Disabling ranked matches - we need your opinion

We are proposing to temporarily disable ranked matches. We would like your opinions and feedback.



Here is the problem: The high pressure environment of ranked play, especially when mixing new players and veterans does not result in a fun match for most players. We want to rework how ranked play happens to reduce/remove the rank disparity, but this will take some time. So as a short term solution we are proposing to disable ranked play. No-one will lose their current ranking or elo score.



We anticipate these consequences:

- More veteran players in normal matches. We think this will be good for new players as they will get a chance to play with more experienced players in a low-stress environment.

- Some veteran players will no longer want to play. We understand that for some of you, ranked play is the only thing that matters. Remember that if you want to play a match with all high-level players, the lobby servers still exist.

- More items earned for playing more matches



We also considered raising the XP threshold for ranked play, but decided that it a) only delays the problem and b) appears to new players like we are trying to exclude them.