Gears of War's ranked matches smell rank

We're talking about having you and up to 3 other players against random opponents (as per Halo 2). This form of optimatch is allowed and is featured in Saints Row.

Yes as per MS policy you can't have friends as opponents (so again no friends in Free for all games) only on YOUR team. That is not against MS policy.

Epic didn't want to/didn't understand/didn't have time to implement a full optimatch system that would allow for this.

I've said it since Halo 2 and I'll say it again: HAVING A DISPLAYED RANK PROMOTES CHEATING! If they don't display your rank anywhere and just use it to match you up, people will not be encouraged to cheat. Keep the rank hidden and allow us to play with friends. Hopefully, he meant that it will not be like GRAW where the host is allowed to choose who is on their team in ranked matches. As long as they have proper gametype options (i shouldn't have to play "triple team phantom oddball plasma sword jizzfest" if i don't want to.) it will be ok i guess.

Also, maybe if they don't want the game overrun with "little bitches" they shouldn't sell a damn 'M' rated game to little kids! These little kids' parents shouldn't allow their "little bitches" to play M rated games. They should just implement a system that can determine age from voice chat and bam them forever from xbox live for being underage and playing an M rated game. its not too hard to figure out who is a pre-pubescent little bitch based on their voice.


Epic: Have four matchmaking systems:

Player match: just like GRAW. Invite any friends, not matched up on skill. all options are available

Team Ranked Match: Only parties of two or more can enter. (if odd number, then game is 3v3 or 5v5) trueskill is in effect. NO RANK IS DISPLAYED. random maps. options for gametype, weapons, and map preferences like CoD2.

Ranked Match: No parties are allowed. trueskill. same options as above Team match.

World Ranked Match: Displayed Rank, partied or not. Only option for gametype.

All of the cheaters would gravitate to the 'World Ranked Match.' Afterall, why cheat if you can't brag about you l337 sk1llz to your friend?? I don't care about my ranking, i care about having fun with my friends and playing competative games. I like to lose sometimes. It makes me a better player.

I like parts of halo and Cod's matchmaking system. it is nice to just sit down and find a game. In halo, I hate playing dumb gametypes. In cod it sucks not to play with friends. I hate how hard it is to get into a game in GRAW.

Also, didn't Cod2 say that the player match also affected your truskill??

I don't play on Live, so someone is going to have to explain this to me nice and clearly.

What the hell is the importance of "ranked matches". From what I can tell it seems that scores are kept in a public database for bragging rights. It's more or less that, right?

Well, if it is that, is there some sort of reason players can't have their own leagues, like on most PC multi games? Or do people really want to just show how big their epeen is to the most people possible?

Am I missing something here?

I just cancelled my preorder upon hearing this.

Absolutely rediculous. Saints Row lets me make a party with 3 other friends and find a ranked 4v4 game, why can't Gears of War? I cna understand not allowing you to play against people on your Friends List, but not allowed to play with them in ranked games? That's absolutely rediculous.

Have you ever gone into Halo 2 alone? It sucks. Horrendously. You see more cheating than with a team. You see idiots throwing the game, some moron standbying, and 2 of your team mates throwing grenades at themselves to drag your score down. And if you're lucky, none of that will happen, you'll just be thrown together with some hothead idiots who don't listen or function as a team. You'll have the lead, be holding a base, and waiting for time to tick. But that hotshot thinks he can go out there and kill everyone to end the game quicker. And he tries and fails enough to make your team lose.

I can understand not being able to match against friends in ranked FFA games, or play against your friends in a 4v4 ranked, but this is stupid. People are still going to cheat. People will standby, people will ruin the ranked game.

Halo 2's matchmaking system was perfect. I still play that game. The flaws were not the matching system, but the netcode allowing standby and the easily accesible files on the Xbox hard drive you could change to cheat with. I've always said every game could take a lesson from Halo's lobby system. Saints Row did, and it works nicely.

When you take away the ability to play with friends in ranked games, you defeat the purpose. Ranked games are about team work, training. Not who gets lucky and get's the best individual players on their team. Online gaming has been, and should stay, a social experience. I don't think I would play online games nearly as much as I do were it not for the ability to play with friends. It's the people you play with that help determine how much fun you have in a game. And I know a lot of people I play with agree with me, a large amount of us don't like playing ranked FFAs because we can't play with friends.

Sure, we can still play together in custom games. But it's not the same thing. You aren't privilieged by a system that allows you to match up fairly reasonably against people within your skill range. You don't get that little extra pressure and adrenaline you get from knowing the game is ranked - ranks create a competitive environment.

Until the time comes where I can make a room with three of my friends and search for a ranked game agains tsomeone and his three friends, I will not be playing this game. I don't understand how you cna call this an issue with Microsoft certification, when Saints Row does exactly what you guys won't. Microsoft must want to shoot themselves in the foot. If this is truly Microsoft's fault, I'd like a specific email address that I can contact.

I hate this retarted way of online play. Matchmaking sux bawls. I cant even create an online ranked game between my friends and myself on NHL 2K7. Not to say that all other xbox live'ers are foul mouthed cheats, although there are quite a few, I just want to see who outta my foul mouthed friends is the better player.
And this may be a little off topic but how come on any NHL game I cant have 4-8 seperate 360's running one game of 2on2 or 4on4. 1 game 2 teams 4-8 players on 4-8 360's. Not 2 consoles per game, My Live friends dont live in the same city as me but we could make one hell of a team if the game let us.

