Boards›Gameplay

Is avoiding ranked play the worst thing I can be doing for myself?

Cale017··1 votes·1,335 views

So I started playing early-ish during season 3, mainly more as a way of having something to talk about with my friends when I found out that several of them were into League. I'm part of the RP community on Facebook, and so there are very few ways to have bonding experiences outside of writing or chat messages. I was never too big on RTS games, but they managed to sell me on League so I installed it, made my account, and got to business.

No one needs to be told how awful the climb to 30 was. Once I hit around 18 or so I had picked up a second job, and between that and feeling like I wasn't progressing in my skills anyways I stopped playing for quite some time. Came back near the end of Season 3, broke level 20 and started feeling like I understood what was going on. Finished getting to 30 earlier this year, and decided to hold off on ranked play. I wasn't sure if I was really good and ready for it, I felt like I needed more rune pages, and I needed to deepen my champion pools.

Over time I got recruited, by those same friends who got me into League, for a team. The team that's currently got me labeled as a Bronze V player from a cursory glance. At first I was a sub top laner, but when they needed a jungler I committed myself to learning the role and found my calling. This gave me a whole new pool of champions to try and learn, and so I put off trying to do ranked play again.

Eventually I hit the point months ago where I felt confident. I had a few champs that I could usually do consistently well with, and a few that I knew I could probably use some work on but with solid teammates could still pull off some great plays. My then girlfriend was a gold player, and her entire family were diamonds and platinums, and they all spoke pretty highly of my skills as a player, even if they pointed out things that I did that were painfully "silver, gold at best." Honestly more than I was expecting.

I had heard about the stress that ranked play can give. How rigidly people stick to the meta, and how one mistake can ruin an entire match. I had seen firsthand how awful the community can be to players just based on their rank, and even now I still have people who try to say my opinion on a subject isn't valid on the boards because I'm listed as Bronze V from the team I joined. I even listened to my ex have a breakdown over skype when her family constantly grilling her for only being a gold when they were all diamonds or platinums pushed her a bit too far.

I was a bit worried about trying to handle ranked while at a rough time in my own life, and put it off for as long as I could. But then I caved and decided that it was time to try my hand at it. I dove into ranked... and it didn't end well. Lag ripped me to shreds on the only match I managed to do well personally, ruining my wonderful performance with Shyvana in the middle of a teamfights pretty consistently. Another match was plagued with afkers. The other two were just... awful. Just plain bad.

To give some reference, in one of the two matches, wherein I was playing as Nocturne (probably my strongest main) I have a Cho'Gath top. Not a bad choice, the enemy was a caster so he was able to have an alright laning phase. But before long he starts giving up kills, and I notice that the guy's building pure AP. Hasn't touched a tank stat outside of a Rod of Ages. Said Cho'Gath would also Feast objectives and allchat about how shitty I was for missing Smite, and turned himself into a buff delivery system for the enemy team.

And that was the match that almost went well by comparison.

After those four provisionals I just dropped the idea of ranked completely. Between most of my friends complaining about how they were somehow being lumped with Bronze players when most of them are silver or gold, a few diamonds, and how disheartened I felt at my own inability to either carry on my own or to get my team to communicate well enough to turn tides no matter how much I tried, I gave up on finishing my provisionals. I was terrified that I might end up being stuck in Bronze no matter how well I did personally, because no one seemed to know whether your personal score or the amount of wins you got weighed in more.

If I didn't have the greatest KDA but managed to grab turret after turret by splitpushing, would I still look like a bad player by the numbers?

If I went 22/4/19 with 9001 CS but lost the match because I couldn't get my team to follow up on anything or group up, would my MMR drop as a result?

Ever since then I've been avoiding ranked play, but more and more it seems like being unranked is hurting me more than it's helping. I've taken to trying to learn new champions to fill in my time, but with work and trying to get back into college I never have more than a few games' worth of time in my offtime, and on days I work I usually don't want to play League before, as it could sour my mood before the day has started, and most days I don't feel like playing afterwards.

I'm not a fan of being measured as a person within the bounds of the community based on a colored emblem on my profile, but that seems to be the only way to get people to even listen to what you say, if they can keep themselves from condescending. Being unranked has been my shield against people who try to measure me as a player based on KDAs or rank, because it leaves it up to a more ambiguous sense because there's no certainty of how I am on an individual level, but more and more it seems like an excuse.

