Ranked is a Stacker Machine.

[Award]

S Rank player here. I usually hover around the mids, 30-60ish. Highest was around S70.

There is objective proof of Splatoon keeping track of winning percentages and a player's number of wins for the week: look no further than SplatNet.

Does Splatoon ever use winning % to organize teams in solo queue? Idk

I do know that sometimes when you do bad, even though you've been doing well for a while, it's actually just because your team's weapons got countered coincidentally.

Sometimes I watch what my teammates are doing (well in the higher ranks at least this is more prevalent, i.e. A to S. In lower ranks there's way too much variation even in one rank) and they usually are doing some pretty good well thought out strategies! Like, sometimes we just don't mesh our strategies together very well, so we fail as a whole, but their intention was obviously to try and win, not lose. Anyway, we end up losing (and I rarely get knocked out anymore which kind of testifies to the non-rigged possibility. Probably 70% of my matches now are pretty close) because we simply had too many rollers against snipers on Moray, or too many snipers against carbons in Pirahna Pit, or w/e. It never stays like that for more than 2 matches in a row though. Other times I think it's just strange weapon match ups the opponents have that just ends up out prioritizing ours as a whole, or their play styles just clearly counter my team's.

Also, a lot of times I clearly cause my own losing streaks by playing for too long. The brain gets fatigued after a while and even the best players would drop in rank if they never took breaks. It's hard to resist though, especially when you're currently at a lower rank than when you started playing :p

To end my post, here's some food for thought (made this up myself lol):

A losing member of a team exclaims: "my teammates suck! I'm the only good player on the team!"

Question: If ALL members on said team exclaim the exact same thing, then does everyone on the team suck, or are they all good?

It's good to see someone paying attention to overall numbers as well. Though your experience is definitely not mine, or that of some other people, which comes back to earlier questions of "why do some players experience this and not others?"

One factor I considered is that you main more "all purpose weapons" - specialty mains are going to have more matches where the weapon balance is bad. However, even taking "all purpose weapons" myself for a while - while the trend reversed at first, it quickly resumed. But it still makes sense, if whatever is in your playstyle continuously tells the system that you're an S, you'll be matched in the middle grounds and not drift too far beyond feeling like it's containing you in S (you don't go too far up or down without going the other way.) But for a player that has "something" in their playstyle that's inconsistent, as the system evaluates data, you see a lot more volitility as it forces you up or down in greater swings. I.E. If you're S and the system knows you're S, you'd never win too many or lose too many drifting too far from S - but if the system suddenly pegged you at A+ you'd see 10 loosses in a row. If it suddenly pegged you at S+ you might see 8-10 wins in a row. (win/loss not guaranteed of course, but very likely.) I'm still seeing many rounds with KO's, on either side, in A, A+, S matches. Worse, many rounds with 100-KO or 98-KO in those ranks as well. Not just against my team but also for my team. The team matching seem to be overall, far more imbalanced for me on a regular basis than for you. It returns to "why do only some players experience this?"

A losing member of a team exclaims: "my teammates suck! I'm the only good player on the team!"

Question: If ALL members on said team exclaim the exact same thing, then does everyone on the team suck, or are they all good?

Or 3 of them are blaming others and one actually was good and let down by their team ;)

Speaking of myself, when I was focused on the objective and nobody (or sometimes only one other) member of my team was, it's hard to say they were good. When I had the lobby's best k/d and my 3 teammates had the worst, it's hard to say I was the bad one.

Speaking of my opponents, when 3 of my opponents are pushovers that I can trick like they're noobs and splat repeatedly, but one of them was challenging and had the k/d to show for it, it's hard to say that player belonged with the other 3, win or lose ;) Looking from both sides of the imbalance, it seems standard that the bad team usually has one good player. I rarely see teams where all 4 are objectively bad. They usually lose because only one of their players is capable of putting up a real fight. That player doesn't always have a great k/d if, for example it's TC and they're constantly pushing the tower alone and getting splatted, but it's obvious even when it's the other team, they're the one trying.

 

[Cuttleshock]

Ahh, whatever. Let's try to assess this with good, hard mathematics. I'm going to give an estimate of how likely a battle is to be unfair or even virtually a foregone conclusion.

