does anyone actually ever go negative in points?

[chaotik0]

i cannot comprehend how that is even possible unless you specifically try to be in the negatives.

wouldn’t you have to throw so many series for that to happen? and even if you do go into the negatives, can’t you just lower your rank at any time? that would be the perfect way to get back into the swing of things a little easier and start winning more consistently, so if you didn’t do that, you have to be specifically trying to stay in the negatives, right?

and can negative point players still be matched with positive point players? because dear god that would be terrible, but it would be a good explanation as to why i occasionally see people who do not seem like they should be matched with me. either we absolutely obliterate them or i see teammates that still actually roll with the roller to paint or are using gear that makes no sense, like the cursed drop roller e-liter or respawn punisher sploosh.

also splatoon 2’s rank system was way better, it dropped your rank automatically when you weren’t cut out enough for that rank, instead of making you feel terrible with rank points debt and then you have to lower your rank yourself.

major edit: i am not trying to say people are bad at the game, and i am sorry if it came off that way and possibly made you feel like a bad player for being in the negatives.

i was trying to say that the problem where people go into the negatives is a problem with this rank system, it isn’t actually the fault of the player and here is why i think that which i have replied to many comments saying so i might as well put it here:

i think people get lifted up by players who are improving faster than them, and that puts them in a rank where they are forced to improve by that much now because of the players they will start facing. this stops people from being able to learn and grow at their own pace.

the game puts them into a situation where it is unnecessarily difficult for them to learn and improve, and then it makes you feel bad by giving you a negative number and making you rank yourself down. the old rank system did this for you already.

so yeah i dont like splatoon 3’s rank system that probably should have been the focus of this post instead of the negative point thing and i am sorry

 

[☆Oblivion☆]

I think what 3 is doing is trying to force improvement cause if you rank back down you'll be back to fighting those that are or slightly below your skill and you won't really learn much from that. Once you reach S+ for the first time it only takes 6 straight losses to get to the negatives.
When you get to a certain rank such as S+ you will be up against S ranks doing their rank up battle to anyone at S+50 no matter how many points they have.

I am also not a big fan of this as it encourages throwers that got carried to where they are to bring down some matches as not all bother to put in the effort to improve. So I agree that the games should go back to the old method of ranking up/down.

 

[sevenleaf]

yeah going negative is just… something that happens when you’re losing more series than you’re winning. as you get higher up in the ranks, it takes more and more wins/gold medals to break even on a series. not everybody’s throwing; some people are trying their best and still not winning. you can rank down manually, but i bet a lot of people aren’t willing to do that if they’re thinking “oh i’m just on a bad streak, i can pull myself out of debt, just one more series—” or “i shouldn’t need to rank down, if i got this far in the first place i should just be better—” or something along those lines. and if i’m not mistaken, you can only do that once per season, so if you go negative, rank down, rank back up, and go negative again… what then?

(as an aside - and this isn’t targeting you, OP, it’s more a comment on a broader pattern i see in the community - i think we’re often too quick to accuse someone of ‘throwing’ when they’re not playing totally optimally. don’t assume malice, yknow? maybe they’ve gotten lucky with rank-up teammates/opponents and now they’re out of their league; maybe they’re just having an off day; maybe they’re playing on tilt and they’ve got themselves into an ‘i can’t just quit now, i have to prove myself by winning one game’ spiral; maybe they approach ranked a little more casually than you, and while they’re trying, they’re not as locked-in as you might be.)

personally i’ve never been too far in the negatives, because i keep stopping playing series completely if i get too close to debt. because i know that negative numbers will make me sad. :( but last season i tried to break out of that and keep trying to gain points towards S+ rank-up eligibility. i didn’t end up playing frequently enough to stay in debt (especially after side order dropped and i was playing more of that and less pvp), but starting a series temporarily did put me in debt. the thing about points debt is that the best way to climb out, besides ranking down, is to play more series - spending more points you don’t have in order to do so - and hope you win enough points to bring you closer to the positives.

 

[chaotik0]

yeah going negative is just… something that happens when you’re losing more series than you’re winning. as you get higher up in the ranks, it takes more and more wins/gold medals to break even on a series. not everybody’s throwing; some people are trying their best and still not winning. you can rank down manually, but i bet a lot of people aren’t willing to do that if they’re thinking “oh i’m just on a bad streak, i can pull myself out of debt, just one more series—” or “i shouldn’t need to rank down, if i got this far in the first place i should just be better—” or something along those lines. and if i’m not mistaken, you can only do that once per season, so if you go negative, rank down, rank back up, and go negative again… what then?

(as an aside - and this isn’t targeting you, OP, it’s more a comment on a broader pattern i see in the community - i think we’re often too quick to accuse someone of ‘throwing’ when they’re not playing totally optimally. don’t assume malice, yknow? maybe they’ve gotten lucky with rank-up teammates/opponents and now they’re out of their league; maybe they’re just having an off day; maybe they’re playing on tilt and they’ve got themselves into an ‘i can’t just quit now, i have to prove myself by winning one game’ spiral; maybe they approach ranked a little more casually than you, and while they’re trying, they’re not as locked-in as you might be.)

personally i’ve never been too far in the negatives, because i keep stopping playing series completely if i get too close to debt. because i know that negative numbers will make me sad. :( but last season i tried to break out of that and keep trying to gain points towards S+ rank-up eligibility. i didn’t end up playing frequently enough to stay in debt (especially after side order dropped and i was playing more of that and less pvp), but starting a series temporarily did put me in debt. the thing about points debt is that the best way to climb out, besides ranking down, is to play more series - spending more points you don’t have in order to do so - and hope you win enough points to bring you closer to the positives.

the issue is not that people are purposefully throwing, i didn’t mean that when i said throwing in my post. i was talking about how that is the only way i could imagine getting negative points. i do agree that people blame people for throwing when they lose a game way too often.

you are right, people try and still lose consistently, and i think that’s because in lower ranks they get pulled up by players that are improving at a faster rate, to a rank they shouldn’t be at and end up not being able to win when they get to a point where every player on the team matters. then they go into the negatives and don’t want to rank reset because the rank says something about their value as a player and they don’t want to lose that.

splatoon 3’s system only makes it more possible for this to happen. you get carried by people improving faster than you, but then you get into an environment where you can’t improve at your own rate anymore because the players you end up facing are higher in skill level. and then you have to manually rank down which most people won’t do. this is why i don’t like this rank system and i hope they either bring back the old way or make a new one for splatoon 4.

 

[chaotik0]

I think what 3 is doing is trying to force improvement cause if you rank back down you'll be back to fighting those that are or slightly below your skill and you won't really learn much from that. Once you reach S+ for the first time it only takes 6 straight losses to get to the negatives.
When you get to a certain rank such as S+ you will be up against S ranks doing their rank up battle to anyone at S+50 no matter how many points they have.

I am also not a big fan of this as it encourages throwers that got carried to where they are to bring down some matches as not all bother to put in the effort to improve. So I agree that the games should go back to the old method of ranking up/down.

yeah this system makes it much harder to improve at your own rate it seems. you get carried up by players improving faster than you but then its harder to improve because the players youre facing are much higher in skill level by an unnecessarily huge gap.

 

[Lisku]

i've been to S -300 before.

 

[missingno]

I got stuck in S+ negatives back in season 1, kept practicing and it hasn't happened to me since.

Considering that wins in series are worth more than losses, the fact that negatives can even happen is a sign of deeply broken matchmaking. No one but John Nintendo knows what it's doing under the hood, but I don't believe the theory that Series doesn't actually match on rank - surely if it was using Glicko-2 instead, this wouldn't be happening. These players ought to be fighting each other, and if their winrate was close to 50% they'd climb back out. Why doesn't that happen?

This looks to me like the result of players in the wrong matchmaking pool always getting matched with players above them and never getting placed back into a pool where they belong. Which lines up with the problem with letters - you rank up just by going even, until you reach a rank where you're doing a lot worse then even.

