Official Ranking System Discussion and Theories

[SeaboundSlayer]

I havent Revived anyone in a long long time. And i still got the knife emblem.

He too has the skull with knife emblem.

[mmm chocolate]

I havent Revived anyone in a long long time. And i still got the knife emblem.

He too has the skull with knife emblem.

Do you mis-read everything? I ranked up without reviving anyone. Simple as that.

[SeaboundSlayer]

Yes, but he is aiming for the shotgun rank, isn't he? We don't know how the system works (apart from you, of course).

[Kurasaki]

Could anyone put down their prior gaming behavior before having earned their shotguns...Iv'e recently found that meeting the "requirements" isn't all if even needed to rank up...

people with 30 k/d's with shotguns, me having 345 k/d with no shotguns, having a 30% headshot ratio, and steadily raising revives and accuracy both of which are higher than most people I encounter...

Just curious to see if a specific pattern of gaming is how to achieve the rank other than supposed required stats...

If u played several games and how many the day u achieved them, or the day before...what rounds on average if not exactley they were... anything u can remember...

[Kurasaki]

PWEASE...and thanks for any info :D

[Kreative Killah]

I currently have a 242.3 kill/down ratio but I am still stuck on just a skull emblem anyone know why? I am a daily player and I have been to pretty high rounds.

[schittus_d]

Post all your stats, your kdr is high enough so it must be down to your other stats.

Seeing as how the round leaderboards don't get reset when the rest of your stats and your emblem does, as happened to me, I think that proves that rounds survived plays no part in the ranking system. Just a thought...

[schittus_d]

Could anyone put down their prior gaming behavior before having earned their shotguns...Iv'e recently found that meeting the "requirements" isn't all if even needed to rank up...

people with 30 k/d's with shotguns, me having 345 k/d with no shotguns, having a 30% headshot ratio, and steadily raising revives and accuracy both of which are higher than most people I encounter...

Just curious to see if a specific pattern of gaming is how to achieve the rank other than supposed required stats...

If u played several games and how many the day u achieved them, or the day before...what rounds on average if not exactley they were... anything u can remember...

Before I got the shotguns I was mainly playing solo tranzit to get my kdr up, setting myself up on round 1 so I didn't make any stupid mistakes before getting jug, and not buying quick revive. If I got into a situation where I thought I was gonna die, I quickly ended the game to avoid adding another down to my record. I was usually getting into the 30s and a couple of early 40s so my kills were going up by a few thousand each time.

I also played a lot of Farm, starting on round 15 or 20 because they spawn in quick there and you can get a few hundred kills in just a few minutes of playing. I mainly did this after dying on Tranzit and not wanting to spend another 15-20 mins running around on round 1 again.

I did play with randoms every day though which sometimes brought my kdr down slightly as well, but I was trying to balance having fun as well as ranking up. I enjoy solo but sometimes it gets a bit boring.

[Kurasaki]

Thanks for the post schittus...

Yeah I dont believe overall high rounds have anything to do with one ranking up either...but I do feel as though maybe one's average rounds reached in a day or several days may play a small integral part in it...

I'll try playing with randoms every so often as well for a bit, see if maybe thats what it is...if I dont achieve it within the next 3 days or so I believe I may just have to reset my stats...unfortunate but its even more unfortunate that the ranking system that trearch has implemented is obviously to some degree a poor representation of skill, or at least the limitations to leveling up and whatever algorithm thats behind it is just comletelyy baffeleing...

Theres gotta be some mathematical formula or algorithm that they use to determine when one levels up but it completely eludes me...

and as for you kreative killer...unfortunatley I dont know what to say...I didnt recieve my knife emblem till my k/d was at 135...where most have recieved theres at 60 k/d... the ranking system is completely and utterly confusing to me...I hope that u yield some luck and earn it soon but I can't give u any definitve help as I am still trying to understand the system myself...

[way2g00d]

I currently have a 242.3 kill/down ratio but I am still stuck on just a skull emblem anyone know why? I am a daily player and I have been to pretty high rounds.

Ranking system is highly based on a very good K/d and other combination stats like revives and head shots to name the few. Don't stress too much on this and enjoy the game. Even if you achieved shotguns you will lose it in a dew days if you have too many downs in too little time. It is not the best system there is. Most good players DON'T have shotguns simply because they like to have fun in game and not be selfish, which means risking their life to revive other people and go down sometimes.

