The Ranked System, And How to Fix it

Disclaimer: this may seem like a rant of some idiot that has lost many games and is now on tilt. I can assure you that i am in a peaceful state of mind, and that this idea has been on my mind for a while. Im doing this now, after several lost games because i know how to get off tilt (stop playing).

Down to the main point: We all have a Love/Hate relationship with our Ranked system (at least for the majority of us who use it); but why is that? Most of us will respond with something like "my team's shit, i't not in my right ELO, everyone's putting me on tilt with their shit plays" Yet we still desire the competitive urge that one day, if we win enough, we'll be somewhere that we can put our name on proudly.

Now if you got to this part and thought i was gonna say some bullshit like "ELO hell doesn't exist, it's your fault for the ranking that you have...", then you obviously think of me as just a ranting retard that has no point to his discussion other then just give-off some steam. As most of those idiots have simply never felt the struggle of being in an ELO where you're being kept down because of the inequality of the teams. Yes, some of them do not have their desired ELO hell, they're just that amazing at this game after years and years of practice where they simply can handle everything. It also may help that people might not want to troll the if they see a streamer/youtuber that they know (cause everyone wants to look good on camera). On the flip side of this, there are people like Faker that can be in Korea's Challenger rank and still think his team's are undeserving.

Personal Experience time, if you're not interested in what prompted this idea, then skip down to the part with the largest Gap:

In a personal experience, i was dropped off in bronze 5 at the start of my ranked carrier (season 4). Though it did at first take a tough blow to my ego, i knew that i (along with my brother who was also that rank) didn't belong all of these other trolls/ragers/afk's/feeders/ect...

506 Games

That's how long it took for me to pull myself to silver 5. Initial reaction: "yeah, **** that, i'm out of ELO hell" Little did i know, silver was the basic dumping ground of the bronze players who bought accounts/ people who simply didn't give a shit about ranked and took it casually.

500/+ Games Later

Made it to gold, i was excited cause i was finally gonna get the seasonal rewards! Then i saw the team's and i still wasn't satisfied because they (like the teams in bronze/silver) kept holding you back I made it to gold 1 before the season ended, yet i still felt like i deserved better (my teammates should be carrying me = me carrying my teammates).

Season 5 began, and i worked my way up to plat; Hardest climb of my life Not because their team was good, it was because my team was shit

Finally, i completed my mission of getting bronze to diamond - i survived the climb and made it to most league player's dream ELO It ****ing Sucks up here

After loosing a couple of games today, and falling back into Diamond 5 (i'll make it back, dw) the ironic name of 'Solo Queue' just made me laugh; cause it never was. It never was solo I was always at the digression of my fellow league players, and if their performance deemed that i could not win the game (almost always disregarding whatever your efforts were) then we would simply never win.

I understand that there're some people out there, that will just pick Trynd top, and carry themselves from bronze-diamond in 2 months where i took 2 seasons (not full seasons). However, i know that i am not as good as them (for now) and the fact that they can achieve such an amazing task does not reflect how impossible it is for the rest of us.

What i mean by this: Yes, there are people who can easily go and do a 'bronze-challenger in X weeks' kind of deal (as many streamers do from time to time). While this is impressive, and takes loads of skill and practice on their part (besides BoxBox's riven only streams, that's just a bullshit champ doing work) you do not see many people in diamond doing bronze-diamond challenges in the same number of weeks as the people who do bronze-challanger. The underlying issue with the system, is that people cannot achieve their desired ranking in even a remotely relatable amount of time, even if they're doing the same number of games a day.

What the ranked system should be: The ranked system should be a system where it's possible for EVERYONE to achieve the DESERVED rankings in a matter of weeks time What i mean by this: 2 people, starting at bronze 5, should be able to ascend in ELO at the same pace to where they can achieve the ranking they deserved based on repeating performances. Say the 2 people are not meant to be in the same ELO (person 1 is worst then person 2) By starting at bronze 5, if person 1's deserved ELO's diamond and person 2's deserved ELO's Master's, then they should be able to (assuming that they have the same # of games with a record that shows person 2's far better then person 1) get to their deserved rankings in a matter of weeks, with a few days gap in-between for person 2 to close the gap between diamond and master's.

If the league system is changed to this, more fitting for personal achievement ranked system, what would that mean?

It would mean that your games in ranked would be worth much more.

A person's desired ELO should be a place where they have a roughly equivalent win/loss ratio, and they are the underlying cause for their team's loss 1 out of every 10 games played.

For someone to get to that rank at the same time as someone else (assuming that they both start at the same point and deserve the same rank) the matches should be worth more/less matches that you have. So that say person 1 gets to diamond in 5 days by playing 3 games a day (and remembering that the 2 people have the same deserved ELO) then person 2 who plays for 10 days, and 5 times a day might be in diamond 3 and has reached his deserved ELO (also assuming that they both start at bronze 5 together, and that person 1 still has to climb a little)

Having the games count for more will make the first few games go much farther in deciding where you belong, and consistency in future games will fine-tune where you should be. This should sound much like the current league ranked system, but the first few matches will count for more then the placement matches, and there will be more of them.

