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  • Subject: In depth explanation of the Halo 3 skill ranking system.
Subject: In depth explanation of the Halo 3 skill ranking system.
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ive won 25 games str8 no loses and i havent gone up my frined went from lvl one to lvl 42 and i havent gone up one time go check my games if u dont belive.

  • 11.12.2007 10:24 PM PDT
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Good guide, but can you explain why I went down in skill when I was the lowest ranking in the game, and I came equal third (outright third, if you count K/D ratio)?

  • 11.12.2007 11:19 PM PDT
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ok i have have checked my last 50 games and i have won 32 out of 50
i have been playing with a party that is higher than me and won against people that are higher than me. The people in my party end up leveling up and i just stay in the same level. i try TS and TD and again everyone levels up and i don't so what is up with that.

  • 11.12.2007 11:43 PM PDT

Guys, read my Write up at the bottem of the first page, you guys obviously have a Low Sigma thus cant level all that quick, and the guy that was lowest level, you were obviously on the verge of going down anyway. (Or Sigma was still high)

  • 11.13.2007 12:08 AM PDT
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Here's a situation I see often.

I'm level 12.
Team mates are 29, 28 and 26.

We hop into games and consistently play equal teams and win say 9 out of 10 games.

I go up 3 levels total for winning 9 games against an average of level 20 players?

On another note, I go from 1-36 in team doubles playing higher levels in about 25 games.

  • 11.13.2007 1:17 AM PDT

.:. îXî - $ìgñ øf thé GøÐz .:.


My Profile - iXi Gaming


Î ũňķñ{ǾẄŃ} ū

Funny how a member did this and not a mod or Bungie developer on the forums.

*thumbs up for the Halo community*

  • 11.13.2007 1:20 AM PDT
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Thanks, and thanks to mods for stickying the topic. And how do you pronounce Mu, cause I'm just reading it like "moo." (It sounds cool, k?)

[Edited on 11.13.2007 1:28 AM PST]

  • 11.13.2007 1:25 AM PDT
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it sounds like "ew." like in disgust.

"mi-ew" sorta.

haha, that was so worthless.

thanks for the ace write-up on trueskill mate, the explanation of sigma as a percentage value cleared it up crystal.

  • 11.13.2007 2:55 AM PDT
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Posted by: SatansReverence
Guys, read my Write up at the bottem of the first page, you guys obviously have a Low Sigma thus cant level all that quick, and the guy that was lowest level, you were obviously on the verge of going down anyway. (Or Sigma was still high)


Ah, I see. I lost the two games I played just before (Oddball and KotH...lame) so I Must have been about to go down, yeah. I think my Sigma is pretty high cos I win and lose a lot. Thanks for clearing that up.

  • 11.13.2007 3:13 AM PDT
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Thank you, this sticky is a great explanation of the TrueSkill system - you put some serious work into this post, and it really helps.

  • 11.13.2007 7:22 AM PDT
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This is all well and good and quite interesting but the question that needs to be answered is "what does rank actually mean?". Is there a concise statement that can be made by for instance player A over a lower ranked player B such that "player A is <X> is relation to player B"?

For instance "player A (rank 31) is better than player B (rank 25)" means very little since the term "better" has its meaning hidden inside the ranking system which reveals next to nothing about how the ranking system actually works and what you have to do to improve your rank.

"player A is better at manipulating the ranking system than player B" is obviously true but nobody really knows why, which again doesn't help.

Does the ranking system mean anything at all that is of any interest to anybody?

It seems that Bungie determine what it means to be "better" at Halo3 by extending the trueskill ranking system in their own way therefore I suggest that the matchmaking system is fundamentally flawed and essentially meaningless in terms of measuring how one player relates to another, it's just a number that people strive to improve but have little idea how to go about it.

So it seems it's only use is to broadly categorize players as bad/average/good and then use that to match them up but we all know that a level 30 can have a decent game against a level 20 and a level 46 can appear to be "not very good".

I think Bungie should release more details about how the system works. The only reason that I can think of for not doing this is that people will "manipulate" the system but if this is the case then doesn't that in itsself mean that the system is flawed?

  • 11.13.2007 7:23 AM PDT
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HALO<3

ohhh ! I get it now so theres some kind of value that wants you to be unconsistant to rank up so if i win 1 game going even and win the next going +10 i have more of a chance of ranking up than just winning 2 games getting the same score

  • 11.13.2007 7:30 AM PDT
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sounds good

  • 11.13.2007 8:31 AM PDT

Posted by: sWozzi3
This is all well and good and quite interesting but the question that needs to be answered is "what does rank actually mean?". Is there a concise statement that can be made by for instance player A over a lower ranked player B such that "player A is <X> is relation to player B"?

