I see alot of people complaining constantly about Matchmaking Ranks and they only seem to lose ranks and not gain. So I figured I post the system that Halo operates on, Elo. Basically, say you are playing Lone Wolves and you are a ranked 14. I will bold your player from now on. Heres the line up. 10 11 11 14 17 2. After the match ends, it is the winners are declared, and the line up is this. 14 17 21 11 10 11 So you won. After this, Ranks would probably change, and people would probably say "good game, that as close, etc." not realized how much was just effected. The ranks would loosely become this. (yy/xx, yy being the original rank xx being the new.) 14/16 17/16 21/19 11/11 10/10 11/10 Now as you can see things drastically changed for you and the 21 ranked. The reason for your rank raising would because you completely destroyed 2 higher ranks, a 17 and a 21, so its pretty simple to figure out. But why did 21 drop two if he came in third? Because he was beaten by 14 skill level. Higher ranks are required to keep a constant win streak against lower skills, or they plummet. Now why did 11 lose so little, since he came in last? Everyone except the 10 was a higher rank, therefore expected for a higher win ratio. All others I feel are self explanatory. I hope this helped everyone figure out why they're rank is hovering around the same thing. Thanks for reading guys. Source.
thankfully the leveling system is much more complex in halo 3 than in halo 2. We were trying to get a friend of mine her 40, it took nine wins in a row to get it because she couldn't come in first or get a positive k/d ratio most of the time. Bungie just doesn't hand you high levels on a silver platter like in halo 2, you actually have to earn it!