Rating Guide

How service ratings work, at a level that is useful to players — without the inner workings.

You do not need to understand rating details to start playing. This page is for players who want to know what service ratings mean, when they change, and how they relate to matchmaking.

What a rating is

A rating is the service’s estimate of your skill in a format. It is built up from the results of the matches you play. The service uses it to find you matches against players of a similar level, so games feel fair. You can see your own service rating, but it is not a public scoreboard.

Rating dimensions

A format does not give you just one number. It tracks several dimensions — separate ratings for different parts of play — because being strong at one thing does not mean being strong at another.

In the 1v4 quartet format, your killer skill is tracked separately from your survivor skill. Killer rating can also be more specific than “killer overall”: when you queue as killer, the killer you declare can have its own rating dimension. This matters because being strong with one killer does not always mean you are equally strong with another.

For example, a player may be very strong on Nurse but still learning Spirit. A single killer rating would blur those two skills together. Per-killer dimensions let the service treat those queue requests differently: when that player declares Nurse, the service can use Nurse-relevant rating; when they declare Spirit, it can use a rating that better reflects their Spirit matches.

Broader dimensions can still exist. For example, the service may need to understand your general killer strength as well as your strength on the specific killer you declared. Keeping those dimensions separate lets the service use the rating that best fits the match being formed, instead of forcing every kind of skill into one overall number.

How ratings shape matchmaking

When you join the queue for a rated format, the service looks at the rating dimensions that matter for that request. In 1v4 quartet, that means the format, the side you are applying for, and, when you queue as killer, the killer you declared.

The service then compares waiting players and groups using those relevant ratings. It tries to form a match where the expected skill level on each side is close enough for the game to be competitive. A survivor group should not be matched only by one player’s rating, and a killer should not be judged only by an unrelated killer or survivor rating when a more relevant dimension exists.

For example, suppose a match is being formed around Nurse. The killer side has a Nurse-specific rating that reflects how that player performs when playing Nurse. The survivor side can also have Nurse-specific ratings that reflect how those survivors perform against Nurse. When the matchmaking engine evaluates that possible match, it resolves the Nurse-specific ratings for both sides and uses those values to judge whether the pairing is fair.

Which formats are rated

Not every format is rated. Whether playing a format affects your rating is part of that regulation, and it is shown in the regulations list and on each regulation page. For example, the 1v4 quartet format is rated. If a format is not rated, you can still play it — it just does not change your rating.

What affects your rating

Only accepted results of rated matches change your rating — the outcomes that both sides agreed on and that were recorded. See Results for how a result becomes accepted. A match reported as not played does not change anyone’s rating.