[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] macwookie Now take two second accounts. Both have an actual skill of 50 but because they have new accounts they are now 1's. They play against each other and one looses. The one who won is now a 2 and the one who lost is still a 1. But because the skill they have is so out of proportion of what a normal 1 would be the system take this as their base value. Now the system expects them to improve their game (but they already rock) and they get rank locked at a lower level than the original account. I don't know its just an idea.[/quote]A new account, whether it is by a brand new Halo player or a good player starting over, is treated exactly the same way. Winning a TD game 25-0 is not different than winning a TD game 25-24. The system doesn't recognize a players skill by in-game performance, it only uses the outcome of the game, along with the uncertainty of the outcome compared against the probability of the outcome. The reason it is "harder" to level up now is players are now playing a lot more players who have not yet reached their skill level. It doesn't necessarily make it "harder" to level up, it just takes more games. If you have a new account that is a 20 and you lose against another new account who is a 20, it doesn't hurt as much because all of your sigma's are still relatively high. Now, if you are a new account and lost against a 20 who has a low sigma (old account) then it will hurt you a lot worse and be a major setback. Your skill adjustments are factored by the uncertainty of the players. Losing to a player with a high uncertainty doesn't hurt as bad as losing to a player with a low uncertainty. With the flood of new accounts who have not yet reached their skill level, you end up playing a lot of games against these type of players so not much is gained from the outcome. Another thing to keep in mind is the maturity of the skill of the community. A level 20 player now is probably better than a level 20 player was at launch. In other words, the competition is tougher. Everyone's skill level is based on the skill of the community. As "everyone" gets better over time, it will take more "skill" to attain each level.