Ratings that add up to zero
Seasonal ratings were quietly leaking points. Now every match transfers rating between the two players - nothing minted, nothing burned - and history got re-anchored.
Competitive ratings only mean something if they’re conserved - the points you win are the points your opponent lost. For a while, ours weren’t. Some games rated every win against a flat imaginary opponent, which slowly inflated the whole ladder; one game moved a ghost opponent’s rating when it shouldn’t, which let a rival be griefed while they slept.
The fix was to make one place responsible: every game now settles its seasonal rating through a single settler that rates BOTH sides against each other’s real rating, so points transfer instead of appearing. Then we re-anchored the season so nobody kept inflation they hadn’t earned.
If you’ve ever wondered why your rating moved by a strange-looking amount: it’s because the maths is now honest.