More food for matchmaking thought...
Today my youngest son wasn't happy because he kept on losing. He's an A-, and has been for a few months. I felt bad because he's young, and I said I'd play on his account to get him back up 30-40 points.
And ... when I played I was repeatedly put on the weaker team, massively weaker team, all the way down to B+ 48. The opposing teams were organised, mine were not. The opposing teams splatted really well, mine not so much. It was hard to get the better of them all by myself. I had to play harder than I do in average S/S+ games just for my teams to have a chance. What hope did my young son have at winning these games? That's just mean. Then suddenly it all shifted, like a switch was flipped, and I got him back up to A- 54. I wouldn't say it was an easy winning streak but my teams were good enough to win.
Just reinforcing in my mind that something is severely broken or there is an agenda...
So much like my experiences I felt like hitting something while reading it.... :( It's possible you just got the alt accounts rising up the ranks, there seems to be a lot of them, IMO, I keep seeing in TW people that are "C+" or "B-" or "A-" That play like, or better than, the S players I frequently encounter. I keep thinking "how could I lose so much to this guy, he's lower rank than I am!!" But I can't hit him at all, and he hits me a lot. It's been more and more frequent. With "Proper" A's I can hold my own in a balanced match. Against a team of S's I can ALMOST but not quite hold my own if well supported by a good team. Against a single S+ I'm history. I kept getting these "B-" players that acted like S and S+ players (TW) today.
There's also the issue, at least in TW, but I've seen the same in Ranked, that when there's "that one player" that dominates, the system NEVER moves that player to a different lobby. That's probably part of it. I had a string of TW games with the same Octobrush that went 12/2 almost every game. The 2 splats against came from me, and I'd end up with a team that went 0/6, 0/3, 9/3 and myself 4/4. Why would the system endlessly leave a player that's clearly not matched for the room?
Here's an interesting, and scary, thought. What if there actually IS no rank system? I.E. what if it's just an RNG grind that favors rising up the ranks if you keep grinding it? It calcluates strings of losses, strings of wins, but favors moving upward if you just grind it out as long as you don't blow it yourself with bad playing? That could explain why a lot of S players complain about really bad S players making noob mistakes, and really good players in the lower ranks. The dedicated good players are the only ones that will likely spend as much time grinding as it takes to actually get to the top, so it would give the apearance of a real rank system? That's prpobably not it, but it was a thought that popped into my head. I imagine sick mind games with RNGs from Nintendo.
@Holidaze imagines orange and black beaks on inklings. We all have our fettishes. ;)
The other thought that occurred to me. These excellent players with almost perfect, inhumanly perfect aim. Especially the ones with Japanese names. How do we know they're real players and not AI bots to fill in the empty lobbies? That would explain how they're super-human. Maybe they ARE. A lot of shooters have the option to add bots for team VS. games or to fill in empty slots. What if Nintendo does it server side, but the AI is a little TOO good? Again, I doubt it, but it's a thought that crossed my mind.
Was the sudden change a new lobby, or even the same lobby?
I've been noticing more and more the lag factor. And it's getting worse and worse (we're talking, you see the ink trail draw outward for no reason, then a second later you hear and see the seeker go by, then you see the inkling splat you.)
There used to be a lot of ruckus about "The Japanese abuse the lag!" and "The lag is rigged in favor of the Japanese." There might be accidental truth to this.
I doubt the Japanese are intentionally abusing the bad netcode (maybe some players are), but more skilled players are likely to make many inputs and move in very random directions very fast, like zigzaging rollers going in an almost purely random orbit. The problem is not only does this amplify the lag issue by having that much more data to move at that much faster intervals (with possibly multiple direction changes within the latency window of a single datagram) but the bad netcode is only ok at predicting straight line movement. Direction changes aren't within it's realm of prediction so it usually gets them wrong. That's how you end up with the same person jumpinig off the same ledge 3 times when in fact they never jumped off at all and are still shooting from atop. The algorithm predicted at their rate, velocity, and direction, they'd be jumping off the ledge. It never calculated they'd zig, then zag, then circle, then shoot off the ledge. So even when you see your zigzagging opponent, jumping like a bunny, yo're only seeing the PREDICTION of where they PROOBABLY are, not where they REALLY are. I was using eliter today. Doing GREAT in a lot of rooms. 6/0, 5/1, 9/0, 11/0, 10/2. Had a fun sniper rivalry with a Japanese sniping noob where we'd just 1v1 on underpass at the start of each mission ,missing most times, squidbagging when we'd hit, and booyeahing. It was a blast when we were on the same team. Then I'd get a room where I'd keep hitting the zigzggers and bunny hoppers.... Now, I'm getting kind of decent at sniping....flick shots....I don't even release the trigger, I flick and feather it and BOOM. I'm not a GREAT sniper, but the sniping tricks of the trade are starting to become more natural (except when I fail and miss.)
But I'd keep hitting them, but no "hit sound". Numerous times. Several shots I KNEW should have hit. It felt right for a hit. Yett missed. Almost every shot missed. Then I saw some teleportation later. And it all clicked. These super players that are masters of dodging and evasion and play superhuman....they're not playing superhuman at all. They're, intentionally or not ,abusing the lag and bad netcode in a way that makes them nearly invincible to any accurate weapon!
