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TrueSkill™

The TrueSkill ranking system is a skill based ranking system for Xbox Live developed at Microsoft Research. The purpose of a ranking system is to both identify and track the skills of gamers in a game (mode) in order to be able to match them into competitive matches. The TrueSkill ranking system only uses the final standings of all teams in a game in order to update the skill estimates (ranks) of all gamers playing in this game. Ranking systems have been proposed for many sports but possibly the most prominent ranking system in use today is ELO.


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TrueSkill™ Ranking System Calculator (form based)
This rank calculator allows you to directly experience the TrueSkill ranking system as it is used in Xbox Live.

     
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TrueSkill™ Ranking System Calculator (AJAX based)
This rank calculator allows you to directly experience the TrueSkill ranking system as it is used in Xbox Live.


The TrueSkill™ Ranking System Calculator(s)

We have setup eight hypothetical players (Alice, Bob, Chris, Darren, Eve, Fabian, George and Hillary) that can be arranged in any team configuration with the drop-down list. We use colour names for the teams: red, blue, green, magenta, brown, black, orange, gray. The game outcome will be specified by assigning teams to ranks; rank 1 is the winner and rank 8 is the lowest scoring team. If two teams on consecutive ranks draw, then just check the Draw checkbox. In the form-based version, your changes will not be directly applied; if results (on the right hand side) are invalid they will be stroked and greyed out. You only need to press the Recalculate Skill Level Distribution button (only in the form based version). The match quality of the current team assignment of players and their skills in terms of Mu and Sigma is the quality of the match before it is played so the game outcome (Team Ranking/Game Outcome column) cannot change the match quality.

We have defined a number of pre-defined team scenarios for your in the Select Game Mode drop-down list (at the bottom). If you wish to define your own team configurations you can either add or delete players (Add Player and Delete Player button). Also, if you want to quickly reset every player's skill to the initial skill assigned when the TrueSkill ranking system sees you for the first time, you can press Reset Skills. If you want to try out a series of game outcomes, you can quickly copy all calculated skills into the skill input boxes on the left by pressing the After->Before (or Before <- After) button.

Finally, the TrueSkill ranking system allows to set the chance of drawing for two equally skilled players in the Draw Probability text box. For example, for a Street Race type of game you should set 0% whereas for a Capture-the-Flag type of game, you may want to try 25%. Ok, enough said: Enjoy!

TrueSkill™ Ranking System
 
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