n1gh7
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Post by n1gh7 on Dec 10, 2009 0:39:16 GMT -5
No, it's not. I don't really know or care what goes on with the ranking that you can't see, but the level next to your name IS NOTHING CLOSE TO A RANKING AND IT'S NOT SUPPOSED TO BE. Level is NOTHING MORE than an unlock system. It's like everybody's first FPS was Halo and they associated a number next to a name with ranking for everything. OK, so what do you call a number that can change its value (going up or down) and is based off of skill (such as the true skill system)? what do you call a number that is based off of experience points that you get that cannot be taken away (like the ones in COD4+)? And my first FPS was COD2 so don't get feisty with me. |
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Post by Indy_Bones on Dec 10, 2009 3:34:15 GMT -5
OK, so what do you call a number that can change its value (going up or down) and is based off of skill (such as the true skill system)? what do you call a number that is based off of experience points that you get that cannot be taken away (like the ones in COD4+)? And my first FPS was COD2 so don't get feisty with me. 1) The current system in employment (at least on PSN) does not accurately take into account player ability levels, and in fact, some of the balancing I've seen going on has been apallingly off kilter. This is NOT the trueskill system employed on the XBOX. 2) I call it fairly irrelevant with regards to skill when it's something that can be increased by even the biggest pile o' crap players imaginable. Even simply going into games and getting butchered with horribly negative KDR's is still going to gain you match points, so eventually even "johnny can't shoot" is going to get to level 70 etc. This is not skill. 3) And MY first FPS was Wolfenstein 3D, so get even less feisty with me  |
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Post by cptmacmillan on Dec 10, 2009 4:11:26 GMT -5
Rank.
Level.
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Post by novanleon on Dec 10, 2009 10:38:39 GMT -5
Let me clarify my point above. The MW2 leaderboards rank you based on a score value that increases as your kills, wins, etc. go up, proportional to your K:D and W:L ratio (basically, the higher your ratio, the more points you earn). Because of this, players who've logged 1 minute and have a 10:0 K:D ratio won't be ranked high on the ladder; because they haven't aggregated enough points. Time and a consistently high K:D/W:L ratio is required to earn the points necessary to compete with players who've been playing longer than you. What I'm referring to in my above posts is that "rank" or "score" isn't a truly accurate measurement of a player's skill. Speaking as a PS3 player, the MW2 leaderboard system is inaccurate for two reasons: - Average or poor players can easily have a higher score than better players simply by logging more time in the game. I'm an average player but my score is higher than several of my friends who are consistently better players in-game.
- Stats aggregate over time and do not "sunset". This means that your score is representative of your gaming performance since you started playing, and not necessarily of your current skill level. Because of this, your leaderboard score/rank is not usually an accurate representation of your current skill level, since players usually improve in skill over time. The inaccuracy increases as more time passes and as the player improves.
Wouldn't the two factors offset? I mean, the first factor rewards you for playing time, which overrates players who play a lot. The second factor penalizes you for your learning experiences... which underrates players who play a lot. Clearly they won't offset perfectly, but you have one factor that overrates you as you play more and another that underrates you as you play more, so the sum of the two should result in a quasi-accurate rating. The first factor rewards you for playing time and the second factor penalizes you for your learning experiences, but I don't think this penalizes players who play a lot, so much as it penalizes players who are learning. PlayerA is an experienced FPS player and jumps into MW2 with his weapon of choice and begins playing at a high level from the start. Player B is new to FPS games, jumps into MW2 with little relevant experience, and through extensive play and experimentation begins to improve his game to the point where he's at the same skill level or better than Player A. Given that both players started playing at the same time and log equal amounts of time, on the PS3 at least, PlayerA's leaderboard rank and score will always be better than PlayerB's, even if PlayerB is currently the more skilled player. PlayerB is just penalized too much from his early learning experiences. What I find happens on PS3 is that many more experienced players create a second account so they essentially end up with a PlayerA account and a PlayerB account. One for learning/relaxed play and one for serious leaderboard competition. To me, the whole system is flawed and silly. |
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toysrme
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Post by toysrme on Dec 10, 2009 20:03:09 GMT -5
XBL system's end result is nearly flawless. you can't exploit it for long less you like remaking accounts on an extremely regular basis.
