Ranked War
Ranked warring is a warring mode in which Factions fight one another in a 1v1 setting in order to progress through ranked tiers, and earn rewards.
Enlisting
The leader, co-leader of a faction, or anyone with the "War Management" permission can enlist their faction into the ranked warring pool via the "Ranked" tab on the faction page.
In order to enlist your faction, you must have at least 10 full members (Recruits included) [1] that have been active in the last 24 hours.
Note:
- Any recruits may still be hit during the war for your opponents to build their own score, similar to a Raid.
- Factions will not be able to participate in Ranked Warring if the strength of their membership roster substantially reduces since the last war they participated in, if their rank is also higher than it's expected to be. [2]
- Faction members in Federal Jail are included in the matchmaking size criteria. Faction is kicked out of the matchmaking, if more that 10% of the faction consists of fedded members.[3]
- Faction members that are Fallen are NOT counted towards your member total.
- Check to lock/unlock your ability to enlist happen once every hour.[4]
Provided the faction meets the member requirement, it may enlist (and indeed withdraw from) the warring pool at any time.
Faction Rating
Every faction has a hidden Faction Rating made of two parts:
- Stat strength: Derived from members' battle stats, using a formula similar to the older Hidden Rank number.
- Performance: A measure of how a faction actually fights, updated after every ranked war using a system derived from Elo.
Matchmaking
Once enlisted, a matchmaking algorithm will begin to look for an opponent faction based on a number of parameters:
- Faction Rating (hidden), made up of stat strength and performance
- Faction Size (Factions will be matched with other factions that are within the following range...)
- Maximum range: round(({members} + 5) * 1.25)
- Minimum range: round(({members} / 1.25) - 5)
- Recently Fought (There has to be at least 6 wars since the previous war together.)
All matchmaking will now happen at 12:00 pm TCT on Tuesdays. All ranked wars are now generated at that single point of time each week. Effectively all enlisted factions are put into a single pool together, after which the system will try to pair all of them.
An option has now been added to pick between weekday or weekend wars. Some factions may prefer Weekday wars (Thursday or Friday), while other factions may prefer Weekend wars (Saturday).
This has no effect on matchmaking, but if both paired factions have the same preference, then it would be picked - otherwise, the decision will be made at random.
Once the system knows whether it’s a Weekday or Weekend war, it will then select the specific day at random; Thursday or Friday for Weekday, and Saturday for Weekend. To decide the start time, it then chooses the most active period on average between the members of both paired factions on that particular day in the past.
- Sacrifice matches
- A small number of factions are so much stronger than everyone else in their size bracket that fair matches for them barely exist. Rather than leave them without wars, the system will occasionally give them an opponent they outclass. This is called a sacrifice. - Sacrifices are designed to be rare for any given faction. The stated aim is that a faction is on the receiving end of one less than 5% of the time. - After being sacrificed, a faction gets a long protection period before it can happen again. - There is a cap on how far down the rankings the system will reach to find a sacrifice. So being matched against a much stronger or much weaker faction than expected is not necessarily a bug.
- Unmatched weeks
- Sometimes there is no valid opponent for a faction in a given week. This is a designed outcome, not an error. Unmatched weeks are intended to be rare, and a faction that goes unmatched is placed at the front of the queue in the weeks that follow.
When a war is confirmed all participants will receive an event with details on the start time and opponents. This details will also be available on the Ranked faction tab.
Notes:
- Members with extremely high stats have capped 'scores' when considered in match-making. [5]
- Once an opponent faction has been found, there is no official forfeiting - the war must be completed. Additionally players will be prevented from leaving, joining or being kicked until its completion.
- Recruits are included in the matchmaking process and will be accounted for when the system decides to match two opponents.
Ranks
Factions now have two seperate ranks which affect matchmaking: a hidden rank and an actual rank.
Ranks and Divisions
This is the rank which is shown publicly on your faction page.
