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[MeTaGross]

Complaining won't help, take a deep breath and understand what you can do better to support your team next time.

Complaining always helps, that's why this thread exists.

I hate S rank. There are so many people that suck despite being an S. I played ranked just now and lost at least 6 battles, half where I had the most kills and least deaths on my team. I won three battles, all three were knockouts and I was almost never the best.

 

[binx]

True to an extent though I like reminding you when I can (;)) that very few people can actually carry teams in the upper ranks. The people who can are probably all already S+'s. And having to carry the team is not actually the intended result of the game. The dev's have made very clear it's supposed to be about teamwork, and a team win. So while you're technically right, it's not SUPPOSED to be working that way, and very few players are going to be playing SO high over A/A+/S level they can actually 1v4 at that level. Anyone who can probably already did and made it to S+. It's one thing to be good and make a positive difference on whatever team you're on leading to a rank up. It's another thing to be playing at a whole different skill level than the rest of the team you're playing with.

That said, most of the time at least in upper ranks the problem is less about truly incompetent teammates so much as just being outplayed by superior opponents, and/or teammates that are definitely playing below the level they should be but not truly incompetent (not pushing when they should etc.) On the other hand I've seen the short-range shooters on sniper perches in the A's, and I've seen S+ eliters that couldn't hit the broad side of a barn while I danced around them making up for it. And I've seen B- bamboozlers that hit like an aimbot. It's kind of a jumble.

Well, you don't need to win 1v4 against S to be S+, that would be way too much. Of course it's a team game. Here is my point of view about ranking up:

Let's say you can evaluate a team, from 1 (3 people who discovered internet yesterday) to 100 (godlike team). Obviously we can't do that, but let's say we can. Then you just need to be able to win with teams which scored at least 40. And that's it, you'll lose with bad teams, win with medium and good teams, so you'll go at the next rank. At this new rank at first you'll probably need "50 or 60" teams, but if you improve yourself, you'll only need the 40, and then you'll rank up *eventually*, as on 100, 200,..., 1000 games, luck will balance out (and then the average of your team will be 50, so victory).

With only this I believe you totally can make it to S. For S+, on top of that, I would say you either need one skill you're fairly strong at (aiming, moving, surviving, playing objective, reading, put your skill here,...), OR just erasing all "big" mistakes. I say "big" because you're making S level mistake, so they're not as big as B mistakes.

Well anyway, I definitely can't do anything 1v4. Even a bad team is still doing things, like turfing with my color, or dying. Yep, them dying can help too. Like, they're making the enemy shoot, so I can see them, and they are focused, so I can kill them without dying myself. If you're really alone, you can't do much. There is a world between a bad team and no team at all. Even if you'll still lose if the team is too weak and can't be used. Though you can still try different ways of winning (to adapt to your team).

Sigh, I always fail to make short posts but I feel like I have to add something. Most players seem to talk only about ratio and technique. But there are lots of things you can do or prevent ingame, which won't be visible on score screen, but still are good things. For instance, keeping an eye on the "count" (how many are alive in both teams) is important. You can make your team win just because you were smart enough to hide while you were the only alive and made your allies jump to a safe spot. I made a lot of wins that way, yet my team were not always good nor I was, but the simple fact to allow them to come back at an important time is sometimes enough to prevent a loss. This kind of decisions is not discussed enough, yet making at least one big and good decision per game should make you rank up at least once, or so I think.

Your examples remembered me A players too... Saw a Luna trying to kill me while I was at the right distance with the turbo pro. I was thinking "long time I didn't see an A, is this really this level? Or is he trying a short weapon for the first time?"... I prefer to think he was not A, or at least not with a Luna.

 

[モモコ]

Well, you don't need to win 1v4 against S to be S+, that would be way too much. Of course it's a team game. Here is my point of view about ranking up:

Let's say you can evaluate a team, from 1 (3 people who discovered internet yesterday) to 100 (godlike team). Obviously we can't do that, but let's say we can. Then you just need to be able to win with teams which scored at least 40. And that's it, you'll lose with bad teams, win with medium and good teams, so you'll go at the next rank. At this new rank at first you'll probably need "50 or 60" teams, but if you improve yourself, you'll only need the 40, and then you'll rank up *eventually*, as on 100, 200,..., 1000 games, luck will balance out (and then the average of your team will be 50, so victory).

With only this I believe you totally can make it to S. For S+, on top of that, I would say you either need one skill you're fairly strong at (aiming, moving, surviving, playing objective, reading, put your skill here,...), OR just erasing all "big" mistakes. I say "big" because you're making S level mistake, so they're not as big as B mistakes.

Well anyway, I definitely can't do anything 1v4. Even a bad team is still doing things, like turfing with my color, or dying. Yep, them dying can help too. Like, they're making the enemy shoot, so I can see them, and they are focused, so I can kill them without dying myself. If you're really alone, you can't do much. There is a world between a bad team and no team at all. Even if you'll still lose if the team is too weak and can't be used. Though you can still try different ways of winning (to adapt to your team).

Sigh, I always fail to make short posts but I feel like I have to add something. Most players seem to talk only about ratio and technique. But there are lots of things you can do or prevent ingame, which won't be visible on score screen, but still are good things. For instance, keeping an eye on the "count" (how many are alive in both teams) is important. You can make your team win just because you were smart enough to hide while you were the only alive and made your allies jump to a safe spot. I made a lot of wins that way, yet my team were not always good nor I was, but the simple fact to allow them to come back at an important time is sometimes enough to prevent a loss. This kind of decisions is not discussed enough, yet making at least one big and good decision per game should make you rank up at least once, or so I think.

Your examples remembered me A players too... Saw a Luna trying to kill me while I was at the right distance with the turbo pro. I was thinking "long time I didn't see an A, is this really this level? Or is he trying a short weapon for the first time?"... I prefer to think he was not A, or at least not with a Luna.

during Japanese splatfest I met people that where "25" in S rank. You do come across people that got there that do not belong there that was carried somehow. I am sure there are people that can carry teams that suck like that but lag kinda limits that ability for me. There is NO REASON A S team can't claim or help me claim the second zone 3 v 1 after me getting the triple splat. Yes you do meet team in S rank where you need to 1 v 4. I met some B and A teams that had 9001 times more sense then this. Nintendo should have rank data server side or something along with stopping squad carrying at A-

anyways I do agree as you get better at the game your ability to carry better increases., but I do think there is issues with a rank system if you are CARRYING (instead of simply helping) teams win in the top 2 ranks

 

[Nero86]

Complaining always helps, that's why this thread exists.

I hate S rank. There are so many people that suck despite being an S. I played ranked just now and lost at least 6 battles, half where I had the most kills and least deaths on my team. I won three battles, all three were knockouts and I was almost never the best.

You'll find people that suck in every rank you play, there's no happy rank here. This is life... no magic... no rainbows...

