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Subject: No visible ranks or skill levels, please

I'll make your girl do backflips.
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Posted by: black kn1ght
I would love to have the option of hiding my own rank and service record.


That would be key, a "private" option.

  • 08.12.2009 6:26 AM PDT

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Posted by: L00
Posted by: The Stick 13
. . . It's a good idea RT, and I'm all for it, but I don't think it would completely solve the problem.
I don't think anything would ever completely solve the problem of people cheating. Everyone will eventually find something to brag about, and once they start bragging, people start cheating so they can brag too.

What I like about the suggestions is that it would make the cheaters target a mechanism in the game that isn't directly related to how even the matches are, the way it is now.
Spot on, L00.

  • 08.12.2009 6:37 AM PDT

What you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

Posted by: necktatpat
Posted by: black kn1ght
I would love to have the option of hiding my own rank and service record.


That would be key, a "private" option.
That would lead to people saying that you're only good if you display your rank, and that if you're hiding it, it's because you suck.

Just sayin'.

  • 08.12.2009 6:37 AM PDT

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

I would prefer that it be just gone altogether. If someone can see their own rank, then the carrot is still there. It would just be an extra step for them to take a screen shot and then post it somewhere.

  • 08.12.2009 6:37 AM PDT
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Posted by: DEATHPIMP72
Anyone but Foman. He smells like cheese.

I like and agree with the idea, however I also realize that it is unlikely to happen. Visible ranks are a moneymaker for Bungie and Microsoft (second/third/fourth/etc. accounts), and they keep people playing the game.

Since removal of visible ranks is unlikely to happen, I'd instead prefer to see as many safeguards as possible to prevent manipulation of ranks. Clearly, the TrueSkill system designed by Microsoft was a disaster. Additionally, the current ranking system places extremely high favor and value on players who are good with the manual dexterity required to be proficient with one or two particular weapons (BR and sometimes the sniper), leaving players who are skilled at other aspects of the game out in the cold.

So I say that rank/skill level should be a more accurate reflection of a player's particular skills rather than assigning a global skill that is dependent on BR/sniper skill. This would allow players to reach high levels while developing whatever Halo skills they deem the most fun.

Additionally, a more robust ranking system that cannot be manipulated is an absolute must. If you are a natural 45, you should be able to reach 45 on your first account, and you should be unable to manipulate the system to get higher than a 45 on subsequent accounts.

  • 08.12.2009 7:37 AM PDT

We're building a better world...all of them, better worlds.

Player X: What did you get your 50 in?

Me: Brute shot.

Player X: Noob.

Dream come true. And I mean with all sincerity.

You know, I really like that idea Fo. What if there was a system that tracked your kills with a particular weapon, much like B.Net already has, and assigns you a rank depending on those kills? This needn't be similar to how TrueSkill displays. It could be in a players service record.

I see a lot of benefits to something of this sort, but the best part about it is it will support the variety in the sandbox of Halo weapons.

  • 08.12.2009 7:45 AM PDT

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Halo 3 in the Workplace

I agree with pretty much everything Foman said.

Ranks are a big reason for the success of online gaming, whether or not we individually like visible ranks, or even agree with how they are calculated.
In that respect, they help us all because they keep the population playing - even if a lot of the population whores stats and ranks.
Anyway.

think back to Halo 2. Cheating has been addressed in a big way already, looking at the present versus the past.
Cheating isn't nearly the problem it has been in the past, and I would venture to guess that any form of cheating we see now would be taken into account for future releases.
Also, we currently can elect to play with or without visible ranks, depending on the playlist. I think that is a great way to give everyone what they want. What is the problem with simply keeping social and ranked playlists separate, as we have them now?

  • 08.12.2009 8:27 AM PDT

troll

  • 08.12.2009 8:49 AM PDT

H3ITWP

I played one game of Halo this morning prior to going to work. Multi-team, one person on another team had over 500 games played and zero, nada, zilch xp. Surpirsingly he finished the game. His highest skill was somewhere between 43-47 I can't remember. After the game I reported him(not that anything will happen). Those are the people that are ruining this game. With that said, it is unlikely to happen.

As Fo stated, it is about the almighty $. With the knowledge and past experience of Halo 2 and 3 I would hope that they (Bungie/Microsoft) are attempting to address the issue of boosting/negative xp and quiting out of games. In a post last week to this week in Optimatch, Shishka stated that it takes a lot to trigger the BH for someone who quits out. Why not keep the current system but put in place that if you quit, get disconnected, or whatever you have a 5 minute automatic break that you cannot get another matchmaking game. Or make it 10 minutes. People should be able to make as many accounts as possible, but make it harder for the person who wants to cheat, and reward the people who play the game honestly.

On a side note, I watched my son play COD4 last night in a 'Cage Match' he was boosting with another person for headshots to unlock -perks. I told him to earn it honestly and turned off the 360. He cannot play it for the rest of the week. Banhammer just struck at my house by me. Cheating will not be tolerated.