You all know how bad the community can be out there. I don't have to go into great detail about the AFKers or the DCs, about feeding teammates or thrown teamfights. What I'm wondering is if committing to ranked play, just to see where I land and where I can climb to, can pull me out of the hole I seem to have fallen into of terrible teammates? At this point I don't even play solo queue if I can avoid it because it seems like I can't trust any teammates outside of the one in a million gem of humanity who actually communicates during a match and has situational awareness beyond half of their vision range. If I finish my provisionals and end up as a silver, or Shenron be praised, a gold player, will I be able to start playing with people that will allow me to enjoy the game a bit more, not having to be worried about the skill levels, or lack thereof, of the people I go into a match with?

I want to enjoy this game again, especially with fun champions like Gnar and Rek'Sai releasing, champions I enjoy playing just for what they are even if I'm doing less than stellar, and I still have champions like Shyvana, Nocturne, or Rammus that I fall back on if I just need to take a few shots, not care about my score, and play Sonic X's theme as loud as I can while Qing into teamfights. But it's harder and harder to feel compelled to play given the people I seem to get matched up with when I do.

Am I only finding these sorts of people because I haven't ever wanted to deal with rank, so League's matchmaking is putting me in with the bottom of the barrel? Will climbing up a rank or two help me to play with people who aren't completely oblivious?

23 Comments

Eve The Ripper6 votes

Ranked is honestly not worth the stress, especially not between seasons. If you just stick to a normal queue, it won't matter what your ranked stats look like in terms of who you get matched with.

Cale0171 votes

But I find it harder and harder to have fun in normal queues based on the people that I'm playing with or against. Always seem to be on a team with other unranked, or low level Bronze, players against teams of Golds. Playing losing matches feels like wastes of my time, you know?

The Chin1 votes

{quoted} But I find it harder and harder to have fun in normal queues based on the people that I'm playing with or against. Always seem to be on a team with other unranked, or low level Bronze, players against teams of Golds. Playing losing matches feels like wastes of my time, you know?

Another benefit of playing ranked is you only play with people who are roughly your rank. It's super common to have bronze people and diamonds in the same game when you're just playing normals.

In ranked it's a more even playing field.

Cale0171 votes

So if I am not, in fact, Bronze trash then I should be able to safely stomp out laners or counter jungle with impunity, and climb my way to where I'm not dealing with the bottom of the bucket?

Not bragging about any supposed skill on my part, mind you. Just a best case scenario.

The Chin1 votes

{quoted} So if I am not, in fact, Bronze trash then I should be able to safely stomp out laners or counter jungle with impunity, and climb my way to where I'm not dealing with the bottom of the bucket?

Not bragging about any supposed skill on my part, mind you. Just a best case scenario.

I was placed in bronze 2 when I started playing ranked and I easily climbed to silver... I wasn't even that good back then TBH. So don't worry about your provisionals, if you get really unlucky with AFK's and get placed in bronze it's not a big deal. It's very very easy to carry a bronze game.

Cale0171 votes

I hope it is. Luckily I have the next two days off so I might order some takeout and just burn through the provisionals. Unless I should wait for season 5 to start? I don't want to climb out of Bronze and then get reset lol

The Chin1 votes

{quoted} I hope it is. Luckily I have the next two days off so I might order some takeout and just burn through the provisionals. Unless I should wait for season 5 to start? I don't want to climb out of Bronze and then get reset lol

May as well do em now, good for practice if anything.

Cale0171 votes

I actually went and tried it just now, lost both matches I attempted.

The first our Lee Sin never even loaded, after he bitched at me about wanting to jungle until I agreed to mid and gave him jungle. I even got a headstart on the enemy Viktor as Vel'Koz, until Pantheon realized we didn't have a jungler and started traipsing around turret diving. Then Janna leaves and there's nothing I can do.

Second game was thrown entirely by an ADC who picked Vayne into the enemy's Corki and proceeded to stand in front of tanks, put himself in the worst possible positions given that they had an Amumu jungle who was already fed, meanwhile repeating that he was playing for fun even while the team was informing him that ranked is for competition, not just for fun, and my Akali didn't know the meaning of the words "burst damage" while Nasus was allowed by my top Shyvana to free farm his stacks.

If these are the type of people my MMR thinks I need to be playing with I have no hope.

