What exactly is the point of losing costing you rank?

Spend all day in Gold, nearly hit Platinum. Only to hit a losing streak and go all the way back down to the Gold 4. What, besides padding subscription fees and MAU's with the excessive time it takes to even potentiall rank up, is the reason for this system? What benefit does this add to lose an entire days worth of progress just due to sheer bad luck? I'm at gold but I dont even feel proud to be this far, it's RNG whether or not I get dealt a good or shitty hand with the matchmaking or not.

This doesn't make it more fun. This doesn't make it feel more rewarding. It's just RNG determining if you just wasted your time or not. If I make progress, it should be permanent. I despise systems in video games where I lose progress, especially if it's due to RNG.

This, combined with the rampant cheating, horrendous matchmaking somehow consistently pairing me against meta comps, makes me want to just give up and do casual exclusively. Stop adding these unfun, grindy systems just to artificially pad out MAU's.

Not everyone is meant to be able to get every rank. SE's already rather generous in making it so you can't derank into silver, etc.

The battle pass has the rewards for everyone, and can be earned at any rank or even in casual mode.

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Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

Not everyone is meant to be able to get every rank.

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I'm not asking for that. You would still have to actually WIN enough games to hit Crystal. Making you lose rank if you lose (which RNG can result in you having such a bad luck streak that you do not ever rank up that far) isn't the right way to make it exclusive it just makes it random and totally deprives the whole thing of merit. Might as well just put up some ingame raffle like housing now and randomly give people Crystal rank who win said raffle. If I can't get to crystal purely of my own merit than it has zero value to me whatsoever, even if I got it I wouldn't feel any semblance of pride. It just means I got lucky.

This entire system is terrible and anti-fun. It just wastes time to make us grind far longer and pad out MAU's. There is no deeper reason beyond that. It is DESIGNED to waste time.

It's not totally random.

Some games you can't make a difference. But as with any team game, you can be the uplifting force, or the anchor bringing them down. Be the positive difference, and given time, you will rise - though frustrating days can happen, it nonetheless holds true overall.

You're not supposed to be able to just grind out rank. That's not the purpose of rank. It's not like item or character level. If you're not doing well enough to rank up, you won't rank up. Working as intended.

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Originally Posted by Iyrnwaen

You're not supposed to be able to just grind out rank. That's not the purpose of rank. It's not like item or character level. If you're not doing well enough to rank up, you won't rank up. Working as intended.

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Im gold 3 with a less than 50% winrate. Objectively in any game with functioning MMR that should be utterly impossible. Your rank is an indication of luck as much as its skill.

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Originally Posted by Qeilos

Im gold 3 with a less than 50% winrate. Objectively in any game with functioning MMR that should be utterly impossible. Your rank is an indication of luck as much as its skill.

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It's not because of luck. It's because the system is designed with training wheels. You get extra stars for win streaks and you can't drop out of your tier.
Contrary to what I said, you actually can more or less grind your way to Crystal unless you're so bad your teams literally cannot win.

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Originally Posted by YukikoKurosawa

I'm not asking for that. You would still have to actually WIN enough games to hit Crystal. Making you lose rank if you lose (which RNG can result in you having such a bad luck streak that you do not ever rank up that far) isn't the right way to make it exclusive it just makes it random and totally deprives the whole thing of merit. Might as well just put up some ingame raffle like housing now and randomly give people Crystal rank who win said raffle. If I can't get to crystal purely of my own merit than it has zero value to me whatsoever, even if I got it I wouldn't feel any semblance of pride. It just means I got lucky.

This entire system is terrible and anti-fun. It just wastes time to make us grind far longer and pad out MAU's. There is no deeper reason beyond that. It is DESIGNED to waste time.

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PvP ranks are not something u get by just playing until u have enough wins. Is a system used by multiple games where u get stuck in the rank equivalent to your skill. SE wanted to be generous and leave that just for the crystal rank, and u cannot be demoted.

Is like having 3000 games in League of Legends, stuck in silver, and asking why u are not Diamond after 1500 wins, well, you have 1500 loses.

The point in losing your rank is you losing something when you know, lose.
If you win you win something, if you lose you lose something, that's how it works.

Heck, even when you lose in this game you win something.

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Originally Posted by Raistlin

PvP ranks are not something u get by just playing until u have enough wins. Is a system used by multiple games where u get stuck in the rank equivalent to your skill. SE wanted to be generous and leave that just for the crystal rank, and u cannot be demoted.

Is like having 3000 games in League of Legends, stuck in silver, and asking why u are not Diamond after 1500 wins, well, you have 1500 loses.

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Do you think this is fun though?

It's a frustrating system somewhat but I am not sure what else you can do given you're being matched with randoms. I'm pretty much hard stuck in Gold and I could tear my hair out over that. I'm hardly top tier in PvP but the amount of utterly BAD teams I get matched with is frustrating. And I am not speaking just being a bit worse than the other team...that happens. I mean getting facerolled, I mean people greeding like no tomorrow, ignoring any designated target, hyper focusing the paladin, charging in 1v5 etc etc.

