XDefiant Ranked Play rewards, ranks, modes & everything you need to know
UbisoftRanked Play arrives in Season 1 of XDefiant, offering a brand-new grind that sees players competing in a bid to climb the ranks and earn exclusive rewards.
For those interested in all the details, here’s everything you need to know about Ranked Play, including the modes, rewards, and more.
When does Ranked Play go live?
Ranked Play will begin on Wednesday, July 3. For future seasons, there will be a warm-up period of one week, but as players had the Preseason to get a taste of the action, the devs are kicking it off earlier this time.
Modes
- Occupy: In Ranked Occupy, the Zones will rotate in a predetermined order.
- Domination: Allows each team to play a side of the map for five minutes before switching at half-time and playing again on the opposite side.
- Zone Control: Teams take turns as Attackers and Defenders, with Defenders being able to push pack Attackers’ capture progress to the nearest quarter of the progression circle.
- Escort: No modifications – will play like its Casual counterpart.
The devs confirmed the full list of modes for Ranked Play in the Season 1 reveal trailer, in which they also explained how each mode has been tweaked to accommodate the competitive scene.
However, the team didn’t share the maps within the mode yet. We’ll update this section once we know which maps will be available in the competitive mode.
Ranks & restrictions
- Bronze
- Silver
- Gold
- Ruby
- Emerald
- Diamond
- Legends
There are seven ranks in XDefiant, with each having 10 levels to get through to move up, excluding Legends, which is the top 500. There will be a warm-up period of one week at the start of each Ranked Play season, which allows you to get your bearings before putting your rank on the line.
The team size in Ranked play is 4v4, and the rank restriction means that you can only play with a party of 4 so long as the highest and lowest players are within 15 levels of each other. However, once you hit Diamond, that max party size reduces to 2.
How do you rank up?
You can rank up by playing well in matches, which includes winning the objective, getting kills, and more. Perform well and you will gain Ranked Points (RP), and you will see a progression bar so that you know how close you are to the next rank.
Equally, if you don’t perform so well, you will see a decrease in your Ranked Points. The amount of RP you earn is also dictated by whether or not your team is expected to win based on the overall team Skill Rating. If you’re expected to win and you do, you’ll receive less than you would if you win and you’re expected to lose. In turn, it also works the same way for if you lose.
How does Rank reset work?
According to the Season 1 reveal video, the devs confirmed that depending on where you placed, you will be reset back to various levels in the Silver Rank once the new season of Ranked start, except for Bronze. If you finish in Bronze, you will remain there for the next season.
Rewards
Players will gain exclusive rewards depending on their rank and will receive them as soon as they hit that rank. This is the case for all rewards apart from the Legends Rank LVOA Weapon Skin, which will be awarded at the start of Season 2’s Ranked Play.
We don’t yet know the full list of rewards, so we’ll be sure to update this section once that information is available.
SBMM explained
The dev team confirmed that XDefiant’s Ranked Play mode will feature skill-based matchmaking (SBMM) to set up the competitive lobbies to “prioritize quality matches.”
To accomplish this, they confirmed that the mode’s matchmaking system, SBMM, will take the average Rank Points (Skill Rating) into account, but ping is the main priority. The system also takes party size, region, input device, and platform into consideration.
Having the best controller or keyboard and mouse settings is key to performing well in Ranked Play, as well as making sure you can hear footsteps.