I compiled a list of commonly asked questions which I have attempted to answer below.
I will update this as new questions come in and also if changes are made that require changing the answers (matchmaking / ranking tweaks, etc.)
The FAQ starts with matchmaking questions. If you have a question about ranks, skip down to Ranking.
Glossary
MMR or Matchmaking Rating
The most accurate prediction of a player’s ability to win matches. See TrueSkill2 for an in-depth explanation. MMR tells how well a player is expected to play their next match given their history, party size, the playlist, and a given game mode within the playlist. In the data, it is currently hyper-accurate at predicting who will win each match.
CSR or Competitive Skill Rating
The visible rank players see (e.g. Platinum, Onyx 1522, etc.). A visible indicator that combines how much a player has won with how difficult the wins have been for a given playlist. CSR will follow MMR around if players prove they deserve the expected MMR.
MMR is what we expect players to do, CSR shows what they’ve actually done.
to4, to3, to2, etc.
Short for “team of 4” and refers to a pre-made fireteam (party) of that size. So a to4 is the same as a fireteam of 4 friends that have created a party before matchmaking.
Matchmaking
How does Halo 5 matchmaking work now?
The matchmaker will find the best match possible given who is available without making you wait for more than 5 minutes. It will also only make you wait longer if it knows a better match is coming. If it knows it won’t be able to make a better match, it will match as soon as possible with what’s available now.
What about MCC matchmaking?
Due to the age of MCC and its underlying services and components, MCC uses a completely different system than Halo 5. The following FAQ is only relevant for Halo 5.
How do you define best match possible?
The matchmaker considers the following the most important factors, in priority order:
Why did I get this match? It is clearly unfair.
A small portion of matches will be unfair. They only happen if it is the only available match during a reasonable waiting time for at least one of the parties in the match. How often unfair matches happen is directly proportional to the number of players around your own skill and region currently trying to play the playlist.
Why am I playing against Onyx and even Champs as a Diamond player?
This will only happen if it’s a choice between the Champ just not playing at all or playing against you. It means that the Champ or Onyx would have to wait around 30-60 minutes to find another Champ/Onyx, and the matchmaker currently does not want to make them wait that long.
Why do I still get bad teammates sometimes and after a very short wait?
You always get the best teammates possible within the window you can search. The matchmaker tracks who is currently searching and it will not make you wait if it knows better teammates just aren’t searching any time soon.
For example, an Onyx player prefers at worst Diamond teammates. If they get a Platinum teammate, that means they would have had to wait well over 5 minutes to get only Diamond teammates, which is past the wait time tolerance.
When Onyx players do get Platinum teammates, the team balancer (separate system) will still try and balance the teams so that they have a winning chance.
Why do I still get bad latency or an EU server (as a US player) or a US server (as an EU player), often after a very short wait?
The same reason. There were not enough EU players available within the 5-minute possible search window, so the system saw no point in making you wait 5 minutes only to match US anyways. If the system knows that there are not a lot of EU players searching, it will quickly give you a US server rather than waiting 5 minutes and then still giving you a US server.
On the other hand, if the system knows EU players are coming, it will make you wait a bit longer in order to get an EU server. If you are finding longer wait times, with this matchmaker, that means your match will actually be better than the short waits. So, it’s a good thing.
As a side note, the matchmaker allows wider skill-gaps on closer servers, so sometimes you will get an EU server, but have potentially worse teammates.
Why do I match full fireteams as a solo player?
There are two main situations where a solo player can match a full fireteam:
Why don’t you just force full parties to match other full parties?
The matchmaker will match them against another full party if that’s actually the better match. If they match you instead, it means that the next closest full party was WAY worse than your team was. So it happens if forcing the next closest full party was an even worse match than playing vs. solos (e.g. to4 Onyx vs. to4 Diamond is much worse than to4 Onyx vs. 4 solo Onyx players).
99.99% of full parties can be matched fairly against other groups of players without them winning more than their fair share (around 50%).
For the other 0.01%, at the extreme this comes down to asking whether a stacked party of Onyx players should play against 4 solo Onyx players, a full party of Diamond players, or not play at all. In general, the system stays healthier when it errs on the side of the closer (though still admittedly unfair) stacked vs. solo matchup than having the Diamonds face full Onyx parties too often.
This does mean top-skilled solo queuing players in less popular objective-based playlists can sometimes have frustrating matches, but that’s traded-off against allowing high-skilled friends to play together at all.
We try not to prevent people from playing without solid data showing they are driving away more players than they are bringing in. That is currently not the case.
I will update this as new questions come in and also if changes are made that require changing the answers (matchmaking / ranking tweaks, etc.)
The FAQ starts with matchmaking questions. If you have a question about ranks, skip down to Ranking.
Glossary
MMR or Matchmaking Rating
The most accurate prediction of a player’s ability to win matches. See TrueSkill2 for an in-depth explanation. MMR tells how well a player is expected to play their next match given their history, party size, the playlist, and a given game mode within the playlist. In the data, it is currently hyper-accurate at predicting who will win each match.
