Ranked, Normals, and the Ability to Report
Ranked, for obvious reasons I don't need to go into, is for people attempting to be competitive. People attempting to move up. Personally, when I go into ranked I'm often selecting two roles I want to play, and I have a few I feel very comfortable with. I've read some guides, I've looked at the win rates on champion.gg, I attempt to choose a champ based on what I think either my team comp needs, or what will counter the enemy comp. Every game. Because I want to win, and I assume most other Ranked players do as well.
But the reality is, not every player in Ranked does any prep. Not every player wants to climb. And the way I see it, that's a massive problem with this game. To that end, I feel like you need to bring back the Unskilled report option, and if enough people get reported that way, make them play 10 games of Normals before ranked opens up again.
Yes, I'm aware that it's possible it could be abused. Yes, I'm aware that pre-mades can all vote for one person they don't like. Yes, I'm aware that it's a tough thing to determine.
But pre-mades can report now. And when they do, their reports are diminished because of that. The same way (and I don't understand this) it's diminished if I give out a ribbon each game.
The larger problem here is that Normals have been stigmatized. I don't know why, or how. Frankly, I don't think we had this problem when you gave us TeamBuilder. But you saw fit to remove it. And I personally think that games been worse off for it.
In your roundtable you kept saying "more people are playing ranked now than ever." That doesn't make it good. During a military draft, more people are enlisted than previously, but that doesn’t mean we have more soldiers. It means we have bodies in uniforms with weapons. And so it is with Ranked. If you play this game to unwind, I’m happy for you. I do that sometimes as well. But when I get in after a day of work, then class, then I wolf down dinner and try to squeeze in a game before bed, it would be just peachy if we could create an environment where everyone else came in with the same understanding.
“Above all else, do something” - FDR
