonel ****s again,” there was a “Hey! HEY! HOW MUCH WAS YOUR FIFTY?” It just wasn’t a pleasant climate.
I think that the solution is to use skill-based matching and to have a skill system, but to make public display of one’s skill level strictly opt-in. Competitive players wishing to show off their skill can opt-in. Meanwhile… Well, humans have a psychological tendency to blindly and unquestioningly accept the default, which means that those who want to avoid stat-flaming can hide among the masses by not opting-in. Since most people will keep skill hidden – accepting the default without question – it won’t be feasible to flame these people as “cowards”, “wussies”, etc. (when, more likely, they’re just tired of having to deal with trash-talking).
This would make stat-flaming obsolete. It would also remove the need for “Social” playlists, since obnoxious stat-related behavior can be avoided by simply not opting-in. 343 could, feasibly, rank ALL the playlists(!).
No stat-flaming. No Social playlists. No broken or one-sided match-ups. Casuals and competitives alike are appeased.
> > You can yell till your face is blue that there is a ranking system in the game right now. The fact is, you can’t see it. It doesn’t work and what is it even doing?
>
> there are 2 ranking systems, or maybe 3…
> - the arena divisions
> - Cr rank
> - hidden true skill rank
>
> do they work?
> well yes and no, the CR rank works as it was meant to, to keep people playing to game just so they can get a to a higher rank by earning Cr, just a gimmicky incentive.
>
> the arena and and true skill how ever, they do work as they where intended but the problem is the overall low average skill level in the game so for the game to have faster search times it is going to match you against lesser skilled players while in the arena you can spend 20mins at a time to get decently matched up.
>
> if your skill level is around average for the population then you can actually see the true skill system in effect since you don’t get matched against people lesser skilled then you even though they exist and instead get matched around people of your skill level.
Stop trying to kid yourself, there’s only one playlist that uses trueskill and that’s the arena. All the other playlists do not use trueskill.
> We need a skill system. All too often, skilled players get matched with unskilled players, and teams with randoms, causing matches that are unsatisfying for all involved. Skill-based matching is a necessity to prevent this, even if it comes with the cost of longer match times.
>
> Further catering to competitive players is also clearly necessary, and so making skill visible would also be a necessity.
>
> However, I’ve also found that visible skill – and indeed, publicly-visible competitive stats of any kind – have a tendency to promote all kinds of disagreeable conduct. Stat-trolling and stat-flaming on boards and in-game, from skilled and unskilled players alike. For every, “God -Yoink!-, we got matched with a bunch of Colonel ****s again,” there was a “Hey! HEY! HOW MUCH WAS YOUR FIFTY?” It just wasn’t a pleasant climate.
>
> I think that the solution is to use skill-based matching and to have a skill system, but to make public display of one’s skill level strictly opt-in. Competitive players wishing to show off their skill can opt-in. Meanwhile… Well, humans have a psychological tendency to blindly and unquestioningly accept the default, which means that those who want to avoid stat-flaming can hide among the masses by not opting-in. Since most people will keep skill hidden – accepting the default without question – it won’t be feasible to flame these people as “cowards”, “wussies”, etc. (when, more likely, they’re just tired of having to deal with trash-talking).
>
> This would make stat-flaming obsolete. It would also remove the need for “Social” playlists, since obnoxious stat-related behavior can be avoided by simply not opting-in. 343 could, feasibly, rank ALL the playlists(!).
>
> No stat-flaming. No Social playlists. No broken or one-sided match-ups. Casuals and competitives alike are appeased.
I don’t know… with your system, anyone that doesn’t display their skill level will be tortured because “you’re obviously embarrassed by it, most likely because it’s low.”
> Stop trying to kid yourself, there’s only one playlist that uses trueskill and that’s the arena. All the other playlists do not use trueskill.
Yes they do. If your skill is relatively high you might not get enough players fast enough for a game so the system “lowers its standards.” You can change your search criteria at the expense of time.
You might be right about matching teams, though. That bugs me.
I agree it does need some help with even regular social matchmaking. Me and like 5 other friends entered in Big team battle and wow did we get a lopsided players list. The opposing side had 5 freaking inheritors, 1 reclaimer and a 1 forerunner. Our side, had one Reclaimer, one forerunner, 1 field marshal, 1 eclipse, 1 general, and a couple lower ranks. Seriously that match didnt go well. Stuff like that happens so often in regular match making.
