S- Rank

[kunoichi squid]

Sometimes ranked mode just drives me crazy!

I totally agree! :(

 

[ReeSquidGig]

The points need to go up by 6, and down 6, depending on the points you've earned in the rank

 

[Ulk]

Ranks aren't something you're supposed to achieve like completing the story. They're meant to qualify you as a player compared to others. If somebody is in S+ but is rapidly dropping, it means he doesn't belong in S+ and should drop to a rank level that more accurately describes his true level of skill. Standards change. Back when the new ranks were introduced, it was a lot easier to become an S+ player than it is now. So if a player rightfully claimed his S+ title back then but can no longer uphold it today, he doesn't belong in S+ anymore.

On the other hand, I do not disagree with them allowing you to play ranked battle modes that have absolutely no influence on your rating though Squads. I think they should keep allowing people to merely play the modes just for fun rather than to increase their rank.

 

[ReeSquidGig]

Ranks aren't something you're supposed to achieve like completing the story. They're meant to qualify you as a player compared to others. If somebody is in S+ but is rapidly dropping, it means he doesn't belong in S+ and should drop to a rank level that more accurately describes his true level of skill. Standards change. Back when the new ranks were introduced, it was a lot easier to become an S+ player than it is now. So if a player rightfully claimed his S+ title back then but can no longer uphold it today, he doesn't belong in S+ anymore.

On the other hand, I do not disagree with them allowing you to play ranked battle modes that have absolutely no influence on your rating though Squads. I think they should keep allowing people to merely play the modes just for fun rather than to increase their rank.

I know exactly what you are talking about, I've lost my s+ three times, but... I've been in s for over 1 year, but on and off..

 

[Dark.Pch]

The way it is now is fine. You get about half the points you receive from ranks below S. You so actually do get more chances to stay in S rank. One of the main problems I feel people have is that they tend to go in alot and not really check the area. Or if your teammates are down, you should hold your position until they come back. Going in trying to kill more then one target at once or running into turf that is cover with enemy ink is gonna get you splatted. Too exposed. There is also things like if you are in squid mode and you see an enemy, you should not just go in shooting unless you can get a kill, or else you are open, the enemy gets away then you have like 1-2 people coming after you and you get splatted. It's not work the effort if you can not shoot and quickly get your shots for the kill. If you miss your shots, don't case the person and just either hold your spot or go near a teammate and back them up.

I main the squelchers series. I have been learning and got better with the snipers. And tend to use the splattershot if I feel I have to be a bit aggressive and get to one spot quickly to do a certain task to help the team reach the objective. I have hit S rank about 4 times. And I have only done that with the squelchers. For solo rank, I decided to play these weapons cause people tend to run into danger and not think or be patient. And the team just falls apart. The way I play with the weapons makes it easier to pick up after peoples reckless mistakes. Or back them up to get things done. It's hard doing this though cause I have to be patient and know when its the right time to go in and the right time to sit back. And these weapons are not good up close. and if I can't ambushed, I really can't fight back well.

Over all, I don't think the ranking system needs to change. I do however feel the way points are dished out needs to change. It's not consistent at all and I hate how you are about to rank up and you get points that force you to play another game before you rank up.

 

[mercenariez]

Why does Splatoon lump together low S and high S players, as well as low S+ and high S+ players?

Theoretically, an S player should be fairly well matched against another S player. That is to say that the game should be such that "one S player is roughly even in skill to another S player."

This is NOT the case in Splatoon. The reason being in low S you gain 5 but lose 5, yet in high S you gain 4 but lose 6! (And in S+ it's +4 -4 lumped with people who can gain as little as 2 but lose 6!).

What that means is there is a tremendous skill gap between low S players and high S players, as well as an even greater gap between low S+ players and high S+ players!

It's simple mathematics: it's about win %. A low S player can stay in S while maintaining a lower win %, while a high S player has a much higher win % but stays in S as well!

