Ranked should simply be removed.

It's obvious that Blizza-- sorry, Square-Enix, is not willing to invest the time or resources necessary to run a game which fosters a healthy competitive environment. Which is fine - I don't think XIV's playerbase is going to be particularly suited to that kind of thing, anyway.

So why is it even an option? Delete ranked entirely, replace it with casual (group) and call it a day. Or, better yet, avoid splitting CC's already small playerbase by not separating queues and just adjust casual to allow 2 players to queue together, and adjust matchmaking to favor placing pairs against other pairs.

The problem, of course, is that removing ranked and adjusting casual would itself take time and resources, and it would also require Square-Enix to admit they fucked up pretty hard. I don't see either of those two things happening. Maybe we'd have more resources if the rest of Square-Enix outside Creative Business Unit 3 wasn't so busy making bonfires using that XIV cash. Didn't they introduce and then abandon two different freemium/mobile titles in 2022 alone? Chocobo Racing lasted, what, like 9 months before they threw all that work into the bin?