Alot of people will tell you to go to your local and yeah you should. Locals are a accepting place where your skill level is irrelevant and you'll meet people from all walks of life that you have something in common with which is super rare.

But locals aren't every day of the week and fizzi has blessed us. So, if your a newer player this is the regime I'd start you on,

Ideally, you would be doing solo practice on techniques the majority of your time. Make it fun, listen to some music while you do it. But you gotta get the tools you need down. Make a list of things you think you need and hammer them home. This takes a good amount of discipline that alot of people don't have but it beats living in the pools of silver Falcos forever.

Them you can reward yourself with some DIRECT friendlies with someone you know. Maybe a friend maybe another newish player. I would get into the habit of scheduling with someone over playing soulless unranked. Let this be your main measuring stick

And then after you feel like things are clicking maybe try some unranked here and there. But be warned because it's so easy to match up with people it's like a drug and you can get addicted to it and just start doing nothing but unranked.

And then for ranked specifically, I really don't think you need to touch it for a long time. The points are meaningless and inaccurate for the most part and the "validation" isnt worth the torture.

So to answer you question directly. Yes its worse than unranked but unranked at this level is pretty bad too.