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This topic has moved here: Subject: In depth explanation of the Halo 3 skill ranking system.
  • Subject: In depth explanation of the Halo 3 skill ranking system.
Subject: In depth explanation of the Halo 3 skill ranking system.

People who report others on the bungie forums are so cool!

What if I come in 2nd or 3rd place in Lone Wolves? Does it count as a win? Is the system for Lone Wolves different?

If so, could it be explained?

  • 12.24.2007 2:29 PM PDT

Posted by: eagle eye21
yeah I can win all day and not gain rank but I lose one match and I drop level. I think this needs to be fixed I have only lost like 3 games in double team and win well over 50+ games still I am only a level 14 so I don't get how this is far. this is the only change that I see that needs to be fixed because there are a lot of players in this game that are not that good but are high level I do report all people that suck on the game but I don't know if any of this is being changed. I can win all day in double team and get no where how is the game going to be fun. It was addictive in Halo 2 cause if you won a lot you got level and if you sucked you got no where for the most part until you played with really good people. I will say the boosting is gone in Halo 3 but the mult accounts are running around like crazy I know that is the hardest thing to stop.
Well, I looked at your games and if this is the account you are talking about, you've played 25 TD games and lost twice. After the first loss you didn't go down. After the second loss, you did. I don't think level 13 after only 25 games with 2 losses is anything to complain about. You have played all your TD games with the same partner so keep in mind this may slow you down at some point. In H2, 23 wins would have you put a few levels below what your are now in H3.

Oh, what do you report? You said the people that are not good but you don't know if any of this is being changed. What does that mean?

  • 12.24.2007 4:09 PM PDT

Posted by: JaketheSnake 76
What if I come in 2nd or 3rd place in Lone Wolves? Does it count as a win? Is the system for Lone Wolves different?

If so, could it be explained?
It really depends on the levels you are playing against but a 1st or 2nd is like a win, 3rd or 4th is like a tie, 5th or 6th is like a loss. The system works the same for LW as it does for teams.

  • 12.24.2007 4:12 PM PDT

People who report others on the bungie forums are so cool!

Posted by: Jay120171
Posted by: JaketheSnake 76
What if I come in 2nd or 3rd place in Lone Wolves? Does it count as a win? Is the system for Lone Wolves different?

If so, could it be explained?
It really depends on the levels you are playing against but a 1st or 2nd is like a win, 3rd or 4th is like a tie, 5th or 6th is like a loss. The system works the same for LW as it does for teams.


If I come in 3rd or 4th in LW (equivalent to a tie like you said), will my level go up or down? I've tied before and I have gone down, but other times I've gone up (In different playlists).

[Edited on 12.24.2007 5:18 PM PST]

  • 12.24.2007 5:18 PM PDT

Posted by: JaketheSnake 76
Posted by: Jay120171
Posted by: JaketheSnake 76
What if I come in 2nd or 3rd place in Lone Wolves? Does it count as a win? Is the system for Lone Wolves different?

If so, could it be explained?
It really depends on the levels you are playing against but a 1st or 2nd is like a win, 3rd or 4th is like a tie, 5th or 6th is like a loss. The system works the same for LW as it does for teams.


If I come in 3rd or 4th in LW (equivalent to a tie like you said), will my level go up or down? I've tied before and I have gone down, but other times I've gone up (In different playlists).
That is where the levels of the people you are playing come in to play. If you are the lowest skill and come in 3rd, you'll probably go up. If you re the highest, you'll probably go down.

  • 12.24.2007 5:22 PM PDT
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Good explaination, was wondering why i was loosing rank when wins:losses
= 50:50. Makes sense now, ta.

  • 12.24.2007 6:25 PM PDT

Playing time!

so what exactly do I have to do to earn experience points and what exactly do I have to do to earn skill points?

  • 12.24.2007 8:04 PM PDT

Thanks now i see what kind of crap they use to figure out our ranks but i still dont really understand it..... i mean sigma and mu who the hell do they think they are how about useing your win lose record in each playlist coupled with your induvidual game performance like mvp and kill ratios to figure out if you go up in rank that game. i dont know sounds like it would be a lot easier to understand that way.

  • 12.25.2007 11:14 AM PDT

I only globally read the first page, do not have the time now to read 29 pages.

I have a simple question:
- Does the amount of Experience you have influence the rate at which your skill increases. (For instance, someone that has 250 Exp and wins 10 games in a row increases his skill more than someone that has 500 Exp and wins 10 games in a row).

Since I often see people that quit 500 matches in a row to get back to 0 Exp, yet they have a skill of 48.

