Discussion about the Ranked System and ways it can be improved.

Matthew100x·Feb 6, 2017·1 votes·709 views

Listen, the Ranked system is alright, its not terrible but it needs to be improved. The issue is that the way it's placed into the game and the way your score is counted absolutely does not recognize individual skill. You can laugh your ass off, but I play at a plat level. I know I do. I've taken down diamonds, have no issue with platinums, hell I've even aced a challenger once and almost beat him (then mid game came). What rank am I? Bronze III.

Alright, now I know your laughing your ass off and going to hit the downvote button, but if you're still reading I'll tell you why. I've been to my bronze 3 promos 5 times now, as soon as I get up there I get a bunch of bad teams that result in me losing. I would find it no big deal, but then I go into the next few games and despite everything when I still have these bad teams I take an lp hit.

There are three solutions for this.

First is put people who are in promos together. We're trying out best to win and our scores will be represented by that. It's become infamous at this point that League purposely matches you with bad teams to prove that your capable of going to the next tier. I actually agree with this, you do need to be able to do well and carry, it's your own personal merit that counts in this situation.

Second is give people reduced lp losses, no lp loss, or minor lp gain for clearly being the best on their team. There was I time I suggested this and everyone thought it was impossible. Guys, Riot tracks the towers you've taken, it tracks the gold, the damage, inhibs, everything. All you have to do is look at the grid at the end of the game and all the information is there. If the information is already stored then it's accessible to code.

Lets take this game as an example: http://matchhistory.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/#match-details/NA1/2418050085/219387867

I was the Ryze, looking over everything I was the only one who destroyed a tower beyond one other teammate, i had most damage in game, most cs in game, most gold in game. My teammates weren't doing so hot and they were kinda speeding the process along to a loss. At the end of the game I got an S and loss 17 LP. Why? What dictates I lose 17 lp? Because I lost? You should not lose score based upon the actions of your team. It's not accurately representing your skill, its representing your luck in getting a good game. ELO and MMR are invisible numbers designed to place you where it thinks you need to be placed but honestly I've had 40-50+ games in b3. My MMR has evened out to be on a bronze level with bronze 3 players even though I am on a consistent basis outperforming my lane opponent.

On the flip side if someone performs really bad in a game, they should take a heavier LP loss for it until they sink to where their skill level actually is.

It doesn't matter how well you do to the game, all that matters is whether you win or lose which is completely unfair considering the direction the game is going where if one team gets ahead its near impossible to catch up. It's not season 4 anymore where one person can solo carry a team. If one person is feeding on your team you might as well open mid because there's nothing you can do.

My final solution would be to begin filtering players out of ranked or into a tier of their own for toxic players and trolls. CSGO does this, if you play on a consistent basis that proves you're incapable of playing the game, then you should have your level knocked down or be ranked restricted. If you troll or are toxic a lot and get reported then you should be forced to play a certain amount of games with other trolls and other toxic players. Stop forcing the rest of the League community to deal with these people, this would especially reduce toxicity in the game.

If we take all three solutions into account, then this game would be a lot less toxic. I wouldn't have to worry about the feeding ashe going 4/17/8 because I know she's going to lose a lot of LP and that I'll only lose a bit in relation to her because I know that she's the one who threw the game. The point of this can really all be summed up to: If it's not your fault, why should you pay for it?

I want to hear your thoughts and opinions on this and I will actively be replying to people on this thread.

7 Comments

Deep Terror NamiFeb 6, 20173 votes

First is put people who are in promos together

While it may usually make for a more motivated team, the clear issue I see with this is the queue time; the wait would be like 150x longer. Not only would the player pool be smaller due to only a handful of people actively being in their promos, there's no autofill in them so it'd take even longer to match people appropriately. At high elo you'd just be better off quitting lol and going to play Dota 2.

Second is give people reduced lp losses, no lp loss, or minor lp gain for clearly being the best on their team

I'll never be onboard with this, without considerable compromise/restrictions. This brings in the factor of players trying to game the system for a better LP result; the game isn't about maximizing your LP, it's about working as a team to kill the enemy Nexus. I'll post the link to Riot Meddler's reply on this (rather than post the whole reply, to save space). http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/roQHEBA2-meddler?comment=0001

My final solution would be to begin filtering players out of ranked or into a tier of their own for toxic players and trolls.

You end up lumping in genuinely bad players with trolls. Bronze is already a shitty place to improve, rely on your team, and have fun; if you force bad players to play with only the ones intentionally trying to ruin the game for them (or otherwise have no drive to win) they may as well just quit and go play Dota 2.

Forcing trolls/toxic players into their own queue doesn't encourage reform, it tends to do the opposite. There are punishments for this behavior, there's no reason to try and keep them in the community the way they are.

