Why climbing is way more difficult than it should be;

LXII·Apr 2, 2015·16 votes·4,679 views

I'd like to start by saying that I realize some people climb with little to no problem, and obviously their situation is different because some people do get teams that can play every game, so they're gonna get somewhere. It's mathematically impossible for us ALL to get screwed endlessly. But for the rest of us, we have to deal with endless loops of lp gain and loss that ultimately leads to nowhere.

I was placed in Bronze 5 this season.. not the happiest day of my life, but whatever, I can crush Bronze and move up. So I did. I got all the way to S4 in a short time, then it happened; my LP gain and loss flipped, and I've since lived at 0 LP in S5.

To break it down, every game I win results in 15-16 LP, literally every time without fail. Losses are worth negative 21-22 LP. So with that in mind we'll use the highest gain (16) and the lowest loss (21) to make this play out the best possible way. I win 2 games in a row? YES I'M AT 32 LP, DOING WORK. Then I lose one and I'm down to 11. So essentially 3 games will net me 11 LP. At this rate we're looking at over 9 sets of 3 JUST to get to promos (Which let's be honest, are a coin toss). So 27 games if, and only if, I can actually keep the 2:1 ratio alive, and that's asking for a whole hell of a lot in Silver.

Now my next point, when champions have a win rate of around 50% people start screaming "op" from the mountaintops. So if a champ that wins half their games is op why am I expected to win well over 2/3 of my games consecutively to make some real progress. If I even go 1 for 1 I LOSE LP. Doesn't seem right to me. Obviously I shouldn't be shooting up the ladders at 1 for 1, but if I could even retain a few points from my victories that would be nice. I would understand if it were this tough to get through the top division of each tier in order to reach the next, but cmon man, I'm in S5.. cut me some slack here.

tl;dr All I'm asking is for a legit reason why my LP loss and gain is unbalanced as all hell (and don't give me "mmr"), or for it to be fixed.

44 Comments

AndyChronoApr 3, 20156 votes

To break it down, every game I win results in 15-16 LP, literally every time without fail. Losses are worth negative 21-22 LP.

This means that you are playing against people that are LOWER in MMR than you. What probably happened is that you went on a nice winning streak while climbing out of Bronze and got into a higher league (~Silver 4). What probably happened next is that you likely went on a losing streak while in the new league so the matchmaking then starts matching you against people with lower MMR than you (that would be ~Silver 5 people). Against these weaker opponents, you then probably started winning some and losing some - my guess is you held roughly 50%. However since you are only managing to hold a ~50% rate this just confirms to the system that you actually belong in Silver 5! If you actually belonged in Silver 4 (or higher), then you should be beating the Silver 5 people at greater than 50% rate.

I know you mentioned that you have been above 50% win rate, but you can't look at your overall win rate since that includes games when you "crushing Bronze" which will skew the results. You need to look at what your win rate has been since you got into Silver. My guess is you have probably been winning under 50% of your games since getting into Silver. Just looking at your match history for the past week (3/26 - 4/2), you have 27 wins and 31 losses for a win rate of 46.5%. This confirms that your wins in Bronze are skewing your overall win-rate making you feel like you should be climbing.

You were actually doing very well in terms of win-rate until that 5 game losing streak on 3/29. Thus if I had to venture a guess, I'd say you got promoted into Silver on 3/29?

LXIIApr 3, 20151 votes

{quoted}

This means that you are playing against people that are LOWER in MMR than you. What probably happened is that you went on a nice winning streak while climbing out of Bronze and got into a higher league (~Silver 4). What probably happened next is that you likely went on a losing streak while in the new league so the matchmaking then starts matching you against people with lower MMR than you (that would be ~Silver 5 people). Against these weaker opponents, you then probably started winning some and losing some - my guess is you held roughly 50%. However since you are only managing to hold a ~50% rate this just confirms to the system that you actually belong in Silver 5! If you actually belonged in Silver 4 (or higher), then you should be beating the Silver 5 people at greater than 50% rate.

I know you mentioned that you have been above 50% win rate, but you can't look at your overall win rate since that includes games when you "crushing Bronze" which will skew the results. You need to look at what your win rate has been since you got into Silver. My guess is you have probably been winning under 50% of your games since getting into Silver. Just looking at your match history for the past week (3/26 - 4/2), you have 27 wins and 31 losses for a win rate of 46.5%. This confirms that your wins in Bronze are skewing your overall win-rate making you feel like you should be climbing.

You were actually doing very well in terms of win-rate until that 5 game losing streak on 3/29. Thus if I had to venture a guess, I'd say you got promoted into Silver on 3/29?

Close, but no cigar. I was promoted on 3/19, and destroyed for a while, only to go on monster losing streaks. I understand how the system works, and I also understand that losing games definitely isn't going to help me climb. But again, I'm only one guy out of 5.