A ranking system of sorts is a good thing. We don’t want people just being matched randomly. A system designed to match players up with others of their own skill level, while impossible (literally due to the basic nature of the problem) to perfect, is still a good thing to have since it is good at, often enough, matching people with similar skill levels.
Very few people, if any, will debate that point regardless of their stance on the topic. What people REALLY are concerned about are two basic concepts:
Visibility of the rank, and the strictness of the rank.
In Halo: Reach you can often have guests and the game acts more like a Halo 3 social playlist. Some people want more restrictions on playlist availability, while others think it best to leave them open as much as possible to let the greatest number of players possible play.
The other, and perhaps more controversial, topic, is the visibility of the rank (the one I’ll actually give my own opinion on). Some people think it is their right to show off their rank because they earned it, and still supporting visibility are people that use it to gauge the skill of the opponents (and teammates!) in the pre-game lobby.
I, personally, disagree with both of those thoughts. I am against a visible ranking system that shows the ‘skill’ of a player, period. Some people want to show off. But… to what end? It does nobody any good but that user, and often at the cost of bringing down other less ‘skilled’ users. Essentially it promotes a general state of asshattery as people go around bragging and putting others down. As for the pre-game lobby scanning? I would argue that it doesn’t affect gameplay so, since it ends up causing more harm than good, why have it visible? If you are good you are good. If you are bad you are bad. Seeing ranks won’t change that. If you care about winning you care about winning. If you don’t care about winning you don’t care about winning. If you care about winning enough, then you will try to win regardless of ranks (it isn’t like you make a strategy based off of ranks or anything… let alone a strategy in the pre-game lobby with random people. Strategies, if any, come from a foundation of teamwork, then adapt [yes I said it] to the specific situations since the game is a fluid, ever-changing thing).
I see absolutely no benefit to having visible ranks.
> I am interested to hear all sides of this one. Why do people not want a ranking system? Why do people want a ranking system?
>
> Please discuss
>
> SaiNts
Conduct an experiment.
>>Enter the SWAT playlist alone
>>Play 5 games.
>>Next, enter the playlist with a full party of 4.
>>Play 5 games.
>>Tell me how you don’twant a ranking system.
> I don’t know… with your system, anyone that doesn’t display their skill level will be tortured because “you’re obviously embarrassed by it, most likely because it’s low.”
Not if it’s opt-in. If hiding skill is the default and players aren’t pressured (by the game) to show it, then most are likely to keep it hidden.
The human mind is surprisingly docile, and the vast majority of people in any group usually just stick with the defaults without even thinking to explore the game settings.
> > Why do people not want a ranking system?
>
> Nobody doesn’t want a ranking system.
>
> Without one, the game would be utter chaos, filled with inconsistency as good players are matched against bad ones.
>
> The only discussion comes down to how do you do it.
lol so… no one likes how reach is outside of arena?
haha
> > I don’t know… with your system, anyone that doesn’t display their skill level will be tortured because “you’re obviously embarrassed by it, most likely because it’s low.”
>
> Not if it’s opt-in. If hiding skill is the default and players aren’t pressured (by the game) to show it, then most are likely to keep it hidden.
>
> The human mind is surprisingly docile, and the vast majority of people in any group usually just stick with the defaults without even thinking to explore the game settings.
i would love to see the ability to hide your rank in h4.
The trueskill is only “technically there” in that it tracks your trueskill but doesn’t actually apply it when searching for a match as “quickness” is weighted many times higher.
It’s like having a ferrari and never going past 20MPH.
> The trueskill is only “technically there” in that it tracks your trueskill but doesn’t actually apply it when searching for a match as “quickness” is weighted many times higher.
>
> It’s like having a ferrari and never going past 20MPH.
Jeremiah said that the Skill preference enforces H3 Ranked level search restrictions. Just how that works when most people around you don’t have that toggled is unknown, but I’m guessing it doesn’t help.
I would like the Skill Preference restriction settings enforced by default and the Skill Preference replaced with a Speed Preference.