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How LoL is pushing me away from my friend.

bvcderrttyyhjjjk·3/17/2016, 9:43:32 AM·3 votes·703 views

LoL is encouraging me NOT to play with my friend. Let me explain how.

I started playing LoL more than two years ago now, as a fun free to play game that me and my friend could enjoy together. We played almost every day for all this time, even after I moved very far from my home town to attend college, which I am doing right now, and lost all contacts with him except our LoL games. However, near the end of 2015, we got into a few arguments and we took a break from playing together. I feel sometimes going back to the basics for a couple weeks makes me a better player.

I finished last season in Gold and he finished in high silver, and I argue that we didn't practice enough and make good strategy and couldn't get to Plat as a result, which I wanted, as I could play in full high plat lobbies in normals. So we took a couple months break from the game.

A few days ago we started playing together again, because we were both climbing through silver with an almost 70% winrate, and we felt pretty confident we could get back to playing duo with the new queue and have fun, because after all we are, well, friends.

We tried playing 4 normals that day, and the results shocked us. We would normally win approx 70% of our matches, both of us, and we lost 4 games in a row instead. After playing solo for a couple of months it was unbelievably evident that we were getting a massive penalty for playing as a premade duo.

The remaining three teammates we are matched with are constantly feeding and also being quite toxic; the enemy team is instead much stronger than usual. We end up doing just fine like we normally would, but struggle massively with uncooperative and feeding teammates.

I was aware that the matchmaking tried to "compensate for the strategic advantage of being premades", but after playing solo for a couple of months, it just showed me to what extent, and holy crap...

We had to agree not to play LoL together anymore. We won't be playing the game together anymore because it puts us to a massive disadvantage. We agreed that playing together, although more fun, is detremental to our chances to climb the ladder and improve as players... it is built into the system. We understood that our arguments about dragging each other down were non-existent. It always was the matchmaking, not our performance, giving us that disadvantage.

I just want to say that this is not a good thing. LoL is supposed to be a teamwork game, and it actively handicaps duo players.

Riot, if you care about the player experience you should make a TRUE SOLOQ, where only single players can play. And then let dynamic queue exist without penalizing DUOs so much, because it really is a HUGE penalty, compared to the advantage you get. It just makes the game less fun and a more grindy, solitary experience unless you have a 5 premade.

PLEASE do address this. While I don't expect you to care for my personal experience and for the fact that this ruined my only means of maintaining a contact with my old friend, you are potentially ruining the experience for so many other people, who may get tired of your game and move on.

3 Comments

CrimsonCobra33/17/2016, 11:16:04 AM2 votes

Oh wow. I haven't played ranked much. At all. But I almost exclusively play with friends, so I completely understand. Personally, I would advocate for no penalties against duos or premade comps, but that's clearly not the popular opinion, and not necessarily the 'fair' one. However, I have found playing League without friends is maybe 1/4 of the fun, so I would never want to penalize players for choosing the most fun option in game. It is, after all, a game.

SkyblazeHydraX33/17/2016, 10:02:56 AM1 votes

I sympathize with you, I really do. Keeping contact with an old friend is a very touching and understandable sentiment.

But if I have to be perfectly honest... this is why you play normals. If you hadn't played with him in forever, you should take the opportunity to play unranked matches. Learn how to play as a duo again, without the stressors or penalties of ranked.

Alternatively, pick up e-mail, skype, or alternative means of keeping in contact. In this day and age there are an innumerable number of means to maintain long-distance contact, all viable through having the same computer and net access League requires.

Regardless of what you choose to do, I wish you the best of luck. A friendship, especially a long-lasting one, is a terrible thing to lose. I hope you can maintain or regain that connection.

PrometheS3/17/2016, 10:23:32 AM1 votes

A duo+ can potentially have a devastating advantage with voice comms., pre-planned strategies/comps etc. so it's natural you'd get a penalty. The way you deal with it is by improving your teamwork.

Although, tbh, I don't feel like duo holds me back much if at all even when communication is no better than solo. It only starts to get hard when it's a 4-man or 5-man and we don't have voice or any strategies developed.