Why is it so difficult Ranking up from Bronze to Crystal

[ShirakoTheFirst]

But I do agree that as someone that plays on JP as well on the side, the difference with EU is night and day because in JP you're mostly matched with players of relative skill due to their player pool being way more sustainable.

In what world is it easy to climb on JP? Not the one I'm playing; every match I'm playing feels like I'm playing against quarter finals level opponents. And when those oppents get onto my team the match after, They somehow lose all their claws and fangs and do just as bad as me. So no, it is not easy to rank up, not at all, else I wouldn't be having the discussion from this point of contention.

My time isn't rewarded for what I put in, a bronze frame and 1k crystals is not sufficient.

I understand the higher ranks get the rewards they do for the skill they've demonstrated in attaining the rank they'vegotten, I'm not fighting against that. Good for them, but I get nothing for playing just as hard and as long. So I'm stuck in bronze, okay, why in the F* should I continue if my time won't be rewarded, since my skill isn't. Because as it stands, all my time gets me is a slap on the back and a 'Good job Sport'.

That's what my time gets me. All I'm asking is a way to eventually earn commendation crystals through time invested. For someone like me, an abject bronze rank failure, play at least a hundred games if you cant get out of bronze, and you will earn a commendation fragment. You automatically get that shard if you get to silver, and get another shard if you reach gold/plat, so if you don't make it out of that, you get two shards or half a comm crystal a season. And then two final fragments for reaching diamond. And then whatever crystal rewards on top of the fragment rewards. So if you're a garbage level like everyone wants to say I am, I can at least make progress on obtaining comm crystals through the time I put in playing games. I don't know how long each CC season lasts, I'll be generous and say 3 months, so if you never leave bronze and play 100 matches, at least, each season, you can get one comm crystal a year, so it would take two years to get get a single augmented hellhound weapon if you're me. If you're skilled, in one season.

Please tell me why that wouldn't be fair.

I'm not asking for the moon, I don't want the moon. I just want my time to be valued as much as everyone elses. Is that so much to ask? Because the wolf marks are practically worthless to me, I've bought everything from that vendor, almost have the trophy crystal vendor bought out. So why should I continue to play if I can't at least feel like I'm making progress?

Serious question: Why should I continue? I clearly can't progress, and I don't get any rewards for trying. So there's nothing for me. I enjoy playing PvP in games, even though it gets my blood pressure up because I tend to get competitive. So why should I try if my time isn't being acknowledged, even in some small minute way?

[flowerfairy]

All I'm asking is a way to eventually earn commendation crystals through time invested.

If I understand your point right, then I'd also assume that you share the same feelings for Ultimate weapons only being locked behind clearing an ultimate? Maybe there should be a way to earn a fraction of an ultimate token's worth if the game is somehow able to detect that you cleared a phase or something?
It's not a very popular opinion, but it's fair, I guess.
Personally I don't think time invested alone amounts to anything, because you could've been doing anything in that time, such as trolling your team and running into the enemy team to die. Not an activity that makes sense to reward.

I think climbing is hard because the queue rarely pops from Bronze to Platinum, and when it does pop, you're usually going to play the same 10 people for a good while, which means a higher chance to get someone on your team that doesn't know what Recuperate is. The only advice I have to offer is to unlock all your jobs and play as one that someone you don't want on your team is playing.
Diamond to Crystal is where the queue pops more often, and also where you'll see an extreme shift of playstyle to targeting one person with stuns, silence, and burst damage at a time. I think it's a significant learning curve here, as you'll have to adjust to bait cooldowns and figure out when it's time for your team to be defensive or offensive.

[TimotheusReed]

If I understand your point right, then I'd also assume that you share the same feelings for Ultimate weapons only being locked behind clearing an ultimate? Maybe there should be a way to earn a fraction of an ultimate token's worth if the game is somehow able to detect that you cleared a phase or something?
It's not a very popular opinion, but it's fair, I guess.
Personally I don't think time invested alone amounts to anything, because you could've been doing anything in that time, such as trolling your team and running into the enemy team to die. Not an activity that makes sense to reward.