[Kurasaki]

It's official that the "prerequisites" to ranking up are in fact debunked...I have accumlated enough downs from playing with randoms this week to get a 99 revive/kills ratio...I have a 345 k/d ratio...I have 35% headshots...2.8% accuracy...and 250k+ kills... highest round of 104 (sliquifier yes I know, only did it that one game, after that I couldnt sit through it again...way to dagum tedious) with average highest round of 38-47...

AND still to no avail...no rank up to shotguns...

The algorithm to this "persistent rank" must correlate to some definitive means of gaming patters...its called a persistent rank so perhaps it takes an average of X# of previous games and that coupled with X# of rounds/kills reached within that game vs downs is how one levels up...

I repeat and am thoroughly without a doubt convinced that the system requires no overall stats...there are shotguns with 30 k/ds...Ill post the link if u doubt it... IT has to be something definitive as its a matter of mathematics...an algorithm is in place...the question is what is it...

[Kurasaki]

accumulated enough "revives"... *

[Rissole25]

Someone on the CoD forums said they had about 19K kills, about 44 downs, and had Shotgun.

Does this mean the prerequisite kills are not true?

[schittus_d]

I now have 11287 kills and 11 downs, k/d is 1026 and I still only have the regular skull. My accuracy is 317%. That is playing solo only, plus 1 split screen game that I used to bump up my revives (I have 37, 3of those are from buying quick revive on solo). I have 3650 headshots, which is around 32%, but the elite app on my phone says my headshots are just 4%?!

I thought I would have at least the knife by now, but I haven't the slightest clue what I need to do other than keep trying.

I have someone with shotguns on my friends list, his k/d is 104. He consistently had less kills and more downs than me but he never lost them. This ranking system is ridiculous, that is the only thing I know about it for sure!

EDIT: I just played one game online, only got 55 kills with 1 down and 5 revives, everyone I was playing with kept turning off the power then going down so I suicided when they were spectating me, and I got the knife. So my k/d dropped to 902 and I got a higher rank. :?

[way2g00d]

I repeat and am thoroughly without a doubt convinced that the system requires no overall stats...there are shotguns with 30 k/ds...Ill post the link if u doubt it... IT has to be something definitive as its a matter of mathematics...an algorithm is in place...the question is what is it...

I am confused. Also post links to justify your case.

[Kurasaki]

I repeat and am thoroughly without a doubt convinced that the system requires no overall stats...there are shotguns with 30 k/ds...Ill post the link if u doubt it... IT has to be something definitive as its a matter of mathematics...an algorithm is in place...the question is what is it...

I am confused. Also post links to justify your case.

I sincerely apologize for not having posted a link...I have searched tirelessly but have yet to find it...I cant remember where I watched it though I know it was on youtube, but what I typed into google to direct me to the video has eluded me...If u dont believe me that's fine and I completely understand as trolling and deciet is hard to overcome on the internet...but nonetheless I have seen a video where the individual had:

18972 kills(roughly)

590 downs (roughly)

And i remember his k/d was roughly 30

Believe me when I say I am adamant that I watched said video...i have constantly been trying to understand this system rigorously and wouldnt post false information...what you belive though is ulitmately your choice...

What I'm saying though is that overall stats...such as a certain k/d, a certain number of revives, downs ,headshots, accuracy...etc doesnt matter...rather your "persistent stats" as in... if i have a series of horrific games and my overall k/d in 50...then I play a series of 8 games over the span of two days where my k/d average for those games is 400 then that will play into me leveling up...rather than my overall avgerage that would obviously be little affected by 8 games...

[Kurasaki]

I am sincerely sorry, but I can't find the video...it was an individual playing on town survival doing the 15 round custom game strategy...he would pack-a-punchand grab mustang and sally...sit atop the stairs right before jug...then open hug after getting enough and then training around stamin-up...i remember he got a max ammo right as the first round had started if anyone else comes across it... those are the best specifics I can state...he also mentions caspahz in his vid...the person had a 30 k/d as people in the comments were in uproar(as with me a bit haha) but nonetheless I can't seem to find it...