 

[vitellary]

i'm at S+ -100something right now, and yeah it doesn't take that many losses to go negative at the start of a rank. i had two or three bad series and that was enough to send me deep in negative. finally starting to climb out of it, though

i do think it's necessary for negative players to be able to queue with positive players, because if you don't do that then the negative point players are basically their own weird separate rank and can't actually play against proper players in their rank and improve. you'd end up with people that constantly hover that threshold around 0 because they're never getting any real practice in their rank when playing in the negatives, so when they finally break above they're facing a totally different skill level than they were before

also worth noting that rank resetting is HARSH. it's not really a pride thing: if i reset right now it'd send me to A+, and i'm definitely at the very least a confidently S player, if not just an S+ player with nerves problems lol. ppl don't want to get sent back down to a rank that would be easy for them just because they've had it rough in series in their proper rank

people in negatives still want to improve at the game, and they still are improving at the game. the game wants you to rank up as soon as the option is available to you, it really Screams at you to try a rank-up series as soon as you have enough points. i don't even think people get through their rank-up games by being carried most of the time, i think the skill gap between each rank is just really big in this game, and i think ppl in the negatives, though maybe out of their depth, can learn better by playing against people better than them than by playing in a rank that's easy for them

or at least thats my justification for it lol

 

[TechGuy456]

Yes, yes they do.

Source: me, I went to -4400p S+0 in Chill Season 2022

 

[Linneus]

I went negatives at the start of this season, which makes sense because a season reset kind of throws all the ranks around, so I was definitely fighting with and against a more eclectic mix of skill levels, and I just feel like I've been trying to feel out my playstyle a little more as I get to some of the highest ranks I've ever been! After a little time, I've gotten settled back into a groove.

Anyway, I can't help but feel like this thread is weirdly accusatory, like "Um, is anyone really that bad?"
Lots of people play without clicking the Rank Reset button (a button which, might I add, was not in the game at launch) and would like to just improve against skilled players than feel like they have to backtrack.

 

[chaotik0]

I went negatives at the start of this season, which makes sense because a season reset kind of throws all the ranks around, so I was definitely fighting with and against a more eclectic mix of skill levels, and I just feel like I've been trying to feel out my playstyle a little more as I get to some of the highest ranks I've ever been! After a little time, I've gotten settled back into a groove.

Anyway, I can't help but feel like this thread is weirdly accusatory, like "Um, is anyone really that bad?"
Lots of people play without clicking the Rank Reset button (a button which, might I add, was not in the game at launch) and would like to just improve against skilled players than feel like they have to backtrack.

i think the improving while playing against higher level players is a bit of a flawed flawed idea, it won’t work for everyone, but it is clearly not working if you are trying that and end up in the negatives

and yeah it does look like exactly how you described
i was just confused because sure, people have their bad days but to the point where you lose hundreds of points (because you start the season with like 250 or something) it seems like there is a bigger issue. also, there is a good way to fix your debt, i was wondering if anyone actually did it. plus, i mainly wanted to say how bad this rank system is, i think i was a bit too much with the first part, and not enough for the second part

i didnt want to say anyone is bad, i wanted to say that the only reason that can happen is because of how bad this rank system is

they realized that, and instead of fixing it they gave us a reset rank button that can only be used once per season

 

[chaotik0]

i'm at S+ -100something right now, and yeah it doesn't take that many losses to go negative at the start of a rank. i had two or three bad series and that was enough to send me deep in negative. finally starting to climb out of it, though

i do think it's necessary for negative players to be able to queue with positive players, because if you don't do that then the negative point players are basically their own weird separate rank and can't actually play against proper players in their rank and improve. you'd end up with people that constantly hover that threshold around 0 because they're never getting any real practice in their rank when playing in the negatives, so when they finally break above they're facing a totally different skill level than they were before

also worth noting that rank resetting is HARSH. it's not really a pride thing: if i reset right now it'd send me to A+, and i'm definitely at the very least a confidently S player, if not just an S+ player with nerves problems lol. ppl don't want to get sent back down to a rank that would be easy for them just because they've had it rough in series in their proper rank

people in negatives still want to improve at the game, and they still are improving at the game. the game wants you to rank up as soon as the option is available to you, it really Screams at you to try a rank-up series as soon as you have enough points. i don't even think people get through their rank-up games by being carried most of the time, i think the skill gap between each rank is just really big in this game, and i think ppl in the negatives, though maybe out of their depth, can learn better by playing against people better than them than by playing in a rank that's easy for them

or at least thats my justification for it lol

i think the “play against higher level players to improve” is a little bit flawed (edit: that doesn’t mean higher level players can’t teach things to lower level i think that is a good idea). it can work for some people, but you still have to be high enough of a level to actually be able to learn and grow from them. and that clearly isnt working if it is attempted and you still end up in the negatives

i think people get lifted up by players who are improving faster than them, and that puts them in a rank where they are forced to improve by that much now because of the players they will start facing. this stops people from being able to learn and grow at their own pace.

