Splatoon 2 Making Sense Out of Ranked

[J'Wiz]

.....or atleast an attempt to. Everything I'm about to say is pure speculation and might be a big pile of nonsense.

There are many strange inconsistencies when it comes to ranked. How much a victory fills the ranked meter, how many losses it takes to make a crack, what it takes to skip a rank. I believe all of these might be determined by your characters rank power. I think each rank has a "preferred" power level. For reference's sake, let's list some numbers. If the numbers are wrong, don't argue with me. Not the point of the thread.

C: -1400
B: 1500-1600
A: 1600-1700
S: 1800-1900
S+: 2000+

I have noticed some people talk about how easy it is to get to S+, and how it only takes 6 wins to rank up and 8 losses to break your meter. I first thought to myself "How many leprechauns did you make out with to get that kind of luck?". Afterall, me and several other people I have talked to take 10+ wins to rank up to S+, and 4-5 losses to break our meter. However I noticed that the people who only take 6 wins to rank up are seasoned veterans, and those of us who take 10+ wins are still in training.

I think each rank has a "preferred" power level. If you are well above that level, let's say over 100 points, then the game will speed up the ranking process to match you up with the rank you belong. That means skipping ranks, meter filling faster, meter breaking being much more forgiving. If you're below that "preferred" power level, then things will be more difficult. I am assuming this is to make sure you stay in the rank you belong for a while before ranking up. So say you're an 1850 player. You should be able to go from C rank through A without much problem, with the meter being really forgiving. S rank is where it starts to be less forgiving, and requiring more wins. This should mean that you stay in S rank a little longer, fight players at your level, and improve to hopefully be worth S+.

On paper it seems fair. However, I believe that there is another factor that conflicts with the bit that makes it to where you are put in the rank you belong with. That is an attempt to balance matches. In order to make matches "fair", let's say they spread teams as evenly as they can as far as power level goes. So you have a 2200 player in an A ranked match, he'll likely be paired with 1500 players and pitted against 1700-1800 players. If it does work out this way, the 1500 players who don't really belong in the higher ranks yet will be much more likely to be paired with much better players and get carried to higher ranks. It'll just take them more wins to rank up.

If what I'm saying about balancing matches is true, then this makes things really tough for players who are above average for that rank, but not quite enough to have the forgiving meter. They're pitted against players who are average, but have less than average teams. This is more managable on Tower Control and Splat Zones, where the better player can more easily carry his team. Rainmaker and Clam Blitz on the other hand require teammates to actually cooperate, which is increasingly less likely to happen the better you are.

What makes me think this? I see a stupid amount of matches where much better players are given a team of dead fodder, and have to carry them against decent opponents. Us average players don't deal with this. Teammates are around the same level as us. It's probably why I don't often have teammates to complain about.

This makes things even more frustrating with rank power being hidden. Being able to see where you stand in a rank would be really nice. "I'm at 2000 power, but the lobby is 1700....hooo boy.".

 

[Mar$el]

I don't remember who said this, but it would be really nice if we could see individual power level outside of splatfest so we know where we are in our lobby in ranked. In splatfests (I know it's easier) I get up to like 2200 usually and once I got 2400. In my S+ lobbies I'm in the 1800s to the 2000s. It seems to be random idk. In my 1800 and 1900 lobbies I consistently get more kills and die less than my teammates but still idk where I belong in the lobby if my teammates are bad or if the other team just played a little better or if I just got lucky or what. I wish I knew where I should be. I'm probably where I belong cuz when I'm in upper 2000s lobbies and the occasional 2100 lobby I get completely carried.

 

[Dessgeega]

I don't remember who said this, but it would be really nice if we could see individual power level outside of splatfest so we know where we are in our lobby in ranked.

Who said that? Absolutely everyone :P It's a common and very well justified comment. If the system were more transparent, all of us would grumble less.

 

[J'Wiz]

This will be the last time I dredge up one of my threads. I swear!

I thought of something recently, which admittedly I should have thought of when I first made this thread. What if Nintendo had a good reason for hiding the details on how ranked works? What if said reason is something like being able to manipulate your way through ranked?

