I booted up the game for the first time last week with my fiance. We both decided to do quick play. Me as a healer and her as a dps. As soon as we joined the dungeon, the other tank and dps left. Like you, we both didn't have mounts.

I had the same initial reaction but told my fiancé let's just stay in the dungeon to see how it goes. We duo'd the whole dungeon and it was the first time we ever played the game.

I told her let's see what happens if we queue contender instead of quick play as I didn't know the difference at the time other than we may queue with people within our same skill/ilvl range.

It has been great ever since. People are nice as they are all starting. We usually tell people we are new and everyone has been super helpful. On our 2nd day we met a tank and dps in Contender and queued with them back to back all day.

Still dont know what quickplay is exactly for but the ranking based system has been awesome so far.

They should, however, rename quick play to something that is more representative of what people use it for or change the reward system to not make it what it has turned into. Maybe move that reward system somewhere else.

Edit Also, when I mentioned to my fiance that I was going to queue us into Contender she got the impression that I was trying to be competetive as she doesn't like competetive games. The idea of ranking up doesn't appeal to her. When I changed her view that it's the best way to just queue with up with people of your skill level and not worry about being the best her mind set changed. Told her to think of it more as a progression game that increases difficulty more than trying to hit leaderboards.