[The Clay Bird]

so here are a couple relevant jimmy z tweets from today:

[Kurasaki]

so here are a couple relevant jimmy z tweets from today:

Holy dag...wonder if he put that in relation to something I recently tweeted to him(may have sent a series of rather, extensive tweets)

Regardless this is momentous (as far as confirmation as people have thought this for some time...) enormously great news...this goes to show that resetting accounts is mute...and that overall stats are in fact disregarded in the result of your final rank...

Rather your immediate previous games, the kills/revives/downs and other stats associated with that game are the resulting factor of how one ranks up...

Bout to stop playing for a week (itll be difficult believe me) so that I'll have a fresh, "persistent" slate and will try to maintain only round 35+ games...with as little downs as humanly, and then some, possible...will post results...

THANK YOU SINCERELY for posting this series of tweets... :D

[Edward Richtofen]

so here are a couple relevant jimmy z tweets from today:

Holy dag...wonder if he put that in relation to something I recently tweeted to him(may have sent a series of rather, extensive tweets)

Regardless this is momentous (as far as confirmation as people have thought this for some time...) enormously great news...this goes to show that resetting accounts is mute...and that overall stats are in fact disregarded in the result of your final rank...

Rather your immediate previous games, the kills/revives/downs and other stats associated with that game are the resulting factor of how one ranks up...

Bout to stop playing for a week (itll be difficult believe me) so that I'll have a fresh, "persistent" slate and will try to maintain only round 35+ games...with as little downs as humanly, and then some, possible...will post results...

THANK YOU SINCERELY for posting this series of tweets...

Not sure that I buy this tbh. The reason is my friend who left his xbox on while he was at work. It obliterated his k/d down to a 2.5 (he kept getting put into lobbies all day) and came back home to see a single bone and 5 tallies.

He then got stuck on single bone for quite some time, weeks in fact, despite playing at his normal level. Finally, after getting his k/d around 40-50 he ranked up to double bone where he then got stuck again.

After resetting his stats he was able to get the knife within 2-3 days of playing. I don't see how he could of been stuck a single bone for so long if the system did not use your lifetime stats in determining rank.

[Tom852]

Very interesting. Your friend could obviously rank down in 1 day, but needed several days to rank back up. In case the rank is not based on lifetime stats, that would tell, that a certain amount of games is counted, not just a certain period of time.

But I'm also not sure about the whole thing here, lifetime stats or not. No clue.

I got a bit confused lately, when a noob Grief clan played against me and some others. 3 of 4 had shotguns, but they didn't play super awesome. What I saw was a decent play, but nothing more.

Therefore I still wonder, if and in what way Grief plays a role. Maybe the many revives you get in grief? Grief itself with the Win/Loss Ratio?

Well, I gave this rank stuff up. I just play for fun now. With the new patch I downed myself pretty much about 20 times in R

[Swift speedy]

Kills: 57000

Downs: 600

K/D: 95

Best round: 62

I tend to piss around certain games, then sweat it in others, and my brother plays on my account and he sometimes gets 30 downs in one game

Rank: Knife with blue eyes - De-ranked down to skull with two lines (Because i don't play that often), but i stopped caring about my rank, I care more about best round

[Smok3y]

**ALERT INCOMING WALL OF TEXT!** (TLDR at end)

I thought it would be a good idea to contribute towards the ranking discussions based upon my own findings/experimentation so that those still chasing may be able to take at least 1 thing from my findings.

First of all let me say, as everyone is fully aware that this ranking system is a crock of ****!

Why? Because it’s supposed to (as far as I am aware) be based on skill & while it does try to implement this approach it fails, however I guess with any system its open to exploitation. Why do I think that? Because I have shotguns and I honestly would not consider myself above an average player.

A further note, playing zombies exclusively to rank up does exactly what any decent zombie player or general gamer says: It will kill your enjoyment.

So why did I even attempt this? Being more a halo player I was intrigued because I generally play FPS & I haven’t come across a real ‘skill’ based ranking system since halo 3. The whole prestige system from COD has always annoyed me as it’s more akin to an MMO, the more time you’re online the more sparkly items you have to show & is zero indication of any skill. With that in mind I tried to beat the system to test its true identification of skill.

I achieved my shotguns after exactly 14 days from the start of the so called experiment. I can attribute the achievement to 2 things; reading this thread in its entirety & making my own assumptions on popular theories without any forms of more concrete evidence.