Spoiler: Intro

Let's say that, in a given lobby, there are 0-4 'good' players and 0-4 'bad' players (we can define what we mean by those skill levels later) with equal probability of any arrangement. The remaining players are fairly average. Notation below refers to total good and total bad players: 2-3 means a lobby with 2 superior squids and 3 who shouldn't really be there. 12/20 means Team A has 1 good player and 2 poorer ones, and Team B has 2 strong Inklings and no particularly weak links. s(n) is the difference in strength value between teams, where a good player has value 1, average 0, and bad -1. Things like 3/7 are probabilities, nothing to do with team composition.

Under the first spoiler below, I list all team match-ups with probabilities of each and how severely skewed these matches are. Skewed matches could be won by oppositely-skewed weapon match-ups, to a certain degree. The second spoiler sums the probabilities of different levels of skewedness and suggests what this feels like in-game, so you don't really have to look at the first spoiler; that's just my workings-out.

Spoiler: Maths

Spoiler: 0-X

0-0: 00/00 1s(0)
0-1: 01/00 1s(1)
0-2: 02/00 3/7s(2); 01/01 4/7s(0)
0-3: 03/00 1/7s(3); 02/01 6/7s(1)
0-4: 04/00 1/35s(4); 03/01 16/35s(2); 02/02 18/35s(0)

Spoiler: 1-X

1-0: 10/00 1s(1)
1-1: 11/00 3/7s(0); 10/01 4/7s(2)
1-2: 12/00 1/7s(1); 11/01 4/7s(1); 10/02 2/7s(3)
1-3: 13/00 1/35s(2); 12/01 12/35s(0); 11/02 18/35s(2); 10/03 4/35s(4)
1-4: 13/01 4/35s(1); 12/02 18/35s(1); 11/03 12/35s(3); 10/04 1/35s(5)

Spoiler: 2-X

2-0: 20/00 3/7s(2); 10/10 4/7s(0)
2-1: 21/00 1/7s(1); 20/01 2/7s(3); 11/01 4/7s(1)
2-2: 22/00 1/35s(0); 21/01 8/35s(2); 20/02 6/35s(4); 12/10 8/35s(0); 11/11 12/35s(0)
2-3: 22/01 3/35s(1); 21/02 9/35s(3); 20/03 3/35s(5); 13/10 2/35s(3); 12/11 18/35s(1)
2-4: 22/02 6/35s(2); 21/03 8/35s(4); 20/04 1/35s(6); 13/11 8/35s(2); 12/12 12/35s(0)

Spoiler: 3-X

3-0: 30/00 1/7s(3); 20/10 6/7s(1)
3-1: 31/00 1/35s(2); 30/01 4/35s(4); 21/10 12/35s(0); 20/11 18/35s(2)
3-2: 31/01 2/35s(3); 30/02 3/35s(5); 22/10 3/35s(1); 21/11 18/35s(1); 20/12 9/35s(3)
3-3: 31/02 3/35s(4); 30/03 2/35s(6); 22/11 9/35s(0); 21/12 18/35s(2); 20/13 3/35s(4)
3-4: 31/03 4/35s(5); 30/04 1/35s(7); 22/12 18/35s(1); 21/13 12/35s(3)

Spoiler: 4-X

4-0: 40/00 1/35s(4); 30/10 16/35s(2); 20/20 18/35s(0)
4-1: 40/01 1/35s(5); 31/10 4/35s(1); 30/11 12/35s(3); 21/20 18/35s(1)
4-2: 40/02 1/35s(6); 31/11 8/35s(2); 30/12 8/35s(4); 22/20 6/35s(2); 21/21 12/35s(0)
4-3: 40/03 1/35s(7); 31/12 12/35s(3); 30/13 4/35s(5); 22/21 18/35s(1)
4-4: 40/04 1/35s(8); 31/13 16/35s(4); 22/22 18/35s(0)

Spoiler: Results

There's a:

• 25.37% chance of having even teams
• 34.51% chance of 1 skewness (either way)
• 19.89% chance of 2 skewness
• 11.43% chance of 3 skewness
• 6.17% chance of 4 skewness
• 1.83% chance of 5 skewness
• 0.46% chance of 6 skewness
• 0.23% chance of 7 skewness
• and 0.11% chance of 8 skewness.

As your own agent, you can either be a listed good player; turn a normal player into good; or turn a bad player into good. Roughly speaking, on average, you can add 1 point to any given match-up. With that, before accounting for weapon match-ups, you'll win 71.3% of games if you're pretty dominant but not overwhelmingly above the level of other players. Given that you have to win almost precisely that figure to stay at S+99, that almost sounds right...

