Boards›Gameplay

Personal opinion: season 9 has become the hardest one to carry and win games in

lHide on ward··32 votes·17,544 views

This season has really pushed me away from playing the game as much as I normally do. Do you feel the same? I think this is because most of the games are a complete coin flip. The game is now all about who picks the champ with the most 1v9 potential and stomps lane/mid game the hardest. Being a support main and playing and something like Lulu, Taric, or Nami you usually have no impact on the game's outcome, even if you do pick the champion into the right situation and play out of your mind. Same goes for any non- 1v9-get-fed-kill-everyone-in-sight champ in all lanes. Also, as others have mentioned the games being easier to tilt and lose than actually carry, and smurfs, also play a role in this problem.

The bounties rework was supposed to help fix this, but I honestly feel that it wasn't enough and more needs to be done. The games are just flat out not fun to play anymore. Most of you will say "then play something else" but league is really the best game out there right now in most aspects, it's just that matchmaking and ranked gameplay are in a terrible spot at the moment. I have a deep love for this game and I really want to enjoy it again.

I wanna know, do you agree? And if so, what do you think could be done to help change this? I have been playing since late season 3 and I really feel that the game is worse than it's ever been before.

39 Comments

reaper40428 votes

Everyone says duo, but if you're like me and can't just play broken champs. Lately i switched to jg from support. But when I play support I have to play morgana and pyke. I have no way of knowing if my adc is competent or not so the only way to carry as a support is to 1v2 bot lane.

Light Burner3 votes

{quoted}

Everyone says duo, but if you're like me and can't just play broken champs. Lately i switched to jg from support. But when I play support I have to play morgana and pyke. I have no way of knowing if my adc is competent or not so the only way to carry as a support is to 1v2 bot lane.

"but if you're like me and can't just play broken champs"

"when I play support I have to play morgana and pyke."

I actually laughed a little inside.

I will have sex1 votes

In reality most solo queue support games are 1v3 (you vs adc, support and your own adc). Good luck.

MordridtheBlack4 votes

Matchmaking and ranked are horrible in every MOBA, not just League (go look at Smite, they might actually be worse).

That being said, it is still early in the season, plus the whole provisional ranks did screw with things a bit (that system is on the out so woot).

I don't know what could be changed to fix the problem. Ranked has always been kind of weird. I mean after all you can play (and win) 10 games in a row in Bronze and maybe move up one rank. But in Gold you move up like 2-4 or maybe even skip to the next division.

That is mainly due in part there are FAR more players in the lower brackets than anywhere else.

In theory you could fix that by making lower tiered ranks have less of a ladder to climb, but then we would see a possible influx of players getting into ranks they may not be ready for (Yeah that Iron 3 player "totally" belongs in Plat).

Matchmaking is also wonky due to the multiple ways the system finds a match. I think it combines your rank (or lack of one) plus the invisible MMR system. Just because player 1 has a higher mmr than the rest of the team means that "somehow" the entire enemy team is keyed to that mmr (1 Gold and 4 Irons, vs 5 Gold/Plat players).

That is a bit harder to fix. You could get rid of the mmr part of the system, but that might increase queue times (which players will complain about).

lHide on ward1 votes

Do you think things might clear up a little now that provisional ranks are gone? IThat might be part of why ranked feels so wonky at the moment. Also, what do you think about an MMR rework? I personally think MMR should be much more closely tied to your rank. For example, I think I've heard the way it works now is that in order to be demoted a full rank (gold --> silver or plat --> gold), you need to have your MMR be as low as the lowest teir in that rank below you. For example, if I am a Gold IV 0 lp player, I will not drop to Silver I until my MMR is the same as a Silver IV player. This makes for really inaccurate ranks and possibly unbalanced games.

SuperTopLFBottom2 votes

[{quoted}](name=lHide on ward,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=1t7clP8r,comment-id=00000000,timestamp=2019-03-19T15:39:49.226+0000)

Do you think things might clear up a little now that provisional ranks are gone? IThat might be part of why ranked feels so wonky at the moment. Also, what do you think about an MMR rework? I personally think MMR should be much more closely tied to your rank. For example, I think I've heard the way it works now is that in order to be demoted a full rank (gold --> silver or plat --> gold), you need to have your MMR be as low as the lowest teir in that rank below you. For example, if I am a Gold IV 0 lp player, I will not drop to Silver I until my MMR is the same as a Silver IV player. This makes for really inaccurate ranks and possibly unbalanced games.

Ranked feels wonky because two new tiers got added and riot handed over 40 LP per win early in the season and refuses to reset the ladder. So that bad players keep playing their shit game.

Also matchmaking got changed to prioritize fast q times over game quality.

That's why ranked is so shit right now.

