Season S42 is getting serious, with a more transparent matchmaking system, and the season skin is missing a marksman.

With the 10th anniversary update over, the King of Glory game has entered a period of quiet development, with no new collaborations released. Even the officially announced "Ne Zha: The Demon Child Conquers the Dragon King" is nowhere to be seen and has disappeared. However, there are rumors that a second "Detective Conan" collaboration will be released in December. November is naturally a period of frequent leaks, for a simple reason: the new season is in preparation, the test server is being updated frequently, and the game is undergoing a major overhaul. This time, it's not about skins anymore, but about a key element that directly affects the experience: the matchmaking system.

The ELO mechanism is the culprit.

Regarding the matchmaking mechanism, since the game's launch, players have been complaining and have never received a clear explanation. Even when a female player used her legal expertise to sue the official team on the grounds of her right to know, it initially caused a great stir and was widely reported, but in the end, the progress was not followed by the media and no one knows the outcome.

The ELO system has drawn criticism from many players who accuse the game system of deliberately manipulating win rates to ensure a good gaming experience for newcomers, while serious, experienced players are left disappointed. Under the guise of balance, the system groups players of unequal skill levels together, allowing those who perform poorly to be carried to victory, while those with exceptional skills and complex gameplay are repeatedly forced to lose. This has led to the saying that winning streaks are inevitably followed by losing streaks. If the overall score is too high, indicating such a high skill level, then the system should "favor" less skilled summoners.

A new star-rating system has been added, transforming the skin marketing model.

Players would use various excuses, such as playing defensively, not joining teams, or intentionally giving up, to lose the ranked stars they had painstakingly accumulated. A match that usually lasted half an hour would end up being surrendered in less than ten minutes, which felt like a complete waste of time. This led to disheartening players quitting the game. Then, some players exploited loopholes, deliberately playing with hidden MMR and pretending to be newbies. Sure enough, they rose through the ranks. The issue escalated until the game developers had to apologize on a live stream. Later, the ranked system underwent a major overhaul, adding a star-granting mechanism, which helped to balance things out somewhat.

After years of being criticized for focusing on selling skins to make money, the frequency of collaborations was quickly changed. In 2025, we saw several major releases. Season 42 is the new season, and there are rumors that Honor of Kings is preparing to get serious and make the matchmaking mechanism more transparent.