In threads like these there are always people like this making bad faith arguments.
You can't really compare getting an Ultimate weapon in PVE to earning recommendation crystals or ranked rewards in Pvp.

Let's look at the numbers first: If you compare the raw numbers on FFXIV achievment sites 10% of players have cleared an Ultimate. If you compare this to the players who reach Crystal in Pvp it is 3% on achievment sites.
So for the general playerbase it is already harder to get to Crystal than to clear an Ultimate. And even then you won't really be able to something from it (like the new armor) if you don't reach Crystal several seasons in a row.
Also Pvp rewards are locked behind FOMO and if you want to get the new armor sets you have to either reach Diamond/Crystal several seasons in a row or consistently reach Top 300 (which is not even 0.1% of the playerbase).

You are comparing rewards which are obtainable to 10% of the playerbase to rewards which are obtainable only for 0.1% of the playerbase.
We can maybe start comparing getting pvp rewards with getting an Ultimate weapon once the high-rank Pvp rewards can also be obtained by 10% of players.

But as long as they are still only obtainable for 0.1% of players the demand to adjust the obtainability of pvp rewards is justified in my opinion.

And I wasn't even mentioning that you are locked out of even ranking up during the season if you dont play at the right time.
But you can ALWAYS do an Ultimate as long as you find a group of players willing to do the content.

[flowerfairy]

Let's look at the numbers first: If you compare the raw numbers on FFXIV achievment sites 10% of players have cleared an Ultimate. If you compare this to the players who reach Crystal in Pvp it is 3% on achievment sites.
So for the general playerbase it is already harder to get to Crystal than to clear an Ultimate. And even then you won't really be able to something from it (like the new armor) if you don't reach Crystal several seasons in a row.
Also Pvp rewards are locked behind FOMO and if you want to get the new armor sets you have to either reach Diamond/Crystal several seasons in a row or consistently reach Top 300 (which is not even 0.1% of the playerbase).

I compared commendation crystals to ultimate tokens in the sense of prestige. I'm talking about how to measure someone's worthiness to earn a commendation crystal.
You're talking about total achievement percentiles from the entirety of the game's population, which is already known to not engage in PvP as much as they do PvE. I'm sure that's also evident in whatever you use to track achievements.
I don't disagree with what you're saying, but also it's not even what I said. There's no FOMO in commendation crystals, and nobody's even talking about the battle pass series rewards (aren't they putting the old ones up for trophy crystals already?) Isn't this a bad faith argument itself?

And I wasn't even mentioning that you are locked out of even ranking up during the season if you dont play at the right time.

The new ranked season always starts after the last one so I'm not really sure what you mean here...
Are you talking about not enough people playing? Or that your rank gets reset after the season ends?

[Loggos]

snip

I agree with this. And I think another point is that PvP's reward psychology is different from ultimate reward psychology.

Conceptually ultimate is all-or-nothing. You either clear it or you don't. Comparing progress to ranks below crystal is a contrived comparison in my opinion because ultimate has one goal (clear it) and mere progress means you haven't reached it. It's cool that you got this far but you didn't succeed at the one thing you needed to do.
It's also a lot more about long-term team success, clearing one thing together after weeks/months of work.

PvP ranking is different. Unlike ultimates, personal progress in PvP is the end goal.
It is a perfectly reasonable motivation to reach a rank below crystal. You didn't fail your one objective if you haven't reached the latter (and some people might never reach crystal anyway).
It's a lot more individualistic because PvP is about measuring nothing but your own growth/state vs. the long-term team aspect of ultimates.

To make a cheesy comparison, ultimate is a lot more about the destination (clear an ultimate and then the next when it releases) and PvP is a lot more about the journey (steadily become better/reach a higher score across a continuous time frame).

That personal journey is also reflected in the fact that it can take several seasons for somebody to become good enough to reach crystal but you'll still have a feeling of success while you progress through the ranks over time.
It might also take you several ultimates until you manage to beat (a current) one, but the progress experience is different. It's not "I reached this new official milestone and maybe next season I can score even higher", it's a lot more binary: "no success, no success, no success" until you finally have a "success".

