Boards›Gameplay

What's being done about the state of ranked?

Yenn··20 votes·3,581 views

Having been playing on my smurf recently, I've realized that I cannot tell the difference between many Diamond and Gold players. There are players in Gold who could easily pass for Diamond, and there are players in Diamond who are just moving balls of mistakes. This has been getting worse in every consecutive season, and now it's reached a point where queuing for ranked is like rolling dice, no matter how skilled you are.

With the way changes are going, LoL is becoming more of a team game, so one player has little impact over the outcome of the game. This leaves you at the mercy of your weakest team mate. If yours is worse than the enemy's, you just lose, and there's nothing you can do about it.

In seasons 1, 2, and 3, a good player could compensate for one or two bad team mates. This is no longer possible, as a result of both the recent overall changes to how the game plays out and team fights.

If the game is going to keep going in this direction, something needs to be done to fix the problems with skill discrepancies at higher ratings. Under no circumstance should I constantly be in situations where I'm watching a Diamond I team make an obvious huge throw of the game, while I'm helpless to stop it.

When I queue for a ranked game, I shouldn't have to cross my fingers and hope my team mates are up to par.

31 Comments

Yenn8 votes

We were contesting dragon. Leona threw her ult and completely whiffed it. Varus ran in, threw his ult, completely whiffed it as well.

Leona and I backed off. Talon still went in, Janna disengaged him, and then he, Varus, and our Karma jungle kept chasing. Enemy team turned and killed them. Meanwhile, their Riven tried to come from behind and Leona and I caught and killed him.

Afterwards, we say 'Next time, don't engage after whiffing your ults.' Varus declares that Talon and I are useless and leaves the game.

That's right, ranked is in such a bad state that Diamond players will leave the game over anything, ranging from criticism to someone taking a buff they wanted.

Zyrusticae2 votes

It seems to me that a lot of it comes down to the absurd advantage even one early kill can grant a team in terms of snowball potential. That Gold + XP advantage makes it that much more difficult to bounce back after a defeat.

I am personally of the mind that the game's snowball mechanics are badly in need of paring back, such that I made a thread about this problem specifically.

Imagine if scoring a touchdown in Football (or scoring a point in any competitive sport, really) made that player faster, stronger, and overall more of a threat. It'd be completely untenable and result in some absurdly stilted games. By the same token, champion kills are probably weighted far too strongly simply in terms of champion growth potential and probably need to be pared back relative to towers, minions, jungle mobs etc. If they really want "strategic variety" to be a thing they have got to make sure that beating down your opponent in lane isn't the end-all be-all like it is now.

I know it's a sacred cow at this point so changes are highly unlikely but I really think reducing champion kill gold + xp rewards would go a looooong, looooong way to improving the play experience at ALL levels of play.

SmokingPuffin1 votes

I know it's a sacred cow at this point so changes are highly unlikely but I really think reducing champion kill gold + xp rewards would go a looooong, looooong way to improving the play experience at ALL levels of play.

Without snowballing, the game is only about having the strongest late game champions on your team. You can try to make a moba without snowballing but it wouldn't be much like League.

Zyrusticae2 votes

The thing is, that is something that can be changed with numbers tuning. Scaling values are obviously not set in stone and the number of late game champions is quite limited.

Besides, I'd say it's a very worthy goal considering how much healthier it would be for the game as a whole. Once you're behind you have to play several times better than your opponents to regain the upper hand, or else hope for a lucky break somewhere down the line. That's not good for long-term play.

Narasimha5 votes

Hang on, what?

so one player has little impact over the outcome of the game. This leaves you at the mercy of your weakest team mate.

Did... you just contradict yourself in literally the next sentence?

Yenn4 votes

Look at this. This game was over at champion select; these players are at Diamond and don't understand how to pick a balanced team.

  1. No front line
  2. No disengage
  3. No engage
  4. No sustain
  5. Only one (weak) form of hard CC

The enemy can siege at their convenience, and we can't engage on them, nor can we disengage when they decide to dive.

LightET1 votes

Hi there,

I feel your pain, but if I would see that my team would be looking like this in champ select, I would just dodge. Chances of wining are obviously slim.

I op.gg pretty much everyone now. If I see that someone is feeding/having really bad stats every single game, I will just dodge. And when you can't dodge, you just wish for the best I guess :)

Yenn3 votes

Just had a game with first time jungle Twisted Fate. He hadn't even tried it in normals. This is obviously acceptable competitive behavior.

Spacesuit Spiff3 votes

I think if Riot is going to improve this, they need to change the skillfloor in this game in regards to playing while behind. I was recently in a normal where our mid was Master against a Plat, and our top was Silver against a Plat. The Master did fairly well, milked several kills in lane and then roamed... but couldn't carry the toplane that was dying twice as fast as the Master could kill anything. This is a perfect example of the huge difference between one player being better than a competent player, and one player getting fed off an idiot who won't stop trying to all-in at 0/4. This is part of where the mentality "if you lose it's not because the enemy team was good, it's because your team was bad" comes from.