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n1gh7
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Post by n1gh7 on Dec 10, 2009 21:21:56 GMT -5
OK, so what do you call a number that can change its value (going up or down) and is based off of skill (such as the true skill system)? what do you call a number that is based off of experience points that you get that cannot be taken away (like the ones in COD4+)? And my first FPS was COD2 so don't get feisty with me. 1) The current system in employment (at least on PSN) does not accurately take into account player ability levels, and in fact, some of the balancing I've seen going on has been apallingly off kilter. This is NOT the trueskill system employed on the XBOX. 2) I call it fairly irrelevant with regards to skill when it's something that can be increased by even the biggest pile o' crap players imaginable. Even simply going into games and getting butchered with horribly negative KDR's is still going to gain you match points, so eventually even "johnny can't shoot" is going to get to level 70 etc. This is not skill. 3) And MY first FPS was Wolfenstein 3D, so get even less feisty with me 1) what system are you talking about on the PSN? in what games is it used? 2) agreed 3) lol |
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Post by Indy_Bones on Dec 11, 2009 4:28:59 GMT -5
1) what system are you talking about on the PSN? in what games is it used? That's the point, there doesn't seem to be one like on XBL (or at least not one that makes sense to me), so you even up being constantly put in completely unbalanced teams. A prime example is the below which occured yesterday evening whilst playing, and I decided to make a note of it for reference here. TDM, 10 players My team: A) Level 6 B) Level 13 C) Level 42 (myself) D) Level 19 E) Level 54 Opposition: A) Level 61 B) Level 70 C) Level 32 (2nd prestige) D) Level 25 (2nd prestige) E) Level 55 Someone explain to me how on earth that has been balanced at all? These players weren't together in a party/clan, this was how they were allocated before game start. The results were unsurprisingly predictable in that me and the other guy at a high level both ended with positive KDR's, whilst the rest of the team didn't amass more kills between them, than either of us on our own, and because they kept getting slaughtered we lost the game - thanks for that... Do despite good individual ability/performance, the crap balancing system in place means that this happens regularly and therefore screws my win ratio over. I appreciate that there are other game modes available, and these are fine for a certain amount of my play, but I fail to see why I should accept a poor win ratio in TDM etc, just because someone can't be bothered to correctly balance teams, and put players of relative skill levels together? |
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n1gh7
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Post by n1gh7 on Dec 11, 2009 4:45:39 GMT -5
OK I understand what you are referring to now. The fact is that on EVERY system there is no system in place to balance teams by RANK or LEVEL. On XBL you can have 5 people of high level that aren't part of one party get on the same team. against a gaggle of level 5's. You might think that this isn't the case because there are more people on XBL and people generally like to play in parties together more creating the illusion of randomly balanced teams.
From experience (on XBL at least) if there is one group of 4 people and two groups of 2 people with 4 random singles it will put the 4 people with 2 randoms and then the 2 groups of 2 together with the last 2 randoms.
The only bias on which team you are on is if someone in your party is on a team (which means that you are put onto that team always) and that it wants an equal number of partied players per team.
If you join a game in progress you are put onto the team with the least # of players, otherwise it is random.
So yea, RANKS don't exist in MW2 at all and LEVEL means nothing. Also no balancing is done based of either of these.
(I have a feeling Den will come in with his superior knowledge and tell me that he hacked the matchmaking system and now knows how games are found, etc.)
SUPER EDIT:
I just remembered that at least in COD4 the players were divided from who got the highest score in the previous game. player #1 on team 1, #2 on team 2, #3 on team 1, #4 on team 2, etc.
Is this what you are talking about? It seems looser in MW2 compared to COD4 to be honest.
