In specific cases, a player's rank for a certain Competitive playlist in Rocket League may be adjusted upwards to reflect the player’s actual skill.
[b]Rocket League[/b] Competitive players,
We’re introducing an update to the Competitive rank system designed to increase match quality. Specifically, this change addresses “unintentional smurfing,” which is when a player is at a rank below their actual skill level simply because they haven’t played a specific playlist in a while.
Since the start of 2024, this change to the system has been tested on small groups of players across all Competitive Playlists. Because we’ve seen a significantly positive impact on match quality and player experience in these groups, we rolled out this change to all players earlier this week.
From now on, a player’s Competitive rank will be evaluated when they’re completing their placement matches, and may be adjusted upwards if the new system recognizes that their starting rank is too low. A player’s predicted rank is based on their rank in other Competitive Playlists. While building this feature, we analyzed skill transference between playlists, and found that a player’s rank can be predicted with high accuracy using their ranks from other playlists.
A rank change will only happen when all three of the following scenarios are true:
- The player played at least ten matches of a certain Competitive Playlist in the previous Season. (This means the player is “fresh” in the playlist.)
- In the previous Season, the player did NOT play the Competitive Playlist they’re currently queuing for. (This means the player is “stale” in the playlist.)
- The player has a rank significantly below their predicted rank for the playlist they’re currently queuing for.
