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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.

Posted by: ten1zer7
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.

I think I understand what you are saying but I think the system has to be relative to the strength of the players. If it was just a win 1000 games and be a level 50 then we would have a H2 system. The way I understand it is the H3 system adapts and adjusts the players skill based on how skillfull the community is in general. With this type of system it needs data to base the curves off of. So, at launch a player could level up relatively fast. Once the everything evened or evens out, it becomes harder to level up. As long as the players keep playing, their skill will eventually be what "it should" be. If they played enough to get a 50 in the fist week and never played again, it might not be as accurate as someone who plays everyday and is a 50. Overall, I think it is working and in my opinion, is a better system.

  • 11.13.2007 12:31 PM PDT

Posted by: ten1zer7
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.


That's a good feeling because it is true. The system is completly relative. 50 in no way means you are any good, it simply means the system believes you to be one of the best of the players currently playing. If the strength of all active players is very weak it's possible the top players are also very weak.

That being said I don't agree with your opinion that the top players couldn't get there again. First the overall strength of the player pool probably is not much different from day one. Many very good players were playing on day one as well, so the higher levels still had to go through them to get there. Secondly the system is capable of adapting and changing. If a weak player did make it up high and shouldn't be there that player will fall in time because they won't be able to compete. As better players rise the weaker ones would fall.

[Edited on 11.13.2007 3:09 PM PST]

  • 11.13.2007 1:20 PM PDT
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We're all gonna die!!!
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I knew I would use all that statistics i learned in high school some day! thanks man and props

  • 11.13.2007 1:29 PM PDT
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Posted by: RELLIK PIR2
Sounds a lot like it punishes you for playing with your friends if they are not on your level. It makes a choice Playing with friends and hovering high 40s forever or only playing with your elite friends and getting a 50. And if they had told us this earlier it would have sure been nice. Sigma Mu is BS We win like a total of 14 games and lose 2 and we are down a level at the end of the night. It's broken for sure.

If this game is for fun its not fun never being able to get your 50 because you play with your friends and lose some then win abunch with good people and don't rank up.


................... Alright, it is a game, and thus, meant to be played for fun. That is all it is, if you are that worried about your skill level, to the point where playing is not fun because you can't get to level 50, then you need a reality check. People that enjoy the game the most are the ones that just play the game and dont' worry about their ranking or their skill levels because they don't matter. They're only there to make the ranked games playout more fairly than just having shutouts all the time.
Chill people, he was just giving a summary of how the skill ranks work. You don't need to come here with all your questions about why I didn't level up when I did this, or, why I leveled down when this happened. Just deal with it. If you actually play the game for fun, than it doesn't matter.
I've gone stretches in playing team slayer where my friends and I have gotten the steaktacular medal for 11 games in a row, and didn't go up a level. And that was at level 19. Do I care? No. Do you see me complaining on all the forums? No. I would like matches more equal to my true skill, but it will happen in time. So until that happens for y'all, just deal with it and stop griping about every minor thing.

Great explanation by the way, clears up a lot.

  • 11.13.2007 2:24 PM PDT
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i think this system sucks and should be thrown away with due to the bullcrap fator being to great.

explained:

H3 = bs*w(10)l(1)
Halo 3 = BS cuz u win 10 times lose once and u go down a level.

summary:
i think this sytem sucks and im guna go play some other game that isnt bull-blam!- 98% of the time. call me when this game gets fixed

  • 11.13.2007 4:20 PM PDT
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Agreed, but maybe it's not broken; it's just a crappy way to level players in H3.

  • 11.13.2007 4:24 PM PDT
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Posted by: Jay120171
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.


So, your 'individual' rank, has absolutely NOTHING to do with your 'individual' performance?... Thats just 'dumb'.. for lack of a more correct term.

And btw.. if you are an 11.. in TS, and you play with 3 30's... and against 3 30's.. and you come out in first place of the winning team.. you do NOT rank up.

