A fresh season, a full Elo wipe and a fist full of problems sums up SMITE’s Season 4 ranked experience. While Hi-Rez deserves credit for implementations that are a step in the right direction, other issues need to be ironed out.

Dude, where’s my Elo?

At this point in SMITE’s development, a full Elo reset was necessary. Season 0 veterans have been working with the same Elo pool for four years. Numbers have been drastically affected by multiple ranking system reboots, solo, duo and tri-queues, among other changes. Let’s face it; it’s time to start anew.

While Hi-Rez gets a gold star for the reset, they forgot something. Remember the cap preventing anyone from placing higher than Gold I straight out of qualifiers, which went into effect in 2015? Yeah, that existed for a reason. Now it’s gone.

Impossible to practice outside of scrims, I'm so bored of playing "Who got the worse shitter" every game. Can we reset ranked please — Hayzer (@ObeyHayzer) March 1, 2017

A barrier was a good thing. It stopped lower level players from getting in over their heads, while at the same time not hindering anyone actually decent from moving up.

S3 Bronze, S4 Diamond

Now everything is hinged on 10 qualifier games. A Season 3 Bronze can make Diamond straight out of the gate. The fact that there are less players in Bronze V, the lowest level, than in Masters, the tippity top, speaks for itself.

Naturally, if players’ ranks aren’t aligned with their skill, this is bad for matchmaking. Pros like Hurriwind have taken to the net to voice their concerns, justifiably calling for changes, declaring the root of the problem early Elo determination.

Who cares?

Hurriwind said it best: “A healthy ranked system is the backbone for competitive play in almost any competitive game.”