Hey ZaedynFel I have a question about the current ranking and if it is working as intended or if I am taking advantage of a loophole that might be caused by a lower population. Early in the season I was playing with my friends who are all high onyx/champ. I was stuck mid/high diamond for most of this time period. Recently I had gotten some friends who haven’t played much H5 to get into the game and I have personally been steamrolling players in these games. During this time I ranked up to onyx and am now sitting at 1550. Just curious how this is possible because I was under the impression that playing with lower skilled players would not show significant improvement in my rank even when I win.
My perspective:
Playing with the less skilled individual friends ensures you’re also facing lesser skilled opponents. Being the best player in the match most often will lead to you not only dominate the vast majority of your 1-on-1 encounters, but it’ll also require you to carry a significant kill count load in match wins. I assume your pace of play and sizable kill loads are simply excelling beyond what the system had you pegged at based on your other match experiences against higher quality opponents.
To break it down further, your less skilled teammates just aren’t capable of earning anywhere near three quarters (3/4) of the required kill count in a match victory. This in turn sets you up to dominate match KPM (Kills-Per-Minute) and requires you to earn well above a quarter (1/4) of the required kill count to earn victories. Again, it appears you’ve been exceeding the system’s expectations it had for you and the team which were in-part based on its understanding of your performance with your very talented friends.
When you play with your very talented friends you likely struggle on two fronts:
- You just don’t possess the raw talent and skill capable of earning a quarter (1/4) of a winning match’s kill count on average. This is because your opponents, on average, are just going to be much more capable within the 1-on-1 encounters against you.
- Because of how talented your teammates are you’ve been struggling to keep pace with them. In other words, they’re the ones typically earning higher percentages of the kill count in match victories. Unfortunately for you their talent and in-turn performances can somewhat dilute your ability to demonstrate your full skill level potential to the system.
Perhaps what this boils down to and reflects is your change of play style and sense of confidence between the two teams. On one hand you somewhat know your limitations, so you probably slow your pace down a bit to limit making mistakes that may jeopardize your team’s chances at earning a victory. In other words, you try to smartly play a helpful support role in order to not cost your team the victory. On the other hand, when you play with your lesser skilled friends your play style reflects a noticeable boost in confidence and aggression because you believe you must carry the team on your shoulders to earn victories.
I suspect the system is simply perceiving your skill and talent under a different workload context and adjusting accordingly. Yes, because the opponents are less skilled you’re expected to perform way better in comparison, but in reality you’re managing to “do more” than what the system expected you of being capable of which in turn has allowed you to improve your rank.
I also suspect that you’ll never be able to go much further with your rank by playing with the lesser players primarily because there's only so much of the total kill count that you can reasonably be expected to handle. But, if you were able to raise your pace, aggression, and encounter success; in other words, increase your KPM without a dramatic rise in your DPM too, when playing with your talented friends while not noticeably sacrificing the team's win rate you’d not only reach the same visual skill level, but likely surpass it.