Ranked Mode

THE “BASICS”
Ranked Mode is a more deterministic, more competitive way of experiencing The Cycle, where goals/motivations outside of the match win condition (Story missions etc.) are removed or at least kept to a minimum. In addition to this, any random gear or ability drops are disabled in Ranked Mode.

Each player holds an individual Prospector Rank, currently imagined as a scale from C- to S+. New players will be placed in rank C before their first ranked match (300 Points in the example table below).

Each of these ranks stands for a bracket of points, while the final S+ rank can be increased infinitely, as a sort of “Prospector Prestige” rank that can be shown off to other prospectors (banners etc). NOTE: ALL NUMBERS ARE TENTATIVE AND WILL MOST LIKELY NEED ITERATION IN FUTURE PATCHES

A player can, in theory, have Rank S+100.

Matchmaking

Players are, currently, not matchmade by their rank. We would love to hear your feedback about this, as we could still add it at a later iteration.

Lobby

Your rank will be shown in the pre-match lobby and the highest-ranked player is highlighted. Ranked matches will also have a Match Rank assigned to them (see below).

Performance Indicators (Of Players in-match)

As it stands right now, we will use Leaderboard Placement (relative performance) in the match plus VP accumulation (absolute performance) as performance indicators, with an additional bonus or penalty for evacuating and dying respectively.

You will be rewarded with points at the end of each ranked match that you played, based on the following performance indicators:

MATCH RANK
Here comes the very technical part: The sum of these points accumulated throughout a match is multiplied with how your individual rank relates to the match rank (a sort of relative match difficulty). The Match Rank will be calculated by taking the median of all individual ranks within that lobby. Right click on one of the pictures and open them in a new window to see them in the full resolution.

HOW A NEW RANK WILL BE CALCULATED IN SOLO MODE:
(Like above, but without any Squad/teammate calculations)



END OF MATCH RESULTS
When you have finished a game, your rank will increase or decrease. This increase/decrease is shown at the end of match screen and the reasons for it are explained:


 * The individual ranks of the other players, based on which we’ll calculate the match rank
 * How much was gained from each of the performance indicators (see above)

PLAYER RANK PROGRESSION, LEADERBOARDS AND REWARDS
Ranks are shown as a grade for each game mode and are reset after a predetermined amount of time.

In the Station, you can access a global leaderboard where you can switch between your own position and the top of the leaderboard. In a later iteration, you should be able to apply a filter that shows your friends.

The X highest-ranking players should be rewarded at the end of the duration and highlighted during the next duration. We have not decided on the amount yet.