PvP Ranked System needs addressing.

[Remiferia]

Hello everyone. Perhaps as a means to blow off some steam, I have decided to come here and offer my thoughts on the PvP ranked system.

Crystalline Conflict (henceforth 'CC') is, in a vacuum, an incredible minigame: it is quick, engaging, offers fulfilling rewards, and above all else it is fun. However, that is all it is. A minigame. The ranked system that accompanies it is simply not fit for purpose, and is totally at odds with the philosophy behind CC. By all accounts, CC is a team-based game mode similar to those found in Overwatch and TF2; however, the inability to form a team or use the chat box (I can't even type to my FC during the match???) makes the entire experience frustratingly isolated.

You have to engage with a team of other solo queue teammates using a strict set of template shot-calls such as 'Push the Crystal!' or 'Retreat!' but no one ever listens. The template 'Nice job!' gets spammed in bad faith whenever the team is performing poorly, which might actually be more aggravating than simply reading profanity from a tilted player because at least you can report them.

Not being able to communicate efficiently in a game that demands communication is absolutely awful, because each game becomes a coinflip on what kind of team you have and if they're willing to listen to generic shot-calls in the chat. As one might imagine, this doesn't make the Ranked grind appealing at all, and the ruthless system of losing a star for every loss does not feel good to play when you feel you couldn't have done anything at all to change the flow of the match. Games like Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel's ranked system is far from perfect, but only demoting you after a couple of consecutive losses offers an overall positive experience. Games like OW and APEX have a numbered score with thresholds, and they have measures in place to provide someone who performed well in a losing team with a smaller loss deficit than someone who monkey-brained the whole match. In this, it doesn't matter if you went 11/0/20 or had someone leave your team, you will still lose a star at the end of it, and I, personally, am really struggling to find any kind of flow with this setup.

If people get so frustrated with this solo queue/strict de-ranking, it means the people who make it to Diamond/Crystal will be so small that it will be just as easy to organise Win Trading as it was in The Feast. Why? Because Square Enix has decided to once again offer exclusive new items - for a brand new feature, no less - to the #1 player and Top 100 players. An absolutely insane decision that essentially brings us straight back to square one with curbing those problems in The Feast. This decision is especially baffling, because Yoshi-P made it very clear that the Saint/Beata of the Firmament titles were not intended to be exclusive and everyone would get their chance, but only win traders and streamers will have the ability/free hours to get this every season like they always have.

[Charlotte_Wells]

A contribution based system would be really good. Right now it feels like a
penalty for bad RNG when it comes to teamcomp and teammates.

Not sure how well it would work to allow chat again. Toxic potential asside:
The game is too fast paced to discuss things during the match.

[Qeilos]

A contribution based system would be really good. Right now it feels like a
penalty for bad RNG when it comes to teamcomp and teammates.

Not sure how well it would work to allow chat again. Toxic potential asside:
The game is too fast paced to discuss things during the match.

Ya but like having more Chat Actions on your bar than Job Actions feels really really awkward.

[ReiganCross]

A contribution based system would be really good. Right now it feels like a
penalty for bad RNG when it comes to teamcomp and teammates.

Not sure how well it would work to allow chat again. Toxic potential asside:
The game is too fast paced to discuss things during the match.

It feels so awkward to just stare at people for 30s before a match while completely forced into silence. There's only so much a "Hello" can do. I usually just end up throwing random emotes in there and I dunno, it feels kind of weird.

(Totally agree that we need a more individual contribution system for ranking instead of just losing the stars as quickly as you get them.)

[Xel]

It's not a ranking system though, it is an RNG one, once that realization is made it becomes worthless. Do I think Diamond are good players? No! They got lucky with queuing, that's all.

No skill required, just grinding to cap season rewards and then heading elsewhere, like, uh, fishing...?

[Remiferia]

It's not a ranking system though, it is an RNG one, once that realization is made it becomes worthless. Do I think Diamond are good players? No! They got lucky with queuing, that's all.

No skill required, just grinding to cap season rewards and then heading elsewhere, like, uh, fishing...?

It is intended to be a ranking system, but in practice it just isn't. If removing chat functionality and stacking with friends was the perfect solution to cheating/toxicity then other games would have done this years ago. I have faith that they can tighten it up, but right now there's literally no reason to play Ranked at all because Casual is the exact same experience with less of the baggage.

[Ransu]

It's not a ranking system though, it is an RNG one, once that realization is made it becomes worthless. Do I think Diamond are good players? No! They got lucky with queuing, that's all.

No skill required, just grinding to cap season rewards and then heading elsewhere, like, uh, fishing...?

That's just an excuse. Good players can carry and that is why they rank up.

[sparroww]

sure kid lol

[Ransu]

sure kid lol

I see this crap in every game with a ranked mode. People think they are better than they really are and think ranked should be some kind of progression and that's not how ranked works.

If you're actually good you'll climb. People don't get "lucky." They just carry better than you do because they make better decisions, they don't die pointlessly, they know when to back off and kite, they don't run into a 1v5 cuz they bothered to look at the player list and realized their entire team is dead, they utilize their LB's correctly instead of holding on to them until they "need" it or blowing it pointlessly on a single player that's already almost dead.....the list goes on forever.

[Remiferia]

I see this crap in every game with a ranked mode. People think they are better than they really are and think ranked should be some kind of progression and that's not how ranked works.

If you're actually good you'll climb. People don't get "lucky." They just carry better than you do because they make better decisions, they don't die pointlessly, they know when to back off and kite, they don't run into a 1v5 cuz they bothered to look at the player list and realized their entire team is dead, they utilize their LB's correctly instead of holding on to them until they "need" it or blowing it pointlessly on a single player that's already almost dead.....the list goes on forever.

There are 6 tiers in the Ranked ladder. Cracked players will be good enough to hard carry but that doesn't mean everyone else deserves to flounder around in Bronze. I have never played The Feast before, which means that in the last two days I have racked up about 200 kills and 750 assists in about 100 matches. This is probably not all that impressive to a top player, but I would like to imagine that it is more deserving than dipping between the Bronze 2/3 threshold.

Your comment is absolutely ridiculous because it doesn't leave any room for the possibility that the ranked game mode has any balancing issues and that players simply need to become Diamond-tier players just to be good enough to pull themselves into Silver and Gold. An absolute nonsense contribution to the thread. Cogitating over making the Ranked climb 'more lenient' doesn't make it a progression system, it just helps players get to an ELO that represents their skill level much quicker. By and large you want most of the player base to be in Gold or Platinum as those two ranks represent the top of the bell curve in terms of average skill level, but if it comes out that most people are in Bronze or Silver and then the players start to fray as the tiers go up, you are going to end up with all sorts of matchmaking issues that 'git gud' simply cannot solve.