A Humble Critique of the League System (the ranked system)

Hello,

After playing LOL for quite some time, I have noticed some strange discrepancies in regards to the League System (LS). Of course, my thoughts and arguments below will only be given weight by the light of logic and my small sample size of experiences (me and my league friends), so I may not be saying much. I think there are some deep problems with the LS and I argue that the LS is an undesirable system as it currently stands. I will start with laying out some principles that I think most players hold, then proceed to the main concerns I found with the LS. This post will also be peppered somewhat with assumptions, but I will try to make them explicit.

First, I would like to assume a couple of basic principles for this post: 1) For any player, if that player plays LOL for a considerable amount of time diligently, that player should see improvement over a reasonable amount of time. 2) Any player who suffers from tecnical difficulties, such as a dc or a server problem that is entirely out of their control, the player's points added or deducted post-game should be forefeited. Now, on to my concerns.

I take the LS to have 3 essential problems. The first problem is the most obvious one as it conflicts with principle 2; the LS does not accuratly account for technical difficulties. In other words, when a player suffers from a teammate dcing, he/she has a significant disadvantage and also often suffers from a loss. Thus, the LS is an issue as it violates principle 2. Here I make a possible dubious assumption that given the fact that LOL is a team game, then it follows that the chances of one player being the sole cause of winning/losing the game are very low. My inference here is of course inductive, but I think it has some intuitive pull.

The second problem is, in my opinion, the most pressing. The LS has a fundamenttal flaw in it's design (Now, I do not know the statistical formulas Riot is using as I do not work for them, but my basic and possibly mitaken knowledge in stats suggests what I'm about to say).** The flaw is that the timeframe for rising in rank (say from Bronze to Plat) is arbitrary**. Why is this a problem? Well, consider this: suppose John is a skilled LOL player and his strength is in the jungle. All things being equal, and assuming the basic conditional rule posed by Riot by which i will paraphrase as "once you play a sufficient amount of games, then you will arrive at your skill level," then it is entirely possible for John to have to suffer through 10,000 games in order to arrive at his so called skill level. Of course, one could respond by saying that after 10,000 games, John would be pro by then. However, this is not entirely true since a lot would factor into how much he is improving. Moreover, it does not respond to the fundamental hole that I have identified.

The Third problem stems from the second. The LS is a poor determiner for the skill-level of players. I needn't pull out a slew of facts supporting the claim that there are some amazingly skilled silver/bronze players and some not very skilled platinum players. I think a lot of us have our own collections of evidence for that. The overwhelming evidence facts at least suggest that something has gone wrong either in almost everyone's understanding of the LS or of the LS itself. My coins are thrown in for the latter option.

So why is the LS doing this? What's the explanation? I don't have any clear ones but I have some abductive options given what has been presented. Both are as follows:

1. The LS is misrepresenting the data and/or misapplying it. How it is doing this is either by weighing the data inappropriately and thus is not achieving what it was set out to do, or it is not using the right data to begin with (only looking at wins/losses).

2. The LS is not flawed at all and was NEVER designed to accomodate the needs of the "low-stakes" players, but rather for "high-stakes" players. What I mean by 'low-stakes' is the class of players who are not sponsored or spend the vast majority of their teen to young adult lives playing LOL. All other players (te ones sponsored, who win the awards, who play LOL professionally) are "high-stakes" players. The most plausible reason for this would be because it seems the most "raitonal" thing to do given that Riot is a for-profit company. Companies have shareholders and thus must answer to those shareholders. Shareholders want to usually improve profits every fiscal year. One way to do it is to cater to the high-stakes" players. So ultimately, the LS is not even concerned with "low-stakes" players (or those in elo hell) by design.

I have some recommendations as to fixing this problem, but I think I've typed enough so far. I'll wait for comments/critiques/questions first.

Sorry for the long posting. :)

Cheers, Esky