Your ladder rating moves on two questions every game, and both are about beating expectations rather than raw stats. Here is exactly how it works.
Ideally, you balance the teams first
The best games are the balanced ones, so use Inter-Arena to balance the lobby before you start. The arena tries every possible way to divide the players and proposes the two sides with the smallest rating gap between them, so the match kicks off close to a 50/50 and the result actually means something. You can watch that balancer at work on the EVA Bucharest Solo Ladder.
If the teams aren't balanced (a fixed roster shows up, or someone splits them by hand), the rating still handles it, because the team part is dynamic. It's driven by the difference in average rating between the two sides, not by a flat amount. Beating a side that was stronger on paper pays more, and losing to a weaker one costs more. So even an unbalanced game is priced fairly and automatically: the imbalance is measured, not ignored.
The two questions
Every game, your rating answers two things.
1, did your side beat the odds? Ratings set an expected winner before the match. Beat a stronger team and you gain more; lose to a weaker one and it costs more. A win is worth more the bigger the scoreline: in Domination the winner always closes at 100, so the loser's score measures how one-sided it was. Everyone on your side shares this part equally.
2, did you beat what was expected of you? Measured against the lobby, not a fixed target. Carry your team and you earn on top; get carried and you earn less. Performance is 60% kill efficiency and 40% damage dealt. And the better your rating, the more is expected of you: a top player has to dominate just to hold their place.
Put together:
Δ rating = team result + your performance
The result decides the sign; your performance only sizes the move within it. A winner always gains and a loser always pays. A brilliant game on a loss loses less, but it never turns into a gain.
One game, three outcomes
The rules that keep it fair
- Winning always gains, losing always costs. Your stats size the move; they never flip the result.
- Opponent strength is priced in. Beating a higher-rated team pays more, and a predictable win moves little.
- The better you are, the more is expected. A top rating has to be re-earned every game, so you can't coast on a high number.
- Farming the same opponents dries up. Beating the same lineup over and over in one day pays less each time; trading wins resets it, so normal sessions never feel it.
- Points come from the lobby, not thin air. Every game is zero-sum, so what winners gain, losers lose. The ladder never inflates, and a tier means the same thing next year as today.
Under the hood
Everyone starts at 1500. Gold begins at 1500, Platinum at 1750, Diamond at 2000, with Bronze and Silver below. New players move faster for their first five games, then settle, and are ranked after three. Placement, cups and booked scrims don't touch the solo ladder; only the walk-in Domination queue does.
| Team-result weight (K) | 80 |
| Performance weight (C) | 20 |
| Expected win | Elo, divisor 1000 |
| Result value | win = 0.75 + 0.25 × margin |
| Performance | 60% efficiency (K + ½A)/D · 40% damage, as z-scores over the lobby |
| Expected performance | 0.4 × your rating (z) in the lobby |
| Sign cap | |perf| ≤ 0.8 × |team|, rebalanced to zero-sum |
| Anti-farm | 2 free wins vs the same matchup/day, then ×0.8 each, floor ×0.25 |
| Decay | −50 every 14 idle days, floor 1500 |
Every figure above is read straight from the live engine that scores the arena, so retune it and this page stays true.
Ready to climb? Every walk-in Domination game at your venue counts toward the EVA Bucharest Solo Ladder, the live competitive rating for EVA Battle Arena (After-H) VR esports.