There are six ranks that a faction can progress through by winning ranked wars. Each rank contains a number of sub-divisions within it. Rank and division are determined by your faction rating position: factions are arranged highest-rated to lowest, and your position in that list decides where you sit.
Division sizes are grouped around a fixed share of the ranked population: roughly 10% Diamond, 15% Platinum, 20% Gold, and 25% Silver, and 30% Bronze. Each rank is split into four divisions.
After every war, the system checks where your new rating places you in the ranks and divisions.
Each faction begins "Unranked" in "Metal".
| Ranks | |
|---|---|
| Rank | Badge |
| Metal
1 Division |
|
| Bronze
4 Divisions |
|
| Silver
4 Divisions |
|
| Gold
4 Divisions |
|
| Platinum
4 Divisions |
|
| Diamond
4 Divisions |
|
Entry Requirements
- To reach Diamond rank a faction must have at least 75 members.
Diamond Ranking
- Any factions in the diamond rank have an additional positioning system, along with the divisions. This position is signified by the number on top of your rank.
 |
- This positing is determined by your ability to beat factions with a higher position then yours. When one faction beats another holding a better position, they will steal the loser's position, and the loser's position will then drop by one.
Rank Decay
If a faction does not compete in a ranked war for around six weeks, they will be unranked outright, with a warning a week beforehand. Re-enlisting will cause the faction to be re-assigned a rank at matchmaking time.
A warning is provided a week before a faction is unranked.
Note:
- Your faction will not decay in rank if it remains enlisted in the pool.[6]
The War
Ranked wars are a "Tug of War" style fight, where each team attacks the members of their opponent to gain "score", with the ultimate goal of crossing a target net score first.
Note:
- Any active chain will be forced into cooldown 5 seconds before the start of a ranked war. [7]
- Early Discharge will be immediately available at the start of Ranked Wars for all incoming outside hits. [8]
- During a war, members of either faction will have 60-seconds of protection from outside hitters from the moment the faction member leaves the hospital or jail.
Gaining Score
Score is gained by attacking members of the opponent faction - it is equal to the respect earned with each hit. This means that mugging will provide 75% of the score that leaving or hospitalizing would, and chain bonus hits will generate large amounts of score.
Target Score
The net target score to achieve will be based on the rank and member counts of the factions competing. [9]
If this target is not met within 24 hours, it will decrease by 1% of the original value per hour (such that it decreases by the same value every hour). The maximum theoretical duration of a ranked war will be 123 hours. [10]
Forfeit
There is typically no way to forfeit a ranked war.
Under normal circumstances, a ranked war only ends when:
- The target score is met by one faction
or
- One of the participating factions is destroyed
If a faction loses 20% or more of their membership to federal jailings, the opposing faction may submit a bug report. The admins will resolve the issue manually by causing the faction to forfeit the war.
Rewards
Participants in a ranked war will receive bonus respect and Caches containing special weapons and armor. Several factors can increase the rewards that are bestowed:
Rank and Division
Each faction's current rank and division will affect rewards, with higher ranks providing greater rewards, and each divisional promotion within a rank enhancing them further.[11]
War Outcome
Winning the war will apply a 2x factor to rewards, while losing the war will apply a x1 factor instead.[12]
Member Count
The number of full members across each faction will affect rewards further, with every additional member beyond the minimum 10 required for ranked war enlistment increasing rewards by 1%.[12]
The reward factor can be defined by the following equation:
F = 1 + ((M - 10) / 100)
Where M is the number of active faction members and F is the factor applied to rewards.
Participation
Greater participation, win or lose, will provide greater rewards on a scale of 0x-3x. [11]
Random Variance
Rewards will be further increased or decreased by a random variance factor ranging from +10% to -10%.[12]
Historical Notes
Previous to a March 2024 update, factions had two additional reward boosting factors:
- An underdog win (i.e. the faction favored to lose) will boost the rewards generated.
