Why does Riot even bother with placement games?

eastcoastblaze··24 votes·1,845 views

So I've finished the season 3 times in Gold 5, and have then gone 3-7.4-6, and 8-2 in the placements the very next season. I've been placed in Bronze 1, Silver 5, and SIlver 3 respectively.

So if the difference between 3-7 and 8-2 is Bronze 1 and Silver 3, after ending at Gold 5 why do we even bother with placement games? It just seems riot drops you a full division, then based off of you're +/- they nudge you just a little in a positive direction if you have a positive record, and nudge you in a negative direction if you have a negative record. So whats the point of doing some super high stress placement games if the end result is not much different, why not just do a reset and drop us a division and call it at that. Knowing I could've gone 10-0 and only maybe made it back to where I ended isn't a rewarding experience, there's zero reward to placements, so riot needs to stop putting so much emphasis on them or get rid of them all together.

Tl;dr: Placements are a waste of time based on the reward for doing well.

19 Comments

ShrekOnDeck7 votes

Didn't feel placements were fair this year.

I was matched with/against silver players, won 8/10 of my games and Bronze IV.

RisenDarkKnight1 votes

Yeah I was Gold in season 4 and silver 1 last season and I got placed in bronze 2. I honestly think it's because they added the "promo helper" thing. It makes it really easy to climb since you only have to win one game your second try through promos. I think they pre-emptively lowered people an extra division or two because of it.

Reaper1874 votes

I won 8 of 10 and got put in B5 and not silver, that's pure BS

Retillin2 votes

Yeah, honestly they should just drop everyone 1000 MMR or whatever they wish to use and call it good.

PlotYourMagic2 votes

I went 6-4 in my placements. I ended last season as silver 4 and dropped to bronze 3. I gotta agree that instead of wasting our time with placements they should just drop everyone down a league.

Grey Wolf3 votes

{quoted}

I went 6-4 in my placements. I ended last season as silver 4 and dropped to bronze 3. I gotta agree that instead of wasting our time with placements they should just drop everyone down a league.

I was Silver 5, went 8 - 2 in my placements and was placed in bronze 3. Nice way to piss off your playerbase Riot.

RazzyBaroo2 votes

I'd rather be a few divisions down and climb then be placed where I don't belong and be demoted. The misery of that.

GrabMaster2 votes

http://www.lolking.net/summoner/na/66633094 scared to get into silver because that is where all the plats are. So stick everyone in bronze or silver and say screw it. Thank you rito. Went 10-0. 40 kills 40 deaths and 193 assists as support out of ten games. Read those numbers. And all my games were about 20 minutes long. Check out the lolking as proof. Just want out of elo hell, want to quit league. Btw I was playing support.

Layup2 votes

Last year I went from silver 4-5 to silver 2. This season I went from S2 to S5 going 9-1. I felt winning didn't make a difference and that I was going to get s5 regardless. People who say its the same every season are wrong. I played since Season 2 and this last one was the worst.

Niaphim1 votes

Gold 5 (and any 5th division) is not a good indicator of your MMR. I've played a 6-4 placement series on my G1 account and got placed G5, seems fair to me. Now on my second account, between g4 and g3 in terms of mmr, 2-4 so far, doesn't look too bright atm, will probably be placed in bronze or silver, but it'd be totally fair as well.

Vox Nihili3 votes

What's the point of placements for Bronze players then? Aren't most (all?) of them going to end up in Bronze V or IV? I was Bronze II last season, went 8-2 and was put in Bronze V. Complete waste of time. Just do that from the start. Or give people the choice. Either play your placements or we'll drop you a division without having to play.

RisenDarkKnight2 votes

Agreed. There really is no point in placement games for bronze players since riot is dropping everyone at least 4 divisions regardless of their results.

Silents4291 votes

It just seems riot drops you a full division, then based off of you're +/- they nudge you just a little in a positive direction

That is literally what they do.

And if they did something more sensible like dropping everyones ass a rank lower every season nothing changes from now. Placements are only as crazy as you mentally make them out to be, You can get a pretty good guess where you will end up regardless if you go 9/10 or 1/10

2 Vaynes 1 cup1 votes

I think it depends on your hidden mmr, my gold V account dropped to silver III, and this account was silver II and after going 5 wins 5 losses it dropped to Silver V

Feathermane1 votes

Better question: why do you find placement games more stressful than ordinary ranked games? Not much is at stake, according to you.

56552559_DEL1 votes

You should consider yourself lucky though. This is my first time in ranked after playing for almost 2 years and i had a 3-7 record and placed Bronze 2. 5 of those 7 losses were not even my fault. It was due to lack of teamwork every damn time. I played adc 4 times and support 1 time in those 5 losses and every single time did we not have one single gank or any help whatsoever from anyone on our team. Every game was like that and i couldnt figure out how i got that unlucky.

Our jgs even had the audacity to blame bot lane for not carrying despite them not helping the lane even though i pinged multiple times and asked for help repeatedly just to be met with a "fuck you" from the rest of the team. I was not toxic at all nor did i even yell at the team. I communicated like you normally would but still got no help. I dont know about you people but you cant really do much as a bot laner when you are constantly getting 3-4 man ganked because the other team knows your jg has not yet ganked for you and still doesnt gank regardless of how many times they do it to you.

I got paired with so many shitty teammates that i got placed in Bronze 2 when, had i been given help in those situations, i more than likely would have placed in Silver 5.

My friend is even 0-6 due to assholes and afkers. No matter what he/we did, we always got paired up with people who refused to help the team and then ended up being toxic even though THEY were the ones not helping. Apparently their thinking is "well if you cant keep your lane then you dont deserve my help." Which is shitty thinking when the lanes in question are not getting any help from the jg regardless.

Tranchilla1 votes

That's what low silver and bronze is like. Because you've never played ranked before riot gives you a base Match Making Requirement of 1200 which is lower silver MMR. Those lower ranks don't really understand how pressuring lanes work as jugglers and just farm most of the time and like to play the blame game when you lose. Bronze and silver aren't hard ranks to climb out of if you know what you're doing. My advice to you is to play roles like Jungler and top and play tanks, or bruisers. Adc is an extremely hard and stressful role to climb from because of how much damage your team depends on you to ditch out while at the same time you're running for your life with no peel from the enemy teams assassin's or front line. Champions like malphite, maokai, Dr Mundo (when not banned), Zac and other champions like that are extremely tanks and do a lot of damage at the same time while providing lots of crowd control for your team.

Tranchilla1 votes

Have you ever done any research on how riot calculates match making requirements (MMR)?

Placement while the way it works is riot takes your current MMR and adds 1200 to that the divides it by 2. After they get your average MMR and you start your placements they add or subtract points from that base MMR. So if you win your first game you'll get +20 points win your second game and you get +201 and so on and so forth. Works the same way for losing. Of you win a game then lose a game your LG gain is neutral (+20, -20). That's how they've done it in the past this year it seems like they changed something though.

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