HeeroTX1 votes

{quoted}

Also matchmaking got changed to prioritize fast q times over game quality.

This has ALWAYS been the priority, and I agree that it sucks. I'm sick of all the "but, muh abuse possibilities" detractors, look, base Ranked on individual performances, PERIOD. Screw the "positional" rank thing and FINALLY base it on what a single person does in a game, because this "pure Win/Loss" standard is getting progressively WORSE day after day. With the trolls and the smurfs you're gonna drive out all the people that are genuinely mid-tier because it's just not worth the hassle. If I am legit low gold, its just not worth the free skin (IMO) anymore to try to get that rank because I've gotta put up with all the a-holes that are either intentionally throwing my games (trolls) or noob-stomping for fun (smurfs) and making my actual contributions IRRELEVANT either way.

I thought the whole POINT of ranked (vs. normals) was so that you can play with people that are AT your skill level (not smurfs) that are legit TRYING to win (not trolls). By which standard at LEAST 75% of my games I should have a significant impact. Not saying I should be able to CARRY all my games if I'm at my proper rank, but my play should genuinely affect the outcome. Instead, I'm lucky if I get maybe 20% of my games where I would say I genuinely affect the outcome.

Cavesloth4 votes

If the past is any indication, it's only gonna get worse. It sucks, but you're probably gonna have to find a new game. Feel free to use the name "League refugee" in your next game, you might get more sympathy than you'd think. There's a lot of us out there playing other games now.

NY643 votes

I feel like this is one of the easiest times to carry because it’s obvious which champions can 1v9 and get fed very quickly.

The struggle is that you can do very little against them. It feels like unless someone on your team picks a champion that can also 1v9 you are screwed.

If you play the op champions, it’s easy to carry, if you don’t, it’s very hard to carry just because the op champions easily outclass you.

Kaisha1 votes

{quoted}

I feel like this is one of the easiest times to carry because it’s obvious which champions can 1v9 and get fed very quickly.

The struggle is that you can do very little against them. It feels like unless someone on your team picks a champion that can also 1v9 you are screwed.

If you play the op champions, it’s easy to carry, if you don’t, it’s very hard to carry just because the op champions easily outclass you.

Yup. I was playing vel support. I was 5/2 and I remember engaging a Yasuo mid that was 5/3. Landed a good combo (despite being surrounded by minions so he had infinite dashes), ultd. He ate everything, walked up (through my ult) and 2-shot me.

Apparently 5/3 is fed for yasuo but 5/3 is not for a vel support. He had his IE and so no matter how many skill shots I hit and how many he missed, I got 'outplayed'.

This is not a game of skill...

Light Burner1 votes

{quoted}

Yup. I was playing vel support. I was 5/2 and I remember engaging a Yasuo mid that was 5/3. Landed a good combo (despite being surrounded by minions so he had infinite dashes), ultd. He ate everything, walked up (through my ult) and 2-shot me.

Apparently 5/3 is fed for yasuo but 5/3 is not for a vel support. He had his IE and so no matter how many skill shots I hit and how many he missed, I got 'outplayed'.

This is not a game of skill...

Post clip.

Lo4ding1 votes

Dude. I aggree with this season being shit, but you are comparing 0 cs velkoz support vs (100-200) cs yasuo. he can have more than 3k gold more than you. Since you are on pair with yasuo on kills, he is still much more fed than you in any situation in game, except very late game when everyone have full build.

Kaisha1 votes

{quoted}

Dude. I aggree with this season being shit, but you are comparing 0 cs velkoz support vs (100-200) cs yasuo. he can have more than 3k gold more than you. Since you are on pair with yasuo on kills, he is still much more fed than you in any situation in game, except very late game when everyone have full build.

Considering I get gold from the eye of frost, and he was only at around 100 cs, we're talking maybe 500-700g difference max. Its not a gold thing. Some champs scale, others are just fodder.

Mogarl3 votes

Definitely in the top 10 of hard to carry seasons.

Draehl3 votes

I think it's the 'playing support' bit. Whether it's someone on the enemy team or your's getting fed, it's ultimately not you. We still get the same minimal support gold income.

It's why even after all the nerfs I've gone back to playing Zyra even though I'm much better at and enjoy playing Bard so much more. She gets more kill = more gold = more control of your destiny. Support as a role feels much better when damage is low and the meta is less snowbally :/

HeeroTX1 votes

Unfortunately, the "fed" part doesn't matter. I've been most fed member of my team several games as ADC, but me being up 4-5 kills at 15 mins means nothing when top and mid are a combined 0-9 and jungle is either feeding more kills or afk-farming. My final game last night, I shit you not, enemy JG declares that they're int'ing at start of game and proceeds to run it down mid all game. Enemy team has an int'er so of course we win right? Nope, Despite being 12-0 around 10 mins, mids STILL loses lane, top ALSO loses lane and for SOME idiotic reason, even though there is NO enemy jungle because he's literally just int'ing I'm stuck in a 2v1 bot because support and our own JG think it looks like a blast to go for the freebies in mid and instead of using our advantage in numbers just feed by chasing the int'er for no reason at all. And yes, we LOST that game against a team with an int'er.

