[Main] Ranking System Discussion, and Feedback

[TC_Octus]

This is the official thread to leave your feedback and comments about our Gears 4 Ranking System. Want to know how it works? Read our updated Gears 4 Ranking System Guide.

We hear your feedback on the Ranking System as it exists today, and the team are taking it with them as we think about the future with regards to the user experience. We have investigated many of the reports in this thread and verified our system is performing accurately (backed up with our broad range of data) but we understand the frustration the current opaqueness brings to the experience.

As a reminder:

Ranks exist to accurately measure your Skill against the population to create better matches

The goal of any good Ranking System is to accurately understand the Skill of it’s players in order to produce fairer higher-quality matchups.

Ranks do not follow the rules of linear progression, like getting your next Re-Up. As you play, you may find your Rank settles as it becomes accurate and – without a notable improvement in your performance against higher Skill opponents - progression becomes extremely difficult. This is intentional and integral to any Skill Rating system.

If you’d like to know more, we highly recommend reading our Ranking Explained document: https://gearsofwar.com/en-us/community/gears4-ranking-explained

(Thanks to @EVIL_0NE for the great original thread)

[waterflame116]

I have an Idea for a new ranking system that might make everyone happy:

Every win gives a fixed amount of percent, let’s say 10%.
If a player get’s MVP, they get 15%
if a player is on the bottom of the scoreboard, they get 5% for a win.

Now, if a player loses, they lose 10%
If that player got MVP, they would lose 5%
People on the bottom of the scoreboard lose 15% for a loss.

This seems like a balanced system to me, give me constructive criticism by replying to me.

[mike_yaworski]

Every win gives a fixed amount of percent, let’s say 10%

It would be too easy to boost noobs to max rank. You can perform poorly or mediocre and still get carried because you get 10% per game.

There is also the issue that as long as you win more than 50% of your games, you will always be ranking up (on average). And that means way too many people would get to max rank after a certain amount of time.

In fact, it wouldn’t even matter the quality of players you play against. The system you suggested could only work if it always matched you up against opponents of equal skill. If there is any sort of imbalance (which there most often is), then it doesn’t really work.

[Pigeon_Park_Bum]

There should NOT be a set amount of people that can be in any ranking pool at any time.

Stopping people from ranking up, because that rank is already “full”, is pointless.

There should not be a cap on how many are ALLOWED to be a certain rank.

I’m no Onyx player, but if I was, I shouldn’t have to “wait in line” to be able to attain it.

[mike_yaworski]

Stopping people from ranking ranking, because that rank is already “full”, is pointless.

It’s not really like that. You can still overtake people. Think about it like this: Diamond is given to the top 1000 people on the leaderboard. You can always break into that top 1000 and push someone out to 1001.

At least, that’s my understanding.

[Pigeon_Park_Bum]

Sure, but players who reach a certain rank, but do not want to lose it, remaining idle, and play other playlists, a player can only bounce down a rank, if they themselves earned that derank

[Relax_Mxte]

They say it can happen but I don’t think it does. When I got my D5 in Escalation this season I decided to play solo and I lost a few games (left some as well when I was down a player) and I’ve been at 1.86% for a while now, just shy of the demotion threshold which I believe is 1.50%.

I struggle to believe that since then, not a single player has done good enough to push me out of Diamond 5, especially considering that pros (Former Supremacy, now Fable) play Ranked quite a lot and are D4. They are clearly better than me.

Again, it could happen and I could be wrong, but I’ve yet to see someone pushed out of Diamond by not playing the mode.

[mike_yaworski]

Yeah I have the same skepticism as you.

At the same time, I have never not been able to get D1 or D5. So are those idle players really locking all the spots? Not in my experience. I’ve also never lost a percent from being idle. So are people able to push me out? Not in my experience. Seems like I just contradicted myself.

I just trust the devs because none of us (the players) have enough info to say otherwise.

[Belkain]

• The system is working as intended but I’m pretty sure that “it’s not updating as it should”. For example: 5 diamonds vs 5 silver, system predicts diamond win with a 100% chance and that’s reasonable but by whatever reason by the middle of the game it’s no longer a 5v5 but rather a 2v5. Is it still reasonable for the 2 diamonds to take the win? modes without objectives maybe but KOTH and Escalation I don’t think so, it’s just not possible yet the forums are plagued by reports of players losing rank in “unfair” situations. The system is there, it just doesn’t take into consideration what happens after the beginning of round 1.