So if thats what you think the system does, you are wrong, even if you do this 3 or 4 times in a row.. as an 11.. nope..

This ranking system may seem to 'work' for some.. but there are many others that are seeing something off.. and I'm not normally one to complain.. Melee system seems fine to me.. but this seems kinda off. 3 games.. me an 11.. my buddy a 16.. I come out on top of the winning team.. above my buddy.. I'm an 11, he's a 17.. next game, same thing.. I'm 11, he's an 18... next game, SAME thing.. I'm 11.. he's a 19. same thing again, I hit 12... yeah.. system seems off.

  • 11.13.2007 4:50 PM PDT

Cogito Ergo Sum

Great job. I tried to make one of these literally at the same point you did, but this is definetly a much much better job.

  • 11.13.2007 5:29 PM PDT

Very well thought, informative, and helpful.

I'm sure the community appreciates it greatly.

  • 11.13.2007 5:31 PM PDT
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This is a really good Forum Post. It really cleared up alot of misconceptions for me and my friends. There is one error I think may be possible. Right now I don't even have an xbox 360, I simply bought a gamertag and put it on my friend's xbox for the time being. I have only played in games where my friends were in the same games with me, and yet we are not the same rank. Besides maybe a few games my friend has played without me (a very small amount), we have nearly the same win/loss ratio and the same games played, but I have a higher rank. This would lead me to believe that how well players do in games (MVP, Medals, K/D Ratio, ... , ETC) does have some kind of effect on the players rank. I'm not saying that the model posted here is inaccurate; on the contrary, I think it is well thought out and most likely very accurate to what is actually used, but I noticed this inconsistency and thought I should let everyone know to think about it. Reply what you think!

  • 11.13.2007 5:40 PM PDT
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It's stunningly like the halo 2 system. They realeased the 2 in depth, So they probobly will for 3.

  • 11.13.2007 6:11 PM PDT

Posted by: pH0rc3 pH33d
This is a really good Forum Post. It really cleared up alot of misconceptions for me and my friends. There is one error I think may be possible. Right now I don't even have an xbox 360, I simply bought a gamertag and put it on my friend's xbox for the time being. I have only played in games where my friends were in the same games with me, and yet we are not the same rank. Besides maybe a few games my friend has played without me (a very small amount), we have nearly the same win/loss ratio and the same games played, but I have a higher rank. This would lead me to believe that how well players do in games (MVP, Medals, K/D Ratio, ... , ETC) does have some kind of effect on the players rank. I'm not saying that the model posted here is inaccurate; on the contrary, I think it is well thought out and most likely very accurate to what is actually used, but I noticed this inconsistency and thought I should let everyone know to think about it. Reply what you think!
The TrueSkill system bases the movement of skill levels off the win or loss. It takes nothing else into consideration. This is well documented and there is absolute confirmation by Bungie that the ranking system used in Halo 3 only cares about the single fact you won or loss but not by how much or what kind of performance you may have had. I looked at the number of games played between you and your friend and your friend seems to have played a couple hundred more matchmade games. Unless you play EVERY single game together you will not rank the same. Even a few games different can change things.

[Edited on 11.13.2007 8:23 PM PST]

  • 11.13.2007 8:22 PM PDT

www.cod4lessons.moonfruit.com/#

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|.==,-.~;. ____:._______ __’__’__’_ _ _\==
|................--:---:--:--‘---:,, ,,, ,,, ,,,:---: /=
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nice!!! ive been getting pretty pissed off these days at halo 3 but now i understand.

  • 11.13.2007 8:32 PM PDT

Posted by: ReCLaIM
Posted by: Jay120171
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.


So, your 'individual' rank, has absolutely NOTHING to do with your 'individual' performance?... Thats just 'dumb'.. for lack of a more correct term.

And btw.. if you are an 11.. in TS, and you play with 3 30's... and against 3 30's.. and you come out in first place of the winning team.. you do NOT rank up.