From this thread I would like to give a personal shout out to: Som_Pr0digy, his was the overarching theory I was sticking too with a few things I thought important thrown in.

Below are the stats taken straight after the game giving me shotguns:

Kills – 16598

Downs – 82

KDR = 202.41

Deaths - 39

Accuracy – 83%

Headshots – 36%

Revives – 119

Doors opened – 93

Perks Drank – 161

Grenade Kills - 234

Gibs – 14’279

Travelled Miles - 141

AS you can see very fresh stats.

• Firstly I started from scratch at zero

• I had 2-3 regular custom games with friends & started with a few 250kills-1 down games which in hindsight is pretty damn awful even by a noobs standards.

• I played nuketown once for about 10 minutes, I played farm twice, once solo to a very low round and the second time coop to around the 20th level.

• I played 3-5 games of PUBLIC tranzit & although did not get to even a median level I was able to revive a lot of people.

• 1 game of die rise public all died on round 6 as we didn’t open any doors….

• Single bone – double bone – Skull was achieved in less than a 3 day period. 1 rank up per day.

• Skull + Knife was achieved at 6.5k kills with a KDR of around 160

• As shown above Shotguns were achieved at 16.5k kills and a KDR of 202

• Highest round was 34 solo on Town

• Following the advice of Som_Prodigy I was playing a game before & after 7pm eastern time.

• The KDR for the 2 matches prior to my rank up to shotgun were 186 and then 188.

• I hit a KDR low of about 108 before marching up to 200+ (improvement)

• Of the last 7-8 games, 4-5 of them were at least 1000-1 KDR (consistency)

How do I believe the ranking system works?

On improvement & consistency while hitting certain milestones.

The same week I received skull/knife my friend also received the same, however his KD was sub 40 which completely threw me off. My only explanation is improvement, he was not a great zombies player but in that specific week he started hitting some 30+ rounds with 1000+ kills. I really have no other explanation as to why he got this with such a low KD.

• I personally think that if you started from scratch and knocking out round 40+ from day one it will be harder for you to reach the higher ranks purely because your room for improvement is restricted.

• I’d also like to state that maybe 70% of the total games I player were on EASY difficulty in custom & that’s what really pisses me off.

• I believe it is important to play a mix of games with a few PUBLIC games in there. A friend was trying to do the same thing as me, had better stats but a lower rank. As soon as I advised him to play a couple public games and he did, he got his knife.

• I believe the defining period of getting my shotguns was when I stopped playing so much in groups and would do custom solo, therefore giving me a great boost in KDR.

In my eyes the quickest way to shotguns is a new account/reset followed my some poor to average games deliberately on public/custom/solo & then smashing out some big numbers in terms of kills/high rounds. I’m still out to jury on the high rounds thing but you never know!

My idea how to make the system better? For a start anything done on easy should not count towards rank or at least not knife or shotguns. Stats etc should ONLY be taken from online PUBLIC matches therefore making everyone have to deal with the nightmare that is random noobs. Finally adding in a stat reset function as a standard as the individual still has to earn the rank. Oh and 1 last thing would be to either add more ranks or spread them out further, top rank should be reserved I think for the most hardcore of successful zombies players.

Does shotguns make me a better player? Hell NO! but I am improving & do now have an incentive to play better to keep them, although to be honest I might let it go as the knife emblem is far superior!

Jerry’s Final thoughts: While I believe the system to not be accurate I could be entirely wrong & probably am! However the end result is that:

• I have genuinely improved as a zombies player

• There is a genuine sense of fear/loss when I play which adds to the tension of such a game

• I genuinely WANT to get better at the game & improve myself & with so many games out there that offer limited campaign experiences that don’t warrant a 2nd play through this really takes me back to the days of playing old school HARD games like Donkey Kong and super Mario with no save feature & limited set of lives. I play better because I want to be better & not see an alternative ending. (although that helps)

• Finally a sense of achievement when you do well

So with that being said you could argue the system is great because of these aspects.

TLDR: System is borked, not a true reflection of player skill. Quickest way to shotties is start with some bad public/custom games & then go big. Chasing rank is pointless & will kill your love of the game if done too rigorously. Despite the system seeming flawed, some of the end products are great.

