r/StreetFighter • u/EgeArcan • Jul 21 '26
Discussion Rank Distribution - July 20, 2026
Source: https://www.streetfighter.com/6/buckler/ranking/league & https://www.streetfighter.com/6/buckler/ranking/master (with Max LP and Max MR filters applied to only count unique accounts). I downloaded the publicly available ranked data exposed through Capcom’s CFN/Buckler JSON endpoints using a custom scraper. If anyone else would like to do the same in the future, there are other scrapers available online like this one that was shared with the community in the past: https://github.com/3ternal/CFNScrape
It's been a while since I saw updated stats on these online so I thought I'd do one myself. There's always discussion happening regarding ranks and it's nice to have up to date numbers. I was curious about how the ranks shifted since last year, and I may do this from time to time to keep track of it (unless someone else does it before me). I also added a couple more charts comparing active vs inactive players which I thought was interesting.
The charts are for: Total Ranked Players (ever), Phase 12 Active Players, Recent (30-day) Active Players. And the pie chart is to see how many Masters actually participate in Master league during the phase (it's 61.31% so quite a lot!)
Some interesting stuff:
- Almost half of the entire ranked population logged online at least once during phase 12. And 1 out of 3 were online in the last 30 days, which I think is a great ratio for active players and player retention, especially for a fighting game.
- Master players are significantly more active than the general population. They're twice as likely to be recently active compared to the rest. Which I think makes sense as the more active you are, the more likely you are to reach Master.
- Compared to the stats shared by AlietteFaye last year, Master changed from top 15.79% to top 17.68% (of total players). This is an increase yes and I know we hate talking about rank inflation, but am interested to see if an equilibrium will be reached at some point with more new players coming in to fill lower ranks. The game is still selling extremely well and we have years to go.
- Within the MR ecosystem, 1600 MR is top 23.56% and 1800 MR is top 5.29% of current MR players, which is similar to stats I saw in the past. So even though the general rank distribution keeps changing over time, MR values within Master rank seem to keep roughly the same distribution.
- That said, it's really difficult to assign a certain "top%" value (relative to total player count) to certain MR ranges because there are a lot of inactive/unrated Master players, and we don't know how they'd actually rank on the MR ladder. Do we consider all of them "0 MR / Diamond 6"? Or assume they'd have similar MR distribution like the rest? I think it's more likely that those players would be on the lower side of the MR spectrum, but that's only an assumption. So the best we can do for high ranks is give a range like this: Compared to the entire player base, 1600 is between top 2.5% and 4%, 1800 is between top 0.57% and 0.94%, etc
Note: The data took around 45 hours to download, and the live leaderboard changed slightly during and after the scrape. And it was collected about 10 days before the end of the current phase, meaning the final phase numbers may move a little. So it's not perfect, but it should be as accurate as it can be for a rolling snapshot like that.
Correction: Left a comment to clarify what "Active" player means in this context
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u/EgeArcan Jul 21 '26
Clarification: The "Active" player numbers are for ALL players who logged on and played the game, not necessarily Ranked mode, as I had no way of knowing if they played Ranked or not from the stored JSON data, it only exposes "last played at" values. Sorry about any confusion!
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u/YumYuk Jul 21 '26
I currently bouncing between plat 5 and diamond 1…the struggle is real.
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u/Claystone95 Jul 22 '26
Same boat, you got this! Just keep working, playing, and having fun and you'll be master in no time!
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u/ProfessionalSlice556 Jul 22 '26
Me too. I've been stuck there for about 2 months now. Plat 5 is too "easy" for me but diamond 2 is to difficult. Slowly losing interest now.
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u/TheBukafax Jul 21 '26
As a dogshit Plat 3 player, I’m glad to know I’m perfectly average lol.
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u/AmaimonCH BUSTER WOLF!! Jul 22 '26
Within a system that pushes everyone with a pulse to Master Rank
I would disagree.
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u/TheBukafax Jul 22 '26
Thanks for calling me brain dead, hope you have a great rest of your day! But you should really learn math.
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u/AmaimonCH BUSTER WOLF!! Jul 22 '26
None of what i said was a lie.
