Evaluating Splatoon's Ranking System

Hi there! I'm happy sometime is trying to solve for this, but I don't think your model is right.

I'm not super great at math so I won't use formulas, but I'll try to show some nuance missed in this evaluation.

"In the steady state, we know that after each battle, the number of players being promoted to from C− to C must be the same as the number of players demoted from C to C−." This statement is untrue and skews the numbers to allow more players in C ranks than a steady state would create. Less players will fall because of the point creation in c ranks.

An important exclusion is how many matches are played at which point in the ranks. The reason the 8/12 and 6/14 matches matter is that the point creation from the win 3 lose 4 mechanic only happens at exactly 0. Any other number functions exactly the same as a balanced win loss system. Once you land on 0 if you derank you are 7 games away from hitting 0 again. My point here is again that there is lower odds of hitting 0 than is given in this evaluation.

Compare this to A+ 99, the place where points go to die. Every time a 99er wins they kill 10 points, but they are also still at 99 and can kill more next game. It takes a 0 two games to get back to zero, and only if they win and lose an equal amount.

I believe the actual percentage of the population I is skewed toward the c+ b- area and the 0 rank point creation is intended as a counter balance to 99s removing points from the system.

It would be cool if someone wrote a model program to simulate the actual growth of the system from thousands of c- players. But it would be super tough to include some of the variables.

/r/splatoon Thread Link - evanmiller.org