Ever wondered what exactly those little symbols next to peoples' names are in Gears of War 2 lobbies? Well, you have probably worked out that they are rank icons, but the fact that you've played loads of matches and it hasn't changed is probably bothering you. It seems to have bothered a few people, which is why Epic has had to explain it.
The little symbol by your name is based upon your TrueSkill rating. TrueSkill assesses your wins and your losses and then decided how adept a player you are. What it also does is use statistical history to predict who should win and who should lose a match.
"TrueSkill is like the chess ELO system, which tries to predict who should win the match based on the skill of the players," explains Epic rep SixOkay. "If you were predicted to lose and your team wins, then your TrueSkill goes up more than if you won and you were predicted to win. This holds true for the inverse scenario: If you were predicted to win and you lose, then your ranking drops more than if you were predicted to lose."
That's pretty cool. I'd quite like to see one's personal stats indicate how many matches were won against the odds and how many were lost that shouldn't have been. SixOkay points out that the ranking system is not like an RPG and won't keep increasing with experience. It will change or remain the same depending on performance, your rank can move up or down and it could take many tens of matches before a suitable skill ranking is decided.
... I hate only being rank one.
Jim Sterling serves as reviews editor for Destructoid.com, head of the Podtoid podcast, and produces a number of news stories, original features, one-of-a-kind videos. With his passionate argumentative style, controversial opinions, harsh delivery, and dedication to brutal honesty Sterling is a name that you can't help but recognize.
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Contest:
6:59 PM on 11.19.2008
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http://research.microsoft.com/osa/apg/trueskill.aspx
Your TrueSkill rank is usually expressed on a scale from 1-50. Epic obviously simplifies that down to 1-5 stars.
Gears of War 1 used the same system, but it used the 1-50 scale.
You are assigned different TrueSkill ranks for each game type, not just each game as a whole. So you might have a 30 rank in Warzone but only a 10 rank in Wingman.
Meaning the first few games your rank can and will fluctuate wildly as you win or lose. By the time you get to 10 or so games, your rank will be relatively stable, but once it stabilizes, it is really difficult to get it to move much in either direction. This means your rank won't jump up because you got lucky in one match and took down someone much better than you, but it also won't sink because you got UNlucky in one match.
After game 50 or so, it will take real, sustained improvement (or worsening) in your skill level, over several games, before your TrueSkill number will move much.
zing
I think Halo 3 has a better ranking system (or like I said, empirically it seems better), since it takes into account experience and not just how well I performed. Example, I would much rather play with a Gunnery Sergeant Grade 4 in Halo 3, than a Lieutenant Grade 1 despite the fact that the Lieutenant has more "skill" than the Gunnery Sergeant. I think comparatively that the Gunnery Sergeant, on average, would understand the mechanics of the game better and be more reliable.
True skill system my ass.