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Epic explains Gears of War 2's abstract ranking system photo

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.








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14 comments | showing # 1 to 14
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Gangles's Avatar - Comment posted on 11/19/2008 18:58
Gangles
I wasn't aware chess had an Electric Light Orchestra system.
Darren Nakamura's Avatar - Comment posted on 11/19/2008 18:59
Darren Nakamura
I hope I make it to at least Rank 2 eventually.
ian_esq's Avatar - Comment posted on 11/19/2008 19:10
ian_esq
I'm rank 4 already, it's so easy to win
dmgi's Avatar - Comment posted on 11/19/2008 19:22
dmgi
Did they release the exact ratio you need and how many games you have to play?
Gamer Named Tim's Avatar - Comment posted on 11/19/2008 19:25
Gamer Named Tim
Predicts who should win, you say? Crazy.
UnnDunn's Avatar - Comment posted on 11/19/2008 19:39
UnnDunn
TrueSkill is an Xbox Live feature which is used in nearly all competitive Xbox Live and Games For Windows Live games. For more info (including the scary algorithms they use to work out your rank), go to the address below:

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.
UnnDunn's Avatar - Comment posted on 11/19/2008 19:44
UnnDunn
Oh yeah, on the 1-50 scale, 1 represents an utter rank newbie who probably doesn't even know where the "shoot" button is while 50 represents someone who is pretty much unbeatable at that particular mode.

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.
UnnDunn's Avatar - Comment posted on 11/19/2008 19:59
UnnDunn
@dmgi: There are no "exact numbers" only approximate numbers depending on how many people are in the game sessions you play. The more you play, the more accurate the system gets at determining your rank. The more accurate the system is, the harder it is to change your rank.

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.
Placentasaurus's Avatar - Comment posted on 11/19/2008 20:19
Placentasaurus
I'd rather they explain why the fuck guests can't play in public online matches. Since I don't own a 360, that almost completely ruined the game for me (what I played of campaign didn't impress me too much) . I'm not going to make my friend sit and watch, when we could just play ALMOST EVERY OTHER FUCKING ONLINE GAME ON 360 OR PS3. Come on Epic. It was possible in the first game, why not in this one? Why would they purposefully do this? Is it some bullshit about ranking? Goddammit.
JiR INC's Avatar - Comment posted on 11/19/2008 20:33
JiR INC
Well I would guess I would be much higher but every time I do well in a match it DC's at the end i'm talking when the last score table is up then when it goes to the red screen the message the host has disconnected shows.. and never saves my score grrrr and half the time it won't connect to matches at all ...ITS ANNOYING
Capn Birdseye's Avatar - Comment posted on 11/19/2008 20:48
Capn Birdseye
I would have wondered what those mean if I could get matched up in to more than one game per hour...

zing
B-Radicate's Avatar - Comment posted on 11/19/2008 21:29
B-Radicate
Maybe if I could get into some quality matches with people that knew how to play as a team I'd be able to win a few matches back to back, let alone begin to worry about increasing beyond level one.
icarus's Avatar - Comment posted on 11/19/2008 22:26
icarus
I won't claim that I understand the mathematics behind the Trueskill system, but I still think relying on Trueskill alone is a flawed, at least based on my empirical experience.

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.
Kyousuke Nanbu's Avatar - Comment posted on 11/20/2008 02:56
Kyousuke Nanbu
I got paired up against a rank 5, my team consisted of a rank 1(me) and 4 no rankers.

True skill system my ass.
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