**Apologies for the wall, hope it can help someone!**

[schittus_d]

Well, I finally heard back from Activision Support today, they said they had restored my stats, so I thought finally, I have my shotguns back. It only took them 10 days to get back to me, but at least they finally did.

So I boot up my PS3 and have a look. Turns out all they have done is reset them again. I'm back at a single bone for the 2nd time in 2 weeks :evil: :evil:

I'm so annoyed, I spent extra money pre-ordering the Hardened Edition just for Nuketown Zombies, just this morning I paid another £42 for the Season Pass ready for Die Rise tomorrow, and this is how they repay me, by resetting my stats time after time. If I hadn't just bought the Season Pass I wouldn't bother now, I'm really not in the mood to rebuild my stats yet again. And redo the bloody Easter Egg as well. I was going to refill in their Stat Restore form again, and really kick off with them in the comments section, but chances are they will only just do the same thing again in a couple of weeks. I'm best just starting up fresh, for a third time, and forgetting about getting shotguns ever again..

I know this is completely off the topic here, but I needed to get that off my chest! At least I can where I rank up this time, I will continue to post my findings for the good of the community here if it is of any help to anyone.

And Smok3y, I will try this time starting off with some average/not great games then knock out some consecutive 1000+ K/D games and see where I end up. My first ever game of Nuketown Zombies I was carried to round 27 with 43 downs :oops: , that record is still on my leaderboard now and I still managed to get shotguns with that in my history. Whereas last time when I started off with over 1000 K/D it took me a while to reach the knife emblem.

[Kurasaki]

**ALERT INCOMING WALL OF TEXT!** (TLDR at end)

I thought it would be a good idea to contribute towards the ranking discussions based upon my own findings/experimentation so that those still chasing may be able to take at least 1 thing from my findings.

First of all let me say, as everyone is fully aware that this ranking system is a crock of ****!

Why? Because it’s supposed to (as far as I am aware) be based on skill & while it does try to implement this approach it fails, however I guess with any system its open to exploitation. Why do I think that? Because I have shotguns and I honestly would not consider myself above an average player.

A further note, playing zombies exclusively to rank up does exactly what any decent zombie player or general gamer says: It will kill your enjoyment.

So why did I even attempt this? Being more a halo player I was intrigued because I generally play FPS & I haven’t come across a real ‘skill’ based ranking system since halo 3. The whole prestige system from COD has always annoyed me as it’s more akin to an MMO, the more time you’re online the more sparkly items you have to show & is zero indication of any skill. With that in mind I tried to beat the system to test its true identification of skill.

I achieved my shotguns after exactly 14 days from the start of the so called experiment. I can attribute the achievement to 2 things; reading this thread in its entirety & making my own assumptions on popular theories without any forms of more concrete evidence.

From this thread I would like to give a personal shout out to: Som_Pr0digy, his was the overarching theory I was sticking too with a few things I thought important thrown in.

Below are the stats taken straight after the game giving me shotguns:

Kills – 16598

Downs – 82

KDR = 202.41

Deaths - 39

Accuracy – 83%

Headshots – 36%

Revives – 119

Doors opened – 93

Perks Drank – 161

Grenade Kills - 234

Gibs – 14’279

Travelled Miles - 141

AS you can see very fresh stats.

• Firstly I started from scratch at zero

• I had 2-3 regular custom games with friends & started with a few 250kills-1 down games which in hindsight is pretty damn awful even by a noobs standards.

• I played nuketown once for about 10 minutes, I played farm twice, once solo to a very low round and the second time coop to around the 20th level.

• I played 3-5 games of PUBLIC tranzit & although did not get to even a median level I was able to revive a lot of people.

• 1 game of die rise public all died on round 6 as we didn’t open any doors….

• Single bone – double bone – Skull was achieved in less than a 3 day period. 1 rank up per day.

• Skull + Knife was achieved at 6.5k kills with a KDR of around 160

• As shown above Shotguns were achieved at 16.5k kills and a KDR of 202

• Highest round was 34 solo on Town

• Following the advice of Som_Prodigy I was playing a game before & after 7pm eastern time.

• The KDR for the 2 matches prior to my rank up to shotgun were 186 and then 188.

