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Ranked System is SO Broken

TheMrWitt··3 votes·2,481 views

Hello Riot and whomever else is frustrated with ranked,

I will start off with saying, I have been playing League since the middle of season 3, which is not too long ago, so I'm not a not professional. I enjoy the competition and am involved with fantasy LCS and regularly follow the matches (NA Rules). I love the high speed action and all of the calculations that go into every single play. I LOVE the artwork, the community, the animations, the lore, and all of the diverse champions. Season 4 I was in Silver 4 and would be able to fight the battles, win some loose some, the normal way the game works. In all honestly, I have put well over 1000 games into league and have a passion for the game and believe in what it stands for.

As I began to play with my friends that were newer to the game, I noticed the skill level was lower, which was a good thing for the incoming summoners to learn and adapt to the game. After many long nights and close wins and looses with the team, I began to solo que again. I noticed the summoner skill began to decrease, the well known tactics began to fade and more and more B5 mistakes arose. Becoming frustrated with the the reversed progress, I quit playing with my newbie friends and began to solo que to try to boost my elo back to where I had worked so hard to to get it. Too bad it was already too late.

This is where I begin to get to my point. It also turns out that players in Silver players won't survive, with any sanity left, in bronze either. The play style is so massively different the two ranks cannot possibly mix (hence B5, B4, B3, etc right?). Wrong! they are all so closely related no major change happens until silver anyway... This made me, as an experienced player, frustrated and longed to que with summoners of my similar skill set once again. This never again happened. The bronze summoner, couldn't support properly, went in at the wrong times, fell for the baits, became wayyyyyyyy too greedy and would give up first blood because of a lvl 3 tower dive in Renekton and get stunned because they have no clue what has happening. other lanes didn't know how to fight champs and would feed until Warwick became stronger than all 5 of use together. This made games impossible to win, I constantly found myself trying to teach others players how to read situations and properly build champions rather than actually playing the game (no Braum does go mid with a item 3072, yes it happened...) . These situations occurred in ranked games!! I stayed away form blind pick to avoid this, it seems it carries over like cancer. I could go through 50 examples in all positions on the rift with scenarios much like this one. This is the epitome of the new B5 player, not a previous S4/5 player dragged down by poor matchmaking and unskilled players.

To finish this ongoing rant and try get some support rather than post a sob story, the ranking system MUST become more complex and integrated with the summoners knowledge, awareness, reactions, performance in game, and skill with the actual champion. I feel, and some of my fellow summoners too, that the ranked needs just as big of a rework as the Rift did. Make it more difficult to become ranked, take into account more detailed information, make the rank about the summoner overall, not whether they can sit back and ks 75% of the time become the only one that can keep up with their team, try to 1v5 and well ...yeah. It makes me feel like I'm Johnny Knoxville in The Ringer.

Riot you have already put strong tools in place to have the ability to track incredibly advanced data in every single game (tribunal, detailed match history, etc). This will assist summoners, just like me, that wish to progress their skill but cant win any ranked games because of all the rest of the team being miles below their skill level. I believe in league and I am enjoying the direction the game is taking, but there needs to be a way for experienced players to increase LP or reduce the amount of LP lost. Make the amount of LP differ from summoner to summoner in the match based off of their performance not the win or the loss. This LP team bonus is a step in the direction.

Finally as I said before, I'm no professional. I'm a student in college just trying to enjoy his favorite video game.I'm open for any other information you guys want to put, and suggestions. I'm reaching out to the community to see if I'm the only on in this situation. I want to save my desire to play the game, but I dread playing, I hate being place in a lobby where i know I'm not matched in knowledge awareness or even desire. I grind on to try and reach the Valhalla of skill and competition. That is what league is about, that is what ranked is about, and that has always brought every single one of you summoners back and back again. Its the desire to compete and better yourself.

Sincerely yours from one of you,

TheMrWitt

P.S. I would love if you guys answered the question at the bottom. Much Love.

