Halo 3 Forum
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.

This has some great info on the ranking system. It's definitely a long read, but I don't think it could be explained any other way.

Thanks for taking the time to create this!

  • 06.05.2008 4:43 PM PDT

Great post..thanks a lotm lots of information, but i still have a question: so in team SWAT, ive won like 16 out of 20 games (approx.), but ive gone up a few levels. I recall moving up much faster in TS and LW, but is it because i always play with the same friend?

  • 06.06.2008 3:15 PM PDT
  • gamertag:
  • user homepage:
  • last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT

Posted by: Death Lancer
Great post..thanks a lotm lots of information, but i still have a question: so in team SWAT, ive won like 16 out of 20 games (approx.), but ive gone up a few levels. I recall moving up much faster in TS and LW, but is it because i always play with the same friend?


Yes that's your problem.

  • 06.06.2008 3:24 PM PDT

Thanks for the info. now i can understand a lot better

  • 06.07.2008 7:50 AM PDT
  • gamertag:
  • user homepage:
  • last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT

How does a tie effect all this?

  • 06.07.2008 9:46 AM PDT
  • gamertag:
  • user homepage:
  • last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT

Posted by: I r00stEr I
How does a tie effect all this?


As we have said in previous pages, ties are tough to gauge. The same premises will still apply: your sigma and MU against your opponent's sigma and MU. If they have higher sigma than you, even a tie will give the system good confidence about your rank. Sometimes this has the odd effect of lowering your rank for a game...but it's really just a rounding thing.

Ties are so rare relative to most results, you shouldn't worry about their overall effect.

  • 06.07.2008 11:04 AM PDT

Thank you for such an informative post. There are so many that are less desirable....

  • 06.08.2008 10:43 AM PDT
  •  | 
  • Exalted Legendary Member
  • gamertag: Ariest
  • user homepage:

Good explanation, but still, there's things i still do not understand...Per exemple, in Team Swat, i'm stuck at lvl 15 and I have a record of 44 wins and 1 loss in that playlist (I just verified in my career stats...)

  • 06.08.2008 10:49 AM PDT

The funniest thing about this particular signature is that by the time you realise it doesn't say anything it's to late to stop reading it.

Posted by: ariest
Good explanation, but still, there's things i still do not understand...Per exemple, in Team Swat, i'm stuck at lvl 15 and I have a record of 44 wins and 1 loss in that playlist (I just verified in my career stats...)


Could you tell me what site you went to?

  • 06.08.2008 12:57 PM PDT

Posted by: ariest
Good explanation, but still, there's things i still do not understand...Per exemple, in Team Swat, i'm stuck at lvl 15 and I have a record of 44 wins and 1 loss in that playlist (I just verified in my career stats...)
I didn't look at all your games but the most recent 15 or so, you were playing in a mixed skill party (10 or more skill levels apart). There is a "penalty" when playing in a party like this and you don't gain as much skill as you would otherwise. If you play with friends or teammates closer to your skill level, you should level normally.

  • 06.08.2008 6:33 PM PDT

Quick question:

Does playing one playlist effect your TruSkill on another playlist?


So basically if I play games in Team Slayer will it make it harder to get my Lone Wolves skill up?

  • 06.09.2008 4:20 PM PDT
  • gamertag:
  • user homepage:
  • last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT

Posted by: Hazard Stealth
Quick question:

Does playing one playlist effect your TruSkill on another playlist?


So basically if I play games in Team Slayer will it make it harder to get my Lone Wolves skill up?


No

  • 06.09.2008 6:50 PM PDT

Live to fight. My other account is splosionNpants

My friend won 36 games in a row and didn't go up.

  • 06.09.2008 8:36 PM PDT
  •  | 
  • Exalted Legendary Member
  • gamertag: Ariest
  • user homepage:

/I didn't look at all your games but the most recent 15 or so, you were playing in a mixed skill party (10 or more skill levels apart). There is a "penalty" when playing in a party like this and you don't gain as much skill as you would otherwise. If you play with friends or teammates closer to your skill level, you should level normally.

Thnx that explains it, and the initial post explained why my lvl 35 friend leveled up faster then me. And, by the way, I would of play more with lower level friend... but it's just that I play less than them and they level up fast.

ps: I took my stats of bungie.net, so it's should be pretty acurate :P

[Edited on 06.10.2008 2:02 PM PDT]

  • 06.10.2008 2:02 PM PDT
  • gamertag:
  • user homepage:
  • last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT

is this really true? how do you know all this?

