Evaluating Splatoon's Ranking System

[Mazzle]

A good friend also a app-developer showed me this blog-article by Developer Evan Miller.
In that post he analyzed the ranking system for ranked battle in Splatoon, how it works and in which rank the majority of player who actively play will probably end up. It's an interesting piece and even shows a flaw that Nintendo made in creating that system. What do you think?

It's a fun little problem to solve, and my solution, which I'll describe below, involves some non-trivial matrix math. The solution also has an interesting surprise: If all battles are decided purely by chance, then in the long run, nearly 75% of Splatoon players will end up with the rank ofA−, A, or A+, with over 36% of players having a rank of A+. I didn't expect this result at all, but it makes sense once I realized there's a subtle flaw in the Splatoon ranking system, a flaw that the game designers probably didn't realize was present when they shipped the game. I won't tell you what the flaw is just now, but see if you can find it as we work through the math.

Score | Steady state | Sum

C− | 0.0058%
C | 0.14% | 1.18%
C+ | 1.04%
--------------------------------------------
B− | 3.76%
B | 9.07% | 24.9%
B+ | 12.09%
--------------------------------------------
A− | 16.12%
A | 21.49% | 73.9%
A+ | 36.30%

Probability theory is a powerful tool, and it can be used to understand the properties of ranking systems in video games (and elsewhere). It's particularly useful for evaluating specific changes in ranking mechanics, such as the introduction of weights or asymmetries designed to achieve specific social goals.

It can also uncover unintended systemic behavior. Because of the slight asymmetry in the Splatoon promotion system, I predict there will be a slow upward drift in player Splatoon rankings, and that Nintendo will observe many more A+ players on their Splatoon servers than they originally anticipated. This is not because "all the children are above average", but because of a design flaw in the ranking system, which should probably be addressed before the inflation gets out of hand. Other game makers would do well to consider formal analysis methods, such as the methods developed in this article, before release their own ranking systems into the wild.

Full article here: http://www.evanmiller.org/evaluating-splatoons-ranking-system.html

tl;dr System is Upward Bias and Nintendo should patch it

 

[Hope]

tl;dr A+ is a trench.

 

[1o2]

I always thought it was weird that you could hit 0 rank and not be demoted, although I didn't really follow all of the mathematical stuff (not that type of person) I did understand what he was trying to imply. Hopefully Nintendo catches unto this.

 

[EsoTeRiC]

Not only that but I saw a post on gamefaqs where someone was complaining about the inconsistency of A rank games, apparently once you hit A+ rank it's possible to reset it back to A+ whenever you want, therefore people are coming to the conclusion that A+ rankers are trolling the lower ranks to make it harder to hit A+ rank.