This is all based on ridiculously flawed premises. I thought it might give some insight on what appears to be matchmaker-induced team imbalance but the results really don't seem realistic. I've already spent two hours on this, so whatever.

 

[Dessgeega]

At this point I think the people in this thread have put more combined thought into the matter than the developers did.

 

[Award]

Ahh, whatever. Let's try to assess this with good, hard mathematics. I'm going to give an estimate of how likely a battle is to be unfair or even virtually a foregone conclusion.

Spoiler: Intro

Let's say that, in a given lobby, there are 0-4 'good' players and 0-4 'bad' players (we can define what we mean by those skill levels later) with equal probability of any arrangement. The remaining players are fairly average. Notation below refers to total good and total bad players: 2-3 means a lobby with 2 superior squids and 3 who shouldn't really be there. 12/20 means Team A has 1 good player and 2 poorer ones, and Team B has 2 strong Inklings and no particularly weak links. s(n) is the difference in strength value between teams, where a good player has value 1, average 0, and bad -1. Things like 3/7 are probabilities, nothing to do with team composition.

Under the first spoiler below, I list all team match-ups with probabilities of each and how severely skewed these matches are. Skewed matches could be won by oppositely-skewed weapon match-ups, to a certain degree. The second spoiler sums the probabilities of different levels of skewedness and suggests what this feels like in-game, so you don't really have to look at the first spoiler; that's just my workings-out.

Spoiler: Maths

Spoiler: 0-X

0-0: 00/00 1s(0)
0-1: 01/00 1s(1)
0-2: 02/00 3/7s(2); 01/01 4/7s(0)
0-3: 03/00 1/7s(3); 02/01 6/7s(1)
0-4: 04/00 1/35s(4); 03/01 16/35s(2); 02/02 18/35s(0)

Spoiler: 1-X

1-0: 10/00 1s(1)
1-1: 11/00 3/7s(0); 10/01 4/7s(2)
1-2: 12/00 1/7s(1); 11/01 4/7s(1); 10/02 2/7s(3)
1-3: 13/00 1/35s(2); 12/01 12/35s(0); 11/02 18/35s(2); 10/03 4/35s(4)
1-4: 13/01 4/35s(1); 12/02 18/35s(1); 11/03 12/35s(3); 10/04 1/35s(5)

Spoiler: 2-X

2-0: 20/00 3/7s(2); 10/10 4/7s(0)
2-1: 21/00 1/7s(1); 20/01 2/7s(3); 11/01 4/7s(1)
2-2: 22/00 1/35s(0); 21/01 8/35s(2); 20/02 6/35s(4); 12/10 8/35s(0); 11/11 12/35s(0)
2-3: 22/01 3/35s(1); 21/02 9/35s(3); 20/03 3/35s(5); 13/10 2/35s(3); 12/11 18/35s(1)
2-4: 22/02 6/35s(2); 21/03 8/35s(4); 20/04 1/35s(6); 13/11 8/35s(2); 12/12 12/35s(0)

Spoiler: 3-X

3-0: 30/00 1/7s(3); 20/10 6/7s(1)
3-1: 31/00 1/35s(2); 30/01 4/35s(4); 21/10 12/35s(0); 20/11 18/35s(2)
3-2: 31/01 2/35s(3); 30/02 3/35s(5); 22/10 3/35s(1); 21/11 18/35s(1); 20/12 9/35s(3)
3-3: 31/02 3/35s(4); 30/03 2/35s(6); 22/11 9/35s(0); 21/12 18/35s(2); 20/13 3/35s(4)
3-4: 31/03 4/35s(5); 30/04 1/35s(7); 22/12 18/35s(1); 21/13 12/35s(3)

Spoiler: 4-X

4-0: 40/00 1/35s(4); 30/10 16/35s(2); 20/20 18/35s(0)
4-1: 40/01 1/35s(5); 31/10 4/35s(1); 30/11 12/35s(3); 21/20 18/35s(1)
4-2: 40/02 1/35s(6); 31/11 8/35s(2); 30/12 8/35s(4); 22/20 6/35s(2); 21/21 12/35s(0)
4-3: 40/03 1/35s(7); 31/12 12/35s(3); 30/13 4/35s(5); 22/21 18/35s(1)
4-4: 40/04 1/35s(8); 31/13 16/35s(4); 22/22 18/35s(0)

Spoiler: Results

There's a:

• 25.37% chance of having even teams
• 34.51% chance of 1 skewness (either way)
• 19.89% chance of 2 skewness
• 11.43% chance of 3 skewness
• 6.17% chance of 4 skewness
• 1.83% chance of 5 skewness
• 0.46% chance of 6 skewness
• 0.23% chance of 7 skewness
• and 0.11% chance of 8 skewness.