This is all assuming my first post is correct. We know your power level is likely gained from kills, deaths, wins, and losses. What if it was also determined by assists, specials used, and turf inked to show how much you contributed to these matches?

If this is true, then you might be able to cheese the system. Equip an N-Zap 85 or a Splattershot Jr, and just run around the map turfing and building specials. Just avoid combat keeping your deaths low. At the end of the match, you should have a high (assist) splat count, low death count, very high turf, and very high specials. Even if you didn't help at all in the fighting, the game will think you "carried" the match, and it'll think you're at a much higher power level. This will make your meter fill up superfast, and possibly skip ranks. Losses shouldn't do much either, since according to the stats, you played really well.

I suppose I could test this on my alt.

 

[Flammie]

This will be the last time I dredge up one of my threads. I swear!

I thought of something recently, which admittedly I should have thought of when I first made this thread. What if Nintendo had a good reason for hiding the details on how ranked works? What if said reason is something like being able to manipulate your way through ranked?

This is all assuming my first post is correct. We know your power level is likely gained from kills, deaths, wins, and losses. What if it was also determined by assists, specials used, and turf inked to show how much you contributed to these matches?

If this is true, then you might be able to cheese the system. Equip an N-Zap 85 or a Splattershot Jr, and just run around the map turfing and building specials. Just avoid combat keeping your deaths low. At the end of the match, you should have a high (assist) splat count, low death count, very high turf, and very high specials. Even if you didn't help at all in the fighting, the game will think you "carried" the match, and it'll think you're at a much higher power level. This will make your meter fill up superfast, and possibly skip ranks. Losses shouldn't do much either, since according to the stats, you played really well.

I suppose I could test this on my alt.

Manipulating with basic stuff like that is not gonna happen, i don't think the devs would have done something trivial like that to up your rank.
Reason:
- You can win a match before 5 minutes are up, so going around not doing your objective to rack up score and tormenting opponents who are inferior and being toyed around by superior opponents. Just no.
- You CAN win some of the ranked matches in less than 1 minute, 30 seconds for a speedrunning Rainmaker, making my first reason even more valid.

Besides, your score goes up a lot faster if you win before time out, rather than surviving.
And holding a win streak is a possible way to speed it up.

 

[Green Waffles]

Just a hunch, but seeing how league power levels work, where winning against a higher/lower power team nets you a greater/lesser power gain and losing to a higher/lower powered team incurs a lesser/greater power loss.

I'm willing to bet solo ranked works quite similarly, if not the same.

 

[Flammie]

Just a hunch, but seeing how leave power levels work, where winning against a higher/lower power team nets you a greater/lesser power gain and losing to a higher/lower powered team incurs a lesser/greater power loss.

I'm willing to bet solo ranked works quite similarly, if not the same.

I guess there is some sort of an invisible pool of points in ranked, cause if you win many times in a row, it seems to rack up a lot of points fast, and when you lose a few times it mildens it out, so the first few matches is like League and Splatfest where you have 7 matches deciding how many points you will start with based on the first seven matches per mode there is.

 

[J'Wiz]

Manipulating with basic stuff like that is not gonna happen, i don't think the devs would have done something trivial like that to up your rank.
Reason:
- You can win a match before 5 minutes are up, so going around not doing your objective to rack up score and tormenting opponents who are inferior and being toyed around by superior opponents. Just no.
- You CAN win some of the ranked matches in less than 1 minute, 30 seconds for a speedrunning Rainmaker, making my first reason even more valid.

Besides, your score goes up a lot faster if you win before time out, rather than surviving.
And holding a win streak is a possible way to speed it up.

You can still rack up points on a quick match. Enough turf, "splats", and specials should make the game think you did even more to make those quick wins happen. Especially since spawncamping is a thing.

Admittedly you're probably right. I just thought of that because I'd like to think there's a reason for Nintendo hiding details so tightly. So instead of vilifying them, I figured the reason they hid the details is because it might be easy to manipulate.

