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Ranked changes coming to PBE for 8.24, 9.1, and 9.2!

RiotRiot SapMagic·11/19/2018, 8:31:21 PM·1 votes·126,404 views

TL;DR: Ranked changes start rolling out to PBE today, with further changes coming to PBE in 9.1 and 9.2. We’re not testing position ranks or rewards yet, so stay tuned for those in a future patch.

Hey everyone, Ed “SapMagic” Altorfer here on behalf of the Ranked team. Today, we’re going to start rolling out our Ranked changes to PBE, so I want to give you a rundown on what you can expect to see and what’s still coming. We’ve been talking for literal months about this stuff, and now we’ll need your help finding bugs and continuing the conversation as we approach Season 2019.

#Wait, you’re making changes to Ranked? Yes! Back in April, we laid out our plan to overhaul Ranked, which includes clear feedback during placements, better matchmaking, more accurate ranks, milestones and meaningful goals regardless of skill, and new rewards for deep and ongoing engagement.

If you want a quick (or...not so quick) refresher on our previous posts, check out the links below!

Post 1: High-level goals and overview Post 2: Summarizing your initial feedback Post 3: Addressing feedback and adjustments to position ranks Post 4: Laying out our plan to do regional previews of position ranks Post 5: Talking about new tiers and placements Post 6: Discussing how the top of the ladder is affected Post 7: Outlining the three-split season and new split rewards Post 8: Answering more questions on rewards

#Today First, let’s talk about what’s coming later today. We’re making a lot of changes here, so I’m bound to miss a few things. Here are the details:

https://i.imgur.com/meszCvI.png[]

##Placements

  • You receive a provisional rank after one game (in future patches, only you will be able to see this)
  • For your remaining placement games, you gain bonus LP on wins and can’t lose LP
  • There are new celebrations for receiving a provisional rank and completing placements

https://media.giphy.com/media/nnv8zuh8cI7YlB2XKa/giphy.gif ##Tiers

  • We added Iron tier and Grandmaster tier to Ranked
  • New progression: Iron > Bronze > Silver > Gold > Platinum > Diamond > Master > Grandmaster > Challenger
  • We removed All Division V ranks; there are now four divisions per tier

https://i.imgur.com/yqYeW0G.png[] ##Ranked Armor

  • You receive ranked armor when you complete placements
  • You can equip your level border or Ranked armor in your profile—the option to do this will be enabled later this PBE cycle and you will see your level border until then
  • You can select whether to display your past rank on the banner behind your armor
  • If equipped, your ranked armor is visible on your profile, hovercard (in the friend list), party lobby, Ranked dashboard, and loading screen

https://i.imgur.com/BE1Su6O.jpg[] ##UI Updates

  • We updated the end-of-game screen to give better feedback on placements, LP gains and losses, and promotion
  • We updated the ladder UI to display cutoffs for promotion and demotion between Master, Grandmaster, and Challenger
  • Your loading screen border now reflects your current rank for the queue you’re playing, but you can click the card to see your ranked armor and banner

#Coming Later For anyone who’s keeping track, you probably noticed a few omissions: position ranks, split points, and rewards. The remaining Ranked changes will be hitting PBE in patches 9.1 and 9.2 before the season starts on January 23.

#Give us your feedback! Because there are fewer players on PBE and most don’t play regularly, it’s tough to test legitimacy or matchmaking quality. As a result, you probably shouldn’t expect the high stakes climb you’re used to on live.

We still need your help testing everything going live today though, so jump in and play some games. Let us know what bugs you find and feel free to share your thoughts on any of the changes, whether it’s about system rules, UI, or art.

Thanks in advance for all the help making sure this is a stable and awesome experience, and hopefully we’ll see you on the Rift!

36 Comments

wolf jade11/19/2018, 8:41:59 PM11 votes

nice to see s- on a champ that wasent even in the match

http://prntscr.com/lkemjv

btw cant want to test it on pbe! looking good

Pokemonred20011/19/2018, 9:44:43 PM6 votes

The Leona in the provisional rank screenshot has a Ruby Sightstone

Why do you taunt me :(

None Shall Pass11/19/2018, 8:54:15 PM4 votes

I am curious.
Until now it was Bronze -> Silver -> Gold -> Platinum -> Diamond -> Master -> Challenger (7 in total and 5 tiers (Bronze, Silver, Gold, Plat, Dia) with 5 divisions)). So you removed 5 division tiers (B5, S5, G5, P5, D5) and added Iron and Grandmaster (I guess 4 division tiers for Iron and 1 for Grandmaster). Isn't this +-0 in the end?

TacôShôp11/19/2018, 9:22:56 PM4 votes

Hello SapMagic, where are the shaco skins. He has gotten two skins in the past 5 years. Shaco needs something other than a walking animation. I would like to see something positive when looking at Shaco.

Phantomanium11/20/2018, 4:49:40 PM4 votes

Question is does this mean that all these extra animations will make the client even more laggy and unstable?

MissMikasa11/20/2018, 3:40:50 PM3 votes

I really hate these new position ranks. It's a stupid system. It splits your overall rank in every role which I hate.

Don't ship this system, please. We don't need it, just like we didn't need Runes Reforged.