- A win after a loss streak will provide greater rewards.
Additionally significant lack of participation used to incur the penalty of an additional division loss for the losing faction.
Diamond rank used to have 7 divisions, but was reduced to 4 in March 2024
For a short period of time factions would automatically reenlist upon completion of ranked war, however due to player pushback this feature was removed.[13]
Prior to the August 2026 Ranked Warring update, all enlisted factions were assigned a Hidden Rank that, if higher, overrode their Actual Rank. Hidden Ranks were solely based on a faction's average stat-score value of the top 80% of its members. An algorithm determined a faction's Hidden Rank based on their member's average statscore: the very top factions with a stat score of over 200,000 received the highest possible Hidden Rank of Platinum III. Factions were then bracketed below this in increments of 1.3x, meaning that factions with a stat score of between 153,846 and 200,000 were assigned to Platinum II, 118,343 to 153,846 were assigned to Platinum I, and so on and so forth.
- Removed point rewards from ranked wars and increased caches after announcement in last week's patch notes
- Disabled auto enlistment after finishing a ranked war
- Released previously announced Ranked Warring meta shakeup '24 updates & changes
- Changed ranked wars to not reward any points to factions that don't have the Point Storage upgrade
- Changed Ranked War boxes to link to the war report after completion instead of opening up the dropdown
- Changed Ranked War enlistment criteria to exclude factions that have 20% or more members in federal jail
- Changed Ranked Warring rank decay to happen every two weeks after the ten week period without enlistment
- Was originally a decay after every 10 weeks.
- Factions who've stopped participating in ranked warring will soon start losing a division every 2 weeks after an initial resting period of 10 weeks, instead of simply one division every 10 weeks. Remaining enlisted in matchmaking prevents this decay, and warnings are continuously provided a week before any division is lost.
- Changed historical Ranked War reports to be migrated to long-term storage after one-month
- Added persistent roster strength matchmaking requirement for Ranked Warring to begin from 27th September
- After listening to feedback from the community, we've implemented a system to prevent factions from continuing their participation in Ranked Warring if the strength of their membership roster substantially reduces since the last war they participated in, if their rank is also higher than it's expected to be. This rule will come into effect on wars finished during or after the matchmaking cycle starting September 27th, and shouldn't ever have any effect on established factions.
- Added Ranked Warring enlistment restrictions to factions who have too many members inactive while abroad
- Fixed Ranked Warring rank decay timer to reset upon matchmaking participation even if no war is scheduled
- Added Roster Locking during Ranked Wars to prevent members from joining, leaving or being kicked
- Released Ranked Warring
- Released Advanced Weapons & Armor
References
- ↑ Chedburn, Patch list #264 (08/11/22)
- ↑ Chedburn, Patch list #257 (20/09/22)
- ↑ Cloudjumper: Matchmaking size (23/03/26)
- ↑ Cloudjimper: Ability to enlist (05/03/26)
- ↑ Chedburn, Ranked Warring Request; Open Letter to Ched (20/01/22)
- ↑ bogie, No match found - Rank decay? (02/08/22)
- ↑ bogie, War hit not counting as war hit in Ranked War Logs (13/01/22)
- ↑ Chedburn, Ranked Warring meta shakeup '24 (26/03/24)
- ↑ Chedburn, [Ranked Warring Beta] NS2 vs DA (03/11/21)
- ↑ Chedburn, Ranked warring beta - Phases #3, #4, #5 and #6 (15/11/21)
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 Chedburn, Ranked Warring meta shakeup '24 (26/03/24)
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 Chedburn, RW payouts (17/04/24 )
- ↑ Chedburn, Change default RW status to Enlist (03/07/24)
| Part of a series on Factions | |||||||||
| Respect | Chaining · Organized Crimes | ||||||||
| Warring | Territory · Rackets · Raiding · Ranked Warring · Outside Hits | ||||||||
| Management | Upgrades · Recruit Status | ||||||||