For those who don’t know, the stadium rankings use a very unique system. I was excited to hit pro because that rank was advertised as being the first with true competitive ranking, weighing both wins and losses equally, but the actual grind has totally taken the wind out of my sails.
In the first four ranks, a win is worth anywhere from 75-175% of a tier, with losses counting for more with each ascending rank. Pro is different, with losses counting equally like the normal competitive modes, but it comes with a catch.
Counting myself over the course of 20ish games in the rank as well as asking friends, we have learned that you go up and down by exactly 25% of a tier for a win or a less respectively. To get through all 5 tiers, you are only looking at 20 wins- However, with a 60% winrate, that is going to bubble up into 100 games, and with a still realistic 55%, it grows to 200 games needed unless you can find a crazy win streak. (and assuming you avoid any loss streaks)
Normally for a full competitive tier this is no big deal, that’s a healthy way to do things. But when this is a one season only ranking with poor matchmaking that resets back to zero at the end of next month, it is just a crazy amount of grinding required. (Especially seeing as there are rewards locked behind it.)
For comparison, all of the previous tiers award a win with anywhere from 125 to 175 points for a win, and I personally went from unranked to pro in less than 40 wins, meaning that the pro grind alone will take more than double the effort of all previous ranked combined.
I don’t think they should make it less of a challenge, just less of a grind. Doubling the rate you both climb and fall alone to 50% per game would go a long way in making the challenge more feasible without requiring triple digit counts of games.
As is, things are a bit crazy especially because with the way matchmaking works, even in games where you are ranked as pro, you will have people on your team who have yet to play a single round of the mode. If they can’t commit all the way to making things competitive, I think it would feel a lot better to make the grind more realistic.