For instance "player A (rank 31) is better than player B (rank 25)" means very little since the term "better" has its meaning hidden inside the ranking system which reveals next to nothing about how the ranking system actually works and what you have to do to improve your rank.

"player A is better at manipulating the ranking system than player B" is obviously true but nobody really knows why, which again doesn't help.

Does the ranking system mean anything at all that is of any interest to anybody?

It seems that Bungie determine what it means to be "better" at Halo3 by extending the trueskill ranking system in their own way therefore I suggest that the matchmaking system is fundamentally flawed and essentially meaningless in terms of measuring how one player relates to another, it's just a number that people strive to improve but have little idea how to go about it.

So it seems it's only use is to broadly categorize players as bad/average/good and then use that to match them up but we all know that a level 30 can have a decent game against a level 20 and a level 46 can appear to be "not very good".

I think Bungie should release more details about how the system works. The only reason that I can think of for not doing this is that people will "manipulate" the system but if this is the case then doesn't that in itsself mean that the system is flawed?

Win consistently is all you need to know. How hard is that to understand? Why make it any more complicated? What details do you need? There is no hidden meaning. Your skill is what the system thinks you are taking in your performance. There is no maipulating the system other than win or loose.

Win against lower level peeps and you will not go up. Win against higher level peeps and you will. If you are in the mid to high 40's, it becomes much more difficult to go up. The MM system is not flawed cause it groups people with similar skills, exactly what it was designed to do. If you are a 40 and you get beat by a 20 it doesn't mean the system sucks or that it is flawed. It means either that the system hasn't determined their true skill yet or you had a bad game. Your skill is not the endall of how good you are but it does give you a rough estimate of how good you are because to get there you had to WIN.

  • 11.13.2007 8:56 AM PDT
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Very good post, it clarified a lot of questions I had about the ranking. The way I go up and down is consistent with the explanation you wrote down here.

Glad to see this kind of posts in here... very informative.

Leo.

  • 11.13.2007 8:56 AM PDT
Subject: In depth explanation of the Halo 3 skill ranking system.
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Posted by: Jay120171
Posted by: sWozzi3
This is all well and good and quite interesting but the question that needs to be answered is "what does rank actually mean?". Is there a concise statement that can be made by for instance player A over a lower ranked player B such that "player A is <X> is relation to player B"?

For instance "player A (rank 31) is better than player B (rank 25)" means very little since the term "better" has its meaning hidden inside the ranking system which reveals next to nothing about how the ranking system actually works and what you have to do to improve your rank.

"player A is better at manipulating the ranking system than player B" is obviously true but nobody really knows why, which again doesn't help.

Does the ranking system mean anything at all that is of any interest to anybody?

It seems that Bungie determine what it means to be "better" at Halo3 by extending the trueskill ranking system in their own way therefore I suggest that the matchmaking system is fundamentally flawed and essentially meaningless in terms of measuring how one player relates to another, it's just a number that people strive to improve but have little idea how to go about it.

So it seems it's only use is to broadly categorize players as bad/average/good and then use that to match them up but we all know that a level 30 can have a decent game against a level 20 and a level 46 can appear to be "not very good".

I think Bungie should release more details about how the system works. The only reason that I can think of for not doing this is that people will "manipulate" the system but if this is the case then doesn't that in itsself mean that the system is flawed?

Win consistently is all you need to know. How hard is that to understand? Why make it any more complicated? What details do you need? There is no hidden meaning. Your skill is what the system thinks you are taking in your performance. There is no maipulating the system other than win or loose.

Win against lower level peeps and you will not go up. Win against higher level peeps and you will. If you are in the mid to high 40's, it becomes much more difficult to go up. The MM system is not flawed cause it groups people with similar skills, exactly what it was designed to do. If you are a 40 and you get beat by a 20 it doesn't mean the system sucks or that it is flawed. It means either that the system hasn't determined their true skill yet or you had a bad game. Your skill is not the endall of how good you are but it does give you a rough estimate of how good you are because to get there you had to WIN.


More than 50 percent of my games are against people that are higher lv than me because the people i play with are higher than me and yet they lv up about every 3 games and when i finally lv up if i loose one game i am the only one that goes down and my friends that are higher lvs than me and don't loose their lvs and keep leveling up. The party i play with are all lv 43 and higher and i am a lv 41so if i end up in first place and i beat people that are higher than me shouldn't i have the right to lv up since i get first in my team and we win the game. Also by the time i go up one lv they have gone up 2 and then we lose a game and i lose my lv and they don't and it keeps doing that over and over.

