Scoring

Players climb the ladder using a set scoring system, and we’ve tried to keep the system transparent so you can focus on what it takes to rank up. Scores are tracked via Ranked Points (RP) and your score moves up and down throughout the season.

Each Ranked match will cost RP to play based on your tier:

• Bronze matches are free
• Silver matches cost 1RP
• Gold matches cost 2RP
• Platinum matches cost 3RP
• Diamond matches cost 4RP
• Apex Predator matches cost 5RP

During the match you earn RP based on performance. Kills are worth 1RP up to a maximum of 5RP per match. Placing Top 10 is worth 2RP, Top 5 is 4RP, Top 3 earns 7RP, and a win will bank 12RP. Each placement score is exclusive, so if you finish in the Top 5, you won’t earn 6RP for a Top 10 and Top 5 finish combined. That means the maximum score you can earn per match is 17RP, before the match entry fee.

Playing With Friends

Ranked Leagues will require each player to be level 10 or higher to join. When you queue up with other friends in your lobby, the matchmaker will find a match for the highest ranked player in that lobby, but each player will pay the appropriate match cost for their current rank. This is intended to not let high-ranked players completely carry their lower-ranked friends. If you queue up with your Diamond II friend as a Bronze III player, get ready for a difficult match!

Ladder Movement

For the launch of Ranked Leagues, we’re starting everyone in Bronze, and as you score you climb and fall within a tier. There is currently no demotion if you drop into a lower tier, so if you earn your way into Platinum IV, no amount of losses will demote you back to Gold I – you are guaranteed to finish that Series in Platinum. However, demotion is possible between divisions, so if you’re Gold II and fall below 380 RP, you will move back down to Gold III. (We may revisit demotions in the future based on data we get from our first Series.)

Matches become more difficult the higher you climb, so we expect to see many players find their actual skill level and plateau towards the end of the first Series.

Rewards

Penalties

We regard Ranked as a high-stakes, high-reward environment. This means that we are expecting players in Ranked to show a higher level of commitment to playing out their matches, even when things aren’t necessarily going their way.

Players who abandon their teammates will be hit with a matchmaking penalty in both regular and Ranked matches. Penalties will result in a player being barred from joining a match for escalating amounts of time based on how often they have abandoned in Ranked. An abandon is defined as leaving the game before the match is over for you; this includes leaving during character select, leaving while you are alive, and leaving when you are dead but can still be respawned by teammates.

Penalty times start out at five minutes, and repeat abandons will increase that time up to a week.

Loss Forgiveness

Similar to the Elite queue, there will be loss forgiveness in Ranked. Loss forgiveness is defined as zeroing out any potential losses in RP for a match. For example, in a Diamond match where you came in last place but had two kills, you would normally have a -2 adjustment to your RP (-4 from the Platinum entry cost, +2 for kills, for a net loss of -2). With loss forgiveness, however, you would have a net loss adjusted to 0. However, this will only apply if you stand to lose RP from the match – if you had five kills and loss forgiveness, your RP would still be net +1.

We will grant players loss forgiveness when their matchmade teammates abandon the game, and for other cases where we determine you are not to blame for leaving a game e.g. client errors. We plan to be more lenient at the start of the Series but will be vigilant in monitoring player behavior. We will become stricter about granting loss forgiveness if we detect it is being abused.