AndyChronoApr 3, 20157 votes

I'm only one guy out of 5.

That only matters in individual games. Sometimes your team might just be too heavy for you to carry. It happens.

But in the long run, the only common factor in all of your games.... is YOU:

Your team has 4 people of roughly Silver skill level + You (insert whatever you think your skill level is) The enemy team has 5 people of roughly Silver skill level.

If you really are better than the others in the game, your team should end up winning greater than 50% of the time simply because you are putting them over the top.

This isn't even taking into account afk/leavers/trolls/etc. Assuming you yourself are not doing any of these things, then there are 4 potential players on your team that could mess up your team as opposed to the enemy team which has 5 potential afk/leavers/trolls.

GavranApr 3, 20151 votes

I like you AndyChrono, and I like your understanding of the ranked system. :)

SarcasticShepardApr 3, 20151 votes

{quoted}

But in the long run, the only common factor in all of your games.... is YOU:

More precisely, you, the servers, your internet connection...and big pile of various bugs and oversight Riot never bothers to fix (remember that bug with Shen's ult?)

Attitude is a determining factor in how well one player does and unfortunately positive emotions are rather hard to spread to a team. My personal opinion is that morale is a larger factor than individual player's skill. A player who believes he can win will unconsciously take bolder actions (not foolish, bolder).

KazaashiApr 3, 20151 votes

{quoted}

This means that you are playing against people that are LOWER in MMR than you. What probably happened is that you went on a nice winning streak while climbing out of Bronze and got into a higher league (~Silver 4). What probably happened next is that you likely went on a losing streak while in the new league so the matchmaking then starts matching you against people with lower MMR than you (that would be ~Silver 5 people). Against these weaker opponents, you then probably started winning some and losing some - my guess is you held roughly 50%. However since you are only managing to hold a ~50% rate this just confirms to the system that you actually belong in Silver 5! If you actually belonged in Silver 4 (or higher), then you should be beating the Silver 5 people at greater than 50% rate.

I know you mentioned that you have been above 50% win rate, but you can't look at your overall win rate since that includes games when you "crushing Bronze" which will skew the results. You need to look at what your win rate has been since you got into Silver. My guess is you have probably been winning under 50% of your games since getting into Silver. Just looking at your match history for the past week (3/26 - 4/2), you have 27 wins and 31 losses for a win rate of 46.5%. This confirms that your wins in Bronze are skewing your overall win-rate making you feel like you should be climbing.

You were actually doing very well in terms of win-rate until that 5 game losing streak on 3/29. Thus if I had to venture a guess, I'd say you got promoted into Silver on 3/29?

You, sir, deserve a medal.

ZeeDrakonApr 2, 20155 votes

well the MMR IS the reason... if you go 2:1 all the time your MMR will raise and youll get more LP for a win and lose less for a loss

Your currently at 141 wins to 137 losses. this means if you really stomped bronze and got out quickly, youve LOST more games than youve won after getting to silver. and with a negative win/loss in your current elo your mmr obviously is shit since that tells the game you dont belong where you currently are.

LXIIApr 3, 20152 votes

{quoted}

well the MMR IS the reason... if you go 2:1 all the time your MMR will raise and youll get more LP for a win and lose less for a loss

Well as already stated, I win more than I lose.. at least until recently.

But be that as it may, the main issue is still there. MMR itself is a dumb system. So if I lose more it should make it to where I have to win an assload to achieve the same goal? But if I'm constantly winning they'll have no problem making sure I lose less? Seems like a completely backwards situation.

And if I'm going to be screwed over by an invisible number that is not actually confirmed by anyone, why can't they at least make it to where I can see my own. (I realize op.gg etc have their own "mmr viewer" but Riot has said countless times that those aren't legit sources)

ZeeDrakonApr 3, 20153 votes

MMR is not stupid at all, it basically takes your Win/Loss ratio in your current elo, and if your 50% it prevents you from going up with LP since beeing at 50/50 at your elo is obviously not enough to climb. if you win very much you gain many LP per win and eventually skip since the system acknowledges that your better than the people in your elo, and if you lose more and your worse than your elo it'll try to demote you. and as i said you can win more than you lose when you have a 50% record and you said you stomped out of bronze. so to get out of bronze you need to have a higher winrate than 50%, which means your winrate after getting silver is lower than 50% which legitimately lowers your MMR to a point where you described it, since the system sees you in bronze

LXIIApr 3, 20152 votes

{quoted}

MMR is not stupid at all, it basically takes your Win/Loss ratio in your current elo, and if your 50% it prevents you from going up with LP since beeing at 50/50 at your elo is obviously not enough to climb. if you win very much you gain many LP per win and eventually skip since the system acknowledges that your better than the people in your elo, and if you lose more and your worse than your elo it'll try to demote you. and as i said you can win more than you lose when you have a 50% record and you said you stomped out of bronze. so to get out of bronze you need to have a higher winrate than 50%, which means your winrate after getting silver is lower than 50% which legitimately lowers your MMR to a point where you described it, since the system sees you in bronze