Ałice11/20/2018, 2:33:06 AM3 votes

Revert Zac's W nerf please. It's a huge nerf to AP builds. You need to stop forcing everyone into boring meta builds.

Le Tongue11/25/2018, 12:28:00 PM3 votes

I really like preseason because this is the first time in a long while that the game doesn't have "dead time". At all points in the game, I feel like I'm planning some strategy. No longer are there phases where you need to wait and wait for objectives to spawn... Or walk around waiting for minions to come... Or losing your turret at 4 minutes and waiting for a comeback somehow... Waiting doesn't happen anymore. And I love it!

Announcing bounties is wonderful because it gives clear objectives of what to do, who's worth what amount of gold, and how we can take them down to come back.

Turret plating leaves room for a lot of different champions to thrive. Lane bullies will poke the plating down for gold, late-game oriented carries will be able to farm up in longer (safer) laning phases, junglers have more room to gank. When turrets do fall, the pace of the game moves very fast and you need to be on the top of your macro-game to keep up with the pace. Minions running down the lanes and objectives having bigger uptimes is so exciting! Proper rotation and strategic decisions are rewarded greatly.

For the losing team, the game will be closing out more satisfyingly. Meaning, you'll be given a couple of chances on catching bounties or landing a good teamfight, but if you fail to do this before the enemy can end you, you lose! I enjoy that as well, there will be no dead time because you always have to chase people down.

I've played a lot of games in preseason, like 30 ranked and probably 50 normals by now, and even after the first game after the new patch I asked myself... How was LoL even fun before this patch?! The new added depths of strategy regarding macro is amazing! I absolutely love it.

Dope Solo11/20/2018, 1:46:52 AM2 votes

Are there going to be any real solutions to BALANCE issues this season?

SnugglePuggle9411/20/2018, 6:23:21 PM2 votes

Do not bring ranked roles into the game. This will make it so much worse and bring more toxicity that is not needed.

Also it just ruins the feel of ranked when you're in one rank in one position and another one in another role. You just don't feel the wholeness of being in one rank.

Creepyelf11/20/2018, 2:29:59 PM2 votes

Good job on keeping the game fresh and new for us. The only thing i don't understand is why iron comes before bronze in ranked. Iron is stronger than bronze and came to be after the bronze age. Just doesn't make sense to me

HÔPÊ11/23/2018, 10:35:19 PM1 votes

It was fun and all but revert Dark Harvest. I can play literally anything with DH and it doesn't seem to be worse than any other mastery. DH at the end of the saeson was finally balanced. Why did u change it? Now it is broken + is the best option for every champion in the game. If this doesn't change you will see 10x dh every single match, except for jax and brusers who will still go conqueror. Also it eliminates non dmg dealing supports from the game.

AnonymousMID12/4/2018, 2:48:03 AM1 votes

I am D5 76LP. What will happen to my rank after D5 is removed next patch? Will I be Plat 1 or D4?

Sharkgirl311/27/2018, 11:53:56 PM1 votes

I can't log into my pbe account at all :/ can't even reset the password, never got a reset email either. oh well/....

DarkLifeCZ11/28/2018, 10:20:24 PM1 votes

Maybe add somethink to show of your rank in the game like emote, mastery,in the tab menu or even in map like the clash baners (also somethink you can block this so people dont get feard by your rank) or maybe put boarders in the loading screen for enemy team ( I know some players would dont like so make it it can be turren off in loading screen) .

It is quiet strange that you are trying to show of our rank but there still isnt any way to know enemy rank in game and we still need to search on other websites to know theyire rank,main role,main champ, etc.

PLS RITO MAKE SOMETHINK THATS OPTIONAL TO SEE RANKS IN GAME .

(I apologize for grammatical mistakes) [sg-soraka]

Satakieli11/29/2018, 1:44:03 PM1 votes

As a double mid/jungle main, I wonder what would happen to me, with this positional matchmaking. Say I am a Gold/Plat level jungler and also a Gold/Plat level midlaner (okay I'm exaggerating XD, but you get the idea). I'll have to climb to my deserved rank in BOTH of these positions, SEPARATELY.

Right now, I can play a few games mid, a few games jungle, and due to my high winrate I can climb pretty fast without focusing on one role only. But after these changes, I'll have to play 2x more games. Climb as a jungler, then also climb as a midlaner. Huh... Riot, what is your solution for this? I'm asking out of curiosity.

Cànary11/20/2018, 6:23:26 AM1 votes

So how are the leveling borders and the ranked borders going to work? Are we going to have to choose between our ranked border or our leveling one? and If so does that mean we can have options to select our borders like level 100 and iron 4 to platinum 4

a1mex11/19/2018, 10:39:05 PM1 votes

Great Work! At the beginning i dont like all the new upcoming changes but now im excited!

Le Tongue11/20/2018, 8:07:02 PM1 votes

Looking forward to positional ranking! Keep it up!

Autofill/off role is a big problem in a game where each mistake is punished - the player that makes the most mistakes (the autofill) will always be capitalized on, making it hard for his team to keep up "4v5".

I'm really excited to get positional rankings as I really believe this will make games fair (and about your own skill as a player in a fair team, instead of playing around punishing the enemy off-role vs protecting your own unskilled aoff-role) and not just see whose autofill will be capitalized on the most! :)