When a matchmaking system works, and I'm poor-to-average at a game but want a solid challenge, and there aren't people playing new accounts just so they can dominate those who need to play against people around roughly their skill level (i.e. those like you described yourself doing), then yes, I LOVE ranked gameplay that pits me against appropriately-skilled foes. It partially depends upon the genre though.

In racing games, I really like competition. Especially racing sims. But I want two things from that competition: players who use reasonable racing etiquette (a grey area to be sure, but deliberately spinning out your opponent on the last lap to clinch a win is way out of line, for instance), and players who are using appropriate vehicles (systems that limit to certain performance grades, like Forza 2, really help with that).

I don't find it entertaining to play a game where I'm completely obliterated by my opponents who don't even have to dedicate half their skill to defeating me. That's no fun, and doesn't actually help me get better at all. When you're losing/dying without the chance to even try out any tactics, you're also not gaining much from the loss.

I do find it entertaining to play against an appropriately skilled opponent, one who is at or just above my skill level, as that presses me to improve and still is rewarding since there are a fair number of times where I can pull off a victory to remain encouraged and see positive results of my skill gains.

When I was in college, I played a ton of Goldeney and Smash Brothers on the N64. The friends I played with were for the most part roughly the same skill level as me on actual controls, but I was the most inventive at coming up with new tactics. The benefit of playing split-screen on Goldeneye was that we all learned from each other, and rapidly improved. As they got better, it forced me to get better in turn, constantly thinking up new tactics and finding ways to implement them. It was the most fun I have ever had in multiplayer gaming. Ever. I can't even guess at how many hours we played that over the course of two years. By the end of our run on that, heck, our matches were frenzied, exciting battles that were as my psychological as they were skill.

Smash Bros was just the same. Again, I had to continuously be ever more inventive to outwit my friends. I was generally the best on that game just as with Goldeneye, but more due to just being quick on my mental toes at thinking through the situations I'd find myself in to outplay them.

When I ventured online, my first big online multiplayer title was Tribes 2. I started off in pubbies, where I sucked badly, but fortunately often enough could find servers with enough other newbies like myself that I could train against them (losing more often than not) while the good players determined the outcome of the match. I loved that game because with the way it was setup, the scope of the battles and such, I was able to try all sorts of tactics, try to find my effective roles, and I really learned a lot and skilled up quickly. What I learned is that while I was an average dueler at best, what I really excelled in was support. Repairing, ELF-ing enemies (I LOVED hiding in the middle of the map and ripping out the enemy flag-capper with the ELF so my teammates could finish them off ), piloting the bomber (favorite tactic was sneaking up to the enemy base underwater with it on the water-heavy maps), and alternating between a support role and an "annoying bastard" role (if I could keep at least two enemy players trying to track me down and kill me, I was doing the job of at least two people at once ).

I eventually found some other fun players and joined a regular tribe, had a total blast. I LOVED that game.

My multiplayer experiences after that were a mostly negative affair, rarely finding that right balance of difficulty and fun to learn and improve, until X-Box Live. Now, between the people on my friends list for entertaining multiplayer (which does improve me; Forza 2 and Gears in particular have found me improving a lot via the challenge from my friendly matches) and ranked matches on occasion for decent multiplayer challenges (mostly back when I first got the system and played a lot of PGR3, not so much lately, and definitely not with an FPS title).

I like being matched up with similarly skilled players who have similar concepts of etiquette and respect.

I hate ranked matches because the achievements require them. Why not let us play the game how we like, with people of our choosing?

The achievements aren't required.

Yeah, the Splinter Cell mulitplayer was always a mess as well.

Shadowrun is another example of online multiplayer done correctly. Sure the party was partially borked (it worked itself out over time) but it felt a lot like online PC gaming to me.

It was a lot of fun, I loved it with some Goodjers in the game, and had there been a sufficient long-term Goodjer group pop up around the game, I would've found it a good purchase.

Unfortunately, any FPS that requires a sizable social segment to support it this year is getting completely squashed as most people just wait for Halo 3.

It's not just fair play, though. It is proper matchmaking. I personally hate dominating games. And contrary to the thread I started I have dominated games before. I prefer it if 60% of my games are close, regardless if I always lose. Thus my pitiful Catan record, my meager APF2k8 record, my sad NBA 2k7 record, etc. Mostly I just like chatting with people from around the planet or world and playing games I like. But since I don't play much, the curve tends to bite me eventually. I can keep up for a few weeks, but eventually I start to get dominated and then it's either Goodjer games or else roll the dice and hope for the best. Keeping in mind that I've only really been at this for around 8 months.

So the fact that I'm getting tired of getting beaten senseless in random matchmaking games, means I'm either very bad or else the competition gets really good really quickly. I think etiquette and respect do matter. There are things you can do in Halo 2, NBA 2k7, All Pro Football 2k8 that are technically legal (like having a 6'7" cornerback as a created player), but aren't really in the spirit of fair play and good etiquette.

Watching this kind of gameplay not only frustrates me because it means the game is going to be me getting beaten. But it also frustrates me because it makes me sad that there are people out there for whom etiquette and respect don't mean anything and they want to just login and dominate, regardless of whether that means having a 6'7" cornerback or spawn-camping or cheesing in a basketball with a dominant player.

It's a sad fact of online multiplayer and it's why when I'm being smart I tend to stick to XBLA games. Even then, though, you run into jerks. I was playing Catan the other day and someone had the mic of their headset set up against a speaker belting rap music loud. So basically the other 3 of us couldn't communicate audibly at all. It was miserable and thankfully we beat him. I got to the point where I didn't even want to win. My sole reason for sticking with it was to help others with generous trades so they could beat him.

But that's not something one can do frequently and enjoy it. My point? I don't think it happens just in ranked matches. It happens everywhere. I wish someone could come up with a solution for it, because the times where I've had good online multiplayer experiences (about 40% of the time) have been really fun and rewarding. Especially with Goodjers. The rest of the time I've been tempted to just quit. And maybe that's what I should start doing, my reputation on Live be damned.

I enjoy played ranked matches but not when the system automatically boots players back to the main menu. WTF is up with that? Why can't a group of random people stay in a room and play more than one match together. I hate to jump on my Socom soap-box but they did a great job with the multiplayer ranked server system (albeit there were a lot of glitching/rank-up rooms) and it was nice to spend a few hours playing competitive ranked matches with random Joes.

And while I'm at it, I still don't understand why developers haven't figured out a way to effectively address the issue of all players getting booted when the host aborts/leaves the game. Are you telling me there is no way to transfer the host's abilities to say the next person that entered the room? If for some reason there is not, then developers should at least have a number of dedicated servers (a la Socom) so people can play for long periods without having to worry about getting kicked (unless they're kick voted). /end rant

My only problem with ranked matches is, generally, that the people that play them are complete c*cks.

I'm all for taking the game seriously and playing to win, but that's not mutually exclusive with being polite to one's opponent (or teammates, for that matter).

CS is truly the realm of cheaters.

This is why I only tend to play at Lan parties. Sometimes I play in the weeks building up to a Lan if I think I may end up in a tournament or something, just to get a bit less rusty.