I’m at rank 19 playing the default green codex deck (just made my account Monday). Most of my games against other ranked opponents are pretty competitive, but every other game or so I get tossed up against a “casual” player (yak icon) with a perfectly tuned red/yellow or yellow/blue deck with card quality I can’t match.
I understand it’s probably due to player population and that if I upset the player I get extra stars, but it makes for frustrating matches. I feel like the loss is due to what basically amounts to either smurfing or a player with the full set that rolls over me due to card quality.
Maybe this will be fixed in March with the full go-live?
Yeah it’s hard to match players together when the pool is so small. As I write this only 111 are currently playing online. Hopefully we get a nice surplus of players when its fully released and this won’t be a problem anymore.
This change to constructed queues was introduced on November 30th, and can be seen in full in these patch notes:
We’ve considered these significant changes from many different angles, and believe this is the best way forward that has the best interests of our players in mind. While we could have simply removed the Unranked option altogether and funnel all players into the same Ranked queue, we think it’s important for players to have the option to play without the inherent stresses involved with Ranked play. We also believe it’s important to preserve the ability for Ranked players to experiment with new decks in a Casual mode without being concerned with hurting their Ranking. With these changes, we believe we can accomplish those goals while also reducing the average amount of time a player must wait before beginning a game of Faeria.
In short, it was done in an effort to keep queue times at a minimum but still maintain the integrity of the Ranked ladder as much as possible. It’s a compromise we made, and while it isn’t the perfectly ideal situation, we feel it is better than the alternative of longer queue times.
I think the system works very nicely and there was a big decrease in waiting time for both ranked and casual, since not everybody always queued for both separately while they had the option. That said, it is kind of a compromise, since new players are now more likely to face very serious decks and ranked players are more likely to get free wins. I wonder if they would be separated again if the game population were to skyrocket.
One thing that would have been very natural with the old system was to make it so that players can queue with separate ranked and unranked decks, instead of having to queue the same deck for both. I think this is the main reason that players would queue for just one, rather than both; they didn’t want to risk having to play exploratory/fun decks in ranked mode.
Another reason is that they might just want to climb the ladder and not “waste time” with casual games, which the current system addresses in the best way.
I think a mixture of both could work. If you could pick different decks and queue for both at once, but when you just queue with ranked or casual, it could work as now and if you queue with both a ranked and a casual deck, it could use the deck and mode to match the opponent that you find. This would reduce the level of crossovers, without increasing waiting times and it would also be a nice way to break up games with a surprise change of deck. Being able to queue multiple decks for each mode and have them rotate randomly would also be super-awesome, if the team ever decides to change the system again.
I think the current system is weird. Normally a new player would think a “casual” match would be less intense than a “ranked” match, waiting to play ranked until they are comfortable with the game. Instead, casual is a place for top players to go so they can play without risking their rank. Ranked is the better place for new players. Maybe a simple name change would help. Instead of “Casual” mode, call it “Thunderdome” or “Brawl” or something.
And definitely, if there is going to be cross matching, change it so that there is no risk to the ranked player. If they lose, their rank is unaffected. If they win, either nothing happens or they get rewarded like normal. If nothing happens, the ranked player can forfeit and move on. If they get rewarded like normal, they can choose to play or not, knowing they are likely playing against a stronger opponent. Being rewarded like normal is the better choice to encourage playing when the population is low.
