The Worst Ranked Mode Ever Created

For me the biggest problem when it comes to climbing is that there's no way of tracking your progress, like in SF6 or Tekken 7/8

That’s why I stayed away from rank in this game, wait have I even played this game since I bought it, I think I haven’t 😆

I do kind of like celestial once you're actually in, because i think it does exactly what it wants to. Personally when i played street fighter, after a certain point i only cared about my elo, and i got angry very easily when i didn't get it, but here, i don't need to worry about elo. I don't need to worry about my rank because this isn't a ranked system. Here i can just get in a lobby, spot fucking leffen or something in the corner over there, and get my ass beat over and over again without losing anything.

I personally love the tower system.
In my opinion it makes for a stronger community feeling, because you can see everyone you've played with sitting at the cabinets

Now yes I agree that there's a huge descreptency in terms of skill levels in every floor (especially in Celestial), but Its fun that you are given the option to play with either much better players and much worse
you can pick your battles, which sounds terrible for a ranked mode since u can cheese it
but in reality it isnt a ranked mode
hte only leaderboards in strive are for matches won, not actual mmr and elo
So noone actually cheeses their way into the top because there's no top to reach.

I also think that dodging certain characters is fine, and being given that choice you can also pick who to go against which can help you get better at certain match ups.

and Lastly , have you ever played vs someone in a fighting game and u wanted to run it back so much, but you couldnt unless the game rng put you two against eachother at random
well in Strive you can keep remathing them all you want as long as they accept
and you can go up to them in the lobby and ask them to play with you in a park to learn the mu.
Oh and you can see and fight TOP level players which reminds me of offline events and makes me so glad that its an option
because thats whats different about fighting games compared to other e-sports and its always fun to see that even top players are human just like everyone and you can match up against them, and that further strengthens the community aspect of the game imo.

And thats why the floor system is my favourite fighting game online mode ever made
(btw its better that they force everyone into it bcs it would suck if everyone was just using the auto search ranked and the lobbies where empty)

So... At high level, it does have problems. But in my experience getting alot of friends into the game and them being new to fighting games, ggst tower really almost perfectly keeps them having fair matches. If someones in floor 4, its because they're supposed to be there, meaning almost everyone in that floor will be an even match.
Thats the only reason my friends would even touch this game.
If i had them hop on mortal kombat they'd fight actual high level sweats. Guilty gear is amazing for introducing people to the game.

I'll be honest, I've played Guilty Gear for maybe a month or 2. Didn't even know slayer was coming to the game, had no clue who he was. It was a pleasant surprise. Only just got into fighting games once Tekken 8 released. Guilty Gear ranked is ABSOLUTELY unplayable for me. I just get trampled.

Evrry fighting game needs to copy street fighter

I mean, thats for all fgs I've played... just by the fact you can quit if you lose and nothing happens, it already made all those ranked modes irrelevant by default really... but not only that you even can choose the person you gonna play with, so people can boost thenselfs with a friend. its like, even if you put a high rank in the true way, you know the system itself its not legit.

now imagine you say, u know what who cares I just want to play... and the balance system slaps your face with leffen and hotashi

Going from Strive to Granblue ranked was such a breath of fresh air dear god, just the simple act of not letting people see what character you picked beforehand improved it so much

I actually stopped playing the game because of this poor ranking system. It's worst in SA where all the players are at celestial and almost no one at 10.

I like it 🤷🏻‍♂️

There's also floor 10 and 9 hell, where you are kinda newish, I am pretty new I am trying my best ot learn I-no, and I body all of floor 9 easily enough, get to 10, get picked on by people who simply are better, who are like you, just trying to get to celestial to get out of 10, and I get sent right back down to 9 in a siyphian loop. I need you to understand I play a friend who is celestial, he's great at the game but I can beat him if I keep playing sets,. but on floor 10 peoIple don't play you like that. You likely get 3 rounds and are done, you also don't want to risk going down a floor because it's fucking tedious. It's a system bad for learning, after getting stuck for a bit, my new plan is to just move to open park.

couldnt agree more with these points.

I'm a really mid player and I really like the system. Not because it's good (it's bad) but because it takes a lot of pressure off me as a player. I can focus on just enjoying my matches and practicing my strategy. It also helps that I play Baiken and sometimes can mash my way to victory over much stronger opponents.

WHY CANT THEY JUST DO IT NORMAL

I think it’s very funny so they should keep it. It’s obviously horribly designed but I think it’s very funny I can go from fighting below average players in floor 10 and then go fight leffen in celestial

Imagine a ranked mode that only had 10 ranks. Now skip 6 or 7 of those ranks because you beat the evaluation bot.

bad? yes. but the worst, definetly not, as long as elite smash exists

This was supposed to be a simulation of the arcade cabinet system where you have to know people or challenge to get into the room to play with the good players. I think it does a pretty good job of replicating that but also that system kind of sucks. It gives a player too much agency in tailoring their experience.

