Has any credible source said "to climb, play random champs"

RookPusher·Jul 31, 2018·3 votes·1,433 views

I ask because I've never heard it. It doesn't seem to work. The opposite is suggested and shows results over many samples.

And I also ask because if playing random champs every game doesn't help you climb, and ranked is about climbing, why are people allowed to play random champs left and right? We don't let people feed because it's not a winning strategy - so why do we let them pursue other non-winning strategies?

You really should only be able to play Mastery 4 champs or higher. And the failure to enforce some mechanism to prevent people from just randomly selecting champs is infuriating.

4 Comments

DrCyanideJul 31, 20184 votes

There are a few reasons why Ranked champion select hasn't been locked down.

Trading: Someone on your team may want you to pick a champion for them. They may be Level 7 Mastery, while you may be Level 1. Trading would be dead if you couldn't hand over something you rarely play.
Smurfs/multiple accounts: Enough players play on multiple accounts - either due to being banned, being bored, or using different accounts to try different things - that Riot wouldn't impose the limit on them. Having to grind however many games on a champion you already have mastered would feel bad.
Raised barrier to Ranked: This would require people to get 20 champions to Level 4 before they could start playing Ranked, as that covers the worst case scenario of "everything else was picked/banned".

RookPusherJul 31, 20181 votes

{quoted}

There are a few reasons why Ranked champion select hasn't been locked down.

Trading: Someone on your team may want you to pick a champion for them. They may be Level 7 Mastery, while you may be Level 1. Trading would be dead if you couldn't hand over something you rarely play.

Smurfs/multiple accounts: Enough players play on multiple accounts - either due to being banned, being bored, or using different accounts to try different things - that Riot wouldn't impose the limit on them. Having to grind however many games on a champion you already have mastered would feel bad.

Raised barrier to Ranked: This would require people to get 20 champions to Level 4 before they could start playing Ranked, as that covers the worst case scenario of "everything else was picked/banned".

The third point is a valid argument, and there's an argument to be made for a lower level. I'd be fine with that. What level they are is less important than "have you played this champ before." To that end, I'd suggest they not use mastery but some other measurement because of reworks.

As for #1 &#2 - I don't care, and neither should Riot. Smurfing is openly ruining the ranked experience, if anything we should do what we can to squelch it. Trading seems mildly valid, but you could also opt to trade positions rather than champs, achieving the same result. But either way, the problem here is the shit quality of ranked, and the fact that we don't allow certain negative behavior, but we do allow others.

I mean they banned the Smite Support Singed for godssake and he had a positive win record. Riot is willing to shutdown anything that hurts other players except for this one major area.

dogehkiinJul 31, 20182 votes

Because mastery 4 or more doesn't mean that I am good with that champ and less than 4 doesn't mean that I am bad with him.

Also let's imagine Riot does the change ur suggesting:

You would need to get a lot of champs to mastery 4 before going into ranked, atleast 3 for every role (autofill) and like 10 for your main roles to play ranked without being useless in champ select half of the games ). Let's imagine this situation, you are a toplane player and jungler as a secondary role, you tend to play bruisers or divers, and then you get autofilled to supp or your teammates don't pick any tank or champ with CC, you have bought some tanks and enchanters and while you haven't played them much you know how they work and would be able to play them with your general knowledge of the game but you can't pick those champs because you haven't played them much in normals before going into ranked, then your team has a teamcomp without CC and you lose the match because someone on the boards complained about rankeds.

Trading is a very important mechanic in champ select, it's necesary to get the top tier champs when you don't ban them and trading allows you to do that no matter what pick order you have.

AUTOFILL

RookPusherJul 31, 20181 votes

This is another one of those arguments that's used by the crowd that says "Fix it, just don't change anything."

No one ever said a mastery level meant you were good. And no one is asking for good. But you knew that. You just don't want anything to disrupt the status quo no matter how bad it is. Mastery does mean:

You've played the champ a few times prior
This isn't a new champ just released
This isn't a champ you just bought

As for the trade argument, I'm not sure how a position swap is different from a trade, and it resolves the problem of trades, and it comports with this solution.

You don't have to agree with me. But the facts on the ground right now is that those of us advocating for such a system are the only ones who've produced a solution. And no one on the "Change is bad" side of things can answer the central question:

If feeding is reportable because it creates losses (statistically) Then why isn't playing multiple champs you have little to no experience with reportable, because it also creates losses (statistically)