Did not realize the thought would be controversial.
I agree that survival should be weighted considerably, but I feel like "survival despite conflicts" should be weighted more strongly compared to "mere survival". Hence the thought around K/D.
I suppose it hinges on what the ranking system is really supposed to reflect. If it's just about survival, then yeah it's doing a reasonable job: routinely finishing in the 70th percentile of players should put you in the 70th percentile of ranks. Doesn't much matter how you got there. If it's meant to reflect the full battle royale experience--which, based on the stats displayed, I suspect is what they're going for--then my thought is simply whether or not they weigh the survival element too highly over the others (which appear to be combat and resource management). I mean, if that's the case maybe my stats are skewed by really good resource management? I genuinely don't know. I just feel like ranks should put a little more weight on how you do when you have more encounters versus your runs where you don't see anyone until 20 alive, and I don't know that they do that right now.
I'm also wondering how much play volume factors in. In doing research, I found as an example
one Grandmaster player with a lower K/D than myself. But their top-10 survival rate is 14% better than mine, so, fair. Definitely better than me on that front. They've also played about 4x as many matches. The only GMs anywhere near my match count are obvious cheaters. (18 K/D? C'mon now.) How much does that heavy play count factor in? I dunno. I do recall reading that rank can drop, but how easy is it to drop versus gain? Sounds like dropping is a bit too uncommon right now.
But a lot of this comes from a semi-idle systems design train of thought. (Along with a really incredulous sense that I could be anything
remotely "elite".) I feel like I'd want to design a system that rewards surviving conflicts, whether by killing your foe or evasive action, rather than raw survival. I don't know that this system looks like that, but since I'm not a seasoned game designer I don't know what a system designed like that would specifically look like. Maybe I'm skeptical for no reason.
(Also, I'm female. Hence why it's best to just use "they" when talking about someone known only through an avatar.)