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Something seriously needs done about the artificial elo wall known as promos

InfinitexMortal·4/3/2019, 11:19:03 PM·117 votes·19,575 views

Why in an mmr based system does this wall exist? If you have mmr to move up you should move up when hitting 100, if u have lower mmr you should move down when hitting 0. So why do i have to win 2/3 rigged games at 100 to move up or else drop to 68 lp?!

I mean wtf riot. Before promos i win a game, win another game destroying the enemy so hard they cant take a tower. Then i get to promos with a free win, team cant take a single tower and feeds like crazy clearly outmatched. Next game Garen feeds 2 kills afks and the adc is ragging how they just lost the last 3 rounds and got demoted. Again no tower taken..... I've seen enough of these promos to see that 9 times out of 10 they are far more in the enemy's favor than mine. And why if they are separate games from the 0-100 do they make you go back down to 68lp instead of 100 with a chance to win and retry them? At this point it is clearly obvious they only exist as a wall to slow down climbing in order to force people to play more games. That is poor game design and has nothing to do with an mmr based rank.

So i ask again, Riot, what is the point of these clearly onesided promos in an MMR based ranked system other than a cheap artificially forced wall to slow progressing rank and extend required play time?

69 Comments

Scottsc204/4/2019, 1:11:44 AM47 votes

No one will ever convince me that promos aren't rigged. Entire enemy team is P2, my team is G4/S1 while I'm G1. Seems fair.

Tormentula4/4/2019, 2:14:32 AM29 votes

Promos and demotion shields are part of why league's ranked system is so fucked.

We wouldn't have to remove the 5s tiers if those hardstuck in those 5s would demote sooner without a shield keeping them there until they're +13 per win -25 per loss. They're probably in a MMR range of 3 or 4 tiers of a lower division by the time the system drops them.

Promos are another cancer that forces you to RNG your way through games with coinflip teams in a short window of matches, while your MMR is high due to the fact you probably winstreaked your way to those promos and are higher MMR then normal going into them, then get hit hard with MMR loss when you lose them.

Idk why riot wants to create a matchmaking system that doesn't correlate with the visible rankings due to the number of pauses in those visible ranks (and artifical losses from dodging) compared to the consistent flow of MMR changes.

Galaxyburstz4/4/2019, 12:01:51 AM22 votes

Yeah, I was on a winning streak after I picked up support last week and instantly reached my promos with a free win. First game, my 1 million + mastery points Kled is 0/4 at 3 minutes, and his Jax duo is 0/2 ( tower dived at level 1 then summoner 12 to lane and tower dived again while still level 1 ), runs it down mid until 0/10 and says GG then D/C's

Not to mention the stress that was put on our Diana mid who went 1/9 vs Yasuo ( I can't even blame her, I understand the tilt ) and we basically autoloss that one, but it's ok I still have one more chance.

Next game, OMG my Varus is 13 / 0 and I'm 1/0/14, what could ever go wrong? then all I hear from top lane is Double Kill, Double Kill, Double Kill, Enemy Rampage! Triple Kill, Godlike! An enemy is Legendary, Double Kill!

Ended 1/9/35, once we got first tower we were literally deleted when attempting to even leave lane and now I'm back at my 67 LP

Just a little story from my past week I thought I would share, sorry for the length : D

Nea1044/4/2019, 4:26:40 AM18 votes

Riot answer, recently: "The system is never actually against you. It works to try to match you with and against players so that you have as close as a 50/50 chance of winning every game, including promos."

https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/bcQt4yeV-i-getting-really-sick-of-blantant-matchmaking-working-against-you-in-promos?comment=0012

This is pretty strange to read, since it is not what happens in regular matches nor especially in Promos. I would really like a true explanation, but I'm pretty sure it will never come, since it would probably reveal some weird hidden aspects about their matchmaking.

FrozenFitzgerald4/4/2019, 6:08:42 AM13 votes

Remember, the system is supposed to allow you to skip divisions too, if your MMR is higher than your rank.

Except when it doesn't work. My account is a brand new one, fresh from a transfer. While I knew that my MMR would be reset, and accepted that. I did not know, however, that my rank would be reset differently. While your first game will have you be silver MMR, your rank is reset to the bottom of iron. Which means that although I hard carried the first game ever played on this account, going 17/2/12 and getting a pentakill, I was placed immediately into bronze. Bronze 4. With silver MMR.

