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Scrap the "promotion series" and implement "purgatory"

ylneveaH evoL·1/24/2015, 12:55:41 AM·21 votes·2,405 views

The promotion series has caused nothing but a bad time for people who want to climb and improve at league. It is frustrating, innacurate, and does the opposite of what it intends to do. For example: I just won 7 games in a row, went into a promotion series and went 1-2. These were my first 10 games of the new season (past provisionals in which i dropped from gold 3 to silver 3). However, I didn't get promoted because both games, I had bronze players on my team who left after 5 minutes (first one because he didn't get a gank in top lane, when he was in mid lane, and the second because the support didn't like the ADC's playstyle). Now, I understand shit happens in league and you will get those people, but it HAD to be in my promos after have an 8 game win streak and starting my promos 1-0 after being placed 5 divisions lower than I should be?

80% win rate = no promotion. This is ABSURD. In a game like league where most high tier players average 60% win rate at BEST, and where champions with over 54% win rate are considered broken, then a player with an 80% win rate should not be "held back" because they didn't pass a poorly implemented series at the end of a usual 70% win rate to match your MMR.

To be clear, I am not complaining about losing because of AFK's. I lose many games to AFK's, dc's, troll's, you name it, I don't care, I que up and I expect things like this, and I move on. I am trying to get riot to realize that the promotion series (as Riot would say) is "oppressive" to us players who average a high win rate, but can't seem to get "lucky enough" to get 2 out of 3 games.

Another reason why it's poorly implemented is because to climb effectively, you have to balance out your MMR so that it helps you climb. If you are playing against people better rated than you and you win, then you gain more LP. Let's say you lost 5 games in a row, and now are being placed against people a division or two lower than you. You gain less LP per game, and lose more per loss. So after your 5 game loss streak, you have to win about 5 games in a row to completely balance your MMR right away. If you do that, you will resume regular LP gain. However, if you go on a 75% win rate (as opposed to your 100% needed), your MMR will take more games to balance, and you will climb very slowly. Eventually you make it to 100LP and average over 70% win rate. Well, now you have to play people better than you, with people at the same or lower level than you to "prove" that you are ready to move to the next division. Because, forget about the fact that you played well your last 10-15 games with an 80% win rate, it all comes down to these games in which MMR does not favor you or your team. If you lose, you drop 25 LP and have to repeat the process.

To me, this makes little to no sense.

So I am looking for ideas to come up with a new system to advance people on. My idea so far is kinda like a purgatory. After reaching 100Lp you get put in purgatory where you play a minimum of 5 games in purgatory. As soon as you achieve a 60% win rate in purgatory you advance. Of course, when you advance you can still drop a division later on. But this will bring out people who are actually deserving to advance. Plus, if you get unlucky in one or two games, you can still advance by winning your next few. That way it doesn't stop people whose internet crashes in one game and they lose another. If they deserve to move on, they will, some will take longer than others which is the idea, because then you have to legitmately "prove" yourself rather than just get lucky. It has its positives and negatives, but to me it is a fair system that accurately represents whether or not you should advance or be "held back"

24 Comments

Remlap12231/24/2015, 4:39:19 AM4 votes

Honestly, promotionals for tiers in a division need to go. Once you hit 100 LP (or more) you advance to the next tier, and it repeats until you hit Bronze to Silver or Silver to Gold, etc., etc. That purgatory system would be nice replacement between tiers. This I think will lower toxicity in ranked too.

Demonsolder211/24/2015, 1:13:32 AM1 votes

worth the watch. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLoK6rCBcF0&list=LLRGJyLdbTXb9gM4dK446udg&index=3

UberAffe1/24/2015, 2:19:04 AM1 votes

Similar to your idea: Have a win rate > x% and have 70LP or more capped at 100 You either gain or lose 10 lp per match mmr effects your ip gains instead of your lp

MEMEME6701/24/2015, 11:45:42 AM1 votes

It's quite impossible for you to have a consistent 80% winrate (or anything close to it) and not advance very quickly.

Unless you were like, a gold player where all the games you won were vs bronze and all the ones you lost were vs diamond.

Notta Cop1/24/2015, 7:27:10 PM1 votes

Was S2 last season. Carried my teams for 7 victories throughout my promotionals. 7/3 was my record, and then I got demoted to S4. I'm done playing League until that's fixed, ffs.

Death by ELO1/24/2015, 11:46:15 PM1 votes

The simple solution is to put more possibilities to advancing in. IE: instead of winning 2 out of 3 to advance, you get 10 games. if you win 3 of those 10, you advance.

Instead of 3/5, you get 10 games, if you win 5 of those games, you advance.

Its a lot more likely your going to walk away with 3 out of 10 than 2 out of 3. Or, you know, just revert the changes to the ladder currently put in and give me gold again. because silver is a sesspool

KnivingDude1/24/2015, 11:48:19 PM1 votes

I honestly think this is Riot's way of saying that "Oh look at this game! Look at all the players in all ranked! They're all capable of thinking!"

They want to make the Ranked experience easier for newer players by throwing veterans in the lower ranks in hopes of giving a "better" experience for them.

Onegarion1/25/2015, 4:05:16 AM1 votes

plz educate yourself

http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/Llp9xElp-the-placement-answers?comment=0004

disregardable1/24/2015, 1:10:06 AM1 votes

Bro. You will climb up and win next time. Chill.

Keon Kamori1/25/2015, 4:10:11 PM1 votes

The problem with the ELO system is it was originally designed for 1v1 games not 5v5 team games. The system is flawed. To look at how many games in which I participated for the number of games were won vs lost is kinda stupid if you wanted to see how good of a player I was. If a bronze player was put on a team with diamonds player in a match against silver players the bronze player would get the win. If this trend continues the Bronze player would look amazing with a near perfect record (assuming the diamond players are good enough to carry against silver) and gain ELO.

What determines a good player is not how often they pull a win at the end of a match its how many objectives they managed to take/control throughout the game. We can track when dragon, turrets, inhibitors, barons and amount of wards placed. If an ADC takes 9/11 turrets but lose the game did I not show knowledge of the game? If a jungler takes 4 dragons and two barons did they not show how well they knew their role in the game. If a support places more than 15 wards over the course of the game leading to less of their teammates being killed in the jungle should they not be rewarded for exemplary play?

The current system will reward a player who has 15+ deaths 0 kills and 0 assists if their team carries them. The system as a whole is flawed not simply the three promo matches you need to get out of any division 1 or the 2 you need to get there.