Rework Ranked Matchmaking to Fast-Track players to Platinum

[HojoMeiwah]

Ranked was recently "rejoined" to keep ranked queues afloat longer. But even now, Gold or lower tiers are having trouble popping. They don't go until far after 6:00 PM here in CST now, and the lack of players means only Plat or more can queue consistently.

Since Platinum players cannot fall out of their rank, and SE's design signals a desire to reinforce continued gameplay with such safety nets. So I think SE should rework how the matchmaking works to keep queues healthy, and to keep unprepared players (or people who just want to tap crystal) out of pure crystal (1200 CR+) games.

I suggest...

• An unranked to platinum queue
• Platinum to Diamond 2(***)
• Diamond 1(-) to Crystal (below 1.2k)
• Crystal(1.2k)

The reason for this is to fast track people through Unranked to Plat to get them into games they're ready without having to suffer a dry queue. If more people are plat, then more people can make Gold or below games also pop, and your rank still influences how you are weighed by the system. You go from being the low end of matchmaking to the high end as you climb up, similar to how the current "one above/below" system works.

The other queues are intended to be a flat out improvement. Plats already fight Gold/Plat to Plat/Diamond now, so there is little difference in a Plat having to play Gold/Plat vs Unranked/Plat games. Diamond 1 being the new threshold to fight current crystals means they can carry games with lower ranked player, and hold their own against Former Crystals potentially (i.e. they fell out of Crystal). Finally, lock up pure Crystal games to 1.2k or up. Crystals currently have to suffer the company of Diamond 5+ players that are good enough for Platinum, but instantly fall out of Diamond. The *issue* here is that this can unironically happen to TOP 1 rankers. The JP region already has this addition, but it was reconsidered for NA due to population issues. But, this won't be an issue if the unranked to gold queue pop consistently with the help of current platinum players.

We'll be going from this

Bronze ->(!) Silver ->(!) Gold ->(!) Platinum <-> Diamond <-> Crystal <-> Crystal(1.2k)

Gold or below is dead, because everyone either quits or leaves the queue forever. No new golds means no new plats, no new diamonds, and no new Crystals.

to this
Bronze ->(!) Silver ->(!) Gold ->(!) Platinum <-> Diamond <-> Crystal <-> Crystal(1.2k)

Gold or below queue won't die, because Plats will always be able to queue into them. The skill difference is not different either, since streaking makes the difference between Bronze/Silver/Gold/Plat pretty much meaningless. Since this queue lives, a steady trickle of improving players will contest Platinum and Diamond ranks, and keeping Crystal(1.2k) separate will keep rewards focused players AWAY from those actually interested in climbing.

( )Dead due to lack of players within one division eventually
(!)Safety Net, cannot demote once past this rank
Always has players, since they can always demote/promote back to this rank.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

Queue times are an issue for sure, but by making Platinum actually queue with Bronze, Silver and Gold, it will just remove the point of actually having those skill tiers in the first place + you will have Platinum players that may hover between Platinum and Diamond, they will absolutely CRUSH whatever players you have in Bronze and Silver. This is a terrible user experience to go into and defeats the point of having low skill tiers.

The problem with ranked is that there is simply no reason to keep playing if you can't reach Platinum, obviously. But the way to address this is by making players organically interact with Ranked by giving them a reason to keep playing and rewarding them with specified Ranked Currency for winning at all ranks. Metal tiers also have terrible end-of-season rewards in general and even in gem tiers, Augmented Hellhound weapons are really not something greatly sought after, most of them look unfitting/ugly for the average player.

Your suggestion will allow for more queues, but it is just a band-aid on a gaping wound, not a cure - if you don't make time investment into Ranked appealing, you will always have low participation AND poor player retention (i.e. stops playing after 1-3 weeks), which is what the ACTUAL issue is.

[Valence]

I don't necessarily disagree with the observation, but Platinum already queues with Gold, it's part of the queue bracket of that league, which will queue up either with gold, or diamond. Perhaps queues need better flexibility below Gold, I'm not sure.

Right now the system pushes everybody forward until they reach plat (or queues die), and then you get a crapload of people hardstuck at plat4 because they have no business staying up there. If they could derank like you can below Diamond or Crystal, perhaps lower ranks would see a better activity. But otherwise as Reinhardt said without rewards there is a point where people will just stop playing anyway. And in fact, I have the feeling that the ratchet the devs introduced below each tier before Diamond is here to ensure players have the illusion to progress and therefore want to keep trying... until they can't climb anymore (to Diamond+).

It's quite a bit of a conundrum to solve, but really, if we want to keep queues active, we need more incentives at all ranks (either rewards or just you know, fun), and less fake ELO. I know every ELO system has in built mechanics to push players upward to keep them engaged, but the ratchet we have is not just pushing, it's just clogging the system at specific thresholds.

