A lot of people say this, but it's not true. It very much is possible to be unlucky enough to get 10+ bad teams in a row. It's a well known fact some people get lucky and will get carried to S rank when they should be in something like B+, so naturally the opposite happening is not only a possibility, but a guarantee.
Agreed that @WydrA might be using a little hyperbole. You're right, even if you get carried to a rank you won't stay there long if you don't play at that level. HOWEVER, while those players are there before dropping out they mess up the rank pretty severely. My favorite-to-mention A, A+, S Gold Aerospray teammates who shoot at zones from a sniper perch. Not just one. I've seen that numerous times. You can't tell me that someone in those ranks that thinks shooting at a zone from a sniper perch with an aerospray actually should be in that rank and isn't essentially, a disconnect. They got there SOMEHOW and it wasn't through skill ;) So not only is the luck factor favoring some people who are REALLY awful players to move up, but it must be equally favoring players who aren't that unskilled to move down as a matter of balance. But worse once those two cross (players that moved above where they should, players that move down more than they should) they've skewed THOSE lobbies which force more in that direction.
Everybody always talks about being carried by S ranked friends to the high ranks. Why is it for me any time I squad at B+, A-, A, or A+ with one S, we get A- teammates and get all S/S+ opponents :p Squadding with higher rank friends are the fastest way to DERANK from what I've seen :D
yeah this is mostly what i was saying. Although the B+ comment wasn't entirely hyperbole. There are almost certainly people who are lucky enough to get carried into, and stay in S rank despite playing. If people can get struck by lighting several times in their lifetime, this isn't all that crazy lol.
I feel you, bro. one time the matchmaker really went haywire one me, and it just kept ranking me up each game despite me (mostly) losing. I ended up as a B+ in a couple S+ lobbies.
Award is talking about me here ;) It has been strange how consistently we are matched up against higher ranked teams, often with S+'s, even when he was an A-. Maybe the matchmaker thinks I'm just an incredibly amazing player and that S+'s are needed to defeat me! (Not.)
That one's a little harder to picture. I can imagine them getting lucky and GETTING to S, but staying there would be pretty difficult. I really lack faith in my own ability to stay in S let alone a genuine B+ that got carried there. Often enough, like yesterday, the A's are filled with obvious alts, so the A's tend to play at genuine S/S+ level sometimes. And genuine B+ would have a hard time with that I'm pretty sure. Though I figure if someone like me is consistently unfavored by the matchmaker, it's probably true that someone else is probably consistently favored to balance it. Maybe you're right after all!
Yeah...hopefully after 2.6 that won't happen. Though it doesn't solve what I'm seeing as an ever more rampant alt scene. Either the meta is really moving the ranks downward and the skill levels upward, or there's a boatload of alts plaguing sub-S ranks which is throwing the whole thing off even for when we have 2.6.
LOL, yeah :p And thanks :) The matchmaker has cursed you, but it's twice-cursed me. I attract the S's and S+'s in solo queue too
That'll be fixed in 2.6 (or maybe already has been - I saw only A/A-/A+ in the a lobbies yesterday, no S's, no B+'s) But unfortunately they were loaded with alts. Either A-'s now play at the same level that S+ did a few months ago (and S+ is a whole new level?) or there's a whole lot of S+ alts (and even more S alts) at A- right now. Or there's not a lot and the matchmaker just pairs me against them exclusively I've seriously seen numerous S's that were easier for me to totally stomp than the supposed A-'s I was playing yesterday. I'm familiar with the difference in S and S+ level play S's I can generally take on 1v1. S+'s I generally can not, but sometimes can, the weaker ones. Last week in solo queue I was taking on teams of 2 (genuine) S's without any on my A+/A- team and winning. Yesterday I could barely touch some of these "A-" players. I didn't have bad teams, I didn't have to 1v4. We all played very well! But we were just overly outplayed, and it was always the same 1 or 2 players at the end on the other team with the double digit kills. Always the "new" player with the low level. (lv16, lv22 "A-" etc. Or the handful of 40-50lv high level "A-" players with a clan tag.) My bad luck matchmaking applies to TW too though, and always has. (Saturday I had the lv6, B+, A- team. Opponents? S, S, S, S.) :D
I still can't fathom people going through the gyrations needed for savescumming. I know people do it, but I just can't imagine it. In addition to cheating, it just sounds so slow and annoying. I'm too impatient for that :D
I'm glad to hear I'm not the ONLY one this happens to. There's so many players it DOESN'T happen to that you start feeling crazy when seeing it so often. Any ranking system that makes you play 2-3 ranks above your rank just to stay where you are has been pretty broken. At least it can sort itself out over time after 2.6. But I still wish there was a way to deal with the alt problem. When playing with REAL S+'s at least your point totals when losing reflect it. When losing against fake S+'s pretending to be A's you lose full points.
@jsilva are you seeing this? Someone suggesting equalizing the numbers of players in each pool for the good of the game. If only a system existed to load balance the lobbies by forcing some players to move upward or downward toward the underpopulated pool as needed, based on an undetermined criteria.
Not creating S- was a weird choice to begin with. The only viable reason is simply their knowledge that there were not enough players overall. Though I think we already have the situation where S players are pushed back into the A's often enough. The good ones earn it back, the bad ones don't. I really don't have as much faith in "getting carried by squads" that a lot of others do. Scummers maybe, but squad carries just seem unlikely with the matchmaker's penchant for high level matching. From what I tend to see, if a player is getting "carried" to S, they were "carried" while playing S/S+ matches. I'm not sure that counts as getting "carried" unless the rest of their team is able to 3v4. On the contrary I feel more like I get "carried" (as the high rank player) when I play with lower rank people, not that I'm carrying them. The lobbies tend to be more balanced rather than stacked with top tier players. Maybe my experience isn't the norm and the matchmaker just loathes me though. I wouldn't doubt that. :)
You know, you probably just answered a good chunk of my question regarding the alts and what's going on. If there's a trend to rank up each weapon that explains fully the cyclical nature of it. And unfortunately is' creating huge problems in conjunction with the awful points system. That makes a lot of sense. But it's a pretty disastrous problem for at least the B's & A's. Probably the C's too. It makes the difficulty move WAY up so that the majority of ranks are mostly playing at the same level. For me, it's more fun having good games like that no matter what rank I am than dealing with the clueless teams. But that's because I stopped caring about rank before dipping back into it so I just kind of cringe as I see my rank plummet and just keep on playing for fun like it's TW. For anyone that really cares and is trying to move up, that has to be *REALLY* unpleasant. For me, so long as there's squdiboards and good squadmates I really don't care if I'm a C+ - I'm only interested in how I'm playing not about the letter. It would be a problem if I were trying to get into a clan that mandated basic rank or something though (which I won't be doing.)
It's just me, but why do people really use alts in the first place? I would think it is much easier to try to level up and gain more good gear by staying on one account, while pounding new/weak players can't be that fun.
When you think about it it's actually a potentially effective way to balance the ranks in a floating system. By knocking players down in rank it reduces the amount of players who are not good enough to be in the rank, whether by undeserved winning streaks or a change of overall player skill. Extremely annoying for us, and perhaps the system (assuming that's what it's doing) overcompensates as well.
I'm sure plenty of people do it for fun, whether it be to feel good about themselves for being so good with the lower ranks or just for a challenge to see how fast they can climb the ranks. I'm sure there are other reasons too.
