Quote Originally Posted by Valence View Post
No, seriously? I never understood that it's a team based game, but this makes so much more sense now. For real.

I think people are more annoyed at the fact that yes, solo rankings on a team based game is always kind of ironic by essence to begin with, but more than that, getting clueless players that crumble under the smallest breeze, or play like clowns in high ranking games in your team makes you wonder how they got there in the first place, on top of ruining your game.
I mean, I think it's clear that Square-Enix didn't really approach ranked mode from a true "competitive game" standpoint - I refuse to believe that there's no one on the team that actually understands the basics of a competitive ladder system. I think they just tried to provide a Diet Coke solution to the problem, because XIV is a game that tends to go out of its way to avoid putting its players in any kind of "you failed cuz you suck" situation unless they more or less explicitly ask for it (ultimates.) That's mutually exclusive with proper ladder systems for obvious reasons. There may also be concerns about breeding toxicity? But you can just look at your average Frontlines game chat and see that they aren't exactly avoiding that kind of thing with the game's PvP, to say nothing of chatwheel spammers present even in unranked CC games.

My firm belief is that they should have hit the ground running with two options: unranked mode, where you may queue with one friend; and formal ranked PvP Teams mode, which would launch a one or two weeks after the initial debut of the mode, so that players have time to get used to things first. I, personally, also would not have released the new PvP mode at the same time as a new savage tier - to me, PvP (particularly "serious" PvP) is something that should be held back for "in-between" patches, since a new savage tier tends to bogart the majority of "hardcore" players for weeks at a time anyway. And the ranked mode would use a typical Elo- or TrueSkill-derived system like everyone else uses.

If that would have resulted in ranked queue "dying"... then that's fine, it's proving that there isn't enough of a "hardcore PvPer" playerbase to support such a thing. At that point, split the queue into "solo" and "play with up to a full team of friends" and be done with it.