I don't know what the best reward system is so I don't want to comment on commendation crystals in particular but I do agree that PvP's reward structure should better reward the journey/the personal progress which lies at the heart of its mode.

--

(Yes, ideally playing pvp/progressing should be a reward in and of itself and a lot of pvp regulars are intrinsically motivated. But imo in its current iteration CC is just not appealing to people who might potentially enjoy ranked PvP but aren't sold on it yet/have little experience. If you are just starting out or stuck at lower ranks your experience might be so miserable you associate nothing but negativity with this mode.
So I think especially at the start/at lower ranks small but steady experiences of success are important to keep people engaged until they are in a place where they can extract feelings of success from their progress itself and the satisfaction of getting better has turned into an intrinsic motivator.)

[Stormfur]

And I wasn't even mentioning that you are locked out of even ranking up during the season if you dont play at the right time.
But you can ALWAYS do an Ultimate as long as you find a group of players willing to do the content.

I'm going to add to this that, when you do an Ultimate, you can strategize with your party. You can keep practicing until you get it. Imagine if Ultimates were done like CC:

"Okay guys, you've got 3 weeks to get this weapon. We're going to pair you up with random people, some of whom may never have set foot in an Ultimate in their lives. Also all your skills are different. Oh and no potions or food. You can't chat either except for these five pre-selected commands. Also if you're not one of the first 300 people on the server to clear it, you don't get squat and those weapons will never be made available again."

People. would. lose. their. MINDS.

I understand PVP is a different beast but you can still make a mode competitive without turning the suffering knob up to 11.

[Aidorouge]

Serious question: Why should I continue? I clearly can't progress, and I don't get any rewards for trying. So there's nothing for me. I enjoy playing PvP in games, even though it gets my blood pressure up because I tend to get competitive. So why should I try if my time isn't being acknowledged, even in some small minute way?

That's always been my problem with Ranked modes in general. I'm not good enough to make the time invested worth it, so why would I invest my time into it at all? When I know I'm permanent Bronze, there's no point in showing up for even the minimum matches to qualify for that much, better to ignore the mode completely.

[Valence]

In what world is it easy to climb on JP? Not the one I'm playing; every match I'm playing feels like I'm playing against quarter finals level opponents. And when those oppents get onto my team the match after, They somehow lose all their claws and fangs and do just as bad as me. So no, it is not easy to rank up, not at all, else I wouldn't be having the discussion from this point of contention.

My time isn't rewarded for what I put in, a bronze frame and 1k crystals is not sufficient.

I understand the higher ranks get the rewards they do for the skill they've demonstrated in attaining the rank they'vegotten, I'm not fighting against that. Good for them, but I get nothing for playing just as hard and as long. So I'm stuck in bronze, okay, why in the F* should I continue if my time won't be rewarded, since my skill isn't. Because as it stands, all my time gets me is a slap on the back and a 'Good job Sport'.

That's what my time gets me. All I'm asking is a way to eventually earn commendation crystals through time invested. For someone like me, an abject bronze rank failure, play at least a hundred games if you cant get out of bronze, and you will earn a commendation fragment. You automatically get that shard if you get to silver, and get another shard if you reach gold/plat, so if you don't make it out of that, you get two shards or half a comm crystal a season. And then two final fragments for reaching diamond. And then whatever crystal rewards on top of the fragment rewards. So if you're a garbage level like everyone wants to say I am, I can at least make progress on obtaining comm crystals through the time I put in playing games. I don't know how long each CC season lasts, I'll be generous and say 3 months, so if you never leave bronze and play 100 matches, at least, each season, you can get one comm crystal a year, so it would take two years to get get a single augmented hellhound weapon if you're me. If you're skilled, in one season.

Please tell me why that wouldn't be fair.

I'm not asking for the moon, I don't want the moon. I just want my time to be valued as much as everyone elses. Is that so much to ask? Because the wolf marks are practically worthless to me, I've bought everything from that vendor, almost have the trophy crystal vendor bought out. So why should I continue to play if I can't at least feel like I'm making progress?

