First and only video, discussing the rank system.

[Mesty]

*Note: I recently got back into Halo. I played up until Halo 3 then just recently picked this game back up. Please, if there is anything wrong with what I said, tell me.*

 

 

So I want to put my thoughts into writing. I apologize for the video. I didn't have enough time to fully get my point across and explain as well as I would have liked, so i am using this opportunity to do so.

 

As I mention in the video, I feel the rank system in Halo 5 is awful, and flawed. I guess I am having a hard time understanding how 343 think's this system is good. There are many situations that can be used, but I will use two as examples. First one is basically the gameplay shown in the video. How is it fair to my teammates and I, to lose rank if we START the game already down a man? By the end of the gameplay I am the LAST person on my team. Why should I be "punished" by losing rank? It makes absolutely zero sense. The next example, which I also say in the video, is another case that happened to me. I was playing a Team Slayer game, and had a teammate go 0-15. This goes in two ways. We lost the game 50-20. Why should I lose CSR points, for a player that can't even get a kill. This can go the other way also. If somehow, we managed to win that game, why should that player get rewarded for getting no kills in a gamemode where getting kills is the name of the game? If anything that is unfair to that player, because now he will match with better players and may do worse than last game. I understand that making a rank system that takes win/lose and personal game stats into account, but there has to be a better way of ranking players than this. 

 

As far as the surrender system that I mentioned. I think this could be a possibility. Something like League, except it only becomes available to vote on if a player leaves, or you're getting blown out by a certain amount of points, depending on the game mode being played.

 

Social playlists. For the love of fucking god 343, WHY was social playlists not implemented in the launch of the game? Blows my fucking mind. Would be nice to play for fun, and not have to worry about my rank.

 

Anyway, thank you for taking the time to read this, if you did. I hope my point got across to someone.

 

Thank you.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTeR3Me2Cbc

[Killmachine]

Accidental neg, sorry bro. Good video.

[Pyroteq]

*Note: I recently got back into Halo. I played up until Halo 3 then just recently picked this game back up. Please, if there is anything wrong with what I said, tell me.*

 

This goes in two ways. We lost the game 50-20. Why should I lose CSR points, for a player that can't even get a kill. This can go the other way also. If somehow, we managed to win that game, why should that player get rewarded for getting no kills in a gamemode where getting kills is the name of the game? If anything that is unfair to that player, because now he will match with better players and may do worse than last game. I understand that making a rank system that takes win/lose and personal game stats into account, but there has to be a better way of ranking players than this.

 

Because if you're playing a TEAM playlist you should be ranked as a team.

 

Think about this:

 

Imagine the game ranks you according to your K:D.

 

Great, except now no player ever wants to go for the objectives because this turns them into a target.

 

Instead every player wants to whore the power weapons so they can pad their K:D so they get a better rank.

 

Winning a CTF game 2-0? Forget capturing the last flag! Just run down the clock while everyone spawn camps.

 

Every player feels the need to be the teams main slayer and no player wants to be the support player that barely gets any kills.

 

There are definitely issues with the Halo 5 ranking system, but this isn't one of them.

 

If you get a team mate that goes 0:15 that just shouldn't happen because theoretically your team mates will always be somewhere around your skill level. However, shit happens and every now and then you'll end up with a crappy team mate that either sucks, trolls, AFK's or just straight up quits the game. This is just the nature of online gaming and there's nothing anyone can do to stop this from happening.

 

This is the same crap that gets discussed in LoL all the time, the concept of "elo hell".

 

Basically elo hell is when you reach a point where no matter how good you play you're always held back by your team mates.

 

And yes, it DOES exist - To an extent. The thing is though that if you're good enough you'll eventually get past this point, it'll just take you a little longer.

 

Yes, sure, maybe you have some unlucky placement matches and you place in Gold and you believe you belong in Diamond or Onyx. If you play enough games you'll eventually reach the rank you belong in.

 

Sure, it'll take time and your buddies might get lucky and get placed straight into Onyx, however (this will sound cheesy as hell), your ranking isn't a destination, it's a journey that you're supposed to work towards. You're not SUPPOSED to play 10 placement matches and then end up exactly where you belong.

