What is the point of "Unranked Casual"?

SeaGtGruff

My take:

"Ranked Competitive" is so players who are really, really into Tales of Tribute can play competitively against other players who are really, really into Tales of Tribute and battle it out to see who's good, who's better, who's best.

"Unranked Casual" is apparently so ranked competitive players who are really, really into Tales of Tribute can play competitively against unranked casual players who are only casually into Tales of Tribute and completely wipe the gaming table with them.

Maybe there should be a third Tales of Tribute queue, something like "Unranked Casual vs. Unranked Casual," and players are disqualified from entering that queue if they having a ranking, or at least a ranking above a certain level? Otherwise, unranked casual players who just want to play a fun, casual match must suffer through half a dozen or more brutal matches with players who are obviously ranked competitive vets before they maybe finally get lucky enough to be paired against someone who's more their calibre.

Yakidafi

In ranked you get to play against players close to your rank.Your goal should be to win and gain higher rank.

In casual you can play against anyone from elite to noob, though you do not lose or gain any rank points for playing. Your goal should be whatever you feel like.

If you do not want to lose rank or do not want the "stress" of playing a ranked game but still play you have the casual queue.

What is considered fun or casual could be up to you

SilverBride

I play Unranked Casual if I want to test some different strategies or become more proficient with a certain deck without risking losing some of my Competitive Rank in the process.

spartaxoxo

Unranked casual is unranked. If you want to play against fellow newbies of your skill level, play ranked. Ranked matches you against players around your skill level.

SeaGtGruff

Yeah, I get that now, but it wasn't obvious at first.

The usage of the terms "casual" and "competitive" seem contrary or a bit misleading in this case, because I had expected the "casual" queue to be the "lite" or "noob-friendly" one, if you know what I mean, whereas it definitely isn't since you can get pitted against anyone of any skill level.

It might have been less confusing if they'd just called them "ranked" and "unranked," and left out any mention of "casual" and "competitive," since the latter terms could IMHO be misunderstood to mean something along the lines of "amateur" and "professional," respectively.

Dragonnord

I agree with the OP in the fact that the word "Casual" should be changed, as in that "Casual" match you could be paired against the season's champion or any of the top players.

So casual match yes, but not in a casual level or against casual players.

Therefore, the term "casual" indeed may be confusing.
 

SilverBride

Maybe call it Random Unranked.

SeaGtGruff

Well, I'm not asking for a name change, although it probably wouldn't be a bad idea.

It's just that I was using the "Unranked Casual" queue because I'm not interested in competing for a leaderboard position and wasn't prepared for the brutal cut-throat competition that I ended up with.

spartaxoxo

I will say that a lot of people are playing casually even if they may not seem like it. I think a lot of people use it to play a more relaxed game, so they aren't agonizing about whether to deck cycle or fretting over decisions as long as they would in a competitive game. However, they are still high ranked player. So the stuff they do are doing largely on instinct is gonna still be tough to beat to someone of a much lower rank. After all, it's not like they'd make mistakes on purpose to play casually. This game may have a hefty dose of chance, but it also has a good degree of skill. And you can absolutely feel the difference in even a casual game when playing against someone of really high skill.

I've had unranked games that felt just as competitive as anything I played in Rubedite. And ones where I saw people making mistakes casually and knew unless RNG favored them too strongly, I would probably win from the first couple of turns.

Ishtarknows

Unranked casual doesn't count for the achievements even though it's "match-made" as the achievements dictate. Go figure

NeKryXe

Training.

spartaxoxo

Ishtarknows wrote: »

Unranked casual doesn't count for the achievements even though it's "match-made" as the achievements dictate. Go figure

Do you mean the patron achievements don't progress? Most of the ones I see say ranked play

SeaGtGruff

For a low-ranked player, "casual" is probably going to be pretty brutal, since nearly all of the matches will be against someone with a higher ranking, which is not going to seem very "casual."

For a high-ranked player, "casual" is probably going to be a cakewalk, since nearly all of the matches will be against someone with a lower ranking.

So "casual" and "competitive" are terms that seem to fit-- in terms of how difficult the matches are likely to be-- only if you're a high-ranked player, and will seem rather contrary if you're a low-ranked player.

In any case, I'm now queuing for "ranked competitive" and seem to be getting easier matches.

Bowmanganie

I have had absolutely horrible matches in Unranked casual. Figure if I am gonna get smashed anyway, may as well be in ranked play. I find the unranked option to be a misnomer and not useful. Just have vs NPC or vs Player.

r3play81

ToT is a luck of the draw game ZERO skill

virtus753

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Ishtarknows wrote: »

Unranked casual doesn't count for the achievements even though it's "match-made" as the achievements dictate. Go figure

Do you mean the patron achievements don't progress? Most of the ones I see say ranked play

Patron achievements definitely progress on unranked. That's how I got all of mine. I've never played a ranked game but have all of the upgrades and related achievements.

SeaGtGruff

r3play81 wrote: »

ToT is a luck of the draw game ZERO skill

There definitely is skill involved, but there definitely is luck of the draw involved, too.

Part of the skill is in knowing when to buy a card you can afford and risk having it be replaced by an even better card that your opponent will end up buying, or when to just leave the card alone and let your opponent buy it. That's also luck of the draw, as you're gambling on whether the replacement card will be better or worse than what's already there.

That also goes for using the option to replace one or more cards. I almost never use that option, except in rare cases; and if my opponent uses it, I often end up laughing because one of the cards they just removed will sometimes be replaced by the same card or an even better one (which is why I generally avoid using that option).

But aside from knowing when to play your hunches or gut instincts, there is skill in how you play your cards. You can take a powerful hand and squandor it on stupid moves, and you can take a weak hand and make canny decisions that end up paying off and winning you the match.