The Finals players say solo queuing in Ranked is awful

Many competitive games are centered around playing with a team. The likes of League of Legends, Call of Duty, Apex Legends, and Valorant all see teams face each other rather than solo play, which is more common in games such as Fortnite. However, sometimes you don’t want to play with other people, even in team-based games. If you’re like me, sometimes you want to just sit on your own, not have to talk to anyone, and just enjoy a few hours of gaming to escape from the world, as well as being able to take a break without having your teammates screaming at you to hurry up. This is why I’ve avoided games such as Apex Legends as it is a team-based game and I have never had a good experience when playing with random players without microphones. 

But, even when you are in the mood for some team-based action, or you enjoy playing team-based games such as Valorant and Apex Legends, that doesn’t mean you have a squad of people at your beck and call ready to jump into some games at the same time as you, or maybe you just don’t have multiple friends that like the same games as you. Whatever your reason for playing solo, if that is how you want to play video games, you should be able to do it and quite often you can. But, that doesn’t mean your experience is going to be a good one, as The Finals players have been recently discovering following some changes to the game with the latest 2.2.0 update.

The Finals 2.2.0 update added the incredibly exciting game mode Cashout to the game, which players have been having a blast with. It does come at the expense of removing Unranked Tournaments from The Finals though. Both Unranked and Ranked tournaments were the way to play competitively in The Finals, with both having a playoff bracket format where once your team is eliminated your time competing is over and you must start a new tournament. Many players enjoyed the Unranked Tournament format as it didn’t place them in a ranked system like other competitive games, but still had the same competitive feel although slightly less sweaty. With the most recent update, the Unranked Tournament has now been removed and players are left with two options, Casual or Ranked. 

For players that don’t enjoy the casual aspect of The Finals, that leaves Ranked as the only alternative, where players are placed in one of many rankings such as Bronze, Silver, and Gold, to improve and try to get to as high of a rank as possible. With the removal of the Unranked Tournament, there has been an influx of ex-Unranked Tournament players flooding the mode and Ranked players aren’t happy about it. 

The Finals Ranked players took to Reddit to express their displeasure with this recent change, with many noting that solo queueing has become “awful” as quite often they are paired with inexperienced Unranked players who aren’t used to sweating in competitive games. U/MundaneDon put it perfectly saying “Casual players don’t want to have to play ranked. Ranked players don’t want to play with casuals,” which is why Unranked Tournament was popular as it provided a happy middle ground. Even some of the former Unranked players took to Reddit to apologize for ruining the Ranked experience, with u/Briar-The-Bard saying “I’ve never played ranked once and don’t want to, but want to complete the circuit, so sorry in advance.” U/Eaton2288 also echoed a similar message saying “From launch day I played casual tournament 95% of the time. I find ranked to be too “try hard” with people using all meta load outs. Casual tournament allowed me to play casually while also having something to play for.”

With Embark Studios making this change, it will be interesting to see whether player counts drop or how the spread of players has become, whether Unranked players have flocked to Ranked or been forced to go to Casual modes. So far, the player counts for the game haven’t dropped, still hovering between 25,000-35,000 post-Season 2 hype when the number dropped by 67%. Unless Embark Studios notices a significant drop or is in tune enough with the community to take note of feedback, this change may remain for the foreseeable future. If you’re a former Unranked player or someone who hasn’t jumped into The Finals yet and wants to learn the meta to be able to compete in Ranked, check out our best light builds guide, best medium builds guide, and best heavy builds guides so you can stay ahead of the curve and reach the higher ranks.