9 Comments

BlazinHot63 votes

We had a very similar problem to this when Starcraft 2 was still pretty new. Its the same divisions: bronze to diamond (Lets not worry about the masters and higher ranks). Originally they had it as 20% of the population in each division which resulted in the issue you are talking about. There was too wide of a skill gap in some of the divisions. Blizzard fixed this problem by switching up the division distribution to: Bronze - 8% Silver - 20% Gold - 32% Platinum -20% Diamond and above - 20%

Atm, the league distribution in LoL is that HALF (50%) of the player base is in silver 3 or lower. This is why you see such a disparity in bronze and silver league players. Riot knows this, they know its a problem, but for some reason they dont fix it. Im not going to get into a conspiracy theory of why they dont fix it, but its BS nonetheless. For all seriousness, I see no reason why they should care. It seemed like around a third of the active players here bought DJ Sona this weekend. Its February and Riot is in or near the black already. Unless people start voicing the issue, it will remain. /endrant

Plastic Mem0ries2 votes

Silver is just bronze players who happen to not get feeders and afkers every game.

Just so you know.

But yes, I agree. I want out of Bronze, but to do that I need a champion that can carry. So I've been practicing Riven on my ranked games only to find I do go positive many times, yet I still lose the ranked games. The feeders and AFKers are just too much to carry for me. I want to be higher then bronze four, but that's simply impossible with the teammates I get. I wish Riot would fix this.

TheMrWitt1 votes

Thank you. Its annoying right?! I just wish there was more criteria to base the rank. Or make it harder to become ranked?! instead of default to bronze 5 why not EARN bronze 5.

If it was a reward instead of a default the desire and skill would be there! Just suggestions..

You are right tho.. silver will be next to fall....

thomasb12151 votes

FYI: 90% of bronze games are carryable if you're good enough.

TheMrWitt3 votes

Not if the rest of your team feeds every game... 1v5 doesn't work, neither does 2v5.

Morthid1 votes

I was in/ am in this same boat to the point where I sometimes just mess around in ranked games when I get bored. Doesn't matter how many wins in a row i string together ultimately I run into a string of feeders or afkers and no matter how hard i try a 4v5 is difficult to win.

Magnificent Nate2 votes

I like this post and critique of the ranked Bronze league. I also like how the summoner remained so positive about the game and focused on how the system is at fault. I think the problem with Bronze league is that there are enough people benefitting from the current system so as not to make it a problem that needs to be addressed. I think the current logic of "you lost, you need to play better" only works up to a point.

Saying the system is imperfect and just throwing up your hands is a cop out too.

I think there is a lot to do to make the penalty for losing in LoL more based on a reflection of that person's contribution to the game, which would help (but not fix as it's an imperfect system) the current play experience.

CJ FOXX2 votes

I agree wholeheartedly. But most importantly I believe the wins and losses should absolutely impact your LP rating. MMR "The hidden ranking system should be more transparent or removed entirely and should also be impacted by your in game performance if its going to stay as recommended by original poster.

One thing I have often thought about would be if your in game performance ranking S+ through F- should be what your Lp gain or loss should lean on. That (with a little tweaking) would be perfect, then it would force you to attempt not to die actively to progress and would foster a higher skill base. Yes it would even be positive to gain LP from a loss in some cases.

This way we could end the argument of .... eek out your wins and carry your team to gain ranking that's the problem is your attitude. Well that's true many peoples attitude is terrible but its not always the problem.

All I am saying is in a Solo queue environment you cannot rank people properly based on their average win/loss score in a 5v5 environment, there are to many variables for the ranking to be correct. Keep the current ranking system and match applied to 5 man pre built ranked queue. Solo queue just mathematically does not work because to much of my ranking depends on 4 people I have never met, practiced with and more importantly due to the number of people that play...will most likely never see again.

I will say one thing on riots game model, I have spent some money on the game but until ranked solo queue makes mathematical sense I will be happy to spend not a penny more. I will be content to go stomp on normals with silly builds and queue up for some ranked a couple times a day to get my practice on. Really the current structure just forces me as an educated adult to not take it seriously and do other things. It is very sad for some of us who once considered this our favorite game.

P.s. I love league of legends, Riot if you like the state of things and the positive feedback is stronger than the negative then ignore us. I have a feeling that its not but what do I know, at the time of this post Im just Bronze 2.

kureransu1 votes

Play a nami/lulu/sona or any support that can harass really well with sustain. go moderate to full ap (with a sightsone of course), and carry your adc. if you two are fed, then you can most likely win the game.

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