And here's my issue with all of that. I'm one guy out of 5. I'm not saying I'm a god or anything, but I have a lot more knowledge on this game and how to win it than most of the guys I play with. If I could be my entire team I would be TSM, but as it stands I only have control over one champion and I have to pray to god every game that the other 4 people can do what needs to be done to win. Usually that isn't the case, and we lose. Now how is it a good system if it's literally JUST going to look at the fact that I lost? It shouldn't be black and white in a game that has so many factors. If I kick a bunch of ass, but my team just feeds and feeds, sure take some LP but leave my MMR the hell alone. I understand how it works now, but I still don't think it's a good measure of a player's skill. I don't think rankings should just be based on time played/luck with a little bit of personal skill mixed in.

ZeeDrakonApr 3, 20152 votes

So mathematically you win more games due to persons you just described than you lose. and since you already played over 300 games thats prettty much guaranteed to be the case. please google Dunning-Kruger-Effect once. overcoming this is the first step to improving

LXIIApr 3, 20151 votes

{quoted}

So mathematically you win more games due to persons you just described than you lose. and since you already played over 300 games thats prettty much guaranteed to be the case. please google Dunning-Kruger-Effect once. overcoming this is the first step to improving

This is the wrong mindset to have.. I can queue norms with my plat friends, play against other plats, and do fine. Because my friends are also aware of how and when to push for victory. If it's just me and 4 clueless guys, there's not much I can do to make that work. Rationalize MMR as you will, but when it comes down to it you're still completely reliant on the other 4 people to help you climb. And if they're not worthy of climbing they're more than capable of holding back those that are.

Side Note: I'm a psych major, don't assume that you're the only one that knows what these things are.

usul1202Apr 3, 20152 votes

But the issue is that he's right. I'm an engineering major, so I'll take the numbers side of things. the other team is 11% more likely (5/9-4/9) to have a troll afk or leaver, assuming you are never one of the stated. this puts your team at an advantage, and i can now ignore that factor from later statistics. Now we can look at the skill level of individuals. if you are better than those around you, then the teams will be 5 silver 4's vs 4 silver 4's and 1 silver 1, or whatever you'll eventually even out at. it won't be every time, but people of a higher rank (either in skill level, or in the actual ranked system) will win more, because their teams average out to being better.

That's what MMR is for, to ensure that each skill level is checked to see where you even out. If you consistently win, your MMR will reflect it. your win rate is not currently >>50% (greater outside of statistical error) and therefore your MMR is balancing out at your current rank. if you go on a win streak, your MMR will begin to rise, and you will play harder opponents. run 50% against higher MMR opponents, and your LP gain will reflect it. Rank and LP feed off of each other, and both are based around the fact that you are the consistent factor between your different soloQ games, and therefore you are the one that will contribute to more wins, or more losses.

Statistically, your opponents are just as clueless as the 4 guys on your team. all 5 of them. If you know how to end games, then end them. push for victory. You won't win every time, but you'll sure win more trying to do the right thing than sitting back with the people doing the wrong thing.

ZeeDrakonApr 3, 20151 votes

Normal games in no way indicate your skilllevel. Maybe you dont hard-lose or maybe you even win lane against other platinum players but that doesnt mean you deserve platinum because 1. On game is not consistent. They might try out a new champ or role, get camped or just have a bad day. From my experience (and ive actually tested that against silver/low gold players in my friendslist) the better mapawareness objective control and game knowledge is much more important than the raw lane mechanics and even if i (on my way worse role) not stomp them in lane but just pull even, i win the game because of superior knowledge.

And i dont asssume im.the only one knowing what the DKE is but if you really majored in psychology you should know it applies to you

AazzlanoApr 3, 20152 votes

[{quoted}](name=RYN Flux,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=IA2OEmp5,comment-id=0001000000000000,timestamp=2015-04-03T00:17:55.478+0000) If I could be my entire team I would be TSM, but as it stands I only have control over one champion and I have to pray to god every game that the other 4 people can do what needs to be done to win. Usually that isn't the case, and we lose.

So you are saying, as it stands, if you could multiply yourself by 5 you would be TSM, meaning at your current skill level, since you are a single player, you could be a single player on TSM and perform well?

There is your delusion. If you are in silver and can't get out, you deserve to be in silver. Period. You can take any player from a higher elo, gold, plat, or diamond, or whatever, and put them in silver games and they can win 90%+ of their games easily.

TsugagaApr 2, 20154 votes

MMR is what matters, not LP, your LP gain/loss doesn't matter at all. If you lose more LP than you gain then it's because your MMR is lower than it should be for silver 4, your MMR is probably silver 5. As long as you stay above 50% wins then your MMR should slowly increase and you will start getting better LP gain/loss.

