Relegated in GAC but winning?!?!

"sloweagle;c-2344479" wrote:
Can anyone explain the squishing process? I also experienced down in rank after squishing with a winning record. I am not gonna complain about it though. Keeping rank low is a good thing for matchup. If this consistently happened, then it will increase my GAC interest a little bit, as I would be able to keep my tank low while having a winning record, that would be better crystals income.

Each division is based on a percentage of the player base. They have changed to this approach because the system can remain the same as more players join the game and the devs do not need to spend time on readjusting divisions as the game grows - which allows them to focus on developing new game modes, characters/ships, etc. If you recall from the old system, it grew very top heavy as our rosters grew, so bad to a point they needed to go back in and add more divisions. So each league (i.e. Kyber, Chromium, etc.) has divisions (i.e. Kyber 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5). Kyber 1 is the top 10%, Kyber 2 is the next 25%, Kyber 3 is the next 30%, Kyber 4 is the next 25%, and Kyber 5 is the final 10%. For the examples, I will be talking about Kyber, but it applies to all leagues.

The struggle with the percentage threshold is it is relative to your peers, so if you are close to that threshold, you can win a match and not be technically in the top 10%. Note, this is why you can technically go 2-1 a week and get demoted (because the people right under you went 3-0). They have clearly defined thresholds (like Kyber 1 is 3600 skill rating), so you have clear expectations to aim for; however, because of inflation, you will have more than 10% of the Kyber league player base end up above the Kyber 1 skill rating threshold (and likely less than 10% of the player base in Kyber 5). Same thing for each division: some will be slightly larger, and some will be slightly smaller.

For rewards if you have a skill rating above the threshold, you get rewards from that league (even if you are not technically in the correct percentage - which is great, you can get rewards you don't earn). However, if divisions remain with the slight imbalance, then the equilibrium will slowly get more and more worse - and eventually need the devs to go back and readjust leagues. To avoid this, your skill rating is slightly changed at the end of each season to match where your percentage is - this is called the "squish". Think of this like in school when your professor grades on a curve. Your spot in line doesn't change - the person who was right in front of you is still right in front of you, same with the person right behind you. If you are in the top of a division, you will normally see your skill rating go down and if you are at a bottom of a division your score will typically go up. This is why is might seem "random" because some increase and some decrease in skill rating - but it is just making sure that the person in the 11% percentile has a skill rating which matches the 11% percentile.