It seems like instead of innovating and developing a working solution to online cheating MS is coping out and simply removing a feature. To me playing team-based ranked matches online with friends is the most important online feature. If Sony finds a way to make team-based ranked play possible, while policing cheaters, that will be a heavy incentive for me to switch platforms.

This is proof that Joystiq's commentary participants don't really read these articles.

I am SO FUCKING HAPPY they made this move. I've been an avid Halo2 player since it was released.

I have NEVER, EVER, EVER cheated and I move between level 30-36. ...Because of all the cheaters I don't know if I have hit my reflex cieling or not. ...If I knew I had hit my reflex limit I could focus on improving my physical reaction times instead of trying to improve my technique. ...But that's such boring training I haven't focused much on it.

...My latest gaming addiction is Contra (that old Nintendo game) running on my Motorola Q. PocketNester lets you enable frame-skipping to speed up the game. Set it to skip 4 frames. It makes the game so insanely fast you can beat the first level in under 10 seconds...trying to live that long is a fun challange.

Recent explosion tonight on the Epic forums. Anyway...long story short, Fufu, a Epic mod pretty much clarified ranked matches up:



Just drop it already - if this information was going to be clarified any further it would have already. I'm really sorry you're unhappy with feature 'x' of Gears, but we're not in a state to change functionality at this point.


Joe Graf's comment:
Matches cannot be password protected. You can create a private match and only invite people to it. Only in player matches. You can't invite people to ranked matches and all slots have to be public.


What that basically means is, you cannot bring in xbox live friends as a party because that would be taking up slots that are suppose to be open for public.

Both Xbox's Major Nelson and Bungie's Tom Achronos have stated that the claims made by Epic about the Microsoft certification requirements were completely wrong. Achronos specifially cited Saints Row and Chromehounds as games that allow you to do what Epic supposedly said you can't do with 360 online games.

Sanchino is spot on in this thread. As having played this game for the last few days religiously it is very frustrating not being able to play with friends in ranked games for numerous reasons. First of all who cares really about ranking and being number one in a video game? I am competitive in video games and nothing beats going up against a team that works together with a bunch of my friends and having a good match, however when you play in unranked matches you get all randoms or 2 people that know eachother with 2 randoms etc. We start to win and what do you know 2 of the people leave and now we are stuck with a 2 on 4 until some other people come in(which are probably randoms that will leave in 2 rounds). Ok so I get into a ranked game by myself and I get on some guys team that insists on shooting the cieling or doesnt have a mic to communicate and I spend 20 min getting my butt kicked because of no teamwork or communication by people I have never played with in my life, this is not fun at all whatsoever. Me and my friends have found a way around this but it is tedious and takes forever. If you want to play ranked matches with your friends set up a ranked match and set it for an uncommon amount of rounds and have your teammates search min and max rounds exactly on the number of rounds that your match is set to. They may have to refresh a few times but it should come up sooner or later and wala you can play ranked with your friends, but sometimes it takes a while for the room to fill up. I guess we will have to resort back to gaming ladders and set up times and dates to play against other teams in unranked play but I thought we were past that.

Does anyone really believe that MS is going to allow any of their outside developers to compete too closely with Halo 3?? MS knew Halo 3 was going to be massively delayed and they didn't want anyone getting so comfortable with GoW that they might not buy Halo 3 later.

Let the community police itself. If over 50% of the players in the game tag you as a cheater then you lose your XBL for 30 minutes. This works for a few reasons:

I have sent feedback on my own team in Halo 2 for cheating. And if the entire other team votes on that guy he is out for 30 minutes. Sit in the corner bad boy. I would think this would be more of a deterant than M$ MIGHT ban you. Sure it happens, but I might have to play against that cheater again before it happens. This way, at least I have 30 minutes that I can't get match made with the cheater.

Um.. I havent noticed anyone saying much about this but... you can still play with friends... just NOT for a ranked match. Seriouly I play games to have fun with my friends not to show the world Im the greatest by some iffy ranking system. Like I honestly havent noticed that much difference becasue I still play with my friends all the time. Thus ranking doesnt even matter. Its not like were gonna be saying "oh snap your no longer ranked very high... screw you we will find another!!!" However, I do see how this affects people who play games for the competitive rush it gives. You wnat to be number one dang it!!! Which is fine... as long as your getting paid and can logically spend the time to become so. Thus making your free time clear to do somethign for the whole of society, since your gaming is your job. Other than that... really... go help some homelss children or something other than play 5hrs EVERY afternoon to get the best ranking score. Ok that is my dig on poeple who dont give anythign to society except the fact that they can make a running head shot. (again pro gamers excluded.. you get paid, its a job, thus you have free time to help out a bit.) All I know is I still have fun with my friends playing the game. Given we may not be recognized on some chart somewhere in the great internet universe as being amazing, but we still enjoy the game... which is what gaming is SUPPOSED to be about.

PS3+extracontrol+games+highspeed= OMG i could have bought 2 360`s. What was I thinking. Ill just sit on my Japanese POS and pretend the graphics are worth it.