‘Hilarious train wreck’: XDefiant fans already hating on Ranked play

XDefiant’s highly anticipated Ranked mode is finally live, and as exciting as that sounds, players are calling out Ubisoft for not giving much thought to setting its rules before the launch. 

Hours after XDefiant’s Ranked playlist went live on July 3, a Redditor took the opportunity to highlight the mode’s sad condition in a post. Calling it a “hilarious train wreck,” the post led several frustrated players to share their experience in the comments—and we aren’t sure who to blame anymore.

While the comments’ section is full of complaints, players are most bewildered about how they can leave ranked games with zero consequences. “I had a couple rounds where a teammate left before the game officially kicked off and we had only 3 players the whole game. I do not understand how a ranked mode even allows this,” one player wrote. 

Another player highlighted a big gun like Ubisoft, being in the video gaming development space for decades, should have figured the essentials out before deploying a competitive feature in XDefiant. 

Considering the rampant issues, some players were confused about whether the Ranked mode is still under testing or already live. Well, Ubisoft actually planned to host a “practice week” before releasing ranked with season one but later skipped on the plan. Upcoming Ranked seasons will have practice weeks before release, however.

Many feel Ubisoft should take the Ranked mode down and fix things up before putting it out again. “They need to pull ranked for now, and the lack of input-based matchmaking or leaving penalty is mind-blowing imo,” another player wrote, considering the current state.

Players are also annoyed that there were no placement matches to assign them to a deserved rank. “Biggest frustration I’ve had with ranked so far is getting destroyed by players who are much higher ranked. Disappointing that there isn’t some form of placement matches so it isn’t just getting stomped on until the better players move on,” one player reads.

Besides complaints about the AFK penalty system, some comments highlighted the need for balance changes to XDefiant’s prevailing weapon and operator meta, with some guns and abilities being too overpowered.

Needless to say, Ubisoft certainly should have taken additional measures to combat AFK practices in XDefiant before launching a ranked playlist. But the player base isn’t exactly blameless, either. 

In online games, leaving matches always affects the experience of those who choose to stay connected, regardless of whether it’s ranked or unranked. The experience would have been so much better if players queue only when they’re serious about it—but we can’t expect that from the impatient gaming community, can we?