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Begin Your Journey in Ranked Seasons
Hello, everyone! We’re excited to announce that today’s the day – invites to the 1v1 Ranked Seasons Preview are rolling out now! Whether you’re participating in the preview or not, we expect you’ll be hearing a fair bit about 1v1 Ranked Seasons, along with some other sneak peeks of features upcoming in the Spring Update that are also present in this preview build. With that in mind, we’re diving into some Ranked Seasons details in today’s blog post!
For those who are seeking the next challenge in Age of Empires IV – look no further: 1v1 Ranked Seasons will pit you against the worthiest opponents so players across all skill levels can find quality games and fight to earn exclusive in-game rewards like Monuments, Player Profile Portraits, and Coat of Arms items. Following its release, the first Ranked Season will span 12 weeks – so there will be plenty of time to jump in and test your mettle!
If you’re participating in the preview currently, you may have noticed the Ranked tab under the Multiplayer menu. This will be your one-stop-shop for all things Ranked once the feature releases. Here you will queue for games, view your progress, and check out the exclusive rewards for each rank division.
Placement Battles & Rank Points
When you begin playing in a new Season, you will need to complete a series of placement battles – in the current preview, we’re requiring five placement matches. Upon completion of your fifth placement battle, you will be granted a rank. Your rank is visible on your profile as well as in loading screens and game lobbies. Of course, this is just a starting point and you can climb to higher ranks – and higher rewards! – by continuing to queue up for Ranked games. Winning Ranked games will earn you Rank Points, and by the same token, losing games will result in losing Rank Points. Try your hardest to secure a Conquest, Sacred, or Wonder victory to ascend the ranks!
During and after your placement battles, you’ll be able to view the Rank List to see the Rank divisions, tiers, and their associated rewards. Each division and tier (for instance: Silver II) has a Rank Point requirement, which can be viewed in the Rank List. As well, the Ranked tab will display your current Rank Points versus how many you must earn before ascending to the next rank.
Rank Divisions and Tiers
Rank divisions will be broken up into three tiers. You can see the full list – in descending order – below:
| Rank Division | Tier |
| Conqueror | Conqueror I Conqueror II Conqueror III |
| Diamond | Diamond I Diamond II Diamond III |
| Platinum | Platinum I Platinum II Platinum III |
| Gold | Gold I Gold II Gold III |
| Silver | Silver I Silver II Silver III |
| Bronze | Bronze I Bronze II Bronze III |
Once you’ve earned a rank, your division and tier is dictated by your Rank Points. Defeat opponents to earn Rank Points – sounds pretty easy on paper, right?
Exclusive Ranked Rewards
Finishing a Season in a specific division (e.g. Silver) will grant you that division’s exclusive rewards once the Season concludes. Rewards come in the form of Monuments to adorn your Town Center as well as portraits and Coat of Arms pieces for you to customize your player profile.
1v1 Ranked Seasons Preview
For those of you who are playing in the 1v1 Ranked Seasons Closed Preview running today through February 4th: first of all, thank you for your participation! Seasons are a huge endeavor, and we know that this queue will continue to grow as players let us know what they’d like to see in future Seasons.
We also know that Ranked Seasons are impacted by other systems – such as matchmaking, lobby flow, and communication tools. When giving your thoughts on Ranked Seasons, we welcome additional feedback on adjacent systems that may impact your experience with the Ranked queue.
So what kind of feedback are we looking for and where can you provide it? You can find some jumping off points provided by the dev team below. Please feel free to give your feedback in the preview forums in your invitation email or in our player survey when it’s sent to you next week.
- Rank placement: Placement battles, win and loss visualization, and Point accrual are key areas of focus for the team. Did you place into a rank that you expected given your performance in your placement battles? How clear was the progression of your placement battles?
- Rank Point accrual: After your placement battles were completed and you earned a rank, how did you feel about the amount of Rank Points earned (and lost) when playing Ranked matches?
- Rank identity and prestige: So you’ve earned a rank you can be proud of – be it through your placement battles or after a long-fought climb up the ladder. Your rank is celebrated across the game even before you’ve received your rewards, and we want to know whether that feels as prestigious as it should!
- Rank rewards: This preview does not include official rewards and will instead only showcase texted examples of what a reward might be. Because of this, we won’t be requesting feedback on the visual appearance or contents of rewards just yet! At scale, we are testing to ensure that rewards are granted as expected – so any bugs regarding reward delivery would be important for us to know. Remember that rewards are issued when the Season ends. You can expect a short delay, but once your rewards are granted you should see them in the Activity Feed and in your player profile, where you can equip them!
Notes on the 1v1 Ranked Seasons Preview:
- The 1v1 Ranked Seasons Preview is an Insider-only event. Access instructions will be communicated via email.
- Ranked Rewards for this preview are not representative of how rewards will appear in our first official season, and they won’t carryover and nonpermanent: In the full release of Seasons, your earned rewards are yours to keep! But for the 1v1 Ranked Seasons Preview, these items contain incomplete art. Rewards earned in the Ranked Seasons Preview will not carry over into other tests or the release version of Age of Empires IV.
- Rank progression is nonpermanent: Just like rewards, rank progression (rank badge and Rank Points) will not carry over into other tests or the release version of Age of Empires IV.
- The Ranked Season will end a day before the preview closes: To test reward delivery, the Season will officially end before preview access is rescinded. This is a key part of the preview, and any bugs around rewards should be reported. At the conclusion of the Season, you should receive a portrait associated with your Rank division as well as a Monument (for players Gold and above). These rewards should be equippable (although they won’t have their final look) via your player profile.
- Other aspects of the Spring Update may be present: You may notice some other new features coming to Age of Empires IV while participating in this preview. We’re excited to give some sneak peeks of Unit Stat Card improvements, Global Build Queue and more.