• Higher ranks should “defend” their ranks, something like the system the ATP (tennis) has: you made 10% on month 1 - week 1, you need to “validate” those points on month 2 - week 1 and if you don’t you lose rank. As far as I know, you can reach X rank on the first week of the season while never playing again and you will keep that rank, it’s fine for lower tiers but diamond being locked to a specified number is not (I’ve read way to many posts about people being locked on high % on onyx 3).

[Belkain]

I like the idea of everyone knowing exactly how the system works as opposed to “hmmm I guess I’m ok with the systems guess” (Trueskill is still at about 60% or so).

Fixed stats? sounds great but is has one small problem: If I play in the same team as the winner and MVP, all I have to do is hide in the corner while the top player on the other team scores 10 times higher, get’s second place and gains nothing?. I made it to onyx within a few days and gained % even when I lost so it’s not just winning.

[DarkChaoz95]

Currenly playing rank3d TDM and so far all matches i played so far are against Onyx 3s and diamond and yet Im a silver toer. How can low skilled stand a chance against these high skilled players?

This only tells me one thing, while I see few Gold’s its clear silver and bronze people are put off playing tdm, well during what time im playing. Because of playing and losing against high skilled players, this gives me a high temptation to quit.

Gears 4 matchmaking needs some serious overhaul, I shouldnt be matchmaking with onyx and diamonds. If it needs to matchmake me with other regions with a similar skill / rank to mine

Here is the proof:

[chaaze]

And how about you put the connection quality in the rankings equation?
I don’t remember seeing Diamond with <60ms ping… That says enough about the Rankings design, right?

Edit:
Rankings should serve only one purpose: equally balanced teams.

[RUPHCORE]

Your system may be performing as expected but that is only due to its limitations, it’s extremely crude and unsophisticated.

As you well know I’m sure most gamers don’t stack up, and if you want your game to sell, well…you get the picture.

In a nutshell, It’s ridiculous that we need to stack up in order to move up, no matter if you MVP, most kills, etc. etc.

[Sugar_IT]

I’ve noticed that lately you only earn percentage with high K / D ratios.

For example playing in koth with 4 other friends I won 8 consecutive games in 3 days (now I’m onyx 2) against opponents of my level and also against diamonds.
At the 5 consecutive match won we had against 2 boys diamond 4 and 1 diamond 2 and the other onyx.
Although we beat them, I did not earn anything.
I have not earned anything for 7 consecutive games. After the 8th victory a poor increase of 8% that I lost shortly after losing in 2 consecutive 4vs5 games.
Most of the games I win do not give me% increases, just a defeat and it drops a lot.
I’m not the one who does more kills in the team, but the one that gives more support, is a necessary role in a team but apparently not results.

my competitive K / D ratio is 1.25 and W/ L 57% (I played 1370 koth games)

There are obvious problems in the rankings … in season 2 I was stuck in onyx 3 88% in koth for more than 1 month … The percentage has never gone up once. NEVER. on the other hand, as soon as I lost a game, I took it off.

With this system take 1 step forward and 5 back.

Another problem are the games that end 4/3/2/1 vs 5. I noticed that if you are in the losing team (and outnumbered) you lose percentage (despite the obvious disparity). While if you win in the 5-player team the% freezes and you earn nothing.

Sincerely now as I am not interested in degrees, because they are blocked as they are, not to mention that every time you start a season you switch from 3 onyx to gold 1.
So for me the diamond remains unattainable, but having more balanced teams with a more efficient system is something you have to work on.

[III_EnVii_III]

My main issue when trying to rank up is getting such small gains or no gains whatsoever.

This should not be the case - especially not gaining even 1% for a 20-30 minute match on KOTH after winning 2-0.

I have been stuck in Onyx 2 around the 60-90% since the season 4 started.

I climb very slowly to around 90%.

Last time out I lost two games in a row paired to a 5-stack team of;

Diamond 5
Diamond 5
Diamond 5
Diamond 5
Diamond 3

My team:

Diamond 2
Onyx 3
Onyx 3
Onyx 3
Onyx 2

So it paired us twice agaisnt this game squad.

Fair to say they each had about 20 downs!!! I very rarely encounter such a playstyle of solid Lancer fire but anyway, the point is,

We lost first match 2-0.

Then 2-1.

I went from 92% to 70%.

So about 2 weeks of grinding from about 58% to 92% wiped out in two games.

“The system is working as intended”

Come on now, how is that working as intended?

Why would any of the Onyx players have to suffer drops agaisnt such unequal team?

The system is clearly not working as intended because if that’s intended, it’s not a fair or coherent system.

You end up cheating players out of all that time spent in the game.

