Why is it so difficult Ranking up from Bronze to Crystal

[TimotheusReed]

For me it is getting especially harder because there are currently rarely matches at my current rank and if they DO happen they are very late in the evening or during the night.

It frustrates me a bit that I have to play till very late to get a decent amount of matches and also nowadays I have to spent a lot of time (5-10 mins per match) in queue before a match starts.
If the match then lasts maybe 5-10mins I have spent 10-20 mins per match. This means I might only get to play 3-5 matches during an hour.

For a regular guy it is almost impossible to consistently rank up if you only get to play so few matches.
I am on EU btw.

[Loggos]

I feel like the lowest ranks as well as the highest ranks can be "extreme" in their own ways.

Unranked to gold is such a mixed bag because you can have total beginners together with people who can keep up with plat (and potentially diamond) players. Some team compositions (not just in terms of jobs picked but also in terms of variation in experience) just seem to be uncarriable. Yes, good players do make it out of there faster because they are still better at systematically influencing their games. But it still feels a lot more chaotic and random. If you are "ok" you may be stuck in silver or gold because you do well in a good team but just are not good enough to carry/have this kind of systematic influence if it's a bad team.

When it comes to the top ranks, at least on EU servers the difference between diamond and crystal+ is really noticeable for me. Even though there's definitely an increase in skill between gold/plat and plat/dia it still feels manageable or "in the same ballpark" if that makes sense.
Getting matched with crystal, let alone omega+, players makes me legit uncomfortable though because the skill gap feels too big. I can immediately notice it's a whole different league and my performance compared to the rest of the team is really weak.
I know there's no way around it because there just aren't enough players but I think this is kinda doomed to breed animosity between ranks. Because understandably crystal+ players don't want dead weight in their games but lower-rank players can't control who they're matched with and obviously they need to keep playing to get better.

It's just a really unfortunate constellation.

For me it is getting especially harder because there are currently rarely matches at my current rank and if they DO happen they are very late in the evening or during the night.

...

For a regular guy it is almost impossible to consistently rank up if you only get to play so few matches.
I am on EU btw.

Yeah, if you have a job (and/or a healthy sleep schedule) then ranking up is really hard, if not impossible. Sometimes the queue only really starts to get active at around midnight. Makes for a really frustrating experience esp. during the week.

[Valence]

Another unfortunate side effect once you reach Diamond and get placed into Diam/Crystal/Omega games, is that as a weaker player in Diam, potentially newer at the mode as well, people immediately identify you as the weakest link, and will target call you at every opener and for most engagements later. It's not hazard the same people always get marked "1" before the gates even open in the enemy team. It's often a guaranteed kill, they just explode. Well one silver lining is that it WILL teach you how to defend/bait.

It makes the experience of newer players miserable. You'll never see this happen on JP (you see some people marked at the start, but not because they're the weakest link, just because the caller thinks they're a target to go for), because the skill gaps aren't huge and the pool of players is a lot bigger.

[Loggos]

Does it sometimes happen that this kind of targeting is also used on your own team mates to communicate to the rest of the party who is perceived to be the weakest link? As in, another player marks and then unmarks you with 1 at the start of the game before the gates open?

[Valence]

Hard to say. Perhaps it's their way to say "I'm warning you, I'm watching you". Or perhaps it's just them trying to use something less haram than the ignore mark.

During a game it can often mean something similar, like "use your damn LB already" or "what are you doing".

[SpritePR]

Hard to say. Perhaps it's their way to say "I'm warning you, I'm watching you". Or perhaps it's just them trying to use something less haram than the ignore mark.

During a game it can often mean something similar, like "use your damn LB already" or "what are you doing".

I really wish they had a "PLEASE USE THE LB ONCE. ITS BEEN 10 MINUTES."

[Stormfur]

I wish they had a mute for every time someone spams nice job/push the crystal more than twice in one minute.

Also, this particular season has been an insane slog. And I've done PVP for the better part of a decade now so it's not "haha skill issue gitgud". Just recently I figured out that I've got a BIG latency problem with my crappy ISP. We're talking 500 ms download latency. Thankfully I'm switching ISPs and I'm hopeful that will help. I'd check your ISP speeds if you're having a particularly tough time as some folks truly are blessed with great internet so it's easy to go "I went from unranked to Omega in 3 hours, gitgudscrub."

[Commander_Justitia]

Just recently I figured out that I've got a BIG latency problem with my crappy ISP. We're talking 500 ms download latency. Thankfully I'm switching ISPs and I'm hopeful that will help.

I'm playing with VPN mostly, which at least for NA seemed to bypass their ISP/ddos problems apparently. Ironically picking Frankfurt as server location for EU seemed in the past often worse than picking Berlin or Paris/Brussels. While the DC being located in Frankfurt...Which is quite odd, because one would assume Frankfurt VPN-Frankfurt DC would be the fastest connection.

This PvP isn't about getting gud anymore for the most part, I don't like it because of that. I had to no-life it 2 days to do that...Whatever changes they did like a year ago, made the game slower I think, which made lag more important again. Nowadays you would blame your internet connection more than the game engine registering something not correctly, I think I preferred it other way around. Bottom line is, the engine should be better...Wonder if they will ever do it.

[TimotheusReed]

I'm playing with VPN mostly, which at least for NA seemed to bypass their ISP/ddos problems apparently. Ironically picking Frankfurt as server location for EU seemed in the past often worse than picking Berlin or Paris/Brussels. While the DC being located in Frankfurt...Which is quite odd, because one would assume Frankfurt VPN-Frankfurt DC would be the fastest connection.

This PvP isn't about getting gud anymore for the most part, I don't like it because of that. I had to no-life it 2 days to do that...Whatever changes they did like a year ago, made the game slower I think, which made lag more important again. Nowadays you would blame your internet connection more than the game engine registering something not correctly, I think I preferred it other way around. Bottom line is, the engine should be better...Wonder if they will ever do it.

In EU it has not been about "being good" for some time, at least for lower ranks. Right now it is more about "who has the time to play at the EXACT time that Pvp is happening in the middle of the night" or "Who has the most time to play at the beginning of the season". I am slightly exaggerating. Especially players in the higher ranks in EU can still regularly play. For them there is still a skill element to it as long as matches are regularly happening for them.

As long as you have active matches you are able to rank up. But in EU right now there are almost no matches happening in Ranked during the week in the lower ranks at least.
Or at least at my rank.

Right now, for me at least, Pvp is more about being able to play at a certain time of the night and being patient enough to wait in queue for 10-15 minutes until queues are popping than it is about skill.
Especially for new or lower ranked players in EU you are also not really able to improve if you are not even able to play ranked.
At least not if you are a working adult with healthy sleeping habits. Some of those matches only pop during the middle of the night.

I have regularly tried to get matches from 8 p.m. till 2 a.m., but they don't pop in my rank in EU. I can't say anything about 2 a.m. till 6 a.m.
But I honestly have to say that people shouldn't be expected to login late at night just to play ranked in ffxiv.