Question to players

[SilverObi]

There's so many variables beyond dmg/heals/deaths in this game though. Would a rdm that gets amazing dps but doesn't throw out support when needed be a higher rank than one who can react to changing situations better with slightly lower dps? How about a player who can bait mechanics or prioritize targets better? I'm reminded of Overwatch matches where a match was lost due people chasing gold medal for kills but not playing the objective (and those golds being in single digits cause of the unending 1v2+)

On top of needing a stupidly fine-tuned grading system in the backend, this would only further segregate the queues and slow down DF. In an extreme scenario (while highly unlikely) players may even perform worse than they can to stay in a lower tier for faster queues despite the risks.

[KatoKato]

There's so many variables beyond dmg/heals/deaths in this game though. Would a rdm that gets amazing dps but doesn't throw out support when needed be a higher rank than one who can react to changing situations better with slightly lower dps? How about a player who can bait mechanics or prioritize targets better?

This-2. For me a good player is the one who 1)knows what teamwork means 2)can adjust their behavior according to the party composition and context 3)shows good momentary reaction, i.e. not "this usually goes so and so so I will mash my standard buttons no matter what" but what is needed in this very moment of the encounter. None of this has anything to do with any numbers.

Any secret hard match system for me rules out the social factor of the game, these two Ms in "MMO". Some people mentioned already that they don't mind being matched with less capable players or don't care about extra 5 min in a dungeon. I may add that at any time I would prefer a not perfect, but sociable, friendly and eager to learn player over a top-geared all-70 dbag who throws a hissy fit if the tiniest little thing goes not the way they planned.

[Nicobo]

Let's say this game was based on ranking. So you have either bronze, silver and gold ranks......

In short, SPEED RUN reflects all above factors, moreover, actions for the group will be taken into account as well.

So I think YES but Ranks are based on completion time. (Time attack)

[Shouko]

Already a party finder in the game, you can set the requirements, loot, etc, while not perfect it's good enough, no reason to add on an extra wait time for different tiers and add more elitism to the game. Even hidden stuff doesn't stay hidden for long these days and people would easily use it to make them "elite'.

[JunseiKei]

Let's say this game was based on ranking. So you have either bronze, silver and gold ranks. So those ranks are spread on:
How much damage you do
Healing on time
Not over healing too much.
DPS actually use a rotatio and do damage as they should do, hence dps.
Tanks using cooldowns proppely, holding aggro
Healers dpsing
Tanks doing a decent amount of damage.

Now let's pretend you are very good so you end up with silver and gold rank players, but if you are bad you end up with only bronze players. Which means people who do blizzard spam etc in dungeons, healers clicking every 10 seconds. Yes even farm groups will end up you being with the same skilled people, so you have 5 wipes a row in farms then maybe 1-2 kill between. Would this be unfair for you all? Or would it be fair?
Basically you have a huge chance of ending up with same minded players, so if you don't aoe in dungeons, you will meet the same type of players in dungeons.

This is a team game, designed around that notion and promote working together. There are things that are somethings beyond your control:

- A tank misses a cooldown or stands in bad; this affects the healer as they have to heal more and forces them to DPS less. This would penalize a healer's standing if their DPS is held against them for performance.
- A healer misses a heal; this can lead to tank and/or DPS dying, or even the healer themselves. This would penalize the tank or dps on lost damage due to another's mistake.
- A tank that is put pressure to DPS may opt for more aggressive play when they should be playing it safe. Sometimes, playing it safe allows healers to DPS more (this is where raid DPS > personal DPS in an actual, important thing).
- Fights themselves are designed differently and an Overwatch- like ranking system is not ideal at all.
- Will the system understand that if a tank does something to kill a DPS (or healer), is the system smart enough to penalize the tank and not the dead DPS (or healer)?
- Why is over heal important to rank? I can understand useless heals and/or just incorrect healing, but with the popularity of voke > shirking and lucid dreaming halving enmity, why is overhealing being held in the same regard as healers making sure they are simply keeping people alive? To build further on this, when is it overhealing and when is it a tank forsaking aggro combo to grab something, like adds?
- Is the system intelligent enough to recognize when certain things are needed or available depending on the present group composition?
- How is the ranking determined? IE: Is this going FFlog route of rankings based on overall player participation or is this rankings based on values SE deems sensible and reasonable?
- Where would this be applied?
- How would this impact the community in a very team centric game?
- Why is this metric important to begin with, other than giving people endorphins for "doing good"?
- How would this handle semi pre-mades? (IE: I queue with a friend, how will it handle our combined scores when we use duty finder?)