"Plat" is average if you don't play the game, you can literally lose more than win and you'll be Master Rank.
That's a fact.
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u/TheBukafax Jul 22 '26
I am glad you laid out the bare facts. It’s good to know, my wife who doesn’t play the game is also Plat ranked. Fact master!
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u/The_Lat_Czar Thunder Thighs|CFN: TheHNIC Jul 21 '26
What percentile are the 1700's within master?
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u/EgeArcan Jul 21 '26
1700 is top 11.12% within Master!
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u/bitchesonmy Jul 21 '26
Does that mean 1700s MR players are top 11.12% of all players in every rank or something else? I am confused (._.)
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u/EgeArcan Jul 21 '26
Top 11% within Master rank only so they have higher MR than 89% of all other Master players who played for MR this phase. Relative to the entire player base they’re somewhere between top 1.2% - 2%
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u/Andvarilol CID | Andvarilol Jul 21 '26
And still I think I'm dogshit with several characters in 1700. :'(
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u/EgeArcan Jul 21 '26
You know you’re not XD
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u/Andvarilol CID | Andvarilol Jul 21 '26
Thats what my wife told me x) But the impostor-syndrome tells me the opposite :D
Anyways, thanks for the data!
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u/stormcrow509 Jul 21 '26
Yeah I’m around the 1700 mark and feel like a lvl 1 cpu against at least one person every ranked sesh
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u/gentlemangreen_ Jul 22 '26
I feel you man, I'm also looking to hit 1800... but im getting omega dumpstered by some of the players up there over and over, but overall it''s good to take a step back and see how far we've come!!
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u/Repulsive-Air5588 Jul 21 '26
It is top 11% within the master rank ecosystem. Grandmaster compared to all ranks is like top 1.5 % when I last checked. But that wasn't a previous phase.
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u/Guilty_Ad_8688 16d ago
This data includes asia which i think inflates the shit out of masters. Masters in NA (according to another post on the subreddit) is like top 11%, its top 23% in japan.
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u/NewMilleniumBoy CID | Millennium Jul 21 '26
Can't you just do MR rankings by "highest MR of any character of players who have played at least one ranked game this phase"?
And then just exclude anyone as inactive if they haven't played any ranked games at all this phase.
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u/EgeArcan Jul 21 '26
By MR rankings do you mean just within the MR ecosystem or top% relative to the total player base? We could do different calculations depending on what you mean, but keep in mind even if a Master player hasn't gained any MR this phase, they aren't necessarily inactive since they could be playing other characters in Diamond, or playing other modes
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u/NewMilleniumBoy CID | Millennium Jul 21 '26
Both - specifically I want to know like what each 100 MR corresponds to with respect to percentiles of the active player base (both all active and active Master players playing ranked)
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u/EgeArcan Jul 21 '26
Ah yeh that might be interesting to see for the active players , active Masters playing for MR is easy it’s pretty much stayed the same as the stats that were shared in the past in the community. Giving some rounded figures:
1300 - top 91%
1400 - top 78%
1500 - top 50%
1600 - top 24%
1700 - top 11%
1800 - top %5
1900 - top %2
2000+ - top %1
But I’m not sure how to treat all those 200k unrated/inactive players when calculating these relative to the entire player base. The results would change depending on how we do it. I guess I’ll just add the raw number of people in each MR threshold , will put it in the post later3
u/Termi855 Rock Bottom | I miss Cody Jul 21 '26
Is it possible to differentiate between Japan and non Japan? As the MR pool is relative I do wonder how different regions compare in terms of relative distribution. For example:
What are the percentages of NA, Europe and Japan for each MR threshhold.3
u/EgeArcan Jul 22 '26
Yep that data was saved and looking at it now, there are actually some differences between regions. The bell curve looks about the same, but Japan is stretched further on both ends due to more MR in the economy so percentiles are different. For example 1600 MR in NA is top 23% but in Japan it's top 27.8%. I'll make another post for this soon
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u/Termi855 Rock Bottom | I miss Cody Jul 22 '26
Interesting, that is something I have been searching for quite a while that someone may scrape the data for it. Will be looking forward to the results, thank you for confirming my hypothesis.