So if thats what you think the system does, you are wrong, even if you do this 3 or 4 times in a row.. as an 11.. nope..

This ranking system may seem to 'work' for some.. but there are many others that are seeing something off.. and I'm not normally one to complain.. Melee system seems fine to me.. but this seems kinda off. 3 games.. me an 11.. my buddy a 16.. I come out on top of the winning team.. above my buddy.. I'm an 11, he's a 17.. next game, same thing.. I'm 11, he's an 18... next game, SAME thing.. I'm 11.. he's a 19. same thing again, I hit 12... yeah.. system seems off.

It would be a nightmare to attempt to base someone's skill level off of there performance. You can't judge someone skill by one neat little factor like K/D ratio. There are a lot of factors involved in a persons skill that are difficult if not impossible to quantify. The only reasonable solution is to base it off of wins and that works pretty damn well. In the long run a good player will win more then worse players even if they go into matchmaking alone. The system only tries to approximate your skill level. For that it works well. Skill can be very subjective but a subjective system would be very difficult to implement. Basing it off win/losses is an objective system and much easier to use.

You can rank up from 11 if you play with 30's. You may be a little stuck for a while depending on a number of factors but the system will move you just fine if you give it time. I see no indication of a problem looking at your stats. If you could point me to a specific date and what playlist you had trouble in maybe I can help make sense of it.

Based on your last comment I think you don't fully understand the system. First you made note you came out on top of your buddy. That doesn't matter and is mentioned in the guide. Second you seem to be making a conclusion based on 3 games played. 3 games is hardly enough to indicate there is any problem.

  • 11.13.2007 8:37 PM PDT
Subject: Yea only one problem it dosent work all the time!
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I had a 15 game win streak in team slayer carrying my whole team most of the time and only leveled up twice oh and also i was playing with 40s when im a 30 so by what you say about how the true skill works i should have been leveling faster than them well wrong I know thats whats supposed to happen but its too complicated for a simple task there are too many things to go wrong I wish they would just keep it simple. Or maybe its just really overloaded by all the players to keep track of :S

look at my games in team slayer on my games played for proof.
But i will say in lone wolves it works just fine when i win i level and if i get last i level down.

Is this happening to anyone else?

  • 11.13.2007 11:47 PM PDT

Posted by: LoveNub
I had a 15 game win streak in team slayer carrying my whole team most of the time and only leveled up twice oh and also i was playing with 40s when im a 30 so by what you say about how the true skill works i should have been leveling faster than them well wrong I know thats whats supposed to happen but its too complicated for a simple task there are too many things to go wrong I wish they would just keep it simple. Or maybe its just really overloaded by all the players to keep track of :S

look at my games in team slayer on my games played for proof.
But i will say in lone wolves it works just fine when i win i level and if i get last i level down.

Is this happening to anyone else?


Read my write up on the bottom of the second page.

Obviously, your Sigma is very low, so unless you start winning consistently against higher level players and not losing against lower level player's, you wont throw you Sigma off and thus your rank wont move. Also, winning 15 games is one of those "Unexpected spree's and those bad days" things. it stops people from grinding the system and Boosting a la Halo 2.

  • 11.14.2007 12:24 AM PDT
Subject: In depth explanation of the Halo 3 skill ranking system.

MAKE XBOX LIVE FREE!!!!!!

i just read this whole thing and im confused.

so basicaly what im getting out of this is if you win you level up? to me it sounds like the H2 system

someone help me!

  • 11.14.2007 1:14 AM PDT
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If this game is for fun its not fun never being able to get your 50 because you play with your friends and lose some then win abunch with good people and don't rank up.
I'm sure everyone would have fun being level 50, but that would defeat the purpose of having a skill system. It's not an inevitability, you have to earn it.

