I’ve played well over 100 Ranked matches and made my way comfortably up into the lower threshold of Onyx (currently 1556 at the time of posting this) but something just feels wrong.
I play with a friend who is just as skilled as I am, but when we lose, he’ll lose rank when I don’t about 95% of the time. He’s actually outperformed me on many of our loses, just to have the game punish him and not myself. Alternately, I’ve jumped from 1550 to 1575 in a single win against opponents who were ranked lower than 1550.
Also, I cant help but feel I DONT BELONG IN ONYX. Lately, I’ve gone on a long losing streak. My W/L is 38% in ranked over my last 50 games, 30% in my last 25. I’ve ran into quite a few smurf accounts (one was actually ranked as a Platinum, but was clearly playing at an Onyx level). It’s been so bad, that many opponents feel the need to send toxic messages my way after the match (with no provocation on my part) and it’s getting mentally exhausting. And the fact that SBMM exists is the ‘Social’ playlists offers no respite (because losing in Ranked isn’t even dropping my rank!)
I feel stuck right now because it feels like Trueskill is expecting me to perform better than I currently am, but any time I face off against an Onyx of my similar skill level, I’m getting crushed. I just don’t understand what’s going on behind the scenes. Something isn’t right.
(P.S. I’ve read the papers on Trueskill 2, and my thoughts on its implementation is a whole different conversation).
Infinite Ranked basically only matches you using your hidden MMR. The actual rank itself is irrelevant. I’ve played on a few accounts and after a handful of placement matches I only match Onyx 1700+ from then on. You can earn an Onyx with a hidden MMR thats the equivalent to like a mid Diamond. This is one of the biggest gripe a lot of the competitive players have with the game too. The system balances teams using hidden MMR and tries to get your winrate as close to 50% as possible.
Im playing on an alternate account and after placement matches i got diamond 1, im making sure to keep kda high and more damage dealt than taken, then it started placing me against/with onyx lobbies, making it very hard for me to rank up. So im basically being punished for playing like an onyx at diamond level which is what you mentioned with the plat, instead of actually climbing through ranks it places you with people your skill and makes you go up that way, thats not ranked, they should balance teams based on current level and if youre good enough to blow past diamond its due to skill not to keep games fair, eventually those who perform bad will stay where they belong and would need to play better to climb up. So yeah there is something wrong with the system, i found out trueskill was made by microsoft and it all made sense.
Oh yeah that’s the other thing. If you have a consistent stretch of good games early on then your hidden jumps up a lot. But it also takes much longer than it should to correct for placing players too high.
They should just match players based on the Arena ranks after your placement matches. Hidden MMR should not be taken into account after your placements, because then what on earth is the point of the actual ranks?
This actually makes sense because D1 is the highest you can get placed after your 10 placement matches.
But I agree that matchmaking should be based on current rank and not hidden MMR, but Microsoft can’t have you progressing too quickly…gotta make it a grind.
If you’re an Onyx with an alt account, to be put into Plat actually takes some effort to throw on purpose…he didnt get placed in Plat off rip…
Halo infinite ranks are very similar to gears 4 ranks. Some people have tested this with gears of war 4 ranked mp and showcased the same issues.
An established account a person has played for a while often had a lower placement in the ranking system and had a significantly longer/absurd grind to the top ranks.
Whereas creating a new account or playing on a friend’s account with little to no play history, the same person (same skill) could place higher and reach the highest ranks where their actual skill was at in a reasonable amount of time. Plus losses and sub-par performance was less punishing than when playing on the established account.
A major part of this was because of the hidden mmr stuff and “trueskill” ranking, and little to do with your current skill level by factoring too much previous play history. i can understand factoring like the last 50 matches or something, but ranked playlists should be using your rank to match with other similarly ranked players.
Halo3 was pretty simple in that regard and, from what I remember, seems to have been more consistent in reasonably balanced matchmaking than some of the more recent/modern rank systems
He absolutely can be. I won 8, lost 2, and got placed gold 5, now in onyx.
Further, have you seen how many disconnects this game has? Sometimes it’s as bad as 1/2 the games have a DC. Usually at least 1/8th have a DC. With a bad set of DC’s, you can very easily lose more games than you should be.
100%. My understanding is once the system determines “who you are” as a player, it works relentlessly to keep you there. I’ve played a ton of Halo Infinite, and the journey has felt no where near as easy as I’ve heard other players with less time in the game describe getting into Onyx.
And, I want to echo what the original poster said. I’ve been that guy who performs well at D5, and gotten WAY less on a win than someone ranked higher than me, despite good performance. A friend of mine got into Onyx a couple nights ago while we were playing together, and that night I barely got anything. I’m happy for him, it’s just infuriating for me to be stuck around D5 and not get similar jumps playing together.
Exactly. On top of this, I have no idea what the point of a visible rank is if it doesn’t accurately reflect the hidden one. Seems MMR should be more transparent, and the actual thing representing skill.
Bravo on that grind, but not really the same thing. Was this your first time ranking? If so, your skill just improved over time. In the example, the Plat player was clearly playing at an Onyx level. It’s MUCH more likely that he was either playing on someone else’s account, or it was a smurf account that purposely threw his placement matches.
100% People with hidden MMRs above 1500 that get placed into D1 have one HELL of a grind to get into Onyx because the game will match MMRs and not Ranks. But 343 knows they’ll grind, and they dont want to just give you that instant gratification of handing you Onyx. I do think they need to make it ‘easier’ to rank down though.
Is why I don’t take ranked seriously. So many people love to talk about my stats and rank but doesn’t realize that are ranked doesn’t track skill properly.
A prime basic example is when I go 17 and 10 and the last guy goes 7 and 15 and we still loose the game.
Why is my rank based on someone else’s skill?
This is almost the opposite of what’s going on…The 17-10 wont get punished at all for losing (or barely does) while the 7-15 will get plummeted because he played the objective and was the real MVP for the team.
What if next season everyone starts at Bronze 1 and go up from there? And the game only makes you play people of your tier? Doesn’t that sound like a good, easy idea? Also fun.
Sounds alot like the old 1-50 ranking system…not really based fully on skill. Especially since the game strives for a 50% W/L ratio…I don’t think that system would work well now.
How is it not based on skill if the game pits you against players of the same rank? You keep winning against that rank, you go up, you lose, you go down. And only place Bronze with Bronze, Diamond with Diamond, etc. No Diamond with Platinum or any of that nonsense. Though level 1 to 6 are ok to mix.
You might be close to where your hidden MMR has you rated. It will get harder to get further away in either direction.
My problem is that the hidden MMR has me higher than I am. It keeps pulling me toward 1700s when I don’t really think I belong there, so my W/L is well below average.
You’re correct, I misread your comment. If you’re playing within your tier, that’s good. I can get behind that. It would also just work with the current ranking system if they matched based on rank and not MMR…