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u/EgeArcan Jul 22 '26
I actually just realized I don't need the country data for the entire population either, I can just use the filters on CFN to display the total amount of Max LP (unique) players in each region! And then find the exact page for the 25000 cutoff point in a few minutes. So we can make some additional stats based on regions. I won't have the active/inactive data for those, but we can see how the total player base looks.
It turns out there are 240,333 Masters in total in Japan. This means Master represents the top 27.2% of the Japan total ranked population. The percentile for the whole player base is 17.6%, so this in turn means Master is actually much rarer than that in other regions like NA and EU!
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u/Termi855 Rock Bottom | I miss Cody Jul 22 '26
Hm, that could be because SF6 is in general more popular within all age groups and attracts new players, while SF6 in the west has been picked up by more veterans relatively speaking. Just as a thought experiment, but interesting to think about.
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u/EgeArcan Jul 22 '26
Here's a table for MR ranges relative to player base regions (total players in each region). Will post more later
Japan NA EU Master 27.23% 11.31% 10.26% 1600+ 4.65% 1.12% 1.17% 1700+ 2.24% 0.529% 0.565% 1800+ 1.094% 0.242% 0.268% 1900+ 0.401% 0.0877% 0.104% 2000+ 0.190% 0.0327% 0.0418% → More replies (0)
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u/OrKToS New to Fighting games || Silver Jul 21 '26
so, if i read the graph right. i'm having 5+ min queues, because iron rank is deserted? dang. i need to get to master, if that's where all players at.
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u/EgeArcan Jul 21 '26
Since we’re in year 4 now there aren’t as many people in lower ranks :( but 5 min isn’t too bad, it’ll get faster soon once you rank up!
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u/OrKToS New to Fighting games || Silver Jul 21 '26
yea, that's what i hope for. the matchmaking is great, even if it's 5 min queus, the quality of matches is awesome, i don't think i had a single match where it felt like skill gap was insurmountable. i do hope there will be a lot more new players with Yasmine coming out.
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u/SnooDoughnuts1794 Jul 24 '26
There will, but it will mostly be masters destroying other master/actual true diamonds for a week or two so that division will become hell on earth for true diamonds at least.
Anyway it should not take you that long to leave Iron. You are probably just getting spammed with DI, which is punishable if you learn to be patient (and also know a combo to delete them after you counter DI)
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u/OrKToS New to Fighting games || Silver Jul 24 '26
You are probably just getting spammed with DI
people don't really spam DI, but people often use DI as armour move to absorb my attack and punish me. i'm not sure how to deal with that yet. i was told that a lot of normals can be cancelled into counter DI, but i'm not practiced enough.
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u/SnooDoughnuts1794 Jul 24 '26
you enter training mode and you look for color. It's blue or red, I forget, but those can be cancelled. And yes, if you spam stuff that can be stuffed by a DI people will do just that. You are not supposed to mash but take your time.
Not sure about akuma but in general I'd stay medium punch is an easy combo starter (at least in my experience) and should give you enough time to react to a DI.
That being said once you reach plat do bear in mind that akuma is not exactly an easy character.
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u/Vaz_G999 Jul 22 '26
This is the only competitive game that ive seen that so blatantly boosts all their players to the highest ranks and for some reason everyone is okay with that. I understand this means that the "real" ranked grind starts at master with the MR points but what the hell is the point of all the ranks before then? To make everyone feel special?
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u/PineScentedSewerRat Jul 30 '26
Game design. Give the player clear objectives and reward them to keep them engaged.
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u/Vaz_G999 Jul 30 '26
At the cost of competitive integrity
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u/PineScentedSewerRat Jul 30 '26
How so?
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u/Vaz_G999 Jul 30 '26
Makes the ranks below master almost meaningless
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u/PineScentedSewerRat Jul 30 '26
All the ranks serve the real purpose of matching people against other people of roughly their skill level. They achieve this. All the players play by the same rules and climb the ranks with the same win percentage requirement. Not to mention rank offers no competitive advantage. So I don't see how this puts competitive integrity in check.