  • 12.26.2007 9:20 AM PDT
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Posted by: The 1nevitable
I only globally read the first page, do not have the time now to read 29 pages.

I have a simple question:
- Does the amount of Experience you have influence the rate at which your skill increases. (For instance, someone that has 250 Exp and wins 10 games in a row increases his skill more than someone that has 500 Exp and wins 10 games in a row).

Since I often see people that quit 500 matches in a row to get back to 0 Exp, yet they have a skill of 48.


Not directly. Each playlist rank (and all calculations of rank within it) are seperate from each other and therefore seperate from EXP. EXP is obviously all inclusive of all social and ranked games. However, lots of EXP usuaully means you have played a lot of games. What you see is just circumstantial.

  • 12.26.2007 11:05 AM PDT
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This point may already have been adressed but I can't be -blam!-ged to read through 29 pages of idiocity.
I understand the system in most aspects. However, one flaw as far as I can see is that rank in a particular gametype(25 or whatever) and rank in the game(colonel for example) don't coincide. As a Major for example, one can play brigadiers or generals who are ranked similarly to you in a particular gametype. Therefore, it is likely that you are playing someone who either has been playing the game much longer than you and will therefore possibly be correspondingly better than you(obviously, this isn't always the case). Or, they have a better connection(upload speed etc) than you and will therefore almost cetainly beat you. A higher overall game rank should therefore be expected to beat a lower one.
So, playing a player of much higher 'game rank' but perhaps lower 'gametype rank' would result in you ranking down in the same manner as if you were playing someone of much lower 'game rank' who had only played that particular gametype? How does the system counter this?

As an example(although I'm not complaining as such), I tend to play in a team in which we are ranked similarly(around 30 or a couple of ranks either way) and are all roughly majors. We almost always get matched against teams which contain colonels and brigadiers and occasionly generals for some reason who are ranked similarly to us in a gametype. We win most of the time, I'd say at a win percentage of about 80% against these colonels/brigadiers but without exception lose a rank when we lose the 1 in the 5. I know it has been stated that losing against lower ranks hits you hard but a colonel may have gained all his skill playing objective and then is lower in slayer than you.

  • 12.26.2007 12:17 PM PDT
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thats good stuff there. its pretty cool htat a member is writing that up and not like bungie staff or anything. i gotta show my friend that, cuz he gets pissed when i rank up (my skill) every other game and hes sitting at the same level hes been at for weeks. anyways, nice work!

  • 12.26.2007 7:06 PM PDT
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Yeah i barely started playing and i am liked stoped on Recruit lvl for a longtime now(iknow recruit is such a nub lvl,but ive been on it and deserve like sargent)..everytime i win i dont even get any EXP and according to the game i only need 1 exp to lvl and i never get any and i usely comeout on top of every1......any idea why its like that...and i check the bungie acc to and i have -1 exp ive only left 1 game before and im sure ive made that up with the like 10more games i played....

[Edited on 12.26.2007 8:26 PM PST]

  • 12.26.2007 8:24 PM PDT

Hard work beats talent if talent doesn't work hard.

Great post. - Very useful.

  • 12.27.2007 1:28 AM PDT
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I think so, but it doesn't explain why in a team of 3 of my buddies and myself (lvl 38, 28, 13, and 35) can win 20-30 games in a row and not rank up once... no one... 2 nights ago we won 21 in a row. 21!!! I counted on this site. Not a single rank up. Yet at the end of that spree I lost a single game and dropped from a 28 to a 27... My K/D Ratio was around 2 at the time (it's 1.7 now or so)... So what gives??

I'm consistant with a spread of +11 would be my average, I've won roughly 85% of my games. I don't understand. I play with 37s and 38s and beat them regularly no problems, yet I can't seem to rank up... It took me 2 days to go from lvl 1 to lvl 26... Now It's been 3 days and I can't break 28???

BROKEN

  • 12.27.2007 7:53 AM PDT
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thanks for writing this i have a question though. I have played most of my ranked games in Team Slayer , i got to a level 37 with my friends. Then i had a 5 game losing streak playing against lower levels who obviously were better than there level. I dropped to a 33. I got back up to a 35 with my friends. He was 37 when i was 33, and now im a 34 and hes a 41 and we played the same games, so wtf? I am the only one in my group never to go up, so what do i do?