I seem to get dogpiled on a lot early in the game. That's fine, guard through it, try to survive as long as possible and hope for the trade to end up favourable for my team. But in 4/5 cases, it's not happening.

I do wish we get a few additional communication methods. The preset messages are sorely lacking and I suppose being able to set up at least some rudimentary strategy early on would help a lot.

The main thing I'd note about the ranking system is the team up variance appears to be much too wide.

It's strange to me seeing a team of Golds with a single Plat 2-3 matching against a team with one Gold and four Plat 1-2s.

I get they prioritised queue times but there's an entire chasm of skill difference between someone in say Gold 3-4 and someone at Plat 1 pushing into Diamond.

The system places you against your own rank +/- 1, if you win or lose streak hard enough it can go to +/- 2.

For example as I was winstreaking from unranked through silver I got put into full Plat game to try and stop me.

Sometimes the teams are absurdly badly balanced, but you should get on average as much good and as much bad teams and getting good ones on streak can push your rank even if you play suboptimally. Your own input definately matters over time but losing your ranking up match several times because of horrible team composition and lack of teamplay is rough.

You definately don't need to play top meta picks if you play decently (though I recommend those for low ranks to climb to at least Gold), I finished my grind to Crystal on SCH/BRD.

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Originally Posted by YukikoKurosawa

Do you think this is fun though?

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Some people do, some people don't. If you don't... um, don't play a competitive* mode?

Yeah, you can't get everything, but that's like complaining that you can't get the savage raid weapons without doing savage raids, or ultimate weapons without doing ultimate, etc. Of course each content has its own rewards. But anything you really need to get by is accessible to everyone.

Which, by the way - You're basically complaining about not being able to get a portrait frame with zero gameplay impact, and exists literally so people can brag with it: "Hey I got to crystal/diamond/platinum/etc in pvp!"

All the other stuff - which is a lot, everything from Garo to the new glam gear and a lot of older ones and some reappearances - can be earned even if you do nothing but lose all day, and no matter which form of pvp you play. The only exclusive rewards are bragging-rights portrait frames.

Now in the past when SE put story-related stuff in top 100 rewards, that I can kinda get people being ticked about. But, again, portrait frames that are designed solely around pvp content's themes... I mean. Are you also upset that ultimate exists? or Eureka, Bozja, and so on?



* I use this term very loosely.


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So ultimately if you don't find a competitive ranked mode fun, just... don't play it. Play casual, or play frontlines, or rival wings, or skip pvp entirely if you don't want the battle pass rewards/garo stuff/other pvp rewards.

I think the key difference with PvP vs. PvE content is that "success" more often then not feels like a total crapshoot and there's only so much you can contribute as an individual to helping your team win.

I feel like lowering the derank threshold to within your same number tier would make losing streaks a lot less dejecting.

My problem, personally, is that 1. It's not really competitive, or skill related. With the current rampant cheating, insane balance, and the randomness of your team's performance, it's more luck than skill if you win any given match. If the ranks don't correlate to skill then why have them?
And 2. It's currently starting with portrait frames. But if we start getting stuff more like the Feast, with mounts or glam locked behind a mode where advancement is basically down to luck or cheating/win trading, then I'm just going to be sitting around pissed that I didn't yell about it more. I'm really sick of these rewards being impossible to get later, which differentiates it from the ultimates/savages/etc mentioned in that if you don't get it now, then it doesn't matter how skilled you get later, you're SOL. Just about every other piece of content in the game you can get years after it drops, hell even with seasonal events you can get stuff later. They even brought back the GARO event for Twelve's sake, but I can't get a cool floating magitek chair ever?
I just don't want to see ranked become the same shitshow that I hated about the Feast.

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Originally Posted by SamiMoshantu

My problem, personally, is that 1. It's not really competitive, or skill related. With the current rampant cheating, insane balance, and the randomness of your team's performance, it's more luck than skill if you win any given match. If the ranks don't correlate to skill then why have them?
And 2. It's currently starting with portrait frames. But if we start getting stuff more like the Feast, with mounts or glam locked behind a mode where advancement is basically down to luck or cheating/win trading, then I'm just going to be sitting around pissed that I didn't yell about it more. I'm really sick of these rewards being impossible to get later, which differentiates it from the ultimates/savages/etc mentioned in that if you don't get it now, then it doesn't matter how skilled you get later, you're SOL. Just about every other piece of content in the game you can get years after it drops, hell even with seasonal events you can get stuff later. They even brought back the GARO event for Twelve's sake, but I can't get a cool floating magitek chair ever?
I just don't want to see ranked become the same shitshow that I hated about the Feast.

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They could let top 100 have titles and just tie the mounts etc to GETTING to diamond or crystal, thats something you can slam your face against and absolutely noone can gatekeep. Sure more people would have it but it would be utterly impossible to keep people from getting there.

