Power level



Power level, also known as Splatfest Power, League Power or X Power, is a feature introduced in Version in Splatoon that replaced the vibe meter during Splatfests.

The concept of power level has also been extended in Splatoon 2 to apply to Ranked Battles and League Battles.

"One of our interns has learned that starting with this Splatfest, you may notice some small improvements and differences!

During Splatfest, what was previously the Vibe Meter will now display your Splatfest Power. Your initial Splatfest Power level depends upon your current Ranked Battle rank, and your Splatfest Power level will change depending on wins or losses during Splatfest Battles.

The player with the highest Splatfest Power on the winning team will receive a slightly larger boost to their Splatfest Power than their teammates after the match.

Also – until now, Splatfest matchmaking favored grouping players with similar play styles. Players will now be more likely to play with those of similar Splatfest Power level. The higher a team’s average Splatfest Power level, the more Splatfest Points they will earn after winning."

- Live from Squid Research Lab (2016-03-14)

Description
Power level changes depending on wins or losses during battles. In Splatoon 2, The power rating was changed to Glicko-2 rating system. Splats, getting splatted, turf coverage and playing the objective do not count towards the power rating. The opponents' power ratings are put together as a single value and used when calculating a new value for the player. In addition to rank and power, players also have a rating deviation (RD) number for each mode. The RD measures the accuracy of a player's rating, with one RD being equal to one standard deviation. For example, a player with a rating of 1500 and an RD of 50 has a real strength between 1400 and 1600 (two standard deviations from 1500) with 95% confidence. Twice the RD is added and subtracted from their rating to calculate this range. After a game, the amount the rating changes depends on the RD: the change is smaller when the player's RD is low (since their rating is already considered accurate), and also when their opponent's RD is high (since the opponent's true rating is not well known, so little information is being gained). The RD itself decreases after playing a game, but it increases slowly over time of inactivity.

Splatfest Power
In Version of, a feature was added to Splatfests that replaced the vibe meter with a Splatfest Power level meter. The initial Splatfest Power level depended on player's current Ranked Battle rank.

In Version, the initial Splatfest power of players who were in Rank S+ was changed from 1600 to 1700, and the initial Splatfest power of players below Level 10 was changed from 800 to 1000.


 * Notes

In Splatoon 2, the initial Splatfest Power is 1,600, with 250 RD and 0.6 volatility and has seven calculation matches.


 * Splatfest Power level changed depending on wins or losses during Splatfest Battles.
 * The player with the highest Splatfest Power in a team gained a slightly bigger amount of points.
 * Players were previously matched up based on playstyle but were later matched up with players with similar Splatfest Power.
 * More Splatfest Power was gained after a match if the opposing team had the higher average Splatfest Power.
 * In Splatoon, at the top-left corner of the box showing the player's Splatfest Power was a pair of eyes representing the Squid Sister they had sided with: players on Callie's team saw scowling eyes and those on Marie's team saw more laid-back eyes. Both versions had their signature pupils, but with a dark red color instead of the usual gold.
 * In Splatoon 2, since Version, Splatfest Power was no longer displayed in Normal mode, only in Pro mode. However, the game still kept track of it internally, even in Normal mode, to determine how much a team gets for a winning bonus.
 * As of Version of Splatoon 2, the names and levels of all players in a match were removed from the lobby waiting screen and replaced with question marks if the player's Splatfest Power was above 2,200. Due to this, players were made able to battle against people blocked in their Nintendo Switch system settings as long as their power was also this high.

Players with the highest Splatfest Power for each team are featured in the Splatfest Top 100 rankings.

In Splatoon, The rankings were announced at the official Japanese Splatoon website for Japan, Live from Squid Research Lab for North America and SplatoonUK for Europe/Oceania.

In Splatoon 2, the rankings are announced in SplatNet 2.

League Power
Players get their initial League Power based on their performance in their first seven matches. Every change of rotation resets the League Power. Only the League Power of the enemy team can be seen before battles.

Groups whose League Power is high enough receive commemorative medals, either Gold Medals,  Silver Medals , or  Bronze Medals and the top 100 of the rotation are displayed in previous records.

Ranked Battles and X Power


The player has a power level for each Ranked mode, although it is never exposed to the player until they reach Rank X. The game has a list of target power levels - one for each rank. If the player's power exceeds one of these thresholds when they rank up, the game skips them to that rank. Ten calculation matches are used for the Glicko-2 initial power calculation.

In Splatoon 2, with the addition of Rank X at version, the rank bar was replaced with an "X Power" level. Each month, X rank players get their power level reset. The power level is exposed after the calculation period that lasts 10 matches. After every month, for each of the 4 different Ranked Battle modes, 500 players with the highest X Power are announced on SplatNet 2 alongside their most used weapon in the last 50 matches in that mode.


 * The starting X Power seeded for the initial calculation is between 2,000 and 2,300. The initial Rating Deviation (RD) in Glicko-2 is 250.
 * If the player ends up below 2,000 power at the end of the month, they rank down to S+9.
 * If the power is revealed to the player and is below 1,900 power during the month, they get "Danger" warning. If they lose while they are in danger, they rank down to S+9.
 * X rank players can not rank down during the calculation period, this may lead to:
 * Players getting significantly below 1,900 power if following initial calculation matches places them there.
 * Players ranking down at the end of the month instead.
 * As of Version of Splatoon 2, like with Splatfest Power, the names and levels of all players in a match were removed from the lobby waiting screen and replaced with question marks. Due to this, players were made able to battle against people blocked in their Nintendo Switch system settings as long as they are in the top 2,000.

Trivia

 * The promotional images for Splatfest Power show the Cats vs. Dogs and Rice vs. Bread s and ink colors despite it having not existed when they were used.