Look. I like playing online and I like playing competitively but as of later after being ranked it has been nothing but a collosal flop. Nothing is perfect I get that but the experience I have been having with ranked is abysmal. I got ranked into bronze sure I get why, I’m not the best player by any means. But that doesn’t mean matchmaking should be putting me against players in Killer, Gold, or top tier of Silver. The matchmaking has put me in countless stacked battles to where I’m dropping from underdog into button masher again because of these stacked fights. Until this issue is fixed or ranked is reworked so its not putting you in stacked games I’m respectfully no longer participating in a broken ladder.
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While you may think it’s unfair to have to fight those who are of a much higher tier than you (you’re right, BTW), the alternative is to only have you fight people in your tier - and doing that will have 2 effects: [1] It’ll take longer to find matches, and [2] you’ll have less people to fight against. Naturally #1 is caused by #2, but neither outcome is really desirable for you or anyone.
That being said, if you’d like to practice the game’s mechanics in exhibition, I’d be happy to be your advice-giving punching bag. 
My only real gripe with this otherwise wonderful game.
I don’t want to pick on you, but there is nothing wrong with the Ranked system at all. There’s just not enough low ranking people playing to get you a good match up. So the game matches you with SOMEONE instead of just sitting there or saying “no appropriate matches available.” There’s nothing to “fix.” You would be on here saying it was broken if it wasn’t matching you up, just like you are now. The only way to solve the problem is to get a huge number of new people playing to fill up the lower tiers. If you really want to solve the problem, you would keep playing instead of dropping out. That way there would be one more bronze tier player for other bronze tier players to match up against.
In addition to the “frequent flyer” phenomenon (i.e. your chances of running into a frequent flyer on an airplane are much higher than your chances of running into one randomly on the street - likewise you are much more likely to run into a competitive player playing fighting games online, because they put the hours in whereas more casual players spend much less time in the game), KI also encourages the top players to grind for hours to get into the top 32 each month. So there are always high level competitors playing. I suspect there are not always low level competitors on line - hence the issue. I never hear Killers complaining about this, and when I play online I get matched up almost exclusively against Killer tier opponents.
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This. And a monthly reassignment based on your position, so you can be demoted in the next month. This will help even more to refill the matchmaking plus a good challenge for everyone, having always a good number of people playing ranked, without looking for the best timezone.
There’s also another possibility: increasing the number of ranks (platinum + diamond) with the ideas expressed before would make the game more interesting, but in this case you’re forced to extend the season by another month (2 months = 1 season).
You have to presume that, with this system and the hardware restrictions, not a lot of PC gamers will join the KI army. So you take further preventions.
I have to disagree slightly with you on this one. As someone who made it into Killer, but is at the absolute bottom ranks of the bracket, I get paired up with players who have won Top 32 (or are currently within the Top 50) more often than I do anything else. In my opinion, there does need to be SOME kind of calculation besides just the bracket you’re in to determine who you fight.
I’m a bottom rung Killer too, but this problem is exactly the same as the one encountered by our bronze friend above. The top 32 guys are ALWAYS on looking for matches. Mid-tier Killers are usually on. Low tier Killers are often on. So you’re going to be matched up against those guys sometimes.
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“Sometimes” is fine - “Most of the time” is needlessly annoying!
I’m sure there’s some kind of fine tuning coming up, as part of Season 3 if nothing else.
Honestly, I’m happy to run into the Top-32 Killers. I feel like I learn more losing against them then I do winning against someone not quite as good. I’m 100% happy to receive regular beatdowns from superior players, based on the old “you’re only as good as your opponents” adage.
I agree up to a point. As long as I do better the second round, or at least force him to change up his tactics I feel like I’ve learned something. It’s tough to learn from two perfect losses.
I can see your point.
Usually when I get utterly destroyed, I go to the replay. Generally I will find either (A) a litany of bad decisions on my part, or (B) a really strong approach and my inability to deal with it. Both situations are full of notes I can take. Yeah it’s a little depressing, but it’s information.
…and information is power! 
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Speaking of which, I got straight up bodied by a Kan-Ra last night and I need to take a look at what they were doing.
It didn’t help that I decided to pick Wulf instead of Hisako for some stupid reason… I don’t know the Wulf/KR match up anywhere near as well as the Hisako/KR match up. 
One thing I could definitely see improved in Ranked is its tendency to match you up with the same person over and over. Last night I had to fight several players multiple times in a row. It’s especially annoying when you get matched up with a belligerent teabagger several times in a row. My mute button has never had such a workout!
This is due also to the fact there aren’t many people playing online. It happened to me too when I tried the game for 3 months, if you’ve read my long post in suggestion/feedback.
I think that it has to do, in part, with regions. I imagine that KI is hooking me up with players located within a certain proximity to my IP address, and venturing outward from that initially designated proximity. So as to provide the most optimal connections.
For instance: CEO is an hour from me; when I got home from CEO, a few of the pro players were still in the Orlando area, and as such I was treated with matches VS. UA Bass and 0ctopus0nFire, among others.
This is also, how I imagine, I was hooked up with @C88TexAce in Ranked. Florida and Texas aren’t too terribly far apart.
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The tension for matchmaking is always “how often do you repeat” versus how long do you wait and what is the quality of the connection. You don’t want an infinite variety of opponents of it means a terrible connection. I’m sure this is something they think about and I know it has been actively tweaked before. But this will never be fully “fixed.” It just isn’t possible.
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I had a similar experience last night as well, but the opponent was a player with, I kid you not, 5 stars. Naturally, I lost hand over foot. And then I got matched up with him again! And of course, I lost again… So, yeah, kiss my decent rank goodbye…
It’s things like this that make me wonder if a) the system works at all, or b) if there’s not that many people online…
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It’s b. With the caveat that there’s not that many people online, close to you, with decent connections at any given time while you are playing.
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This is precisely why the ranking system is like the way it is. most we can do for now is hlep you get prepared for them.
The other day, I made it to the top 100 on the ranked league leaderboards - something I’m still very proud of accomplishing. However, with each passing day, that accomplishment appears to be diminishing little by little. Despite playing ranked league for AT LEAST 3 hours per day since (I’ve been working every day, not including the weekends, where I can devote more time), I’m still falling down the ranks - currently, as of this evening, I sit at around ~250 or so. This is disheartening to me because despite my massive number of wins (90+ vs. ~20 losses), it’s all still not enough to get anywhere near the top 32. I have a score above 5,000, but the top player has easily 3x that, if not more. That means I would have to devote at least 9 hours a day to playing this game, which is somthing that is simply not feasible for me, much less sane by any normal standard. Aside from the pros who already get paid to play via tournaments or those who stream and get paid via donations, who can even accomplish that goal much less want to?
I’m about ready to give up on this and just be happy that I can say that I (temporarily) made it to the top 100. That, at least for me, shows that I have what it takes to be competitive.
Yeah, I think ranked is broken too and needs an overhaul…
To all those of you who have at least 1 star, I am jealous and envy you… Now do me a favor and take a break this month. 