  • 12.27.2007 10:04 AM PDT
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Posted by: pinkmist ripper
This point may already have been adressed but I can't be -blam!-ged to read through 29 pages of idiocity.
I understand the system in most aspects. However, one flaw as far as I can see is that rank in a particular gametype(25 or whatever) and rank in the game(colonel for example) don't coincide. As a Major for example, one can play brigadiers or generals who are ranked similarly to you in a particular gametype. Therefore, it is likely that you are playing someone who either has been playing the game much longer than you and will therefore possibly be correspondingly better than you(obviously, this isn't always the case). Or, they have a better connection(upload speed etc) than you and will therefore almost cetainly beat you. A higher overall game rank should therefore be expected to beat a lower one.
So, playing a player of much higher 'game rank' but perhaps lower 'gametype rank' would result in you ranking down in the same manner as if you were playing someone of much lower 'game rank' who had only played that particular gametype? How does the system counter this?

As an example(although I'm not complaining as such), I tend to play in a team in which we are ranked similarly(around 30 or a couple of ranks either way) and are all roughly majors. We almost always get matched against teams which contain colonels and brigadiers and occasionly generals for some reason who are ranked similarly to us in a gametype. We win most of the time, I'd say at a win percentage of about 80% against these colonels/brigadiers but without exception lose a rank when we lose the 1 in the 5. I know it has been stated that losing against lower ranks hits you hard but a colonel may have gained all his skill playing objective and then is lower in slayer than you.


It's not a flaw in the system for you to get matched with colonels and brigadiers. Fact is they neeed a way to rank up in a playlist as well, and that means by beating you and me. They should not have to fight level 40-50's from rank 1 all the way up.

It seems odd you are winning 80% of games and ranking down (I didn't look at your history). One problem could be the match quality (which is one of the greatest weaknesses of Bungie's system...but they are working on it). The other possibility is you are simply not winning 80% of your games. In general, you should be ranking up if you are winning 80%, as matchmaking quality should be on average ok. Go look at your win/loss record for recent games. I find that whenever I think I am winning 80% of my games, when I actually go to audit it, its more like 60%.

  • 12.27.2007 10:40 AM PDT
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This all makes sense to me but still doesn't make sense to me why bungie would go to great engths to make the leveling system so hopelessly frustrating

  • 12.27.2007 11:15 AM PDT
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hehe. now that I've read this I can tell my friends to stfu and quit whining when they "win 30 games in a row and don't rank up" because it gets extremely annoying after hearing it about 1000 times (that's only a slight exaggeration people)
I'll just tell them to read this thread, because this helped me make sense of how people's ranks can go up or down at a certain rate.

  • 12.27.2007 4:20 PM PDT
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wow, that answers a lot of my questions, thanks

  • 12.27.2007 9:14 PM PDT

Lies Lies and more Lies. It was broken right out of the box.

  • 12.28.2007 4:02 AM PDT

Posted by: Doom Lit Sky
I think so, but it doesn't explain why in a team of 3 of my buddies and myself (lvl 38, 28, 13, and 35) can win 20-30 games in a row and not rank up once... no one... 2 nights ago we won 21 in a row. 21!!! I counted on this site. Not a single rank up. Yet at the end of that spree I lost a single game and dropped from a 28 to a 27... My K/D Ratio was around 2 at the time (it's 1.7 now or so)... So what gives??

I'm consistant with a spread of +11 would be my average, I've won roughly 85% of my games. I don't understand. I play with 37s and 38s and beat them regularly no problems, yet I can't seem to rank up... It took me 2 days to go from lvl 1 to lvl 26... Now It's been 3 days and I can't break 28???

BROKEN
I looked at your games and I couldn't find a streak of 21 wins WITHOUT you gaining a level. Anyway, your K/D ratio or any in-game stat is not used by the system. You played in a party with vastly different skill levels - up to 20 apart. It will take significantly longer for you to gain skill when playing in a party like this. Play with people around you same skill level and you will go up if you continue to win.

  • 12.28.2007 6:47 AM PDT

Posted by: Silentium Nexx
thanks for writing this i have a question though. I have played most of my ranked games in Team Slayer , i got to a level 37 with my friends. Then i had a 5 game losing streak playing against lower levels who obviously were better than there level. I dropped to a 33. I got back up to a 35 with my friends. He was 37 when i was 33, and now im a 34 and hes a 41 and we played the same games, so wtf? I am the only one in my group never to go up, so what do i do?
You all will not go up or down at the same rate considering you have not all played only together and are not all the same skill levels. If the system is more sure about your skill compared to his, he will go up and down quicker. Just keep playing and winning against equal or higher skilled people and your skill will go up.

  • 12.28.2007 6:53 AM PDT