OK so the Leaderboard reset is upon - thanks Eidos glad we finally are getting this. I was wondering what it actually takes to get this achievement and here are some details that I found on Microsoft's website about the true skill ranking system.
The following are questions I found on Microsoft's website that I thought applied.
Q: How can I become the top player in a leaderboard?A: It's simple: Win games! The TrueSkill ranking system matches you with people of similar skill so winning against them will always bring you up the leaderboard.
But, more seriously, in order to become a level 50 player in an 8-player-Free-for-All game mode you will only need to win 8 (tightly) match-made games in a row! If you do not believe that, try out our interactive rank calculator: Always make sure that Alice wins the game and all other 7 players have the same µ but a s of 1 (you can use the After->Before button). After 8 games you should see that Alice's µ is 56.995 and the s is 1.901; hence, the conservative skill estimate would be Level 51! It may take a bit longer in reality because in these calculations it was assumed that there are always enough players at every playing strength available.
Q: I am playing a team game and all the players in my team drop out of the game. Of course, I lose the game. Will I lose as many skill points as all the people who left me standing in the rain?A: Unfortunately, yes. All alternative options are possible exploits for cheating:
- If the TrueSkill ranking system does not count the game at all then the losing team can always ensure not to lose points by dropping out early (entirely).
- If the TrueSkill ranking system only uses the team configurations at the end of the game then both the players that dropped would not be penalised and the remaining player can be arbitrarily boosted (that is, shortly before the end of the game all but one player drop from a team; for the update equation it would now seem that a single player has won against a team of, say, 4 players and would apply a massive positive update).
- If the TrueSkill ranking system would introduce an arbitrary lowest rank in which every player falls that drops before the end of the game, then, again, the remaining player(s) in a team can be arbitrarily boosted (he won against the losing team and all the players that dropped. This approach would penalise the players that drop, though.
But: Players who drop regularly from a team would eventually be identified by the TrueSkill ranking system as having a negative impact on the team skill and will eventually be matched with other players of that have a negative team impact. So, you should not see this happening to often if you are a player of average skill.
Q: How many games do I have to win before I go up one level?A: This depends a lot on how many games you have already played, how many games your opposition have already played and what type of games you play. 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. In general, the more people per team, the longer it takes to go up or down one level. But the more teams per game, the faster you can go up or down. Here is a list of game modes and number of wins necessary before you go up a level (assuming you have already played a fair number of games; otherwise you usually go up one level in one game).
Game Mode Number of Games per Gamer
8 Players Free-For-All 3
4 Players Free-For-All 4
2 Players Free-For-All 7
4 Teams/2 Players per Team 5
2 Teams/4 Players per Team 10
Q: I am always playing together in the same team with my friend JoeDoe. Will the TrueSkill ranking system be able to differentiate between us two in terms of skills? In other words, is the TrueSkill ranking system capable of finding that I am the more skilled player of us two?A: If both you and your friend only play ranked team games together then the TrueSkill ranking system cannot distinguish between you two; it always compares the team's skills (sums of the player's skills in the teams) and 'distributes' the gain/loss proportional to the individual player's uncertainties (see detailed description). But note: if your friend also plays team games with anyone other than you then the TrueSkill ranking system will be able to identify the more skilled player of your two. Also, if both of you always only play together, you might consider forming a clan.
So there are a lot of other details
HERE. So loosing games is bad and winning games is good. It appears that if you are loosing the best thing to do is quit out of the game. It also seems that playing with same people might prevent you from getting one of the top spots because the entire team is the same rank with the same wins and losses so the leaderboard would not be able to determine who is better. In this case if your team is winning a match if all but one person drops out that should inflate the person's skill giving them the top spot. So I can't tell you exactly what it will take but
I hope this information helps.
UPDATEI played with the TrueSkill calculator
HERE to see if I could figure out how long it would take to boost to TrueSkill 50 by yourself. You would need 21 profiles. The team layout would be 4 on 1 and everyone starts at TrueSkill 0 (MU=25 Sigma=8.333). The 1 profile each time wins 8 games and end with a TrueSkill of 28 (MU=45.886 Sigma=6.211) - you'd do this until you have 4 profiles at 28. 4 TrueSkill 28s vs 1 TrueSkill 0 in two games makes the TrueSkill 0 a level 50. That means you'd need to boost 34 games by yourself if you are a Trueskill 0 with no games played. The moment you start loosing games it would take longer. Some caveats though - you'd need 5 consoles and 5 versions, I don't think there is a way to force the game into 4 vs 1 so you might need 3 more consoles and games to be able to drop out at the start of the game. Another note is that TrueSkill 50 isn't the achievement - its being ranked 1 for Kane and 2 for Lynch on the leaderboard. I believe once you are at 50 the position is determined by the number of wins you have. So boosting this by yourself would not be easy and I am not sure the leaderboard reset is going to make it easier but it at least levels the playing field.