So I played some games and reached the 100 LP mark. I won my next game when I had something like an 80% win rate on my account. The tier average for my team was Silver 1 (while dragged down heftily by my Bronze rank). The tier average for the enemy team was in gold. So when I win the game that is by all accounts a gold game, and I am bronze, I am promoted only into silver 4, 0 LP.

This is especially terrible when you take into consideration that as my MMR continues to climb without my rank matching, it will become harder to win games. Meaning it will become harder to get my rank and my MMR to match anywhere decent. All this to say absolutely nothing about the games that feel incredibly rigged to prevent climbing (I was in five lobbies before playing a match. 9 players on my team had win rates that were 47% or lower. ) Try and convince me that the system is not rigged against you when you have a positive win rate.

Thot Patrol Ashe4/4/2019, 7:27:08 AM13 votes

They are 100% rigged. Been playing sense season 3 and that has ALWAYS been the case. Youre much more likely to get boosted animals, people who havnt played a game of league in weeks, the one guy that thinks pretending to be drunk or high is cool (or actually being) yasuo mains, or tilted players that lost 8 of their last 10 games and dont forget the guy that just got a skin from a box or something but has never played more than a few arams on a champ or seen it in the lcs and thinks they can hop right into ranked and carry. Happens without fail every time. Personal worst- season 6 i had to do my g1-p5 promos somewhere around 7 or 8 times. So many ebay accounts and people acting like theyre destined to carry and auto locking stupid stuff like bard jungle.

Jæbölé4/4/2019, 5:57:25 AM11 votes

*reads this post— *is in queue for ranked game— *realizes it is promo— *2 people ask to switch position— *jg goes afk after feeding 3 completely unnecessary kills to enemy top lane— *loses game— *slaps self in face with the irony

Sodeb Lacudomite4/4/2019, 12:00:20 PM10 votes

It feels even worse when you're 99 LP, you win, you're at 100LP (ty for 1 LP gain), you fail two games, drop at 68 LP or so (you got only +1, but still - 16 - 16).

Yordle Xayah4/4/2019, 8:04:27 AM6 votes

Promos are useless, gimmicky and unfair. All ranked games should matter equally. "A way to let people experience what is like to be in a tournament" was how Riot introduced them. Teams in tourneys play together for MONTHS for a common goal. That does NOT translate well to Solo Q.

https://youtu.be/EevdEwQNjG4?t=141

Really, that's the reason why they were invented. I really don't know why they still exist.

Blaxonec4/4/2019, 5:36:22 AM5 votes

OP is talking about 3 games. Try the big promos - 5 games. True hell, much pain, brain dies, I try to rise.

FrozenFitzgerald4/5/2019, 7:19:16 AM5 votes

Games are rigged. If you have a high win rate, the system will intentionally match you with shit players.

https://na.op.gg/summoner/userName=aaronsuju

Because I had a high win rate, I was matched with this chucklefuck. He had, before that loss, a 15% win rate. Mine was in the seventies. Not only am I artificially restricted from climbing because while I SHOULD have skipped divisions, I could not because it was a tier promotion, instead of a division promotion. The system can, and will, fuck you in every way possible while Riot lies through their teeth about it.

Take a minute for this to sink in. This guy is so bad, so fucking bad, that he lost lane in a game where he literally did not have a lane opponent. He went negative in lane against nobody, and could not take a plate. Both enemy junglers, because there were two for some reason, stayed top lane for four minutes. And he could not take a single plate despite 3 teammates telling him to do so.

Tell me the system is not rigged. I fucking dare you.

Slogg4/4/2019, 5:33:19 PM5 votes

Promos never have and never will make sense, even by their own standard of how MMR should be working. It literally defies all logic.

According to Riot, the goal of matchmaking is to get your WR to be ~50% as best it can. If I am winning 60% of my games, then I am outperforming at my mmr and need to have my mmr increased until my WR drops closer to 50%.

So as an example, if I am in say Gold V. My MMR has me playing Plat V players. My WR drops to 55% from 60%. Still not perfect, but getting closer to my level. This means when I hit a promo series in gold, you are asking me to not only win 3 out of 4 games(I say 3/4 because you must win your match to hit 100lp before you can do promos, and then 2/3 in promos), or a 75% WR, but to do it against Plat 5 and possible higher players, while I'm still ranked at Gold V.

On what planet does this make any sense? There is no other option for people to win a promo series on anything but luck since you are requiring them to increase their WR substantially against players much higher than their current ranking.

You're asking a high school hooper, to become an NBA-calibre player for x amount of games so that he can be able to play college level ballers(his skill level). It's crazy talk.