My overall thoughts on it thus far: It'll split the community; as it is, the community needs to learn to play together, hardcore and casuals alike, even if they hate it. We need to stop giving people excuses to polarize in content that doesn't matter.

[Spiroglyph]

One question, would this ranking be based on character (as in, general/overall ranking), or based on job/role played (as in, a player would be able to have gold rank on something, say DRG for example, but bronze for a different job)?

I don't really run expert frequently enough for this to affect me directly (as I cap through other means, mainly hunts) - but as nice as this does sound, this kind of metric for dungeons as far as I can think of, wouldn't work as intended. :/

Let's take healers, for one - what would be the criteria for a healer ranking here? Overhealing%? This would clash with the roulette speedrun format a bit, considering that for a healer to dish out considerable amount of DPS usually the tank is packed with regens (the rest of the team as well, if Asp. Helios/Med2/Asylum/CU are applied).

Then we'd have a tank's personal pereference to take into account as well - do they pull wall-to-wall or just one, maybe two packs at a time? Do only wall-to-wall tanks get access to higher rankings? Note that a tank's choice here would directly affect the entire team's performance and rank.

Another issue is, what would be done about people new to an expert roulette dungeon? Say, a player queuing for Skalla for the first time - who would they be teamed with? Making them wait for 3 other new players would make queues more of a chore than they already are, specially for DPS jobs. Would you throw them in lowest rank autimatically, then?

I really, really like the idea of ranking/parsing method for single target fights, but dungeon performance isn't linear enough for a rank system to be applied - not unless SE was willing to define a "best" way to run these, and rank accordingly. But in game where max level dungeons are content for players of all ranges of skill to participate in and succeed, as a means to obtain puchasable gear locked not behind skill but behind time, I'm not sure how this would work, or what realistic parameters could be set to accommodate different preferences.

It does really sound interesting, and I'd love a way for people to know how they're doing even in easier content, but I am having a hard time seeing just how it would be set up.

EDIT: I thought a bit about the part where a the ranking system would need to accommodate for different run "formats" (multiple pack pulls or single pack pulls), and the only way I think this could work would be to make the trash packs smaller encounters on their own - either mini-bosses, or packs of various numbers and smaller mechanics limited by barriers that wouldn't break simply by killing those barriers.
Making these packs of trash mobs into smaller encounters would, in my personal opinion, both make a ranking system possible and make the runs more interesting, I think.

This is all pretty much wishful thinking, though, because not only would it take resources to actually implement the system but to think of new designs for trash packs - something I don't see SE ever doing, specially considering it's something that would affect a considerably big part of the playerbase that most players wouldn't approve of.

EDIT 2: My entire response was based on Sebazy's suggestion of this being applied only to expert (I'd maybe extend it to max level content in general) - a ranking system has no place in leveling/learnign content.

[Derio]

Serious flaws to this. If every tank and every healer place silver and gold, then those who place bronze as a dps will never see their queue pop.

[Lord_Zlatan]

why can't we just play the game and accept that some people are good, some people are ok, some people are bad, and some people are terrible. Not every run needs to be a fast clear, not everything needs to be done at an elite level.

[Jellybums]

I'm glad there's no ranking system in place. Sure, it's nice to have quick runs now and then. But running with the same kind of players makes doing roulettes even more of a chore. Not everybody's about speed runs. Speed runs don't always mean fun runs. Oftentimes they're not.