you can’t improve solely by playing against higher level players, you have to know enough about the game to realize what they are doing right and what you are doing wrong, which can’t happen if what i described happens you. i think this is how people get into the negatives, and then they don’t reset their rank because they feel like they would lose something that defines their value as a player when in reality, they will become a better player in the long run.

and if the rank reset puts you too far back, it should be easy to get back to the point where you can improve at a comfortable pace. the stupid thing is that the old rank system did that for you, splatoon 3 makes you feel terrible with debt and forces you to lower your rank yourself.

 

[missingno]

I come from a fighting game background. Throwing myself at high-level opponents who will quickly expose every mistake I make is what I'm used to. One of the best sets I've ever played was the time I went 3-20 against SonicFox.

Of course that will mean losing a lot in the short-term, which would then mean losing points. But that doesn't mean you can say nothing is being learned.

 

[DVDo]

After the last rank reset, and due to the fact that I've recently been playing nothing but weapons I haven't played before, my rank has been steadily decreasing down to about -800. I do play a lot of Series when I shouldn't lol. But I do appreciate still being matched in S+ since it is the level I play the game at and helps me learn the weapons more quickly.

 

[vitellary]

i think the “play against higher level players to improve” is a little bit flawed [...] and that clearly isnt working if it is attempted and you still end up in the negatives

that's implying that they're expecting to win as soon as they're attempting this, which is obviously not true. the point is that you are expecting to lose to them, and then you learn why you're losing, and then you start to win. this has been the case for myself: as i mentioned, i did very badly with my first few series as i was learning, and have started to climb back up now that i've found my footing. losing games is not inherently a bad thing if you're able to improve from it in the long run, which is why i think it can be more helpful than grinding in a rank you're comfortable with

 

[Meka15]

Yes, yes they do.

Source: me, I went to -4400p S+0 in Chill Season 2022

That’s where I am heading if the season wasn’t ending this week.

 

[Yeenom]

i cannot comprehend how that is even possible unless you specifically try to be in the negatives.

wouldn’t you have to throw so many series for that to happen? and even if you do go into the negatives, can’t you just lower your rank at any time? that would be the perfect way to get back into the swing of things a little easier and start winning more consistently, so if you didn’t do that, you have to be specifically trying to stay in the negatives, right?

and can negative point players still be matched with positive point players? because dear god that would be terrible, but it would be a good explanation as to why i occasionally see people who do not seem like they should be matched with me. either we absolutely obliterate them or i see teammates that still actually roll with the roller to paint or are using gear that makes no sense, like the cursed drop roller e-liter or respawn punisher sploosh.

also splatoon 2’s rank system was way better, it dropped your rank automatically when you weren’t cut out enough for that rank, instead of making you feel terrible with rank points debt and then you have to lower your rank yourself.

major edit: i am not trying to say people are bad at the game, and i am sorry if it came off that way and possibly made you feel like a bad player for being in the negatives.

i was trying to say that the problem where people go into the negatives is a problem with this rank system, it isn’t actually the fault of the player and here is why i think that which i have replied to many comments saying so i might as well put it here:

i think people get lifted up by players who are improving faster than them, and that puts them in a rank where they are forced to improve by that much now because of the players they will start facing. this stops people from being able to learn and grow at their own pace.

the game puts them into a situation where it is unnecessarily difficult for them to learn and improve, and then it makes you feel bad by giving you a negative number and making you rank yourself down. the old rank system did this for you already.

so yeah i dont like splatoon 3’s rank system that probably should have been the focus of this post instead of the negative point thing and i am sorry

Yeah it's pretty hard to rank down under S+. Losing an entire series takes away so little points and winning even once is enough to immediately counteract that. The only way I can really see somebody seriously going negative is if they just have an extremely, extremely bad day and consistently lose series over and over again without ever stopping; which isn't impossible as sometimes Splatoon just does that to you, but you'd probably catch yourself before it got too bad. On one hand I like the fact that if you don't get seriously penalized for a dip in performance but on the other hand, I can see players just ranking super high after getting a couple easy teams and dragging their team down with them. I think if they kept Splatoon 2's mode-based ranks but made it less severe (Maybe if you rank up in two modes your overall rank increases for the other two?) a lot of those issues could be fixed.

