I know others are talking about this (which encourages me) - even I’ve already posted about it. But the more we post about it, the likelier it is they’ll see that we want Ranked playlists and our coveted 50 to return.
Ranked and social playlists - simple, sets Halo and Xbox apart, makes it THE place to go for competitive play, and still a fun place for social players. That’s the difference between a consistent population and a depressingly low one for Halo. They have to design a game for the people who will stick around after the next COD comes out. That’s us. People on this forum. People who will spread the word and support a game if it supports us.
Something so seemingly simple would restore the franchise’s MP glory.
I wrote an article on it - http://thefuturemachine.blogspot.com/2014/05/editorial-how-ranked-playlists-can.html - and here are some of the comments:
“Halo 3’s 1-50 system was the most fun I’ve ever had playing a game. Getting your MLG 50 was so prestigious and keeping it thereafter was even a challenge. Please 343, please hear us, add a skill-based ranking system.”
“The only reason I played halo was because of the competitive edge that it offered over every other game…I of course will get the game either way but a rank system is the difference between me shelving the game a month after its release like Halo 4, or putting 2-3 years in until the next one emerges.”
We are not alone. Catering to the casual is pointless because they’re casual, they like anything - it’s not like they’re going to say “Oh this game has a ranked playlist, but I can still totally just play social…nope…just the mere inclusion of ranked is too serious! Not playing this!”
But competitive players will stop playing the game if it’s purely social.
Thank you for reading and thank you, 343.
Comment with your support of the inclusion of ranked playlists in Halo 5!
Yes Please! Halo 3 Ranking system is missed!
Agreed!
I want the old halo 2/3 rank system.
So much replay value just from it its insane it was removed.
I have to say no. Having a visible 1-50 only does one thing, inflates an ego. There really is no point of having it visible unless you want to brag to people less than you that you are better. The system does have the ability to match people by their skills with out it being seen, yes I know its done a crap job.
I have been a 30 and taken out people in the 40’s with easy, aren’t they supposed to be my better. I’ve been a 30 and had some new kid that was playing with a friend utterly destroy me in games.
We have enough people in this game that like to -Yoink- on the new players so lets not give them any more ways to do it.
> I have to say no. Having a visible 1-50 only does one thing, inflates an ego. There really is no point of having it visible unless you want to brag to people less than you that you are better. The system does have the ability to match people by their skills with out it being seen, yes I know its done a crap job.
>
> I have been a 30 and taken out people in the 40’s with easy, aren’t they supposed to be my better. I’ve been a 30 and had some new kid that was playing with a friend utterly destroy me in games.
>
> We have enough people in this game that like to Yoink! on the new players so lets not give them any more ways to do it.
Ranked and social playlists?
Keep it to the CRS, you can see how you are doing and know you are doing great but it doesn’t let you bust on someone or someone bust on you.
Should we have ranked an social yes!!! You can do it like you did in H3 and still have the private/lt/commander so on but do you need people to see your 1-50 rating? Have a progressing system and the ranked leveling but don’t bring back the 1-50 I hated it and people -Yoinked!- about it while it was in game. Once it was gone it ruined Halo in peoples minds.
Its a personal opinion, does it feel good to take out a 50 when you are way lower than they are, yes. But it also suck to have the same thing happen to you. You can be competitive with out adding a layer you can throw in peoples faces. The one thing I hated about H3 was listening to jack offs that thought they were the king -Yoink- because they were a 35 while I was a 34.
The 1-50 system took less in to account how you did in game and more into account on how your team did. There were times where you would see someone destroying the other team only to have their team lose and them still go down a point. If they go back to that system it should take into account how you did compared to everyone else in game, if you went -12 then yea you should drop down but if you went +20 while you team still lost then you should go up. The system sucked at doing that and it was a MS mandated ranking system so everyone had to use it. When MS gave up on the idea everyone stopped using it and for good reason.
For me, that’s just what Halo was about. You dealt with trash talkers. That what actually a fun part of the game. And if we ever didn’t want to deal with that, we just went into a party. Not having a visible rank that reflects skill in a ranked playlist kind of defeats the purpose of it.
With there being ranked and social, where social doesn’t have any rank/number, I don’t see how anyone could be dissatisfied. It’s competitive play. The whole point of that is to beat others and then be proud, and sometimes have to deal with jerks.
I just want a ranked playlist, a number next to my gamertag that represents my skill, and a system that’s about winning and losing and actual competition - not a system that’s just about unlocking new bits of armor and loadouts. However they change the ranking system, in terms of how you go up and down, fine, I just want it to exist and be an accurate representation of skill.
I agree with you, trash talking is part of the game and yes it is fun but it can also drive newer players out because we the veterans laugh at them because they can point a rife straight. Which I’ll agree can be a -Yoink- ton of fun.
