"Create an environment where new and less skilled players can have fun and grow."
This should be the aspiration of every developer, and yet every time I pick up a new game, as I did recently with Marathon, I'm reminded how it must be a thousand times harder than I think it is to create that environment. I remember playing PUBG for about a year, maybe a year and a half, and in that time I learned the maps but the guns were still a complete mystery to me when I transitioned to Apex. In this game I spent the better part of the first three or four seasons learning the maps and the legends without hardly even picking up a gun. To this day I still think the weapons in this game are seriously bad. I play in spite of them, not because of them.
And now, far too old to be trying, I've started another new game. And I hate it. The first few weeks always feel as if the game is specifically designed to frustrate you and humiliate you. Six months from now will probably be only very little better. If I even last that long.
But to your point: I agree that the ranking system in this game is bad, and oddly enough it stays bad no matter what they do to change it. Varying degrees and kinds of garbage. Unsatisfying, overly complex, unrewarding... I could go on but I'm sure I'm not telling anyone anything they don't already know. Every single one of your ideas is worth a try. They really don't have anywhere to go but up.