As your own agent, you can either be a listed good player; turn a normal player into good; or turn a bad player into good. Roughly speaking, on average, you can add 1 point to any given match-up. With that, before accounting for weapon match-ups, you'll win 71.3% of games if you're pretty dominant but not overwhelmingly above the level of other players. Given that you have to win almost precisely that figure to stay at S+99, that almost sounds right...

This is all based on ridiculously flawed premises. I thought it might give some insight on what appears to be matchmaker-induced team imbalance but the results really don't seem realistic. I've already spent two hours on this, so whatever.

Fantastic that you put int a lot of time crunching numbers on this - BUT - the one key flaw with that approach (you're not the first to apply actual probabilities & chances to win, there's a few elder conversations dating back quite a good many months where we were presuming the Elo system was in play.) The key flaw is not the overall numbers showing chance to win over a span of games. The problem observed within the game is the placement and sequencing of said odds. If we were to go purely off these odds, in a natural system it would work out fairly well, and if you are an average player (i.e. you're in your appropriate rank) you should end up with a 50/50 split. We'll take a player that really SHOULD be a B+ as a sample. That would imply they would be middle average for their rank and would thus have to win 50/50. In fact to Stay in B+ they would have to win precisely that over a sampling of 100 games. In that sampling you could assume there would be small clusters of wins, losses averaging out within every 10 games so they don't change ranks. But by the very nature of those numbers, the repeatable CONSECUTIVE lobbies with the exact same type of team compositions suggests something OTHER than the odds of those stats is what is being applied. Which is the root of the discussion.

What I mean is your numbers further point to the fact that something other than on organic system occurs, as the probabilities here would induce significantly more variance and "randomness" to what happens with team composition than is seen in practice - something overrides the randomness that should be occurring here.

I do understand due to people adjusting their behaviors and getting fatigued, etc for "stop playing after a few losses" etc - but the sheer number of people that adhere to that really hide the realities of the system. A lot of people bail out at the onset of one of the abnormal patterns rather than following it to the end but have a subjective memory that "I didn't experience this, it seems fair enough (oh and I stop playing every time anything happens in sequence.)" Technically to really examine this it should be "play for a fixed hour", win or lose, or two hours and then tally the results Interrupting the sequence for many means there's not many of us that have really played through the patterns to contribute, unfortunately :(

 

[Cuttleshock]

My thing wasn't likely to be too relevant to the thread itself to start with. It yielded some figures that I'd like to keep in the back of my own mind, mostly, as I like to go into things (rerolling with Spyke, capturing/attacking Pokémon, playing Ranked Battles) with at least a vague notion of the probabilities of success. I've got a 1/36 chance of getting a likely triple with Spyke, so I don't feel cheated until it's been that long. I've got a 63% chance of being placed in a fair-or-better team (with that stat, at least, I don't think I'm completely far off) in Ranked, so I don't feel cheated unless it feels like I'm disadvantaged much more than that implies. Which, of course, goes right back to what Award is arguing in the first place.

 

[Award]

My thing wasn't likely to be too relevant to the thread itself to start with. It yielded some figures that I'd like to keep in the back of my own mind, mostly, as I like to go into things (rerolling with Spyke, capturing/attacking Pokémon, playing Ranked Battles) with at least a vague notion of the probabilities of success. I've got a 1/36 chance of getting a likely triple with Spyke, so I don't feel cheated until it's been that long. I've got a 63% chance of being placed in a fair-or-better team (with that stat, at least, I don't think I'm completely far off) in Ranked, so I don't feel cheated unless it feels like I'm disadvantaged much more than that implies. Which, of course, goes right back to what Award is arguing in the first place.

Yep, it's exactly that. :)

FWIW, there's definitely some odd probabilities that happen in squads as well, odd sequences and streaks, but it doesn't seem to be directly related to what happens in solo, so I'm discounting most of what I see there from any analysis. I'm not saying squads is entirely a natural system either but I think the nature of the imbalances there results from different causes, and could partly be from a now small player base. I see a lot of repeat teams when squadding these days.

 

[mercenariez]

...

IDK what to say. There's a lot of subjective testimonial type stuff which could lend credence to a rigged system, but without any hard facts I can't convince myself of it (what exactly is the definition of everyone's "rigged system" anyway? I think this needs to be more specifically defined too).

There is SplatNet like I said which gives proof that the makers RECORD certain statistics, but no hard evidence that they use it for match making. I definitely FEEL like something is going on sometimes, but my feelings aren't facts. And when I review the facts carefully in this game, vs my feelings, all I see is me being biased in favour of myself when I lose, though in reality I did play like **** (and for everyone's information, you can still play like **** even if you lead the two teams in K/D), or bias in thinking I'm ultra l33t when I win, when actually my teammates carried me (lol), or the opponent team sucked.

Two new things I'd like to mention, which could be causing annoying fluctuation (i.e. long win streaks/lose streaks, or unusually unbalanced teams) are:

1) a lot of people get carried by their squads to their rank (FACT: play squads and you'll definitely see B/A people hanging out with triple S+ players lol), and 2) people rank scum.

These two facts will continue to make more people think the game is rigged until the makers do something about it. And I think there's a GOOD NUMBER of players who do this, I don't think it's ultra rare. This is coming from my actual experience in squads and from just my online gaming in general (too many cheaters in life lol). In a way, these players actually ARE rigging the system so it's no wonder why people think something smells fishy.

Also, I love cuttleshock's statistics since they show just how easily a team's skill can fluctuate probabilistically. A 30% chance that my team is slightly worse than the other team? Those are pretty high odds and can easily lead to long losing streaks despite me being an above average X rank player.

 

[Award]

IDK what to say. There's a lot of subjective testimonial type stuff which could lend credence to a rigged system, but without any hard facts I can't convince myself of it (what exactly is the definition of everyone's "rigged system" anyway? I think this needs to be more specifically defined too).

There is SplatNet like I said which gives proof that the makers RECORD certain statistics, but no hard evidence that they use it for match making. I definitely FEEL like something is going on sometimes, but my feelings aren't facts. And when I review the facts carefully in this game, vs my feelings, all I see is me being biased in favour of myself when I lose, though in reality I did play like **** (and for everyone's information, you can still play like **** even if you lead the two teams in K/D), or bias in thinking I'm ultra l33t when I win, when actually my teammates carried me (lol), or the opponent team sucked.

Two new things I'd like to mention, which could be causing annoying fluctuation (i.e. long win streaks/lose streaks, or unusually unbalanced teams) are:

1) a lot of people get carried by their squads to their rank (FACT: play squads and you'll definitely see B/A people hanging out with triple S+ players lol), and 2) people rank scum.

These two facts will continue to make more people think the game is rigged until the makers do something about it. And I think there's a GOOD NUMBER of players who do this, I don't think it's ultra rare. This is coming from my actual experience in squads and from just my online gaming in general (too many cheaters in life lol). In a way, these players actually ARE rigging the system so it's no wonder why people think something smells fishy.

Also, I love cuttleshock's statistics since they show just how easily a team's skill can fluctuate probabilistically. A 30% chance that my team is slightly worse than the other team? Those are pretty high odds and can easily lead to long losing streaks despite me being an above average X rank player.

I'd say the "I played like **** while leading the k/d for the lobby" is more feelings than facts too ;) While k/d isn't everything, if you're leading, or even top 3, you did something very right, while your teammates certainly didn't do the same something right. Granted they could have been throwing themselves at the tower endlessly, but if they weren't (and/or if you lost.) I think it's fairer to say that if you had high k/d you didn't suck. If you had bad k/d you might not have sucked if you were pushing the objective. If you had bad k/d AND didn't push the objective you sucked massively, and if you had good k/d but didn't touch the objective, lost, and not by a close match you also probably sucked :) I'm going to start with the assumption that that rarely applies to anyone who bothers to regularly post on Squidboards ;) If you had a bad k/d tried to push the objective but still lost, and not by a close match - what was your team doing?

Not that I want to encourage the ratio-seekers who abandon the objective in favor of looking good on the k/d stats, but that's the latter sort, the ones who didn't push the objective but had good k/d which is also poor play.

