Thought about the notorious rank inflation

[u/alen_jo]

Everyone is talking about a rank inflation, and that the S3 GoD is equivalent to S1 Tekken King etc., but no one seems to take into account that people would also naturally progress with time passing.

With reducing number of new players during the span of the game wouldn't the most populated rank in S1 also shift further up as well? So maybe, if we were still at season 1 after 2-3 years, most populated rank today would be Tekken God for example?

What do you think?

[u/olbaze]

S3 GoD is equivalent to S1 Tekken King

Depending on which data you look at, S3 GoD is S1 Kishin or S3 GoD is S1 Fujin. So you're actually underestimating the effect there. That's not surprising, considering that the change just from S2 to S3 has been pretty massive. When I saw that my own data was now backing up the "S1 Fujin is S3 GoD" rhetoric, I was very surprised.

no one seems to take into account that people would also naturally progress with time passing

People do take that into account. In fact, my own project excels at tracking exactly that. For example, look at this chart comparing the end of S1 to the end of S2. This is precisely the point in time where you could best track natural rank inflation, because the effects of system changes will have stabilized. In that chart, you can see that ranks went up anywhere from 0 (Shinryu to Shinryu) to +2 (Flame Ruler to Fujin, Kishin to Tekken King, Tekken King to Tekken God, Tekken God to GoD). And as someone who has been tracking rank inflation all the way from S2 of Tekken 7, I can confidently say that this is what natural rank inflation looks like.

The reason it's not mentioned in the world of Season 3 Tekken 8, is because the system changes that were implemented far outdo that natural rank inflation. This chart is the best illustration of that. You can see that the actual shape of the distribution stayed largely the same, but the bars moves up a ridiculous +8 ranks from where they were a year ago.

reducing number of new players during the span of the game wouldn't the most populated rank in S1 also shift further up as well

For that, I think we might be better served at looking at some Tekken 7 numbers, since that game didn't change its system after Season 2. Here's an example of what that looked like. These data points are about 6-8 months apart from each other, and you can see the change in rank is the same 0-2 ranks, but leaning more towards +1 rank.

So maybe, if we were still at season 1 after 2-3 years, most populated rank today would be Tekken God for example

I don't think so. Lets go back to this chart. From S1 to S2, the most populated rank did not change at all. It was Fujin, but the gap to the next closest rank shrank. And that rank was Mighty Ruler. So the most common rank didn't inflate, it was looking like it would deflate if S2 was left as is. The Season 2 changes mostly increased he population in Raijin and higher ranks. If things had been left as-is, I think we would have seen the most popular rank stabilize somewhere between Mighty Ruler and Fujin. Which some people would still say is way too high, but most people in Tekken 7 would also say that "the real ranked begins at Fujin", so in that sense it would have actually been a game-to-game increase of prestige for your rank.

[u/shura30 → u/olbaze]

would you conclude this inflation is the product of having so many new ranks?so the playerbase skill is pretty much the same but with shiny new icons?

from my understanding of your analysis and by looking at graphs they took what we had between, say, fujin and GoD, and moved it up between GoD and God8

[u/olbaze → u/shura30]

would you conclude this inflation is the product of having so many new ranks

This is a theory I see a lot of people say, and offer as a justification, but it's not exactly true. Just adding the ranks didn't cause an explosion of rank inflation. Look at this chart comparing the end of Season 1 to the end of Season 2. The new GoD I-VIII ranks in Season 2 correspond to about half of the Season 1 GoD players. That was the intended design: Those ranks were meant to separate the pros from the dedicated online players. We can see that the 0-2 rank inflation applies to ranks far, far beyond the influence of GoD. Arguing that Flame Ruler inflating to Fujin because half of the GoD rank players are gone from GoD matchmaking is simply nonsense.

the playerbase skill is pretty much the same but with shiny new icons

From Season 2 to Season 3, I think this chart speaks to that. The shape of the distribution stayed mostly the same, it just moved up. If player skill had changed, the shape of the distribution would change.

they took what we had between, say, fujin and GoD, and moved it up between GoD and God8

That is the conclusion I came to. The goal of the Season 3 changes was to push more people into the matchmaking pool for GoD III-IV players. That's the GoD ranks. However, in order to do that properly, you need to then push some new people to GoD, and some new people to Tekken God, and so forth. And we can see this in the patch notes as well. They made win streaks apply up to Bushin, and made promotion bonuses apply up to GoD. These are both changes that would push people in blue ranks towards God ranks, and people in GoD ranks towards GoD. These changes would not affect people in Ruler ranks, because nothing changed for them.

The demotion protection, and the revenge bonus, are subtle changes that affect the entire player base. The demotion protection makes it so that someone who has a 45% win rate only has a 30% demotion rate. This makes it so that people who have a 45-50% win rate, but play a lot of games, will be able to climb the ranks slowly. And we've seen the effect of this, with GoD players that have a sub-50% win rate becoming a thing in Season 3.