Gears of War 2's ranking system explained
by Dustin Burg 
{ Nov 18th 2008 at 6:00PM }
After hearing about gamers' anger and general confusion surrounding Gears of War 2's online ranking system, team Epic has come to the rescue by explaining how the whole ranking thing works.According to Gears community manager SixOkay, the Gears 2 ranking system strictly uses Microsoft's TrueSkill which is was created using chess' ELO rating system. This means that ranks aren't calculated strictly by points or kills, instead a rank is determined by your wins and losses AND whether or not you were favored to win the match. Also, the five different icons used to express your rank (viewable above) are used as a general range of ranks attainable, so small fluctuations in your win / loss ration won't instantly change your icon. Click the jump to read more about the Gears 2 ranking system and learn how it all works. Then, hopefully you'll be one less confused gamer.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
dubbz3000 @ Nov 18th 2008 6:10PM
so theres ranks for online multiplayer play, but it takes average 10 minutes just to get on to play. No thanks ill stick to good ol' COD ranks
TORO @ Nov 18th 2008 6:28PM
I really don't care about rankings, what matters to me is winning and my team actually trying to win ;)
Kevin Gass @ Nov 18th 2008 10:26PM
Somewhat agree'd. The ranking system isnt really a ranking system as in Halo 3, CoD4-5...etc. but just the same system MS already uses...just with icons. Sorry but I will never strive for a "rank" in this game. not worth it
JerkfacedFed @ Nov 19th 2008 12:22AM
TruSkill is actually a better ranking system than any other because like its title, it is measuring the player's true skill and likeliness to win. CoD4 ranks have absolutely positively nothing to do with how good a player is, but how long he has played. However, I think they should have more ranks like in the army, ranging from E-1 to E-9, with only one player getting something like SMA (Sergeant Major of the Army), but in COG terms. If you are unfamilliar with Army ranks, check out http://www.army.mil/symbols/armyranks.html
E-1 PVT would be no rank, with only one player getting the highest rank. The TruSkill system would just tier the players by percentages exponentially with less and less players in each rank as it goes higher.
Hoffman @ Dec 5th 2008 7:27AM
Yes, trueskill is a good way to organize match, but the evaluation of the real skill of a player is not the best, in other games (halo, ecc ecc) there are a lot of level, in gow 2 there are only 5, and the upgrading is not easy..this morning i saw a rank 5, then i looked at his stats on gow.com, and i was scared-->about 100 win, but on 245 matches..so why i am a rank 3 if a have 145 wins and 140 losses? boh
PrimevilKneivel @ Nov 19th 2008 12:13AM
Trueskill is not Elo. Elo was used in the previous ranking system used on halo 2 but was deemed not robust enough for the complexity of online gaming.
dabigangry55 @ Mar 1st 2009 1:12AM
You are one of the biggest nerds I have ever heard in my life jock! By the way this ranking system sucks compared to Call of Duty 4 and Halo 3. Going by the prediction of who is going to win is deemed retarded.
offday @ Nov 18th 2008 6:36PM
Cool. Now fix it.
josh @ Nov 18th 2008 6:37PM
About time they explained it.
Really though I don't think it really says anything about how good you are, if you're going by wins and losses all that matters is if you have teammates that actually play as a team...which most of the time is NOT the case. Very frustrating.
willie @ Nov 18th 2008 6:42PM
i'm just going crazy wondering when the hell ima move up from rank 1
xX FearHAVOK Xx @ Nov 19th 2008 8:55AM
ya man i feel you. 7 straight wins on the territories play list as a rank one, and guess where im still at?
Unpuercofeo @ Nov 18th 2008 6:46PM
Erm - has this article even been proof read? I've spotted 4 mistakes.
RedSonRising @ Nov 18th 2008 6:48PM
great. now im positive the rankings in gow2 are useless: no perks, no bonuses, no purpose at all.. im gonna go back to ignoring them..
NvM @ Nov 18th 2008 7:41PM
Better if matchmaking liked to work most of the time.
josh @ Nov 18th 2008 10:24PM
for me its less about the matchmaking and more about the lag. Seems like one out of every three games are laggy and unplayable (except for the host).
R_Fusion @ Nov 18th 2008 8:41PM
I gave up after almost 15 min. just for some match game.
RICKDOEZ @ Nov 18th 2008 10:33PM
this is the lame ranking sys..ever in the history of gaming..i love gears but they are killing the fun by doing this..they never talked about this before the game came out,cause everyone would cry like i am..lol
MuDvAyNe @ Nov 18th 2008 10:40PM
Fix the damn lag. Tonight was horrible. It is so freaking stupid when one guy can run around lag free and get 25 kills lol.
Teh Lup @ Nov 19th 2008 8:47AM
100% with you, 2 point blank shotty blasts = nothing. Dive away, take 1 shot @ dive distance = me dead. I really had it with that game lastnight. 5 mins to get a game (even with a full 5 man group) than just ridiculous lag... really dishearting coming from such a great game.
