The point of this thread is to help 343 develop a skill-based ranking system that puts the emphasis on wins. 343 still has to come up with something it seems.
I’m sure you’ve seen those, but here are some of Frankie’s comments on Halo 3’s 1-50 system.
Even though Halo 3’s 1-50 system was great for me and a lot of competitive players, HE IS RIGHT. This can’t be denied. Halo 3’s Ranks just shouted “abuse me, please!” when the TU2 / playlist progression ranks were implemented and the correlation between power-leveling and searching with teammates with a lot of losses was found out.
Therefore, Halo 3’s 1-50 in its current shape and form is OUT OF QUESTION.
Going back to W/L Arena ranks is at the same time. The ranks themselves aren’t that bad, but are FUNDAMENTALLY THE SAME as Halo 3, becoming irrelevant as well.
A stat-based system leads to selfishness and grief. No one wants that either.
From here on out, I will, attempt list various tweaks and fix to the Halo 3’s system to prevent abuse. I hope that 343 can inspire themselves of these to create a skill-oriented ranking system.
Before I do that, a GREAT idea would be to look at Halo 2’s 1-50 system, that I dare call a skill-based progression system (just because there’s XP involved).
That system was near perfect. However, achieving the highest ranks required INCREDIBLE talent and dedication. Combined with the rampant cheating back then, it was near impossible, even for MLG pros. Perhaps lowering how difficult it is to achieve the highest ranks would be appropriate. Please do consider this option.
Moving onto how we can improve Halo 3’s ranking system.
Want it or not, I will have to reveal the “secret” behind abusing Halo 3’s ranking system in order to explain what would be appropriate to counter it. Skip the spoiler if you know it.
Halo 3’s ranks are TrueSkill based. However, instead of earning a “set” amount of points (XP) towards ranking up, like Halo 2, TrueSkill calculates your odds of winning based on many factors. The most important is you or your team’s W/L record. That’s the main flaw. So all you have to do is trick the system into thinking that your chances of winning are also non-existant, and it will award you VERY GENEROUSLY (in rank increase) for a single win. That is done in a few manners;
• Having a teammate with undetermined Sigma (Read more about TrueSkill)
• Having a teammate with a VERY LOW win percentage or ranking
…and so on.
You may wonder what the problem is with this? Well, it is that it allows players to obtain the max rank with little to no effort, nor time. The direct consequence of that is, as stated by Frankie, the decrease of the relevance of the ranks. I mean, sure a manual Audi R8 is cool, but it’s not next to 10 others, or when driven by someone who can’t even shift gears. Get it?
Here are some proposed tweaks for this.
- The Matchmaking skill range “limit”.
The name makes it sound quite terrible. The last thing we’d want is friends who aren’t allowed to search with more skilled friends because the Matchmaking skill range doesn’t let them find games of similar levels. At the same time, we don’t want a level 1 power-leveling with his max rank friend either. Here’s how this would work.
With the “Matchmaking skill range limit” rule, when a team with mixed levels (outside one another’s skill range) would search, players whom ranks are UNDER the Matchmaking skill range limit would have their level TEMPORARILY changed to what the lowest level is that highest-ranked player can match.
Example:
Vetoed, Lv. 40
Costa, Lv. 9
The highest-ranked player (Vetoed)'s Matchmaking skill range is 50-30.
Whilst searching with Vetoed, Costa’s ranked would be considered a 30, for Matchmaking and TrueSkill calculation purposes.
1.b) Teammates’ W/L record / Sigma = irrelevant
This would get rid of all deranker / Sigma abuse. It’s a simple fix to be honest. All it takes is for the players on the same team’s records to become irrelevant to one another. ONLY YOUR OWN PERSONAL record should affect the rate at which you progress. However, part #1 still remains relevant, to prevent “reverse” boosting, as in, searching with a max rank as a low rank to progress faster.
- Various Formats > Seasons
Now, people want various playlists in Ranked. None of this repetitive Arena-esque stuff. Sure, Slayer DMRs / BRs are fun and all, but it gets VERY repetitive in the same format, on the same exact maps, over and over. We need at least:
• FFA (6-man)
• Doubles (2v2)
• Team Slayer AND Objective (4v4)
• Squad or BTB (6v6 / 8v8)
• MLG / “Team Hardcore” upon release?
Snipers and SWAT can come later if competitive in Halo 4. But the important of having various playlists means that players don’t get tired of the same genre of competitive / ranked experience all the time. If Halo 3 Ranked had been Team Slayer alone, I’m sure it would have failed at some point, in a similar manner Reach’s Arena has.
Thing is, with multiple hoppers, Seasons would force players to play their favorite playlists over and over due to the lack of time, and also wanting to be the best / highest rank in it. Fret not however, as in the next part, the purpose / idea behind Seasons returns.
- Percentiles
Inspired from Halo: Reach, each one of the ranks from 1 to 44 would have a certain percentile ranging from 95 to 5 within them. The percentiles for the ranks from 45 to 50 would become more precise (in a similar manner to Onyx division percentiles) meaning that instead of jumping from 10%, 5% then the next level, it would go 10%, 9%, 8% […], until 1% then onto the next level.
With this, 50s who get them and stop from there would stand out by being in the lower tier of that rank, (decreasing the incentive to purchase accounts) whereas competitive players would strive to be the best of the best.
However, this system implies “limited” spots within a rank / level, in a similar fashion to divisions. This would mean players would lose their levels after being inactive for extended periods of time, countering the need for seasons, as said before.
To support this, the highest skill metric would not be permanent anymore. So if you were to lose your 50, your record won’t claim you are one.
- No Progression System incentive
Well seeing how a Reach-esque progression system returns, levels won’t be tied to them like in Halo 3. That means casuals won’t show as much of an interest to Ranked even though it allows them to find matches against similar players. Competitive players however, need to be able to compare skill outside of the actual Ranked playlists. How? Active High Skill on one’s nameplate or when hovering them in lobbies when on Xbox Live.
That’s about all the ideas I have for now.
Feel free to discuss or criticize in a constructive fashion.
PLEASE DO CONTRIBUTE AND KEEP THIS ALIVE. 343 must see it.
Thanks for reading.