Is there a chance Riot can fix positional ranked and bring it back?

Snowbrand·May 2, 2019·2 votes·796 views

I was really excited to get to play other roles and champions then my few mains. I can play Zed and Akali in normals, but I will never know how good I could actually be with them and it's not as challenging or interesting to just play normals. So is it possible for Riot to fix it and bring it back?

For example the issue with high lp gains in high elo wasn't a part of positional rankeds problems. It was more about unbalanced games, slow climbing or teammates that didn't care enough when they played off roles. Surely there would be some good ways to fix it and make positional matchmaking a thing again? Or are we bad assassins and adc players doomed to only play top lane in ranked to be able to get high ranking?

3 Comments

Kai GuyMay 2, 20191 votes

I think it will be very difficult. A common oversight players make when discussing MM is they completely forget about how much impact player decisions and attitudes make for a matches quality.

SnowbrandMay 2, 20192 votes

[{quoted}](name=Kai Guy,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=2jQ6AhAx,comment-id=0000,timestamp=2019-05-02T16:45:07.329+0000)

I think it will be very difficult. A common oversight players make when discussing MM is they completely forget about how much impact player decisions and attitudes make for a matches quality.

That's kinda sad then. I guess my best bet is to play on a smurf then even tho it's not the same as playing on your main.

Was part of the problem that people get autofilled more to their secondary role? Because I would suppose that if you wanted to play a game on your off role like mid, you would still tryhard to win it even if it wasn't on your main role. I could see tho if people got autofilled more often, that game quality would get lower, since autofilled player wouldn't want to win as hard since it didn't matter as much.

Right now I very rarely get autofilled (they muct have changed something about MM), maybe like 2-3 games for every 100 games and if it is like that in NA then most people playing off roles wouldn't be autofilled and actually wantng to play their role.

It's like when I play in flex ranked. I might not care as much about winning my games since it doesn't matter as much as in soloq, but I still try to win and don't just give up or troll. I would suppose it would be the same with positional ranked, except if you got autofilled a lot.

Kai GuyMay 2, 20192 votes

Realistically I just don't see it working all that well. I think the problem is a lot of players are only skilled at 1 role, or worse just 1 champion. OTP is fine but folks don't like to acknowledge that it can hurt your teammates and your ability to climb.

OTP is honestly the fastest way to get "skilled" at the game and climb ladder.. but your screwed once you hit a range that reflects your skill. A ban or pick can cost ya a match. You get screwed as well if there is a meta shift (if your OTP is Fotm pick or ban good luck. If your OTP hard counter is now popular in meta. Good luck.) hard nerf, and also a rework can completely Fk you and your ability to play the game at the part of the ladder you in.

So you have a risk of matches handicapping teammates and also have a risk of suddenly being grossly outclassed by the players around you. It takes longer but knowing multiple champions makes you a better player because your able to adapt to things in lobby.

Having separate MMR, when so many players already dont have the ability to play all roles at their MMR just lowers the # of active players in higher MMR tiers... Everbody who ques in off roles is placed into lower MMR games. This makes MM have to find a wider range of MMR to build games with. Not really ideal... Riot tried Splashing LP and possibly MMR( Honestly I dont know if they did or did not.) but I dont think that's gonna solve the issue you run into when Theres low player populations.

So back to the topic. No, I don't think the problem with Positional was related to auto fill. If anything the entire system looked to me like riots attempt to fix the frustration people had with getting auto filled.

Far as enjoying the game, that's about knowing yourself and what you want. So personally I have a lot of faith in my ability to climb to high gold and low plat as long as I stick to mains and grind games away. I dont always enjoy this so what I do is usually play off roles or try new strategy's during preseason and spend most the year doing that until I decide its time to grind away to fix my MMR. Given that you need to pay constant attention to your condition when your grinding... its honestly a chore at times.

So that's how I enjoy league, Try new stuff in Preseason then spend as much of the year as you want playing to win with picks and strategy's you like, honestly this is entirely fine. You wont hurt teammates badly compaired to just swaping to a compleatly new role or champion because Placement games and K factor being high is gonna give you big window to bleed away MMR into lower tiers if your not able to preform off roles and champions as well as your polished mains. If you really want to bleed away mmr during a season you can que with friends/players as far below your division as you can. The MM range this makes is insane for most folks and will create a lot of garbage matches... many of which will not favor your team especialy if your not doing your best role and champs. Its.... Kinda soft inting but if your honestly playing to win and so is your duo its not the worst thing and ya lower the negative impact to only 30% of the matches players. I duo with friends who really want to play ranked because I think the times they have to deal with higher MMR players that outclass them tends to be a valuable lesson and again I have faith I can fix my MMR with effort.

With I messed around more in preseason thou, I did not do that this year and I regret it a bit. I grinded like 80 ish games of bard in Preseason to hit Plat to prove a point to a friend. Currently Grinding again to show that point again and after I hit Plat in solo, well then I will likely spend the majority of the remaining season in flex.

I am the kind of player who really enjoys numbers, math, theory crafting, going off meta. I like winning by doing things on my terms. I frequently link folks on Boards to this article about player "psychographic profiles" in MTG.

I think "Jhonnys/Jennys" are the smallest portion of the lol playerbase but that might be my bias speaking. Plenty of Timmys with their LCS BIG PLAYS spamming champions like Yasuo Katarina Kaisa Vayne . And Heeeeellllaaa Spikes trying to copy and paste what ever looks strong.