Chapter 518: It’s Gone Cold
Many people wanted to hear Chen Mo explain what other negative effects the ranked mode had.
But just then, the class bell rang.
Chen Mo said cheerfully, "Alright, alright, let’s continue with the lesson."
The crowd: "..."
Bro, don’t leave us hanging mid-sentence—it really makes people want to beat you to death!
On the streaming platforms, many popular streamers had also switched to "Gunfire Chronicles," and their stream titles were all changed to things like "Live Climbing to 4000 Points," "Number One Ymir on the Server," and so on.
Clearly, the ranked mode had an immediate effect. In "Overwatch," the popularity of some hot streamers was hard to measure. For example, if you were particularly good at Genji and I was particularly good at Tracer, and we had encountered each other in games a few times with mixed results, then even if fans from both sides argued, it was hard to determine who was stronger because there was no ranked score as a clear benchmark.
Of course, "Overwatch" had other evaluation criteria, like hidden MMR in the matchmaking system or overall performance in career profiles, but these ultimately weren’t as clear-cut as a ranked score.
In "Gunfire Chronicles," however, your score was your score. If I had 4000 points and you had 3500, you had no right to talk trash in front of me.
So both streamers and players had a strong desire to climb the ladder. A large number of skilled streamers even chose to climb nonstop for the first few days, rushing to the top of the leaderboard.
Players, after finishing their placement matches, were also posting on forums, either bragging about their results or complaining about their terrible teammates. In the first few days, everything seemed harmonious and the situation looked great.
But at some point, things seemed to quietly change.
Many streamers on the platforms noticed that their viewership wasn’t increasing; instead, it was steadily declining.
"Streamer, why are you playing Ymir again? It’s either this guy or Odin—can’t you play some other hero?"
"Anyone telling him to play other heroes is an idiot. These two are the meta’s darlings. This is ranked—if you play other heroes, don’t you want to win?"
"But it’s just these two or three heroes over and over. We’re already bored. We want to see flashy heroes—we want to see you play the Great Sage Equal to Heaven!"
The streamer said helplessly, "Audience, the Great Sage Equal to Heaven really can’t be played in this patch. It’s not that I don’t want to; playing him gets you flamed by teammates, and it’s basically throwing points. His damage output is just too weak."
At the same time, more and more toxic posts were appearing on the forums.
"I really don’t get it. Hasn’t the optimal lineup been figured out already? It’s just those few popular heroes over and over. Even if you don’t know, watching a few ranked streams would tell you, right? Why do some people still blindly pick those weak heroes?"
"Yeah, there’s clearly an optimal lineup, but they have to pick those weird heroes. Last time I saw another Great Sage Equal to Heaven, he used his Somersault Cloud to dive the backline, got instantly deleted, fed like a dog all game, and reporting him was useless!"
"If you’re that bad, don’t pick the damage role. Just pick a healer!"
"Do you know how it feels when I, as a Nuwa, end up being the top damage while healing?"
"Why does this game feel harder and harder? I used to carry at the 2000-point bracket, but now it’s like everyone there is a bunch of monsters. Either my teammates are too stupid, or the opponents are too strong. Climbing feels completely luck-based!"
"It’s not just luck-based climbing. What’s even more infuriating than losing by luck is when a good lineup could win, but some stubborn idiot refuses to switch heroes. No matter how much you yell, it’s useless, and then they report you for verbal abuse. It’s infuriating!"
"Ah, the environment in 'Overwatch' is so much better. Everyone plays happily, no one yells at you for picking any hero, you can play whatever you want, and you can even show off sometimes!"
"Yeah, I’ve noticed that too. 'Gunfire Chronicles' is just too exhausting and boring. The first two days of ranked were exciting, but now I don’t even want to touch a single match."
"Eight out of ten matches, I have to fill as tank or healer. The rare times I get to play damage, if we’re losing, my teammates flame me..."
"And honestly, I think this game’s quality is worse than 'Overwatch.' It only got popular for a while because it had ranked mode. Plus, the hero designs feel so cheap—they’re nowhere near as cool as 'Overwatch'!"
"Forget it, I’m going back to 'Overwatch.' Goodbye, everyone!"
As the saying goes, the duck knows the river’s warmth first. The state of a game’s environment and its development trends are first reflected in the lower ranks.
Not long after "Gunfire Chronicles" launched its ranked mode, matches in the lower brackets started to become increasingly ugly. It wasn’t just the issue of rigid team compositions; there were many other problems causing a massive loss of players.
The rigid team compositions made tanks and healers overly popular, while assassin-type heroes struggled to see play. Players preferred heroes with stable damage output, which greatly reduced the game’s entertainment value.
To achieve better entertainment effects, streamers could only create smurf accounts to stomp in lower brackets, setting a very bad example for other players. Stomping in lower ranks became a trend.
This further accelerated the loss of lower-rank players, spreading layer by layer from the bottom up.
The total player count of "Gunfire Chronicles" was already small compared to "Overwatch." In this situation, the massive player loss even threatened the normal matchmaking system.
Many players found that even in quick play mode, they couldn’t win. And after everyone knew the best ranked lineups, many people in quick play also demanded that teammates switch heroes. This trend kept spreading throughout the game, making everyone miserable.
All of this caused "Gunfire Chronicles" to cool down rapidly. Even Emperor Dynasty Interactive couldn’t figure out what was going on.
Going back to Chen Mo’s question: Is ranked mode necessarily a good design?
From "Warcraft" to "League of Legends," ranked mode is undoubtedly a good design with many benefits that most people understand.
But this situation can’t be applied to every game.
In summary, if a game lacks depth, ranked mode is a way for players to quickly understand their approximate skill level in the short term.
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