  • 08.12.2009 9:11 AM PDT

Just enjoy the damn game!
Who cares about BR vs AR

Posted by: Red Sector A1A

On a side note, I watched my son play COD4 last night in a 'Cage Match' he was boosting with another person for headshots to unlock -perks. I told him to earn it honestly and turned off the 360. He cannot play it for the rest of the week. Banhammer just struck at my house by me. Cheating will not be tolerated.


That made me smile. Good on you.
Good idea not showing rank. Reason are explained above by numerous other people.

  • 08.12.2009 9:21 AM PDT

We're building a better world...all of them, better worlds.

Posted by: Red Sector A1A
Why not keep the current system but put in place that if you quit, get disconnected, or whatever you have a 5 minute automatic break that you cannot get another matchmaking game. Or make it 10 minutes.

I hate to reveal my super nerd side, but this is the way battlegrounds work in WoW. Battlegrounds essentially is the matchmaking equivalent. In WoW, if you quit before a game is over, you can't re-enter the queue for 15 minutes.

There's an inherent problem with this setup, though: It works in WoW because if you get shut out of battlegrounds for 15 minutes, there are plenty of other things to do IN GAME while you wait for that cool down. The problem with implementing such a feature in a Halo game is, if you shut someone out of matchmaking for a period of time, he's liable to play something else.

Also, there is a phenomenon in WoW where players put together a full team for the purpose of going into battlegrounds and intentionally losing. In losing, you still get one point (vs. three if you win). In Halo, if a team would otherwise be quitting to derank, they would now simply let games run and throw the match.

So I don't know if that would solve the problem. Especially since matchmaking automatically puts you back in the queue after 20 seconds, players can start matchmaking and go play basketball for a while and come back a few ranks lower.

Players do this now, and perhaps it would make it easier to detect. But my point is it's not a perfect solution. I do like it, but the time you are temp banned from matchmaking would have to be short to stop players from putting down the game yet long enough to keep potential quitters in game. In other words, the ban time would have to be longer than the typical match but short enough to not discourage players from continuing to play.

  • 08.12.2009 9:27 AM PDT
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Posted by: NME Overlord
Posted by: Red Sector A1A

On a side note, I watched my son play COD4 last night in a 'Cage Match' he was boosting with another person for headshots to unlock -perks. I told him to earn it honestly and turned off the 360. He cannot play it for the rest of the week. Banhammer just struck at my house by me. Cheating will not be tolerated.


That made me smile. Good on you.
Good idea not showing rank. Reason are explained above by numerous other people.

Agreed. Good on you for enforcing!
And great idea not showing rank or having a "private" option for those that don't want rank showed. For reasons mentioned.

  • 08.12.2009 9:27 AM PDT
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GOLD BARS MAKE ME RICH

If Halo were to lose players who play for rank/ boosting/ 50's or status or whatever, would we really consider those players a loss?

I say good riddance. Its not like the game won't sell as well or the world would collapse.

I only see positive coming from the removing of a numerical or physical rank. The people who complain about it, well peace out.

  • 08.12.2009 10:22 AM PDT

We're building a better world...all of them, better worlds.

Adapted from my WP post:

But then we get into the place where it starts to hurt Bungie. Depending on how it was implemented, not only might it affect legitimate players who need to quit to, say, clean up a wine spill, but it might curb player population, reducing the effectiveness of matchmaking in certain playlists, etc. until it affects how Bungie is able to support the game in a continuing way.

In short, a lot of people playing this game is a good thing for individual players. It means Bungie can keep it going and keep it a quality experience. I don't want to see them implement anything that would negatively affect population.

If they got rid of all the d'bags, it would just be customs with your friends all the time because matchmaking would suck. And then numerical rank REALLY would mean nothing.

Of course, I'm exaggerating, but I hope you see my point. I see yours. I just mean to say, if they decided to go this route, very careful consideration would be necessary to implement it in a smart way that didn't have negative effects.

  • 08.12.2009 10:31 AM PDT

I like having rank. It is MM's ongoing acheivement. Cheters will never be stopped, they will always find something to manipulate.

  • 08.12.2009 10:43 AM PDT
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My solution: Make it so that you have to Reach a certain amount of exp before you can go past a certain level (ex you must have 100 exp to go above lvl 10, 200 exp to go past 20, etc. etc.) so that, by the time you can get to 50 you're already too integrated into the system to lvl up quickly. Boom, problem solved.

  • 08.12.2009 10:51 AM PDT

etc etc/glaringly obvious/and so on, and such <=Not redundant!
Posted by: Cr4ne Style
Taxes do nothing to affect the share of wealth, since taxes are only applied to income.

So that's not even a part of the conversation at all, so it's pointless talking about it....

"for a "best" moral to exist, there must exist the "best" moral base. If the base of morality varies from location to location, culture to culture...then there can't be an absolute moral..

Ugh, I forgot about the potential of this debate emerging again.