It would be nice to know what jacked up your power level, but I guess that would just make people focus on upping their power rather than playing normally.

Another thing I'd like to mention. I have been playing ranked on my alt character for the past few days.
1) To test some of the things I've claimed in this thread.
2) To practice being more bold without hurting my main's rank.
3) Because I hate myself.
What I found was....rather disappointing. One thing I noticed is that the game seems to quickly pick up on sudden skill increases. My alt was on the bottom barrel in rank A when I started. Around 1400-1500 matches. In just a few matches, they shifted to 1600-1800.

Another thing I noticed is....I'm not sure being above the rank's threshold makes you rank up faster. With winning 3/4 of his matches, and often by a rather large margin, there's no way he wasn't above the rank's threshold, or atleast on the forgiving meter. Despite that, wins didn't fill up that much of his meter, and sometimes one loss would crack his meter. You could still argue that I still didn't perform well enough to make the game think I was good enough to quickly go through A.

Maybe I can inject pro Splatoon player DNA into me and then test it again on another character.

So overall, I don't know. I want to think about why rank does the things it does rather than just going "It doesn't make sense". Sadly some of the things I have going through on my alt is making me think just that. I still think power level determines how fast the bar fills and how forgiving the meter is, but what makes the game think you're a certain power level is beyond me.

 

[Flammie]

You can still rack up points on a quick match. Enough turf, "splats", and specials should make the game think you did even more to make those quick wins happen. Especially since spawncamping is a thing.

Admittedly you're probably right. I just thought of that because I'd like to think there's a reason for Nintendo hiding details so tightly. So instead of vilifying them, I figured the reason they hid the details is because it might be easy to manipulate.

It would be nice to know what jacked up your power level, but I guess that would just make people focus on upping their power rather than playing normally.

Another thing I'd like to mention. I have been playing ranked on my alt character for the past few days.
1) To test some of the things I've claimed in this thread.
2) To practice being more bold without hurting my main's rank.
3) Because I hate myself.
What I found was....rather disappointing. One thing I noticed is that the game seems to quickly pick up on sudden skill increases. My alt was on the bottom barrel in rank A when I started. Around 1400-1500 matches. In just a few matches, they shifted to 1600-1800.

Another thing I noticed is....I'm not sure being above the rank's threshold makes you rank up faster. With winning 3/4 of his matches, and often by a rather large margin, there's no way he wasn't above the rank's threshold, or atleast on the forgiving meter. Despite that, wins didn't fill up that much of his meter, and sometimes one loss would crack his meter. You could still argue that I still didn't perform well enough to make the game think I was good enough to quickly go through A.

Maybe I can inject pro Splatoon player DNA into me and then test it again on another character.

So overall, I don't know. I want to think about why rank does the things it does rather than just going "It doesn't make sense". Sadly some of the things I have going through on my alt is making me think just that. I still think power level determines how fast the bar fills and how forgiving the meter is, but what makes the game think you're a certain power level is beyond me.

I Guess going through the basic information is the best option to provide on how things work, so let's come up with some base stats to start here.

Let us say you have A- in rank and you are put in a room with A / A+ / A / A- / A / A / A+
Two A Minus, Two A Plus, and four Basic A ranks in one room if it looks something like this:
A+ / A / A / A-
--Vs--
A+ / A / A / A-

Most balanced situation you can get in.
Then it can randomly go like this:
A+ / A+ / A / A
--Vs--
A / A / A- / A-

Being A- in this case means you will get more points if you win that match, compared to the A+ players, if we go by whatever stats is calculated here right?

In this case, you will recieve slightly more points on your rank meter to rank up and it's very likely that any of the A+ will recieve bigger cracks.

All you have to do is speed math, if you have less total according by ranks by having more Minus people on your side and more Plus people on the other side, i would make my speculation that the higher rank in the room will recieve less positive bonus, and more negative boost on their rank if they lose.

So if you wanna test something, try this.

 

[Jon914]

Everything goes back to your hidden power. The higher it is, the more forgiving and generous the bar is and vice versa.