Look to my last post, it was a broken system if they fix it great I’ll love having it back. I want to be ranked on how I did not on how the noobs on my team did. I also don’t need to instant ratification that the world seeing my 1-50 does for me. In H3 you needed to be at least a 30 to become a commander if it remember correctly, keep that but just take out the visible 1-50 it works you know what you are at and everyone else can take a pretty good guess.
Yeah I don’t care about others seeing my number. It just has significance for me. Not much different than a gamerscore - it allows to judge how I’m doing and then get better at the game. I didn’t experience the problems with the system you mention because I mostly played ranked doubles and ranked lone wolves. The system seemed to work for me.
I’m hoping they release H2 anniversary with traditional halo mp on Xbox one. That way when Halo 5 comes out, there will be two different Halo mp’s that satisfy two different groups of gamers. But if Halo 5 is purely casual, with no ranked playlist, I promise that population will be lower after a year than Halo 2 anniversary will be after 2 years.
They’ve seen what Halo did (of didn’t do). They know they have to change. My fear is that they don’t understand the fundamental reasons H4 mp did not succeed, and just do more of the same under the umbrella of ‘making it better’.
I like seeing others’ ranks because I like to know what I’m up against. Knowing the approximate skill levels of each of my opponents and teammates enhances my competitive experience and helps me make better decisions on how to play. I play conservatively against skilled opponents, but aggressively against unskilled opponents. I trust and depend on my teammates if they’re good, but I know I have to do everything myself if they’re not.
In my opinion a split between ranked and social games should be mandatory for every online MP game. The reason for this is the separation of the community into two sub-categories: The “competitive” players and the “casual” players or for better understanding those who play to win and those who play to have a good time.
(I will use these definitions although I have different definitions of them)
I strongly assume that the latter cares less about ranks than the first, so it wouldn’t hurt to implement a skill-based ranking system despite the fact that the “casuals” are the majority.
It’s just a matter of how each sub-community gets its satisfaction.
I for myself can say that I enjoy the game the most if the players are evenly matched up (if we only consider the MM-system, not gameplay).
And as I’m most probably getting better in the game I want to be matched up against another group of more skilled players.
That’s where the number system (1-50) gets handy.
I would love to see it coming back but as SaBx DARKHAVEN mentioned it should reward individual skill more than the accomplishments of the team.
Side Note: I fear that 343i is going to use a (5-7) division system (b.o. Josh Menke) but I view the number system as superior because you have a better differentiation between skill levels.
> I for myself can say that I enjoy the game the most if the players are evenly matched up (if we only consider the MM-system, not gameplay).
> And as I’m most probably getting better in the game I want to be matched up against another group of more skilled players.
This. I think Titanfall is much more fun than CoD, but it had no replay value for me due to the lack of competition (no skill-based matchmaking or skill ranks, as far as I could tell). Once I’d unlocked all the abilities and used them, there was nothing left to experience.
> I would love to see it coming back but as SaBx DARKHAVEN mentioned it should reward individual skill more than the accomplishments of the team.
I only agree in the absence of good skill matchmaking, like Halo 4. Individual ranks can promote selfish play, like power weapon hoarding/betraying or kill-steal-sniping.
If the matchmaking system can find eight players of like skill, win/loss ranking is the way to go. Advantages such as power weapons and vehicles ought to be considered team advantages, not individual advantages. In other words, it shouldn’t matter who has the Rocket Launcher as long as that person is on my team.
> Side Note: I fear that 343i is going to use a (5-7) division system (b.o. Josh Menke) but I view the number system as superior because you have a better differentiation between skill levels.
Personally, I would prefer a devision/league system over a number system.
Afterall such a system just matches the numbers/ranks properly together.
Plus, playing in the “Champions League” sounds better than “I am a 50” and it makes more clear that this is about competition and not about leveling.
> I just want a ranked playlist, a number next to my gamertag that represents my skill, and a system that’s about winning and losing and actual competition - not a system that’s just about unlocking new bits of armor and loadouts. However they change the ranking system, in terms of how you go up and down, fine, I just want it to exist and be an accurate representation of skill.
Then you want Halo 2’s ranking system. Where 50s were the either the best of the best or cheaters.
> > I would love to see it coming back but as SaBx DARKHAVEN mentioned it should reward individual skill more than the accomplishments of the team.
>
> I only agree in the absence of good skill matchmaking, like Halo 4. Individual ranks can promote selfish play, like power weapon hoarding/betraying or kill-steal-sniping.
>
> If the matchmaking system can find eight players of like skill, win/loss ranking is the way to go. Advantages such as power weapons and vehicles ought to be considered team advantages, not individual advantages. In other words, it shouldn’t matter who has the Rocket Launcher as long as that person is on my team.
