Update the ranking system!

[Mos Deaf]

Hello all!

Name's MosDeaf. I've recently just joined, and I'm pretty excited to be here. In the last 18 hours, this community has proved to be more entertaining and awesome than my last one. And that's pretty, well, awesome! Anyway, one of the things that irk'd me so far is the odd ranking system. It's apparently a mix between Marine and Army ranks. Which, you know, isn't bad. It's worked for the last 7 or so years. Congrats!

However, what if I were to suggest that we change it? Make it more appropriate, in the sense that it's based on actual military forces as well as Halo's lore? The UNSCDF (United Nations Space Command Defense Force) has all 4 branches that the current modern (21st century) US military does; Air Force, Army, Marine, Navy.[1] (http://www.halopedia.org/UNSC_Defense_Force) This serves as a joint air, land, and space force. Meaning that the Marines and Navy work together. (In case that wasn't clear).

When you experience the Halo universe, you're mostly fighting with the Navy or Marines. It turns out the UNSCDF Army is typically a garrison force, and primarily present on very populated human worlds.[2] (http://www.halopedia.org/UNSC_Army) Otherwise, a lot of the combat falls on the shoulders of the Navy and Marines. (To clarify, the Marines are the land-based expeditionary force, meaning they are pretty much everywhere as reinforcements).[3] (http://www.halopedia.org/UNSC_Marine_Corps)


Now that you know that, wouldn't it make sense for the REDD and BLUE forces to be Navy/Marine forces as well? We're having this gigantic war that spans a dozen or so planets, and who's going to be at each one? That's right, some mysterious Spartan that'll soon be KIA.[4] (http://www.halopedia.org/SPARTAN-III_program#Purpose) Also, the Navy & Marines.

So here's my suggestion. We revise our ranking system to match that of a Navy/Marine mix. I also referred to Halo: Reach's rankings, as they are of a similar fashion (mixing Navy & Marine, then words that have important meaning in the Halo lore).

The table below is what I'm proposing. It downscales the current 25 to 20 positions, mostly by removing fancy titles. Rest in peace, "Sergeant Major of the Army" and Warrant Officers.

EDIT: Updated this table's abbreviations to match the the three-character limit, also added pretty colors



Pay Grade
Title
Abbreviation


n/a
Recruit
Rct


Enlisted-1
Private
Pvt


E-2
Private First Class
PFC


E-3
Lance Corporal
LCp


E-4
Corporal
Cpl


E-5
Sergeant
Sgt


E-6
Staff Sergeant
SSg


E-7
Chief Petty Officer
CPO


E-8
Master Sergeant
MSg


E-9
Master Chief Petty Officer
MCP


Officer-1
Second Lieutenant
2Lt


O-2
First Lieutenant
1Lt


O-3
Captain
Cpt


O-4
Lieutenant Commander
LCd


O-5
Commander
Cdr


O-6
Colonel
Col


O-7
Brigadier General
BGn


O-8
Major General
MGn


O-9
Vice Admiral
VAd


O-10
General
Gen


Special
Fleet Marshal
FM




For those interested in my first-pass suggestion on reassigning ranks from the current structure to this one, please see this table:



Current Rank Structure
Proposed Rank Structure


Recruit (RCT)
Recruit (Rct)


Private (PVT)
Private (Pvt)


Private First Class (PFC)
Private First Class (PFC)


Specialist (SPC)
Lance Corporal (LCp)


Lance Corporal (LCP)
Lance Corporal (LCp)


Corporal (CPL)
Corporal (Cpl)


Sergeant (SGT)
Sergeant (Sgt)


Staff Sergeant (SSG)
Staff Sergeant (SSg)


Gunnery Sergeant (GSG)
Chief Petty Officer (CPO)


Master Sergeant (MSG)
Master Sergeant (MSg)


Sergeant Major (SGM)
Master Chief Petty Officer (MCP)


Sergeant Major of the Army (SMA)
-


Warrant Officer (WO)
Second Lieutenant (2Lt)


Chief Warrant Officer (CWO)
First Lieutenant (1Lt)