LXIIApr 2, 20154 votes

{quoted}

MMR is what matters, not LP, your LP gain/loss doesn't matter at all. If you lose more LP than you gain then it's because your MMR is lower than it should be for silver 4, your MMR is probably silver 5. As long as you stay above 50% wins then your MMR should slowly increase and you will start getting better LP gain/loss.

See I just keep hearing this, but surprise, I've been over 50% forever.. I climbed an entire tier while winning more than losing. How would my mmr just randomly decide it's lower than it should be when I've been on nothing but an uphill climb?

TsugagaApr 2, 20153 votes

[{quoted}](name=RYN Flux,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=IA2OEmp5,comment-id=00000000,timestamp=2015-04-02T23:54:07.175+0000)

See I just keep hearing this, but surprise, I've been over 50% forever.. I climbed an entire tier while winning more than losing. How would my mmr just randomly decide it's lower than it should be when I've been on nothing but an uphill climb?

You were placed on bronze 5 but your MMR might have been bronze 4 or 3. You won enough games and your LP eventually surpassed your MMR. I don't think hot streaks affect MMR but it affects LP gain/loss, so you will climb tiers quickly but your MMR doesn't increase as fast. Also MMR gain is affected by both teams combined MMR, so if you've been facing lesser opponents then your MMR gains would have been low but LP gain would stay the same.

It's a complicated system, probably far from perfect, but as long as you keep a good win rate then you'll climb.

LXIIApr 3, 20152 votes

{quoted}

You were placed on bronze 5 but your MMR might have been bronze 4 or 3. You won enough games and your LP eventually surpassed your MMR. I don't think hot streaks affect MMR but it affects LP gain/loss, so you will climb tiers quickly but your MMR doesn't increase as fast. Also MMR gain is affected by both teams combined MMR, so if you've been facing lesser opponents then your MMR gains would have been low but LP gain would stay the same.

It's a complicated system, probably far from perfect, but as long as you keep a good win rate then you'll climb.

Ugh, I appreciate the polite comments and helping me understand the problem. But I personally still feel like the problem itself should be worked at rather than me just having to find a way to work around it. I'm now a veteran in silver with 0 LP.. over 100 games, and literally nothing to show for it. But I'm still winning over half of them. Just doesn't seem right.

Again though, thank you.

Snaketeeth01Apr 3, 20153 votes

"It's a complicated system, probably far from perfect, but as long as you keep a good win rate then you'll climb."

Lies. So when I end season 4 with over %50 and a 17 win streak. It is fair for MMR to decide the Demote me 2 ranks on ladder reset?

I'm now in B3 and willing to trade my account for a hot meal.

I stopped reading when I saw the clear division that has been instilled for years. "does elo hell exist?" There are those of us who are in it and will NEVER get out. And then those that have 5 games played on their gold account and think that elo hell is an excuse. wow.

So how does MMR calculate when I suffer 2 afk teammates in a row? It drops just as hard as if I didnt have afk's.. is this at all fair? Does this show any sort of balance or consideratoin in the slightest? So according to the game. It doesnt matter if I am 4 v 5 or 5 v 5 a loss is a loss is a loss.

MMR goes off of strict black and whte simple straight win or loss. Cut and dry. judges 1 player out of a ten man enviroment. Hmm. Wouldnt it make more sense to judge players on individual play?

So when I play mid and dont heave a death for over 25 minutes while my bot lane has 9 deaths. OBVIOUSLY mid lane is +gold, bot lane is -gold. So why, in the end when bot lane inevitably runs over everybody because there is no counter to just how hopeless my teammates are. Win or loss. That's all that matters.

So you can stick 2 players side by side. each suffer the same 3 out of 5 loss. each suffer the same mmr and LP drop. But 1 of these players is a new to ranked, owns 27 champs 3 rune pages, and doesn't even give a dam about ranked. And the other player losses each match with 4k more gold than any of his teammates. How can you argue that these 2 players should lose the same amount of ground? I call this BS. I call it Robbery. I call it a sham of a ranked ladder. I cannot honestly believe that gold players play any better than I do, I can't see it. And yet here I don't believe I will ever maintain over halfway through silver.

There is no identification between skilled players and unskilled. And there is no separation between the two. Win or loss. That's it. Doesn't matter than I can win my role, every game, every time, without fail, without problem. And still watch at least 2 teammates hand away gold faster than I could ever hope to gain it.

Why? Where is the actual balance? Where is the individual case balance? It does not exist! Why is a 1 year player ALLOWED to play with a 5? If I am over 1000 games into a season, why am I being matchmade with 2 players that have under 80 combined? How is this at all balanced?