I knew this was coming but I was to lazy to explicate 
Especially in the beginning of a games life cycle it’s important to be ranked by your individual performance, I’m sure you can follow this thought.
If you take assists into consideration you have one important factor that can decide about ranking up/down.
An implementation of a system that recognizes players in a power weapon area could add to the algorithm. If you are in this area you gain points for “helping” your team mate to pick up the power weapon (if enemies are nearby).
It might be even possible to create a system that recognizes good positioning.
And a double kill with a BR gives you more points than one with a rocket.
There are many things that can be taken into consideration when creating an algorithm that calculates your skill level.
I would still take win/loss into consideration but it’s frustrating if you lose because your team mates are bad.
> > I just want a ranked playlist, a number next to my gamertag that represents my skill, and a system that’s about winning and losing and actual competition - not a system that’s just about unlocking new bits of armor and loadouts. However they change the ranking system, in terms of how you go up and down, fine, I just want it to exist and be an accurate representation of skill.
>
> Then you want Halo 2’s ranking system. Where 50s were the either the best of the best or cheaters.
That’s another problem with the 1-50 system, how many of those 50’s were good players or were players that either cheated or bought the gamer tag. It was a huge problem back then and that’s one of the reasons MS abandoned it. Does just having a progression system suck, yes, but we need to find some sort of way to make the competitive system fair and balanced (unlike fox news lol). I like the idea of having brackets for players its a lot like pro sports, A, AA, AAA, and then the majors. Give us something like that and I’ll be a very happy camper.
> I know others are talking about this (which encourages me) - even I’ve already posted about it. But the more we post about it, the likelier it is they’ll see that we want Ranked playlists and our coveted 50 to return.
>
> Ranked and social playlists - simple, sets Halo and Xbox apart, makes it THE place to go for competitive play, and still a fun place for social players. That’s the difference between a consistent population and a depressingly low one for Halo. They have to design a game for the people who will stick around after the next COD comes out. That’s us. People on this forum. People who will spread the word and support a game if it supports us.
>
> Something so seemingly simple would restore the franchise’s MP glory.
Halo CE’s multiplayer was both compelling and addictive. Halo 2’s release coincided with the introduction of Xbox Live. Bungie used Elo to rate players’ skill levels for matchmaking and used the skill rating to assign rank. This proved to be a very popular move. So much so that Microsoft took the concept of skill based matchmaking and created their own algorithm called TrueSkill, and made TrueSkill mandatory for all Xbox Live games. This was a boon for developers because they no longer had to include ranking code in their games. Matchmaking is still done by the games. For Halo 3 Bungie modified the TrueSkill rating to assign a rank. While competitive players enjoyed getting rank, everyone benefited from the improved matchmaking. Halo 3’s popularity soared, and problems arose. The Halo 3 “50” became so desirable that accounts that had achieved 50 became a commodity. Some players wanted an account that was a “50” simply to make people think that they were that good. Some players believed that they could play at that level but were having trouble getting there the hard way, so they took the easy route. These “unearned” accounts caused matchmaking issues. With no other way to get around the problem, Bungie dropped skill-based rank with Reach. In an attempt to appeal to “competitive” players, Bungie developed a special tournament area call “Arena” which featured skill-based rank, but to discourage account selling this rank was periodically reset. “Competitive” players did not approve. 343i initially made no attempt at providing a skill-based rank, and by the time they provided one it was too little too late.
That’s the bad new. Here’s reason to hope.
The Xbox One will operate in a totally new environment. Everything you know about matchmaking is about to be stood on its head. Microsoft has developed a completely new algorithm and incorporated it into something they are calling Smart Match. This means the skill rating and the matchmaking are no longer part of the game, but is instead handled by Microsoft.
I believe this fundamental shift is going the be the focus of Microsoft’s and 343i’s presentations at E3. Your Halo journey will begin in 2014 with a new matchmaking system. I’m sure after they’re done we will all leave with the assumption that this fall on the next Halo game (whatever it is) will let you pick the game and map you want and you will be matched with other players at your level. There will be other features as well, but these will be the main ones.
Skill-based rank? At first I believed it would return because the Kinect was part of the Xbox One package, and the Kinect was the perfect way to identify who was using the account and, thus, would make account selling much less lucrative. Unfortunately Microsoft has decided to make an Xbox One without Kinect available, so there goes that idea. If there is some other way that Smart Match can either identify players or can swiftly determine whether a player is not playing at their level because they’re actually someone else, skill based rank may return.
I agree. I really disliked what little ranking systems were in place in the recent games. I would argue to even bring back the ranking system to be a little more reminiscent of Halo 2 instead of Halo 3. Either would be acceptable in my mind.