[Ranked Games] Unranked vs Ranked

[The Light In The Darkness.1619482232]

I'm not a god of pvp or a legend or anything i just installed the game but lately every single unranked match is 3 ruthless legends either in my team or enemy team and even top tier players ... How am i able to be confident in learning how to play my class if everytime im being thrown into hell hardcore matches that require a min max build to make a 5 point difference to win ?If unranked is as such i cant even imagine how ranked would be any different if not worse.

[Multicolorhipster.9751]

I recently made an alt to test and even on a rank 27 fresh account this still happens all the time, even SoloQ.

After playing on that account for a few weeks, I can tell you that if you play Stronghold, you're much more likely to be matched up against other similarly skilled players.I know Stronghold isn't the most popular mode, and that it doesn't accurately prepare you for PvP, but you could learn the basics of your class there and then maybe start playing Unranked/Ranked Conquest to get a more advanced understanding of how to do well with your class in the main gamemode.

When it comes to Ranked Vs. Unranked, there's unfortunately very little actual difference in terms of matchmaking. If the top 2 players are power stacked in a DuoQ for instance, the matchmaker is going to reach as far down as silver to bring that DuoQ's team's average rating closer to the enemy's. At which point you could be with/against other top players. Neither are very beneficial when it comes to learning or improving at the game unless you're one of those top players.

The main difference between Unranked and Ranked when it comes to learning is that most people playing Unranked are only playing for fun/dailies. If you intend to move on to Ranked, and you use Unranked for practice you will be learning how to fight off-meta builds and against different parties that don't exist in Ranked or at least aren't very popular at all.

There's some real annoying stuff in both modes.In Ranked, it's bots and Metagaming.In Unranked it's a lack of effort/care and the occasional 3-5 stacked top players practicing their copy and paste meta builds which is apparently 'practicing' for AT's by crushing a load of newbies and people testing builds. Yikes guys, big yikes.

TL;DR - I recommend using Unranked Stronghold or multi-queue to learn the basic of your class, then move on to Unranked conquest to learn the basics of conquest, then finally Ranked(optionally.)

[Thorstienn.1642]

@"Multicolorhipster.9751" said:occasional 3-5 stacked top players practicing their copy and paste meta builds which is apparently 'practicing' for AT's by crushing a load of newbies and people testing builds.

Great info all round. But this is so true. I've often thought that these styles of matches have been the biggest hurdle for new players actually getting into PvP. It is beyond unfun, and why go through that for 20 ranks, when "in theory" you would presume it only gets worse in ranked (though it really doesn't).

[Multicolorhipster.9751]

@"Thorstienn.1642" said:Great info all round. But this is so true. I've often thought that these styles of matches have been the biggest hurdle for new players actually getting into PvP. It is beyond unfun, and why go through that for 20 ranks, when "in theory" you would presume it only gets worse in ranked (though it really doesn't).

I think the best remedy there would be to have a separate SoloQ only ladder for Ranked, where you can play totally SoloQ; away from all that crap that essentially ruins the game. Bots are still going to be a problem so long as pips and freebie rewards remain, but at least new people could play without metagaming and be guaranteed the same level of fairness and closer matchmaking.

I get why people do it in Unranked, stomping noobs is fun and all. Unfortunately there's no real way to combat what they're doing. These stacks of top players are exceedingly rare, so they probably won't ever get mirrored, and it's not like Arenanet can change how Unranked works because it's sort of meant to be an imbalanced playground mess. It's also very unwelcoming to new players like you say.

Still think playing Stronghold is their best bet. I like to think these stacked top players avoid Stronghold for the sake of new players, but the real reasoning is likely that most people don't like Stronghold. Poor new peeps.

[Avatar.3568]

Anet should put away the restriction for ranked, unranked is the real mess in matchmaking

[Lacko.6572]

all of the PvE Garbage farmers play ranked coz they give more reward, unranked is the game mode of true pro players (not a joke)