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Get rid of ELO. Get a TrueSkill system.

SexInTheCivic·7/29/2015, 3:57:31 PM·5 votes·1,826 views

The system of ELO ranking is so broke, especially with 2/3 and 3/5 series matches. You can't control the team you get, and we all have seen games where one player single-handedly will carry his entire team to a win. Why do his teammates deserve as much LP as him? We all have games with trolls where when their pick rolls around and ADC is left open they choose to try and duo mid as if it was their right. If you're not able to carry one or two bad players, as much of a team game as this is, you shouldn't be slammed with a hard LP loss because you didn't want to surrender in a ranked game.

This takes me back to when I used to play Halo 3 all day long, 4 seasons straight. They had a system, which is patented by Microsoft called, the TrueSkill System. In a sense, every game you play, a program takes in how well you do, if you win or lose, the ranks of everyone on your team and compares them with the ranks of the other team. So if you have a team that's really good, let's say a team where everyone is in Gold, versus a team where everyone is in bronze, the bronze team off the bat will not lose as much LP as they would versus another bronze team, and if someone on that bronze team goes 15-0, they might actually gain LP, seeing as how they went against a much harder foe and managed to come out with a good score.

The only reason I can understand the logic behind the current ELO system is that old tiresome argument of, "it's a team game, and if you can't help your team win, you deserve to lose." If someone consistently is playing well, they deserve to rank up.

20 Comments

Sightless667/29/2015, 6:42:30 PM3 votes

So if you have a team that's really good, let's say a team where everyone is in Gold, versus a team where everyone is in bronze, the bronze team off the bat will not lose as much LP as they would versus another bronze team

This is already true. You get more LP playing against higher skilled teams, and less playing against less skilled teams.

if someone on that bronze team goes 15-0, they might actually gain LP, seeing as how they went against a much harder foe and managed to come out with a good score.

Here's the problem with this. Going 15-0 is not the only way you can be playing well in this game. Enabling someone else to play this well. Say I play a tank jungler, and I camp midlane hard in order to get my midlaner fed, while giving up my own farm and levels and leaving myself open to counterjungling and invading by the enemy jungler to do so. My midlaner may get very fed and have a very good score. His good score is based on my actions, but it would be very hard to measure.

A good Leona may be one that initiates fights and gets a pick on the fed enemy carry, but dies in the process of killing him and doesn't get assists on the rest of the enemy team. Her score would be terrible, but her value to her team would be immense. She could easily be the best player on her team by a wide margin. How would a system reward her for these kinds of plays?

That's the problem with these systems. I've never seen a proposal that could accurately measure and reward actions that support the team's chance of winning. They always support one class or role over others. The fair thing about the MMR system is that it doesn't support any given class over other classes. You're rewarded based on whether or not you win and based on the average skill of your opponents. If you're good, you'll win more often and against more skilled opponents. If you aren't good, then you won't. That's fair.

Trueskill worked in Halo because virtually all performance there is individual and easily measured. My KDA is largely independent of my team's actions. I'm minimally reliant on my teammates to make my own performance better. It's very easy to measure the worth of a player in those games because the numerical stats can pretty accurately sum up the worth of a player. "Player X has the best KDA, so player X is the best". That statement usually works in Halo. It doesn't work well in League. You have so many different categories that you have to judge people on that the only way to make this kind of system is by making arbitrary judgments about which categories are more or less important.

If someone consistently is playing well, they deserve to rank up.

If someone is consistently playing well, then they will win more often than they lose. Any individual game may be won or lost due to teammates, but if you play enough, you will win more if you play better.

Kãtãrinã7/29/2015, 4:09:02 PM1 votes

You dont seem to consistently be doing good, as you have a 40% ranked win rate.

Cenobite Azaziel7/29/2015, 4:20:40 PM1 votes

People fail to comprehend what is MMR and that LP is based on the teams MMR. the system that you want is the current system. ELO means nothing.

Kazaashi7/29/2015, 4:42:30 PM1 votes

Ranked isn't meant to determine your individual skill. It never has and never will be. This is a team game. Ranked is meant to test how well you can co-ordinate a team of 5 people to blow up the other teams Nexus before they blow up yours. That is literally all that matters in the game.

AtheosisX7/29/2015, 6:34:27 PM1 votes

I would assume that this would use an algorithm like the mastery score system to determine how well you did. If so, such a system would be as broken as the current system, possibly even moreso. The mastery scoring system is a joke.

KVbqbFsC8e8/1/2015, 8:52:04 AM1 votes

Any system that uses solely wins/losses in a 5v5 game is flawed. According to Riots logic, JJ Watt is a silver player. Hah!

Mathbalnase8/1/2015, 4:30:29 PM1 votes

Teemo prances across the map, spreading shrooms and triggering the dreaded Global Taunt. His enemies, infuriated by the antics of the Satan Squirrel, make it their life's mission to hunt him down and kill him. No matter the cost. Teemo dies. Repeatedly. He gets no kills in the process, and is soon worth so little gold to his murderers that they would be better off spending that time farming cs. Meanwhile, Teemo's allies are pushing top and soon take the inhibitor, the resulting pressure allowing them to push other lanes as well, and soon after, to win the game.

All of Teemo's game stats (K/D/A, c$, damage to enemy champions) are abysmal - he's barely distinguishable from an intentional feeder - but his contribution to his team allowed them to push with virtual impunity. By what metrics does a TrueSkill system fairly analyze Teemo's contribution and adjust his LP gains accordingly?

Koala Frenzy7/29/2015, 4:03:06 PM1 votes

Why should I focus on winning if all I have to do is get a postive KDA and then afk at the fountain?

Nekusen8/1/2015, 8:04:19 PM1 votes

isn't a similar system used to rank you at the end of the match (the S, B+, C, etc.), why not just use that ?