I Can't Do this Anymore

[GayRobot]

Losing rank does for losing in a game where I do not have total control over who I group with or against, over whether or not I win, does not make the Ranking a more an indicator of skill.

Huh? Sorting players based on their ability to win is literally the only thing that can reliably indicate skill. If you're better than the people you're playing with, you'll win more than you lose and climb over time. If the opposite is true, you'll fall over time.

It does not make Ranking more rewarding.
It does not make Ranking more enjoyable.

I enjoy ranking up because it's a tangible reflection of my progress and ability. If I were guaranteed to rank up by playing enough games, it would be meaningless and the rewards would be largely uninteresting to me. It seems like there are plenty of people in this thread who feel similarly.

And we all know the only real reason this entire system exists is to make it take artificially longer to progress so as to pad out players sub time. Pretending otherwise is just being dishonest.

No, the ranking system exists to (attempt to) put players in relatively evenly matched games.

It's largely failing at doing that, since the system has a drastic upward tendency due to streak bonus and derank protection—in other words, it's too easy to rank up—but I don't think it makes sense to assume bad faith when every single relevant PvP reward can be earned without winning a single game. It's just the portrait frames—the absolute minimum reward they could put in the game to avoid competitively-minded players feeling completely ignored.

If you disagree with even that much, then start a conversation about the reward structure, but don't ask for the ranking system to be destroyed for the sake of it. There are more moving parts here than a token cosmetic reward.

[YukikoKurosawa]

snip

Losing Rank does not make it harder to rank it only makes it more time consuming. It pads out sub time artificially as players who would've gotten there far sooner take significantly longer and are encouraged to spend unhealthy levels of time each day to Rank up in a reasonable timeframe. Why is it so difficult to comprehend that punishing =/= difficulty? You are punished by not progressing because you lost. That is all the punishment you need and incentive to to win. It just makes it take LONGER, not HARDER. Stop defending this horrendous system.

Like I said, take away win streak bonus. Take away loss rewards. But losing progress because I lost (especially if the only reason I lost is because my team threw the match) is just infuriating. It just means I spend an obscene amount of time each day to compensate for loss streaks, and even then, I can still come out at the end of the day exactly where I left off (even if I progressed that day) or LOWER. Why even bother at that point? If you play the meta or just got lucky, good for you. That doesn't mean the system isn't godawful and in need of changing.

[GayRobot]

Stop defending this horrendous system.

I'm not defending it; as I said in that post, right now it's largely failing. But the things you're suggesting will make it worse.

If you are losing more than you win, you shouldn't be able to rank up (and if you're stuck at any rank under the current system, it's because you're losing substantially more than you win). Any system that allows you to climb while losing can't track player skill, and won't be able to organize fair matches. If you want a bar that always goes up and never goes down, you have PvP Rank and the Malmstone system, but ranking needs to take losses into account to function.

[YukikoKurosawa]

If you are losing more than you win, you shouldn't be able to rank up

Why not?

Any system that allows you to climb while losing can't track player skill, and won't be able to organize fair matches. If you want a bar that always goes up and never goes down, you have PvP Rank and the Malmstone system, but ranking needs to take losses into account to function.

By this logic you should not be allowed to clear Savage content if you wipe a lot. Or hell, we could take that logic and apply it to pretty much anything in this game. If you fail too much? You can't progress, sorry. Died too many times to Endsinger? Back to ARR!

But for some bizarre reason you only think this way for Ranked PvP. Almost like it's completley arbitrary and not based on actual logic.

[Qeilos]

Why not?



By this logic you should not be allowed to clear Savage content if you wipe a lot. Or hell, we could take that logic and apply it to pretty much anything in this game. If you fail too much? You can't progress, sorry. Died too many times to Endsinger? Back to ARR!

But for some bizarre reason you only think this way for Ranked PvP. Almost like it's completley arbitrary and not based on actual logic.

