For the first time in Halo Infinite's life cycle, we have seen 343 Industries directly address the game's troubled Ranked Mode.
Halo Infinite's competitive ranked mode is in the dog house. 343 Industries had to reset Ranked Matchmaking a little while ago to try and adjust the distribution as best they could, but it still couldn't fix a Ranking System that was fundamentally flawed. Ranked Matchmaking is such whack that 343 Industries themselves have now come out to publicly address the problems, revealing a bit of information as to how the developers plan on addressing the problems.
After all, we can all get a little bit too bogged down in the game's flaws. In reality, Halo Infinite released with a ton of fantastic maps, great gameplay, Weekly Challenges to keep us engaged, and an assortment of other features that have kept us playing since it dropped back in late November – and that's before we've even mentioned the game's campaign! If 343 Industries are planning on fixing this, then we should listen and – ultimately – quit our complaining!
Now, before we attempt to dive into the nitty-gritty of what 343 Industries revealed on Halo Waypoint, we first want to offer a single caveat: this is a super, super condensed version of what 343 discussed in their blog post. If you want a more detailed breakdown, check out the blog post (linked above) and buy yourself a bucket of pop-corn. This is an insanely long update!
343 Admits to Halo Infinite's Troubled Ranked Mode
A few weeks back, an update arrived attempting to address problems with the game's Ranked Mode, and resetting Ranked Matchmaking. It has only been a little while, but 343 Industries has now directly acknowledged that there were "too many" Diamond and Onyx players before the update. Of the already-implemented fix, they said the following:
Ranks were on average somewhat higher than expected... but our recent updates to ranked matchmaking, and the accompanying rank reset on Feb 22, should have helped to adjust the distribution.
It’s too early to share full details on the new distribution, as many players are still working on their qualifying matches. However, we can share that for the players in the Platinum/Diamond tiers, the new changes have resulted in CSRs 150-300 points (3-6 sub-ranks) below what they were pre-reset, depending on playlist.
Confusion surrounding Competitive Skill Rank (CSR) and Matchmaking Rating (MMR) were addressed, making things clearer for players who didn't know the difference. We won't go into the details, you can find them on Halo Waypoint, as it's very complex and perfectly explained by 343 Industries themselves.
343 Industries also went on to describe, in exhaustive detail, how the various matchmaking and ranking systems work in-game. That involves the use of TrueSkill2, which is the "underlying system that is used to understand as accurately and quickly as possible how skilled each player is relative to the population of players", as well as TrueMatch, which similarly "is used to get the best possible matches by adjusting matchmaking parameters in response to shifting populations".
In our latest developer blog, we outline #HaloInfinite's ranking system, the supporting matchmaking systems beneath it, and answer common community questions. Read up to learn more and see how we'll be improving it moving forward. https://t.co/p73LeSXOyx pic.twitter.com/nZ9EU8SKWq
— Halo (@Halo) March 11, 2022
How Is 343 Industries Fixing Ranked In Halo Infinite?
343 Industries will "closely monitor" the systems that were described in the blog post, and will be introducing a Champion rank down the road as well as continue to "adjust the parameters" of matchmaking to improve the overall experience. The developers admitted to needing "more time" to find permanent solutions for the various problems that have been experienced with Halo's Ranked Mode. They have alsodelayed the game's Campaign Co-op until later in Season 2 to help keep the workload at a reasonable level and deliver the best game that they can.