Ranking system
This thread is supposed to reflect what the community wants to see changed with the ranking system. I am not the greatest expert in the world on rank (high skill of 6 baby!!) so please help me out and add to my thoughts. I will update this thread on a regular basis to reflect what the Halo community want to see in Halo 5.
Halo 3’s ranking system
While the specific formula for determining rank was not released for Halo 3 we do have the basic understanding of how it functioned. A brief explanation of the Halo 3 skill system is required to base the new Halo 5 skill system that we as a community want off of.
Rank = Mu-(K*Sigma)
<strong>Mu is an approximation of your skill based on previous games. In order to raise your Mu value you need to win games. If you lose gamesMu goes down. This value is not at all tied to your individual performance.</strong>
<strong><strong>Sigma is a numerical representation of your consistency. The more consistent you perform well the lower your <strong>Sigma value is. Players who play consistently poor or play inconsistently have a much higher Sigma value attached to them.</strong></strong></strong>
<strong><strong><strong>K is a constant value that was set by Bungie.</strong></strong></strong>
<strong><strong><strong>Rank became exponentially more difficult to increase the longer you played in a playlist. As your Sigma value goes up your ability to change your rank goes down.</strong></strong></strong>
<strong><strong><strong>The trueskill system saw players who played inconsistently – especially those who had a lower rank number(1-50) assigned to them as being bad players. A player who won a game in spite of having players with higher Sigma values attached to them as being highly skilled. This would boost the Mu rating of the player and increase the speed at which they would rank up.</strong></strong></strong>
<strong><strong><strong>Where Halo 3’s system went wrong</strong></strong></strong>
<strong><strong><strong>Players figured out that they could move through the ranks quickly and sell accounts by exploiting trueskill. Players would AFK in games and intentionally ‘de-rank’ in order to raise their Sigma value. They would then team up with new accounts and boost the players to 50 in a short amount of games by dominating the opposition. Also players with low ranks playing against players with high ranks would receive a faster boost in rank. Make no mistake these were generally skilled players that were able to do this but they were exploiting the game and by doing so they were decreasing the competitiveness and quality of gameplay.</strong></strong></strong>
<strong><strong><strong>What we should do moving forward</strong></strong></strong>
<strong><strong>The competitive crowd has spoken and they demand a visible rank system. I understand that not everyone cares about rank – I know I don’t – but we should not ignore such a large portion of our community.</strong></strong>
<strong><strong><strong>To correct trueskill several things need to happen. - JiP needs to not happen in ranked playlist. *</strong></strong></strong>
<strong><strong>- players must be within 10 ranks of each other to both team up and to get matched up against one another… The only flexibility on this should be related to low population levels in playlists.</strong></strong>
<strong><strong><strong>- Sigma values of other players must not have an effect at all on your payout. Bad teammates happen but they can be avoided by teaming up with friends. Keeping the sigma values of others out of the equation will help to derail boosting.</strong></strong></strong>
<strong><strong><strong>- To compensate for the loss of the bad teammate effect players who score in the top 25% of the game –win or lose should receive a SLIGHT boost to their Mu score. If you lose Mu still goes down but not as much.</strong></strong></strong>
<strong><strong>- the amount of games required to rank up needs to be increased. To do this make the starting value of Sigma higher so that players do not rank beyond their actual skill by being carried threw a few games in a playlist they are new to.</strong></strong>
<strong><strong>- Join in progress has been a positive addition to the social playlists in my opinion (and yes this is a debatable topic) but it is not acceptable at all in a ranked playlist. There are two reasons why. First it is not fair to a player to have their Mu decrease because they joined a game that was about to end that was completely un-winnable. Second because if you do not have the Mu score effected on players that join games in progress then you will find lots of players who abuse the ranking system and intentionally toss games because they know that it will have no negative impact on them to do so.</strong></strong>
<strong><strong>Please check out my other threads in this series. Lets tell 343i what we expect out of Halo 5 in a respectful manner so that we can work together to get the best halo game possible.</strong></strong>
> [/li]1. players must be within 10 ranks of each other to both team up and to get matched up against one another… The only flexibility on this should be related to low population levels in playlists.
[/quote]
If they want to make a really good ranked playlist it needs to have the population to ensure even matches. Shouldn’t be any flexibility on that at all if you ask me.
>
> Guests shouldn’t be allowed in a ‘proper’ ranked playlist either. I’m not sure if JiP is a bad thing in ranked though it as long as you have the option to veto it.
make it like halo 3 ranking system, true skill not this reach or halo 4 -Yoink-, especially halo 4 massive let down 1 month 2 beat the game. dissapointed
> make it like halo 3 ranking system, true skill not this reach or halo 4 -Yoink!-, especially halo 4 massive let down 1 month 2 beat the game. dissapointed
Halo 3’s ranking system had issues and they do need to be addressed. Throwing away rank was the dumbest idea ever, it pushed the competitive community away from the game. Rank needs to return but we need to figure out how to deploy it better. Please help me build a model of what the community wants to see for rank here.
