I believe that the provisionals system needs an overhaul
Disclaimer: Ok, I am not the best player in the world by any stretch of the imagination nor am I some for of game design guru, so take all my points here with a grain of salt. My Problem So I just finished my provisional series and am proudly in bronze 1 (was silver 2 last season, but I intend to climb if I am good enough) but I ran into something slightly disheartening on my way here. Every one of the 10 game series I played had a DC/AFK on one side or the other which decided the outcome of the match. I went 5 and 5 where 5 games I had a full 5 champ team vs a 4 champ team and 5 games I had a 4 champ team vs a full 5 champ team (attached is my match history where you can confirm my information). What made me feel like posting this to the powers that be was that I do not know whether or not I am bronze 1 materiel. I might be better or worse, and the system doesn't know that because it only records wins and losses and trends of wins and loses with the assumption that the games are fair, which, in my opinion, a 4v5 is not. With some reading into the subject I have found a general consensus that DC/afk players and toxic players are just a hurdle that every player must overcome on a regular bases, and given that statistically all teams are just as likely to be queued with such a player the system is naturally balanced for it. My experience with an exactly even distribution of such players supports the idea that they are a fact of the game community, however, I would argue that the system is not balanced for them; if the systems goal is to gauge players ability to win the game the system must measure that fairly. If a player DC/afks, a system designed only to gauge players' abilities to win fair games would have to remove all players from that game, not force players to attempt and play with an unfair advantage/disadvantage. This however would, in my opinion, not be fun nor would it help the issue, since it would add even more random frustration especially to players doing well, and would give toxic players a way to sort of screw over players they are upset with that are doing well by ending the game. And that takes me to my main point; players can do poorly, mediocre, and well in this game by getting cs/kills/towers for gold advantage and taking control with that gold advantage to secure victory, but yet the ranked system does not take how well a player does into account. In fact you'll find many an upset post, on these very boards I would guess, that say something to the affect "that I went big number kills and low number deaths, won lane, ect..." and what all these complaints have in common is that the player is frustrated when they feel they do well and still lose due to a toxic player or an afk/DC. And the usual response to this is that lol is an objective oriented game, not a kda oriented one, which I believe should be true. Yet when I look at the upper right hand corner of my game I do not see objectives taken, gold made, nor dragon/barons slain: I see my kills, my deaths, and my assists. When I hit tab, reading from right to left the first numbers for any player I see are kills/deaths/assists. How can we patronize frustrated players who feel they do well, who feel they belong elsewhere, when the very visuals of the game suggest that they are right; and who hasn't been ridiculously excited when they score their first "PENTAKILL!" and hear their glory announced for all? I would recommend that the objectives that you wish to focus on be the ones displayed in the top right hand corner, and that whatever objectives are displayed in that corner should have a minor effect on a persons LP gains and loses in a rewards based system where people with higher scores in those objectives gain a little more LP for wins and lose a little less LP for loses. This I believe, would help your system to better gauge where a player belongs, help your games objectives be clearer to the players, and would make games where someone does well even though they lost a 4v5 hurt and frustrate a little less. Hopefully my words have some wisdom to them, FreshMnMCookies PS I am not looking to argue, nor claim any high ground of in game or out of game knowledge, I just wanted to speak my mind.