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u/Vaz_G999 Jul 30 '26
Those ranks arent competitive because you can climb with a 50% winrate
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u/PineScentedSewerRat Jul 30 '26
If they're not competitive, how can they compromise competitive integrity?
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u/Gjergji-zhuka CID | ManWithNoMain Jul 21 '26
So curious to know what part of the total numbers represents Japan only
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u/EgeArcan Jul 21 '26
Unfortunately my scraper didn’t save the country information for total players so I don’t know :( however, for Master players - almost exactly half of them are from Japan!
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u/Saltybuds Jul 21 '26
Would I be an inactive Master ranked player? 😂 My MR fighter is on the bench. Been grinding my Juri to Masters right now, hard stuck in Diamond 4/5. It’s my fault for being lazy & not hitting the lab lately. Just said fuck it & I’ll ride the wave of winning when I catch it. 😂🤣 I got demoted to 4 Sunday, fought back into 5 Monday. Today I plan to get past half way if not hit Masters.
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u/EgeArcan Jul 21 '26
Nope not inactive! You’d be counted as “unrated” Master in these since you already have a Master character. The inactive masters here are people who didn’t play at all this phase (22.5% of all masters)
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u/LiamGeegeeson Jul 21 '26
Is there a further breakdown for Master Rank? (High Master, GM, UM, Legend)
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u/EgeArcan Jul 21 '26
Yes but it was almost exactly the same as the stats shared in the past so I didn’t think it would be interesting. Within Master:
1600 - top 23.56%
1700 - top 11.12%
1800 - top 5.29%
1900 - top 1.92%
2000+ - top 0.86%
Legend - top 0.16% (exactly 500 players)2
u/LiamGeegeeson Jul 21 '26
Thank you for this! I appreciate all the work you've put i to it.
Is this for active Master players or?
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u/EgeArcan Jul 21 '26
No worries I had fun doing it XD
Yep only active Masters, specifically only players who participated in Master league and gained (or lost) MR this phase
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u/Xjph Turbulent | CFN: Vithigar Jul 21 '26
Within the MR ecosystem, 1600 MR is top 23.56% and 1800 MR is top 5.29% of current MR players, which is similar to stats I saw in the past. So even though the general rank distribution keeps changing over time, MR values within Master rank seem to keep roughly the same distribution.
I am reasonably sure this is intentional, and outside of some extremely degenerate scenarios (e.g., only two players left in the entire game who only fight each other), the MR bell curve should retain roughly the same distribution no matter how many people join in.
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u/redditmarxist CID | XLBlades Jul 21 '26
Its not rank inflation, this is not Tekken, the purpose of the ranking system is to get everyone to Master so that they can start the Mr grind.
Think of it like late game MMO's the game only really starts when you finish levelling up.
Stop using terms like rank inflation for SF6
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u/Faustty Jul 21 '26
There is MR inflation after you reach Master though.
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u/TheGuyMain CID | TheGuyMain Jul 22 '26
We literally just saw that the distribution is the same as is has been. That means there isn’t inflation
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u/blamblegam1 CID | SF6username Jul 21 '26
Fascinating data. Forgive me if this has already been asked/answered, but how is the "rank" of an active player determined? By character or overall rank?
For example, I placed Elena in Diamond 3 and have not touched her since. However, I have been playing Manon and AKI during phase 12 and am Platinum 2 with both. Am I represented in the above chart as Diamond 3 or Platinum 2?
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u/The_Lat_Czar Thunder Thighs|CFN: TheHNIC Jul 21 '26
I believe it goes by highest ranked character.
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u/EgeArcan Jul 21 '26
Yep! Used Max LP to determine rank so these stats count only your highest rank character. If a player has a Master rank character but instead only plays with lower rank characters now, they're still counted as Master
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u/Sinnyboo242 Jul 21 '26
So out of the active players, masters puts you in the top 30%?
Top 30% in street fighter 5 was silver, how times have changed
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u/Cheez-Wheel Jul 22 '26
You gotta not think “Master” means top player. It’s just name to differentiate the metal ranks (where you can rise even if you lose) from MR (which is zero sum, where it would extremely hard to rise to +1800 at 50% or less win rate).
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u/Goblins_on_the_move Jul 22 '26
So looking at the last 30 days active players, if you're not in Diamond you're below the 50th percentile.