Person reading this - "Before you said that your wins were at the digression of your team, and if they held you down then you'd probably still loose. And also the irony of it being named 'solo queue'" Good note peasant, however i have thought of a way to solve that issue; Make personal efforts count

If a Rioter ever reads this, they'll probably shoot it down for the reason "League is a team game, you must win as a team or be defeated as a team, you cannot be rated by yourself in a team game." Sir, if you could be so kind as to please break your keyboard for me; as you do not deserve the right to speak/type. Yes, the theory that you should win/loose as a team would be important, however we can still determine your ranking if we also look into your personal performance.

If your team wins, you will gain, if your team looses, you wont gain and will most likely loose some. And here comes in my idea of 'Personal Performance'

For each win/loss, you will win/loose ONLY 10 LP The rest should be determined by how you played your champion/role that game. Say that i took Sona support, there should be a criteria that i need to go through to reach the maximum LP i could gain if i win. An example of this could be: Dont AFK Dont Rage Be kind Ward the map Heal the carry Land the ulti Dont get reported Dont leave your lane without carry's consent

In an ideal world where this all works, at the end of the game (should you win) you will gain the flat 10LP and: Dont AFK + Dont Rage + Be Kind + Ward the Map + Land the ulti - Dont get reported - Dont leave land without carry's consent +

For every + that you obtained, you'd get +2 LP at the end For every - that you received, you'd would miss out opportunities to obtain that bouns LP 2X5=10, + 10 flat LP, you would gain 20 LP for that win, thanks to your effort

On the flip side should you loose, you'd still loose 10 flat LP Should you pick Draven the criteria might be; Catch axes Get CS Get kills Land Ulti Interrupt dash/channel with E Saving support/someone on team with heal Dont be picked

At the end of the game, since you lost you'd loose 10LP immediately. But if you played well, and did most of the criteria like this: Catch axes + Get Kills - Land Ulti + Interrupt Dash/Channel with E + Save support/someone on team with heal + Dont get picked - 2X2=4, +10 that you'd loose automatically, you'd loose 14 LP total instead of a potential 22 LP

How reports should be factored in:

Ok, Rioter-should-you ever-read-this, PLEASE make some form of punishment under 'unskilled player' They dont deserve to just be running around in ranked causing losses because they wanted to try out zed for the first time.

Now that i've gotten that out of the way, let's move onto something more serious. Reports are important, while you can be graded by the criteria that Riot has set in place, Reports could let the system know how they're doing in grading us from the perspective of another player. For example, if someone's doing great, winning games, doing the criteria, and not getting reported, then the system's working fine. On the flip side, if someone's doing great in the criteria, and they're being reported for harassment, unskilled, intentional feeding, ect... then the system could be adjusted (assuming that seeing players like that becomes a frequent occurrence) so that we have a healthy community to those who deserve it, and a toxic one to those who deserve it.

However, things like Negative Attitude, Verbal Harassment, and other things witch are not necessarily related to their performance in game should have less an effect then the ones that do tell about how people performed in game. like unskilled, intentionally feeding, ect. People reported for verbal abuse, should just be chat banned instead of giving serious consideration to the ranked system's ability to rate people properly; and in turn should not be banned/banned from ranked. If you'd like to fix someone who's being toxic, just slowly windle down the amount of times he'd be allowed to speak in game from 5 to 4, to 3, and onwards. That way they're at a disadvantage to the enemy team, witch is fair considering that they may not always be playing like shit, and can compensate.

Yes, Rioter-who-may-have-read-this-far, you can ignore this, but it'd be a poor move on your behalf. Many times, when players feel misjudged by their ranking, they fall into normals out of the fact that they dont care for the ranking they were mistakenly given. However, for those of us who have a natural competitive drive, normals just doesn't quite cut-it, as the lack of giving a shit in normals of most people is nerve-racking and computer-equipment breaking. I tried to go back to normals, i lasted 2 weeks before i broke my headset (witch was after the mouse, witch was after the stressball) all simply because i couldn't take the casual normals player's lack of desire to win. Quite frankly, it's painful, and i considered other MOBA's like Smite and Dota2 again before coming back. Please just fix the ranked system by doing this and let us exist in our own competitive universe.

I believe that if Riot implemented this and worked on using this system instead of the system they're using right now to rate people, there would be a lot less complaints, a lot less reports, and an overall better environment for players, competitive/casual. If you would like to see this type of ELO heaven, then please show this off to your friends, and gain some support. If you have ideas, then please drop them in the comments below.

-Aetheran Slayer