This is why A+ is so much easier than S. A+ players actually ARE similar in skill level because the point system is consistent throughout the rank. However, in S and S+ rank, it changes midway and near the higher end (see https://splatoonwiki.org/wiki/Rank for specific numbers).

If you look at the link above, S rank is actually therefore subdivided between three skill levels, not just one! Furthermore, AFAIK, and as far as I can tell, all S players randomly play with each other regardless of low/mid/high S rank.

What this means is an S 30 player can be matched up against an S 90 player (lol). And don't even get me started on S+ 30 vs S+ 99 gods.

They could fix this by keeping the point system consistent throughout one rank. That way players won't feel so overwhelmed in S. At S it could be like +4 -5 for the whole rank.

Note: If S+ is going to be the last rank then there's no real way to fix the skill gap at the highest level, EXCEPT if they organize matchmaking within S+ with raw win % I guess. Like 60%-69% win rates vs 60%-69%, 70-79%, and so on.

Two other problems are savescumming and squad carrying to S, which are simple fixes. Just don't allow for them! Lol.

 

[DavAndrus]

If anything is wrong with ranked it's that too many people end up in S. They need to make it harder to advance in B and A. I'm bad and I got to S, simply by playing ranked enough. We don't need a S- we need A rank to mean something.

 

[Mikaya]

There's not really a massive leap skill-wise from A+ to S. I don't really see the point of an S- rank, doesn't make much sense. If you play like a low S then you will probably rank up/down a lot from A+ to S. If you're an average/high S player, you should be able to maintain your rank. Adding an S- rank wouldn't make much of a difference, it's just another rank to climb if it did exist (meaning slightly more work in the long run).

 

[Dessgeega]

Currently A+ is purgatory, where rising As and falling Ss meet. All an additional rank would do is move this scenario over a notch.

 

[Ceresbane]

If your rank couldn't go down, it would defeat the purpose of having a ranking system.

^
But I think the real solution is an overhaul on how rankings work.

e.g. instead of win/lose
give a higher priority on points. And wins giving a minor bonus and losses a minor demerit.

Why? Because the RNG nature of teammates doesn't make win/lose anywhere near to fair on paper. This only works on games like fighting games or mario kart. Because it 1v1 or 1v all.

This however is team vs team. So you should prioritize contributions as a team member than win/lose.

So basically stats like K/D, turf coverage, points gain, time in-game (how long you didn't die). Should all contribute to your ranking score. I mean if you do the above really high. You naturally win anyway. But even if you lost but contributed alot (like way more than the other team as individuals), then that should be rewarded.

 

[Dessgeega]

^
But I think the real solution is an overhaul on how rankings work.

e.g. instead of win/lose
give a higher priority on points. And wins giving a minor bonus and losses a minor demerit.

Why? Because the RNG nature of teammates doesn't make win/lose anywhere near to fair on paper. This only works on games like fighting games or mario kart. Because it 1v1 or 1v all.

This however is team vs team. So you should prioritize contributions as a team member than win/lose.

So basically stats like K/D, turf coverage, points gain, time in-game (how long you didn't die). Should all contribute to your ranking score. I mean if you do the above really high. You naturally win anyway. But even if you lost but contributed alot (like way more than the other team as individuals), then that should be rewarded.

...I don't even know where to start with this, but it does make it abundantly clear you have yet to actually play Splatoon. I mean, amount of personal turf coverage is irrelevant in half the modes, and time in-game doesn't matter when Quick Respawn exists and the respawn timer is so short even without it. Even a great k/d ultimately doesn't matter in the decision for victory or defeat. And that's not even considering any potential ranking of Salmon Run!

There's too many factors and differing game modes for your idea to work. And this sounds uncomfortably close to enabling people to blame teammates for losses, which is never a cool thing to do.

 

[Ceresbane]

...I don't even know where to start with this, but it does make it abundantly clear you have yet to actually play Splatoon. I mean, amount of personal turf coverage is irrelevant in half the modes, and time in-game doesn't matter when Quick Respawn exists and the respawn timer is so short even without it. Even a great k/d ultimately doesn't matter in the decision for victory or defeat. And that's not even considering any potential ranking of Salmon Run!

