Splatoon 2 Why I think ranked is broken!

[ComputerBot2016]

Yesterday evening I did an hour and a half session of tower control, and for the first time in Splatoon 2 I ranked down (A- to B+). This was near the start of the session so I ended up spending the rest of it desperately trying to rank up again. But it made me realise just how awful and generally unfair the ranking system is in this game.


I realised that although your rank is supposed to represent your personal skill level, it’s determined by how well your team plays overall. So even if you play really well and make good progress with the objective or get lots of kills/assists but your teammates are either afk or playing badly, your rank is going down and there’s nothing you can do about it. It also works the other way round, if your on a team with really great players but you play really badly, you’ll gain rank arguably undeservedly, assuming your team wins. So by this logic, rank is pretty much based on the game’s ability to pick teams, which kinda defeats the point of having a ranked system at all.


I feel Nintendo would be wise to implement a better ranking system that takes into account the individual player’s actions more than the outcome of the match.


Maybe these thoughts are just the result of being salty from ranking down and having to work back up for an hour, but I’m curious as to what you guys think about the ranking system.

Also hi, I’m new here. please forgive me if I’ve missed some detail about ranking that is common knowledge

 

[LiX]

Welcome to Squidboards, mate. And nope, you did not miss any details. It's really that crazy. But I'm optimistic that it will get better and I'll tell you why.

Arguably, doing ranked in A rank lobbies is an awful experience for new, but rather talented players. Because here, you have squids who play decent enough to deserve to be there and go up even further and you have squids who do bugger all, afk mid game and were just carried to A- by luck. The only advice I can give you here is: Live through it. Once you leave A, it gets a bit better.

Not a lot though! Recently, S+ lobbies are often just an annoyance. Either it's Nintendo's great and awesome matchmaking that puts a bunch of S+50 players in the enemy team and gives you silly S+0ers who grinded their way there. Or it's a mess because in the final minute, a teammate decides to disconnect. You lose your lead and depite the dc, you get a crack anyway. Very salt inducing.
And then there's still the afk'ers, of course. I often wonder how they get into S+. If you cannot be sure that you can sit 5 minutes undisturbed in front of your TV screen, don't start a game.

You're right when you say that your rank should mirror your personal skill level and not how lucky you got with having good teammates. Then again, Splatoon 2 is a game for teamplay. So carrying is bound to happen.

Why will it get better? Because Rank X, that's why. I'm sure you've heard of it. Rank X will work based on a power score, much like a league score right now. And I have very minor hopes that this score may also account for how well you did. The 7 calculation matches in league seem to do this anyway. When you get unlucky with C- teammates but do well yourself, it seems to account for it and give you score in the end for doing well, despite being outmanned.

Let's hope Rank X does this, too.

 

[ComputerBot2016]

Is that how rank X is going to work? It sounds like a much better system from what you described. Mind you, don’t you need to get to S+50 (or similarly high S+ rank) to make it to rank X? Still, it gives me some hope for the future of ranked.

Thanks

 

[Mar$el]

Is that how rank X is going to work? It sounds like a much better system from what you described. Mind you, don’t you need to get to S+50 (or similarly high S+ rank) to make it to rank X? Still, it gives me some hope for the future of ranked.

Thanks

Once you get to S+10 you'll be put into X rank where it works like League matches with power level rather than a bar to fill up. and as for ranked, honestly you're just gonna have to live through it. The game has to give lower level players than you, a chance to play with you so that they can get better. But yeah in S+ I don't really notice anyone just going afk for a little in the middle of a match unless they're disconnecting. Still get mad either way though... It sucks but it just happens and there's really nothing you can do about it except to get better at the game and carrying when needed. To be honest the rank system is pretty forgiving anyway so sometimes I think of the unfair matches as offset matches to make it more difficult. Not that they necessarily are but eh. I don't know you just have to live through it I guess...

 

[ComputerBot2016]

Yeah, it’ll certainly take lots of time and patience for me to grind up to S+10, especially for each mode (2xA- and 2xB+). But doing so will hopefully be worth it.

 

[Spaceswitchmars]

Really, the entire rank system should be power levels. I don't get why we have a letter rank at all. Heck, Mario Kart has worked on a power level system since the Wii era.

 

[The Salamander King]

Yeah, the A ranks are in an unfortunate spot. In C and B, nobody knows what they're doing, so if you're good you'll just hard carry your way up. In the S ranks, people generally know how to play the game, so you can rely on your team a lot more. A rank is stuck in that "I kinda know what I'm doing but I'm still pretty bad" zone where there is usually only one good player in the lobby. Hard carrying is difficult because the enemy actually knows what's going on, but hard to defend because nobody is competent enough to do so effectively.

 

[ComputerBot2016]

Yeah, the A ranks are in an unfortunate spot. In C and B, nobody knows what they're doing, so if you're good you'll just hard carry your way up. In the S ranks, people generally know how to play the game, so you can rely on your team a lot more. A rank is stuck in that "I kinda know what I'm doing but I'm still pretty bad" zone where there is usually only one good player in the lobby. Hard carrying is difficult because the enemy actually knows what's going on, but hard to defend because nobody is competent enough to do so effectively.

A ranks have been pretty awful for me. It took me about a week to get to A+ in all modes (bar Clam Blitz). Tower control and rainmaker weren’t too bad, but splat zones was a constant cycle of retaining A rank right before the meter made it to A+. Hopefully the S ranks will be better.