The Chin1 votes

{quoted} I actually went and tried it just now, lost both matches I attempted.

The first our Lee Sin never even loaded, after he bitched at me about wanting to jungle until I agreed to mid and gave him jungle. I even got a headstart on the enemy Viktor as Vel'Koz, until Pantheon realized we didn't have a jungler and started traipsing around turret diving. Then Janna leaves and there's nothing I can do.

Second game was thrown entirely by an ADC who picked Vayne into the enemy's Corki and proceeded to stand in front of tanks, put himself in the worst possible positions given that they had an Amumu jungle who was already fed, meanwhile repeating that he was playing for fun even while the team was informing him that ranked is for competition, not just for fun, and my Akali didn't know the meaning of the words "burst damage" while Nasus was allowed by my top Shyvana to free farm his stacks.

If these are the type of people my MMR thinks I need to be playing with I have no hope.

There's kind of a provisional curse where you get more AFK's than normal. I dunno, it's par for the course. Try not to let it bother you.

Cale0171 votes

How does it weight your score when it comes to calculating your rank at the end? Is it by wins or personal performance?

The Chin1 votes

{quoted} How does it weight your score when it comes to calculating your rank at the end? Is it by wins or personal performance?

it's mostly based on wins, but it also takes into account the rank of the people you won against/lost against, so two different people going 7-3 in provisionals might get placed in different divisions.

vscAloha1 votes

"Playing losing matches feels like wastes of my time, you know"

I understand this completely, but I'll enlighten you early (I came to this realization on my own a couple weeks ago, been playing since mid-S2).

You're going to lose about half your games. Oh, and Ranked isn't as dependent on winrate as you think.

The mindset you need to establish for yourself is to have fun 100% of the time anyway. Losing games are far and away the best, most surefire way to improve your play (not increase your winrate, your play). Look for opportunities to have fun in losing games. i.e., as Braum, building Righteous Glory and just diving headfirst into the enemy team (They just scattered, it was hilarious).

Though having fun is the main goal here, set objectives for yourself while doing so. Say you, the 0/4/0 Ziggs, sees the enemy 2/2/3 Ezreal pushing bot lane to try to take your 2nd tier tower, go try to stop him, sure. Try to predict his blink with Satchel for maximum fun, sure. But your objectives (which should always make your "fun" both informative and actually enjoyable) should always be to improve your play in some way i.e., dancing around him, dodging all skillshots, predicting his own movements, managing your position so that you can poke him while giving yourself enough time to move out of the way of his skillshots and trade back, being unpredictable.

All of the aforementioned goals are mechanical goals. THOSE are mechanics in League of Legends. THOSE should be your goals. Fun should be first, but playing to learn should be playing to have fun.

All in all, remember that you're not going to win about half of your games, Riot tries to maintain a constant approximation of a 50% winrate for all champions. Statistically speaking, this makes it really hard for you to win every game. So why try? Playing better boosts ELO, in all honestly, more than purely winning, even though that's where you see the ELO gain. Last, but CertainlyT :^) not least, look for opportunities to have fun in losing games, but also set mechanical or even just benchmarks for yourself while you do so, so that you improve all areas of play, even while in a seemingly hopeless game.

Good luck, happy to play with you sometime.

Cale0171 votes

I completely understand what you're getting at here, but as a competitive person with only so much time during the day, those two bits compound to where if I'm not winning, it's hard to find any fun in a game. I get frustrated when I become helpless to change the outcome of a match, and there's no further fun to be had for me at that point. A match that I lose, but that I was just on the defensive for, is one thing. Playing a match where I just get my teeth kicked in, whether by my own fault or, more likely, the fault of a teammate who refused to communicate or AFKd.

And that brings up another question. If you win about as many games as you lose, and there's only so much one person can do to influence that with 9 other players and upwards of sixty minions on the map at one time all targeting different things, how are you supposed to keep rising through the ranks? From what I've seen you can win three matches, lose one, and lose more LP than you gained in the three wins.

It seems like somewhat of a flawed "ranking" system when an unlucky hand can send you spiraling back down. I have no problem with grinding for levels, or benefits, or special other things in games. But there's a difference between grinding and rolling a dice.

The Chin2 votes

Ok here's my thoughts on ranked - it's extremely satisfying and fun when you're winning, but also more terrible when you're losing... But if you're the type of person that can roll with the punches, take the good with the bad, then losses really aren't that bad. And again, way more satisfying to win a ranked match.