TL;DR Buy my account off me, ranked is completely unfair.

usul1202Apr 3, 20154 votes

You're viewing the games as individuals. MMR is a world class ranking system used to average hard to quantify sports over many games. each individual game might not work out, but everyone within the standard deviation will have an MMR that will advance as they do, and that will adjust accordingly over time. Looking at it on a per-game basis isn't how it's supposed to work, nor should it, as that would allow very lucky people to climb quickly, instead of a long drawn out process that shows that you're consistently better. the reason you need a >>50% win differential is that you're proving that you're better than your rank.

LXIIApr 3, 20151 votes

{quoted}

"It's a complicated system, probably far from perfect, but as long as you keep a good win rate then you'll climb."

Lies. So when I end season 4 with over %50 and a 17 win streak. It is fair for MMR to decide the Demote me 2 ranks on ladder reset?

I'm now in B3 and willing to trade my account for a hot meal.

I stopped reading when I saw the clear division that has been instilled for years. "does elo hell exist?" There are those of us who are in it and will NEVER get out. And then those that have 5 games played on their gold account and think that elo hell is an excuse. wow.

So how does MMR calculate when I suffer 2 afk teammates in a row? It drops just as hard as if I didnt have afk's.. is this at all fair? Does this show any sort of balance or consideratoin in the slightest? So according to the game. It doesnt matter if I am 4 v 5 or 5 v 5 a loss is a loss is a loss.

MMR goes off of strict black and whte simple straight win or loss. Cut and dry. judges 1 player out of a ten man enviroment. Hmm. Wouldnt it make more sense to judge players on individual play?

So when I play mid and dont heave a death for over 25 minutes while my bot lane has 9 deaths. OBVIOUSLY mid lane is +gold, bot lane is -gold. So why, in the end when bot lane inevitably runs over everybody because there is no counter to just how hopeless my teammates are. Win or loss. That's all that matters.

So you can stick 2 players side by side. each suffer the same 3 out of 5 loss. each suffer the same mmr and LP drop. But 1 of these players is a new to ranked, owns 27 champs 3 rune pages, and doesn't even give a dam about ranked. And the other player losses each match with 4k more gold than any of his teammates. How can you argue that these 2 players should lose the same amount of ground? I call this BS. I call it Robbery. I call it a sham of a ranked ladder. I cannot honestly believe that gold players play any better than I do, I can't see it. And yet here I don't believe I will ever maintain over halfway through silver.

There is no identification between skilled players and unskilled. And there is no separation between the two. Win or loss. That's it. Doesn't matter than I can win my role, every game, every time, without fail, without problem. And still watch at least 2 teammates hand away gold faster than I could ever hope to gain it.

Why? Where is the actual balance? Where is the individual case balance? It does not exist! Why is a 1 year player ALLOWED to play with a 5? If I am over 1000 games into a season, why am I being matchmade with 2 players that have under 80 combined? How is this at all balanced?

TL;DR Buy my account off me, ranked is completely unfair.

Nope, we're delusional. Ask the guys that were lucky enough to get to Plat. It's our fault.

usul1202Apr 3, 20153 votes

MMR is a ranking that is based off of a long term ideal. The idea isn't to stomp every game, but to show that, in the long run, you're consistently better than those around you. if you hold a >>50% win rate, your MMR will rise, and when your MMR is higher than your rank, then even a 50% will carry you up, until your rank surpasses your MMR. rank is a quick, fickle thing that can be decided by luck. MMR is a long term structure that is designed to hold luck out of the equation.

So yes, i'm giving you MMR, but i'm trying to explain here why MMR is a thing.

SleepyLionCubApr 3, 20152 votes

you should have to go through demotion games once you hit 0 LP.

Then you have to lose 2/3 of your next games to get demoted. Rather than just getting demoted after losing 1 game at 0 lp

Sailor MintApr 3, 20151 votes

Since LP gains are positive if your MMR is reasonably high compared to your division, you can't demoted without losing multiple games in a row.

GavranApr 3, 20151 votes

Eh, any MMR/skill-based argument against "demotion series" can be applied to promotions and be just as accurate.

The real reason is that promotions are supposed to feel really cool when you beat them, and demotions would feel shitty no matter what (either "great, these baddies dragged me down a rank" or "sarcastic yayyy I'm barely holding on")

That said promotions have a whole lot of that first shitty feeling and basing any placement on a 3 or 5 game sample size is dumb tbh.

SwiftKitten88Apr 3, 20152 votes

i has the exact same thing happen i was placed into bronze 4 and i made it all the way to silver 4 before reching silver 3 promos and losing those after that i had a really bad day were i lost like 10 games becuase of 2 intentional feeder and 3 afks. now im at silver 5 with 0 lp and all my teammtes suck so bad i can do anything. then my main gets hit with nerf because people here are too stupid to learn how to actually play against her and complain shes op despise the fact she has 10 really popular champs that counter her and becuase pople dont have the brain to stand behind creep when im throwing spears at them. then complain im op becuase they stand out in the open like idoits

Ash LockheartApr 3, 20152 votes

[{quoted}](name=RYN Flux,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=IA2OEmp5,comment-id=,timestamp=2015-04-02T23:47:31.700+0000)

I'd like to start by saying that I realize some people climb with little to no problem, and obviously their situation is different because some people do get teams that can play every game, so they're gonna get somewhere. It's mathematically impossible for us ALL to get screwed endlessly. But for the rest of us, we have to deal with endless loops of lp gain and loss that ultimately leads to nowhere.