Xhaiden4/5/2019, 9:41:57 AM4 votes

This is what i have to deal with every day....

https://i.imgur.com/l218Kug.jpg[/img}

To get Silver 2 on Flex Rank - i have beat Players from Diamond + Plat 2 (Rift) with a team formed of Silver and Bronze. This is what team handling balance at Riot - calls balanced Matchmaking in a Rank game.

[zombie-brand-facepalm]

That's BULLYING in the purest form (same as a gang of 17 year olds beating the crap out of a 12 year old).

Salty Mc Feed4/4/2019, 11:12:59 AM3 votes

Promos are pointless and annoying and suffer as much from inconsistent matchmaking as any other match, BUT they are not guaranteed to be one-sided or rigged or anything like that.

Revert Akalí 4/4/2019, 7:34:42 AM3 votes

Something needs to be done about the state of akali too (cough cough REVERT)

however i do agree on this matter how do i go 6-0 get a inter and afk to lose my last 2 get bronze 4 yet my friend wins 3 total and gets silver 3?

CarameI Frappe4/4/2019, 4:23:43 AM3 votes

Cause they want you to grind since it'll mean you'll be continuing to play their game? The more you play, the more tempted you are to buy their skins / stuff which means you'll want to climb to show off how good you are at their game. Basically, they want you addicted.

Xhaiden4/4/2019, 10:55:22 AM2 votes

{quoted}

Why in an mmr based system does this wall exist? If you have mmr to move up you should move up when hitting 100, if u have lower mmr you should move down when hitting 0. So why do i have to win 2/3 rigged games at 100 to move up or else drop to 68 lp?!

I mean wtf riot. Before promos i win a game, win another game destroying the enemy so hard they cant take a tower. Then i get to promos with a free win, team cant take a single tower and feeds like crazy clearly outmatched. Next game Garen feeds 2 kills afks and the adc is ragging how they just lost the last 3 rounds and got demoted. Again no tower taken..... I've seen enough of these promos to see that 9 times out of 10 they are far more in the enemy's favor than mine. And why if they are separate games from the 0-100 do they make you go back down to 68lp instead of 100 with a chance to win and retry them? At this point it is clearly obvious they only exist as a wall to slow down climbing in order to force people to play more games. That is poor game design and has nothing to do with an mmr based rank.

So i ask again, Riot, what is the point of these clearly onesided promos in an MMR based ranked system other than a cheap artificially forced wall to slow progressing rank and extend required play time?

To STRUGGLE longer. This system was made like this TO KEEP YOU STRUGGLING LONGER AND LONGER (so you spend 10x times longer in LoL). You argue about quality content - but this system is mainly about "QUANTITY (keeping most players trapped in LoL grinding and grinding for as long as possible) ". There's literally thousands of topics where balance/mmr/matchmaking is question for being so faulty - and yet, this was the most ignored subject of all time. A mmr system made just for 0.00001% of the whole LoL community (since only top tier players from Challenger, Master and the higher division of diamond - seem to claim it works for them). Same as you get easy wins - due to such poorly matchmaking - same you get impossible games - where the game is already lost since champ select. You're just wasting time and loosing and loosing and losing (again, impossible games) - then winning and wining and wining (free wins - where the enemy team is in your shoes dealing with close to impossible chances of win). And that's the idea... Same as gambling systems - aimed to keep you hooked to that experience - by exploiting the reward system in our brain (the release of dopamine whenever you win a game).

Just think about all the games you played in Rank recently and out of 100 games - how many games did both teams really struggled for a Win - due to being balanced? 🤨

Snowman Arc4/4/2019, 1:11:27 PM2 votes

I never understood the 50/50 chance of both teams winning rule of matchmaking. If I'm smurfing and on a winstreak, does that mean that I will get a 10% winrate player on my team? League's matchmaking system is just horrible. The other day, there was a level 30 support on the enemy team in a gold 2 game. Singed support with Lethal Tempo, needless to say we won at 15 minutes. How the fuck is this fair matchmaking?

pyeonghwaa4/4/2019, 7:38:18 AM2 votes

The moment you accept the fact that Riot isn't here to make our gaming experience actually better you will enjoy league a lot more. You wanna advance? 5-man is the sad answer OR a ridiculously good duo partner. They will never fix the promo wall just like they will never implement a fair reporting system. Instead, they'll continue to be lazy much like another game very similar to this. Heck, I once got a comm ban for saying "Man, sorry I played that like a total noob!" ... Good times when talking about yourself triggers a ban of any sort =)