The Elo System

RIP Resonance·Jan 1, 2016·3 votes·546 views

Riot, you have got to rework the Elo system. The Elo system was originally designed for games of chess; chess is a one versus one game. The only way an Elo system can work, and be effective, for this game is on ranked teams. In every good competitive game, there are many ways a good player can beat a weaker player. League of Legends doesn't offer that. I consider myself to be a strong support player, but there is only so much one fifth of the team can do to manipulate the outcome of a game. I can't force my ADC to auto attack, I can only protect him and set up kills, which requires him to act on me setting up kills. I'm tired of doing my best, then getting sub par teammates who cannot position correctly, or just having top and mid lane feed. This game either needs to make it possible for a single player to carry a team, regardless of role, or remove the flawed elo system.

4 Comments

BluePolarizerJan 1, 20162 votes

The elo system is not flawed. Mathematically a plat will win against a silver 90% of the time, which is expected from the elo system and it indeed happens, so the elo system works from a numbers/win rate point of view.

Blu AvengerJan 1, 20162 votes

After a thorough analysis I can categorically state league has probably one of THE worst ranking systems in gaming.

Let me explain why, while I'm sure that in plat and above games are generally more structered; in bronze and silver the games are literally a flip of a coin.

What people don't get is in bronze and silver the playerbase consists of, trolls young children between 8-15, afker, Newbies, flamers, feeders, etc... So what this generally becomes is a Grindfest playing game after game after game, with little results. This causes a lot players to elo boost or get new accounts where their mmr is more sensitive to change and they can get a more favourable placement.

The problems I have with this ranking system is 2 things in particular. 1st the obvious, this is an intentional system designed by riot to make sure the majority of it's playerbase is playing the game. The grind becomes almost an addiction where when you lose majority of the time it is because of other factors, afkers trolls, smurfs etc, its a lazy system that doesn't promote improvement.

2nd problem is that Riot has a 50% win ratio across all Elos that it tries to maintain, so much so that if you start to exceeed this Riots way of keeping you in check is by giving you unwinnable games. Now don't get me wrong while i feel you should face harder players the more you win, to give you a harder team to face while at the same time giving you a team thats full of trolls, afkers, feeders etc is absolutley downright ABSURD.

This system is the same concept invented by the Call of duty franchise, all based on profits and maintaining player numbers, the worst thing is riot does not even consider looking at this or changing the system because it works.

Void NargacugaJan 1, 20161 votes

Read this: http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Elo_rating_system

They no longer use the ELO system. They went and implemented their own. Is their knew League System flawed? Possibly. But I can not truly judge it.

EDIT: I'll try to explain as well: The old ELO system that they did use was as you stated meant for 1v1s scenarios like in chess. Eventually they found out that in a 5v5 MOBA it was HEAVILY flawed. Now they use their own League system which has 6 division within a division. And is influenced by the whole team.