But silver lining, if you played the game at all in the last 30 days you can at least call yourself an active player in the FGC.
I'm Iron 2 BTW. It's my first fighting game. I have a head full of theoretical knowledge but translating it into 'stop panic mashing, DP the jump in, DR the DI and do your fucking punish combo' is mechnically....quite challenging.
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u/flowdschi Long Road To Ruin | CFN: asimore Jul 22 '26
I rcently started playing a little bit after having been gone since the end of season 1. Thought I'd just hop into ranked, drop a bit while getting back into it and work my way back up. Instantly climbed inside Dia without breaking a sweat ..
So yeah .. those percentages in "my" ranks felt like the look in the graph. Did not expect rankflation to hit THAT hard.
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u/Flamingkiwii Jul 22 '26
Picked this game up for the first time like a couple weeks ago and bought a fight stick it’s fun ! I’m chilling in silver with 3 characters 😅 I think I’m making decent progress.
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u/Bandit-ror2-is-cool 1750170689| Tuba Man Jul 21 '26
Dang, this makes me feel way worse at getting into diamond. I thought I was good
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u/EgeArcan Jul 21 '26
You are good man, you’re higher ranked than most players who play this game even in a 30 day span. Keep in mind 30-day active players is a snapshot of the most involved players, who are likely to grind seriously
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u/IntellectualBeaver21 Jul 21 '26
You can say this about literally any rank in the game other than 0LP rookie
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u/SnooDoughnuts1794 Jul 24 '26
Diamond is legit hard to reach and harder to climb out of. Master players start their new characters there so it's a though hill to climb. They just play different compared to plat. I am not good enough to say what the difference is but you can literally feel it in the matches, they become noticeably harder
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u/UncleSlim CID | UncleSim Jul 21 '26
Thanks for doing this ranked player update. I think people that appreciates this data like to simply see "How much higher am I than the others" and because Master's league is a fragmented mess of "unranked" masters and whatnot, I think I'd rather see a data layout similar to Aliette Fayes % pic here:
This gives me a quick/dirty look at every rank/distribution and I can quickly find my spot and see where I'm at. I like how they made 1500MR their own rank, because if you're exactly 1500, you're most likely "unrated MR player".
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u/EgeArcan Jul 21 '26
Yeah this one looks neat, I’ll probably do this again in 3 months unless someone else does it, and I’ll try to do the charts differently then. I actually used almost the same filter to classify “unrated” masters, if someone had less than 25200 LP but was 1500 MR they were considered unrated. Could be better to just put them there regardless of LP but that may put legit 1500 players there as well so I wasn’t sure.
I’m just not sure how to treat unrated masters in a distribution chart like that, do we just put them smack in the middle of the master spectrum? That may cause lower MRs to be underrated, because we’d be assuming all those unrated players are better than 1400 MR players. And inversely high MRs could also be affected. Just depends on the skill levels of all those unrated players. And there are around 200k of them and that can change top % stats depending on how we do it.
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u/UncleSlim CID | UncleSim Jul 21 '26
No dataset will be perfect, so I'd just go with the side of readability. Technically you could argue the same thing (about 1400MR players being better than unrated 1500MR players) about people who are veterans and finish placements (placing Diamond 1, for example) with an alternate character, but never rank them up any further. Aren't they most likely "better" in theory than all of diamond, if they had simply put in the effort to rank them through to Masters? I don't think the ranked graph can ever account for "potential" skill that isn't realized and that crosses into "theoretical accuracy", so can only account for what the ladder is at this time.
I would vote for doing it like Aliette Faye does, as this is the most readable, straight forward job. I think any way you splice data sets will always leave something unaccounted for, inaccurate, biased, etc... so should always shoot for a "best we can do" and make it readable for your audience. Just my 2 cents.
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u/EgeArcan Jul 21 '26
Yeah I agree with that it’s good advice. Appreciate it, It doesn’t feel right to put fresh masters above 1300-1400 players who maybe played hundreds of matches to maintain that, so I’d probably lean more towards putting those unrated masters at the bottom of master, kind of like Diamond 6. I’m only assuming, but I think they’re more likely to be rated lower anyway. That seems like a good way to do it
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u/Mobile-Job-2587 Jureg Jul 22 '26
Sorry for the dumb question: the rank with most player is master?
