Promotional Series: A Good or Bad Impliment?
::!!WARNING!!:: LONG POST: PREPARE READING UTENSILS
Everyone always fears it when they get into the promos because of likely trolls, feeeders, ragers, Etc. But what exactly makes promos the bane of Ranked gameplay? Well, we gotta look into it in order to determine its purpose, why its hated, and what Possible Solutions there are.
The Purpose
As far as my knowledge expands, I know Promotional series to be around ever since Season 3, which means it has been around for about 3 seasons. When they were introduced, everyone thought it was a neat little thing, but it expanded into a horror corner. The purpose riot introduced with Promo Series (or what I believe it was) was the intention of allowing the skilled to try their hardest to advance to the next tier, that they may be able to "prove" themselves that they belong in that tier, but lately, the purpose has been falling off quite a bit. It has been providing opportunities for toxic players and such to troll and make a player fail their promos.
Why it is Hated
Promos are feared for being known as a "Horror Corner" (that's what I call it) and has earned its name through the seasons. Promos tend to be littered with trolls, flamers, and DC's/AFKers/RQers. But, people also might not notice why they tend to lose promos themselves. It applies pressure to the player. The player is introduced with a sort of "2-out-of-3" game that has been implemented, and if they are to lose that, they do not gain a divisional tier. This makes the player quite uncomfortable, Jittery, and very Irritant to others, because they want to win their divisionals, which also causes them to be quite mad for no apparent reason at other's mistakes, denying them the ability to improve on their own mistakes and win the game. It also makes others uncomfortable, and makes them less likely to co-operate with others. The question remains though, What would make this better?
Possible Solutions
There would be many things that could help improve the Promotional series, but the most common and simplest answer would be to Remove it entirely, and rank people based off of their actual skill, instead of wins and losses, by basing the MMR Gain of the player from Creep Score, KDA, Gold Gain, Completed Items, Wards Placed throughout the game (Meaningful ward placements, not just spamming it at the summoner's platform, and timing the wards until they have about a minute left.), Champions revealed Via wards, etc. There are plenty of ways to score a player based off of skill, not off of a win. Another way to fix this solution is to bring the Tributional back or to start getting rid of Toxic players that are not fit for the Ranked environment. The Tributional should come back first, and then the Toxic Players should be targeted, because the Tributional granted the players the power to remove the Toxic players from the game, and it kept the number of toxic players down to a minimum. When the Tributional was removed, for "maitnence purposes", the number of Toxic players gradually increased, until they began breeding throughout the game, drastically increasing the numbers. There has not been a game in this month (July) That I have not had a Toxic player of some sort, weather it be AFK, Raging, or Trolling, I have encountered at least one kind of each player this month, and at least one in every game I play (and I play a lot of games per day, summing up to about 50-150 games a month (I know, I need a life :3)).
Personally, I would prefer basing people off of their skill and knowledge of the game, and ranking up the players in the game who commit the most to their team in order to achive a win, but they would receive MMR points based on how well they did, while Wins and Losses minimally impact the MMR.
TL; DR: The Promotional System for League of Legends does not work well. There are other ways to rank a person's skill, and others should not be able to affect how the single person plays (also, bring back Tributional Please. :3)