Matthew100xFeb 6, 20171 votes

Point 1. I see your point, but one match of my most recent promos I was playing with a person who was also in his promos, guess who did the best on the team (It was us).

Point 2.If you are clearly a better player than you should be rewarded. If it goes to a certain point like getting the extra win in your promos then it can work out. The issue with the current set up is that one bad teammate gurantees loss. I know from experience that the statistical odds of winning are very low. Hell I've lost a 4v5 because of bad teammates (Their yasuo got super fed and I was playing Vlad, any damage I did was instantly healed up). Does it matter if people are hunting for kills? People do it anyways. There are plenty of indicators that Riot records that would allow them to track how well a player is doing, especially leaning on the objectives they grabbed along with cs, with a good kda ratio. These are all numbers that they track and can be used to make this system. It will help especially when you're playing a 4v5 due to afk, troll, inter, or player who belongs in a tier lower than you.

Point 3. If you do bad on a consistent basis it shows you're not ready for ranked. I watch people act retardedly on the Rift all the time. To be completely honest, I have a level 17 smurf and the genuine new players that I play with are better than the bronze teams that I'm paired with. Quite frankly if the trolls, toxic, and genuinely bad players go away this game would be a lot better. If the genuinely bad players want to get good, playing ranked is not the way to do it, normal are.

Forcing trolls and toxic players to be in their own queue across all boards will result in a healthier game because these people will constantly be separated by the queues. We won't have to deal with them on a constant basis and by keeping the toxic players together for longer and longer periods each time their toxic will result in them becoming more reformed especially if they're alerted a ban is upcoming if they continue. If they see the pain they inflict on other people by being in queues where they are inflicting the pain on themselves then eventually they'll learn. Either way they'll be separated by us and we would not have to deal with them anymore.

Deep Terror NamiFeb 6, 20172 votes

You keep saying bad players don't deserve to play Ranked; well I have bad news for you, you're in the same elo your teammates are. You, and every other player has a right to play Ranked no matter how bad you think they are. If they fall to the bottom of the ladder for it, so be it.

Matthew100xFeb 6, 20171 votes

Its unfair to me that I get matched with them and its unfair to the team i'm facing if they're matched against us. If they do not play good consistently, its not me deciding that they don't deserve to play ranked, it's their skill. I'm just in favor of a proposition that would do that.

Valderis VandalaFeb 6, 20171 votes

Personalized increases or reductions of LP based on performance rather then winning is a really terrible idea. There are so many questions you'd have to prove to not cause problems before you could implement something like that.

Do you really believe Riot's Mastery Grade system is a good enough indicator of skill level to influence people's mmr or LP standing? We don't even know how the damn system works.

But besides all that, do you really think its healthy for a game to be able to have players drop in rank without losing games? Is it healthy for players to go up in rank without having to win any games?

I think your idea on putting promo people together is just a band-aid solution, what you really want to do is to just get rid of promo's entirely. Isn't the whole underlying system based on mmr anyway? Why are there these artificial barriers?

The idea of purposely getting matched with bad teammates is just silly. And there is a chance that your idea would only make it worse, by forcing the system to only put promo people together you limit the pool of people the system can match up, leading to poorer or more uneven match-ups.

Matthew100xFeb 6, 20171 votes

We can take a pretty good guess at how the grading system works, assisting in objectives, getting cs, having a good kda will result in you getting an S. It's really hard to maintain any o those i there's not a constant degree of risk by working with your team or farming. In order to build your score you have assist your team so it makes sense.

If you win you still get the natural IP gain, but if you lose and you are skilled at the game then you shouldn't have to lose so much LP. Also I'm not against promos and I still believe you should have some bad players on your team to prove that you're fully capable of carry a team. The issue is that if your not in your promos and your trying to climb up through elo hell, it's literally impossible to carry some of these games.

We could limit it to two people who are in promos together because both players will try hard. It's pretty well known though that you are purposely put with bad players. I had plenty of promos where I sat there in games and I knew that the game was lost three minutes in watching how the jg and some of the players were playing. Most of the time I'm right.

Valderis VandalaFeb 6, 20171 votes

That you believe that getting cs and having a good kda gets you S ranks worries me because I'm leaning in the opposite direction, these aspects are non-factors for mastery grades. We don't know how the system works, all our guesswork is just that, guesswork.

I still believe you should have some bad players on your team to prove that you're fully capable of carry a team.

No absolutely not. You should never be given bad teammates, you should never be given good teammates. You should only ever be given teammates of roughly the same skill. There has to be some leeway of course because not everyone is exactly equal but the principle still stands.

It's pretty well known though that you are purposely put with bad players.

What evidence do you have for this? It does not make sense to me, why would Riot purposefully give you bad teammates? All I see is people complaining on the boards about their teammates but that can just be their own poor perception. Has Riot ever mentioned they do this? Have they ever commented on this subject?