How "Natural Selection" Plays Its Part in League of Legends
I took a poll a while back (it's so far buried under my other posts that I can't find it) asking the attitudes in each Ranked division. It went something along the lines of this:
- Bronze - either "ELO hell" or "w/e".
- Silver - "ur all bad here's my shiny new border, gotta solo carry every game" - Yeah, sure, solo carrying in lower elos is good because you can't always rely on your teammates doing well, but that attitude shouldn't be one you should keep for higher elos if you do end up getting there.
- Gold - "yeah im kinda good i guess" - but it is possible for these guys to flame lower elos for not being good, as with most divisions.
- Platinum - "omg elo hell this is impossible all u guys are dumb and im good" or "just dropped out of diamond but only bc of bad teammates" - they get to use their knowledge to flame others.
- Diamond - Typically not bad in terms of attitude - they're chill except for maybe Diamond 4 and 5, with recent plats who still haven't learned that they can't solo carry every game and win.
- Master+ - Just working hard to get up in the ranks. They've gotten past the point of saltiness and have realized that the game is a team game, not a solo game.
Yes, each division has it's own tactics and strategies that players in that division usually learn and carry up to higher elos if they learn them well, and sometimes those strategies promote toxic behavior (such as in Silver, the goal is to learn to solo carry because you can't always trust your team to do well, giving you an upper hand in flaming them for not doing as great as you).
In the end, however, it's all just a big game of knowing more than your opponent. It's really sad that many of the strategies and methods of climbing the Ranked ladder involve giving individual players the upper hand in being toxic, and the worst part is that the entire Ranked system was put in place by the players. There was no Riot interference that originally determined the Ranked ladder - if you think about it, in the early seasons, there would be the first people to get Diamond, and eventually the Ranked ladder would fill out. If new players to the ladder couldn't beat the players in Diamond, they obviously did not know enough about the game to stay high in the ranks, and thus they would demote until they were put into a rank that reflected their performance in the Ranked ladder. After some time, strategies to climb would be put in place by the players, and just like natural selection, the best method would arise and become the normal until some new method proves to be better.
It's pretty cool to think about all of the different behaviors in the divisions, and how the players actively affect the overall Ranked experience. Throughout all 6 seasons of League of Legends, the playerbase has been the most defining factor of the game. The meta isn't exactly made by Riot, it just so happens that the players find what is the best. With all the items and possible combinations, natural selection comes into play and the best items, champions, playstyle, roles, builds, etc. surface on top, dominating the meta until Riot interferes and changes it because it's not necessarily balanced.
TL;DR: The ranked ladder was determined by the players, and because of these different strategies, the attitude in each individual division changes based on the situation the players are put in - Bronze is as low as you can go, so what do you have left to lose, and Challenger is as high as you can go, so keep trying to break the limit.
Those were just my thoughts on the current state of the Ranked ladder and the game itself. Some of you may disagree, and that's completely okay.
Enjoy your day!