• I hit a KDR low of about 108 before marching up to 200+ (improvement)

• Of the last 7-8 games, 4-5 of them were at least 1000-1 KDR (consistency)

How do I believe the ranking system works?

On improvement & consistency while hitting certain milestones.

The same week I received skull/knife my friend also received the same, however his KD was sub 40 which completely threw me off. My only explanation is improvement, he was not a great zombies player but in that specific week he started hitting some 30+ rounds with 1000+ kills. I really have no other explanation as to why he got this with such a low KD.

• I personally think that if you started from scratch and knocking out round 40+ from day one it will be harder for you to reach the higher ranks purely because your room for improvement is restricted.

• I’d also like to state that maybe 70% of the total games I player were on EASY difficulty in custom & that’s what really pisses me off.

• I believe it is important to play a mix of games with a few PUBLIC games in there. A friend was trying to do the same thing as me, had better stats but a lower rank. As soon as I advised him to play a couple public games and he did, he got his knife.

• I believe the defining period of getting my shotguns was when I stopped playing so much in groups and would do custom solo, therefore giving me a great boost in KDR.

In my eyes the quickest way to shotguns is a new account/reset followed my some poor to average games deliberately on public/custom/solo & then smashing out some big numbers in terms of kills/high rounds. I’m still out to jury on the high rounds thing but you never know!

My idea how to make the system better? For a start anything done on easy should not count towards rank or at least not knife or shotguns. Stats etc should ONLY be taken from online PUBLIC matches therefore making everyone have to deal with the nightmare that is random noobs. Finally adding in a stat reset function as a standard as the individual still has to earn the rank. Oh and 1 last thing would be to either add more ranks or spread them out further, top rank should be reserved I think for the most hardcore of successful zombies players.

Does shotguns make me a better player? Hell NO! but I am improving & do now have an incentive to play better to keep them, although to be honest I might let it go as the knife emblem is far superior!

Jerry’s Final thoughts: While I believe the system to not be accurate I could be entirely wrong & probably am! However the end result is that:

• I have genuinely improved as a zombies player

• There is a genuine sense of fear/loss when I play which adds to the tension of such a game

• I genuinely WANT to get better at the game & improve myself & with so many games out there that offer limited campaign experiences that don’t warrant a 2nd play through this really takes me back to the days of playing old school HARD games like Donkey Kong and super Mario with no save feature & limited set of lives. I play better because I want to be better & not see an alternative ending. (although that helps)

• Finally a sense of achievement when you do well

So with that being said you could argue the system is great because of these aspects.

TLDR: System is borked, not a true reflection of player skill. Quickest way to shotties is start with some bad public/custom games & then go big. Chasing rank is pointless & will kill your love of the game if done too rigorously. Despite the system seeming flawed, some of the end products are great.

**Apologies for the wall, hope it can help someone!**

Unfortunatley I'm honestly not surprised about the improvment factor, and it is definitley true that a relativley bad player has a more efficient chance at getting shotguns then a good player...which makes no dagum sense...

There was a kid with a 28 k/d...started doing easy custom town games getting a k/d of appromimatley 180-250 every game and recieved shotguns...so apparently someones whos terrible and does decent is more efficient at zombies then someone who does amazing and then does slightly better...terrible implementation of ranking...

I having player 3 days IN A ROW, playing 5-8 games a day with 1000-1 k/d didnt rank up because it wasn't a large enough margin of improvment...

I def feel as though the improvement factor is held higher than the consistency factor...but regardless looks like Imma have a harda** time trying to achieve shotguns but will attempt...again...there should be a standard of improvement not a relative measure...because then the ranks are in and of itself relative...people with shotguns are great compared to "their" stats but not the entire population of slayers out there...thats a defintive LACK of a true rank...but unfortunatley that seems to be what it is...

Thank you for posting your information, unfortunbatley stat reset is near impossible (as of right now i believe) as they've patched all the means to do so...and I'm not starting a new account...so looks like I may be stuck with knife for a good while... I've taken a break from playing for a good bit...(4 days hahaha i love zombies too much, if thats possible) so imma jump in guns blazing and try to set a relative bar for myself...think Imma get to 38...then continue to go up 1 round for each next game and hopefully rank up...

my method will be essentially:

38-suicide

39-suicide

40-suicide

XX-suicide ect. ect...will Post results