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Subject: Welcome to the Arena

Dead Mans Hand-Always Loaded.

I WAS SOCK

Awesome ^_^

  • 09.22.2010 12:56 PM PDT

Cool. I was wondering a little more about the division, but it's good to see a little more information on it than I currently knew about Arena ratings.

  • 09.22.2010 1:18 PM PDT
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This rating system is the ONLY thing I find that lacks in Reach. The rating seems to put more emphasis on how active you are as apposed to how skilled you are.

Although Assists are definately essential in a team slayer game, they shouldn't give you more than deaths take away. On top of that, deaths should take away as much as kills give you. When you compare kills to deaths in a game of team slayer where a kill gives your team a point and dying gives the other team a point, they should both carry the same weight. It makes no sense in a team game that a death takes away half of what a kill gives you and makes no sense that it takes away half of what an assist gives you.

So, in the end, what division or rating you get, means nothing when you want to know how good a player is. It mostly tells you how active they are in a game...at least that's how it feels.

I'm not one to complain. I enjoy the game and will continue to play it. I appreciate the hard work Bungie put in to this game. I'm just stating my opinion on this subject for arguments sake.

  • 09.22.2010 1:45 PM PDT

Thanks Paradox, that must be it!

  • 09.22.2010 1:48 PM PDT
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I apologize, but my private messages inbox is far too large for me to keep up with. I've given up on it.

Whoops. One slip in this article--the Death Penalty is currently 0.33, but we're going to step it up to 0.5 for next Season. The article was written with that change in mind.

Sorry for any confusion!

  • 09.22.2010 1:52 PM PDT

That's all I have to say about that.


Posted by: C Dirty 4
Disappointed in the rating system. Seems to be taken from WoW first of all. Even then you actually had a reason to be rated highly so that you could buy things. I don't see the purpose here. Why play for a rating that's just going to be wiped clean in 15 days (taken from article)? And sometimes I'd go for a week or so not playing ranked in case I was perhaps having a bad week, but now you can't afford to do that if you want to place at the end of the season.

It just seems to me that people are being forced to play on more days than they would necessarily like to, and the visual reward is temporary. "Bragging rights" for me was having that max skill and playing carefully to keep it there (Halo 2).

Many don't agree with me I'm sure, but I just don't think this change is for the better. The motivation is gone.


I agree that the rating system was better in H2 and H3, but it doesn't affect my motivation to play the game. Playing with my friends is the only motivation I need :D

  • 09.22.2010 2:28 PM PDT
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***Aberrant Designs***

Finished the fight on September 26,2007, 10:49pm EST
Remembered Reach on September 15th, 2010 9:30pm EST

Maybe I missed this, but after a season ends and everything gets reset, will there be an indicator of what your previous rank(s) were on your service record?

Lets say I got ranked Onyx at the end of a season (yeah right...), will it show somewhere that "Hey, I got up to Onyx once!!!"?

That'd be cool.

  • 09.22.2010 2:30 PM PDT

IB. The bane of my existence.

You guys make a ranking system based on teamwork, people complain. You make one based on individual skill, and people complain. You just can't win. >.>

  • 09.22.2010 2:54 PM PDT

Posted by: Drakan
This rating system is the ONLY thing I find that lacks in Reach. The rating seems to put more emphasis on how active you are as apposed to how skilled you are.

Although Assists are definately essential in a team slayer game, they shouldn't give you more than deaths take away. On top of that, deaths should take away as much as kills give you. When you compare kills to deaths in a game of team slayer where a kill gives your team a point and dying gives the other team a point, they should both carry the same weight. It makes no sense in a team game that a death takes away half of what a kill gives you and makes no sense that it takes away half of what an assist gives you.

I think it's very important to stress what Drakan has stated here. Intuitively, deaths and kills are equivalent mathematical factors in any Halo team slayer match. Drakan already put it in the simple terms that explain why. Kills and deaths both equally affect the outcomes of team games.

If you get a kill, it gets your team one step closer to a victory. On top of that blatant contribution, a kill also takes a player of the opposing team off the map for a certain amount of time, allowing (if playing as a team) your team to play 4v3 for that time. This 4v3 time then accumulates over the course of the game and can have a major influence on the outcome.

Furthermore, if you get a death, it gets your team one step closer to losing (not 1/3 or 1/2). It also takes you off the map for a certain amount of time and allows the other team to accumulate some 4v3 time against your team. There's simply no logical explanation for counting deaths for less than kills in the scoring system. If Bungie wants to use the rating system to promote much more aggressive play, then that's their prerogative. BUT, it is by no means a logical system simply from the standpoint of determining which player had the most positive affect on the outcome of the game, which is what a rating system for Halo should determine.

Assists are more of an actual argument- you would think that since you must inflict 40% damage on someone in order to get an assist, the associated multiplier for assists would simply be 0.4 rather than 1.0. However, there is a logical argument that in a team game, getting those initial shots on a guy to damage him is more difficult than finishing the job. Still, I think rating assists as equal to kills does not intuitively make sense- the point here being that a player did not get the kill. I have to experiment more with this, but I think a multiplier of 0.8 would be more appropriate.

The rating system is also flawed in the sense that like someone said, the highest score possible using this formula is not 2000, but 1844 (a perfect game would obviously be considered some combination of kills and assists that add up to 50, and a death total of 0. that game = 1844).

Sorry for the long post, I just wanted to get some of these thoughts off my chest. Hope some of you (and maybe those of you at Bungie) find some value in what I just said. I'm continually experimenting with the system to determine the most optimal way to figure out, like I said, which player had the most positive affect on the game. I really enjoy the game and can't stop playing arena!