There's too many factors and differing game modes for your idea to work. And this sounds uncomfortably close to enabling people to blame teammates for losses, which is never a cool thing to do.

except its not because its about individual contributions because win/loss is a bonus, not a deciding factor for rank up or down.

But you do have a point there. A solution would be simply to have a ranking on each mode (no its not that hard)

 

[Dessgeega]

Yes, it IS that hard, they wouldn't bother with the extra coding when the current system where win/loss is the deciding factor regardless of mode works decently enough.

 

[Ceresbane]

Yes, it IS that hard, they wouldn't bother with the extra coding when the current system where win/loss is the deciding factor regardless of mode works decently enough.

You really have think what decently enough means. And no. It isn't that hard to overhaul a UI, add in a few scripts for making numbers go up and down upon triggering certain flags during gameplay. Its one of the first things you learn for games programming. If Iwata were alive, he'd have the code done in 30 minutes (prolly 10 if his rep about pokemon stadium is any indication).

Like the said, the core issue is RNG of team-based ranked. Its never been a perfect system, because it was never meant for that format of competition. I know people celebrating their S+ status because some matches they feel they've been carried on the way but don't care because they reached the coveted rank S+.

This implies some slack can be had on the way to the supposed player thats a cut above the rest. Whether thats okay for the playerbase is a socially subjective thing.

But as a fair measurement of actual player skill (the point of ranks in the first), its completely exploitable to a degree.

 

[Dessgeega]

Completely exploitable? You're talking about your idea, right? If winning and losing aren't the primary factor in determining rank, you'd have people helping each other cheese the system by avoiding death, constantly repainting the same piece of ground, and so on. You talk of "adding a few scripts" while also speaking of RNG, which discounts the hours and hours of programming that went into the matchmaking system. That can easily be looked up. Overwatch, League of Legends, and countless other team-based games use a similar system to Splatoon's where wins and losses are the prime factor, are you seriously telling me ALL of these games have got it wrong?

And engaging in hyperbole doesn't help your point. Iwata needed a week to cram already-existing assets into Pokemon Gold and Silver, even he couldn't create and playtest netcode that quickly.

 

[Goolloom]

You really have think what decently enough means. And no. It isn't that hard to overhaul a UI, add in a few scripts for making numbers go up and down upon triggering certain flags during gameplay. Its one of the first things you learn for games programming. If Iwata were alive, he'd have the code done in 30 minutes (prolly 10 if his rep about pokemon stadium is any indication).

Like the said, the core issue is RNG of team-based ranked. Its never been a perfect system, because it was never meant for that format of competition. I know people celebrating their S+ status because some matches they feel they've been carried on the way but don't care because they reached the coveted rank S+.

This implies some slack can be had on the way to the supposed player thats a cut above the rest. Whether thats okay for the playerbase is a socially subjective thing.

But as a fair measurement of actual player skill (the point of ranks in the first), its completely exploitable to a degree.

You do know Nintendo had an update to fix the "RNG" of the team selection and that it would make teams according to the weapons equipped, right? Sure you may get crappy team comps in one game, but that's just because 98% of people playing in solo ranked go "every man for himself" and do the best to be self sustainable because it's so unpredictable of what team you can get. It's not RNG, it's just most people going with a mindset to carry, and not play as a team in solo ranked because there is no way you can get 4 random people you have never even interacted with before to play as a unit and a real team. That's just how it is. That's why Squad Battles are a thing.

Problem with overhauling the ranking system (not just the User Interface) would be to decide when to trigger said flags. How would one determine if he did good by not dying? What is "efficient turf coverage"?. It would be a bit too complicated to have 15 things that could affect your rank. Like Dessgeega said, people would just cheese the system either way.