I was placed in Bronze 5 this season.. not the happiest day of my life, but whatever, I can crush Bronze and move up. So I did. I got all the way to S4 in a short time, then it happened; my LP gain and loss flipped, and I've since lived at 0 LP in S5.

To break it down, every game I win results in 15-16 LP, literally every time without fail. Losses are worth negative 21-22 LP. So with that in mind we'll use the highest gain (16) and the lowest loss (21) to make this play out the best possible way. I win 2 games in a row? YES I'M AT 32 LP, DOING WORK. Then I lose one and I'm down to 11. So essentially 3 games will net me 11 LP. At this rate we're looking at over 9 sets of 3 JUST to get to promos (Which let's be honest, are a coin toss). So 27 games if, and only if, I can actually keep the 2:1 ratio alive, and that's asking for a whole hell of a lot in Silver.

Now my next point, when champions have a win rate of around 50% people start screaming "op" from the mountaintops. So if a champ that wins half their games is op why am I expected to win well over 2/3 of my games consecutively to make some real progress. If I even go 1 for 1 I LOSE LP. Doesn't seem right to me. Obviously I shouldn't be shooting up the ladders at 1 for 1, but if I could even retain a few points from my victories that would be nice. I would understand if it were this tough to get through the top division of each tier in order to reach the next, but cmon man, I'm in S5.. cut me some slack here.

tl;dr All I'm asking is for a legit reason why my LP loss and gain is unbalanced as all hell (and don't give me "mmr"), or for it to be fixed.

I have played 4000 games. Highest I have gotten is silver 3. How the game is set up you have to pray your team knows what they are doing. I have watched many players carry very very hard like 50/4/34 hard, but still lost the match. Its a team base game. riot does not want a champ to carry every match. Other wise every player would just play that champ. Players can talk about the MMR all they want and say its good, but I will say it is a fact you can be from Plat and start in brozne and be stuck. Its not about being good/best. Its about having teams that know what they are doing. The game is very simple, but many many players love to get kills, and items over trying to finish the game, and move on to the next match. Most also enjoy talking trash. Just like the next few players that will reply on my post. Take it from me. Its base off luck for the most part. Players that go from bot to top in a few games are playing with friends. They are not doing it them self's.

DralunApr 3, 20153 votes

[{quoted}](name=Ash Lockheart,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=IA2OEmp5,comment-id=0005,timestamp=2015-04-03T01:25:29.319+0000)

I have played 4000 games. Highest I have gotten is silver 3. How the game is set up you have to pray your team knows what they are doing. I have watched many players carry very very hard like 50/4/34 hard, but still lost the match. Its a team base game. riot does not want a champ to carry every match. Other wise every player would just play that champ. Players can talk about the MMR all they want and say its good, but I will say it is a fact you can be from Plat and start in brozne and be stuck. Its not about being good/best. Its about having teams that know what they are doing. The game is very simple, but many many players love to get kills, and items over trying to finish the game, and move on to the next match. Most also enjoy talking trash. Just like the next few players that will reply on my post. Take it from me. Its base off luck for the most part. Players that go from bot to top in a few games are playing with friends. They are not doing it them self's.

No... you really can't. I'm a plat player, and I started about 3 accs in bronze to see how true that was, and I got out of bronze extremely fast each time. My current acc right now started at bronze 3, and is currently 25W 12L, and in silver promos. Do I lose a few games? Sure. Do I win more than I lose? Oh hell yes.

@OP, you W/L spread is at +4 after 288 games this season according to op.gg, so I would have to say I agree with the system, that you are about where you belong. Can you win every game? No. But your win rate should be higher than 51% if you really doing belong higher. Also the game is much more about having the chance of your team winning while you are on the team being high, rather than "carrying". Yes there is a difference. You being a cooperative, healthy member of the team increases odds of the W, regardless of your score, the same is to be said vice versa.

"carry" the game by being a productive, well mannered, good team player, and if your score is good to match, then great. Most players at this ELO seem to not realize this.

GavranApr 3, 20151 votes

plz stop making bronze accounts it's not fun playing with people way better than you :c

But, also, thanks for sharing your input and it's actually kind of nice to hear how fast the system is scooting you past actual not-so-great players like me.