 

Think about it. Lets say you play 50 games in a weekend and you feel like every 2nd game you have an AWFUL team mate. Statistically your opponents will have the exact same thing happen to them. It might feel like this isn't the case, however over time your rate of shitty team mates will be pretty damn even with the rate of crappy team mates on your opponents team as well.

 

If you want to be ranked as an individual you should play FFA (and there should be a 1v1 mode). Halo hasn't been about individual skill since Halo 1...

 

Also, if you've got a crappy team mate you should do your best to help them and just understand that maybe they're a good player but they're just having a bad game. It happens to all of us.

[Mesty]

Because if you're playing a TEAM playlist you should be ranked as a team.

 

Think about this:

 

Imagine the game ranks you according to your K:D.

 

Great, except now no player ever wants to go for the objectives because this turns them into a target.

 

Instead every player wants to whore the power weapons so they can pad their K:D so they get a better rank.

 

Winning a CTF game 2-0? Forget capturing the last flag! Just run down the clock while everyone spawn camps.

 

Every player feels the need to be the teams main slayer and no player wants to be the support player that barely gets any kills.

 

There are definitely issues with the Halo 5 ranking system, but this isn't one of them.

 

If you get a team mate that goes 0:15 that just shouldn't happen because theoretically your team mates will always be somewhere around your skill level. However, shit happens and every now and then you'll end up with a crappy team mate that either sucks, trolls, AFK's or just straight up quits the game. This is just the nature of online gaming and there's nothing anyone can do to stop this from happening.

 

This is the same crap that gets discussed in LoL all the time, the concept of "elo hell".

 

Basically elo hell is when you reach a point where no matter how good you play you're always held back by your team mates.

 

And yes, it DOES exist - To an extent. The thing is though that if you're good enough you'll eventually get past this point, it'll just take you a little longer.

 

Yes, sure, maybe you have some unlucky placement matches and you place in Gold and you believe you belong in Diamond or Onyx. If you play enough games you'll eventually reach the rank you belong in.

 

Sure, it'll take time and your buddies might get lucky and get placed straight into Onyx, however (this will sound cheesy as hell), your ranking isn't a destination, it's a journey that you're supposed to work towards. You're not SUPPOSED to play 10 placement matches and then end up exactly where you belong.

 

Think about it. Lets say you play 50 games in a weekend and you feel like every 2nd game you have an AWFUL team mate. Statistically your opponents will have the exact same thing happen to them. It might feel like this isn't the case, however over time your rate of shitty team mates will be pretty damn even with the rate of crappy team mates on your opponents team as well.

 

If you want to be ranked as an individual you should play FFA (and there should be a 1v1 mode). Halo hasn't been about individual skill since Halo 1...

 

Also, if you've got a crappy team mate you should do your best to help them and just understand that maybe they're a good player but they're just having a bad game. It happens to all of us.

 

I'm not saying to have your rank base off of K:D only. I'm taking the whole player concept if you will. In Strongholds, if a player has no captures or defends, and somehow the team wins, he shouldn't be rewarded just for winning. It's not an accurate assessment of me as a player. Yes I understand it's a team game, but what's the point of having a teammate that might go 2-10 in CTF and have no flag touches or returns. That's not a team player. There need's to be a set point based system IMO. You should get the extra points for the win, and have a base stat for the loss.

 

For example, a win would get you 100 CSR points, and every cap, defend etc. is an extra 5. For a loss it would be maybe -250 or something, but the number goes down if you showed you actually tried to play the game.

 

Now in team slayer, there is really nothing you can do about that cause it's all about slaying. I'm just spit balling idea's, but there has to be a better way of ranking an individual other than win's and lose's. Especially people in my case, where I play alone and don't have people to play with.

 

I know about elo hell, I play LoL. I am stuck in elo hell right now. I am by no mean's a great player. I find myself to be an average player, and honestly feel like my rank was generously given to me. 

 

Honestly, I have no clue why 343 would ship a game without social playlists, or haven't already implemented them. I can't imagine it is hard to do. 