 

[Ceresbane]

Completely exploitable? You're talking about your idea, right? If winning and losing aren't the primary factor in determining rank, you'd have people helping each other cheese the system by avoiding death, constantly repainting the same piece of ground, and so on. You talk of "adding a few scripts" while also speaking of RNG, which discounts the hours and hours of programming that went into the matchmaking system. That can easily be looked up. Overwatch, League of Legends, and countless other team-based games use a similar system to Splatoon's where wins and losses are the prime factor, are you seriously telling me ALL of these games have got it wrong?

And engaging in hyperbole doesn't help your point. Iwata needed a week to cram already-existing assets into Pokemon Gold and Silver, even he couldn't create and playtest netcode that quickly.

Exactly the same can be argued with win/loss for exploiting.

Now unless private lobbies don't contribute to rank. You can easily exploit your win/loss via a team of 8 people grinding it out over and over in a private lobby, team/player swapping won't make a difference as they're all in on it. You can do the same kind of exploits but require to do a bucket list of more things. With my system, what I'm pitching here is the scoring system contributed with synergy with various factors of gameplay (think simply, the ranking system of ff15 for exp and AP gained). To maximize point gain, you'd need to play with high quality. Sure you can certainly grind a single factor. But its far less exploitable than throwing or having a match thrown for you, since factors aren't so binary as win or loss.

Another simple solution would also be a hard cap gain on each factor (don't go around speaking about hyperbole if you're gonna use the same thing).

And just because other games do it doesn't mean its the best system. Its simply the easiest to implement, it is by no means the fairest since its not so simple to measure a player rank (accurately) with a team-based win/loss.

 

[Dessgeega]

Exactly the same can be argued with win/loss for exploiting.

Now unless private lobbies don't contribute to rank. You can easily exploit your win/loss via a team of 8 people grinding it out over and over in a private lobby, team/player swapping won't make a difference as they're all in on it. You can do the same kind of exploits but require to do a bucket list of more things. With my system, what I'm pitching here is the scoring system contributed with synergy with various factors of gameplay (think simply, the ranking system of ff15 for exp and AP gained). To maximize point gain, you'd need to play with high quality. Sure you can certainly grind a single factor. But its far less exploitable than throwing or having a match thrown for you, since factors aren't so binary as win or loss.

Another simple solution would also be a hard cap gain on each factor (don't go around speaking about hyperbole if you're gonna use the same thing).

And just because other games do it doesn't mean its the best system. Its simply the easiest to implement, it is by no means the fairest since its not so simple to measure a player rank (accurately) with a team-based win/loss.

This is where your inexperience with Splatoon really shows. Private battles have no effect on rank. There's no way to arrange a ranked battle where all 8 players are in on it, even a quad squad would have 4 random opponents who are guaranteed not to play along. Your entire argument is based on something that isn't correct. That right there reveals that you don't know what you're talking about. Likewise, you've been committing a cardinal sin of gaming, coming into a game with preconceptions and biases from another game (Guns of Icarus apparently) and expecting the new game to conform to those preconceptions.

Maybe actually play the game before proposing overhauls for it. As it stands, you're probably going to be crushed, defeated and confused when you try this out on launch day.

 

[Cyan]

Well one thing is you can't really compare RPGs (which I'm assuming based off of the mention to FF15) to a shooters, as they're completely different ball games, especially when one is more focused on being a single player offline experience and the other is about playing online multiplayer and co-operating with random players to win matches. That's like comparing a house with a hotel really, one is where you live and pay a lot of expenses with bills and you actively manage to keep in a clean and tidy state yourself, and the other you pay to stay there for a certain timespan and don't have to worry about utility bills, food (where it is included) and cleaning. It gives you two vastly contrasting objects and is trying to compare them like they work the same, even though that is wrong and will never give a justified argument for changing one to be more like the other.

