De-ranking from Diamond to Platinum needs to go

[Ansel_Gardner]

I don't agree that de-ranking needs to go, just that the matchmaking needs some fixing to be much tighter than it currently is. I have gotten from Plat 1 to Diamond 5 3 times so far. I think the system they initially started out with worked the best (Dia 4 or 5 will get matched up with max. Plat 1 or 2 iirc).

Currently, each time I manage to get up to Diamond 5, either one of the following happens:
1. I get matched up with Plat 4s that just dive in and try to 1v5.
2. I get matched up with Crystal players that are on the top 10 of the leaderboards.

Obviously in case 1, it's a loss because you cannot 4v5 a match. In the second case, a win or loss is a coin flip. I definitely don't think I'm able to compete with the top 10 of the leaderboards, and at the same time I'm probably ruining their matches by not being good enough.

[Osmond]

I don't agree that de-ranking needs to go, just that the matchmaking needs some fixing to be much tighter than it currently is. I have gotten from Plat 1 to Diamond 5 3 times so far. I think the system they initially started out with worked the best (Dia 4 or 5 will get matched up with max. Plat 1 or 2 iirc).

Currently, each time I manage to get up to Diamond 5, either one of the following happens:
1. I get matched up with Plat 4s that just dive in and try to 1v5.
2. I get matched up with Crystal players that are on the top 10 of the leaderboards.

Obviously in case 1, it's a loss because you cannot 4v5 a match. In the second case, a win or loss is a coin flip. I definitely don't think I'm able to compete with the top 10 of the leaderboards, and at the same time I'm probably ruining their matches by not being good enough.

That mentality there isn’t wrong that maybe you don’t need to be at the highest rank, but it’s also infectious to blame oneself….even though you’re at the mercy of 4 randoms to be on the same mindset of knowing who to target, when to use your tools in sync, asking for the impossible to obtain the high chance of wins. So the chance of earning the highest tier makes it more….unbearable to obtain.

Pretty much at this point, ppl are questioning if achieving this goal of reaching crystal, reaching the top 100 at least even “fun” to do for Season 3, is it worth their time doing the content at all. Not saying the content isn’t enjoyable to play, but achieving the main objective, is it “fun” to achieve? With the demotion system in place, by the mercy of 4 randoms, the “fun” is dying out quicker than normal. So yeah, maybe the 95% of players don’t need to be at the highest rank due to shame and whatnot, and the 5% earn their place. Well…..yeah, that’s probably for the best. Then the top tiers will rage at each other because somebody got to take the place as the new loser of the 95% that fully left ranked and go casual. Once the 95% leaves and creates a new objective, to find that “fun” factor, I believe the forum complaints will dwindle about the system hence what I’m concluding, seeing events happened these last few weeks.

[AshaStardust]

I mean this happens in every bracket. I certainly feel like I am a much better player than Gold. Got Platinum 1 previous two seasons. But I am in Gold doing 800k-1m damage in a game trying to carry two other players who do 100k or less with 6 deaths and less than 100k healing each. Am I actually just a mediocre Gold player because I can’t carry that team? Because that is what my rank says I am. I am still going to try to rank up, and learn to optimize my SCH pvp even more. But sometimes you just have to play your best and know that other folks will queue to ranked matches just not a giving even the slightest crap about how they effect other people’s experience. Just part of how the sausage gets made

[GordonGeeko]

I mean this happens in every bracket. I certainly feel like I am a much better player than Gold. Got Platinum 1 previous two seasons. But I am in Gold doing 800k-1m damage in a game trying to carry two other players who do 100k or less with 6 deaths and less than 100k healing each. Am I actually just a mediocre Gold player because I can’t carry that team? Because that is what my rank says I am. I am still going to try to rank up, and learn to optimize my SCH pvp even more. But sometimes you just have to play your best and know that other folks will queue to ranked matches just not a giving even the slightest crap about how they effect other people’s experience. Just part of how the sausage gets made

There's always going to be some RNG with your teammates. Sometimes, you just have some rough RNG patches. Like, I had a much harder time getting out of Platinum than going from Bronze to Platinum. Even if I would be the top player on my team by a considerable margin on any metrics you can mesure. It's not all great once you get past Gold, the Plat 4s are a whole other set of problems.

But if you compare your stats to everyone else and they are clearly better, then you know you are not currently at your true rank. If you play enough games, sooner or later the RNG gods will smile on you. That's what happened to me and that's pretty much what happened to everyone else.

Also, if you play SCH, that might be part of the issue. The class is very good, but it is pressure-oriented. It won't secure many kills. It's a lot more dependent on your teammates since you can't really burst anyone down.

[bejii4]

I am still going to try to rank up, and learn to optimize my SCH pvp even more.