  • 06.10.2008 7:59 PM PDT
  • gamertag:
  • user homepage:
  • last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT

Posted by: makenshi 5
is this really true? how do you know all this?


Most of the info is avilable on the Microsoft website (search True Skill). The rest is simply community experience that seems to coincide with the prinicples outlined in Microsofts data.

  • 06.11.2008 12:15 PM PDT

Ok, I may have mis-interpreted this forum entirely but, I have an idea thats kinda crazy.

What I believe you said is that going on a streak raises your Sigma. What if you went on a huge losing streak on purpose, raised your Sigma, and then started playing well again? Would your rank go up? Or is that just idiotic?

[Edited on 06.11.2008 7:58 PM PDT]

  • 06.11.2008 7:57 PM PDT
  • gamertag:
  • user homepage:
  • last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT

There's to many contridictions in how Trueskill is calculated, maybe an actual Microsoft employee or a Bungie staff member can truely explain it.

  • 06.11.2008 8:04 PM PDT

Okay well on my New acc we've play like 86 games only lost 4 we had huge winning streaks of like 20 games in a row, but we never went up that much, then we wud lose 1 and we all go down, with all thoose games we are only lvl like 13 or 14 so i don't get how we can increase or lvls faster i get wut u were saying, but it didn't really work for us o.O

  • 06.11.2008 8:12 PM PDT
  • gamertag:
  • user homepage:
  • last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT

Good thread, explains a lot.

  • 06.12.2008 6:25 AM PDT
  • gamertag:
  • user homepage:
  • last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT

Posted by: samj77922
Ok, I may have mis-interpreted this forum entirely but, I have an idea thats kinda crazy.

What I believe you said is that going on a streak raises your Sigma. What if you went on a huge losing streak on purpose, raised your Sigma, and then started playing well again? Would your rank go up? Or is that just idiotic?


You misread...going on a streak won't likely increase your sigma. There are a few cases we think we found where it did, but it was more for people that really hadn't lost much yet. We are not 100% confident there arent some small sigma effects on large streaks, but the current data and literature support sigma dropping after every game played, regardless of win or lose.

  • 06.12.2008 8:55 AM PDT
  • gamertag:
  • user homepage:
  • last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT

Posted by: xXxIcYxXx
Okay well on my New acc we've play like 86 games only lost 4 we had huge winning streaks of like 20 games in a row, but we never went up that much, then we wud lose 1 and we all go down, with all thoose games we are only lvl like 13 or 14 so i don't get how we can increase or lvls faster i get wut u were saying, but it didn't really work for us o.O


Without looking at your account I assume you are playing with the same buddies. Not losing and playing with the same people are both known stallers of ranking.

  • 06.12.2008 8:56 AM PDT
  • gamertag:
  • user homepage:
  • last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT

True skill was an aweful innovation from bungie along with any new thing they put into halo 3, i play it now and it makes me sick compared to what fun i had playing halo 2..playlists not being able to match players quickly, CONSTANT lag on the sniper and other weapons makes it horrible, i feel like sometimes im playing something so sub par to what i thoroughly enjoyed in the old halo years

  • 06.12.2008 2:32 PM PDT

The new ranking system is quite terrible. The point of Halo3, for the majority of us, is to have fun. Having fun is usually indicative of winning. I have a group of friends that I play with and we win 9 times out of 10. According to THIS system I am punished for playing with the same people. I could see it being anti-boosting, but it is quite an anti-buddy system when playing in ranked games.

More often than not I see level 50's with 90 games, obviously a second account. The reason they do this, really, is because with no games logged they can quickly and easily get a 50. However, those with a lot of games under their belt have a lot of trouble getting that 50 - they often jump around 47-49.

In a perfect world the system would take into account personal performance in a game. We can win many, many games in a night but rarely rank up... deranking when we lose. In a perfect world, in a world that should have been, the system should use kills/deaths to calculate the amount of experience you get after each game. Winning with a highly positive (or, highly useful in your team) should give you more experience than if you only got one or two kills and went negative in your K/D spread. The opposite is true for a loss. If I lost a game by a few points and went positive, I should not loose so much experience.

This is a horrible, horrible leveling system that rewards you for being a noob. Get rid of it, Bungie.

  • 06.12.2008 2:45 PM PDT

Where the Slime Live
They are the lowest forms of life
Where the Slime Breed
They make a new one too corrupted

The best way I can describe the skill system(in my opinion) is this... I play Halo 3 and try to rank up. The Halo 3 ranking system then pushes me on the ground and stomps my package into dust. That pretty much sums it up for me...

  • 06.12.2008 2:49 PM PDT