Second Lieutenant (2LT)
Captain (Cpt)


First Lieutenant (1LT)
-


Captain (CPT)
Lieutenant Commander (LCd)


Major (MAJ)
Commander (Cdr)


Lieutenant Colonel (LTC)
-


Colonel (COL)
Colonel (Col)


Brigadier General (BRG)
Brigadier General (BGn)


Major General (MJG)
Major General (MGn)


Lieutenant General (LTG)
Vice Admiral (VAd)


General (GEN)
General (Gen)


Field Marshal (FM)
Fleet Marshal (FM)




[5] UNSC Rank Structure (http://www.halopedia.org/UNSC_rank_structure)

If you want suggest an alternative mix, solely stick with either Navy or Marine, stay with the current system, or just feedback, I'm all ears! (Not literally, as I have a hearing loss that's rather profound).

[silversleek]

you actually cited things. i'm kind of impressed.

sergeant major of the army will probably stay, as that rank currently holds a specific purpose. however, there have been claims of their being too many ranks before. Although, those were more targeted in the 'enlisted' center than the officer corp, so i don't think warrant officer, cwo are going. unless those were made into enlisted ranks. it's been awhile since i've kept up on this sort of stuff. Either way, i like it purely on the basis that someone took the time to come up with a different system to use instead of just muttering softly to themselves about the ranks.

[Legendary Nova]

This is ridiculously amazing for only 18 hours of membership. Seriously, well done!

[RENGADE 0F FUNK]

Field Marshal will also stay because tradition, if anything did come from this.

[Ominous Solace]

I agree with the purposed changes, we in BLUE rarely use ranks such as Sergeant Major of the Army. I personally believe that having the Warrant Officer ranks a kinda pointless at this point in time. I'd like to see this change to be implemented at sometime within the Community if possible.

Again, seeing as you haven't been here long and you already are trying to help with things and shape things for the future of the community is an amazing quality. Keep up the good work!

[Lol its James]

I agree with the purposed changes, we in BLUE rarely use ranks such as Sergeant Major of the Army. I personally believe that having the Warrant Officer ranks a kinda pointless at this point in time. I'd like to see this change to be implemented at sometime within the Community if possible.

Again, seeing as you haven't been here long and you already are trying to help with things and shape things for the future of the community is an amazing quality. Keep up the good work!

So bump every executive officer to 2nd Lt? Because in redd, WO and CWO mean two different things, xo and more experienced xo. Just wanted to see where you were going with this

[NervyDestroyer]

So bump every executive officer to 2nd Lt? Because in redd, WO and CWO mean two different things, xo and more experienced xo. Just wanted to see where you were going with this

I also adopt that system with Warrant Officers. Warrant Officer = Inexperienced XO and Chief Warrant Officer = Experienced XO

The issue with redoing the ranks is it would have to be worked out what NCO ranks are, what XO ranks are, and what CO ranks are. Then new usergroups need to be made. I don't see much problem with our current system. Very well thought out though.

[NecroNocte]

Cleaning the ranks up has been proposed before, and I do believe we have actually changed the ranks up before too. I don't think the ranks need to be cleaned up, rather people need to be placed in their rank based on their job. You've come at a low activity point. This means that the rank structure looks broken. We have high level officers leading squads, etc.

[Spartanbh]

While I always am up for a more authentic/canon approach, and you did an EXCELLENT job and made great points, right now it is a bit difficult to make any kind of significant changes to our rank system. I'm not saying that as a traditionalist (because I always liked having as many ranks as possible), but realistically, we already are struggling with having too many ranks, to the point where it looks kind of sloppy on our rank rosters, because we'll have some ranks with no one in it or just one, and other ranks will be filled with people.

I could see something like this becoming much more of a possibility if we have a significant increase in dedicated soldiers as well as a resurgence of role playing and lore.

We appreciate your enthusiasm however, and we are always looking for ideas that make our community more fun and exciting and efficient!