SCH is rough because your main contribution is slow, widespread "rot" damage. Compare that to WHM and AST which have good CC, and SGE which has good burst damage. SCH can buff the team's damage by 8% but 108% of a small number is still a small number. You're completely reliant on your team to perform well, so even if you were a Crystal-level SCH you could still get stuck in a much lower tier.

I didn't have much trouble getting past Gold with RDM. I think DRG and NIN are also very strong. Any job that can put out a lot of single-target pressure would probably do the trick.

[Parthmakeo]

De-Ranking as a concept is intended to keep people to push and win. What i think should change is more so what rank you start to lose star ratings at to re-encourage people to keep pushing to higher teirs. As of this time, Once you hit silver that is when you start losing star ratings. I am perfectly fine with the deranking because you don't exactly need to hold the Crystal Rank via constantly PVPing if you made it there for the season if you want that reward.

However most of the issue is already shared by everyone. RNG matchmaking, the MMR going out of whack cause fewer people are interested, Rewards are no different from Casual Que (Seriously up the rewards -_-) and 95% of all the PVP rewards can be obtained without ever touching Ranked.

The solutions for De-Ranking boil down to the following:
- Premade Groups which entices win traders
- Never losing ranks meaning eventually Bronze players will be paired with Crystal players late season thus killing their enjoyment if they get completely stomped.
- Not losing Star Ranks until Diamond encourages people to keep pushing until the real stuff start.
- Just don't play Ranked since Casual is the same minus the plates.

Honestly at this point doing ranked is like bashing your head against a wall to win a t-shirt that's poorly put together that has your name on it. It's frustrating, annoying, and the reward is insulting for higher ranked players IMHO.
It's just going to be the same Adventure Plate stuff but they'll just change the roman number associated with the season. Even the high end titles are exactly the same as prior seasons.

For those who enjoy doing rank, more power to you but the system really needs better stuff to entice people to play it over casual.
My recommendation:
-
Losing Ranked Match: 900 Series EXP/500 Wolf Marks
Winning Ranked Match: 1250 Series EXP/750 Wolf Marks
-
Winning Ranked Matches as Crystal should also boost the reward to 1500 Series EXP and give 1k Wolf Marks each for reaching that ranked mode and maybe give 100 trophy crystals a win on top of that.

[Ransu]

I'd be fine if de-ranking only applied to crystal. Not like silver through plat really differ all that much. I don't really see a change in playstyles till late diamond.

[Sinstrel]

Imho de-rank protection shouldn't exist at any rank, but I do understand that it helps to fill ques at higher ranks. I'd much rather that de-rank protection end at gold if we must have it. As it stands, whichever rank de-rank protection kicks in at causes that rank to be full of players who have luck streaked in and do not actually belong there (much similar to last seasons Crystal rank, indefinite 0 credit score players with 2% win rates).

What we have now is the same issue at platinum 4. We have very few players who deserve to be at platinum, and as we get further and further into the season, more players who are actually gold/silver who have played enough games to luck streak in by accident and get locked in permanently by de-rank protection. These players luck streak up through platinum 1 and then go right back down to platinum 4 for the remainder of the season, but can never truly break out of Platinum because they are constantly being matched to diamond players who are by far and away above their true skill level of silver/gold.

These pseudo-platinum 4 (true silver/gold) players are now constantly matched with Crystal ranked players who have demoted to Diamond 1. There is such a vast difference in skill level between a silver/gold player and sub-crystal diamond 1 player that the Diamond player must adjust their playstyle to babysit the pseudo-platinum 4 (true silver/gold) players in almost every game for a win. This is not fun for a player who wishes to play competatively.

Furthermore, it is very rare at least in my experience to even see diamond level games. It is usually platinum 4 games with 1 or two diamonds on either side, or crystal games with 1 or 2 diamonds on either side. It would be nice to have some diamond games. Instead of Diamonds carrying plat 4s or crystals carrying diamonds.

And lastly, please limit crystal game matchmaking to Diamond 3 and above. There should be no platinum players in Crystal matchmaking for the reasons outlined above. For players at the early crystal skill level, it is frusttating to have to baby sit platinum 4 players into cryatal, only then to be matched into a 4v5 cryatal game where your team is stuck with the only platinum 4 (true silver/gold skill level) player who is trying their best but is nowhere near the skill level of anyone else in the match.

[Karasio]

Demoting tiers would be fine if the matchmaking system wasn't absolute dogshit. :^)

I also think decay should be introduced above a certain rank, maybe like diamond or platinum AND have the rewards be rewarded for the tier you end in, not your peak. But all the issues come down to the absolutely horrid matchmaking.

[Vatom]

Hmmm this is funny