The rank scummers and the carried certainly contribute to it - BUT what that mostly contributes to is the available pool of players, whether they're good or poor players. But what it still tends not to answer is how you can consistently get those players on your team in successive matches on a regular basis, or how you can consistently not as soon as you seem to get "too low". It's all too common that I'll go from the 70, 80, 90 range, straight to the 8 range with successive matches with players that are likely the product of that on my team. I'll go to that last match with the acceptance that I'm going to derank. And then more times than not it suddenly changes and I get several matches in a row where I get the "real" players for the rank back to 40, 50, or 60 range at minimum. Except for those odd sweeps where it continues down to 8 of the rank BELOW (where I believe, in my theory, it somehow slated me to move down in rank, possibly in response to "something" in my play that was or was not happening, possibly as I tried various strategies to compensate for said teammates.)

See the thing is I experiment, if something isn't working with my teams I don't "stop playing" I try new strategies, try following teammates, try different weapons I haven't played in a while etc. It's certainly possible, if my theory is true, that while trying "new strategies" seems like a sound plan to adapt to teams and start winning matches, it could have a bolt on effect that instead registers as "playing worse" (because it is) and therefore schedules you to move down to the next rank since you're objectively playing worse trying odd gambits. If so that actually means the system would, accidentally, reward the "lone wolf" players who do their own thing and ignore the team, but punish players who experiment to better work with the team. Which seems un-Japanese but I think that's an unintended consequence.

I think you're overall right though. But that idea shares a common flaw with cuttleshock's, namely, that confirms that, randomly, you should be seeing these poor players on either team. Yet random odds don't favor consistently seeing them exclusively on one side or the other for long stretches. It still points back to something other than natural flow taking place.

 

[Hope]

Mindset doesn't fix teammates, unless we're talking Squads.




Every teammate is important to winning the game. Focusing on "me" is a necessity anyway, considering i'm the only constant variable when it comes to solo Ranked. All it leads to is matches where I go 13-5 and steadily move down to A+, not even counting the typical connection based point losses. Occasionally I get teams that are able to actually survive long enough to push/defend the objective, and that's what i'm counting on for Ranking up.

Good luck with your S+ 99 goal. I hope that the mindset method that you implement is able to work in all the types of random situations that arise in Ranked. I'm personally not going to pursue S+ 99 at any point.

As I said with my first post it's your mindset that is the problem. You can't change your teamates, so there is zero point in worrying about them. Focus on you and how you can improve, and how well you played each individual game. Who cares if you lose rank if you play well individually? This mindset, stopping caring about your rank and focusing instead on your performance, is how you actually climb. Not this "I can't fix my team" garbage.

 

[Flammie]

See it from all the other people's perspective from this, once you manage to get to S+ rank, you will achieve something barely 90 - 95% of the community may never reach, and you will feel extremely great after beating this "stacking machine".

I do share your feelings though.

But in the end when it happens, you are going to have the greatest of feelings inside of you:

 

[Award]

Just an update after playing some more solo ranked on the alt (being doing TW and squads for a few days since my last update) - the alt is still "trapped" in A after being shot down from A+ 70-somthing.

The same all-too-predictable pattern has not changed so far. Started the day at A57. Lost the majority of rounds in RM, even taking midrange shooters despite them not being my specialty to be more all-purpose and a better escort (and have faster RM swim speed). Kept screenshots of how bad many of these rounds were - rounds where I had k/d's of 12/6 or so and my teammates were 2/8, 3/14, etc (admirable if it was a push for the RM, not so admirable if it was a never ending sequence of team wipes or partial team wipes while the RM sat unshielded unless I picked it up. Rounds where I pushed the RM to 30-something only to see the lead lost in the last 1:30 or lost to a KO. My favorite: The round were I was the only one on my team that got any kills at all. AND I was the one carrying the RM.

Then map change to TC - I switched back out to my specialty, chargers. Won 2 or 3 tightly contested games, (average difficulty proper balance), then back to the streak. 98-3....the 2pts were from when I got on the tower and then had to jump off due to riding toward the guarded Museum enemy base...alone. Nobody else got on the tower at all. Ever. Somtimes I lead k/d, but since I was the designated tower rider (with a splatterscope....) in most rounds I wasn't always the best k/d. Then when down to A6 the sudden reversal. I start winning every round, mostly by KO, and my teams are amazing, bolting out of the gates without me, right to the tower, and I have little to do but clean up the stragglers and help them push - often discovering that when I'm done taking out a flanker the tower's WAAY inside the enemy base already and I race over to help reinforce it's push to KO. Polar opposite teams. Everybody gets double digit kills. I played up to A51, 6 pts below where I started and ended it on a good note before some sudden reversal kicked in. Given the sequence I possibly could have ridden that wave to the 70's or 80's before it would reverse me again.