So the game needs to be reworked to make bad players less heavy. If you've got a Master in one lane and a Silver in another, there should be an actual chance of winning that game outside of hoping their enemies are really bad. Maybe a sort of forced interaction with the other lanes, so that if a Riven gets really fed she can't snowball any further without leaving lane and fighting the rest of the team (thus allowing her opponent to get kinda caught up in the meantime). This would make snowballing more about skill relative to the other players, not just whoever comes to lane against you with six fingers up his nose.

FyshinaTux2 votes

Yea, I don't like Ranked anymore either, I just recently hit Gold V (just before the end of season rewards ^_^), and immediately went on like a 10 game losing streak (didn't lose Gold V SOMEHOW). Decided to stop playing ranked once they announced that Decay wouldn't affect Gold anymore because I didn't want to risk having the same scenario as those 10 lost games earlier, "hurr durr look at me I'm Gold V and I'm going to 1v5 as Akali because she's OP in Bronze???"

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that I'm Diamond material, but I AM constantly trying to work and learn and get better so that I can continue to climb.

MrBuffington2 votes

lol, I'd say just give it until ranked resets; things will hopefully sort themselves out after that. The game's pretty chaotic right now

Yenn2 votes

lol, I'd say just give it until ranked resets; things will hopefully sort themselves out after that. The game's pretty chaotic right now

This has been happening since season 3. It's getting worse with every season. It's not going to sort itself out.

http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=4630076

MrBuffington4 votes

Well, what do you think the cause is, and what do you think they should do about it?

I honestly think that players who are drastically underskilled or overskilled for their rank are somewhat rare, and it's possible that some people are just having a bad day or are playing something they're not totally comfortable with (it's possible to grind up to challenger being a one-trick-pony, but what if you force that player onto a role they don't know how to play? Not sure it's fair to say that the player is bad; they at least understand one champion really well, but say you force a ADC main onto jungle; the roles are pretty different, I wouldn't expect a D1 ADC main to play jungle at a D1 level).

There could be a multitude of causes; you're only exposed to that player once (unless you're at super high elo/challenger and are playing with the same people over and over again). Sometimes you have bad games and sometimes you have good ones. If there's an actual problem (like if elo boosting is becoming much more prevalent), I'd expect Riot to take some more aggressive measures (I hear leaver buster is pretty strict right now; I don't know from personal experience, though)

I guess one possible solution is to add a pseudo team-builder to ranked, where you can queue up for a particular role(s) (not champion) so you can have a relatively normal draft phase. The game seems to be getting more and more specialized now; I don't think that this would be a bad thing.

What do you think?

Yenn1 votes

Well, what do you think the cause is, and what do you think they should do about it?

I honestly think that players who are drastically underskilled or overskilled for their rank are somewhat rare, and it's possible that some people are just having a bad day or are playing something they're not totally comfortable with (it's possible to grind up to challenger being a one-trick-pony, but what if you force that player onto a role they don't know how to play? Not sure it's fair to say that the player is bad; they at least understand one champion really well, but say you force a ADC main onto jungle; the roles are pretty different, I wouldn't expect a D1 ADC main to play jungle at a D1 level).

There could be a multitude of causes; you're only exposed to that player once (unless you're at super high elo/challenger and are playing with the same people over and over again). Sometimes you have bad games and sometimes you have good ones. If there's an actual problem (like if elo boosting is becoming much more prevalent), I'd expect Riot to take some more aggressive measures (I hear leaver buster is pretty strict right now; I don't know from personal experience, though)

I guess one possible solution is to add a pseudo team-builder to ranked, where you can queue up for a particular role(s) (not champion) so you can have a relatively normal draft phase. The game seems to be getting more and more specialized now; I don't think that this would be a bad thing.

What do you think?

We're exposed to the same players over and over. You know who's good and who isn't.

For example, I just had a second pick call mid, lock in Fizz, and feed. Why? He hasn't ever played Fizz prior to this ranked game. This player wasn't even trying to win, and they lost the game for the rest of us.

This isn't acceptable behavior and shouldn't be allowed.

Just something to flag bad players would be fine. The same ones play consistently poorly, but it doesn't matter, because solo queue is no longer a contest of skill.

MrBuffington1 votes

There's a report option for "Intentionally Feeding" and one for "Unskilled Player"; I don't know what the state of the Tribunal is at the moment, but wouldn't this solve it?

Yenn3 votes

There's a report option for "Intentionally Feeding" and one for "Unskilled Player"; I don't know what the state of the Tribunal is at the moment, but wouldn't this solve it?

Intentionally feeding in a ranked game should result in an instant ban, no questions asked. That doesn't happen. These players have to consistently intentionally feed, over god knows how many games. Not only that, but they need to be actually intentionally feeding; like 0-20-0. None of these players are intentionally feed; they're just bad, or not trying to win.

The unskilled player report option does nothing. It's for 'statistical purposes.' It also doesn't address the fact that players at higher ratings need to be held to higher standards.

MrBuffington1 votes

I guess that's what needs to be fixed then, lol

Yenn2 votes

Currently at 0 LP, Diamond 5. There isn't a single thing I can do to compensate for a bad player.