  • 11.13.2007 10:29 AM PDT
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I smell BS.... :p

  • 11.13.2007 10:54 AM PDT

Posted by: El gaso paso
More than 50 percent of my games are against people that are higher lv than me because the people i play with are higher than me and yet they lv up about every 3 games and when i finally lv up if i loose one game i am the only one that goes down and my friends that are higher lvs than me and don't loose their lvs and keep leveling up. The party i play with are all lv 43 and higher and i am a lv 41so if i end up in first place and i beat people that are higher than me shouldn't i have the right to lv up since i get first in my team and we win the game. Also by the time i go up one lv they have gone up 2 and then we lose a game and i lose my lv and they don't and it keeps doing that over and over.

You all will not level up at the same time, they may be closer to the next level than you are, "basically". Also, from what I have read it's not how many kills, what place you are on your team or anything like that. You either win or loose. They system may also be more sure about their rank so they don't go down as easily as you. Keep in mind you not only have your displayed skill level, the system also tracks how sure it is you should be at that level. The more unsure it is, the more wins and losses will change your rank.

I did a quick check of your slayer games. On the 11th you went 14 - 6 and went from a 38 to a 40. On the 12th you went 6 - 5 and bounced between 40 and 41. Regardless of what levels your playing with and against, you still need to win to go up. It seems to be working fine for you cause you won 8 more games than you lost on the 11th and you went up three levels. You won one more game than you lost on the 12th and you stayed the same.

  • 11.13.2007 11:05 AM PDT
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Posted by: Jay120171
Posted by: El gaso paso
More than 50 percent of my games are against people that are higher lv than me because the people i play with are higher than me and yet they lv up about every 3 games and when i finally lv up if i loose one game i am the only one that goes down and my friends that are higher lvs than me and don't loose their lvs and keep leveling up. The party i play with are all lv 43 and higher and i am a lv 41so if i end up in first place and i beat people that are higher than me shouldn't i have the right to lv up since i get first in my team and we win the game. Also by the time i go up one lv they have gone up 2 and then we lose a game and i lose my lv and they don't and it keeps doing that over and over.

You all will not level up at the same time, they may be closer to the next level than you are, "basically". Also, from what I have read it's not how many kills, what place you are on your team or anything like that. You either win or loose. They system may also be more sure about their rank so they don't go down as easily as you. Keep in mind you not only have your displayed skill level, the system also tracks how sure it is you should be at that level. The more unsure it is, the more wins and losses will change your rank.

I did a quick check of your slayer games. On the 11th you went 14 - 6 and went from a 38 to a 40. On the 12th you went 6 - 5 and bounced between 40 and 41. Regardless of what levels your playing with and against, you still need to win to go up. It seems to be working fine for you cause you won 8 more games than you lost on the 11th and you went up three levels. You won one more game than you lost on the 12th and you stayed the same.


Stop confusing the issue with facts! We want to level up every time we win and level down only ever other time. We all want to be level 50 so that we can play against people extremely better than us so we can lose on a consistant basis, making the game alot less fun.

Maybe they can randomly asign people rank so that we are just matched up with people arbitrarily and I can get lucky and play against n00bs all the time. But not the n00bs that use maulers cause I hate that too. Maybe I can just go onto Bungie.net and pick the people I'd be willing to play so that I can always win.

  • 11.13.2007 11:32 AM PDT
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Posted by: mo0vaf00
ohhh ! I get it now so theres some kind of value that wants you to be unconsistant to rank up so if i win 1 game going even and win the next going +10 i have more of a chance of ranking up than just winning 2 games getting the same score

No. Your K/D means nothing. Only if you win or lose.

Thanks to the OP. Very informative.

  • 11.13.2007 11:57 AM PDT
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Great post and explanation of the ranking system. well done,
BUT i feel this system is relative to the strength of players you are playing against.ie. It would be easyier to gain a high rank if there were less Strong players in the game when indeed halo3 was first released.
So the system would give a false reading of whom are the best players are now.
If these top ranked players were to start from scratch again, alot would not be on such a high rank,
As the strenth of the oposition has increased OVERALL.. through time naturally.
I am not faulting your explanation, but the system itself.




[Edited on 11.13.2007 12:09 PM PST]

  • 11.13.2007 12:03 PM PDT
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Very informative and appreciated.

  • 11.13.2007 12:11 PM PDT