Skill

In Halo 3’s Matchmaking system, you’ll find a ton of new options and abilities. Bungie has made their best effort to improve the already social nature of Matchmaking by giving you some new powers while you use the system to find games and opponents. Now it’s easier than ever to meet people you like, with similar skills and experience.

Experience and Rating Points (RP)
One of Halo 2’s defining features was its ability to match players of similar skill levels, for the most enjoyable possible games, with the fairest outcomes. Although it was a success, Bungie used that experience and data to build an even better, more accurate, and fairer system, that will ensure even more balance, better matching and less cheating and abuse than ever before.

Bungie measures both skill level and experience (in the Beta, this experience is signified by "RP" standing for Rating Points) in their Matchmaking system. Some players are destined to become pros, while others will prefer to haunt the middle ranks and enjoy the game just for fun. But every player will be rewarded with experience Rating Points (RP) - earned for time served in Halo 3 Matchmaking. Progress from raw recruit to decorated officer, a reward for good sportsmanship and yet another way for us to make sure games are evenly matched.

Wherever people see your Gamertag in Halo 3, they’ll also see your universally visible experience "RPs" and their associated rank status (Sergeant, for example). They’ll have an instant feel for how long you’ve been playing – and how that compares to your relative skill level in a given playlist. Someone with lots of RPs and a low Matchmaking skill level, might simply be new to that specific matchmaking playlist. Knowing that is the key to knowing your enemy. The layers of complexity Bungie has built into the system should make it better and less prone to abuse than ever, while simultaneously enriching the player experience.

Stats, medals and other data will all be displayed right in the game, highlighting top performing players in the postgame carnage report, and visible to anyone who highlights your Gamertag. And yet with all this emphasis on progress, behind the scenes we’re making huge strides in making the act and the consequences of cheating and grieving, less rewarding for those who tend to do that kind of thing.

As with Halo 2, your stats will also be available online, through Bungie.net. Although these stats will be very limited during the Public Beta, in fall when the game ships, they’ll go live on Bungie.net with more detail, more information and more flexibility than ever before. It promises to be a massively feature-rich environment for stat-watchers everywhere.