Its not that its weak, or that it hasn't improved at all. Its just that it is so reliant on a single, badly-scaling mechanic, that locks out other fun things that you could use. If you don't use Hunter's Mark then it is weak, but if you do use Hunter's Mark, it stops so many more interesting options that the class has nominal access to.
People look at how much some other classes have improved, or maintained their capabilities, compared to which, the Ranger design seems . . . clunky.
But Ranger did improve in Tashas so its quite natural less improvement was needed and also Tashas Version needed concentration for their damage feature and that one brought less damage (once per turn).
Also it is not built around Hunters Mark if you ignore the capstone. It has Spellcasting, extra attack, one of the biggest power budgets in the subclass among all classes. It literally did not loose anything compared to Tashas. Its a half caster like the paladin, that one has also no "damage feature" (1 free casting of smite vs your up to 6 free castings of hunters mark which get slight improvements on levels the paladin get literally nothing except new spell level).
Also if you compare the improvement to other classes like the fighter it looks quite similar: Fighter got more non combat uses of its ressources and more mobility and weapon mastery. Also it has to choose most often. Does it use second wind for skillcheck or for healing or for movement. Sometimes you get movement and healing but often you cant have everything.
Ranger got exactly the same. You have ritual casting and more flexible casting, you dont need to use spell slots for hunters mark so you can use them easier for non combat spells, you got weapon mastery and more movement speed on level 6 and you must choose between hunters mark or other concentration.
The problem with the 2024 ranger is that it’s built around Hunter’s Mark, and Hunter’s Mark uses up your concentration, which make so, so many ranger spells useless. The playtest version performed well because it didn’t require concentration there. But the published version still requires it, and they didn’t remove the concentration requirement from any of the other ranger spells either. So you’re stuck with the choice of either not using a huge chunk of your spells, or not using a huge chunk of your class features that revolve around Hunter’s Mark. Also, a lot of features from the Tasha’s version got replaced with just more spells, when personally, I really don’t want a Ranger to be casting spells at all.
Before level 20 Its not more built around hunters mark than the paladin is built around the 1 free smite they get on level 2.
And yes you have choices, you need to choose between hunters mark and other spells thats great. Choices make the game fun. And with this choice the Ranger performs well! So with a concentration free hunters mark it would be too strong and it would not be a choice you just always so it so it makes it less interesting.
The paladin also needs to choose between using the bonus action for the 1 free casting of smite and using other spells. (He just does not get upgrades for it)
Also the only feature from tashas which was replaced with more spells is the level 3 feature from Tashas which granted fixed spells and the Tashas pseudo hunters mark (which also needed concentration even thiugh it was no spell) was replaced with real hunters mark. All other Tashas features are there. The level 10 and 14 "sneak" abilities were combined, but they were not from Tashas.
There is really nothing Tashas makes better except that its weak Pseudo Hunterd mark did not need a bonus action.