 

[Award]

Well, you don't need to win 1v4 against S to be S+, that would be way too much. Of course it's a team game. Here is my point of view about ranking up:

Let's say you can evaluate a team, from 1 (3 people who discovered internet yesterday) to 100 (godlike team). Obviously we can't do that, but let's say we can. Then you just need to be able to win with teams which scored at least 40. And that's it, you'll lose with bad teams, win with medium and good teams, so you'll go at the next rank. At this new rank at first you'll probably need "50 or 60" teams, but if you improve yourself, you'll only need the 40, and then you'll rank up *eventually*, as on 100, 200,..., 1000 games, luck will balance out (and then the average of your team will be 50, so victory).

I strongly agree with your description of how it should work. That description makes the most sense and I tend to view it the same way. I think what frustrates me is that it generally does NOT work that way. If it did work as you describe I think I (and a lot of other people) wouldn't have such a problem with the system as it is. :) What we have now is closer to needing to win with teams scoring at least 30-40, but AGAINST teams that score 80-90. The real trouble comes in when you're the only player on your team that can consistently 1v1 an 80-90 player or see through their distraction, etc. It collapses into a 1v4 situation when your team can't stay alive long enough to even ride the tower, pick up the RM etc. While I have no qualms riding/carrying, that means the only people capable of fighting are the people that can't actually fight opponents of the skill they are facing. RM allows a little more leeway for stealth carrying than TW does so I do sometimes get that magic "I can't believe nobody noticed me!" carries in RM.

This is kind of an extension of our conversation in another thread about the matchmaking, but I'm now more convinced than ever that I am somehow slotted in such a way for solo ranked (and possibly squad, not sure how that works) where I am guaranteed to be assigned the underdog (weak) team more times than not. It's not luck or random chance, it's fairly consistent with very few exceptions. Even on the raw stats, I was playing solo last night, I'm trapped in A at present (highest S, pre-2.6 patch I was getting up almost to S again numerous times and then thrown back down again - post-patch I seem to be having trouble getting back to A+ let alone S. ) But in A, I'm noticing almost always the team lineup looks like: me, A-, A-, A vs. A+, A+, A+, A+. This is the majority of cases. Pre-2.6 patch I'd end up with me, A+, A+, A vs. A+, S, S, S+. So I guess it's "better"? But it's clear that the system expected me to play at at least S level just to get to A+ (and almost seemed vengeful when I managed to do it.) And I noticed (for some reason I never paid attention before) that I'm almost always at the top of my listing on the stat screen. Now, the stat screen in solo orders you based on how much you've won recently. I was in a losing streak - win 1 lose 2, win 2 lose 4. Overall over 10-15 or so matches I lost about 40pts. I was still at the *TOP* of my stat screen listing no matter what lobby I was in. That means no matter how much I was losing, everyone else on my team I was assigned was losing MORE - or winning LESS. That's not random chance. Out of 10-15 matches I was assigned not ONE teammate that won more than my paltry handful of games? If I was in a relative losing streak and the "winningest" of my team, just how deep into a losing streak were my teammates?? And why am I ONLY assigned players that are very deep into losing streaks? That's not to say they were incompetent players. In fact they weren't. Maybe, like me they were caught being assigned against overpowering teams non-stop.

That's a little OT from "bad teammates" other than that, for some reason, I'm quite certain that certain players, I'm one of them, get assigned a certain role in the matchmaker where it is determined they are expected to carry weaker teams ("bad teammates") against stronger opponents. In my case, maybe it has something to do with my frequent proximity to S, or due to the fact that my TW "invisible" ranking seems to be S (most of my TW matches are against S/S+ opponents so whatever "ranking" it uses behind the scenes in TW clearly has me high up) or maybe it's because I frequently squad and play S/S+ opponents regularly that it muddled my "matchmaker value." For whatever reason, it seems to be a reality for myself and some other players.

Well anyway, I definitely can't do anything 1v4. Even a bad team is still doing things, like turfing with my color, or dying. Yep, them dying can help too. Like, they're making the enemy shoot, so I can see them, and they are focused, so I can kill them without dying myself. If you're really alone, you can't do much. There is a world between a bad team and no team at all. Even if you'll still lose if the team is too weak and can't be used. Though you can still try different ways of winning (to adapt to your team).

Yeah, that's one way I kill my rank at times. I don't have alts, and I don't skip bad rotations. And because of the ridiculousness of the matchmaker I learned to not really care about rank. When I get close to S again I (accidentally) start caring. But the rest of the time I just play. And I try to experiment with how to deal with awful teams. Sure I'll drop 2 ranks in an hour trying...but I try to figure it out anyway :) I cringe when I see the A-, and cringe more when I drop back to dreaded B+ - but it's better than not playing :D

Though, when you're down to relying on your team dying as an actual strategy....there's something pretty wrong going on. :p

Sigh, I always fail to make short posts but I feel like I have to add something. Most players seem to talk only about ratio and technique. But there are lots of things you can do or prevent ingame, which won't be visible on score screen, but still are good things. For instance, keeping an eye on the "count" (how many are alive in both teams) is important. You can make your team win just because you were smart enough to hide while you were the only alive and made your allies jump to a safe spot. I made a lot of wins that way, yet my team were not always good nor I was, but the simple fact to allow them to come back at an important time is sometimes enough to prevent a loss. This kind of decisions is not discussed enough, yet making at least one big and good decision per game should make you rank up at least once, or so I think.

Those are very good points. I've said to a few people here that I'm not sure I like them displaying k/d on the stat screen because too many people focus on it. I've seen too many games where the team with great k/d loses and the team with ghastly k/d wins. There's other ways to win than just fighting, and too many people ignore the objective (and ignore map control!!!) It's the little details you mention that make such a difference.

Your examples remembered me A players too... Saw a Luna trying to kill me while I was at the right distance with the turbo pro. I was thinking "long time I didn't see an A, is this really this level? Or is he trying a short weapon for the first time?"... I prefer to think he was not A, or at least not with a Luna.

Hehe, yes, those are definitely out there. Granted I've recently been playing inkbrush in RM. I walk away with terrible k/d's. 3/12 not unheard of. Though all 3 were stopping the enemy RM. I probably look like an awful player jumping and flinging out of range, though sometimes it's intentional as a distraction. And it often works :D It's amazing how enemies will ignore the RM traveling down the ramps in arowanna as they try to fend off a swishing-out-of-range inkbrush in the hallway :p I'm really playing it to establish map control...I've found solo queue RM players at least in the A's do NOT establish map control. Ever. As a result the enemy has free reign to the goal and our team has zero mobility to defend, so I've been experimenting with functional weapons that are all about map control, even if I end up as an awful fighter. So far, it's been very successful. I look pretty foolish on the stat screen, but win or lose, the map was mostly ours. ;) Doesn't work on all maps though (mackerel.) I think that's more in line with what you said above.

But the number of awful players, the players that don't know their weapons....or the squiffer. I kid you not, the SQUIFFER, that decided to take the rear perch in Ancho-V TC....while I had 3K Scope. Keep in mind from that perch even Scope has a hard time getting the range it needs - it's pretty far back. A squiffer couldn't even defend the base ramp from that vantage. To make it worse, he used my beacon to get there. Then kept getting in my way. Needless to say we lost. I've seen an increasing number of A's who seem to use squiffers in ranked from waaay back in eliter territory.

during Japanese splatfest I met people that where "25" in S rank. You do come across people that got there that do not belong there that was carried somehow. I am sure there are people that can carry teams that suck like that but lag kinda limits that ability for me. There is NO REASON A S team can't claim or help me claim the second zone 3 v 1 after me getting the triple splat. Yes you do meet team in S rank where you need to 1 v 4. I met some B and A teams that had 9001 times more sense then this. Nintendo should have rank data server side or something along with stopping squad carrying at A-

anyways I do agree as you get better at the game your ability to carry better increases., but I do think there is issues with a rank system if you are CARRYING (instead of simply helping) teams win in the top 2 ranks

Despite being trapped in A at present (and I've been dangerously close to A- a few times this week) I totally know what you mean. Last night I was playing some squad TC in Kelp Dome. There was this derpy Krak-On roller that kept trying to flank to paint the goal area. Fair enough. He seemed to try steamrolling way too often. I was playing Custom Scope, and kept getting in close and 2-shot killing him. He was a fairly easy target, not great at evading. I figured he was probably a B or B+ or something. No...the guy's an S. HOW do you get to S playing a roller that badly? There seem to be a lot of A players with the moves of an S+ - they're always on the other team. Then there's a lot of S's and S+'s that I seem to easily outperform. Combine that with the S eliter on my team in Depot RM Sunday that went something like 3/12 while I went 13/4 and had to cover her territory AND mine, AND help push the tower when our front lines players were swarmed, along with the S+ eliter on my team in Moray that only did marginally better than myself (0/12 vs 3/13) against an invincible "A+" eliter on the other team (yeah, an alt, but still) that went something like 17/2. But wasn't the other eliter on our team supposed to be an S+? I felt pretty stupid doing as bad as I did on Moray as an eliter main until I saw our S+ didn't do much better. I've also seen lots of B+ players that I still believe are superior to most A's players (maybe they were alts?)

But I still believe "carrying" is a myth. I just see no evidence of it working. I play a lot of squads these days, granted, mostly twin not quad, and most of the time when squadding it's generally against at least two S/S+ players, often a full team, mostly clans, very organized, possibly with voice chat. On the handful of times I've played quad squads it's even more extreme, mostly full S+ opponents, often organized full clans. I'm actually more likely to go DOWN in rank than up when squadding a lot of these matches against very superior opponents. And when we do win it's definitely a full team effort. Everyone does their time on the tower, holding the RM, escorting, etc. Maybe if you're squadding with 3 S+'s you can get a serious 3v4 effect and make it work. But I can't imagine many people were carried that way. From what I see squads means S/S+ level play with a team that's actually reliable, and not much else. It's nice not having to be the best player on the team, in every single match though. ;) Scumming may be the bigger source of the over-ranked players than carrying.

Though some get carried by alts in solo too (somehow I never seem to benefit from that :p)

 

[MeTaGross]

You'll find people that suck in every rank you play, there's no happy rank here. This is life... no magic... no rainbows...

But how do they even reach S rank?! There are ranks to separate the good players and the bad players, so there shouldn't be this many bad players! Even life has limitations to how awful it can be!

 

[Nero86]

But how do they even reach S rank?! There are ranks to separate the good players and the bad players, so there shouldn't be this many bad players! Even life has limitations to how awful it can be!

Hahahah "Even life has limitations to how awful it can be!". That was the best!

 

[jsilva]

But how do they even reach S rank?! There are ranks to separate the good players and the bad players, so there shouldn't be this many bad players! Even life has limitations to how awful it can be!

I think it might be a combination of favourable matchups and good players having bad days.

 

[SquiliamTentacles]

I get it when other players can not splat well, that happens to me too. What I don't get is the players who go around splatting people but ignore whatever the heck is going on with the zones/tower/rainmaker and leave it for the rest of us to control the objective.

 

[MeTaGross]

I get it when other players can not splat well, that happens to me too. What I don't get is the players who go around splatting people but ignore whatever the heck is going on with the zones/tower/rainmaker and leave it for the rest of us to control the objective.

I'm talking about players that can't splat, and they ignore the goal. There are not many of these, but there are many that are very close to doing this.

 

[binx]

I strongly agree with your description of how it should work. That description makes the most sense and I tend to view it the same way. I think what frustrates me is that it generally does NOT work that way. If it did work as you describe I think I (and a lot of other people) wouldn't have such a problem with the system as it is. :) What we have now is closer to needing to win with teams scoring at least 30-40, but AGAINST teams that score 80-90. The real trouble comes in when you're the only player on your team that can consistently 1v1 an 80-90 player or see through their distraction, etc. It collapses into a 1v4 situation when your team can't stay alive long enough to even ride the tower, pick up the RM etc. While I have no qualms riding/carrying, that means the only people capable of fighting are the people that can't actually fight opponents of the skill they are facing. RM allows a little more leeway for stealth carrying than TW does so I do sometimes get that magic "I can't believe nobody noticed me!" carries in RM.

This is kind of an extension of our conversation in another thread about the matchmaking, but I'm now more convinced than ever that I am somehow slotted in such a way for solo ranked (and possibly squad, not sure how that works) where I am guaranteed to be assigned the underdog (weak) team more times than not. It's not luck or random chance, it's fairly consistent with very few exceptions. Even on the raw stats, I was playing solo last night, I'm trapped in A at present (highest S, pre-2.6 patch I was getting up almost to S again numerous times and then thrown back down again - post-patch I seem to be having trouble getting back to A+ let alone S. ) But in A, I'm noticing almost always the team lineup looks like: me, A-, A-, A vs. A+, A+, A+, A+. This is the majority of cases. Pre-2.6 patch I'd end up with me, A+, A+, A vs. A+, S, S, S+. So I guess it's "better"? But it's clear that the system expected me to play at at least S level just to get to A+ (and almost seemed vengeful when I managed to do it.) And I noticed (for some reason I never paid attention before) that I'm almost always at the top of my listing on the stat screen. Now, the stat screen in solo orders you based on how much you've won recently. I was in a losing streak - win 1 lose 2, win 2 lose 4. Overall over 10-15 or so matches I lost about 40pts. I was still at the *TOP* of my stat screen listing no matter what lobby I was in. That means no matter how much I was losing, everyone else on my team I was assigned was losing MORE - or winning LESS. That's not random chance. Out of 10-15 matches I was assigned not ONE teammate that won more than my paltry handful of games? If I was in a relative losing streak and the "winningest" of my team, just how deep into a losing streak were my teammates?? And why am I ONLY assigned players that are very deep into losing streaks? That's not to say they were incompetent players. In fact they weren't. Maybe, like me they were caught being assigned against overpowering teams non-stop.

