Nah. Ranked matchmaking had killed most multiplayer games for me.

First off, even seing the rank does change the motivation from internal to external and numerical.

Second, no matter how good or bad you get, you will always feel bad at the game. You will never know the valley of a player showing you gameplay beyond your comprehension, and you will never get the joy of seing the results of your hard work.

Please, anything but a ranked matchmaking.

Not a single comment explains why ranked is superior.

Ranked wins anyway.

@LukeAlmighty I just pick the server with the most badass ascii art in the description

@LukeAlmighty I don't like it - if I'm better than like 90% of other players, I'd kinda want my win rate to actually reflect that, and "fighting my equals" isn't all that appealing if you've got a bunch of tryhards camping or abusing lag.

@LukeAlmighty ranked
unranked
privat/player hosting
all can exist side by side

@LukeAlmighty depends on the game. With Dota-like games I think the only danger of ranked multiplayer is that it holds a false promise out to newbies: you can just lose games and fall to your level! :)
no, you have to scramble to play adequately or you'll have an absolutely miserable time and the MMR "at your (initial) level" is unpopulated, so you won't even get games.
With Savage 2, Natural Selection 2 like games, there's no need for rank matching but MMR tracking is still good for balancing teams.
With fast games like StarCraft 2 I think ranked multiplayer is ideal as the default way to play.

What I don't like is dodgy ranked multiplayer in casual FPSes. There was a PS3 game I played endlessly until they reworked the rank system and abruptly kicked me into the high echelons of play, where literally every single motherfucker that I found was a bunny-hopping glitchy tryhard that was completely unfun to play with or against, and I quit. I never would've climbed a ladder to play with people like that, my preferred way to play was 50% slapping mines onto trucks and suiciding them into people, and 30% manning fixed defenses and killing people with those, and only occasionally playing seriously.

@LukeAlmighty I'm not a huge fan, I'd rather just have balanced matchmaking based on it when it comes to teams. I actually like call of duty's approach where your rank increases the more you play and then teams get balanced based on playtime. If they had a SECRET MMR system that helped balance it further that would be great. More often than not, you get incredibly balanced teams where 1 guy on each team has like 20+ kills and one guy has 20+ deaths and everyone else is somewhere in between.

I think it is good for something like smash though, where it's just 1v1. It does suck to go into the game and just get so throttled by someone that you don't even get any experience, so it's really hard to get better. How am I going to learn to play the game better if I'm getting 4 stocked by a fucking game and watch?

Games definitely need to have unranked modes if they're going for having a ranked system, though. That's for sure. It's just that not EVERY SINGLE GAME needs to have ranked.

@LukeAlmighty I hate fighting my equals but I'm glad ranked multiplayer exists for people like that who like to hone their skills, and it does seem like a good idea

@LukeAlmighty >playing multiplayer
couldn't be me... :fuglycrying: