The Problem with Ranked.

Dear Riot Games:

I am an avid play of League of Legends and absolutely love your game. It is addicting and fun and all around a very well made game. I have a few ideas to help shape this game into a better game for the future and upcoming seasons. If you have a few minutes, I am sure this message will be worth your time. I know you guys already have you progression plan all set for the next season, and you will not want to change anything but please just have an open mind. This is a review of the ranked system in League of Legends from a gamer who is into competitive games and loves them. Just for your information this is not a rant because I had a few bad games, this is a reflection of the 2037 hours I have spent playing this game. In this I will be addressing every issue I believe there to be in the League of Legends ranked system

Overlooking the important details:

We are going to start by comparing League of Legends (LoL for short from now on) to a game that is considered to be one of the most successful competitive games in the market right now, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Now I know what you are thinking, these are completely different game genres and they should not be compared, but just here me out. If you look at every single CS:GO patch it is well thought out, everything is done for a reason to make the game as balanced as possible. When a map is way too sided towards on side, the patch will address that and provide a thorough reason for that change. With LoL we do not see that as often, rather we see more patches that happen just because Riot can. Why did Darius get buffed to the point where he is banned almost every game from bronze-gold ranks? Well because they can. There was no thorough reason for the juggernaut rework other than to just try something new, and in competitive games that philosophy is extremely hazardous to the integrity of the ranked gameplay. Every single patch is not well thought out and that is the problem. I would much rather have a well thought out patch every 6 months than a new one every week or so just to try new things. I do not blame you though, the game is such a big size and there is so much to try and balance that it will be nearly impossible to do it in a short amount of time. You really need to sit down and work out every variable, and that could take years. So trying new things seems right, but it hurts the ranked integrity so much. LoL used to be a fun game that you could play with friends and it has grown into a much more competitive scene. The problem right now is that it is in an awkward medium, the ranked is not satisfying enough to be played by itself and playing with your friends has gotten old and repetitive. It is the same reason why Worlds will have less viewers, because we already know what is going to happen. We already know how each game of League will go and it is the most satisfying thing when a game is so close that any team fight could end the game. The reason that is so satisfying is because the game has gotten to the point where it is purely the players skills that will decide the impact of the game, rather than the champion deciding how good the player can be. Which brings me to my next point, raw skill.

Why League is not a Skill Based Game:

In CS:GO it is 100% the skill of the player that decides the outcome of the game, in League the skill has a lot to do with it but it is hardly the biggest part. The champions you choose affect the outcome of the game so much, and while that is the nature of league, it has not been handled correctly. Every champion that comes out is amazing, you can see the time that is put into the artwork and lore and into the champion design however, every champions upon release is extremely over powered. A lot of players will say that it is because you move them from PBE to Live way too fast and it is hard to see the balance issues, and other players will say that you do this so more people buy the champion because of how powerful they are (I hope this is not the case) but I disagree with both those claims. I believe it is a lack of looking at what a new champion will do to the game. To support this claim we will look at the most recent release Kindred: Kindred was released with hopes of changing up the meta, and creating a new way of playing. I believe it was made to encourage more unorthodox or new meta bot lane combos, like with Mordekaiser. So that you could have the ADC in the jungle and achieve different roles in the bot lane. This is a beautiful idea and really is what the ranked needs in League of Legends, different ways of playing the game. On the other hand, her release was very poorly optimized. Her ult is an AoE invulnerability zone. This is an ADC that can counter assassins, which is one of the main counters to a strong and mobile ADC. So not only does she have a slow and is extremely mobile, she also is immune to one of the only ways to counter her. I doubt that Riot actually took the time to sit down and think, "What will Kindred to do the role of Assassins." This goes back to the problem of overlooking patches and not thinking them out. When a new Champion is released everything that they will counter and everything that will counter them should make sense and be applicable. With Kindred, she is very hard to counter. You essentially just need to out heal her ult or tank enough of her damage, just try to shut her down. If she gets going, she is an unstoppable hyper carry. Its a Vayne with a Tryndamere ult. There is a lack of care for what the ripples would be from her release and honestly, almost every new champion seems to be Riot just playing with the new features from their updates. She has Garen and Fiora abilities all jumbled up into one, taking the idea of breaking the meta like they did with Mordekaiser into a champion. Every action you take should be looked at in every possible way and well thought out. Kindred is great but she really was not that original and she is hard to counter. In short she is overpowered. Overpowered champions are what break the balance and make it so the game is no longer based on Raw Skill, it is based on picking the most overpowered champions at the time and mastering them. This is what is commonly called, "The Meta."

The Ranking System:

It is actually possible to carry a game all by yourself in CS:GO, and that is why the ranking system works, because if you do really well you will rank up. To carry a game single-handedly in a game of LoL is nearly impossible. That is both a good and a bad thing. The bad thing is that it limits a players potential, such that a Global Elite in a Silver Elite game of CS:GO will just dominate and carry everybody, where a Challenger player in a Bronze game might run into some trouble carrying the game. We all know that the Challenger player is much higher skill, but he might have trouble getting his team to cooperate and join him, and then he is left fighting alone against 5 opponents and if the enemy team manages to work together whilst the Challenger player's team does not, the enemy team actually has a chance to win. This is a good thing as well because it prevents rank boosting and provides the lower skilled players with a chance to win the game. While League of Legends is a team-based game, the ranked system is not and that is the primary flaw. The reason I say it is not is because there is something about you being placed with four strangers and trying to work cooperatively that just does not go well. I know that there is Ranked 5's but you do not always have five friends to play with and Ranked 5's is extremely competitive because every player has a role to play for the team where in Solo Queue it is kind of fending for yourself, and hoping the rest of your team does not feed. The reason I bring up this argument is because I believe there are Diamond level players, stuck in the gold tier. There are also gold level players in Diamond. That should not happen, and should never happen in a competitive game. Your own ranked should not be restricted just because you have an unlucky streak, and you should not be much above where you are supposed to be just because you got lucky and get carried every game.

A system needs to be in place that calculates the individual performance level of every player in the game. Playing your placement matches and getting four games in a row where a team member goes AFK, should not doom you to Bronze where it is extremely difficult to carry yourself out of even though you know you play at a Gold level. The community has too much influence on the individual rank and the problem is not everybody in the community is going to help you, often they will help the enemy team and rage and flame and be verbally abusive. This is not the most outstanding community and when you have to rely on four strangers for what rank you get, it makes the game less enjoyable. To fix this issue I am going to propose two things. Number One: No more solo queue. You should be able to queue up in ranked with four of your friends and play. This way you do not have to rely on strangers and you have some help with your team and can play with friends. This means that you can solo queue or play with up to four other friends and anything in between. You can have one random on your team etc. This should be separate from Ranked 5's because Ranked 5's is a much more competitive scene and is meant for teams, this ranked system will not be your friends who are a team but just so you play with somebody you know. Number Two: To balance out the first one and prevent a couple of diamonds to carry their bronze friends, add an individual ranking system. This means that if a group of 5 friends plays all of their placement matches together, they should not all be placed in the same rank, because it is very likely they did not all play at the same level. This also means that even if you lose a game, you can still gain LP from that loss. LP should be given for individual performance rather than a win or a loss, and Rank UP between tiers should be given based on getting two positive LP games, rather than two wins. So take a gain of LP as a win and a loss of LP as a loss. Now I know an individual ranking system is hard with league but I believe it can be done, and I believe it needs to be done.

In short, the game needs to be thought of and taken care of like it is a competitive game. Every champion should be well-thought out not in terms of design and artwork, but by what they will do and how they will effect the game. Every patch should be the same way and players should be individually judged based on their performance in Solo Queue.

Please let me know what you think of my ideas. Thank you for your time, and I hope I could bring a new point-of-view to the table for you guys.

Sincerely,

Austin "Sir Frone" Valenti Top Gold III