Hi, this probably will fall on deaf ears, but one of my biggest gripes with GW2 PVP was that I felt punished for finding a group of friends to play the game with (5 man).
My one and only plea is do not punish players who que as a group with zero rewards. I understand ranked needs to be populated but some of us want to just with pvp with friends without feeling zero progression.
Suggestion maybe a 50% of the rewards that rank has to offer. Heck, 50% split between 3 players would keep me interested.
So, Ranked rewards are almost all purely cosmetic. AFAIK GM/Master had cash shop crystal rewards, but everything else for RANKED rewards was cosmetic - outfits, mounts, titles, auras, etc.
For just queueing arena (norms and ranked) you get the same amount of PvP Honor Tokens that you can exchange for all sorts of honing materials, engraving books, mounts, and some other stuff. So don’t worry about being punished for not doing ranked - you will still get useful rewards that have a lot of value in the game, Ranked rewards are different and purely cosmetic/ego driven!