 

The rank system to me is just horrible. It's hard for me to put into words how I feel about it, or how it can be improved.

[Pyroteq]

Ok, so lets just use your logic. We'll assign players different points for kills, captures, defends, etc.

 

That makes sense on paper, right?

 

Well, for starters how do you decide what's more important? Is a flag pull worth more than a kill? 2 kills? 3 kills? How can you possibly decide this? Is an assist worth half a kill? 0.75 of a kill?

 

And what if someone comes along and mentions something you can't put a value on...

 

What's THE most important aspect of team work in Halo?

 

COMMUNICATION

 

Now, how the hell do you assign a point system to a player that communicates well?

 

I'd argue that a player that barely breaks even yet calls out all game, lets people know when power ups are coming back and comes up with a good strategy is 10X's more valuable than a player that goes 2:1 yet never moves into a position to help their team mates and doesn't even plug in their headset.

 

I know this because I've had a team mate like this back when I was playing tournaments for Halo 3.

 

He was an awesome slayer but his team work was horrible. Sure, he'd sit up on the tower on The Pit landing head shots all day, but he never moved from that position and never talked during game which mean we could never get a good flag pull and would ultimately lose.

 

His stats would make us all look absolutely horrible since he's gone something like 30:5 while we're all negative, but because he never moved to the opponents side of the map his K:D meant absolutely nothing.

 

We ended up dropping him from the team because of this.

 

Following your logic a player like that would be rewarded while all his team mates were punished.

 

This is where this system fails.

 

Rewarding the entire team for succeeding is the best system for a team game.

 

A good support player might never touch power weapons or never touch the flag but perhaps they put themselves into a good position, communicate all game, time power ups and put lots of shots into players allowing others to take the kills and take the spot light. At the end of the day the only thing that matters is winning the game.

 

If you've gone 30:5 in a game and you've still lost and blame your team mates perhaps you need to ask yourself if you're communicating effectively. Perhaps you need to work on your positioning to make sure your team can actually take advantage of these kills.

 

I honestly don't see anything wrong with this system. It can be frustrating sometimes, sure, but it's far better than the alternative.

[T0rM3nTeD]

Did you like the Halo 2/3 ranking system where if you won you went up, and if you lost you went down? I did not watch the video because I'm at work, but I did read your original post. If you liked that ranking system, you're being very hypocritcal about not liking this one where if you win you go up and if you lose you go down. That seemed to be your biggest problem with the ranking system.

 

I did not like the ranking system at first either, as it didn't seem to be accurate. Now that we're a few seasons in though and most players have a good MMR in the background, it seems to have fairly even games almost every game and I'm put against people that are basically my skill level. 

[Mesty]

Did you like the Halo 2/3 ranking system where if you won you went up, and if you lost you went down? I did not watch the video because I'm at work, but I did read your original post. If you liked that ranking system, you're being very hypocritcal about not liking this one where if you win you go up and if you lose you go down. That seemed to be your biggest problem with the ranking system.

 

I did not like the ranking system at first either, as it didn't seem to be accurate. Now that we're a few seasons in though and most players have a good MMR in the background, it seems to have fairly even games almost every game and I'm put against people that are basically my skill level. 

 

I didn't like that ranking system, but it also had a social playlists where I didn't have to worry about that. I could go into a game and just play, and not have to worry about rank. I know I don't have to, but if it's a ranked setting then I of course am going to care where I'm ranked at.

[Mesty]

Ok, so lets just use your logic. We'll assign players different points for kills, captures, defends, etc.

 

That makes sense on paper, right?

 

Well, for starters how do you decide what's more important? Is a flag pull worth more than a kill? 2 kills? 3 kills? How can you possibly decide this? Is an assist worth half a kill? 0.75 of a kill?

 

And what if someone comes along and mentions something you can't put a value on...

 

What's THE most important aspect of team work in Halo?

 

COMMUNICATION

 

Now, how the hell do you assign a point system to a player that communicates well?