Serious question: Why should I continue? I clearly can't progress, and I don't get any rewards for trying. So there's nothing for me. I enjoy playing PvP in games, even though it gets my blood pressure up because I tend to get competitive. So why should I try if my time isn't being acknowledged, even in some small minute way?

I'm not saying it's easy to climb on JP, I'm saying it's a bit easier (or perhaps less frustrating would be more correct), because there is less random white noise (either sandbaggers or abnormally skilled players for that skill pool) and they also play a lot less like clowns when it comes to game sense and objectives. The highest I've peaked everywhere was on my first season on JP in spite of the crazy lag, but I'm unable to replicate this again and seem to hover at a similar crystal rating than on EU right now.

Again all I'm saying is that there is less useless games you just have to eat and that waste your time. Doesn't mean that there is less games ending up under 2-3min because it's a stomp though. Doesn't mean there is less people literally throwing games either. There is a lot of those too. But you will never find the usual match bullying on JP that you find in 90% of the games on EU where the team just decides to go for the obviously lowest rated player in the enemy team (say a diam 4 when there is also omega players in the pool). I don't know how much this happens at lower tiers though, but you can bet that as soon as people keep matching with the same people, they'll start targeting specific players there too.

You're also preaching to the choir on rewards, every rank should be rewarded for playing ranked. Every rank should feel valued for wherever their skill level lies, instead of constantly telling them they're worth nothing until they reach at least diamond. Every rank shouldn't come with the expectation that the goal is to reach diam/crystal else you can just quit the game.

To your last question: have you tried looking for advice or guidance? There is a lot of players and communities that can help. The main hurdle when trying to figure everything on your own is that what specifically tends to be roadblocks is the inability to actually see what we're doing wrong ourselves a lot of the time, or what we could be doing better.

[TimotheusReed]

For me it is getting especially harder because there are currently rarely matches at my current rank and if they DO happen they are very late in the evening or during the night.

It frustrates me a bit that I have to play till very late to get a decent amount of matches and also nowadays I have to spent a lot of time (5-10 mins per match) in queue before a match starts.
If the match then lasts maybe 5-10mins I have spent 10-20 mins per match. This means I might only get to play 3-5 matches during an hour.

For a regular guy it is almost impossible to consistently rank up if you only get to play so few matches.
I am on EU btw.

[Loggos]

I feel like the lowest ranks as well as the highest ranks can be "extreme" in their own ways.

Unranked to gold is such a mixed bag because you can have total beginners together with people who can keep up with plat (and potentially diamond) players. Some team compositions (not just in terms of jobs picked but also in terms of variation in experience) just seem to be uncarriable. Yes, good players do make it out of there faster because they are still better at systematically influencing their games. But it still feels a lot more chaotic and random. If you are "ok" you may be stuck in silver or gold because you do well in a good team but just are not good enough to carry/have this kind of systematic influence if it's a bad team.

When it comes to the top ranks, at least on EU servers the difference between diamond and crystal+ is really noticeable for me. Even though there's definitely an increase in skill between gold/plat and plat/dia it still feels manageable or "in the same ballpark" if that makes sense.
Getting matched with crystal, let alone omega+, players makes me legit uncomfortable though because the skill gap feels too big. I can immediately notice it's a whole different league and my performance compared to the rest of the team is really weak.
I know there's no way around it because there just aren't enough players but I think this is kinda doomed to breed animosity between ranks. Because understandably crystal+ players don't want dead weight in their games but lower-rank players can't control who they're matched with and obviously they need to keep playing to get better.

It's just a really unfortunate constellation.

For me it is getting especially harder because there are currently rarely matches at my current rank and if they DO happen they are very late in the evening or during the night.

...

For a regular guy it is almost impossible to consistently rank up if you only get to play so few matches.
I am on EU btw.

Yeah, if you have a job (and/or a healthy sleep schedule) then ranking up is really hard, if not impossible. Sometimes the queue only really starts to get active at around midnight. Makes for a really frustrating experience esp. during the week.