Knockout City will enter its third season on October 5 and the event is bringing more than just new content and a yet-to-be-announced theme. In a blog post, EA detailed the upcoming changes for the Team Elimination playlist in League Play that debuted earlier in season 2. These range from small bug fixes, such as spawning too close to opponents, to more significant tweaks like a rework of how players join mid-match. Players will now be forced to spectate the match-in-progress until there’s a complete team wipe before spawning into the game.
Season 3 will also see the removal of Face-Off for League Play. The playlist is being taken down due to “a couple of factors” which, while not specified, made the developer feel that the playlist wasn’t providing a good experience for all players. Face-Off might be revisited at some point, but Team Elimination is now the focus of League Play.
Related: The best outfits in Knockout City
EA also addressed player criticisms of the game’s Skill Rating calculation. In response to feedback, the system is being overhauled completely. Currently, Skill Rating and Matchmaking Rating are tied together, which presents a problem. MMR has a max value of 5000 which volatility, a variable, subtracts from in order to determine a player’s SR. Because volatility had a minimum value of 200, the top SR capped at 4400. This led to frustrations of SR failing to rise despite consecutive win streaks, but still easily dropping from a loss.
The new system will ensure players gain SR on a win and lose SR on a loss, each by a default of 20 points. Players with an SR exceeding 4000 will have reduced gains and losses; the 4000 to 4500 bracket, for example, halves the default to 10. As a higher SR bracket is achieved, so is the point reduction. League Play rankings are also being tweaked and will require fewer League Points to go from Unranked to Bronze and from Silver to Gold.