 

I'd argue that a player that barely breaks even yet calls out all game, lets people know when power ups are coming back and comes up with a good strategy is 10X's more valuable than a player that goes 2:1 yet never moves into a position to help their team mates and doesn't even plug in their headset.

 

I know this because I've had a team mate like this back when I was playing tournaments for Halo 3.

 

He was an awesome slayer but his team work was horrible. Sure, he'd sit up on the tower on The Pit landing head shots all day, but he never moved from that position and never talked during game which mean we could never get a good flag pull and would ultimately lose.

 

His stats would make us all look absolutely horrible since he's gone something like 30:5 while we're all negative, but because he never moved to the opponents side of the map his K:D meant absolutely nothing.

 

We ended up dropping him from the team because of this.

 

Following your logic a player like that would be rewarded while all his team mates were punished.

 

This is where this system fails.

 

Rewarding the entire team for succeeding is the best system for a team game.

 

A good support player might never touch power weapons or never touch the flag but perhaps they put themselves into a good position, communicate all game, time power ups and put lots of shots into players allowing others to take the kills and take the spot light. At the end of the day the only thing that matters is winning the game.

 

If you've gone 30:5 in a game and you've still lost and blame your team mates perhaps you need to ask yourself if you're communicating effectively. Perhaps you need to work on your positioning to make sure your team can actually take advantage of these kills.

 

I honestly don't see anything wrong with this system. It can be frustrating sometimes, sure, but it's far better than the alternative.

 

You have some valid points. I can only speak for myself on this topic. I use a mic in every game and communicate where enemies are and what not. If my team decides not to listen then what's the point of communication? I have had games where people listen, but most of the time they don't. If anyone else has a mic they are either a.) Not talking, and I can hear their TV in the background or b.) in party chat, so it defeats the purpose. I do see where you are coming from.

 

Another thing that has to be taken into account is if a team of 4 get into a game and maybe one person was Silver last season and the other 3 where Diamond or whatever and they play the placement matches. That Silver may be Plat or higher now because they won 9 out of 10 games. 

 

Also, thank you for actually having a legit conversation and not just flaming. It's nice to know I can have an actual conversation and have points brought up without it getting into a pissing match lol.

[Pyroteq]

You have some valid points. I can only speak for myself on this topic. I use a mic in every game and communicate where enemies are and what not. If my team decides not to listen then what's the point of communication? I have had games where people listen, but most of the time they don't. If anyone else has a mic they are either a.) Not talking, and I can hear their TV in the background or b.) in party chat, so it defeats the purpose. I do see where you are coming from.

 

Another thing that has to be taken into account is if a team of 4 get into a game and maybe one person was Silver last season and the other 3 where Diamond or whatever and they play the placement matches. That Silver may be Plat or higher now because they won 9 out of 10 games. 

 

Also, thank you for actually having a legit conversation and not just flaming. It's nice to know I can have an actual conversation and have points brought up without it getting into a pissing match lol.

 

I understand the concern completely. It's just that there's not really a good way to get around it.

 

Last season I was playing SWAT and I think I ended up in bloody Gold after my placements. EVERY SINGLE GAME I had horrible team mates that were just impossible to carry.

 

Despite this I just continued playing until I broke away from these awful players and then started to get team mates that were closer to my skill level.

 

I think the seasons need to be longer to prevent this from being so bad.

 

Right now by the time I work my way to Diamond/Onyx the season is over and I've got to start all over again which just makes this even more frustrating. At least if I could keep my position longer I wouldn't have to put up with crappy team mates at the start of each season.

 

They should go for 3 months MINIMUM.

[Mesty]

I understand the concern completely. It's just that there's not really a good way to get around it.

 

Last season I was playing SWAT and I think I ended up in bloody Gold after my placements. EVERY SINGLE GAME I had horrible team mates that were just impossible to carry.

 

Despite this I just continued playing until I broke away from these awful players and then started to get team mates that were closer to my skill level.

 

I think the seasons need to be longer to prevent this from being so bad.

 

Right now by the time I work my way to Diamond/Onyx the season is over and I've got to start all over again which just makes this even more frustrating. At least if I could keep my position longer I wouldn't have to put up with crappy team mates at the start of each season.