WeFlyNoLie2 votes

I've noticed over the past few weeks that when I queue for ranked, it seems to only go one way or another. I either get great communicating teammates who will agree to give everybody their best role, perform well, communicate and coordinate plays in game or I get people who play whatever they feel like, argue, blame others for their faults and just be overall ignorant to the way they act and how they are negatively effecting their performance and their teammate performance.

Lately its just been flipping back and forth for my games. I get good people, then bad, then good, then bad. So in terms of LP, I literally go nowhere. Its like there's no in between or average game. Its either at one end of the spectrum or the other. So yeah, its fun when I get good teammates and I win, but not so much when I get ignorant players and I lose. (Even if I perform well in the laning phase)

I've taken this last season with a grain of salt. To me ranked is a game of luck, you either get lucky or you don't. Your game outcome is decided at champion select depending on your teammates. Your individual performance means nothing if your teammates can't perform at at least a similar level as you in terms of decision making and knowing game mechanics. That said, I was able to climb from Silver IV to Gold III in this past season, but in this preseason with the new game mechanics, the issue has been exacerbated.

Yenn1 votes

The Wukong pictured is pushing the enemy turrets while they take our inhibitors. We were defending as 4 vs. 5. At the time this screenshot was taken, he was 0-9-0 to Riven.

Every other lane played well and won, but Riven basically 1v4'd us.

grappler1 votes

its so messed up at all levels right now I cant stand it. Was on a great run and about to hit silver 2 won a match and got to 99 points and the next game we got the afker that never connected. then the next match we had another one then every game was an afk or someone who seemed to be playing their first game on a friends ranked account. And the lower the rankings the less likely players are to pay attention to pings and chat and the more likely they are to charge into a 3 v 1 at half health. and the downward spiral continues

Kürama1 votes

Yup. And I play mostly normal, I often get matches with Bronze & Silver and sometimes Gold. Before Season 4 ended, these ranked players would usually play hella good, even if we lost, but after Season 4 ended, unranked players are the ones who usually play hella good and win matches with me. Occasionally the ranked players play good now. -_-

I don't know if they just got lucky to get in Gold / Plat / Diamond or got boosted or if they just don't care about playing properly anymore since they're "Gold", "Plat" or "Diamond".

coppinslinger1 votes

Just pick a champion that can kill everyone.

Fiddlesticks Amumu Akali Annie Azir Fiora Katarina Lucian Twitch

I just solved your bad teammate problem.

Yenn1 votes

Currently 2-11 in ranked at Diamond V. I've been Diamond I in every recent season, and Platinum in the seasons before we had divisions.

It doesn't matter how well I play, because I'm completely at the mercy of the weakest player on my team.

GøødLøøkingÄpple1 votes

LoL ranked doesn't have very well MatchMaking

Zen Fury1 votes

People buy accounts, or pay people to boost their accounts. Borders mean almost nothing until you get to maybe mid diamond. In normals it seems a gold border more often than not means bronze level play. I can only imagine how bad it is in ranked.

Demacry1 votes

I've been all up and down the Plat divisions and it's entirely dependent on how high I roll in queue. As an ADC/Supp/Jungle main it doesn't matter how fed I get/get my carry if my Mid/Top laner has been feeding all game and there assassin/fighter can one shot our carry in one skill rotation.

I'm okay with teams being broken by their weakest link in a team game. It's healthier for its development and competitive scene.

We seriously need to have a revamped ranking and queue system though. We don't rank professional athletes based solely on their team's win/loss count and it's stupid to do it with LoL's players. If Riot didn't release a new champ for the next year and instead devoted all free hands to creating a new ranking and team creation system I'd be happy.

DaCush1 votes

I really don't want promos to get into promos.

ReportThisRiven1 votes

Teamates that don't communicate at all (champ select and in game) super scary in ranked. I've taken a break from ranked. What broke the camels back? The guy that first picked Hiemer mid then proceeded to BUILD ALL AD and lose lane hard due to not warding and no turret damage. Then in post game chat "well ad Hiemer sucks, but hey I had to give it a try!" IN RANKED?? THIS IS RANKED NOW?! I'm sure most have seen worse in ranked unfortunately :/

Ungrateful Thug1 votes

+1 for Yenn. Dovetailing with this, more needs to be done to remove intentional trolling. There should be a zero tolerance policy for this in ranked. I've played with people who trolled several games in a row and have witnessed similar kinds of trolling on other peoples streams. Clearly, many players don't fear being banned or even any repercussions of any kind.

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 Yenn

This season has completely neutered skill expression, can we get a new balance team?
Gameplay154 comments
240
votes
Outplaying Lee Sin by juking his Q and sidestepping his ward hop is really fun and rewarding
Gameplay246 comments
234
votes
Rofl Xin
Gameplay112 comments
168
votes
If your champion can't 100 to 0 someone in 3-4 seconds, it's not viable in top, mid, or jungle
Gameplay141 comments
158
votes
Why has Gragas's Body Slam hit box not been fixed yet?
Gameplay96 comments
154
votes
It's 2019 and choosing your secondary runes is still some of the worst UX in the world
Gameplay43 comments
151
votes