I actually like the idea of the ranked system. It makes ranking up feel more of a goal than something like lol. I honestly think this system would work better in a bigger game like street fighter. When your fan base is really dedicated then the only people left playing after years are really good so I think it creates the problems you outlined. I think if there were more people populating the lower ranks and in general I think a lot of the problems would be fixed.

Will always prefer anime fighter gameplay but the fact that i can just click 1 button in street fighter and be in queue for ranked, and there's a number that goes up or down if i win or lose means i will play that for much longer

I started playing fighting recently and GGS was fun and everything but holy damn thats such a bad ranked mode I can’t even practice in the meantime

I use to body this clown in rev

The whole reason I haven’t dropped back into strive is because I think about how awful ranked is and I just say fuck it.

Surprised no one mentioned the weird “FT3 games” format they have like you can win 2-0 and there’s a weird random 3rd game you guys can play out regardless of outcome

I would actively play strive again if the ranked was similar to sf6. Finding good matches is so inconvenient, its just not worth my time when i could be playing sf6 and grinding mr.

They should have never combined their rank mode and lobby mode

I never even had a relative idea of how good I was getting with Strive. When you get matched with Gods or scrubs it doesn't really tell you if you're making progress. I get a mix of skill levels in Tekken. Higher, same, or lower. At least that gives me some sort of reference

You should listen to Artosis rant about Brood War's ladder to make sure you've got the worst experience ever created.

Daisuke’s vision

I don't know now, but when it released it killed the latam servers because most people went to North America and now i have bad ranking and lag

My shitty experience is that i get one win away from Celestial Rank and then lose, happened 2-3 times with Millia my old Main, i only love the game now because Elphelt is in the game that im Maining now instead, but i even got 1 win away from Celestial Rank with Elphelt now, it fucking sucks, and consistently i think i lose the first match, win 4 in a row, then lose, it fucking sucks, and i wouldn't even be touching Ranked but i just want to lvl up my Characters levels *sigh*, which Celestial is kinda required for unless you want your lvl to get stuck forever

I've been playing since day 1 and in the first year I used to do daily celestial challenges. I have yet to enter heaven.

Strive ranked is a joke. It is your warmup area for your torunaments. there is no reward or goal for strive. EVERY OTHER VIDEO GAME HAS SOME KIND OF GOAL. literally every comp game i can think of has a "Silver>gold>plat>etc" EXCEPT FOR STRIVE

Tower is the reason the game itself named strive. Seems arcys didn't feel guilty about this and keeping this tower shit on their game. Who is to blame after all?

it won´t be fixed because the director is a narcissist

System was designed to keep brand new players away from good players at all costs, and it worked. It ain’t gonna change, system wasn’t made for you and, even if I agree with a lot of your points: Strive has done and continues to do remarkably well with new players.

As a lower level player that doesn’t invest a ton of time in this game anymore, I hate that I get ping-ponged around to different floors after winning or losing 2 sets. My actual skill level is probably floor 8 or 9 but I’ve gone from 6-10 any given day based on who I happen to run into. It doesn’t make any sense.

I don't play and never will play Strive but holy shit man
How do y'all live w this with no improvements three years down the line. Inexcusable for ranked to be like this in any game

Thats hilarious. I quit strive years ago because of the "rank" system. The fact that they havnt done anything to fix it since then is mind blowing.

Nah man. I remember realizing one day I could dodge every hc I met and I haven't looked back. He's ok now but I still dodge if it becomes annoying . I play this game to have fun. I'm not going to lose my sanity playing against a dumbass character just to 'get good'

Arcsys putting money on Merch instead on the network team

Also remember that while doing the celestial challange you can discconect if you lose so it doesnt counts as a loss for thr challenge

And this also aplies if the one you're fighting against decides to disconnect if you're winning so it doesnt count as a win for the challenge.

I don't even play strive but what gets me is the names of the floors. It looks like Ishiwatari picked random popular songs/bands/albums and called it a day. At least Stairway, Reing in Blood and maybe Future World sound like locations but you can easily change some names and still be metal af. For example, "Halls of Valhalla" instead of "The Hellion" for a Judas Priest reference or "Architecture of Aggression" instead of "Symphony of Destruction" for a Megadeth reference and so on.

I literally picked up fighting games for the first time 4 months ago and I'm at floor 10. Something ain't right here.

I did really like the tower when I first started. The fact that you can challenge above your floor but not below was great, it kept me from being stomped while I was still learning the basics.

I find the problem really is that there's not enough space
Everyone is squeezed in to floor 10 where celestial players can come down to fight, so the whole point of the tower - that you can't challenge people below your skill level - is completely negated.

I love strive but after sf6 dropped playing rank is night and day. I can't play strive anymore

Nailed it! If it took more wins to move up floors i think it would spread out the playerbase between the floors and going up a tower might feel like you did something to earn it.

Yup, haven't touched Strive ranked since SF6 came out. That game's ranked just works. I have a far better experience playing Strive with friends and at locals.

Why does it feel like you have to win Evo to make it into celestial