Draehl1 votes

That's fair. I still think it stems from someone getting too fed. Some champions are particularly tough to bounce back against and score a shutdown before it's too late. Most games are way too short. I get that (in ranked especially) folks want to lock down their win and move on, but at the same time the most rewarding games are the really close/balanced ones where it goes to 45 minutes and you barely eek out a win through superior teamwork rather than one person getting crazy fed and going 1v5.

HeeroTX1 votes

I agree that the best games are longer BALANCED ones, unfortunately, those are just getting less and less (and only partly due to the damage issue). I'm not 100% sure, but I may be done with LoL unless they institute personal ranking, either that or just go to norms ONLY. Because frankly, Ranked is SUPPOSED to be the mode that a) people take seriously and b) you're matched with your level of play. I've now had at LEAST 10 games that have felt truly awful to play as wholly NEITHER of those things is true. At least in normals I go in knowing that it doesn't "matter" so when one (or more) laners is clearly trolling at 5 mins in I just roll my eyes and shrug "whatever".

It's not even that I want end of seasons rewards, to me the "reward" of ranked should be GOOD games, but it ain't worth the grind ESPECIALLY when I seriously doubt that result. And I say this as someone that has never and doesn't ever expect to get to Diamond or above, I'm mid/low elo and fully aware of it, but in previous seasons I wasn't dealing with this same proportion of smurfs & trolls. This is my AVERAGE teamcomp right now: -Me -(at least) 1 dc/afk/obvious troll -1 feeder who WILL lose lane -1 player who either is terrible OR against a smurf, either way lane opponent will be a beast -1 player who is average; either equal or slightly better than myself but will go into toxic rage over the others noted and possibly me depending on how much the others have tilted me

And that has literally been EVERY GAME of at least my last 10.

5050BS3 votes

Its not just that. The positional rank messed up everyone's MMR too. When it was ~500 games to find your rank it now takes 1k-2k games to find your rank.

Match Making is all over the place with teams with average win rate of 40% getting matched vs teams with average win rates of 60%.

Riot needs to rebuild the MMR system they are using completely.

BigFBear3 votes

It's so obvious. When I check op.gg and see even teams like (3x Plat1, 2xDia4) vs (2x Plat1, 3xD4) all around 55% winrate, this games are the best. Like in earlier seasons. It feels like good old LoL actually. You can even carry them if you play good(!!) But this shit is rare.

But most of the games are like (1x Gold1 85% wr, 1x Plat2 79% wr, 3x Dia4 57% wr) vs (3x Plat1, 2x unranked, all negative winrate). This games are so out of control and coinflip. 0 fun!

For me personally Smurfs and bad matchmaking are the No. 1 problems of LoL atm!

Karunamon4 votes

{quoted}

For me personally Smurfs and bad matchmaking are the No. 1 problems of LoL atm!

Yeah and you can bet your ass Riot won't lift a single goddamn finger to do anything about it.

lHide on ward1 votes

Yeah I gotta say, I totally agree with you. I have been getting a lot more matches this season that are completely unbalanced by the ranks on each team. Sometimes the enemy will have 2-3 players that are an entire tier above mine. In fact, some games even the average rank of all players is a full tier difference between games. This has never happened this often until this season. Also, I have about a 50% win rate, so why are they ranks of the players I'm getting matched with so drastically different?

Glad to see it's not just me experiencing this.

hotarse3 votes

The worse the ranked matchmaking is, the more you'll play to get that hit of whatever it was you were getting before. Hit of "carry the game" maybe? Maybe that was how you got your jollies. Probably. The less satisfaction the game gives you, the more you have to play. It's as if the beer you're drinking keeps decreasing in alcohol content, forcing you to purchase and drink more in order to get the same buzz you were getting before. This has all been researched and planned out by the Tencent research team, and apparently it's working with you.

Ulquiorra01232 votes

Play Twitch Jungle and find a duo who won't int, done.

Ahri Baka2 votes

Like every season Incoming thread ib season 10 : same thing above

Reohare2 votes

Sometimes, to me, it feels hard to carry because the game promotes one tricking far too much. Whoever gets "X high skill-ceiling" one trick on the team has more probability to win, leaving champs with low skill-ceiling in the dust. For the longest time i played tanks like nauti and maokai, and now it feels like I have to learn to play again to win, and people who chose Irelia, Riven or Yasuo etc. as first champs can climb much easier than me.

