We pay attention to what’s being searched for on our site, and judging by the amount of searches that have come in for it, folks seem to be completely confused by Gears of War 2’s ranking system and how they go about gaining higher ranks. So, we’ll see if we can’t put it to bed right now.
The basic ranking system uses Microsoft’s patented TrueSkill rating. Put simply, the system rates players based on their actual skill in each game, and updates their ranking at the end of each match based on their performance. The actual calculation for the ratings boost or decline is quite complex, but in simple terms, a player with a low TrueSkill rating beating a player with a high TrueSkill rating would receive more of a boost than a player with a high TrueSkill rating beating a player with a low one.
The reason for this is that the system assumes – to within a calculated degree of certainty – that the rating of each player is an actual representation of their skill. Therefore, a player that is highly rated should be able to defeat lower-rated players without much difficulty and shouldn’t be rewarded with as much of a ratings boost as they would get by defeating a player with a higher rating.
Epic have stated that you are assigned the first Gears of War 2 rank by playing in one multiplayer match and that the more matches that you win, the higher your rank will be – with your ranking going down when you lose matches. If the system is based on TrueSkill – which it is – then this is theoretically correct. What isn’t explained is the time it will take for your rank to change. If you’re consistently beating “better” players, your rank will go up. However, if you’re consistently beating “worse” players (as defined by the TrueSkill system), then your ranking will still go up – but it’ll take far longer than if you play against players either on or above your TrueSkill level.
The TrueSkill system is based on expected outcomes. For example, if I have a TrueSkill rating of 35 and you have a TrueSkill rating of 23, then I’m expected to defeat you more often than you’ll defeat me. When you win, you get a better ratings boost than I do when I win. Not only that, but my rating will decline by a hefty chunk due to the disparity in our ratings. As Microsoft says: “It is a strength of the TrueSkill ranking system to move you up very quickly early on but to reduce the step-size in the updates after a series of consistent games” – and the reason for this is that once you start playing consistently (ie: winning approximately as often as you lose) – then the game has “found” your true skill rating.
It may sound like I’m repeating myself here, and I am. The reason for this is the amount of massive coincidences that I’ve seen posted around on various forums about how your ranking is determined. Some folks have even claimed that it’s the time of day that’s important – and that just doesn’t make any sense at all.
Just so you know, your rank is not affected by private matches or Horde Mode – as confirmed by Epic.
Oh, and winning a match against a full room will serve you better than winning a match against one other player – simply because the TrueSkill system will consider that you’ve beaten each player individually and alter your rating accordingly and push you ever closer to that next ranking threshold. In short, the only way to “rank up” in Gears of War 2 – or any game that uses the TrueSkill system – is to play against players who are considered to be better than yourself, and beat them.
WHAT WOULD CAUSE MY RANK TO STOP GOING UP OR DOWN IN GEARS 2? ITS AS IF MY GAME HAS GLITCHED AND STOPPED MY RANKING BEING AFFECTED!!
God love you, that’s what the whole article is about.
Well this helps my understanding but when your rank 4 and always get matched with rank 1s and 2s its really hard to get to rank 5 even if i've got double the wins i do loses in almost all playlists.
Well, as the article covers, it will take a long time if you're a higher rank killing lower ranks. I guess you just have to broaden your game types, if you're only playing in particular types of games, and hope that you get teamed with some other similarly ranked or higher ranked players, which should speed up the process.
sounds like a huge pain to me but whatever makes people happy i suppose
True Skill sucks. If you have to win then you obviously have to rely on your team and if you are a rank 3 matched with rank 1's for teamates and you go against rank 3's and 4's then you will most likely get you ass handed to you. it not TRUESKILL it's TEAMSKILL!!!
its a teambased game
i cant rank up at all i give out ass woopings to rank 4s and 5s and im a rank three what the hell man y u gears have a ranking system that tells u when are goin to rank u like call of duty or halo i mean come on this is gay as hell
I suppose if you were gay then this would be "straight as hell", would it?
Well done on using what should be an inoffensive term, as an insult against GOW2's ranking system.