On another note, this was a good post. However, I still find the system frustrating. I played a few matches tonight where my team lost but I was on the top, quite a bit in the positive. I realize that it doesn't affect anything in the way the system sees your skill, but it's hard to accept that it shouldn't. Sure, it would be difficult to define skillful play outright, but if a player on the losing team can outkill and outlast the winning team in Team Slayer and come out on top, they shouldn't take it so hard. When you get stuck with someone on your team that goes -15 and lose, it doesn't reflect your skill as much as it reflects their lack thereof.

[Edited on 11.14.2007 1:31 AM PST]

  • 11.14.2007 1:26 AM PDT

It's like a retard riding a bicycle while eating hot wings.
Sometimes you have to take the bike seat off to really enjoy it.

i read through the first sentence and got lost

  • 11.14.2007 2:36 AM PDT

It's like a retard riding a bicycle while eating hot wings.
Sometimes you have to take the bike seat off to really enjoy it.

Nerds hehe..

  • 11.14.2007 2:38 AM PDT
Subject: Yea only one problem it dosent work all the time!
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LoveNub writes:
I had a 15 game win streak in team slayer carrying my whole team most of the time and only leveled up twice oh and also i was playing with 40s when im a 30 so by what you say about how the true skill works i should have been leveling faster than them...
Is this happening to anyone else?


Actually, you being a 30 individually doesn't matter as much for your personal leveling. Neither does carrying the team. Not in a team hopper, anyways. Let me show you why...

Win 1
Win 2
Win 3
Win 4

Loss

Okay, I've taken the liberty of linking to the 4 games immediately after you hit 32 in your streak, and the loss that dropped you down to 31 again.

In those 4 wins, your team level summed up to 3 to 10 more than your opponents in each match. Also, no teams you played against had two forties on the team. Higher levels are weighted more in the team skill summation. The way the system works, those matches were uneven enough to give your team very little in the way of skill advancement.

However, your one loss was against a team only 1 skill level above yours. In addition, according to skill weighting, their team skill (while numerically 1 superior) was probably placed lower than your team's skill. That loss was weighted more heavily than the wins were.

You must have had a higher Sigma than your 42 teammate, as he didn't drop a skill point there.

By the way trueskill works, in a team game, everyone on the winning team is handed the same amount of Mu. Then, the Mu gained is adjusted by a multiple (arbitrarily set by Bungie and Microsoft) of each player's personal Sigma. Only THEN is the Mu added to your total.

So you see, in a team game with team members of uneven rank, if everyone has the same sigma, everyone will rank up at RELATIVELY the same pace. Lower levels seem to rank up more in team games because lower levels TEND to have a lower Sigma, but this is not always true.

P.S. Great no-scope screenshot.

P.P.S. I think your streak was great, even if the Trueskill system didn't. But you DID go up two ranks, which is a lot (over only 15 or so games) for someone who's played as many games as you. Keep it up, the system's re-evaluating your skill.

[Edited on 11.14.2007 5:11 AM PST]

  • 11.14.2007 3:15 AM PDT
Subject: In depth explanation of the Halo 3 skill ranking system.

Hello, Community!

Hopefully if you're reading this, it's because you're interesting in kicking your campaign experience up a notch by cranking up the Legendary with all skulls activated :-) Need advice? A guide? Maybe even a friendly community to cheer you on and help guide you through the process? Then give our Mythic thread a read, and Godspeed on your Mythic journey!

Best Regards,
The Tyrant

That was a beautiful explanation and an excellent read!

  • 11.14.2007 6:00 AM PDT
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  • Exalted Legendary Member

You face an opponent who has never known defeat, who laughs in foreign tongues at your efforts to survive. This is Reply suicide.

"Oh Molly Connoly ruined my life, I thought the world should know."
Say Anything - Every Man Has A Molly

Is there a way to explain how some people lose a game and gain a level for the loss? A few people have reported this, including myself.

I, in fact, earned my first 41 by this method.

  • 11.14.2007 6:00 AM PDT

Posted by: ReCLaIM
So, your 'individual' rank, has absolutely NOTHING to do with your 'individual' performance?... Thats just 'dumb'.. for lack of a more correct term.

