De-ranking from Diamond to Platinum needs to go

[bejii4]

Diamond as a tier is pointless after the addition of de-ranking. If you're a Diamond tier player, you now spend 80% of your time pushing out of Platinum only to get de-ranked again once you start fighting Crystal players. The skill gap between Platinum and Crystal is huge. How are you supposed to learn to play at a Crystal level when you spend all your time fighting Platinum/Gold players?

It's demoralizing to need to go through NINE (9) tiers with no checkpoints. Diamond tier players are churning out of ranked play because it's impossible to make any progress. I've spent well over 100 games now ping-ponging between Platinum 2 and Diamond 4. I've pushed all the way to Diamond 2 a couple weeks ago. Tonight I made it to Diamond 5 three separate times only to immediately get de-ranked to Platinum 1. It's no longer fun anymore. I'm on the verge of churning out too.

[nighttimebunny]

it’s not doing a great job keeping new players like me interested in ranked. the system is already super casual with random matchmaking so maybe leave the deranking to Crystal rank only? either that or have some kind of decent matchmaking where you get put against fresh crystal ranks instead of people with thousands of crystal credit. a plat/diamond game is very different from a nearly full crystal game and why would a low diamond be put in the latter?

ranked seems very unpopular in general and I don’t think the change is doing it any favors either

[Ransu]

de-ranking is fine. The problem is crystal should be crystal only given that it has an entirely different ranking progression. They shouldn't be mixing diamond players into the crystal ranks.

[nighttimebunny]

de-ranking is fine. The problem is crystal should be crystal only given that it has an entirely different ranking progression. They shouldn't be mixing diamond players into the crystal ranks.

yeah I think that’s the main issue. deranking is fine but why put diamonds against people with like 3000 crystal credit? seems like a huge oversight on their part

[bejii4]

de-ranking is fine. The problem is crystal should be crystal only given that it has an entirely different ranking progression. They shouldn't be mixing diamond players into the crystal ranks.

If they implemented this as their solution, I'd be fine with it, but I'd rather they simply remove the Diamond-Platinum de-rank because:

1. The Crystal population isn't always big enough to support Crystal-only games. There are barely enough Crystal players to support a single Crystal-only match on Materia, for example. Also imagine you're the first person to make it to Crystal in a new season. Then what? You can't queue up anymore because there's nobody to play with.

2. Diamond players need exposure to Crystal skill. Otherwise, the problem remains unchanged. Diamond players will still get destroyed by super-veteran Crystal players as soon as they set foot in Crystal, and then they have to spend a bunch of time fighting Diamond/Platinum players that aren't as skilled.

[Nikoto]

They should keep high diamond in crystal games, but only with lower crystal ratings. If you get higher rating you should stop seeing diamonds.

They should keep the deranking.

[Corbeau]

They probably just didn't change the matchmaking algorithm when they implemented deranking. When you couldn't derank they put you up against difficult opposition early because they wanted to be sure you belonged there before giving you the higher tier. Being low diamond in a lobby full of crystal ranks (literally my first game in diamond this season, lmao) made some sense under that system, but it feels strange under the new one.

[Osmond]

Diamond as a tier is pointless after the addition of de-ranking. If you're a Diamond tier player, you now spend 80% of your time pushing out of Platinum only to get de-ranked again once you start fighting Crystal players. The skill gap between Platinum and Crystal is huge. How are you supposed to learn to play at a Crystal level when you spend all your time fighting Platinum/Gold players?

It's demoralizing to need to go through NINE (9) tiers with no checkpoints. Diamond tier players are churning out of ranked play because it's impossible to make any progress. I've spent well over 100 games now ping-ponging between Platinum 2 and Diamond 4. I've pushed all the way to Diamond 2 a couple weeks ago. Tonight I made it to Diamond 5 three separate times only to immediately get de-ranked to Platinum 1. It's no longer fun anymore. I'm on the verge of churning out too.

Shhhhh, you not supposed to say that. It’s to filter out the ppl who doesn’t deserve crystal rank.

[Ransu]

They should keep high diamond in crystal games, but only with lower crystal ratings. If you get higher rating you should stop seeing diamonds.

They should keep the deranking.

Ya that is another problem with ranking that the game doesn't differentiate the crystal scores. I hovered around 800 points sometimes over 1k in crystal season 1 and 2, but I would frequently bump into top 100 players which was never fun lol.

[bejii4]

Shhhhh, you not supposed to say that. It’s to filter out the ppl who doesn’t deserve crystal rank.

I'm honestly okay with Diamond being the tier for "people who don't deserve Crystal".

But that's not what Diamond is today. Diamond as a tier just doesn't exist. I don't think I've been in a single match that has been majority Diamond players. The make-up is usually something like 8 Crystals and 2 Diamonds, or 7 Platinums and 3 Diamonds. When you're not good enough for Crystal, and you're constantly being de-ranked to Platinum, you simply burn out and churn out.

This is what I mean when I say the Diamond tier is currently pointless. There aren't any Diamond matches going on. It's just simply a meat grinder to keep Crystal queue times low.