The true PvP had moved to unranked.

What i observed was happening in Heroes of the Storm, the f2p game, had happened now in GW2 as well.The f2p inevitably opened paygates for various scum, and they have dominated ranked as multiple complaints attest.Then players that cared more about fight itself than superficial rewards and to avoid AFK, wintraders and other scummy stuff, had inevitably come to the same conclusion as HotS playerbase and promptly left the ranked to fester.Since start of season i played unranked only and had quality, challenging games (albeit some one-sided) with none of what ranked players complain.

Unranked is far more fun. Not only do you see a lot more build diversity, you see way less toxicity and much better fights. No one rage quits or afks. It's glorious.

If anet removed pips and chests from ranked ... I guarantee you unranked would have WAY more players in it. Anet has to force you into their awful solo-q ranked system with goodies because they know its a terrible experience. Sad, really.

@pah.4931 said:Unranked is far more fun. Not only do you see a lot more build diversity, you see way less toxicity and much better fights. No one rage quits or afks. It's glorious.

If anet removed pips and chests from ranked ... I guarantee you unranked would have WAY more players in it. Anet has to force you into their awful solo-q ranked system with goodies because they know its a terrible experience. Sad, really.

How on earth are you seeing better fights in unranked?

@"pah.4931" said:Unranked is far more fun. Not only do you see a lot more build diversity, you see way less toxicity and much better fights.You must be playing a very different unranked than I.

@paShadoWn.5723 said:What i observed was happening in Heroes of the Storm, the f2p game, had happened now in GW2 as well.The f2p inevitably opened paygates for various scum, and they have dominated ranked as multiple complaints attest.Then players that cared more about fight itself than superficial rewards and to avoid AFK, wintraders and other scummy stuff, had inevitably come to the same conclusion as HotS playerbase and promptly left the ranked to fester.Since start of season i played unranked only and had quality, challenging games (albeit some one-sided) with none of what ranked players complain.

I've played 15 unranked matches since last night, four of which I got placed against Toker in a duo queue with someone. Nine of the other matches had DC's on either side, and every game had an AFK player on one team. Two matches were within 75 points, six were complete blowouts (375+ point difference), and the remaining matches were still heavily one sided with ~200 point difference.

I'm not sure your claim is very accurate.

@Crinn.7864 said:

@"pah.4931" said:Unranked is far more fun. Not only do you see a lot more build diversity, you see way less toxicity and much better fights.You must be playing a very different unranked than I.

I wouldn't exactly agree that one video says much about hundreds of Unranked Matches happening every day across community, however still a nice video =D

@Crinn.7864 said:

@"pah.4931" said:Unranked is far more fun. Not only do you see a lot more build diversity, you see way less toxicity and much better fights.You must be playing a very different unranked than I.

One video of you playing against bad players, probably at like 4 AM. Empirical evidence. Here's your nobel prize.

Anyways. The only reason you see better fights (during a 2 - 3 hour window of "peak play time") in ranked, during the season is because there are more people to pool from for match-making. And the only reason there are more people is because there are pips and chests.

Removed pips and chests and I bet more people would play unranked. Put pips and chests into unranked instead of ranked (you all are just playing for the great competition and titles and badges, RIGHT?) ... and we'll just see which mode has more people playing it.

Come on. Ranked is a joke. Anet needs to support real team-based play if they want actual competitive play and for reward to mean anything. Queuing as an OP fotm a few times every night during peak hours and then getting a rank and playing the bare minimum to stave off decay isn't exactly "competitive" ... It just means you've played a lot, you understand how the game works, and you have enough time each night to keep your rating up. Woopty doo. Most "only platinum players should be allowed to post on the forums" try-hards would do very mediocre in a tournament of premades.

If anyone today thinks solo-q rating means much... you're just delusional. It's a farming mode.

@Huskyboy.1053 said:

@"pah.4931" said:Unranked is far more fun. Not only do you see a lot more build diversity, you see way less toxicity and much better fights. No one rage quits or afks. It's glorious.

If anet removed pips and chests from ranked ... I guarantee you unranked would have WAY more players in it. Anet has to force you into their awful solo-q ranked system with goodies because they know its a terrible experience. Sad, really.

I see a wide range of fights. I guess I should have said ... "more fun fights" ...

Not every game is decided by 5 points. But I see tons more build diversity; I see incredibly less toxicity; and I see plenty of decently paired matches.

@pah.4931 said:One video of you playing against bad players, probably at like 4 AM.The clock in the bottom right corner of the video very clearly says 11:17pm.

None of the good players play ranked, they play their one game every 3 days then party up with people they actually enjoy playing with and meme in unranked.

@Crinn.7864 said:

@"pah.4931" said:One video of you playing against bad players, probably at like 4 AM.The clock in the bottom right corner of the video very clearly says 11:17pm.

OK. You got me. I didn't watch it (THIS TIME -- you posted that video before and I watched it then and it quite entertaining). Also... what time zone? Even East Coast that isn't exactly "prime time" ... so... I was kinda right. (If that's west coast then that is 2:17 am, making me more right... if it's not the united states then, well, I don't know... I went to public school!)

Point is. Unranked is more fun. GW2 is one of the most casual MMOs ever made and for some reason there's a small portion of people who want to make PvP into something it will never be. Again, put pips and chests into unranked instead and you'll see who REALLY cares about their titles and ranks. You really think Anet put pips and chests into ranked because those are the players that "deserve" rewards?? Of course not... they know their system is lame and their balance is awful and any sort of solo-q ranked system will never work, so they throw shiny things at you. :P

We really only need two modes. Team-only conquest for people who actually want to test their mettle and show the world how awesome they are (because winning against the best makes you the best). And solo-q or team-q casual "battleground" mode (combine current ranked and unranked, for much larger pool of players and better matchmaking) -- ideally with more and more new modes (other than conquest and bigger than 5v5) added over time. I'd love to see "brawls" as well (same maps but new rules for a short time, like Blizzard does so well)...

@pah.4931 said:

@Huskyboy.1053 said:

@pah.4931 said:Unranked is far more fun. Not only do you see a lot more build diversity, you see way less toxicity and much better fights. No one rage quits or afks. It's glorious.

If anet removed pips and chests from ranked ... I guarantee you unranked would have WAY more players in it. Anet has to force you into their awful solo-q ranked system with goodies because they know its a terrible experience. Sad, really.

Agree that Unranked is way more fun too, atleast we can play with guildies but I can't hold them in PvP very long because they want to continue farming Ascended gear either via rank or PvE.

@Crinn.7864 said:

@"pah.4931" said:Unranked is far more fun. Not only do you see a lot more build diversity, you see way less toxicity and much better fights.You must be playing a very different unranked than I.

Pretty much my unranked experience aswell. Also get way more 4v5s there. Sure, people play meme builds there cause they are bored, but how is that better?

@Crinn.7864 said:

@pah.4931 said:Unranked is far more fun. Not only do you see a lot more build diversity, you see way less toxicity and much better fights.You must be playing a very different unranked than I.

whats wrong with this? you had a nice 1v3 at far :P

If they have bored you then they had won - because boredom is a loss of energy.Also yes, YMMV so apologies for inadvertently deceiving mighty warrior from higher power levels.

Yeah... nah... what really happened is you don’t see the numbers dropping anymore, so suddenly an afk or a bad teammate are not that bad, and seem less common, because losses are not as rememberable.

Unranked matches being “better” is quite the joke tbh.