I am guessing you are talking about Team Slayer so no, the teams performance (win or loss) is being used to calc your skill. In a FFA playlist, your individual performance is used.

Posted by: ReCLaIM
And btw.. if you are an 11.. in TS, and you play with 3 30's... and against 3 30's.. and you come out in first place of the winning team.. you do NOT rank up.

As stated in the OP and other threads, your performance within a team (getting the most kills on your team) does not matter. Only your teams performance via a win or loss.

Posted by: ReCLaIM
This ranking system may seem to 'work' for some.. but there are many others that are seeing something off.. and I'm not normally one to complain.. Melee system seems fine to me.. but this seems kinda off. 3 games.. me an 11.. my buddy a 16.. I come out on top of the winning team.. above my buddy.. I'm an 11, he's a 17.. next game, same thing.. I'm 11, he's an 18... next game, SAME thing.. I'm 11.. he's a 19. same thing again, I hit 12... yeah.. system seems off.

Again, as was stated in the OP. If the system is more confident in your level, you will level up AND down slower than a person who the system is not as confident about.

In H2, win 4 or 5 games and go up. Lose 5 or 6 and go down. It was a linear system and predictable. If you had a night where your team was being matched up with a bunch of teams that were lower levels than you, you would still go up at pretty much the same rate.

In H3 it's not as linear. You may have to win 10 to go up a level or you may go up a level after every win. The idea behind the H3 system is once you play enough, the system has set your level and is confident about it. In a way both systems are similar because you have to win to go up until you hit the point where the system thinks you should be. Once you are at that point, you have to win against higher level players to go up. If you get matched up with a bunch of lower level teams, you probably will not go up.

  • 11.14.2007 6:00 AM PDT
Subject: Yea only one problem it dosent work all the time!

Posted by: El Kafungus
LoveNub writes:
I had a 15 game win streak in team slayer carrying my whole team most of the time and only leveled up twice oh and also i was playing with 40s when im a 30 so by what you say about how the true skill works i should have been leveling faster than them...
Is this happening to anyone else?


Actually, you being a 30 individually doesn't matter as much for your personal leveling. Neither does carrying the team. Not in a team hopper, anyways. Let me show you why...

Win 1
Win 2
Win 3
Win 4

Loss

Okay, I've taken the liberty of linking to the 4 games immediately after you hit 32 in your streak, and the loss that dropped you down to 31 again.

In those 4 wins, your team level summed up to 3 to 10 more than your opponents in each match. Also, no teams you played against had two forties on the team. Higher levels are weighted more in the team skill summation. The way the system works, those matches were uneven enough to give your team very little in the way of skill advancement.

However, your one loss was against a team only 1 skill level above yours. In addition, according to skill weighting, their team skill (while numerically 1 superior) was probably placed lower than your team's skill. That loss was weighted more heavily than the wins were.

You must have had a higher Sigma than your 42 teammate, as he didn't drop a skill point there.

By the way trueskill works, in a team game, everyone on the winning team is handed the same amount of Mu. Then, the Mu gained is adjusted by a multiple (arbitrarily set by Bungie and Microsoft) of each player's personal Sigma. Only THEN is the Mu added to your total.

So you see, in a team game with team members of uneven rank, if everyone has the same sigma, everyone will rank up at RELATIVELY the same pace. Lower levels seem to rank up more in team games because lower levels TEND to have a lower Sigma, but this is not always true.

P.S. Great no-scope screenshot.

P.P.S. I think your streak was great, even if the Trueskill system didn't. But you DID go up two ranks, which is a lot (over only 15 or so games) for someone who's played as many games as you. Keep it up, the system's re-evaluating your skill.


Good research.

Agreed, your sigma is low at the moment, but keep winning more and more often against high level players and your sigma will rise as it doesnt know how good you are. and then you will level faster.

  • 11.14.2007 6:04 AM PDT