- last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT
WHEW! In my quest to discover Bungie's seemingly arbitrary and other-worldly method of determining ranking criteria, I have found something more frustrating than their lack of desire to explain their system to their paying customers; their wayyyyyyyy tooooooo busy webpage that nearly ruins your eyes trying to sort through all the images and endless random verbage that would bore a lawyer to death. ANYWAY.... about the so-called ranking system.
Yes I understand the Mu and sigma process (not 100% but I get the idea behind the use of statistical formulas), but no matter how well you perform as an INDIVIDUAL, if you lose because of poor performance of TEAM MATES, ( who lag out or quit out, dont play or whatever other reason there is that is beyond your control) you are penalized for your TEAMS loss by NOT ranking up even if you have a +20 kd and are MVP with a rampage, extermination etc etc etc...... .So the aggregate data from your previous games is the historical data that determines if you rank up in future games. So this formula dictates you should never worry about winning as long as you continually increase your performance exponentially.... but the make or break for an upgrade in rank is that your TEAM wins.... hmmmmm.. but no matter how outstanding your performance is, you will not rank up. This presents a problem. The formula used is based on you playing in a controlled environment, and does not account for variables as I have described. Also, the use of the statistical methods are further rendered useless with the manipulative culture of boosting, negative xp'ers, and what about spawning into a sniper shot or warthog gunner spawn killing? If bungie is going to rely so heavily on statistics, than winning or losing should have nothing to do with it. Saying this, I understand there are things about it that I do not comprehend or have mistakenly analyzed, and I know there is no perfect system. I just think its too complicated and bungie needs to account for neg xp'ers, quitters, laggers, players who dont play and in team slayer, essentially variables that should be factored in to the statistical methodology or their is no point in using stat methods when your only going to use a portion of data and variables. Anyway, just my 2 cents worth. All I know is I get reaaaaal pissed when I win 10 games in a row, with + kd, lots of medals, and dont rank up, but lose when I lose one game, even when I still perform well. If things dont change, Im going to move on from Halo 3 back to chess; a much simpler formula where your ranking ALWAYS goes up when you win and the only person you can blame for not winning is you! Im sure it wont matter to bungie; whats the loss of one customer right? Its not a political thing, its just I want to see results for my time and energy, and if I dont.... its a waste of my time.
[Edited on 07.06.2009 8:41 PM PDT]