 

They should go for 3 months MINIMUM.

 

I feel like the season could work like Hearthstone, that if you reach a certain rank you start at a minimum of another rank. I think it's along the lines of if you hit rank 20, you get free stars that puts you at at least 23 or 22. I feel like that could be implemented to if you make it to gold, you start at a minimum silver 6 if you have bad placements or something.

[logan]

@@Mesty

 

You're looking for a solution for rewarding someone who does well, but loses, and punishing someone that does bad, but wins. This was already tried in Halo:Reach Arena Season 1-6. The problem was, that people started playing for stats and would bait their teammates to the death. They would end up profiting for working against their team, instead of with their team. Which is a terrible formula for a ranking system. Because of this, from Season 7 on, the formula was changed to pure win/loss. And as of right now the only problem seems to be that teams of four can match people searching alone.

 

This video looks like an outlier game... by that I mean a game where you got screwed over and you feel like you don't deserve to be screwed over. But what you're forgetting are the games where you have the 4v3 or where you get a teammate that carries you... There are good and bad games because of outliers(lagouts/carrys/anchors), but the better you get, the more often you'll win... all you gotta do is play a good amount to water down the outlier games to see a more true reflection of your rank, since outlier games are rare. 

 

I encourage you to have the follow perspective on a pure win/loss ranking system: Just think that you are 1/4 of the factor in your game. You account for 25% of the games outcome if you are to win or lose. But as you get better, that percentage raises for you winning and lowers for you losing, and as a result, you'll slightly raise your win rate, resulting in a higher rank, after you've played a good amount of games.

[FollowTheWind]

I disagree, I feel the ranking system has a good solid foundation, but the things you mentioned such as starting a game one man down are stuff which I feel 343 could have easily solved, but chose not to.

 

It's odd you mention league of legends as a good example when they pretty much do the same thing when it comes to ranking as a team instead of a per player basis. I once played with a friend in team arena, he was 20-4 but had 3 captures. I had 8 captures but was something like 11-7. How do you judge individual states in this case?

[Cooper]

As soon as you started to question why ranks are based solely on w/l I turned it off.

[Igs cubanex]

Ranks are fine we just need a solo queue / party queue separation.

[Poetic]

Separation would just segregate a player base that already seems to be kind of small. I play solo a lot because literally nobody else on my friends list plays Halo. They all think black ops 3 is the end all be all. I just accept that some games the team I get isn't going to be as good as other games. It's partially my fault. It's not like I've actively looked for people who play halo 5 to add to my friends list. 

[logan]

Separation would just segregate a player base that already seems to be kind of small. I play solo a lot because literally nobody else on my friends list plays Halo. They all think black ops 3 is the end all be all. I just accept that some games the team I get isn't going to be as good as other games. It's partially my fault. It's not like I've actively looked for people who play halo 5 to add to my friends list. 

Halo 3 did it just fine with a smaller population than Halo 5 has now. Did it really good from 2007-2014. Probably still does it well to be honest, but only in a couple of playlist I'd assume.

[Exidrion]

Separation would just segregate a player base that already seems to be kind of small. I play solo a lot because literally nobody else on my friends list plays Halo. They all think black ops 3 is the end all be all. I just accept that some games the team I get isn't going to be as good as other games. It's partially my fault. It's not like I've actively looked for people who play halo 5 to add to my friends list. 

 

Have to disagree. Party restrictions are a must.

 

At the start/end of the game if I hear a bunch of people communicating in a party and my team didn't say a word I die a little. As @Pryroteq said it's all about communication and if the other team is more likely to have that advantage because I'm able to match parties it's a pretty big deal.

[Pyroteq]

Ranks are fine we just need a solo queue / party queue separation.

 

I'm currently exporting a video that'll be uploaded today that will completely destroy this argument.

 

Players all around the world are struggling to find games PERIOD. With a party or without a party. Even during peak hours.

 

Even North American players that have high ranks struggle to find games.

