Can you explain why ranking doesn't mean anything?
I myself cannot find any ranked matches at all and play in lobbies after inviting other Australians
Well, lets take DOA5's ranking, for example.
1) Wins can be gained by a multitude of ways that are NOT overcoming the opponent. Lag disabling opponent, them disconnecting, or using infinite loops. All three are simply the opponent being removed from the fight, not one player being a better player than the other. Or non gameplay related, controller could accidentally turn off, they had to get up and do something, etc, etc. Too many variables for a win to really mean anything. This is the main one that applies across all fighters. Offline is a different matter.
2) You lose very little points for losses, while you gain a lot for wins. What this means is that win/loss is not legitimate, because it takes roughly 2.5 (off the top of my head) losses to equal 1 win. Aka, your rank will always rise much faster than it can fall, making the rate at which your rank goes up, essentially meaningless.
3) With the above in mind, your rank only amounts to "How often you've played Ranked Matches" and says little to nothing about your actual skill. You could be Terrible at the game and eventually make S rank just by playing enough matches.
For example. I've literally just been sitting at A+ for weeks, even though i'm constantly losing because i lose interest and wander back to my computer in the middle of a match. But i'm maintaining my A+ by occasionally actually paying attention and playing and getting the odd win.
This proves both of my points. My losses were not due to the opponent being a better player but because....I wasn't playing, for various reasons (Boredom, baby wandered into the room and had to take care of her, needed to answer phone, etc, etc) Ergo, the win was meaningless. Same thing has happened to me multiple times. And my rank is sitting at just short of S just because of the OCCASIONAL win because win points are much more than the points you lose when you get a loss.
It's why I have zero interest or respect in someone's rank. At least DOA4 it kinda mattered because your rank would actually go DOWN when you lost. Not to mention your rank carried over to lobbies as well. So EVERY MATCH YOU PLAYED would affect your rank. Like when I originally played, I got good enough at DOA4 to skyrocket, up to around....B+ or A-, around there. Then the game got stolen picked up another copy years later, so rusty I got my butt kicked and plummeted to D and below for a while. And SS ranks usually just meant they did the near infinite combos in Tag Team.
So while in DOA4 ranks meant SOMETHING, in most fighters, DOA5 included, they mean virtually nothing beyond how many Ranked Matches you've played. So its less of a gauge for player skill, and more of a quantity of matches played.