And all the games where your team loses because of AFK's and trolls will be balanced out by the times your team wins because of the AFK's and trolls on the other team. Unfortunately games like that can't be avoided, but statistically they'll cancel each other out so it won't affect your rank in the long run.

The last thing is playing ranked will make you a better player. People are playing their best champs in each role, they're not going to give up nearly as easily as a normal game, and by playing with people like that it'll force you to improve.

Cale0171 votes

Hm... I do like the sound of being forced to improve. I've been finding it harder to feel as though my skills with the game are getting any better as it is. Like I've been put in as many situations as I can grow from, and at this point I'm just either being completely outplayed or have teammates that are dropping enough balls to make a gym teacher faint.

Eternal Zen1 votes

Mmmm not sure how to explain this properly. Axel is right ranked does force you to improve but it's not in a bad way. It can be a little stressful at first but human nature is to rise to the challenge and figure out why you failed and what you can do better. I didn't start playing ranked until about two years into playing league and I thought I was pretty decent when I first started. A month/two months into playing ranked I was twice as good as I was the previous two years. It's actually pretty amazing how fast you learn when the game matters. The things I learned in ranked were what roles have the strongest affect on the game, what roles I specifically did best in most consistently, what champions I was most consistent with, and everyone will yell at me for this but ranked also taught me how important wards are. Ranked is the first time I blatantly saw the value of warding and how much of a difference it made in ability to win games. In normals I don't think its as obvious but I do see it now that I've played ranked even there. Honestly I personally like ranked a lot more. Sure my opponents are a little harder, well actually again they are just more consistent but are usually at my skill level (which makes me confident that I can beat them), but the victory is much more satisfying.

When playing a normal game I honestly don't care for the most part. Sure I'd like to win but it's too much work because no one else cares most of the time. In ranked your teammates try, they pay attention to the minimap, they ward, they come to your assisstance when you're in trouble, they push the lane when there is 4 on opposite side of the map. Your teammates are relevant and helpful in ranked. In normals I expect nothing of my teammates. Playing ranked games is much more satisfying to me, the quality in all aspects is greater. The only exception to this is people can get a little more angry when people mess up, but people mess up less often. In general though on average I think people rage less in ranked than in normals ironically. I know that's counter intuitive but my theory is that around gold and above people start to understand that raging only hurts your ability to win. So I started silver and worked to gold. S5 I will try to work to platinum.

(I would recommend playing ranked)

Kuroi861 votes

Can't really say I've a high opinion of ranked play. All through provisional I was cursed with trolls and afkers. The only matches that I won were due to the trolls and afks being on the opposite team, any other time, they were on my own. It never seems to matter how I do in lane, at the end of the match, we lose. Was at the time, I was a top lane main, bruisers and tanks. Guess who often caught a lot of flack because we lost team fights? Didn't matter if I set my team up for a perfect engage. Didn't matter if I peeled for the ADC til I was going 1v3 and fell while the ADC is plinking away and doing no damage. It was still my fault. Between the trolls. The AFKs. The ragers. The elites who do no wrong. I quickly got sick of it.
I've hated ranked play ever since.

The Chin1 votes

{quoted} Can't really say I've a high opinion of ranked play. All through provisional I was cursed with trolls and afkers. The only matches that I won were due to the trolls and afks being on the opposite team, any other time, they were on my own. It never seems to matter how I do in lane, at the end of the match, we lose. Was at the time, I was a top lane main, bruisers and tanks. Guess who often caught a lot of flack because we lost team fights? Didn't matter if I set my team up for a perfect engage. Didn't matter if I peeled for the ADC til I was going 1v3 and fell while the ADC is plinking away and doing no damage. It was still my fault. Between the trolls. The AFKs. The ragers. The elites who do no wrong. I quickly got sick of it.
I've hated ranked play ever since.

Stuff like this happens, don't let it get to you. At the end of the day it's just a game.

Kuroi861 votes

Stuff like this happens, don't let it get to you. At the end of the day it's just a game.

I know, you're right. It's not easy though when I can go a full day of ranked and one thing after another ends up costing me a match no matter if I do well or poorly. I'm trying to improve my mechanics, my vision awareness, my coverage, my team work. But it feels like a waste when a "Vayne Main" can go 0/6 in lane and complains about the entire team. I've come to find the mute button as my only friend in league. =/ That really sucks.

