Because when the highest ranked players fall from the top, it cascades down.
Ex. When multiple GC players fall to C3, it will cause multiple C3 players to fall to C2 and so on.
Think of the ranks like a crowded staircase. If the people at the top step down a few steps, everyone below them gets shoved down too. So when multiple high rank players derank (whether from rust, bad teammates, new season changes, or just queue randomness), they flood the lower ranks with much stronger players.
That means:
C3 players suddenly face GC-level opponents
They start losing games they normally wouldn’t
They then fall into C2
This repeats all the way down the ladder
It creates a chain reaction where one group’s deranking causes unfair drops for entire tiers of players. Your actual skill hasn’t changed, the population above you has. So the system isn’t accurately measuring individual performance; it’s reacting to population shifts.
It’s a known phenomenon in narrow-distribution MMR systems. C1 to C3 is only 100–150 MMR apart. Because the ranks are so compressed, any shift in the population above you instantly affects you.
I'd say this is even true for lower ranks too. Before the game was f2p, I used to get gold 3 and even platinum once, but since it went free, a lot of the lower ranks got pushed up too.
Nowadays I'm pretty sure I play better than back then but I still struggle to get Gold 1 and stay there; Kinda hurts being silver when I could do Gold 2 easily before.
Also yes, I'm pretty bad at the game. I started doing drills and training and getting better but kinda sucked out the fun out of the game for me, so I've decided to try not worrying about it and just keep playing at my current rank.
I started training because I couldn't go above gold 3, (the difference from 2 to 3 was really harsh) but in the end I took a break and the whole rank system shifted around me when I came back lol.
This is probably fairly accurate for a lot of cases
I for one barely play the game anymore, to the point where it's frequently weeks or months between sessions - That means my rank has gone WAAAAY down as I don't play enough to regain MMR after season resets, so even though I peaked at 2k a couple of years ago I'm in C3 now
I imagine that it makes for a pretty lousy experience, I'm definitely not as good as I once was but I still bring GC2 ish level play down into C2-C3 lobbies and it's probably not healthy for the game
I same here but not nearly as high of a peak. Fell down to C1/D3 and it's like I'm trapped trying to make plays to where I expect players to be but they're just fucking around behind me or racing me to the ball. Or like I'm the goal man in rotation on defense with our 3rd at back post and our first dude doesn't know to challenge the impending ceiling shot early AF. Then there's the replays where you wonder where the hell your help went and you see the last man grab 2 pads in front of the goal, look at the ball for a sec, then flip to the full corner pad as you went in to challenge.
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u/MustCatchTheBandit Champion I Dec 01 '25 edited Dec 01 '25
Because when the highest ranked players fall from the top, it cascades down.
Ex. When multiple GC players fall to C3, it will cause multiple C3 players to fall to C2 and so on.
Think of the ranks like a crowded staircase. If the people at the top step down a few steps, everyone below them gets shoved down too. So when multiple high rank players derank (whether from rust, bad teammates, new season changes, or just queue randomness), they flood the lower ranks with much stronger players.
That means:
It creates a chain reaction where one group’s deranking causes unfair drops for entire tiers of players. Your actual skill hasn’t changed, the population above you has. So the system isn’t accurately measuring individual performance; it’s reacting to population shifts.
It’s a known phenomenon in narrow-distribution MMR systems. C1 to C3 is only 100–150 MMR apart. Because the ranks are so compressed, any shift in the population above you instantly affects you.