Rework Ranked Matchmaking to Fast-Track players to Platinum

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

I think the ranking pool isnt technicly the issue

low tier ranked is to demotivating for general players starting to dipping there toes into pvp.
if they yoyo 1-2 days without accomplishing any progress (which in Crystal conflict, doesnt even has to be there own fault in those tiers, no real chat function doesnt help getting any useful feedback either),
why would they return for more?

the result is new blood is drying up, which leads to higher que time in low tiers,
which leads to even worse experiance, aka even less new blood.

i would argue low tier has to be less punishing when it comes to the ranking yoyo, and than gradually ramping up the punishment for losses till diamond or platinum
so that new players can have somewhat of a hook that motivates them to aim higher and keep engaging in ranked pvp.

Technically, you got a point because it sort of was like that in Feast era pvp. Let me explain... during The Feast, we had five skill tiers from Bronze to Diamond, but rather than Stars & Risers, we had rating pretty much starting from Bronze. The breakpoints to get to the next tiers were the following:

Bronze -> Silver: 500
Silver -> Gold: 1000
Gold -> Platinum: 1500
Platinum -> Diamond: 2000

There was no fail-safe demotion protection in between the tiers, but it actually was more lenient on losses so to speak. Generally, a win gave +25 rating and a loss gave -5 / -10 / -15 / -20 / -25 rating depending on your skill tier from Bronze to Diamond. Based on performance, there was also an adjustment on rating gained or lost depending on how well you played, so you could've gained more and lost a bit less if you played a lot better and vice versa if you were the deadweight in your team.

There was also a best-of-5 promotion period once you hit the rating threshold for each skill tier - your current rating could only go 100 higher than the threshold before being hardcapped so you had to win that to progress. Furthermore, if you fell below the threshold I think you had like 3 or 5 games to go back above the threshold without dropping the skill tier you are in.

In a nutshell, with a tier less there was less of a gap and progession within the skill tier was more nuanced rather than greatly affected by luck (win streak didnt really exist like now).