As for the argument in general, Splatoon has worked with the current ranking system, with the only issue being as time went by people naturally ranked up who shouldn't have due to less players, lucky wins, getting carried etc. due to how the game did ranking with points being distributed. B through to A+ does +10/-10 for wins and losses, with +12/-8 for 0-30 and +8/-12 for 71-99 (100 being rank up). This initially worked at launch, where the max rank was A+99 and far more people played, as people got stuck in ranks that reflected their natural skill level (I was stuck in B for a while before getting to B+ and then A- at the 2.0.0 patch in August 2015 that added S and S+). As I stated, when people stopped playing (or played less frequently), it created skill gaps, so people who were firm Bs climbed a rank or 2 and the like (A- to A+, A to S, B- to B+ etc.), and this naturally got worse as time went on and more people dropped out. As this happened, the average skill level in each rank dropped, and people who were managing with a 55% win rate (where they climb up slowly, but then have a bad losing streak and stay in that rank) then start winning more against those who were pushed up with the skill vacuum, which in turn pushes more and more people up against others who clearly out-skill them, which then makes it worse and worse.

On top of that rank and level were stored on the Wii U save file, so we had save scummers who would load an old file they backed up if their rank dropped to effectively wipe out their losses, and then they got into ranks they didn't deserve which again pushes up others. Then we had Squad Battles where people who reach S/S+ would not have their ranks change, but anyone below that would, so then we had true S/S+ players helping their friends reach S/S+ by carrying them to A+99 (max it goes to in Squads), then getting a fluke win in their ranked match and hitting S. Now granted those players weren't staying in ranked, but just did squads afterwards and didn't harm it, although some did carry on into ranked and caused havoc with the S skill level. There are severe flaws in Splatoon's ranking system, but most can be fixed with the knowledge the devs have received from the way people played 1.

So yeah, the ranking system needs adjusting, but adding unnecessary flags and checks for whether you're actively contributing seem unnecessary, especially if (as mentioned earlier) people try exploiting them by inking turf and not going anywhere to fight to stay alive as a "contribution". Reminder that staying alive isn't a contribution if you lose map control and get pushed back and knocked out. Someone in Splatoon 1 could go 21-1, and lose their team the match because they weren't paying attention when the Rainmaker was pushing right past them and they ignored them for kills (which happens quite a lot in Rainmaker) or weren't paying attention. Then they basically get off scot-free from the loss of points because they game thinks they were the best contributor with kills, inking and not dying when their teammates could have been setting up pushes and getting 2 kills in a trade and earning points that would have won the game if the 21-1 player had stopped the push. See? It's situations like that where people get screwed unfairly with the points system if it worked with key flags. Meanwhile you could have a 2-10 player who pushed the objective a lot (which is a key flag, but 1 of 4 or 5) and caused distractions with their subs and specials which sets up an opportunity for their team to get the winning push and they get next to no points.

There are far too many roles to play in a shooter, you can be support, aggressive, defensive, all around or some other player who harasses the team and prevents them pushing forward. Combined with all different weapons and ways to work you can't fairly add markers without bad repercussions occurring.

The best way forward in Splatoon 2 is to keep the C- to S+ (no S-) ranks but make it tougher to rank up. S does +5/-5 then +4/-5 and finally +4/-6 at the top of the rank. If these sorts of points start at B+/A- with B and lower being the only +10/-10 standard ranks (C- and C being a little easier), then ranking up will require more wins, and thus more "skill". At the end of the day, skill is what determines your rank, but Splatoon 1 was a little too easy to rank up for most of the ranks. If you aren't ready for a rank, you know because you'll get crushed by the other teams nearly every match and drop down a rank immediately, and eventually you'll learn the skills to hold your own and earn the next rank. As for other improvements, Squads should have a separate rank where you can form a team that you invite people to and you can use that to squad together and the game has a "team rank" that starts at the average rank of the players in the team, and goes up and down based on wins/losses, but has no overall impact on individual player ranks. That stops the carrying aspect (save scumming should be gone based on the Switch not allowing save copying) and makes it so you have to earn your rank once more. S- doesn't need to exist, and if you couldn't lose points when you hit S and S+ ranked would become redundant as everyone will reach S+99, as well as people starting to troll and not play ranked properly and rage quitting etc.

Ridiculously long message, but had to consider many things and put forward a few mock up examples of why flags on certain performance points is a horrible idea for this game.