No, you're probably right. I'm sure Epic Games (the developers) personally re-coded the game that you got in your box so that it is different to the however million other copies out there. Going by your attitude, Jaybeasts (and by all means correct me here), I'd say that you're doing something wrong.
i like it because it makes u play 2 win and not play 2 get kills. also it makes less fighting over "kill steals".
I completely agree with you, sublethalpuppet. I think the system is fair because someone of my (limited) skill shouldn't be able to get to the top level – and I won't. That's the long and short of it, and it works.
oooooohh
awesome!!
do you still get the skill points if you die and your team wins.
the only people with high ranks in gow2 are people with very fast internet connection or people using wireless internet im only rank 2 every time when im playing a game with someone who got 3 or 4 i just cant kill them and its not that im a week player or something 2 shots in the back of the head and a meele attack nothing is working and what the other player is doing he turns around bang im a meet ball this sucks
my internet is around 8mb download and 1 upload
Everyone i beat just ends up leaving, so does it still count them as me beating their higher rank?
Considering the actual upload and download speeds required to play a game online with a reasonable latency, I doubt that, unless you're being throttled somewhat considerably, the internet connection is the issue.
no it does not count sorry mate im in the same possition it hapens to me most of the time i personaly think that the whole ranking kinda sucks and destroys the game i dont really understand people doing that what a waste of time
and by the way does anyone know when is resident evil 5 commin out ?
I am super skilled at gears 2 just like i was on the first one. I have a 1.9 kill to death ratio which is higher than alot of rank four and fives and still no rank up and i have murdered ranks 4&5 time after time. What the writer said sounds good but i guess i doesnt work for me i really almost never lose out of 168 matches played in execution i have won 130. So what gives
i think it should be judge by the points and winning the map so that more people play as a team. gears of war 2 is all team and no free for all so why is it based on only indviduality?. your team wins on king of the hill but the other team is only spawn killing two people. it should be the true skill of an individual and the team. all when then you rank up. now that i know this im just gonna kill people.
gears 2 online is soooo bad.
talk about less options and more bullshit, and the “true skill” more like “false skill” i'm always getting set up in bogus ass matches. The entire online set up for gears 2 is a perfect example of why you should NEVER fix something that isn't broken…. someone at epic needs to be let go. this is a terrible let down.
What if i play wingman and only win once every few games depending if i get a O.K. partner. I'm ranked like 15000 but that doesn't make a difference, so does any1 know if this will seriously affect it?
i dont no but my rank does that same thing help plz
Approve.
I think there needs to be some updates to the whole “true skill” system. It is completely retarded that you do not get any credit when you are destroying a high ranked team and they quit out. It should count as a loss for them and they should penalized something, like in Halo3….In Halo3, if you quit out of the match you will lose 2 experience and if you do quit the other team wins, the game doesnt get disconnected. I can not even count how many times I have been beating a higher ranked team (4's&5's) and they leave the game, its like a waste of 25 minutes!
i have to totally agreed with killamike6661 players with high rank should lost there high rank when they quit
no cuz if its based off who u kill it make it way worse bcu i sum1 takes ur kills then u dont get the points 4 the rankin makin it suck liek hell if um1 steals ur kill cuz it just takes that much longer
I completely agree. Hopefully developers won't continue to make this mistake.
i think they should judge it by the skills and kills.it would be better if you can quit when the game is in session.i dont quit but also i think that everytime you win 5 MATCHES in a row,i think your rank should go higher.
welll i find it ridiculous thati have had to rank back up to 4th just about 3 or 4 times just because the host quit on me after a good 5 rounds of getting spanked …….i find that so unffair
makethe rankings different or take them away completey. its stupid as it is.
A TRUE GEAR BEAST may i ask what is your internet speed mate ?
To all the level 3s, 4s, 5s who play execution
How long did it take you to get there? Do you all have kill/death and win/loss ratios of +1.0?
I have only seen one level 5 star person. I just leveled up from one to two today. I've learned its best to STICK TOGETHER and PLAY TIL THE END. Its halarious seeing someone +70,000 pts on execution and still on level 1. These are the people who quit seconds after they get 2-pieced in the first round. I hope trueskill can find this and keeps quitters together on the same team.
honestly guys. gears of war 2 rank system is more of a thing of beauty and to show other people how hard u worked to get to ur level its nothing like call of duty for u dont get extra guns for ur lvls. honestly i think your levels will come to you when you keep playing and you guys shouldn't really care about ur lvls.