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Originally Posted by SamiMoshantu

My problem, personally, is that 1. It's not really competitive, or skill related. With the current rampant cheating, insane balance, and the randomness of your team's performance, it's more luck than skill if you win any given match. If the ranks don't correlate to skill then why have them?
And 2. It's currently starting with portrait frames. But if we start getting stuff more like the Feast, with mounts or glam locked behind a mode where advancement is basically down to luck or cheating/win trading, then I'm just going to be sitting around pissed that I didn't yell about it more. I'm really sick of these rewards being impossible to get later, which differentiates it from the ultimates/savages/etc mentioned in that if you don't get it now, then it doesn't matter how skilled you get later, you're SOL. Just about every other piece of content in the game you can get years after it drops, hell even with seasonal events you can get stuff later. They even brought back the GARO event for Twelve's sake, but I can't get a cool floating magitek chair ever?
I just don't want to see ranked become the same shitshow that I hated about the Feast.

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This I do agree with. I don't anything story related to be tied to a top 100 reward, if it has to be in pvp at all. And I'm not a fan of FOMO design in general.

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Originally Posted by Qeilos

They could let top 100 have titles and just tie the mounts etc to GETTING to diamond or crystal, thats something you can slam your face against and absolutely noone can gatekeep. Sure more people would have it but it would be utterly impossible to keep people from getting there.

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As long as they don't become unavailable forever you can lock them behind being #1 among every data center for all I personally care, it'll still be a prize to work towards, a goal I can strive for.
What I'd like to see is for the rewards to remain static, a show that you made it to, say, crystal rank, at some point.
But if you're going to lock anything behind these you should probably fix the insanity going on right now. Hopefully SE addresses some of this stuff, but given their track record with anything involving player competition (the Feast, Ishgard Restoration Rankings), I'm not hopeful.

I'm really hoping the rewards for all future season rankings are the exact same rewards as this time, with no special title or mount. Why? Because then there's no point in cheating your way to the top, you don't get anything really special for it, except your name on a list that nobody will remember come the next season.

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

I'm really hoping the rewards for all future season rankings are the exact same rewards as this time, with no special title or mount. Why? Because then there's no point in cheating your way to the top, you don't get anything really special for it, except your name on a list that nobody will remember come the next season.

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This, this, a thousand times this. Take away the FOMO and degenerates who want the rewards will get them by cheating and then have no reason left to cheat. It'll be a small, simmering, manageable problem instead of making things unplayable.
Then the only reason left to play CC is because it's fun. And it is! Loads of fun!

League players say some really unhinged sht in their quest for what is tantamount to an adventurer plate border. People absolutely will still cheat for those.

Edit: Theres no better reward to some people than a visible "im better than you"

I already came across players that must have god tier hands or clearly cheating, able to wipe out players within absolute seconds compared to 90% of the matches I've came across.

Doesn't happen very often but there is clearly players that must be cyborgs.

There are add-ons/hacks that allow you to basically dump every single OGCD ability you have with no delays whatsoever.

This includes LBs and I have a hunch I've been subjected such when I've eaten a GCD, a OGCD, and a LB from the same player in a fraction of a second with the damage values practically overlapping on my screen because of how close together they were.

Imo the problem with the rank system is the random matchmaking and not the rank system itself. Imagine any sport where they use ff14 matchmaking for teams for every game. It’s absurd. People are usually friends with others of equal skill level and thus people should be able to team up. It would make pvp more competitive and fun and equal skilled groups would compete in their rank class instead of enduring in this terrible random matchmaking mess

Since reaching Gold I've been finding myself (as a WAR mind you) getting deleted in nearly 3 seconds. Sometimes even with shield up. If I don't pop my shield I'm dead before I can even touch my recouperate. I never experienced this in lower brackets. I'm forced to play defensively or else I just die. Either I still die because I just delay the innevitable by a few seconds.

Meanwhile I can't count the number of times I should've killed a player but their health doesn't drop below 1% without them using a heal or being healed by another player, or using CD's. It's like I'm facing invincible people who do metric assloads of damage in the blink of an eye

The main issue is the matchmaking system and just how random the performance of your team can be. I went from silver 1 pushing gold to silver 3 no stars because I kept getting matched against pretty unbalanced teams, in comparison to mine. There's also the very clear issue of team compositions potentially being horribly lopsided. By not having a concrete team setup, squenix is essentially saying that any team comp can beat any team comp but with how out of whack job balance is, I find that hard to believe at best

Play RDM, you can go from unrank to Crystal in 6 hours. Class is broken.

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Originally Posted by Constrictor

Play RDM, you can go from unrank to Crystal in 6 hours. Class is broken.

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You confused Redmage with Samurai good Sir.

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Originally Posted by Araxes

You confused Redmage with Samurai good Sir.

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How much wins does it take for Sam to go from unrank > Crystal?

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Originally Posted by Iyrnwaen

You're not supposed to be able to just grind out rank. That's not the purpose of rank. It's not like item or character level. If you're not doing well enough to rank up, you won't rank up. Working as intended.

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This is an insane take by the way. How can I get up to my promotion match to Diamond, then go on an 8-straight loss streak? Was I good enough up to that point, but didn't deserve to go over? Before I can self-deprecate myself for my mood being in the gutter due to this incident, I'll just say no. Nobody deserves that unless they literally AFK or just run into fights and take their hands off their keyboards/controllers. Surely to God there should be some kind of protection against getting absolutely ran over by bad team RNG be it job composition or teammate's skill levels.