 

Please tell us all how segregating the play base even further is going to help this MAJOR issue with the game.

 

In fact, this is probably THE biggest issue with Halo 5 right now. Players all around the world are abandoning this game due to how poor the match making is.

[Exidrion]

I'm currently exporting a video that'll be uploaded today that will completely destroy this argument.

 

Players all around the world are struggling to find games PERIOD. With a party or without a party. Even during peak hours.

 

Even North American players that have high ranks struggle to find games.

 

Please tell us all how segregating the play base even further is going to help this MAJOR issue with the game.

 

In fact, this is probably THE biggest issue with Halo 5 right now. Players all around the world are abandoning this game due to how poor the match making is.

 

I mean, obviously it's ideal after everyone can find games. I have no issues finding games though. It's an MMR issue. @@Vetoed talks about it a lot.

 

Tbh I'd rather have party restrictions and a lower population than a high population and none. Guarantee a lot of people quit the game because of the lack of party restrictions too. I've thought about  it.

[Mesty]

As soon as you started to question why ranks are based solely on w/l I turned it off.

 

Okay

[Duji]

Mesty, the best online ranking systems are purely W/L based. Do you not agree?

[mdawg]

I had planned to make this into a video but I am far too lazy, but here's my thoughts on the ranking system. It's a lot, sorry. The system sucks. After playing more, I don't think it's necessarily too easy/quick to rank up, but more so that the seasons are way too short at 1 month. The following is just some random thoughts I threw together one night into an outline form.

 

 

 

[Mesty]

Mesty, the best online ranking systems are purely W/L based. Do you not agree?

 

I don't agree.

[Duji]

I don't agree.

Sorry to break it to you, but games like LoL, SC2, and DotA have the best online ranking systems and they are purely W/L. Unless you can provide an example of a game that in your view does it better, or can come up with a better vision of a ranking system that isn't a complete failure like Halo Reach's, do not expect to be taken seriously by anyone. In fact I found your entire rant to be incredibly naive; the only cogent point being how CSR rank penalties should take being down a guy into consideration (which they already do, but arguably not to the extent that you would want).

[mdawg]

I don't agree.

 

I have to agree with duji here.

 

I don't have experience with SC2, Dota, or CSGO, but I have played LoL more than I'ld like to admit, and their system works amazing and is purely win/loss.

 

How does this work? 

 

LoL, like Halo, is a very teamwork oriented game. You win and lose as a team. So how does basing rank off win/loss only work? Well this is where I think the Halo system is flawed compared to LoL's (although LoL changed this for this season so we have yet to find out how this impacts ranks). In LoL, prior to this season, you could only have 2/5 players on a team being together. This means that you either play solo and are 1/5th of your team, or with a friend and you constitute 2/5th of your team. To compensate when duo, LoL would pit you against slightly higher opponents. Over the course of your first 10 games, the game give you a rank (fresh account no previous ranked seasons) between bronze 5 (lowest) and gold 1 (highest) -- i could be wrong on gold 1, highest might be gold 5 or 4. After ~150 games played, the game can accurately place you where you belong. If you place bronze 2 but are a platinum level player (wouldn't happen but some challenger players get bronze accounts and stream them going up in the ranks) you will win 90% of your games. Why? Because the skill difference between bronze and plat is ridiculously large and even though you are 1/5th of your team, you can guide them where to go and you know exactly where to be to carry them to a win. As you begin to get into gold, as a plat player, your win/loss % would probably drop to somewhere around 60-70%ish. You would still climb faster than other players due to this. But as your opponents get tougher, your influence for your team would start to not matter as much. When you hit around the 50% win rate, you are about where you need to be. At a 50% win/loss you will very slowly go up over time. Below a 50 you will go down in rank.

 

That's really my biggest issues with the H5 ranking system: you can't go down divisions (diamond to plat for example) and the game doesn't have a party size limit so you may be playing solo with 3 other solo players against a party of 2, 3, or 4 which can skew rankings and doesn't give a level or fair representation. Over enough time it can correct itself but as someone who plays with 3 others consistently I prefer the competition when we face another full party.