SeenanApr 3, 20152 votes

I was Gold 5 last season (placed there)..Won one game or two, lost like 5 in a row there-after, continually lost until I just stopped playing Ranked altogether before the season ended...Ended up S1 or S2 at 0lp...This season, I seemed to place Bronze 2 apparently. My friend who was Gold 4, afked in one of her games which counts as 3 losses (her overall win/loss ratio for the placements games was worse than mine)...And still placed Silver 2/1 or so. The fuck, Riot? Literally punished for no reason..

GavranApr 3, 20151 votes

Here's the thing: your MMR when you quit playing ranked (after losing a ton of games?) is the same now as it was then. You got placed in Gold incorrectly, this season you got placed in Bronze, probably correctly-ish. And no, AFKing does not count as 3 losses, so if that's why you think your friend's win/loss was worse than yours, it wasn't.

MMR is not reset between seasons regardless so you could go 10/0 and not end up in Gold/Plat, and a Plat player could go 5/5 and end up in Plat again.

Honestly: this is the one key truth of Ranked - League means nothing. MMR accurately reflects your W/L and determines who you play against. The League system TRIES to match your MMR, but fails to do so for several reasons unless you have played very many games.

And of course, MMR is also only an approximation of your skill level, and will also be inaccurate until you've played a fair amount of games.

GavranApr 3, 20152 votes

All I'm asking is for a legit reason why my LP loss and gain is unbalanced

~~This IS because of MMR. I can and will explain why to you, and I will answer your questions afterward. There is no better way to climb than to keep winning.~~

~~But I'm not going to spend the time explaining how MMR works, why the League system is flawed, and why your LP is the way it is unless you ask me to, because saying~~

don't give me "mmr"

~~to me says "I've had this explained to me before but I refuse to accept reality because I want to believe I'm better than I am."~~

Nevermind I read all the other posts where people already did explain it to you and you chose to disregard reality.

Though small acknowledgement to you for having some amount of discourse with some of them at least.

Also psych majors aren't immune to psychological phenomena. As a psych major you should know not to diagnose yourself, and let me tell you, "5 of me is equal to professional players who are not in silver, nevermind that I'm in silver" is Dunning-Kreuger effect self delusion 100% of the time.

Vegas DadApr 3, 20152 votes

Guy the ranking system is meaningless unless you are diamond 1+ or bronze 3 or lower. Everything in between is the same with a random mixing of players haphazardly placed. So just dont take it serious because your rank is literally meaningless. I have one fo my accounts been plat 3 for 2 seasons, my other account i struggled to get to plat for3 years it finally goto plat this season reached plat 3 then whammo the match making gods took over now plat 5, lastly i got my throw away account that i use to play with my lower ranked friend and it is silver 4 or something.

Why did i bring all of that up ? Because if you blindfolded me and logged me into any of my accounts and started the match and then asked me was i playing on my silver, gold or plat account i would never be able to guess right because it is all the same shit of misplaced garbage that this broken ranking system has created. Level of bad and retards in my plat 3 games is exactly the same in the silver games I MEAN EXACTLY.

Sometimes it is truly i joke I am like wait what? We just crushed them how on earth was that entire team in plat they were all worse that most players i seen in silver.

ofartApr 3, 20151 votes

Better title: How I tanked my MMR

The Bíg TicketApr 3, 20151 votes

Question: Did you play soloqueue only or did you duo at any points?

Cause my mmr seems to be fucked up aswell after playing a lot of duo queue, despite a pretty high win rate (89 wins 76 losses) I only get about 17-18 LP per win.

LXIIApr 3, 20151 votes

[{quoted}](name=Danielas Kitten,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=IA2OEmp5,comment-id=000b,timestamp=2015-04-03T12:25:19.919+0000)

Question: Did you play soloqueue only or did you duo at any points?

Cause my mmr seems to be fucked up aswell after playing a lot of duo queue, despite a pretty high win rate (89 wins 76 losses) I only get about 17-18 LP per win.

A fair amount of both actually. op.gg literally says it can't read my mmr accurately because of duo games though, so maybe the actually do throw it off?

The Bíg TicketApr 3, 20151 votes

Well according to op.gg I am in elo hell with an mmr about 150 lower than the average mmr of my leauge. So I wouldn't rely on that site anyway since I am not losing more than 14 or 15 LP for each defeat, it is just that my LP gains are extremely low .

FourVsFiveApr 3, 20151 votes

if you want to climb you have to know what champs are top tier and play them, or learn to play them, currently LB,Kat,Blitz,Nid,vi,sej,annie are top tier good champs that can help u climb once you learn to play them well.

TittyAsTy28Apr 3, 20151 votes

Hey RYN I just realized you posted a similar problem lol

But hey why not propose to change the way they have the MMR set up based on your win and losses, but actually base it where it matters.

KDA is an ideal factor for this. Players tend to lose games due to many factors, but what I notice most is when people feed too much. I can go 14-2-7 and still lose because my entire team fed the opposing team.