My individual performance wasn’t even that bad, first match was unexpected so I was 7/10 - remeber I was lowest ranked.

Next match I was like 4/10.

These are the issues that I think others experince.

*Not getting ANY percentage after a long match and winning 2-0 or winning all rounds.

*Losing massive chunks of percentage when you are heavily outranked by Opposition and end up losing all round or majority of rounds.

[Bricklayer4427]

Good afternoon/ morning coalition employees and community members ,
Firstly i wanted to say mechanically i adore this gears; i’ve played since one and Gamebattles since 2 - previously for fun but now am attempting to take it seriously . Whilst i think escalation was a wonderful and creative addition to GoW and have a great deal of fun playing it; there are several issues i’ve found one is losing % when other players quit ranked this happens often whether its someone in my team or the other, Another is mismatching of rank to point where in escalation ive had bronzes on my team with two onyx 3 players on other side ive also had this happen where silvers are matched against onyxs as well which could exacerbate quitting due to the gulf in skill- a further issues would be premade 4/5 stacks going up against team of people who are solo quing which due to communication disadvantage is extremely difficult to win against a decent 5 stack.

Another problem ive experienced for several months is losing percent from two or one loses that wipe out 6-7 wins or several days of grinding- additionally i feel having the option to leave from start encourages players to leave when tilted. ive also had abuse thrown at me for simply asking teammates not to get in chunk range, cross and rotate to hill when trip cap is coming through and they are in position to get a touch- its frustrating as its preventing me from getting back in onyx then getting to diamond in escalation which would be handy as im putting a team together to go lan and know so players wouldn’t take me seriously given my rank or GB record despite being able to hang with diamonds and competitive players. if these issues aren’t addressed within next few months i fear we will not only lose more of the player base but the growth of the competitive community in EU, LA and NA will be hindered as less new players will be coming through- it’ll also n doubt hurt sales for Gears 5 which is the last thing i want to happen ;especially given fact the esports has gotten investment it never had before.

Here are several suggestions you could implement to provide redress and not let your craftsmen/women ship be wasted.

1. Use an MMR system to give more balanced lobbies if other team has either an onyx or diamond in make it so you have at least one diamond or onyx on both teams- only que silvers with gold 1/2 and gold with corresponding onyx tier if necessary .

2 remove the return to menu button until someone dashboards and only make the quitter lose percent for that match; also month or so bans for severe leavers may help too.

3. remove core tuning- have one universal tuning as a major issue i have experienced is people playing mainly core trying escalation but getting confused at the ranges and damage of each weapon. The competitive tuning is by far superior anyway better balance and can actually strafe and has an increased ability for outplays as a result making the matches more enjoyable leading to a continual growth of the game.

4. have set percentage inputs to balance the ranking system say 5/10 /12 % either for win or a loss 25% if quit not if you dc though.

5. demand a set of dedicated servers from Microsoft due to the ranking and competitive ladders now being global to allow players on US ,Asia or EU serves to play a game without severe lag as whilst veterans and gb kids can play with 180-200 ping not everyone is able so to new or just casual players will either madden them or stop them playing completely/ quit.

6. have a tier above diamond which is fo the top 200 hundred in world like masters in League, Onyx in Halo or grandmaster in smite- this would not only give people something more to grind for it’d help coaches and players improve their ability to recruit along with potentially new talent being discovered- credit goes to Optic Ashes for such a suggestion.

I’d love to hear what both the developers and community think about the suggestions i presented and am willing to talk at length about them to anyone who desires to do so.
Thank you for your time
i look forward to the replies and discourse.
Oliver Whitehead

[crazychainsaws8]

Also keep in mind every day people stop playing gears 4e and the broze and silver population is dying this is why your going against onix and diamonds.

[DarkChaoz95]

Also keep in mind every day people stop playing gears 4e and the broze and silver population is dying this is why your going against onix and diamonds.

Indeed, because low skilled players have no hope in beating the high skilled. I would have thought it be the opposite. The high skilled players quit playing a particular mode to preserve their rank,

[Teady_Bearz]

1. The game already uses a “true skill number” to balance matches.
2. A loss is a loss. You can still win a 4v5.
3. remove comp tuning- have one universal tuning as a major issue i have experienced is people playing mainly comp trying king of the hill but getting confused at the ranges and damage of each weapon. The core tuning is by far superior anyway better balance and can actually strafe and has an increased ability for outplays as a result making the matches more enjoyable leading to a continual growth of the game.
4. Wouldn’t this be the opposite of a mmr based system?
5. The game already runs on Microsoft’s dedicated servers.
6. Something like diamond, but with a little more 5.