A no new players feast queue?

[Zojha]

Only thing that's toxic is the horrid matchmaking.

That's not entirely correct - The buzzword "Toxic" originally meant players that behave negatively to the point other people would be so infuriated/frustrated by them that they start behaving negatively themselves in turn, causing a chain reaction in which many people simply stop playing because they don't want to deal with that kind of behaviour - like a toxin that spreads through the veins and kills cells.

It has since been broadened to apply to mechanics and systems with a similar effect as well, but if you use it that way, you'll quickly find that the chance to fail/not win as such is "toxic" - and that's not even accounting for rewards based on win/loss. On the one hand, an interesting revelation, on the other, it's got bad implications for competitions as a whole.

Not to say there probably aren't other solutions that satisfy both, but it's been funny to watch.

I would argue there aren't. All they can do is to optimize matchmaking so that "if" there actually are 2 tanks, Melees, Ranged and Healers of similar rating in the queue, they'll play against each other. But if there aren't, SE can't conjure up players, much less skilled ones - it's either wait or make a match with what is there.

And with strict matchmaking you run into these funny situations where one guy is getting pop after pop while you've been in the exact same queue for over an hour with nothing simply because the Matchmaker can find many matches for his skill level but none for yours. And then the matchmaker finally DOES make your game and one of the guys in your team has got a bad day and you lose by a landslide anyway. Fun!

[Februs]

I would argue there aren't.

Agreed. The limited player base within each skill tier makes it impossible to actually "fix" the matchmaking, but it's not outside the realm of possibility for SE to at least mitigate the situation.

Right now, the matchmaking is supposed to look for suitably matched players first before branching out to other tiers, but we all know that, unfortunately, the system is failing. Some debugging is probably in order. They could also re-implement a hard cap within certain rank tiers to ensure that matchmaking doesn't stretch itself too far when trying to make teams. Platinum players, for example, should not necessarily be forced into a match of almost all unranked or bronze just to "balance" the team. No matter how good they are, they can only carry so much weight.

Another, much simpler, option is to just re-evaluate the point scaling for wins/losses with certain ranks. If you have a totally new and untested player on your team, then anyone silver ranked or above should suffer no penalty for a loss. They should also stand to win a bonus of some kind (perhaps even just extra wolf marks or gil) if they actually manage to win that match (which is unlikely). That way, even if top-tier players are slotted into an unwinable situation, at least they don't have to fear taking a hit to their rank. They'd still be encouraged to at least try and win, but they'd also not be punished just for queuing.

Lastly, ranking decay. This should have been a thing at the start of season 2, because people were complaining about it way back at the end of season 1. A rank decay, no matter how minor, should be in effect to improve queue times. The matchmaking system is the only reason not to have it, because top-end players stand to lose more than they gain with the way things are currently. However, if either of the above two changes were made, then having a rank decay would not be a problem.