[Ominous Solace]

So bump every executive officer to 2nd Lt? Because in redd, WO and CWO mean two different things, xo and more experienced xo. Just wanted to see where you were going with this

Well as you know James I am merely approaching the idea from the BLUE perspective. I do understand that REDD does there thing differently from us, but like I said I am coming from a different perspective.

[Drth spartan]

I Agree We should Switch the ranks out because we need to be as accurate to halo as possible

- - - Updated - - -

my Rank wont change ether way lol

[Silko]

Holy shit, we can put footnotes on our post???????

[Mos Deaf]

you actually cited things. i'm kind of impressed.

sergeant major of the army will probably stay, as that rank currently holds a specific purpose. however, there have been claims of their being too many ranks before. Although, those were more targeted in the 'enlisted' center than the officer corp, so i don't think warrant officer, cwo are going. unless those were made into enlisted ranks. it's been awhile since i've kept up on this sort of stuff. Either way, i like it purely on the basis that someone took the time to come up with a different system to use instead of just muttering softly to themselves about the ranks.

Well, I believe that if you cite stuff while presenting a researched proposal, you look smarter, articulated, and cooler. Also reddit will eat you alive if you don't quote stuff while debating.
I understand that the current system works, and it's gotten some concern in the past. My goal with this was to even out the number of Enlisted and Officer positions, plus one for the Special rank. But I do appreciate your kind words. If it makes you feel better, I lost about 5 hours of sleep on this :D


This is ridiculously amazing for only 18 hours of membership. Seriously, well done!

Wait until you see what happens this weekend ;)


Field Marshal will also stay because tradition, if anything did come from this.

Fair enough. I'll make a new list and add that in. What if, say, we name it Fleet Marshal? :D It's not that much of a change, and it still holds almost the same meaning.


I agree with the purposed changes, we in BLUE rarely use ranks such as Sergeant Major of the Army. I personally believe that having the Warrant Officer ranks a kinda pointless at this point in time. I'd like to see this change to be implemented at sometime within the Community if possible.

Again, seeing as you haven't been here long and you already are trying to help with things and shape things for the future of the community is an amazing quality. Keep up the good work!

Thank you for your support, Squad Leader! Aw, you're making me blush :3


So bump every executive officer to 2nd Lt? Because in redd, WO and CWO mean two different things, xo and more experienced xo. Just wanted to see where you were going with this

Like others pointed out, I am extremely new to this community, and don't entirely understand each ranks' responsibilities. My goal was to simplify the ranking structure so that newer members wouldn't feel like they have to grind their way through this community. Granted, if the community gets large enough, then it would be most sensible to instantiate new ranks and such.

To answer your question, I feel that every Warrant Officer would be would be promoted to 2ndLt, and Chief Warrant Officers would then be 1stLt. This will still differentiate between former WOs and CWOs, while fitting into the new structure.


I also adopt that system with Warrant Officers. Warrant Officer = Inexperienced XO and Chief Warrant Officer = Experienced XO

The issue with redoing the ranks is it would have to be worked out what NCO ranks are, what XO ranks are, and what CO ranks are. Then new usergroups need to be made. I don't see much problem with our current system. Very well thought out though.

Understood, sir. If you'll direct your attention to the table below, this is my suggest at a first pass to reorganising the ranks.



Current Rank Structure
Proposed Rank Structure


Recruit (RCT)
Recruit (Rct)


Private (PVT)
Private (Pvt)


Private First Class (PFC)
Private First Class (PFC)


Specialist (SPC)
Lance Corporal (LCp)


Lance Corporal (LCP)
Lance Corporal (LCp)


Corporal (CPL)
Corporal (Cpl)


Sergeant (SGT)
Sergeant (Sgt)


Staff Sergeant (SSG)
Staff Sergeant (SSg)


Gunnery Sergeant (GSG)
Chief Petty Officer (CPO)


Master Sergeant (MSG)
Master Sergeant (MSg)


Sergeant Major (SGM)
Master Chief Petty Officer (MCP)


Sergeant Major of the Army (SMA)
-


Warrant Officer (WO)
Second Lieutenant (2Lt)