Fair question and this isnt a jab actual fair question. Have you played an online pvp ladder based game? DotA, Starcraft, League of Legends, Overwatch, Counterstrike etc. Speaking as someone who was mediocre at league I would spend 8 months playing 8-10 games a day going up and down...inside silver alone. 8....Months.....Inside ONE division. XIV is VERY forgiving with this design. You have to understand from the perspective of people who do other pvp games we are actually confused by what you are asking for because how it is the norm if not "babys first ladder"

edit, missed one word

[Wolffriend]

Fair question and this isnt a jab actual fair question. Have you played an online pvp ladder based game? DotA, Starcraft, League of Legends, Overwatch, Counterstrike etc. Speaking as someone who was mediocre at league I would spend 8 months playing 8-10 games a day going up and down...inside silver alone. 8....Months.....Inside ONE division. XIV is VERY forgiving with this design. You have to understand from the perspective of people who do other pvp games we are actually confused by what you are asking for because how it is the norm if not "babys first ladder"

edit, missed one word

I think the reality is that a lot of FFXIV PvP players may have never played any of those games (I haven't). Yoshi and company specifically pointed out that their idea behind the job revamps and new mode was to get non-PvP folks interested in PvP, so it wasn't just the same small population doing it over and over again. So some, maybe many folks new to ranked PvP (and maybe PvP in general) will eventually feel like Yukiko and wonder where the fun is in ranked if they're stuck in Bronze/Silver hell because they play it only a couple of hours (if that) each day between other game stuff and have little chance to improve because of the broken matchmaking at those levels (another topic altogether) -- you know, the typical casual FFXIV player Yoshi says they mainly design for. In that regard, while it's enormous fun to play, and some of us relatively new folks to competitive PvP want a chance to improve ourselves, frustration with not going anywhere no matter how hard you try will eventually give up and stick with casual, leading to the same situation (aka The Feast) these changes were supposed to solve.

(Oh, and don't bother looking to see where this character is ranked; I PvP on another alt I play more these days.)

[Naizakane]

Why not?



By this logic you should not be allowed to clear Savage content if you wipe a lot. Or hell, we could take that logic and apply it to pretty much anything in this game. If you fail too much? You can't progress, sorry. Died too many times to Endsinger? Back to ARR!

But for some bizarre reason you only think this way for Ranked PvP. Almost like it's completley arbitrary and not based on actual logic.

Let's put it this way. If you are losing more than you win at Gold, why do you deserve to be in Platinum, where you will lose even more? You're just stomping your feet because you can't get in with a pretty please and ruin the matchmaking for people who deserve to be there.

As for your take on Savage, part of the experience is making mistakes and learning from them to clear the fight. Failing too much can already lock you out of progress as long as you're failing to learn from your mistakes. It works the same way as ranked PvP. If you consistently fail to learn from your mistakes, your rank will drop. Either way, ranked isn't for you. Good thing there's a casual queue.

[GayRobot]

By this logic you should not be allowed to clear Savage content if you wipe a lot. Or hell, we could take that logic and apply it to pretty much anything in this game. If you fail too much? You can't progress, sorry. Died too many times to Endsinger? Back to ARR!

But for some bizarre reason you only think this way for Ranked PvP. Almost like it's completley arbitrary and not based on actual logic.

The game is more enjoyable when your teammates and opponents are similar in skill to yourself, and the only means of accurately assessing skill is measuring your average ability to win.

If you're winning more than you're losing, the game should try to place you into games with stronger players. If you're losing more than you're winning, the game should try to place you into games with weaker players. This benefits everyone who plays the game by lowering teammate variance and giving individual players more control over their games.

I have no clue what you're trying to accomplish with your PvE comparison.

[Garten]

Punishing =/= difficulty.

85% Of ppl seems to not understand this simple fact...
I think i'll kill myself to get to crystal (i'm plat for now) just to "prove" to these people that i am not complaining cause i am mad or something but just beacuse i TRULY believe in that statement