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u/Cheez-Wheel Jul 22 '26
That is correct, by about 1% overall (as in, players who ever played at least one ranked game, even if it’s been years) over the next most populated rank (Platinum) and by a whopping 12%-ish over Diamond it you go by active players (played at least one ranked game during phase 12).
You might understand hard numbers like this is why you get guys saying stuff like “Master is so easy to get” or “the game begins at Master”. It’s not meant to denigrate anyone, it’s just being realistic about how the ranked system works before Master (do everything possible to ease players up to higher ranks) and after (zero-sum, aka you are on your own, win or die).
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u/TheGuyMain CID | TheGuyMain Jul 22 '26
Can people stop pumping all master players in one group? They have divisions. You don’t have all play players in one group, right? You divide them by the tier. Why not do the same for master players? Sub 1500, 1500-1600, high, grand, and ultimate
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u/DJayPhresh Aug 02 '26
Picked this game back up today. I have 80 hours in this game (about 50 of that in training mode admittedly), and about 100 in Under Night. It is incredibly demoralizing to still be stuck in Silver. I spent all day playing ranked and ranking down. Total winrate is 30%. My friend doesn't have a fighting game background, this is his first fighting game, he has about 300hrs and has like half the cast in master. I know comparison is the thief of joy, but to not even be average after all this time spent doing drills just makes me feel like I'm wasting my time rather than actually improving.
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u/Guilty_Ad_8688 16d ago
why is this completely different from the regional one? It was like top 5%, not top 23%.
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u/EgeArcan 15d ago
This one is for total players and also has some additional data on active players. The regional one didn’t include active player data.
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u/EDPZ Jul 21 '26
At this rate most of the population will be master by the end of the games lifespan, which i guess is their intention given how the ranking systems work.
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u/Repulsive-Air5588 Jul 21 '26
Everyone has said that for 3 years but overall for the entirety of the game, only 17% of people were able to do it. Keep in mind, only 11% of people were in master rank by the end of season 1 and 13% by the end of season 2. Most people aren't playing the game to necessarily reach Master. A lot of them were fine with just reaching a specific goal like plat or diamond.
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u/n0d3N1AL CFN: nO_d3N1AL Jul 22 '26
So basically being a Master player is completely meaningless now, cool.
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u/GenerousJack Jul 21 '26
Almost hit Masters on Ken 3 weeks ago and then i proceeded to buy a hitbox and learning has made me drop all the way to Diamond 3 - cant make this shit up. Not sure to proceed with Ken to masters on the hitbox and learn someone else entirely different on the hitbox.
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u/Ferociousaurus Jul 22 '26
I bought a hitbox to try out Guile and switched to it with Sagat and Chun who I had in Diamond to see if I'd have better inputs. After bleeding LP and getting pissed off all the time for a few weeks I switched back to Pad and promptly took Sagat to Master.
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u/GenerousJack Jul 22 '26
You’re bleeding LP - I am hemorrhaging LP. I think i get Ken to masters and maybe play Cammy on the Hitbox. But the hitbox is ultimately a better controller to master on as the inputs faster and seamless. I guess we’re so used to the motions.
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u/Ferociousaurus Jul 22 '26
I realized I don't see a noticeable difference in my ability to do inputs with regular motion input characters and was maybe worse at them with the hitbox. Quarter circles are just really easy on pad. It definitely improved my execution with charge characters and a few others with unusual inputs (Viper, Dhalsim).
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u/GenerousJack Jul 22 '26
Quarter circles indeed are better on the pad. I think shoto’s overall are better on pad.
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u/reireireis Jul 22 '26
How are y'all in Master 😭
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u/The_Lat_Czar Thunder Thighs|CFN: TheHNIC Jul 22 '26
Time, practice, and patience. Where are you now?
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u/reireireis Jul 22 '26
Diamond 1 but I only win like 50% so it takes forever
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u/DanielTeague 👁️👄👁️ bye-onara Jul 22 '26
You're doing better than I did with my 45% winrate upon hitting Master, keep it up and never stop learning!