To me, i think it's pretty dumb that you can't see your progress, this would probably just cause a bunch of angry gamers to quit it entirely.
Gears of war 2 matchmaking is terrible, seriously. It kind of gay when your a 4 and always matched with a 1 if not 2 in wingman, and that's if your lucky. They should of rank it by your kills and points, not by the teams overall. The trueskill system is ranking your team, not your talent. You could manage to get 15 kills and still end up losing the game.
I think that there is an error or bug in the rank system tell you guys why…
First i started playing online and got to rank 3 in like 10 matches but i won around 6 of them.
Now this is the downfall after that i was in a slump just got owned and lost 6 games in a row and got disconnected 3 times then my rank dropped to 1.
Then after that i have played like 50 matches and won like around 38 of them but my rank does not go up.
Any reasons WHY??
how can i see when i am ranking up. where can i found my rank points(if there is such a thing)
this rankings system is balls it should be done on how many points u have overall
im rank one.. and i won around 25 matches a night for 2 nights losing like one or two out of the fifty.. should i have ranked by then????
It depends on the other player's ranks, as discussed in this article.
im rank 2 and i play with alot of level 3 s and win alot of my matches but i never go up , maybe u have to wun in multiple game types?
its utter garbage i have been playing for over a month a stuck on rank 2 and won over 100 wingman games n loads on other games yet still stuck on rank 2 all time no matter how many 3 n sometimes 4 stars i kill and i seem to constantly get put on a team with 1 ranks all the time or loads up games with 3 people on my team against 5 n stuff yay great.
does anyoneknow if theres a way to reset your gears of war online profile like set you rank and score back to zero and start again?
I agree with you jaybeasts24, hell im still rank one. For instance if your hooked up with a bad team or everybody leaves the match your screwed, you lose and your rank goes down. This rank system sucks!
Guys i think u have to be patient for ranking up just play ranked matches and see if u win i was for 2 months lvl 1 and played just 1 day hardcore and im rank 2 now im playing always hardcore now im not getting ranked up.
anyway just own high levels maybe u get ranked up:) add me t4×0r add xbox live (goodluck)
I got to rank 3 about 3 weeks after the game came out, i dont know why but i skipped rank 2 went straight from rank 1 to 3 and im not even that good.
Hi guys, im wondering which game type in Gears 2 is the best for ranking up. Spof747.
Very Stupid System Indeed.No one will ever rank up since most 3,4, and maybe 5 ranks always ditch te game when they are about to lose.The 1 and 2 ranks will never rank up with this bullshit going on…..
my rank has been a three stripe sence i started playing i havnt gone up nore down at all they never match you up with higher ranks or maybe because their are not alot of higher ranks concidering most people have no skill cheat or leave before they lose gears of war 2 is getting horrible to play n im a gears head but im gettin tired of it because of the people that just cant get on to actualy play n play to get better instead cheat messes everything up for the people that are actually skilled at the game..
appprove
It took me a month and a half to get my 3rd rank… and unlike a lot of the 3rd, 4th, and 5th ranks i actually earned my stripes (meaning I didnt have to lag switch to get a win..). I got my 3rd rank playing alot of anex.. i dont think true skill is what they say it is..
how about if you guys dont like the game dont play ok? i think gears in one of the best games im good i dont need a ank to prove it…
i love gears of war i got my 3rd rank yesterday i hear they are changing the ranking system and it took me 1 month to get my gold rank and when it happen i had a huge grin thats what i think they are all about if you go up ranks fast you dont really bother much but when you play for months and that 1 day you go up your so happy and proud i guess that after all your hard work it aventually pays of but if only they would give us a bar or something that shows us how close we are to our next rank.
it still dont make sence tho cuz i am rank 2 n my m8 is only rank 1 n he is alot better at the game than i am n he has played alot more matches than me n won alot more n he plays against higher ranks but he still aint ranked up but yet i have so how does that work