 

[Masked_Katz]

At the start of every season, I usually rank down immediately because I think it's a good refresher. I always breeze past S and never have gone in the negatives. However, I'd say S+ is where I'm stuck because I'm always hovering just above the negatives (occasionally taking the dip.) I clearly am in a rut and have more to learn, but...

This all goes to show that S-, S, and S+ are huge jumps in difficulty. I have seen and met many players on other platforms who also land in the awkward spot of "_ rank is a breeze but the next rank is hell." Also, I just wanted to say that I appreciate the edit you put, I think that there is a good reason for when these standstills happen, but it definitely would feel more natural with better matchmaking.

 

[OnePotWonder]

I must be vocal about my pure, unbridled hatred for Splatoon 3's rank-down system.

Just imagine, if you will, how easy it would be to have players rank down when they hit 0 points in their current rank.

Imagine, per se, you go below 0 points in S+, and you're presented with a best of five "Rank Saver Battle".
It's literally just a renamed rank-up battle, identical in every way to the one you had to complete to enter your current rank.
Depending on the result, this series will either reset your points for your current rank, or place you back in the previous one.
Perfectly on-brand for Nintendo. Fits the new anarchy rank style like a glove. Why isn't it real?

And why, WHY does it rank every player down at the start of every season?! THEY'VE ALREADY CODED IT IN AS AN OPTIONAL FEATURE

People go into the negatives because they get soft carried through their rank-up battle, cannot keep up with their new competition, and don't want to rank down themselves because being at S -303 030 is still better than being A+ 1000. All that matters is the letter rank.

The major flaw that keeps driving players farther into the negatives is the system's inability to make players rank down automatically.

I've only been in the negatives once. S+0. It was an awful experience. I'd have taken any risk to get back up to the starting rank points.
Heck, I'd have gladly ranked down to S 900. But the rank reset puts you all the way back down at 300.
Nintendo needs to stop fixing what isn't broken.

Rant concluded.

 

[Bennet]

i cannot comprehend how that is even possible unless you specifically try to be in the negatives.

wouldn’t you have to throw so many series for that to happen? and even if you do go into the negatives, can’t you just lower your rank at any time? that would be the perfect way to get back into the swing of things a little easier and start winning more consistently, so if you didn’t do that, you have to be specifically trying to stay in the negatives, right?

and can negative point players still be matched with positive point players? because dear god that would be terrible, but it would be a good explanation as to why i occasionally see people who do not seem like they should be matched with me. either we absolutely obliterate them or i see teammates that still actually roll with the roller to paint or are using gear that makes no sense, like the cursed drop roller e-liter or respawn punisher sploosh.

also splatoon 2’s rank system was way better, it dropped your rank automatically when you weren’t cut out enough for that rank, instead of making you feel terrible with rank points debt and then you have to lower your rank yourself.

major edit: i am not trying to say people are bad at the game, and i am sorry if it came off that way and possibly made you feel like a bad player for being in the negatives.

i was trying to say that the problem where people go into the negatives is a problem with this rank system, it isn’t actually the fault of the player and here is why i think that which i have replied to many comments saying so i might as well put it here:

i think people get lifted up by players who are improving faster than them, and that puts them in a rank where they are forced to improve by that much now because of the players they will start facing. this stops people from being able to learn and grow at their own pace.

the game puts them into a situation where it is unnecessarily difficult for them to learn and improve, and then it makes you feel bad by giving you a negative number and making you rank yourself down. the old rank system did this for you already.

so yeah i dont like splatoon 3’s rank system that probably should have been the focus of this post instead of the negative point thing and i am sorry

When I first tried Anarchy battles, I went into the negatives (It was a tc match) but after a while I reconed on Rainmaker and found how fun Rainmaker is (so that's the reason why I mainly do Rainmaker) I sometimes go into the negatives because of disconnects but most of the time I win the match.