- TwoFaced1680
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- Exalted Legendary Member
Posted by: maximus_asinus
My Problem:
Usually I'm not one to rant about these types of things but after reading through the explanation on the ranking system I still have questions and complaints. To me the system favors a player with a high Sigma rating. A player who consistantly plays well shouldn't be the person on the short end of the stick. I've been hovering around level 35 in Team Slayer for about a month now. I have lost games and won games but always played well. I have come to the conclusion that basing the player's Trueskill on wins and losses is the fatal flaw in the system. If Player A performs well (in comparison to the Player B-H) but is on the losing team, Player A shouldn't be penalized. It is obvious that Player A is playing at a higher skill level than the opposing team. The way I see it is you're punishing one person because of the play of the rest of the team. Then I question why Player A is placed on a poor team. Is it because of this ranking system? Yes and no. Playing alone, the single player falls victom to the ranking system, being paired with people who aren't up to par to their level. The ideal solution is to party up--you can guarantee getting a decent matchup if you play with a group that you know will play well. The downfall to this is that you can abuse the party system by including a person with a lower rank (not too much lower), because you'll start playing people slightly under your skill range but close enough where every player can still gain rank.
My Solution:
I think the best scenerio would be to take actual game performance into account when selecting a team and when deciding whether or not a player should level up. I'm no mathmatical genius but I'd image it'd work something like this: mu and sigma would retain their values but the introduction of a third variable would be introduced to keep track of the map goal and then compared to your ability to complete the map goal. So for example you're playing CTF and you score twice, the variable 'y' would track this in some way and in the final formula add it to your final score. For Slayer games I'd expect it to keep track of kills but that could be difficult because a player could get 18 kills and 20 deaths, which isn't that good. It could keep track of your kill/death spread (not to be confused with ratio). Again, the variable 'y' would be applied to your final score. I'd expect the formula for objective games to be different then Slayer games.
So yeah I kind of went off track, with my point, but ultimately I want you to see what I'm talking about. The system should place more emphasis on a single player's ability to complete a specific goal, not the team's. I don't know how many people will get this comparison but I compare this to the yesteryears of the NHL. Lets say the '97 Red Wings is Red Team and Blue Team is the '07 Penguins. The Red Wings have all the star players while the Penguins have all mediocre players for the exception of one. The Red Wings inevitablely win 5-3 but the Penguin's star player was able to get all 3 goals for their team. In my system this player gets credited with a place on the 3 stars post game. In Bungie's system, the player gets no recognition whatsoever. This is my take on personal performance: You can't use it. It can't be part of the equation because the evaluation is not uniform across all gametypes and playlists.
Take Lone Wolves for instance. Assists are bad. Assists are kills that got away so the lower the better in that playlist. K/D ratio is meaningless. The goal is to get the most kills, not to have the best K/D ratio. I've played games of rumble pit (back in halo 2) and gone 20/10, but I came in 3rd or 4th because other people got out there and made the kills. Even though they ended up going 22/24 they knew how to get more kills then me.
How about Objective game types. Who should be rewarded more the guy who scored the flag? The guy who stole the flag? or the guy who covered the flag carrier? Do you give credit for a great K/D ratio. Should the flag scorer get more credit or less credit then someone who sat back and slayed all game allowing you to get that flag and score it. What about the person who lead the team and created the plan to get that flag? How do you quantify that?
In my opinino personal performance cannot be used. It just can't be quantified and just about every gametype has a different and debatable measure of good performance.
As far as a player being penalized for playing well but losing: They really aren't. The system can't be judged on a per game basis. Think about a person playing many games. Sometimes you'll be matched with players who do well. Other times you'll be matched with players that don't. If you go into matchmaking alone this will even out. The only variable that's left is the individual. Thus if you do well you will rank up because that positive contribution to the team will allow your teams to win more. As you move up your contribution slowly drops to nuetral. That's when you are at your level.
So you see the skills of your random teammates has to average out. The only thing left that effects whether you go up or down is the individual. If you team up you might be able to get a little higher, but that's expected. If you play with people you know you are going to be familiar with them and there skills/strategies. Communication will generally be better. It's natural for a team that plays together to perform better then a team that is randomly put together. Even if they are all the same skill level. Random teams will always be worse off then teams that practice together.
**EDIT**
Okay, I looked over your last 51 games (one more then I planned :) ) and I noted all your K/D spreads. When you total it all up you are positive 61 kills. Since you played 51 games take 61/51 and on average you go positive 1.19 kills per game. It looks like on average you are contributing positivly, but not by very much. Based on that number I would conclude you are near your level. Will you ultimatly move up to a 36 or a 37...maybe, but you probably aren't heading up much further. From what I can see you aren't being held back by the random people you play with. The reason you aren't moving much has more to do with you then them. As I said in time you may inch up a bit further but by the looks of it not very far.
"Playing alone, the single player falls victom to the ranking system, being paired with people who aren't up to par to their level."
Almost everyone is up to par with there level. Only individuals who play with a team could possibly make it higher then they "should". (I'm talking by more then a couple of ranks here) So those random people you get paired with are playing at there level. The other team is paired up using the same system. This means it has to average out. There is no way you can suffer more then the next person. If you get "bad" teammates then the other team also has to get "bad" teammates from time to time. The same holds true for "good" teammates. The only variable that's left is the individuals skill.
So my conclusion is that based on your data you appear to be around your level. Not because you are being held back, but because of your own performance. I don't think using just wins/losses is a problem of the system. Individual performance can't be used because it's just impossible to quantify with any degree of accuracy and each gametype will change what a good performance is.
[Edited on 11.26.2007 8:57 PM PST]