Quote Originally Posted by Zojha View Post
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.