Ultimately none of the games were too fun except the 2-3 balanced games. Fast losses or frustrating upsets as nobody defends my earned lead aren't fun, and 1:30 wins by your other teammates landing rapid KO's and dominating isn't so fun either. I had more fun following up with TW where the matches were tough but not impossible (and I somehow lead the KD on the almost-spawncamping team side with a C+, B-, A- team against S+, S, S, A-. I'll presume they were weapon experimenting.)

This pattern is not in any way random. There is something that is directing the team building beyond randomness. Given the liklihood that it's driven by player metrics, whether it's fixing players to a specified rank as it seems, or whether it's simply player metrics based on certain play styles that makes it (consistently?) wrongly bundle players together there is a very non-random deterministic element in the team building or matchmaking. The only two possibilities are this is something that affects EVERY player at some point and some don't notice because they haven't looked or haven't played into the trends enough sequential rounds to see the pattern, or it is something that does not affect all players equally. IF it is not something that affects all players equally, then we can presume something about some players playstyle or metrics is what triggers this to occur either by design or flaw. The theory I've already stated here is that it's by design and flaw together. A design that works well if it assesses your play correctly, but shows big cracks if it errs in assessing play, and possibly has SPECIFIC weak points in assessing certain players where certain play styles or players that prioritize certain elements (turfing for example) might make their value look lower.

I get the people saying "just play through it and improve etc, etc." But If you can get so good you can beat the odds and get correctly "placed" or just carry your team, then yeah, that's going to work, and some of you probably can do that (i.e. you might have these losing teams but be so good you can carry them alone anyway, I've seen some rounds were the enemy team wasn't so hot but had one super amazing player that still crushed us - so you might not notice that you have this problem, but that doesn't mean that's not a problem. One shouldn't need to be able to crush S+99's to get to A+30 or even S30.) But be that as it may, random issues and "not being good enough" etc doesn't cause fairly repeatable patterns to occur in a system that's not supposed to have established patterns. If you can beat the odds of the inorganic system, YAY! But it's still an inorganic system, and not quite the competition it presents itself to be (speaking solely of solo ranked - competitive splatoon in private battles is of course a proper competition.)

 

[Zet4Dragon]

The worst part of stackers, are the ones with chargers, but one thing i've noticed is that those guys are mainly japanese. I have not seen many American/European/Austrilian Splatooners do it.
It's makes me so mad!!

 

[blu]

Yeah, ranked can be kinda annoying when it comes to moving up the ladder. B+ was brutal. It was like I was in a time loop of despair cycling though winning, losing by wipe, disconnected winning match, losing streak, losing streak, win, disconnect streak, disconnect streak...

Thank god I'm outta there. Who would've thought a splat zones round on Piranha Pit would break the cycle!

It almost happened again this morning too. I was on some really great, dominant teams, that made A- a breeze then on my last match before I rank up, the server decides to put me on the consistent losing team...

I was like, "nope" and backed out into another lobby which gave me the win I needed. Here's to A rank. Fingers crossed.

Ranked battle is tough, but it has to give in eventually. Hang in there!

 

[MeTaGross]

I just had to skip the last several posts so I could share my opinion on the matter.

It is not rigged. If you are in the S ranks at all, then you win more battles than you lose, right? You could not reach S with a negative win/loss ratio, so you have to win more than you lose. The problem is, we are always thinking short-term, because we are human. If you want to actually reach a higher rank, then you need to focus on your wins more than your losses. You can look at this the way you are: "I always lose so many battles in a row!" or you can look at it like this: "I made it all the way to S and I can stay here!" If you want to rank up, take breaks after a win or several wins, I find I play the best after several week breaks from the game.

If you are dead set on ranking right now, now, now, then try a different style of play. Try new weapons, use your sub more, be less aggressive. I have found that focusing on placing as many beacons as possible in strategic places can be a great way to win. My favorite weapon a few months ago was the .96 deco, then the luna blaster, then the e-liter, then the squelchers, and I still try to use different weapons.

To sum it up, keep trying new things, and keep trying. I made it to S+ last month after months of trying, and then I only won one or two battles with several losses, but it came from me winning one or two battles and then stopping for the day (or playing turf war). My point is, it is going to take some time, so don't blame the game or your teammates, just try to improve little by little, and don't give up.