Forum Discussion
I agree that the ranked mode is very badly designed from a "competitive" standpoint compared to other popular PvP games and I would say that the real competition starts somewhere at Platinum where both kills and placement actually becomes necessary for a steady rank progression.
But other than that I strongly disagree, and maybe it comes down to semantics, but one definition of "competitive" can be that the main goal is to win, right? But the priority of winning in normal mode is literally zero for me. Its just the icing on the cake after a good game but I rather get 15 kills and 3000 damage and die mid game rather than winning a normal game with 1 kill and 200 dmg. In ranked however, would I rather win a game with 0 dmg than die with -48 RP and 20 kills 4000 dmg dealt. In normal, I get kinda stressed out if I see that several squads gets wiped out of hearing range without me getting to partake in the fights, whereas in ranked, I think thats a good thing. In normal I wanna jump so hot that I at least get one fight right from the start, whereas in ranked, I think its nice to get an entire area for ourselves to loot.
So based on these comparisons, ranked is still thousand times more competitive than normal mode if you ask me. Its poorly executed for sure but still more competitive than normal. But maybe we just play this game differently.
I typically play both modes the same way, but I also often drop into a standard match like you and go straight for early action. I really don’t do that in ranked. I generally don’t play much ranked while I’m pushing challenges in the battle pass either though. I think SBMM should be a standard for all modes. It’s not in ranked.