That's a little OT from "bad teammates" other than that, for some reason, I'm quite certain that certain players, I'm one of them, get assigned a certain role in the matchmaker where it is determined they are expected to carry weaker teams ("bad teammates") against stronger opponents. In my case, maybe it has something to do with my frequent proximity to S, or due to the fact that my TW "invisible" ranking seems to be S (most of my TW matches are against S/S+ opponents so whatever "ranking" it uses behind the scenes in TW clearly has me high up) or maybe it's because I frequently squad and play S/S+ opponents regularly that it muddled my "matchmaker value." For whatever reason, it seems to be a reality for myself and some other players.



Yeah, that's one way I kill my rank at times. I don't have alts, and I don't skip bad rotations. And because of the ridiculousness of the matchmaker I learned to not really care about rank. When I get close to S again I (accidentally) start caring. But the rest of the time I just play. And I try to experiment with how to deal with awful teams. Sure I'll drop 2 ranks in an hour trying...but I try to figure it out anyway :) I cringe when I see the A-, and cringe more when I drop back to dreaded B+ - but it's better than not playing :D

Though, when you're down to relying on your team dying as an actual strategy....there's something pretty wrong going on. :p



Those are very good points. I've said to a few people here that I'm not sure I like them displaying k/d on the stat screen because too many people focus on it. I've seen too many games where the team with great k/d loses and the team with ghastly k/d wins. There's other ways to win than just fighting, and too many people ignore the objective (and ignore map control!!!) It's the little details you mention that make such a difference.



Hehe, yes, those are definitely out there. Granted I've recently been playing inkbrush in RM. I walk away with terrible k/d's. 3/12 not unheard of. Though all 3 were stopping the enemy RM. I probably look like an awful player jumping and flinging out of range, though sometimes it's intentional as a distraction. And it often works :D It's amazing how enemies will ignore the RM traveling down the ramps in arowanna as they try to fend off a swishing-out-of-range inkbrush in the hallway :p I'm really playing it to establish map control...I've found solo queue RM players at least in the A's do NOT establish map control. Ever. As a result the enemy has free reign to the goal and our team has zero mobility to defend, so I've been experimenting with functional weapons that are all about map control, even if I end up as an awful fighter. So far, it's been very successful. I look pretty foolish on the stat screen, but win or lose, the map was mostly ours. ;) Doesn't work on all maps though (mackerel.) I think that's more in line with what you said above.

But the number of awful players, the players that don't know their weapons....or the squiffer. I kid you not, the SQUIFFER, that decided to take the rear perch in Ancho-V TC....while I had 3K Scope. Keep in mind from that perch even Scope has a hard time getting the range it needs - it's pretty far back. A squiffer couldn't even defend the base ramp from that vantage. To make it worse, he used my beacon to get there. Then kept getting in my way. Needless to say we lost. I've seen an increasing number of A's who seem to use squiffers in ranked from waaay back in eliter territory.





Despite being trapped in A at present (and I've been dangerously close to A- a few times this week) I totally know what you mean. Last night I was playing some squad TC in Kelp Dome. There was this derpy Krak-On roller that kept trying to flank to paint the goal area. Fair enough. He seemed to try steamrolling way too often. I was playing Custom Scope, and kept getting in close and 2-shot killing him. He was a fairly easy target, not great at evading. I figured he was probably a B or B+ or something. No...the guy's an S. HOW do you get to S playing a roller that badly? There seem to be a lot of A players with the moves of an S+ - they're always on the other team. Then there's a lot of S's and S+'s that I seem to easily outperform. Combine that with the S eliter on my team in Depot RM Sunday that went something like 3/12 while I went 13/4 and had to cover her territory AND mine, AND help push the tower when our front lines players were swarmed, along with the S+ eliter on my team in Moray that only did marginally better than myself (0/12 vs 3/13) against an invincible "A+" eliter on the other team (yeah, an alt, but still) that went something like 17/2. But wasn't the other eliter on our team supposed to be an S+? I felt pretty stupid doing as bad as I did on Moray as an eliter main until I saw our S+ didn't do much better. I've also seen lots of B+ players that I still believe are superior to most A's players (maybe they were alts?)

But I still believe "carrying" is a myth. I just see no evidence of it working. I play a lot of squads these days, granted, mostly twin not quad, and most of the time when squadding it's generally against at least two S/S+ players, often a full team, mostly clans, very organized, possibly with voice chat. On the handful of times I've played quad squads it's even more extreme, mostly full S+ opponents, often organized full clans. I'm actually more likely to go DOWN in rank than up when squadding a lot of these matches against very superior opponents. And when we do win it's definitely a full team effort. Everyone does their time on the tower, holding the RM, escorting, etc. Maybe if you're squadding with 3 S+'s you can get a serious 3v4 effect and make it work. But I can't imagine many people were carried that way. From what I see squads means S/S+ level play with a team that's actually reliable, and not much else. It's nice not having to be the best player on the team, in every single match though. ;) Scumming may be the bigger source of the over-ranked players than carrying.

Though some get carried by alts in solo too (somehow I never seem to benefit from that :p)

You're quite talkative :D

Well anyway, I wanted to say that I didn't describe "what I think it should be" but "what I think it is" (to rank up).

I think youre overestimating the way matchmaking works. I'm pretty sure it was random before the last patch, and now well, it kinda thinks about the weapons but that's all (I think). My reasoning is... It' viable to make a random thing, and it's the easiest solution for programers (who are lazy guys by essence, and I'm saying that as "good"). So I believe you're wrong about the fact that matchmaker sees you as someone who should carry. I'm pretty sure it never even searchs for such a player. It would be too bothersome to do that in the first place (as luck will always balance out after a while).

About the scoring boards, it's true the winning guys are above the others, but I think this kinda resets at some point. I don't exactly remembers, but I'm guessing:
- only remembers 10 games
- reset when rotation occurs (and maybe if you reboot)

So, I believe you'll be above "1st game of the day" players, or so. And I'm wondering: is someone with 3 victories and 7 losses above or under someone who just began to play and has 2 victories 0 loss? It wouldn't surprise me to hear that actually, the game is just taking into account the last 10 games, and if you didn't play 10 yet well, you're basically "under". Because I noticed that I'm above at weird times too.

 

[Award]

I get it when other players can not splat well, that happens to me too. What I don't get is the players who go around splatting people but ignore whatever the heck is going on with the zones/tower/rainmaker and leave it for the rest of us to control the objective.

To be fair to those players it depends a little bit on what weapon they're using. If I'm using a good turfing weapon and I think my team SHOULD win the contest over the RM, I will scout ahead and try to ink a path and flush out likely places campers might be lurking, or if I think they will lose, I might re-ink the paths near our base to slow the likely enemy advance with the RM. If the contest over the RM did not go well it might look like I was just out wandering and risking the objective. Somtimes I leave 3 teammates battling 1-2 enemies for the RM and make a path for their guaranteed victory only to see the RM approaching our base in enemy hands and I was away too long. On the other hand there's all the times I'm holding the RM and there are NO teammates ANYWHERE the whole time I'm holding it. If the enemy is attacking me, and there are no teammates defending me, and I'm holding the objective....what exactly were they all doing? These issues are all RM related though. TC and Zones shouldn't have such problems. Shouldn't...hehe...

