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A Real DIscussion about how to make Ranked better

Schaymus·3/22/2015, 5:14:23 PM·1 votes·830 views

League of Legends is a great game. I absolutely love it, well, most of it.

Here's where my head is at:

Everyone has heard of ELO Hell. Whether or not you believe it actually exists or if it truly is just a bunch of noobs trying to blame anything but their own play as the reason they can't advance is up for debate. That being said, it seems A LOT of players agree that there is an issue in the bronze, silver, and even some gold matches with people completely throwing game after game, either deliberately or as a by product of their play.

Now I will be the first to admit that I have bad games. I really do, I play poorly at times, and I own those mistakes as my own. And truthfully, that accounts for about 10-20% of my losses. But so many of them have nothing to do with my play, and it seems that no matter how fed I get, how much I try to help other lanes, how much I try to coordinate with my team, people still completely throw very winnable matches.

The reasons why this happens is a plenty: bad attitudes, antagonistic team chat, kill stealing, responses to kill stealing, tunnel vision, bad map awareness, no map awareness, poor decisions, focusing on kills and not farming etc etc.

In summary, the main problem with the way ranked matches work right now is that your individual rank isn't dependent on your play, but rather a combination of your play and how your teammates play. Now, if I was in a situation where less than 20% of my losses were truly due to being outplayed, I'd be ecstatic. I'd really enjoy the struggle of playing against, and losing to, better players. But this doesn't happen. Instead I'm stuck playing against people from whom I can learn very little, trying my best to motivate them to try for 30-40 minutes at a time. Essentially, no one in bronze or silver are getting substantially better, or at least the vast majority aren't. We don't ever get exposure to higher level play because were stuck in the lower brackets, learning only how to better deal with silver or bronze players(which is like saying were practicing nailing jello to a wall).

I submit to you one suggestion for how this can be remedied, albeit minimally.

Why not have everyone, regardless of prior season rank, start in gold? 10 matches at what most consider to be the intermediate level of competence where you gain exposure to a vast array of players. And based on your W/L ratio you get placed accordingly. Let the dogs fight it out from there. At least this would allow a momentary digression from eternity in bronze or silver. If they really are at a lower level of play, they'll end up there. If they really are a star, they'll rise.

3 Comments

PrettyMittenz3/22/2015, 7:08:47 PM1 votes

If you look at stats 50% of players are silver 5 or below so saying gold is the intermediate rank is not really accurate. and I think this does happen to some extent with your placement matches but you can also just find friends that are more skilled then you to practice against. I often do 1v1 matches with some friends that are way better then me and I get crushed almost every time but it helps me see what mistakes I am making that they are exploiting and sometimes they are able to give really good advise as well.

Also I don't understand this complaint about kill stealing at all. I main ADC and every now and then I will go solo and be matched with a support, we will get several kills but the support secures the last hit and then starts being super apologetic for taking the kills which just befuddles me, I am now 0/0/3 with a 30+ cs advantage and level advantage thanks to them why would I be complaining?

Jevokan3/22/2015, 7:32:52 PM1 votes

The ranking system needs to be based on Total Kills, Creep Score, Buildings Destroyed, Dragons Slain, Total Deaths, Gold Made. If you're at the top of the list in any category, or all of them, then do you deserve to lose the same LP as the guy who went AFK or fed the entire game? It's not even that I care about my ranking. I just want some players that know what they are doing on my team at least. I just don't find the game enjoyable when I have 2 totally noob players on my team way below my skill level.