And I'll personally admit that recently I've taken a week off ranked because there is a point where after half a thousand of games or something, there is a point one wants to take a breath, and also, having to travel to another DC and cut myself constantly from my friends and communities feels like a shit sandwich, to speak plainly. I'm sick of it, and I do really hope it's helping bringing more active pvpers together to improve queues because sometimes I just don't see the difference with the first couple of seasons of last expansion when it wasn't even a thing.

[Valence]

Also I know I've made a thread once asking to split upper crystal from lower crystal, and while I don't think it was misinformed, I also don't think it always took the reality of queues into account... Anyway, I think SE should seriously consider on top of this to actually monitor how other online games do their matchmaking and ELO systems, and while none has the perfect system, they tend to have an adjustable bracket that will start thin, narrowing between players of the same skill, and it will widen and widen until it finally finds enough players that can face you. I don't see why this shouldn't be a thing here (within limits). Reading that other thread about Materia and it becomes painfully obvious that they'd benefit greatly from a matchmaking that tries to enlarge its search radius beyond the closest league hardcoded by the system until it can fill up a queue...

[Eastwall]

Yes, l might sound like a broken record now. I agree with reinhardt. The reward sucks. The extra crystal trophy From ranked is a joke. I get overflowing amount of crystal just by getting my daily xp in frontline...
They need to bring back how ranked feast works. Demotion at all level, and reward you a fraction of a weapon if you are below crystal rank. If they are afraid of people feeding, just make it that you need to win, let's say 20 games, to be eligible for that weapon skin reward. For now, l like pvp but only want to play unranked because ranked is just not worth the stress. Plus l found all the toxic people went to play ranked, so that place is like a containment zone For Ebola. Without reasonable reward, l really don't want to touch it.

[Mawlzy]

Why does CC even have a ranked-vs-casual distinction? Compared to FL, the quicker matches and much smaller teams should drive players to a MMR/rank reflecting their intrinsic skill level much more rapidly. Thus the players who treat the game as a competitive mode will quickly float like cream to the top, whereas those banging out games to get the participation rewards will slosh about towards the bottom.

If the issue in ranked is the lower ranks drying up as competitive players ratchet into the higher ones, simply having everyone in the same pool would keep the lower ranks populated, and possibly obviate the need for the majority of players having to DC travel.

It's like CC uses two independent methods (casual-v-ranked and MMR within ranked) to encourage match balance, whereas FL says: " Your first match? Here, have a semi-static premade as an opponent."

[Valence]

I've always suggested to merge casual and ranked CC modes together but with big caveats. The reason a lot of players only go for casual is precisely not to have to deal with ranking, pressure, and everything that goes with it. A huge amount of people is competition adverse, and this isn't just a XIV thing, it's also something you'll find in multiplayer competitive games at the core where in reality the majority of the playerbase congregate around co-op modes.

The way I'd merge them is for you to be able to toggle on or off your elo, which wouldn't make it go away, but you wouldn't be able to see it if you didn't want to. You'd also not be ranked into ladder leagues until reaching specific points of elo, and again, if you have your elo turned off, you wouldn't be ranked into those leagues either. The only thing that would remain would be the elo, hidden or not hidden to the appreciation of each player, because the elo would be the prime directive the system would follow to match people together between similar skills. I do feel like it would still fall short of what it tries to achieve since there is just not enough players playing at the same time (just queue for casual and you'll still get the same 8/10 players at most times of the day beyond the peaks), but well. I also feel it would potentially open the door for exploit where ranked people would gather their casual friends and farm them to go up, so there is that too. The more I think about it, the more I think it's not really realistic of an idea.

[Sinstrel]

They just need to get rid of de-rank protection. Because of de-rank protection, players who have luckily streaked out of a tier will never fall back down to fill ques for the lower ranking players no matter how many times they lose. Compounding this is the fact that at the start of the next season, these same players start off at higher ranks which even further deprives the que of players for lower ranks.

[Commander_Justitia]

Do we really need ranked? Is there really a huge skill gap between players that warrants a ranked mode?
Shouldnt casual just get the same matchmaking system like ranked so you can get rid of the separate queue?
Distribute the remaining rewards to casual queue.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

Do we really need ranked? Is there really a huge skill gap between players that warrants a ranked mode?
Shouldnt casual just get the same matchmaking system like ranked so you can get rid of the separate queue?
Distribute the remaining rewards to casual queue.

Good points, but I'd rather they do something with the Ranked mode to make it shine rather than remove it and it's gone in the void, never to be seen again - because we know what happens when they remove stuff, rarely does anything ever come back.

*cough* Astragalos.