You're quite talkative :D

Haha, that's a very polite way of saying "don't you ever shut up?" ;) But it's true :p

I think youre overestimating the way matchmaking works. I'm pretty sure it was random before the last patch, and now well, it kinda thinks about the weapons but that's all (I think). My reasoning is... It' viable to make a random thing, and it's the easiest solution for programers (who are lazy guys by essence, and I'm saying that as "good"). So I believe you're wrong about the fact that matchmaker sees you as someone who should carry. I'm pretty sure it never even searchs for such a player. It would be too bothersome to do that in the first place (as luck will always balance out after a while).

There's definitely more to it than that. There's been a lot of theories on how it works, though it was never random specifically. The weapons were, but the devs have talked about "matching playstyles" etc. Around the forums we've had a lot of speculation about ways it might work internally, though there's more to it than pure randomness, but probably not as much to it as Halo, COD etc where it tracks player stats to the hit/miss ratio level. Considering the level of complexity in most game matchmakers, I'd certainly hope Splatoon does quite a bit more than that, however Nintendo being Nintendo I'm sure they took some cheaper ways out. I'm not a fan of Western shooters in general, however, player metric tracking for matchmaking is one thing they do quite a bit better. Still, there's something just downright weird about the matchmaking for some of us.

Maybe it comes down to the weird bipolar nature of the ranks. The fact that the A bracket will play like it's the B bracket one day with players that are simply inattentive, to playing like it's the S+ bracket the next day with all the speed and map strategy you'd expect from S+ players. I don't know if it's "luck" that it slots me that way or if it's the time of days I play but it's very deliberate that one day it plays very different than another. The other day was fast past, with super plays on both teams, lightening moves, exactly what I'd expect in an all S/S+ match. Then yesterday I was playing RM and one round ended with my team having ZERO score on the board....nothing at all. it was 9-? We had players that would dive in and instantly pick up the RM, so I never got to it. But they wouldn't advance with it, they'd stand in front of our side's crate in warehouse and not move. We never even got to a 99 score. And any time I'd try to grab it instead? They'd get it first. That was the most extreme of a series of losing games with a few wins sprinkled. But my real point is how DIFFERENT the very same rank played in every lobby versus a few days ago when it was all the speed and brutality of an S/S+ match. The total different play levels of the same bracket by day or time or whatever certainly contributes to the problem of pinging back and forth. If you play consistently, you'll have different results depending on which "mood" the bracket is in on a given day.

But it comes down to the fact - how is it my team did not know how to push the RM forward but the enemy team did? And why is it that's a predictable result in the majority of my games? Except the ones where I get competent teams but the enemy team were just way overskilled for the rank? And especially after 2.6, these are A/+/- only lobbies. Why is there such a difference in skill at all? It plays like it used to with the S's and B+'s still in the lobbies.

I've recently done some experimenting by accident. :) That is to say that when playing twin squads, I'm usually busy typing to my squadmate instead of looking at the stat screen between matches, so I tend not to see the ranks of opponents before the match starts. I'm often amazed to find upon winning, it was the opponent team stacked with S's and S+'s. Including opponents that were not difficult. I'm also amazed upon losing to find it was our team with the S's & S+'s. More amazing, is the pace and speed and difficulty of play feels no different than solo queue A's. Including if there's an all-dominating very top tier S+ (or sometimes the dominator is an B+...yeah right.) It's not at all different from matches in the A's.

I wish I could find the specific pattern to show that I'm being matched on the weaker team most of the time. It makes sense that one team would be seen as the "underdog" team - of all the speculation that's been done on the forums, the most simplistic (which I've since come to believe is not actually accurate) is that it uses the Elo Chess matchmaker where it just calculates a close match to 50% chance to win on either side. But even then there's never an even 50/50, one side has the lower chance. I do believe, now, the system is more complex than that however. What I HAVE noticed, is that when the team wins it's usually because I pushed the objective myself. And if I do not, the team tends to lose. It's fair to say that a player has to "be the difference" but it's also fair to say something is NOT random when in the majority of cases the other team seems to understand the gameplay and how to push the objective, while my own team generally never moves the RM/tower past the 90 mark unless I do it. It's consistent enough that it's absolutely positively not random. I either have the worst luck in the world, or the system very deliberately assigns me those teams either by intent or by error as a result of SOME tracked metric of mine that confuses the system in a way it's uncertain how to position me. Randomness would equally hand me the favored and unfavored teams. As it is I would say I get the favored team maybe 20-25% of the time, meaning I have to carry the team 3/4 of the time while randomness would mean it balances out to 1/4 of the time or up to half if we go by your 40-60 skill level concept.

Sadly, it's definitely not random :( I haven't established the pattern beyond the fact that in the majority of matches I play, it is clear that the other team's players are more knowledgeable and skilled in the map/mode and in splatting than the other 3 members of my team, the frequency of which does not suggest luck is at all involved.

So, I believe you'll be above "1st game of the day" players, or so. And I'm wondering: is someone with 3 victories and 7 losses above or under someone who just began to play and has 2 victories 0 loss? It wouldn't surprise me to hear that actually, the game is just taking into account the last 10 games, and if you didn't play 10 yet well, you're basically "under". Because I noticed that I'm above at weird times too.

You could be right about that. It's possible. Though yesterday was weird in the other direction. I played a few, I think I won 2 lost 5. And this time I was at the bottom of my list. Which should have been a triumph, except that the people that were above me were the people that couldn't move the RM as far as 99. How is it these people were winning MORE than me? It is, indeed, a weird metric.

 

[jsilva]

There's definitely more to it than that. There's been a lot of theories on how it works, though it was never random specifically. The weapons were, but the devs have talked about "matching playstyles" etc.
...

I either have the worst luck in the world, or the system very deliberately assigns me those teams either by intent or by error as a result of SOME tracked metric of mine that confuses the system in a way it's uncertain how to position me.

I agree, as you know, although I think the metrics used for determining player skill are more sophisticated than you feel they are. Given the irregularity that you experience, and me to a lesser extent, I wonder if the matchmaking is something new that Nintendo is working on and refining. Although still frustrating, things do feel different to me since the 2.6 update. For one, the imbalances haven't lasted as long in one direction, at least so far.

 

[Award]

I agree, as you know, although I think the metrics used for determining player skill are more sophisticated than you feel they are. Given the irregularity that you experience, and me to a lesser extent, I wonder if the matchmaking is something new that Nintendo is working on and refining. Although still frustrating, things do feel different to me since the 2.6 update. For one, the imbalances haven't lasted as long in one direction, at least so far.

I suspect that the improvements in the matchmaking did more to improve S and S+ than they did to the other ranks, largely by locking the ranks to be a pool of ONE rank, not 3. I also suspect the "cleanup" of S and S+ that is resulting from it is actually creating more of a mess in the A's. I think a lot of lower tier S+'s are getting pushed to S, and a lot of lower tier S's are getting pushed to A+ which takes all the a's and compresses them more to A- and A. I also imagine that keeping C+'s and A-'s out of the B's has allowed more B+'s to finally move onto A-. So ironically the trio of A's is probably the hot mess that "B hell" used to be. S's on one side, B+'s on the other, and you just pong back and forth between games with both of them.

