On one hand, there’s a portion of players that believe ranked is ‘garbage’, ‘cancer’, ‘useless’ and so on. Some very above average players, some Top 8 level players. Regardless, they’re seasoned enough to the game that when they do have thoughts about something, usually there’s some truth or wisdom to it. The thought seemingly to be that there are a majority of players that autopilot, rely on gimmick play, or something along those lines. It’s not a new thought at all.
On another hand, there’s my own personal thought that ranked is not the things ive stated above. In order to get a pro star, you have to run the gauntlet and keep yourself sharp against such gimmick play, autopilot and so on and so forth. Beating, besting and staying within the top 32 of online players per month is not a easy feat.
And then there’s the reality where ranked for myself personally is a struggle to maintain and that there’s hardly a game played that feels easy or anything. So on one hand, am i a bad player for not being able to consistently overcome what others feel is not challenging? Or on another hand, is grinding ranked not as easy as made out to be by some and i need to keep grinding?
(For the record, i feel like there is more value to sets versus ranked, but i am not asking about that.)
Im not sure of which anymore, so i figured i’d ask and see what others’ thoughts were.
This here: Its not as easy as they claim it to be and anyone saying its easy it talking a mouth full of garbage. Out of the 1,000 or more ppl playing ranked consistently its a struggle, you have a handful of guys that are consistently in the top 20 and it may seem easy to them but thats a small percentage. Anyone saying its easy that isnt in the top 32 is just talking smack and probably just covering up their own fear of getting destroyed in ranked.
There is some value to ranked most definitely. It makes you download many different opponents and their tendencies in a very small amount of time to win, if you don’t then you have to adjust and do it quickly. This is a skill that is a must have for tournament play.
When it comes to Top 32 the only thing keeping you out or in is the amount of time you can put in.
Stop. Not everything is easy for everyone, if someone doesn’t make the best lasagna does that make them a bad cook? If someone can’t play the piano but can play the guitar very well does that make them a bad musician? No, some people are better in long sets than ranked and vice versa, and I think the former is the case for you.
And on a bit of a side note, never think you’re bad because if you believe it you can make it happen, so it’s better to think “I’m Good” rather than “I’m Bad”.
I think that such blanket judgements on the utility of Ranked play are, in a word, stupid.
More descriptively stated, I think that Ranked play offers a particular range of benefits, and that different players will glean different things from the mode. At a basic level, playing Ranked can teach adaptability, both in terms of character variety and variety within individual characters. Playing Ranked exposes you to a wide range of playstyles and situations, and forces you to adapt to those things in short order or you will lose. That is not nothing, and it is not something that playing extended sets will teach you.
That said, at high level Ranked presents pretty limited returns on one’s investment. If I’m playing Ranked with Hisako, I’m probably not learning anything to be honest. For all that Ranked can teach adaptability, at a certain point it’s a lot more likely to teach you that people don’t think and can be blown up with fairly basic suite of tools (meaties and wall splat resets, for example). After you cross a certain skill threshold, I’m of the mind that no, Ranked probably won’t teach you anything particularly useful outside of working on your breakers. It’s still good for training MU knowledge with a new character or for testing out practical applications of certain things, but it’s not where you’re really going to want to go to improve your game further.
My basic rule of thumb is that if your win rate in Ranked isn’t above 75%, you can probably still learn a fair amount from it.
As to whether getting a star is easy or hard, I think that above a certain skill level, it’s probably more a question of time than difficulty per se. It’s not necessarily super hard to be successful enough in Ranked to be in contention for Top 32 - the challenge is just whether or not you have the time to keep playing to stay in contention.
I didn’t intend for it to sound as such, but i don’t call myself a bad player with a ‘woe is me’ kind of feel. I don’t want to be pitied. More like bad in the sense that ‘you’re not getting the job done.’ If that makes sense?
To be completely honest, the main reason i dropped KI, WTF and these forums for a while was because of frustration with my play and i think thats where and when this sort of internal debate began. The really stinging losses where you don’t even need to hit a replay and know the 1. 2 or 3 critical errors that cost you the match? That kind of thing.
shaking my head while remembering my win rate, all time and the current month *
Long way to go following this metric then.[quote=“FallofSeraphs76, post:2, topic:21149”]
anyone saying its easy it talking a mouth full of garbage.
[/quote]
This. I think there’s some basic ground that needs to be covered and ranked will take you there. You will see what’s like fighting very different players, match ups and playstyles. Pretty much what you would find in an old arcade un the 90’s (except the disrespect, that’s something newer xD ).
After that, like Storm mentioned, you will need to go beyond those skills ranked can offer. You should try to play exhibiton with players you feel they are better or whose characters give you trouble, and do the same with other players who also seek for improvement =)
I would play more ranked but my problem itself it’s lag. If I feel I miss my breaking windows (when I know I did it on reaction) or that I couldn’t punish something I know it gets frustrating to me. The doubt of winning because of lag or frustrating of losing because of it doesn’t serve my porpouse of playing and train for tournament or offline play.
So my objective is no longer play for a star but play to check how things are doing in ranked, play with friends to ask or give mu knowledge or just for the sake of fun n_n
I pretty much hate playing ranked in any fighter. In ki I really only use it for set up practice. Even before I was considered top level rank felt easy…I got top 32 any time i tried and only tried when they had tournaments.
I haven’t tried to get one in almost 2 years now simply because for me I always learn better playing someone who could challenge me well. Which even before I was considered top level wasn’t that common in ranked.