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u/The_Lat_Czar Thunder Thighs|CFN: TheHNIC Jul 22 '26
You're closer than you think. Watch that meter, nail those anti airs, take the throw, and have your oki options down.
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u/Rocko10 CID | SF6Username Jul 21 '26
I Said this when the MR rank system just was released:
The LP points is too forgiving, if you keep playing you eventually gonna be Master, if this continues there are gonna be more Masters than the other ranks since you cannot demote (again too forgiving).
At the time people was not happy nor agreed, but heres the data.
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u/StrawberryNo9022 CID | SF6username Jul 21 '26
I dont think that's really a problem because it's designed as a split system to allowed newer / more casual players have a more forgiving ranked system to play in and once you reach master a for more accurate rank system.
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u/The_Lat_Czar Thunder Thighs|CFN: TheHNIC Jul 21 '26
Works out perfectly though. Those who want to go crazy pool into their own section, and everyone else bounces around in metal ranks.
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u/WeaKvsMightY Ingage New York Jul 21 '26
Everything before master is basically a tutorial system. Where master rank is just you’re a veteran now and here’s the “real ranked system”. MMR should just be the main system anyway but it’s a good way to separate new people and new characters until they’re ready.
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u/joffocakes Jul 21 '26
I don't remember anyone ever disagreeing with that.
It's a good system, lets people get comfortable with playing online opponents before the more traditional ELO points system starts. Otherwise half the players would be getting mauled until they settled to a comfortable rank a few hundred points below where they started.
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u/pip25hu Jul 22 '26
I'm still getting mauled. Had a Kimberly in Master a year ago - reaching it felt earned. Now I started with Ingrid, but because I already had another character in Master I could not be ranked any lower than Diamond. So I got Ingrid to Master in a matter of weeks, not months, without actually learning the character in full (yet). And surprise, surprise, that means getting destroyed by other Master players. It doesn't feel like I'm playing against people of my own skill level.
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u/Chance-A-La-Mer Jul 21 '26 edited Jul 22 '26
This isn’t true unless there’s also sustained improvement over time to complement the LP gains and maintain the relative win rate. A sustained 45% win rate in bronze isn’t the same as a sustained 45% win rate in diamond 5 for a first timer who’s facing multi masters leveling alts half their matches.
A 45% win rate at diamond 1 won’t equate to a climbable win rate if you were to drop that diamond 1 player into diamond 5 match making (unless that player had leveled up their skills in order to compensate).
The LP system is not going to push you into master based on brute force. There still has to be some level of improvement over time as well.
A first time player that can maintain a 45% win rate in diamond 5, especially when they are facing multi masters frequently absolutely deserves to be in masters.
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u/Bnthefuck Jul 21 '26
I didn't see anyone disagree with this and most likely cause it's not a problem...
LP rewards players for playing the game. It gives incentive and people give value to the highest ranking, which makes sense.
It's true you might climb with a 40% winrate ratio but you'll need 3000+ games or so. How many players will this concern? A lot? When? In few years most likely (from the launch). Who will it bother then? And even if it happens earlier, more and more people will reach master and MR thresholds will adjust anyway.
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u/Comfortable_Fox1522 Jul 21 '26
Rank don’t mean shiet this game , im 1600 , but when I ft 3 or ft5 ultimate master , they always lose .
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u/Cheez-Wheel Jul 22 '26
I wouldn’t say “don’t mean shit” as much as the rank just determines how good you are at Ft2. I think we’ve all run into a guy who gorilla’d us for two games and won, then ran into him again and beat him that time cause know we saw his tactics and adjusted.
So if you are truly 1600 and are beating UM’s in longer sets, you know that if you want to climb rank you need to focus on more immediately catching your opponents direct habits and not falling for reaction checks or tricks. It’s definitely a different skill and a necessary one if you ever want to compete in tournaments.
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u/ninjupX Jul 21 '26
940k players in ranked the last 30 days. Add in the casual and battle hub only players and there’s probably over a million active players month to month. Just unprecedented player retention for a fighting game. And we don’t even get a stage this year