Basically MW2 is stupid and didn't get anything right (like adding a skill RANK)
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mannon
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Post by mannon on Dec 11, 2009 6:18:11 GMT -5
I'm really not quite sure how the matchmaking in MW2 works, we seem to have some competing theories, and it may not work the same across PC, PSN, and XBL. Seems like it should use the same thing in the team building, though things like parties have higher priority.
I don't really care too much about level, though. There are prebuild classes with things you don't unlock until much later and you don't even necessarily need late unlock stuff. A lot of the good weapons you get pretty early on. Plus some people have prestiged and started over.
BTW Halo was not my first shooter... fecking Doom was my first shooter, K.
Here's why I like the Halo ranking system better. Whatever MW2 is doing it's using mere accumulated values. You keep going up and up. Granted, so is your competition, theoretically. So for one thing some guy may have been awesome with his dual terminators and racked up a badass rank, then he prestiges and now he's crap again, but the game can't tell because you can't lose points. The only way he will get back on par with his competition is for lots of crappy players to finally achieve his same rank over time or for him to just finally unlock his terminators again.
Or if the game looks at actual ratios he will simply have to die and lose an enormous number of times to finally drop his ratios back down.
That's just an example, and I really don't want to go through them all. The case in point is that the Halo system measures you basic skill level that you're currently playing at since you gain and lose points each match based on performance. MW2 seems to assume that your performance only goes up.
The other thing that is nice in the Halo ranking system is you don't need to start over to erase poor performance. That means if you want to grind through the challenges for weapons you hate and aren't good at and all that jazz you wouldn't have to deal with all those deaths on your permanent record. Same for learning curve. In Halo 2 you might drop in ranking from poor performance, but you can always make it up, and it doesn't get harder to rise in rake just because of the amount you have played. In MW2 if you have a mediocre KDR or WLR and you've been playing a month then it'll take you X amount of time to improve it, but if you want to make that improvement when you've been playing six months it will be six times as hard to improve your stats, which means the longer you play, and the more your skill increases over time, the less accurate the stats become.
Unfortunately there is no filter to just see your most recent performance, so you'll just have to keep track on your own until you get fed up and start a new account just so you can get friggin credit for your awesomeness, which you earned the hard way.
That, is what I don't like about MW2's stats.
Now as I don't actually know for certain how the matchmaking works I won't complain too heavily about it, except I will say that from personal experience it has seemed to be very inconsistent. My performance is certainly not particularly consistent either, so it is difficult to gauge, but I've thus far not particularly enjoyed the MW2 matchmaking. It would be nice to be able to see nice clear rankings next to people's names and know with some numerical certainty just how decent or indecent the matchmaking is.
BTW... How are you supposed to get to a consistent 5:1 or anything like that ratio if the matchmaking is working? Unless you simply are already the best and there aren't better players out there shouldn't the game put you against tougher competition until your ratios come closer to 1:1? *shrugs*
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Post by legacy on Dec 11, 2009 9:50:19 GMT -5
Right when I prestiged for the second time, the game decided to up the difficulty setting for me and now I play against a lot of second/third/fourth!? prestige guys every game I join. My stats haven' t changed really much before this. I never knew so many people have gotten that far, but it was a sudden and noticeable change. Not sure if this means anything, it also happened right after 1.6 patch on psn, but I don't think the patch was for matchmaking.
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Post by ecomni on Dec 11, 2009 13:59:43 GMT -5
And that's why I think, in terms of skill, K/D means more than W/L, even though both aren't absolute skill indicators. My W/L is sub .500, and it's not because I'm an awful team player or I'm an awful player. Like capt said, this is a team-based game, a random matchmaking team-based game. For people not playing in a party, that W/L might as well be based on a coin-flip of how good or bad your matched team is going to be (same as in Halo). |
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Post by cptmacmillan on Dec 11, 2009 14:34:25 GMT -5
Somehow, the point went completely over your head. The LEVEL next to your name has NOTHING TO DO WITH A RANK AND IT'S NOT HOW YOU'RE MATCHED UP. The reason I say people's first FPS is Halo (2, specifically) is because there is some huge misconception that level = rank now since Halo 2 went and did it. In Halo 2 the number next to your name was a rank. In CoD the number next to your name is a level. Someone people are seeing the number next to your name in CoD as a rank, which is wrong.