It's certainly possible it's more sophisticated that I suspect. I'm kind of tempering my expectations of it with some insight on how Nintendo does things. They tend to take the cheapest, simplest solution that will "mask" the problems associated with other decisions. It's part of their core methodology as part of their 'weak hardware made up for by game design that works around it'. Additionally WiiU was a flagging console at the time, and Splatoon was a new IP (Nintendo never pours money into new IPs until they prove themselves) and as a new IP from a non-all-star new dev team Iwata created just for new IPs, to go out on a failing console the game was presumed to be sent to its death before it launched. I don't think they'd have spent much time making it work great, it just needed the appearance of working and providing games to play. As a result I don't suspect they spent much time with REALLY detailed matchmaking.

HOWEVER, it's also possible they've been quietly working on it. It's also Japanese business style to acknowledge no problem (honor to uphold - "We do not make mistakes" - but quietly fix said problems and tell no one (duty to uphold, it's their obligation to ensure there are indeed no mistakes even if there are some.) Often Japanese companies admit no problem, but spend fortunes fixing the problem and not telling anyone about it. It would also be a good way to use a live testbed for R&D for splatoon 2 (savings!)

I'm not convinced the irregularity has anything to do with matchmaking though. I think that's more a time/day/month schedule somehow were certain players, and more specifically alts seem to be more common. The irregularity isn't irregularity in matchmaking (getting assigned the strong team or the weak team - I'm almost always assigned the weak team, at least 75% of the time) the irregularity is in the level of skill/play in the rank as a whole, both teams. I.E. on the "S days" I still have the weaker team of the two, but BOTH teams are playing at a much higher level in any lobby than the same rank would other days. Like they all suddenly became S's, but the other team has that one great S+. Oddly on the "S days" I'm likely to lose less points, since the games are all much more challenging between two competent teams. The outplayed team is still good enough to prevent ko's in most cases while on "B+ days" it's much more likely the enemy just grabs the RM/tower and runs it to the goal and no one even shoots at them as I frantically chase them around the map or SJ to spawn to head them off. You would think I could more easily carry the team on the "B+ days' but these teams tend to be of such a level that they not only don't move the objective but generally hog/obstruct the objective or fail to escort it at all. (Think: 3 teammates on the tower and one activates a bubbler...) I'll admit it's easier to attempt carrying with eliter in TC, than trying in RM though.

I've actually noticed in solo that since 2.6 I haven't been handed a win-streak series once. Pre 2.6 it was kind of a dice roll by day - do I get a losing streak today or do I get some competent teams without S+ alt opponents today? So far in 2.6 solo I've generally either gone 1:1 or downward. I haven't had one consistent favorable matchup yet. The most I've won is 2 in a row. And in at least half of the wins, I was the one that pushed the tower/RM to the win. In most of the losses, I was STILL the one that pushed the RM/tower to wherever it ended up.

 

[jsilva]

I suspect that the improvements in the matchmaking did more to improve S and S+ than they did to the other ranks, largely by locking the ranks to be a pool of ONE rank, not 3. I also suspect the "cleanup" of S and S+ that is resulting from it is actually creating more of a mess in the A's. I think a lot of lower tier S+'s are getting pushed to S, and a lot of lower tier S's are getting pushed to A+ which takes all the a's and compresses them more to A- and A. I also imagine that keeping C+'s and A-'s out of the B's has allowed more B+'s to finally move onto A-. So ironically the trio of A's is probably the hot mess that "B hell" used to be. S's on one side, B+'s on the other, and you just pong back and forth between games with both of them.

It's certainly possible it's more sophisticated that I suspect. I'm kind of tempering my expectations of it with some insight on how Nintendo does things. They tend to take the cheapest, simplest solution that will "mask" the problems associated with other decisions. It's part of their core methodology as part of their 'weak hardware made up for by game design that works around it'. Additionally WiiU was a flagging console at the time, and Splatoon was a new IP (Nintendo never pours money into new IPs until they prove themselves) and as a new IP from a non-all-star new dev team Iwata created just for new IPs, to go out on a failing console the game was presumed to be sent to its death before it launched. I don't think they'd have spent much time making it work great, it just needed the appearance of working and providing games to play. As a result I don't suspect they spent much time with REALLY detailed matchmaking.

HOWEVER, it's also possible they've been quietly working on it. It's also Japanese business style to acknowledge no problem (honor to uphold - "We do not make mistakes" - but quietly fix said problems and tell no one (duty to uphold, it's their obligation to ensure there are indeed no mistakes even if there are some.) Often Japanese companies admit no problem, but spend fortunes fixing the problem and not telling anyone about it. It would also be a good way to use a live testbed for R&D for splatoon 2 (savings!)

I'm not convinced the irregularity has anything to do with matchmaking though. I think that's more a time/day/month schedule somehow were certain players, and more specifically alts seem to be more common. The irregularity isn't irregularity in matchmaking (getting assigned the strong team or the weak team - I'm almost always assigned the weak team, at least 75% of the time) the irregularity is in the level of skill/play in the rank as a whole, both teams. I.E. on the "S days" I still have the weaker team of the two, but BOTH teams are playing at a much higher level in any lobby than the same rank would other days. Like they all suddenly became S's, but the other team has that one great S+. Oddly on the "S days" I'm likely to lose less points, since the games are all much more challenging between two competent teams. The outplayed team is still good enough to prevent ko's in most cases while on "B+ days" it's much more likely the enemy just grabs the RM/tower and runs it to the goal and no one even shoots at them as I frantically chase them around the map or SJ to spawn to head them off. You would think I could more easily carry the team on the "B+ days' but these teams tend to be of such a level that they not only don't move the objective but generally hog/obstruct the objective or fail to escort it at all. (Think: 3 teammates on the tower and one activates a bubbler...) I'll admit it's easier to attempt carrying with eliter in TC, than trying in RM though.

I've actually noticed in solo that since 2.6 I haven't been handed a win-streak series once. Pre 2.6 it was kind of a dice roll by day - do I get a losing streak today or do I get some competent teams without S+ alt opponents today? So far in 2.6 solo I've generally either gone 1:1 or downward. I haven't had one consistent favorable matchup yet. The most I've won is 2 in a row. And in at least half of the wins, I was the one that pushed the tower/RM to the win. In most of the losses, I was STILL the one that pushed the RM/tower to wherever it ended up.

Your experiences are interesting :) Perhaps you missed my post on Discord meant to taunt you a little bit (from a caring heart :) ), where I posted a photo of my 5-year old son's game where he did particularly well during his session, although he played really well the whole time. He ended up going from A 30 to A 92 without losing a game, including winning his unlikely last game where the matchmaker predictably matched him on the obviously weaker team as he got close to ranking up. I was advising him though...