Removing visible ranks would likely do many things, including reducing the incentive to cheat, which would reduce the number of cheaters. But it would also have the potential to affect the gaming practices of all of the honest gamers out there, it would provide less of an incentive to care about match results, it would provide less of an incentive to care about helping your team win.

Visible ranks provide players an added incentive to try to win. Removing visible ranks removes this obvious and important incentive. Since I am a fan of quality play, and since the benefits of having ranks outweigh the potential benefits of removing them, I am hugely opposed to this move.

Oh yeah, it is also unnecessary. For many styles of play their are two playlists, one ranked and one unranked. If people care more about avoiding cheaters, they can play unranked playlists. If people care more about heated competition, they can play ranked playlists. The current structure provides the best of both worlds.

  • 08.12.2009 11:21 AM PDT

etc etc/glaringly obvious/and so on, and such <=Not redundant!
Posted by: Cr4ne Style
Taxes do nothing to affect the share of wealth, since taxes are only applied to income.

So that's not even a part of the conversation at all, so it's pointless talking about it....

"for a "best" moral to exist, there must exist the "best" moral base. If the base of morality varies from location to location, culture to culture...then there can't be an absolute moral..

Righteous, if you were to make a wild guess, what percentage of gamers try harder because of ranks and do so honestly, and what percentage of gamers do you think cheat because of visible ranks?

  • 08.12.2009 11:22 AM PDT

BOOM DEAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Make it similar to CoD 4's rank system.

  • 08.12.2009 11:23 AM PDT

etc etc/glaringly obvious/and so on, and such <=Not redundant!
Posted by: Cr4ne Style
Taxes do nothing to affect the share of wealth, since taxes are only applied to income.

So that's not even a part of the conversation at all, so it's pointless talking about it....

"for a "best" moral to exist, there must exist the "best" moral base. If the base of morality varies from location to location, culture to culture...then there can't be an absolute moral..

The H3 rank system is far harder to manipulate than the H2 system.

Do you know of people who are legitimately 45s who cannot reach that rank on their normal account? And, do you know of people who are not 45s who can gain that rank on an alt account and then retain it after many games?
Posted by: x Foman123 x
Additionally, a more robust ranking system that cannot be manipulated is an absolute must. If you are a natural 45, you should be able to reach 45 on your first account, and you should be unable to manipulate the system to get higher than a 45 on subsequent accounts.

  • 08.12.2009 11:26 AM PDT

Character Artist -- Electronic Arts

Ranks should not be tied to skill.
Ranks should be tied to accomplishments.
Skill should be completely invisible.

This keeps people from buying accounts, there is less crap about second accounters, and the element of bragging is reduced.

Plus, nothing makes me angrier than some kid talking trash because he has a 50. Even though he'll go negative and just get served.

The Trueskill does not really take into account that you become more skilled at a game overtime.
Thats why second accounters are able to get to 50 so easily.

I'm all for rewards and rank. But it should be more complex and more specific. IE, a Combat profile that breaks down you as a player and puts you into different classifications. Instead of a singular linear rank system.

  • 08.12.2009 11:32 AM PDT

POCZ

Posted by: Cobravert
Nice thought, but I really don't think it will stop cheating.
It's Halo. There are going to be stats somewhere online whether it be on b.net or somewhere else. Those who have to cheat to make themselves feel good about themselves will ever change. If you play Monopoly against family members who habitually cheat (bank robbers), are you going to mandate that they can't use the monopoly money? Cheaters will always cheat. That is who they are. Take away all the things that give them a reason to want to cheat, then you have an either very boring or over policed game.


cool story bro

  • 08.12.2009 12:24 PM PDT

Nothing is better than gaming through the day, into the night, then back into the day. It's like when you finally push that power button you feel like you've accomplished nothing, but at the same time, you can't stop smiling.

Posted by: x Foman123 x
I like and agree with the idea, however I also realize that it is unlikely to happen. Visible ranks are a moneymaker for Bungie and Microsoft (second/third/fourth/etc. accounts), and they keep people playing the game.

Since removal of visible ranks is unlikely to happen, I'd instead prefer to see as many safeguards as possible to prevent manipulation of ranks. Clearly, the TrueSkill system designed by Microsoft was a disaster. Additionally, the current ranking system places extremely high favor and value on players who are good with the manual dexterity required to be proficient with one or two particular weapons (BR and sometimes the sniper), leaving players who are skilled at other aspects of the game out in the cold.

So I say that rank/skill level should be a more accurate reflection of a player's particular skills rather than assigning a global skill that is dependent on BR/sniper skill. This would allow players to reach high levels while developing whatever Halo skills they deem the most fun.

Additionally, a more robust ranking system that cannot be manipulated is an absolute must. If you are a natural 45, you should be able to reach 45 on your first account, and you should be unable to manipulate the system to get higher than a 45 on subsequent accounts.


I said the exact same thing on the first page.

  • 08.17.2009 10:24 PM PDT
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I think only friends Should be able to see rank.

  • 08.17.2009 10:32 PM PDT

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