Any info on whether or not we will be able to play ranked with friends?

[RespawningJesus]

Lmao, wut? How would that even remotely ruin balancing?

It ruins balance in a few ways:

1. It let's a higher ranked player to join a Lower ranked player, or vice versa (low rank joins High ranked.) This throws off the whole point of the ranking system: to pit you against people of a similar rank/skill.

2. A team could pair up, and pub stomp. Pub stomps aren't fun. The last thing we need are people getting turned off the game because they can't win some. (Normally if you go full team with your friends, you are going to use some kind of voice chat system. Being able to communicate with your friends and coordinate more efficiently than a team of random players gives people a distinct edge.)

3. If you were to implement a system in which only friends in the same rank can join each other, you could end up having players either losing on purpose to lower their rank to play with their friends, which also brings down everyone they are matched with.

 

[Agosta44]

Going by the Best Buy footage of Splat Zones rank will probably work the same way as VR in MK8 when the game first came out. Cap was 9999 (equivalent of A+) and you basically only gained VR until you reached cap. In the Best Buy footage the POV won with 2400 points. Chances of you getting negative for a round is probably 0. Rank will basically consist of playing a lot will get you to A+ no matter what.

 

[Kzero]

It ruins balance in a few ways:

1. It let's a higher ranked player to join a Lower ranked player, or vice versa (low rank joins High ranked.) This throws off the whole point of the ranking system: to pit you against people of a similar rank/skill.

2. A team could pair up, and pub stomp. Pub stomps aren't fun. The last thing we need are people getting turned off the game because they can't win some. (Normally if you go full team with your friends, you are going to use some kind of voice chat system. Being able to communicate with your friends and coordinate more efficiently than a team of random players gives people a distinct edge.)

3. If you were to implement a system in which only friends in the same rank can join each other, you could end up having players either losing on purpose to lower their rank to play with their friends, which also brings down everyone they are matched with.

These are all things that can and will happen regardless of teaming up with friends. Not wanting people to use teamwork in a game mode based around teamwork is lunacy. People are going to be turned off from the game from frustration with or without friends teaming up. Even if every single match puts you up against random players of the same rank, doesn't mean they won't have to skill to demolish you. Ranks don't really mean anything in multiplayer games, and are not a representation of one's skill, mostly just a representation of time played, unless there's really high tiers of ranks.

What if every match you play starting at launch, puts you with teams of folks who are terribly bad at the game, but you yourself aren't bad. But since your teammates aren't good, you never get to win or rank up. Are you still going to call it fair and accept that you will always be low tier? It makes no sense that you would call teamwork unbalanced. Just my opinion though.

 

[RespawningJesus]

These are all things that can and will happen regardless of teaming up with friends. Not wanting people to use teamwork in a game mode based around teamwork is lunacy. People are going to be turned off from the game from frustration with or without friends teaming up. Even if every single match puts you up against random players of the same rank, doesn't mean they won't have to skill to demolish you. Ranks don't really mean anything in multiplayer games, and are not a representation of one's skill, mostly just a representation of time played, unless there's really high tiers of ranks.

What if every match you play starting at launch, puts you with teams of folks who are terribly bad at the game, but you yourself aren't bad. But since your teammates aren't good, you never get to win or rank up. Are you still going to call it fair and accept that you will always be low tier? It makes no sense that you would call teamwork unbalanced. Just my opinion though.

Well, the whole point of the Splatoon ranking system is to match you with people of similar rank. Joining with friends ruins this. It would look weird if a C rank joins an A rank, or vice versa.

Also, Nintendo is releasing a matchmaker for people in premade teams in August. So they want to keep solo queue and pre-mades apart. So if you enjoy being a lone wolf, you can enjoy doing so. If you like team work, you can play with others who also enjoy teamwork. In the end, I think that this just makes the experience for everyone more enjoyable for everyone.

 

[Nukichuu]

I totally agree with Dak075.

Playing with premades shouldnt be a feature for the normal Ranked Battle Mode but you will be able to join friends in Non-ranked Battles anyway~

 

[Hinichii.ez.™]

I mean, they could run it like other games that have some form of ranking system. If the difference in rank is too great, you can not, "que" up. Thus, no pub stomps. Smurfs and such, excluded.

 

[Inari]

Going by the Best Buy footage of Splat Zones rank will probably work the same way as VR in MK8 when the game first came out. Cap was 9999 (equivalent of A+) and you basically only gained VR until you reached cap. In the Best Buy footage the POV won with 2400 points. Chances of you getting negative for a round is probably 0. Rank will basically consist of playing a lot will get you to A+ no matter what.

The 2455 points in that video is not related to ranking points. That's the regular exp/money you get for playing a match like in turf wars, except it seems the win bonus in ranked is 2000 instead of 300.
At the end of the video you can see he received +8 ranking points for winning that match. Losing a match will cause you to lose ranking points, so you won't be moving up unless you win.