Skill

Skill is awarded to players of Halo 3’s Matchmaking, along with experience points. This can only be obtained on ranked playlists, such as Lone Wolves or Team Slayer.

Gaining Skill
There is no set process to gain skill, but is your skill relative to other players currently playing Halo 3. You do not gain skill unless you become appreciably and significantly better. If you develop a greater headshot ability, your skill level should rise commensurately, unlike with EXP, that only changes if you win a match.

Experience and Rating Points (RP)
The Halo 3 skill system has been rebuilt to build a good, accurate, and fair system that will ensure even more balance, better matching and less cheating and abuse than that of Halo 2.

Skill level and experience are measured in the Matchmaking system. Players will be rewarded with experience Rating Points (RP) earned for winning a game in Halo 3 Matchmaking. Progress from recruit to officer is a reward for many wins and another way for games to be evenly matched.

Wherever a gamertag is seen, your experience "RPs" and their associated rank status (Sergeant, for example) will be exposed. Players seeing your tag have an instant feel for how long you’ve been playing and how that compares to your relative skill level in a given playlist. A player with many RPs and a low Matchmaking skill level might be new to that specific matchmaking playlist. Knowing that is the key to knowing your enemy or teammate.