Players who tried Deadlock ~a year ago are being set at too high of a skill rating when they return today.

[ckdude14]

Hello I've been playing tons of this game. I started 1.5months ago and have been getting a bunch of my friends to play recently. But a common issue we're running into is all of my friends that had won a few games way back at the beginning of the alpha are being placed towards the top of the skill rating even though they have actually no idea how to play the game. These are essentially first time users, they don't even know how to dash jump yet. Some of these friends of mine have been placed in Emissary and Oracle ranks as complete beginners, making the game unplayable for them (and their teammates haha), unless they make a new account.

I'm posting this because its happened to multiple of my friends now who tried the game long ago, before me and its feels like its a significant issue that is likely contributing to some of the ongoing matchmaking concerns from the community and devs. I'm curious if this is on anyone's radar.

 

[barlakopofai]

Well, that's not new, everyone is placed in Oracle. That was quite literally the default rank you place at from the launch of ranked medals all the way to now. The more surprising thing is that they didn't get rank decayed to initiate 1 like most of the population.

So no, this wouldn't be better if you were in lower ranks, there are no ranks in deadlock right now, you can be brand new all the way up in ascendant.

 

[ckdude14]

Thanks for your response and info, although I don't really appreciate the condescending tone.

I clearly don't understand how the "Skill Rating" system works if it works as you described. That is not my impression based on the info page in-game, nor is it how i'd expect it to work in any other game. Nothing indicates that you start in Oracle. It states that you start as "Obscurus" until the game thinks you're calibrated.

My friend has 3 visible games in his match history, one of which is a bot game. His account record is 7wins 7losses. He is placed in Emissary which is in theory significantly higher skill level than Initiate. He doesn't know how to play the game at all yet.

Look at the scorelines in this game. (I am not in this game) My two friends who played this match together are first time players on the blue team. Its painfully obvious that there are people in this game who have played less than 5 games facing seasoned and skilled players because the new players were improperly put at a high skill rating and are in theory being matchmade into higher skill rating games.
match id: 50264303

 

[barlakopofai]

You don't get placed in initiate, you rank decay there after being ranked a long time ago. Also you'll be happy to know that even if they were placed in initiate they'd get rolled like that. There are no beginner lobbies for your friends to learn the game in. There is no bronze league, there is only "Everything under ascendant" and "eternus", and everything under ascendant is still quite a high skill level since 95% of the game population can't change ranks to match their skill, you can have a positive winrate and still go down in ranking.