The Chin1 votes

{quoted} I know, you're right. It's not easy though when I can go a full day of ranked and one thing after another ends up costing me a match no matter if I do well or poorly. I'm trying to improve my mechanics, my vision awareness, my coverage, my team work. But it feels like a waste when a "Vayne Main" can go 0/6 in lane and complains about the entire team. I've come to find the mute button as my only friend in league. =/ That really sucks.

Yeah, I know dat feeling. It's really frustrating to lose games like that, especially when it happens a bunch of times in a row... I had a pretty disastrous 13 game losing streak once, I honestly had 10 games in a row where I had either AFK's, trolls, or teammates that fed so hard that it was just impossible to win, after that I was kinda broken down and just played like shit. Had to take a break from ranked for quite a while. I played a bunch of normal games and played with friends a lot and eventually I got my groove back.

Now if I'm ever in a slump, first of all I take a break from the game - then I like to go really tryhard in a few normal games until I feel like a god. Seems to be the best anti-tilt solution for me :)

I think part of what makes a good player is being able to manage your emotional state

Stars Shaper1 votes

From a guy who tried to learn each role he liked to and as many champions as I liked int erms of lore/gameplay I can assure you that Ranked enviroment is just more stress and less accomplishment.

The Matchmaking ranking and the single player performance are screwed up and the fact that a single guy in your team that has decided to troll/lose/afk/etc decides the game outcome just make this more painful.

Enjoy the Normal enviroment, I also ended up playing just Team Builder becuase I want to play X champion and not others.

And now I think I'll just close myself into ARAM because of the low quality of community this game has.

SeCKS Egai1 votes

Border only goes so far. My last ranked game the guy with the gold border made typical bronze look good - that's hard to do.

You aren't as competitive as you think - if you were really competitive, you'd focus more on taking steps to improve as an individual regardless of your rating instead of constantly worrying about your rating.

If winning is necessary to your fun in your small windows of gameplay - just play co-op where you rarely have someone rage and the win is nearly guaranteed (aside from certain playerbot infested modes).

I've seen folks outrank me that didn't deserve it and I've seen people below me outplay me - if you focus too much on rating you stress yourself out. Typical trolls generally start out as players that want to win but weren't nearly as good as they think they are so have given up and intentionally lose to write off their poor performances.

If losing takes the fun out of it you're pretty much stuck with avoiding pvp - you can't pvp and expect to rarely lose. Even the best players eventually end up playing against the rest of the best. The worst players eventually bottom out to be with the worst. All the while, you're bound to eat losses in pvp, whether you play poorly or teammates do, or the enemy team plays better period.

Cale0171 votes

Border only goes so far in game, but it seems to be the first thing people will judge you on outside of one.

I am constantly trying to improve, which is why I take even normal matches seriously. But there's a limit to how much a person can improve their own gameplay when they're also in a situation where one or two teammates are either entirely gone, or just plain playing wrong. Like someone still trying to run AP Yi.

Co-op no one seems to even attempt to hold to the meta, and people bitch incessantly about who's going to what lane, usually with champs that have no place being there, and even if there IS a jungler, or if I can be one preferably, leashes are few and far between. I've tried it a few times and found it a worse environment for practice than player matches.

Then I can't help but wonder why the community places so much weight on rank when it isn't even the most accurate depiction of a player's skills. Boosted accounts exist, as do smurfs, and people can be carried up through at the very least gold.

I don't have a problem with losing when it's a situation where the match is constantly going back and forth, and one wrong move loses it. There was a mistake, a misplaced flash or ult, that lost a teamfight and thereby the game. But in a situation where they're taking inner turrets at minute 18 while the Xin Xiao support is afk farming in my jungle, I'm not all too keen to continue playing an obviously losing match if you see where I'm coming from.

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 Cale017

First impressions on Rek'Sai
Gameplay107 comments
67
votes
#junglestruggle
Gameplay47 comments
33
votes
From One Jungler to Another.
Tips & Tricks29 comments
32
votes
A simple suggestion for tanks.
Gameplay19 comments
31
votes
Zac needs some help
Gameplay8 comments
23
votes
A fun idea for Zac.
Gameplay6 comments
7
votes