CSR or Competitive Skill Rating
The visible rank players see (e.g. Platinum, Onyx 1522, etc.). A visible indicator that combines how much a player has won with how difficult the wins have been for a given playlist. CSR will follow MMR around if players prove they deserve the expected MMR.
MMR is what we expect players to do, CSR shows what they’ve actually done.
to4, to3, to2, etc.
Short for “team of 4” and refers to a pre-made fireteam (party) of that size. So a to4 is the same as a fireteam of 4 friends that have created a party before matchmaking.
Matchmaking
How does Halo 5 matchmaking work now?
The matchmaker will find the best match possible given who is available without making you wait for more than 5 minutes. It will also only make you wait longer if it knows a better match is coming. If it knows it won’t be able to make a better match, it will match as soon as possible with what’s available now.
What about MCC matchmaking?
Due to the age of MCC and its underlying services and components, MCC uses a completely different system than Halo 5. The following FAQ is only relevant for Halo 5.
How do you define best match possible?
The matchmaker considers the following the most important factors, in priority order:
- Good teammates
- Good latency
- Finding a group of players that the team balancer (a separate system) will be able to create equally skilled teams with (50/50 win chance).
Why did I get this match? It is clearly unfair.
A small portion of matches will be unfair. They only happen if it is the only available match during a reasonable waiting time for at least one of the parties in the match. How often unfair matches happen is directly proportional to the number of players around your own skill and region currently trying to play the playlist.
Why am I playing against Onyx and even Champs as a Diamond player?
This will only happen if it’s a choice between the Champ just not playing at all or playing against you. It means that the Champ or Onyx would have to wait around 30-60 minutes to find another Champ/Onyx, and the matchmaker currently does not want to make them wait that long.
Why do I still get bad teammates sometimes and after a very short wait?
You always get the best teammates possible within the window you can search. The matchmaker tracks who is currently searching and it will not make you wait if it knows better teammates just aren’t searching any time soon.
For example, an Onyx player prefers at worst Diamond teammates. If they get a Platinum teammate, that means they would have had to wait well over 5 minutes to get only Diamond teammates, which is past the wait time tolerance.
When Onyx players do get Platinum teammates, the team balancer (separate system) will still try and balance the teams so that they have a winning chance.
Why do I still get bad latency or an EU server (as a US player) or a US server (as an EU player), often after a very short wait?
The same reason. There were not enough EU players available within the 5-minute possible search window, so the system saw no point in making you wait 5 minutes only to match US anyways. If the system knows that there are not a lot of EU players searching, it will quickly give you a US server rather than waiting 5 minutes and then still giving you a US server.
On the other hand, if the system knows EU players are coming, it will make you wait a bit longer in order to get an EU server. If you are finding longer wait times, with this matchmaker, that means your match will actually be better than the short waits. So, it’s a good thing.
As a side note, the matchmaker allows wider skill-gaps on closer servers, so sometimes you will get an EU server, but have potentially worse teammates.
Why do I match full fireteams as a solo player?
There are two main situations where a solo player can match a full fireteam:
- When the matchmaker asks the Skill system how good a full fireteam is, the skill system will automatically inflate the number (MMR) it sends back to the matchmaker by a large amount to capture the benefits of being in a full party. If that inflated number is still close to the MMR of a group of solo players (or combination of solo, to2, to3 for 4v4), the matchmaker will allow the match. In the actual data, these full fireteams are not winning more than expected, so the skill system is correctly boosting their MMR. In fact, when the solo players have a higher MMR than the full party, they win 71% of the time. So we generally don’t get complaints from this group.
- When a stacked party at the top of the skill system has no other options but to match you anyways. If it’s a question of “just don’t let the stacked party play at all” or “have them play an unfair match”, the matchmaker currently errs on the side of “play an unfair match” When this happens, you will still get the best teammates possible for this encounter, and it will still try for as close of opponents as are available. This can still lead to unfair matches, but that’s the compromise the matchmaker makes.
Why don’t you just force full parties to match other full parties?
The matchmaker will match them against another full party if that’s actually the better match. If they match you instead, it means that the next closest full party was WAY worse than your team was. So it happens if forcing the next closest full party was an even worse match than playing vs. solos (e.g. to4 Onyx vs. to4 Diamond is much worse than to4 Onyx vs. 4 solo Onyx players).
99.99% of full parties can be matched fairly against other groups of players without them winning more than their fair share (around 50%).
For the other 0.01%, at the extreme this comes down to asking whether a stacked party of Onyx players should play against 4 solo Onyx players, a full party of Diamond players, or not play at all. In general, the system stays healthier when it errs on the side of the closer (though still admittedly unfair) stacked vs. solo matchup than having the Diamonds face full Onyx parties too often.
This does mean top-skilled solo queuing players in less popular objective-based playlists can sometimes have frustrating matches, but that’s traded-off against allowing high-skilled friends to play together at all.
We try not to prevent people from playing without solid data showing they are driving away more players than they are bringing in. That is currently not the case.