Mintymentos NAApr 4, 20151 votes

you just have to be good, plain and simple to climb you're way out, sometimes you cannot carry an entire team by yourself but if you're good you can do this a lot of the times. believe me when i say that.

NoMonkuApr 4, 20151 votes

Your LP gains/losses have to do with where the system is "rating" you overall. Since you gain less then you win, the system thinks that you deserve to be in a lower tier/division. It is trying to get you to your "ideal" level, which is where the LP gains/losses should even out. Yours aren't that bad, so you should be close to your current skill level I'm thinking. What was your LP gain/loss when you hit S5?

As for you dropping, you probably hit your ceiling with your current skill level. I personally don't really see much skill difference between one tier to another except at higher levels like diamond+, but that doesn't matter here. You could have also just had a bad string of games where you just got unlucky and lost to your opponents, so with enough time you will be able to climb back up. With the way you are talking, I'm feeling you've hit a point where you can't carry yourself anymore. You easily climbed out of bronze because you were good enough to carry yourself out. I feel you just need to get the same proficiency to be able to do that with silver. Improve yourself and increase your skill level. It is the ONLY thing that you can directly impact in the game. If you rely on your teammates to do it, you may get lucky and go up a division or possibly a tier, but if you carry yourself, you will get to a higher level.

LXIIApr 7, 20151 votes

{quoted}

Your LP gains/losses have to do with where the system is "rating" you overall. Since you gain less then you win, the system thinks that you deserve to be in a lower tier/division. It is trying to get you to your "ideal" level, which is where the LP gains/losses should even out. Yours aren't that bad, so you should be close to your current skill level I'm thinking. What was your LP gain/loss when you hit S5?

As for you dropping, you probably hit your ceiling with your current skill level. I personally don't really see much skill difference between one tier to another except at higher levels like diamond+, but that doesn't matter here. You could have also just had a bad string of games where you just got unlucky and lost to your opponents, so with enough time you will be able to climb back up. With the way you are talking, I'm feeling you've hit a point where you can't carry yourself anymore. You easily climbed out of bronze because you were good enough to carry yourself out. I feel you just need to get the same proficiency to be able to do that with silver. Improve yourself and increase your skill level. It is the ONLY thing that you can directly impact in the game. If you rely on your teammates to do it, you may get lucky and go up a division or possibly a tier, but if you carry yourself, you will get to a higher level.

Well I get that it "thinks" I need to be here, but I have to disagree. Literally any game where my bot lane (and let's be honest, it's always bot) doesn't feed like crazy I can carry just fine, actually just got off a 5 win streak where there were only 3 or 4 kills til grouping, and they got absolutely destroyed every time. But when people are fed there is really only so much I can do about it. I understand that one day I'll look back and it won't matter, but I'm just sooo done having to work this hard to move up, then losing one game and dropping 2 games worth of progress.

NoMonkuApr 7, 20151 votes

Well the ONLY way to get out of this "slump" is to continue playing. You can blame the system I guess, but since it ISN'T going to change anytime soon(at least nothing about the current system should change until the season is over) all you can do is just grit your teeth and play it through. I will say I am inexperienced in ranked since I haven't hit my ideal spot, I've barely gone over 100 games in any season, so I'm not too sure how to feel when you hit equal gains/losses or unfair distribution of it(loss>win). I've only had to deal with wins> losses and only sad times I've had are losing promotions and getting 99 LP :(.

For you, I say you're lucky. Since I prefer to play ADC, I almost always do okay bot lane and my mid and/or top(usually and :[ ) feed hard, then I get 2v5 tower dived and we lose from then on.

For you feeling you aren't in your ideal "spot" or current "level" of play, I'm feeling you hit your ceiling with your current skill, as I said in my original post. You probably have the knowledge and know how on what you should do in certain situations, but it isn't significant enough for you to be able to stomp your opponents. The ideal is for you to carry yourself and crush your opponents on whatever role you're in and you will climb that way.

For me, I was scared I was going to lose a lot in ranked, so to increase my chances I practiced champions I liked in the positions I had to play. I tried to have 2 off-meta pick champions that I could go for each role and as I main ADC, I could play w/e ADC I felt like playing. In roles that aren't my main, I tried to pick champions that were easier to play, more farm to win type of champions who could easily wave clear and get CS, but if I somehow did win lane, the opponent couldn't touch me. Also champions that are strong despite getting dumped on, like Lulu and Rumble, are great picks too, since they require basically no gold to have good impact. Since last year I've transitioned towards playing champions that are more OP or meta, since I don't actually want to invest more time into the game. You can probably try doing that as well if you feel your current picks aren't getting you anywhere. I personally love Ezreal as an ADC, but I would always pick Tristana, Lucian, or Corki over him in S4 because I'd have to basically play a 10/10 ADC Ez when I could have just played a 5/10 Trist and won.

Sorry for the rant, hope this helps.