Chief Warrant Officer (CWO)
First Lieutenant (1Lt)


Second Lieutenant (2LT)
Captain (Cpt)


First Lieutenant (1LT)
-


Captain (CPT)
Lieutenant Commander (LCd)


Major (MAJ)
Commander (Cdr)


Lieutenant Colonel (LTC)
-


Colonel (COL)
Colonel (Col)


Brigadier General (BRG)
Brigadier General (BGn)


Major General (MJG)
Major General (MGn)


Lieutenant General (LTG)
Vice Admiral (VAd)


General (GEN)
General (Gen)


Field Marshal (FM)
Fleet Marshal (FM)



Color coded enabled, to assist those that prefer so. Again, I know I don't entirely understand the purpose of each rank, but I'm sure using this, there's potential in the future to clean it up.

I've also edited the main post to reflect this suggestion.


Cleaning the ranks up has been proposed before, and I do believe we have actually changed the ranks up before too. I don't think the ranks need to be cleaned up, rather people need to be placed in their rank based on their job. You've come at a low activity point. This means that the rank structure looks broken. We have high level officers leading squads, etc.

Heh, if it didn't look broken, I wouldn't be writing this :D

"..people need to be placed in their ranked based on their job... high level officers leading squads, etc" I totally get that. But do you really need 14 Officer ranks (including WO/CWO) to be Squad Leaders, when all the Squad Leaders (people who ONLY are Squad Leaders) can share say, 5 titles, and still have unique responsibilities?


While I always am up for a more authentic/canon approach, and you did an EXCELLENT job and made great points, right now it is a bit difficult to make any kind of significant changes to our rank system. I'm not saying that as a traditionalist (because I always liked having as many ranks as possible), but realistically, we already are struggling with having too many ranks, to the point where it looks kind of sloppy on our rank rosters, because we'll have some ranks with no one in it or just one, and other ranks will be filled with people.

I could see something like this becoming much more of a possibility if we have a significant increase in dedicated soldiers as well as a resurgence of role playing and lore.

We appreciate your enthusiasm however, and we are always looking for ideas that make our community more fun and exciting and efficient!

Thank you for the lovely words! I understand the traditionalist perspective, and tried to compensate it by keeping ~13 of the current 25 ranks at the same level in the chain-of-command. Your statements regarding the empty or "sloppy rosters" is pretty much what I first noticed when I decided to suggest a revision.

I understand that changing the system to becoming a different size, honestly, will be quite a bit of work, and likely will lead to opposition and complaints. But if I may, is that not what leaders are for? To be there, to listen to those in their care, and to resolve disputes when new conflicts with old?

- - - Updated - - -


I Agree We should Switch the ranks out because we need to be as accurate to halo as possible

- - - Updated - - -

my Rank wont change ether way lol


Heh, sorry bud. Most of the changes are in the Officer positions. What you can do, though, is get swole, pump lead, be active, and get proMOOOOOTEDDDDD (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyRJdFlHlO0)!!!!

[Nicholas Sapien]

Field Marshal will also stay because tradition, if anything did come from this.

lol you're back?

I like the ranks as they are

[MedeDust]

The ranking system hasn't always been the same, probably the only reason why it's stayed like this so long is because the community asked for rank specific usergroups as well, in all honesty these changes don't happen either because of lack of effort or interest.

[RENGADE 0F FUNK]

lol you're back

Got a bunch of free time so I unretired for the 100th time

[NervyDestroyer]

Ok so reading through your excellent chart showing the ranks we have now and what you propose, I like it. You'd hear no complaints from me if it was changed so feel free to -1 from the "keep them the way they are"

[Nicholas Sapien]

Ok so reading through your excellent chart showing the ranks we have now and what you propose, I like it. You'd hear no complaints from me if it was changed so feel free to -1 from the "keep them the way they are"

your vote doesn't matter

[NervyDestroyer]

your vote doesn't matter

Communist

[Sicarioano]

Though I don't participate or won't for a while at least until I get off base, but I do like the suggestion at updating the ranks. But lol at making E-7 Chief Petty Officer in the middle of a bunch of marine ranks. Looks funny since I'm in the Navy

[Mos Deaf]

Though I don't participate or won't for a while at least until I get off base, but I do like the suggestion at updating the ranks. But lol at making E-7 Chief Petty Officer in the middle of a bunch of marine ranks. Looks funny since I'm in the Navy

I tried :(

[Mythonian]

Sorry for the delay, I meant to reply to this thread quite awhile ago.