But your experience of being consistently matched on the weaker team is what I meant by irregularity, although I can see how you would see it as just what's regular for you! Ideally we'd expect to be matched evenly, so when it's not I'm seeing it as an irregularity. I experience that for sure, but it seems better with 2.6, in that (so far) the imbalance hasn't lasted in one direction like it has in the past. Even my winning streaks are cut short and reversed. It feels like it's trying to fix itself. We'll see!

 

[Nero86]

To me 2.3 to 2.5 matchmaking rule was something like trying to keep everyone in a 50% win ratio, I've been stuck for a long time. Keeping track of matches, the end of the day I would always reach +-50% winratio.
Unfortunately that did create a lot of low-quality matches, when matchmaking-god decided it was your time to win there came a big high-ranked-team you had a easy victory. When it was time to lose, a low-ranked not so good team and you had a harsh loss. It was very rare to have a quality match between 2.3 and 2.5 update, splatoon matchmaking was broken to me.

Now I think it's fixed, many great matches to the end, nothing to complain.

 

[Award]

Your experiences are interesting :) Perhaps you missed my post on Discord meant to taunt you a little bit (from a caring heart :) ), where I posted a photo of my 5-year old son's game where he did particularly well during his session, although he played really well the whole time. He ended up going from A 30 to A 92 without losing a game, including winning his unlikely last game where the matchmaker predictably matched him on the obviously weaker team as he got close to ranking up. I was advising him though...

But your experience of being consistently matched on the weaker team is what I meant by irregularity, although I can see how you would see it as just what's regular for you! Ideally we'd expect to be matched evenly, so when it's not I'm seeing it as an irregularity. I experience that for sure, but it seems better with 2.6, in that (so far) the imbalance hasn't lasted in one direction like it has in the past. Even my winning streaks are cut short and reversed. It feels like it's trying to fix itself. We'll see!

LOL, I did miss that and a whole bunch of conversation - saw it in my backlog this morning.:)

See, that just doesn't happen for me. It actually used to pre-2.6. I'd have one winning streak for every 2 losing streaks but I knew that could happen. So far, I'm not seeing it with 2.6 solo. HOWEVER, your son experienced that while I was squadding in zones and experiencing a similar winning streak (just after squadding in RM and having a fairly awful losing streak.) It's almost like the whole system kicked into "easy mode" after the switch between RM and SZ. I assumed it was just the squads (even against S opponents) but if solo A was doing that too, I wonder if it would have done it for me in solo too? I'm back to A80-something, though I suppose in solo I did get to A94 over the weekend so I did technically win higher over the weekend but that was from a 70-something starting point. Past two days I lose down to the teens before rebounding to the 40's or 50's. One of these days soon I do expect the A- drop. My "luck" of treading water is bound to run out.

Heh, yeah, I don't see it as irregular, I see it as normal. :) Frustrating, but normal. I'm inclined to agree that the losing streaks don't seem to be AS continuous. Instead of a straight plummet it's more of a stairstep downward. But if I were not punctuating it with squadding (though squadding ALSO seems to stairstep downward except for times like last night) I would certainly be in A- or maybe B+ again given the matches this week. It seems like if it "accidentally" hands me an "easy" win it immediately corrects for it like a slot machine that figures out it wasn't SUPPOSED to award jackpots. I started my sessions yesterday with an RM round that felt normal and balanced and we won by ko. Then the chain of losses to to teams unable to push. Followed by an RM round that I carried the RM to ko, accompanied by a great escort. Then another chain of losses due to teams unable to push. Most of the matches were spent simply defending the goal cone as the opponents have us pressed back the whole time.

However along with the lack of continuous (no wins) losing streaks, also comes the lack of winning streaks. And there seem to be more losses than wins, or the losses are worth more points than the wins. Or both. :)

In terms of it feeling like it trying to fix itself, despite your sons gains yesterday I still feel as though it's mostly in S/S+ that the improvements are felt and that the A's have actually become worse overall. Whether it's temporary or not, I don't know. But like I said, it's reminiscent of what "B hell" used to be where you have a bad mix of really great and really poor players so even when you do well it's guaranteed to be offset by the poor players. Either that or not everybody in the A's is matched as off-balance as I am as consistently. I wonder if pre-2.6 was going to be my easiest chance to earn it back. I'm still salty about the losing streak that started at A+94. But pre-2.6 I was back in and out of A+ twice. Post 2.6, not once. Which is weird since I had to play AGAINST S's in the old A/A+. :D

To me 2.3 to 2.5 matchmaking rule was something like trying to keep everyone in a 50% win ratio, I've been stuck for a long time. Keeping track of matches, the end of the day I would always reach +-50% winratio.
Unfortunately that did create a lot of low-quality matches, when matchmaking-god decided it was your time to win there came a big high-ranked-team you had a easy victory. When it was time to lose, a low-ranked not so good team and you had a harsh loss. It was very rare to have a quality match between 2.3 and 2.5 update, splatoon matchmaking was broken to me.

Now I think it's fixed, many great matches to the end, nothing to complain.

You described pretty perfectly my experience with the old matchmaking. :D Except for me, it hasn't really changed much in the new 2.6 system either. It still seems to go for 50/50 or less. I'm HOPING that it's a temporary shakeup in the A's due to the patch. A lot of S's moving down, an lot of B+'s moving up. But I don't know how long that odd mangled mess will remain a problem. If it creates a problem that a lot of people drop from S and not many people make it back to S (right now it seems like everyone in A would be caught in A forever) they might have to make changes so S doesn't become a pool of 200 people :)

For now I almost feel 2.6 might be worse where I am. I haven't plummeted as far down, though, so I guess I do get more wins seeded in. The games are of higher quality, sometimes, but the teams are still imbalanced. Not fully incompetent but one team clearly can't deal with the other effectively. I also wonder, if it's doing the whole "50/50" elo team split thing, if they widened the "acceptable difference" parameter to avoid the long load times (which the patch notes itself highlighted as their primary concern with actually fixing matchmaking: wait times.)

To me, if they're not going to lock EVERY rank down to that one rank for matchmaking, it's still fairly broken. Especially in the new system there's going to be a big skill gap between A-'s that just rose up from B+ vs. A+'s that just dropped from S unless you get an alt on your team. And for me, the A+'s will pretty much universally be on the other team and the A-'s on mine.

 

[CknSalad]

I feel that A+ ranks should be locked as well the S and S+ rank lobbies. A- vs A from my experiences did not vary as much, but things may have changed since I have been high A+ to mid-S rank for a good 4 months. I have played ranked solo q for a good week, but as I mentioned in a different thread, the S-rank matches for the most part are much more intense and back and forth. Furthermore, I can tell better what minor mistakes may have cost my team and I the match. Whereas vs. even decent S+ rank players in the pre-2.6 days, I would not quite be able to pinpoint what I needed to do differently because my team and I were simply outmatched vs. the S+ players.