> make it like halo 3 ranking system, true skill not this reach or halo 4 -Yoink!-, especially halo 4 massive let down 1 month 2 beat the game. dissapointed
Halo 3’s ranking system was broken. If you started playing September 2007 and gradually got better, then it’d be harder to rank up, because you’d have your past games weighing you down. But if you played the game for a while and got really good at it, then made a new account, you could rank up much, much easier than your old account.
Your old account could be stuck at say, Level 38, but you could get to 50 on your new account much faster than you could on your already Level 38 account.
And because of that exploit, Level 50 accounts were sold on eBay all the time.
> make it like halo 3 ranking system, true skill not this reach or halo 4 -Yoink!-, especially halo 4 massive let down 1 month 2 beat the game. dissapointed
Making it just like Halo 3 isn’t fair on casual players like me, if I want a piece of armour, and I can’t get to a certain level because I’m not the greatest of Halo that’s sort of unfair, my solution:
Competitive Playlist: Has a Halo 3 like system for people who care about it
Social Playlist: Has an XP system for people who don’t care about the Halo 3 system, with XP it’s for unlocking armour and such
> > make it like halo 3 ranking system, true skill not this reach or halo 4 -Yoink!-, especially halo 4 massive let down 1 month 2 beat the game. dissapointed
>
> Halo 3’s ranking system had issues and they do need to be addressed. Throwing away rank was the dumbest idea ever, it pushed the competitive community away from the game. Rank needs to return but we need to figure out how to deploy it better. Please help me build a model of what the community wants to see for rank here.
Maybe a mix of Halo 2 and Halo 3 rank system would work fine.
> > make it like halo 3 ranking system, true skill not this reach or halo 4 -Yoink!-, especially halo 4 massive let down 1 month 2 beat the game. dissapointed
>
> Halo 3’s ranking system was broken. If you started playing September 2007 and gradually got better, then it’d be harder to rank up, because you’d have your past games weighing you down. But if you played the game for a while and got really good at it, then made a new account, you could rank up much, much easier than your old account.
>
> Your old account could be stuck at say, Level 38, but you could get to 50 on your new account much faster than you could on your already Level 38 account.
>
> And because of that exploit, Level 50 accounts were sold on eBay all the time.
> > > make it like halo 3 ranking system, true skill not this reach or halo 4 -Yoink!-, especially halo 4 massive let down 1 month 2 beat the game. dissapointed
> >
> > Halo 3’s ranking system was broken. If you started playing September 2007 and gradually got better, then it’d be harder to rank up, because you’d have your past games weighing you down. But if you played the game for a while and got really good at it, then made a new account, you could rank up much, much easier than your old account.
> >
> > Your old account could be stuck at say, Level 38, but you could get to 50 on your new account much faster than you could on your already Level 38 account.
> >
> > And because of that exploit, Level 50 accounts were sold on eBay all the time.
>
> This explains why I am stuck at Skill 29!
Yeah, your skill is anchored down by all of your past games, which is why I’m glad Halo Reach did not have the “Trueskill” system. You could make huge improvements in your skill, beating Level 50’s all over the place, but you’re being held back by your past games.
And because it had a direct influence on how you ranked up “Get n XP and at least x Skill to rank up”, it affected even casual players.
Halo 4 did it right by having CSR stay independent of the overall rank system. Just have it be a number on the side so all the self-proclaimed “competitive MLG prozorz” players can brag about their silly numbers.
But even CSR is a bit broken. How come I can win 15 games in Infection and get to CSR 33, but win 30 in Castle DLC and only get to CSR 7?
> > make it like halo 3 ranking system, true skill not this reach or halo 4 -Yoink!-, especially halo 4 massive let down 1 month 2 beat the game. dissapointed
>
> Making it just like Halo 3 isn’t fair on casual players like me, if I want a piece of armour, and I can’t get to a certain level because I’m not the greatest of Halo that’s sort of unfair, my solution:
>
> Competitive Playlist: Has a Halo 3 like system for people who care about it
>
> Social Playlist: Has an XP system for people who don’t care about the Halo 3 system, with XP it’s for unlocking armour and such
Social never had skill ranks, what makes you think it would?
Personally I would like 343 industries to come with there own original ranking system by having the scoring system actually become useful. If the next ranking system calculated the average score per match. The pro’s would be:
-Always leave room for improvement
so there would never be no max skill
-Allow there to be leaderboards with the leader having the highest point average per match.
-Promote teamwork since medals are distributed to the players participating in objective.
-Allow players to be regarded as highly skill full regardless of there W/L ratio or K/D
Cons are:
-Difficult to match players with equal skill
> > > make it like halo 3 ranking system, true skill not this reach or halo 4 -Yoink!-, especially halo 4 massive let down 1 month 2 beat the game. dissapointed
> >
> > Making it just like Halo 3 isn’t fair on casual players like me, if I want a piece of armour, and I can’t get to a certain level because I’m not the greatest of Halo that’s sort of unfair, my solution:
> >
> > Competitive Playlist: Has a Halo 3 like system for people who care about it
> >
> > Social Playlist: Has an XP system for people who don’t care about the Halo 3 system, with XP it’s for unlocking armour and such
>
> Social never had skill ranks, what makes you think it would?