First of all, thank you for the good suggestions, Mos Deaf. It's always nice to see people take interest in improving the place. It's quite obvious you did some research on the issue.

If you haven't already, I highly encourage you to read through the FC Lore, which explains the transition from the UNSC during the Human-Covenant War into the current situation with REDD vs BLUE:

Forerunner Conflict: A History of War (http://fcwars.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?444-Forerunner-Conflict-A-History-of-War)

That will do a good bit of explaining the "origin story" of FC, and will help the below information make sense.


REDD and BLUE are effectively separate branches of the militaries for each faction. The factions also have navies, marine corps, etc., but REDD and BLUE are specifically meant for the Spartan forces of the factions.

Under the UNSC, Spartans were included within the Navy for practical reasons during that time, and nearly all information of them was kept top-secret. Currently, within FC lore, they're not nearly as secret (barring the heavily controlled Imperial news) and have become a separate branch, albeit a much smaller branch then the other ones.

The current rank structure we're using this war is based nearly entirely off of the US Marines, with no influence from the Navy. The exception is Field Marshal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field_marshal), which the US doesn't use. IRL it's a rank that some countries use as the ultimate rank within an army, above the generals. We haven't always used it (In H2 we used Five-Star General) but it has a unique ring to it that helps to distinguish the FM from the other High Command positions.

Lore-wise, it makes sense for our ranks to be heavily marine-based. We are another type of land expeditionary force, and we also work in conjunction with the navy. This is why we have used this ranking system for the last few years. Before that, it was a more sporadic and mixed ranking system.

However, we call ourselves Armies. This is, at least from my explanation, a partial reference or deference to ancient Sparta. Their force is referred to as the "Spartan army (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spartan_army)" as they had no alternative branches (aside from a rather minor navy that only came into importance during the war with Athens).


In the Warsim, we act as the Spartan forces for our factions and compete on maps each week. However, we do not control fleets and ships, merely our own Spartan self-representations that we fight with on battles. Officers handle squads of Spartans, and as Field Marshal I control a Spartan army.

Bringing in naval ranks and such would indeed bring it more in-line with the original UNSC ranks, but it has other consequences for the Warsim. The naval and marine forces play parts in this war between factions, but we do not act in that part. In every battle for control of a planet, Spartans cut great swaths in Marine forces, and could infiltrate and destroy enemy naval vessels (Six and Jorge take down a supercarrier in Reach), so final control of a planet is decided by which Spartan army defeats the other and forces the enemy to retreat.

We can only play as Spartans (aside from playing as Elites which a few people do), so our ranks should reflect us being separate and distinct from the other branches.



With this in mind, we also need a structure that works for our purposes as an internet community. I totally agree with you that improvements can and should be made to it, and certainly will be done.

Unfortunately, I have no idea of the specifics yet. It won't happen in the middle of a war, but be looking out for improvements during the next peacetime. The WC will be discussing the issue and deciding on the changes, but I foresee us sticking with a marine-centric rankings structure, for the reasons explained above and in the lore.

[bl4yze]

I say we use the GTA Online Crew rankings

http://i.imgur.com/0auDAgR.png

[Blackhawk570]

I say we use the GTA Online Crew rankings

http://i.imgur.com/0auDAgR.png

I agree with GuzzieStyle

[bl4yze]

I agree with GuzzieStyle
Thanks Corbin

[WolfPack23]

I wanna be the only gunnery sergeant in FC again.

[Nicholas Sapien]

I wanna be the only gunnery sergeant in FC again.

lol that was five years ago wolf xD