  • 09.22.2010 3:00 PM PDT

Quickly, to further my point about 4v3 time-

Forgive me if I'm completely wrong about the respawn time; I can't remember it.

If a player dies 10 times (just a guess at an average death total) in a game, and it takes 5 seconds to respawn, that's 50 seconds a game that the player isn't even on the map. That's 9-11% of the game time. This isn't to mention how much time it takes that player to get back in the battle if he spawns away from his teammates- no idea what that time amount would be, but it might be at least at least another 2 seconds on average.

  • 09.22.2010 3:11 PM PDT
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“…On that day, half a century ago, our species was pushed to the crumbling edge of extinction, and as we teetered on that precipice, staring down into the abyss, a hand reached out, and pulled back from the brink, and gave us hope, The hand of a Hero.”

Typo in the Division Qualification screen - just sayin.

  • 09.22.2010 3:15 PM PDT


Posted by: urk

Posted by: EndGame747
1. Play three games each day to be rated.
2. Get rated on ten days in a Season and you will be placed in a Division amongst your peers.


As hard as this may be for you guys to understand, some people actually have lives. I'm not gonna play according to a schedule just to get fair matches.

In H3, I played ranked maybe once a week on Saturdays and it worked just fine. I was the rank I was supposed to be because the old system WORKED.


Your Arena Rating has nothing to do with getting fair matches (this information is in the article).


Where? It just says that you play 3 games to get daily rating and 10 days to get a division ranking. It makes it seem as though the division is what is used to determine who your opponents are but never explicitly states what is used for that.

Btw you have a typo
"During a game, you're active rating is displayed on the scoreboard. Press back at any time for details."

  • 09.22.2010 3:55 PM PDT

My Best Bungie moment: finally beating all the Halo games on solo legendary.
My Worst Bungie moment: not seeing giant stuffie grunts in the Bungie store.

Awesome, too bad the first season is so short, hopefully I can get all my days in.

  • 09.22.2010 3:56 PM PDT

What are the percentages for each of the Divisions? I only saw that Onyx is the top 5%

Also, I've seen ratings in the post games stats in the Competitive playlists. Is the rating system being used to adjust TrueSkill in Competitive as well? Or is that still based on win/loss?

[Edited on 09.22.2010 4:58 PM PDT]

  • 09.22.2010 4:35 PM PDT

@JosephBiwald
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I have to play arena more, the ranks look sick! (and I am prepared for glory urk!)

  • 09.22.2010 4:40 PM PDT

I have won more than 50% of my matches in team arena and was wonder WHY is my division is a freaking bronze.

  • 09.22.2010 4:51 PM PDT
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Alright...I'd love the Arena system if somehow your Service Record kept a Record (go figure lol) of your previous ranks. I don't know, just anything really that will make all that time playing worth it in the end, rather than playing for 30 games to have a symbol that goes away soon...and it doesn't feel like anyone will really see your rank, other than when you keep playing Arena after you obtain it. In order to see it in your Service Record, you need to go through the different sections of it. Rankings in previous games appeared next to a person's gamertag so everyone knew that "oh that guy's highest level is a 48" etc.

  • 09.22.2010 4:51 PM PDT

Sweet now I know, and knowing is half the battle. ;)

  • 09.22.2010 5:33 PM PDT
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  • 09.22.2010 6:13 PM PDT

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  • 09.22.2010 6:46 PM PDT
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So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.

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I always wonder what that was for. Thanks for clearing that up. :)

  • 09.22.2010 7:09 PM PDT
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Cool. I haven't played any arena yet, I've still been trying to redo campaign (on Legendary Solo) and play a few BTB and Invasion gametypes. I'll try to play it when I have time next.

  • 09.22.2010 7:31 PM PDT

Posted by: Drakan
This rating system is the ONLY thing I find that lacks in Reach. The rating seems to put more emphasis on how active you are as apposed to how skilled you are.

Although Assists are definately essential in a team slayer game, they shouldn't give you more than deaths take away. On top of that, deaths should take away as much as kills give you. When you compare kills to deaths in a game of team slayer where a kill gives your team a point and dying gives the other team a point, they should both carry the same weight. It makes no sense in a team game that a death takes away half of what a kill gives you and makes no sense that it takes away half of what an assist gives you.

So, in the end, what division or rating you get, means nothing when you want to know how good a player is. It mostly tells you how active they are in a game...at least that's how it feels.

I'm not one to complain. I enjoy the game and will continue to play it. I appreciate the hard work Bungie put in to this game. I'm just stating my opinion on this subject for arguments sake.


Exactly. Assuming they have a comparable number of assists, a person with more kills and a worse k/d ratio should NOT be given a better rating than someone with less kills and a better k/d.

I understand Bungie wants to disincentivize overly conservative play, but this method is like using a baseball bat to kill a fly.

[Edited on 09.22.2010 7:44 PM PDT]

  • 09.22.2010 7:43 PM PDT

Good job Urk. It's about time you put this up. I was getting tired of explaining it to people all over the reach forum, and I was sick of people complaining about the Arena system when they didn't even understand it.

  • 09.22.2010 7:44 PM PDT


Posted by: Anti Gov420
Arena is a joke, it's not for competitive players. It's for the players that could never reach level 50 in the Halo games. Why do you call it competitive when the competitive part of your community says it not? The only stat that matters in any TEAM sport is the win/loss. Stop trying to protect the egos of these children, let them learn how to take a loss.


It's more competitive then it ever was because you are actually fighting for a very limited number of spots in Onyx and the other divisions. You didn't have to knock people out of the level 50 spots to actually reach a 50 in H2 and H3. Theoretically everyone could be a 50 at the same time. It was more of a progression system then a rank.

[Edited on 09.22.2010 8:01 PM PDT]

  • 09.22.2010 7:49 PM PDT

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