Procris @ Nov 19th 2008 6:57AM
Yeah people seem to forget that CoD4's ranking system is based on exp and not skill. I do prefer this system however, because you always feel like you are making progress. I will never feel like i'm making progress in Gears 2. I'm rank 3 already and can't see myself getting any higher despite the amount of wins i have.
TheBigUnit622 @ Nov 19th 2008 9:14AM
Like a few people have said, this is actually a true ranking system based on skill. The Call of Duty World at War ranking system doesn't take skill into account at all. The only reason that skill makes a difference at all is how FAST you level up. A level 65-level 10 Prestige in COD5 could be a 8-year old with 2 left thumbs if he's played for 3 years...as well as an elite gamer who has played for 3 months...they are the same rank, totally different skill level.
At least in this system, it takes into account winning percentage (which, winning should be the most important thing, anyways) as well as your likelyhood to win the match. That just means, if you're favored to win, you get less of a bump up from winning, the bump up is still there, it's just less. And it also rewards players more heavily for overcoming the odds of being matched up against a team of superior skill players.
Dragonkal8000 @ Nov 19th 2008 8:23AM
Why should anyone care about the ranking system anyway. The current matchmaking system sucks on GOW2.
czproevo @ Feb 4th 2009 1:40AM
I think that this game rules but in ranking..absolutely not..im a 50 in team slayer and team doubles and currently have an mlg team in halo3...if this ranking system is like halo then i say good luck to anyone who isnt pro in getting a rank 5.
Brucie B @ Nov 19th 2008 8:58AM
Could careless about the Ranks....
(Not my fault the team I got put on SUCKS! There goes my rank) lol
Just FIX the Matchmaking already!!
*Really, I don't get it, This game was done months before it's release, So why Epic, Why...
czproevo @ Feb 4th 2009 1:43AM
oh and about the match making bro...if you download the game to your hard drive using the nexus update from microsoft there is a significant difference in finding players trust me.....5 hours to like 1 min.. if you have the room like a 60gb or a 120gb its well worth the space and will save you alot of time if your into this game
Zyeriis @ Dec 1st 2008 10:58AM
I think this system is busted actually...I've been rank 2 since the first week yet im usually in first (or top 3) by the end of the match with a decent win/loss ratio
(n00bs + teammates = ; ;)
Despite all my destruction I'm still rank 2 which leads me to believe the system is based on co-operative performance (ability to win even with crap for teammates) making the win/loss factor the majority decider of your rank which is just so ridiculously iritating.
(I know this is about just the ranking system but since someone brought up the other problems in GOW2...)
GOW2 is an EPIC failure if you ask me...in comparison to GOW1. Sure they fixed all the annoyances from 1 such as *most* of the glitching, the sniper rifle, and the ability to choose hammerburst over lancer. But, they ruined just about everything else. Chainsaws were the n00b weapon in the last game and now they're over-used and can still grab u from a good distance (even farther now i think), shotguns were ruined at first (though ive kinda gotten used to them now), hammerburst is no longer hammer"burst", torque bows do too much dmg now, flamethrower needs to be adjusted (i dont understand why other people can run through mine but i cannot do the same), and the list goes on (sorry about the long response)
TJSkul @ Dec 23rd 2008 2:55PM
This Gears 2 is a good qulitiy game but the fact remains the lag and people finding the cheating way to kill people this game has way to many gliches you payed 60.00 or more for you to have a great time and all you get is wating in the match making process and people jumping out of the screen people figured out the way to cheat if you can't win without cheating you suck and the ? remains are they going to fix the problems or are they going to leave them go and have people get rid of the game they don't care cause they already made there money from this game.
Loosemore1988 @ Jan 3rd 2009 10:34AM
the game is really laggy. it seems like people are cheating or something but it could just be a serious lag issue. ive got very fast fibre optic internet so it's got nothing to do with me. they expect people to pay 800 ms points for other maps then when the other one's dont even work properly. some people who you melee dont even flinch whether thats cheating or lag once again i dont know but the game has sooooo many bugs and gears dont wanna do anything about it. their a joke.
------ @ Jan 11th 2009 7:48PM
I had rank 2 and got back to 1 from losing ONE game... nice.
owntt2r223 @ Jan 24th 2009 10:39AM
BTW
if you just start out
no rank
1 win = corp
2 win = sergant
3 win = staff sergant
4 win = master sergant
i got a guy and won 4 in a row in each
wingman
territories
and elimination
and i ranked up but if you lose its over for a while =\
aaron @ Feb 8th 2009 11:55AM
1. you can only rank up from elimination and wingman
2. the matchmaking system shud put u up with only ur ranks because if u do well in 1 game u r put up against higher ranks that will easily beat u.
hayden-is @ Feb 8th 2009 10:18PM
guy bellow me u fail COD is GAY gears FTW!!!!
pimprt91 @ Feb 13th 2009 12:32AM
the and the hole lowering your rank really sucks not even worth going for a rank cause u always fell like u not making any procress in the game so whats the point of even trying it if the game it self makes u a bad player from teh start need to chance the hole rank thing make it like halo our cod much better and not lower your rank really.