Sebastit7d2 votes

I absolutely agree with you. Now don't get me wrong, I've never considered myself a "Carry" type of person, but I do feel like the way the game is right now, even when you get a snowball going, your impact in the game as a single person is completely Irrelevant as long as the enemy team doesn't know what they're doing. The amount of games I've lost because my team starts doing dumb stuff instead of pushing the leads we've gotten baffles me. The game comes down entirely on what team throws the hardest in the end. At least that's how it feels like to me.

Illabethe2 votes

Sorry....... but I hard carry as Nami support. Your post is Biased towards how YOU play her.

Learn to cast her entire kit in .5 seconds, and you'll do better as Nami.

Z3Sleeper2 votes

I personally feel like this is the most balanced season in terms of player contribution. It really feels like everyone plays an equal role now.

Most of my games are being won by one of any of the roles now, as opposed to previous seasons where it was almost always just bot, jungle or mid (or way back when top was a super-hypercarry role).

This is coming from a top lane player, most seasons we are the ones who have the least impact, but this season it feels like we actually make a substantial difference.

Granted I’m also playing at a Masters level.

Edit: oof downvoted, guess I didn’t fit the narrative.

joywhodidthisjoy2 votes

whenever I play ranked If I'm mid, our bot lane feeds If I'm support, our mid/jungle/top feeds.

Is it hardstuck or really unlucky?

Eedat1 votes

the hardest one to carry

all about who picks the champ with the most 1v9 potential and stomps lane/mid game the hardest.

[sg-lux-2]

mack91121 votes

I play velkoz support and carry every game :)

KVbqbFsC8e1 votes

People bitch about this every season, but I don't agree. Season 6 was the most difficult because of Dynamic que. Its silly seeing people complain about "coinflip games" now, when Dynamic que was the very definition of that. Solo players vs premades, yeah that was fair.

astralwit1 votes

I've felt some of this since the Dark Harvest changes for jungle. It's hard to really scale well into late as most junglers.

Midnight TTG1 votes

I'm a Nami main and I have saved many of my team members with her, albeit I don't play her in Ranked because I don't trust my ADC. Instead, I play Lux or Neeko in Ranked and it worked well until the Kayle ADC.

Nami is a good support (at least in my opinion) and, while she can't carry, she can help the carry. If your ADC is feeding, abandon them. While I don't personally like doing that, sometimes its necessary so you can help the actual carry get fed. If your ADC flames, point out the fact that they are 0/7 at 10 minutes in (or whatever it is) and that they should get good at the game. It works better if you have kills building a full support set as well.

Xela Syab1 votes

Supports carry the game with map awareness not with gold or abilities. I have fun playing support, but I feel like I need a counter pick or something that really synergies with my team in order to win. I can't just go Thresh or Janna and expect to peel for my whole team simply due to this damage meta. I have to pick either constant sustain enchanters, situational tanks, or poke mages that don't belong botlane or Morgana because she can counter ganks and carry a game.

Nevrankroaton1 votes

I don't really agree. There was always elo stomper champions through the old seasons. Camille jungle at very high elo, reworked talon, quinn, old yorick and new yorick in bronze, hecarim for silver/gold back in S3, etc etc. At one point, janna/lulu were freelo as supp and it switched to some other support (hello alistar).

Always had been the same, maybe your champion pool don't fit the meta or you are hitting a wall that you have difficulty to climb. I mean, if other people win consistently, maybe it is more about you needing to improve your gameplay or figure how you win a game and less about the game itself.

Watching high elo streamer really help about this.

JoeMG1 votes

I feel the same way. Last season I became a mid main because I wanted to be able to carry and finally just get out of bronze and I climbed to silver pretty quickly.

This season, getting out wasn't too bad, but now that I'm in silver I'm on an 8 or 9 match losing streak, despite winning lane and performing well. I could chalk it up to being unlucky with teammates but after 9 games in a row, it would seem the luck factor isn't applying anymore.

I guess maybe the new matchmaking system and position ranks may have something to do with it, but I see it happen to high elo streamers too so who knows.

Fluffeh1 votes

season 9 is the hardest to individually carry a game in because people are individually carrying games?

More from Gameplay

3 Refunds per season, upvote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay764 comments
7,167
votes
3 Refunds per season, upvote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay156 comments
3,510
votes
UPVOTE FOR URF
Gameplay606 comments
2,440
votes
Yes plz.
Gameplay456 comments
1,721
votes
3 Refunds per season, up vote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay114 comments
1,716
votes
When is ANYONE at riot going to address the awful new player experience?
Gameplay634 comments
1,383
votes

More by lHide on ward

Please lower the amount of time you are blocked from queue for dodging (after the first time)
Gameplay2 comments
1
votes