The current state of Ranked PvP is unhealthy for the future of conquest. Here's why.

I am currently on mobile so I'll cut straight to the chase.

Solo queue and duo queue is unhealthy for the long-term future of Conquest.

Automatic Tournaments are a feature where teams are faced off against each other, promoting team strategy and helps build player awareness on the battlefield.

Ranked on the other hand is a slurry of team members who are running random builds, who each have their own strategic/rotational strategies.

Ranked is problematic because it encourages players who want to rise in the ranks to adopt a solo "carry" strategy that will NOT ever work in a team setting as in tournaments.

Ranked is the antithesis of tournaments and group strategy. It is killing the sense of camaraderie in Conquest.

What about "in-houses"? Unfortunately this practice is unknown to the vast majority of the PvP community. Ranked and Unranked are stick right in front of our faces, while the mere concept of in-housing is hard to come across by chance. It also requires some preparation beforehand.

Not to mention, in-housing is usually done against the same team members whereas in team queue Ranked there would be the possibility of playing against a wide variety of teams.

In essence, the current state of Ranked--the main game mode of Conquest PvP--is pulling players apart, reducing strategy to mere instincts, and leaving inexperienced players behind in the dust and brutally teaching them (if they are willing to learn) with reluctance.

Team queue for Ranked was the optimal way to build a sense of rotating, team composition, and Conquest strategy. It was where you can learn how to use Portals on Mesmer whereas in today's Ranked you'll never learn properly because of the lack of organization.

It was where your allies rotated well and didn't run around cluelessly, learning from mistakes to become better.

Putting solo queue and team queue in the same Ranked queue is spelling for trouble. Just make two separate Ranked queues with two separate leaderboards to attract more players. ATs aren't enough because, well, they're long tournaments on a long cooldown. Team Ranked is the ultimate in-between for players to get a grasp on the mechanics of Conquest.

The bad state of the game has almost nothing to do with queues or tournaments. The balancing is shit and the elo is too (and elo is shit for how many seasons now?)

@geist.9173 said:The bad state of the game has almost nothing to do with queues or tournaments. The balancing is kitten and the elo is too (and elo is kitten for how many seasons now?)

Balancing is definitely off. Ele needs some work, Revenant is a little loose here and there, some classes need tweaks. But that's not the point here.

The point (elo aside) is that solo queue Ranked is suboptimal when it comes to improving skill for every player for Conquest PvP. It's also not as fun as it could be due to stresses and the inability to form strategies beforehand (due to random team members).

IMO, balance has a medium-low influence on why the PvP playerbase is shrinking. The main cause for the shrinking playerbase is the matchmaker is put under too much stress (by the shrinking playerbase).

Balance is okay. It could be more inclusive of off-meta specs, but there's no bad professions. If you're a god Ele or Rev, there's not a single thing stopping you from being in the top10. Yes its obviously harder to achieve that. Hell, Phantaram on Weaver consistently is rated the same or slightly higher than my Holosmith and we are absolutely both very experienced players at both respective professions, and carrying SoloQ.

You can only have matches where you impact the outcomes of your games through your play if everyone is roughly in the same playerskill solar system. Each player on the team should individually be able to provide some value for that level of play, no players getting dumpstered all game, far out of their depth. Conversely, no player should be able to go around and dumpster the enemy team with 20 kills and 0 deaths. Even doing so, that obscenely dominant player will still lose 40% of their matches. This feeling of helplessness whether you are in the dumpster or dumpstering kids is the reason for the shrinking playerbase, full stop.

I don't really get why NA people still consider revenant as bad.

Just went through a streak last night of going 0-9. Partly due to quitters if my team fell behind early, partly because having players who just wonder around doing nothing, and partly because I started to suck going on tilt.

This is just part of the way things work these days with population shrinking and players having a higher rating than they should. I may not be the best player in the world but I can at least read a map and do a proper rotation. Something that seems to be lacking with a lot of players even in high gold. Over the long run I'm sure eventually everything will even out, but with player base so small, it's more random as to if you get a team you can even carry, or get a team that can carry you if you are one of the lower rated players.

@HeadCrowned.6834 said:I don't really get why NA people still consider revenant as bad.

I made a fresh f2p account in NA, got to plat and I can confirm that revenants are far and few between. Actually it's fascinating the difference in meta between each region. I've also noticed NA mesmers are usually power mirage and EU are mostly condi mirage, just an interesting observation.

It frustrates me that we never got to finalize the trial of duo queue and how Anet completely ignores that fact.

Strait up lied, manipulated and cheated the player base and when asked about team queue will just completely side step the question.

It's one thing to manipulate your customers but it's an entirely new level of rudeness to go on ignoring legitimate questions for so long, I'm ashamed of this company and myself for supporting it for so long.

Until this issue is resolved or the questions about team queue coming back are answered, I'll continue to speak with my wallet and play hours by not spending a cent on the game or queuing up, and I was the sort of person to spend 50-100 a week and rack up 400+ games a season.

@Chaith.8256 said:

You can only have matches where you impact the outcomes of your games through your play if everyone is roughly in the same playerskill solar system. Each player on the team should individually be able to provide some value for that level of play, no players getting dumpstered all game, far out of their depth. Conversely, no player should be able to go around and dumpster the enemy team with 20 kills and 0 deaths. Even doing so, that obscenely dominant player will still lose 40% of their matches. This feeling of helplessness whether you are in the dumpster or dumpstering kids is the reason for the shrinking playerbase, full stop.

I haven't queued in a while but that's all PvP was, running around getting 15-25 kills every game with only 1-2 deaths.