 

[Nero86]

LOL, I did miss that and a whole bunch of conversation - saw it in my backlog this morning.:)

See, that just doesn't happen for me. It actually used to pre-2.6. I'd have one winning streak for every 2 losing streaks but I knew that could happen. So far, I'm not seeing it with 2.6 solo. HOWEVER, your son experienced that while I was squadding in zones and experiencing a similar winning streak (just after squadding in RM and having a fairly awful losing streak.) It's almost like the whole system kicked into "easy mode" after the switch between RM and SZ. I assumed it was just the squads (even against S opponents) but if solo A was doing that too, I wonder if it would have done it for me in solo too? I'm back to A80-something, though I suppose in solo I did get to A94 over the weekend so I did technically win higher over the weekend but that was from a 70-something starting point. Past two days I lose down to the teens before rebounding to the 40's or 50's. One of these days soon I do expect the A- drop. My "luck" of treading water is bound to run out.

Heh, yeah, I don't see it as irregular, I see it as normal. :) Frustrating, but normal. I'm inclined to agree that the losing streaks don't seem to be AS continuous. Instead of a straight plummet it's more of a stairstep downward. But if I were not punctuating it with squadding (though squadding ALSO seems to stairstep downward except for times like last night) I would certainly be in A- or maybe B+ again given the matches this week. It seems like if it "accidentally" hands me an "easy" win it immediately corrects for it like a slot machine that figures out it wasn't SUPPOSED to award jackpots. I started my sessions yesterday with an RM round that felt normal and balanced and we won by ko. Then the chain of losses to to teams unable to push. Followed by an RM round that I carried the RM to ko, accompanied by a great escort. Then another chain of losses due to teams unable to push. Most of the matches were spent simply defending the goal cone as the opponents have us pressed back the whole time.

However along with the lack of continuous (no wins) losing streaks, also comes the lack of winning streaks. And there seem to be more losses than wins, or the losses are worth more points than the wins. Or both. :)

In terms of it feeling like it trying to fix itself, despite your sons gains yesterday I still feel as though it's mostly in S/S+ that the improvements are felt and that the A's have actually become worse overall. Whether it's temporary or not, I don't know. But like I said, it's reminiscent of what "B hell" used to be where you have a bad mix of really great and really poor players so even when you do well it's guaranteed to be offset by the poor players. Either that or not everybody in the A's is matched as off-balance as I am as consistently. I wonder if pre-2.6 was going to be my easiest chance to earn it back. I'm still salty about the losing streak that started at A+94. But pre-2.6 I was back in and out of A+ twice. Post 2.6, not once. Which is weird since I had to play AGAINST S's in the old A/A+. :D



You described pretty perfectly my experience with the old matchmaking. :D Except for me, it hasn't really changed much in the new 2.6 system either. It still seems to go for 50/50 or less. I'm HOPING that it's a temporary shakeup in the A's due to the patch. A lot of S's moving down, an lot of B+'s moving up. But I don't know how long that odd mangled mess will remain a problem. If it creates a problem that a lot of people drop from S and not many people make it back to S (right now it seems like everyone in A would be caught in A forever) they might have to make changes so S doesn't become a pool of 200 people :)

For now I almost feel 2.6 might be worse where I am. I haven't plummeted as far down, though, so I guess I do get more wins seeded in. The games are of higher quality, sometimes, but the teams are still imbalanced. Not fully incompetent but one team clearly can't deal with the other effectively. I also wonder, if it's doing the whole "50/50" elo team split thing, if they widened the "acceptable difference" parameter to avoid the long load times (which the patch notes itself highlighted as their primary concern with actually fixing matchmaking: wait times.)

To me, if they're not going to lock EVERY rank down to that one rank for matchmaking, it's still fairly broken. Especially in the new system there's going to be a big skill gap between A-'s that just rose up from B+ vs. A+'s that just dropped from S unless you get an alt on your team. And for me, the A+'s will pretty much universally be on the other team and the A-'s on mine.

I think many of those "friend-carried" S are falling because now they're dealing only with other S instead of A and A+. To me, S-ranked matches are getting better than before, more fierce matches without "matchmaking god" sorting out things. My wife's a rising A to A+, after locking S and S+ to the other side she's winning more battles than before, soon A will be too little for her skill, many times on her "lose match" matchmaking did sort S and S+ on a team and A in another.

 

[Award]

I feel that A+ ranks should be locked as well the S and S+ rank lobbies. A- vs A from my experiences did not vary as much, but things may have changed since I have been high A+ to mid-S rank for a good 4 months. I have played ranked solo q for a good week, but as I mentioned in a different thread, the S-rank matches for the most part are much more intense and back and forth. Furthermore, I can tell better what minor mistakes may have cost my team and I the match. Whereas vs. even decent S+ rank players in the pre-2.6 days, I would not quite be able to pinpoint what I needed to do differently because my team and I were simply outmatched vs. the S+ players.

I would love to see that as well. I think since you last played the A's in 2.5, the big difference in A- is that more B+'s have floated up to A- due to the fact they have not had to play A/A- battles while still in B and made to lose (in B hell) As such the B+'s floating into A- are NOT in any way familiar with the S-type tactics and pacing the A's & A+'s (many of which may be former S's) are more likely to be using. The other problem is having been trapped in Aflat since 2.6 released, I have seen a grand total of maybe 10 A players in my lobbies. Lobbies are a mix of myself, at best, one other A, on very rare occasions 2 other A's, and the rest are A+ and A-. And typically the A+'s are my opponents, and I get the A-'s. It's literally a mixture of former B+'s and former S's battling it out. Players that are used to slower C & B type play versus players that are used to fighting for their squiddy lives against S+'s. Not that B+'s are universally horrible. I've pointed out that I've seen a lot of B+'s that were better than A-'s. But it's too tremendous a gap. It's hard to say if A- and A vary much, right now, because I haven't actually seen any actual A ranked battles. Just mashups of A- and A+ with a handful of A's occasionally thrown in.

I think many of those "friend-carried" S are falling because now they're dealing only with other S instead of A and A+. To me, S-ranked matches are getting better than before, more fierce matches without "matchmaking god" sorting out things. My wife's a rising A to A+, after locking S and S+ to the other side she's winning more battles than before, soon A will be too little for her skill, many times on her "lose match" matchmaking did sort S and S+ on a team and A in another.

Yeah, that's the kind of thing that would make S a better place but shouldn't affect the A's. Though I still believe the whole "friend carried" thing is a myth. Scumming, sure. Carrying doesn't seem very possible. I've seen in squads some players that DO appear to be there to be carried (I generally don't notice them, they are pointed out to me afterward - like yesterday we apparently had someone that stood around doing nothing for part of a match...I presume he was counting on his twin squadmate to carry him. The thing is it generally doesn't work. The three of us trying to carry that guy was a losing battle against a team with all 4 people playing. ) So I don't know they actually ARE carried, beyond that they're attempting to be carried.

Have you seen how the matchmaker is setting up your wife's A rank games? Is it like mine where it's consistently majority A+ on the other team and majority A- on her team, with very few A's in the lobby ever?

I wonder if it's a time of day thing. You're 2 hours ahead of me, so you guys are playing earlier in the day before the Japanese super players arrive after lunch. :D I tend to play right when "teh hardcorez gamerez" in Japan would be getting on :p