So no, there is no über accumulation going on.
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mannon
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Post by mannon on Dec 11, 2009 15:06:39 GMT -5
Somehow, the point went completely over your head. The LEVEL next to your name has NOTHING TO DO WITH A RANK AND IT'S NOT HOW YOU'RE MATCHED UP. ... Okay, for the record. I WAS NOT TALKING ABOUT LEVEL!!! That enough shouting? Yes the number next to your name in Halo 2 was your ranking and it was how matchmaking was done. In MW2 the Level has jack all to do with how matchmaking is done. HOWEVER, there is still no ranking system in MW2 that is the equivalent of the Halo 2 ranking system. I already said I'm not 100% sure how the matchmaking is done as several theories have been proposed such as it's based on WLR and your KDR, or it's based on your score. Or maybe all three. The point is all three of those are broken ways of doing matchmaking for the reasons previously stated many times in this thread. (Thus I shall not repeat them.) Okay, so stop putting words into my mouth. I DON'T CARE ABOUT LEVEL in matchmaking. Gaining levels and unlocking stuff is quite cool, but it has nothing to do with skill level other than you'll get there faster if you're more highly skilled. And on top of that a great player could still be totally awesome at Level 3 while a lame player will still make it all the way to 70 if they just keep playing. Your W/L's ratio and K/D's ratio have the same problems as each other, and all the other stats are purely cumulative. Hence I've not heard a theory yet that doesn't show matchmaking in MW2 to be inferior to Halo 2 matchmaking. That's it... I'm not talking about the numbers, I'm talking about the matchmaking it-self, which in Halo was transparent but in MW2 is some hidden value we're supposed to take their word for. I don't know how MW2 matchmaking works. That's half the point. The other half is that it doesn't work as well as the Halo 2 matchmaking did. Now let's drop the whole Level thing, you seem to be the only one still confusing level with anything... I have never in this entire thread said that MW2 does or should use Level in determining matchmaking... |
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Post by legacy on Dec 11, 2009 15:14:52 GMT -5
LOUD NOISES!
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mannon
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Post by mannon on Dec 11, 2009 15:37:14 GMT -5
heh Sorry. Words being put in my mouth=frustrated mannon... We're way the hell off topic anyway. lol We should prolly either get back on topic, start a new thread on matchmaking, lock this thread, or some combination thereof.
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Post by cptmacmillan on Dec 12, 2009 4:42:59 GMT -5
So your k/d and w/l ratios are somehow accumulative and never decrease no matter what? Okay.
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Post by ausare on Dec 12, 2009 13:50:19 GMT -5
I've a couple friends that I play with and are 3 prestige and higher. When I'm in their party it's a noticeable difference and how many higher ranks there are in the room. It's almost seems that the host is the factor that tells XBL what kind of room to put you in...I've also friends that just started when when they invite me there are no prestiges in that room.
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sleep
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Post by sleep on Dec 12, 2009 14:21:14 GMT -5
It's almost seems that the host is the factor that tells XBL what kind of room to put you in. this is how i remember it in cod4 and w@w. i wouldn't be surprised if it's the same for mw2. |
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mannon
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Post by mannon on Dec 13, 2009 7:22:34 GMT -5
So your k/d and w/l ratios are somehow accumulative and never decrease no matter what? Okay. Yes, your deaths and your kills only accumulate and never come down which makes it progressively harder to budge your ratios an inch no matter how much better or worse you've gotten, once you have a high number of kills and deaths. If it were your K/D and W/L ratios from your last 30 hours of play or something reasonable it wouldn't be such an issue. Regardless, a nice transparent ranking system would be superior. |
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n1gh7
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Post by n1gh7 on Dec 13, 2009 23:36:28 GMT -5
Regardless, a nice transparent ranking system would be superior. Agreed. Visible works too. Didn't they have one in COD2 for the Xbox 360? Why did they take it out? |
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