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Ranked and Ideas to fix

Rowsdowr·3/6/2016, 8:14:17 PM·1 votes·440 views

I have uninstalled LoL.

I am a long time player. Since season 1 I think..idk, I've played for a while. I have about 750 wins. The game is no longer anywhere near as enjoyable as it used to be. Normal games are not really entertaining to me anymore which really leaves ranked as the only option for competitive entertainment. This is where LoL loses me.

Before you start with "Get better" "Learn to carry" "grind it out" stop. I have my reasons and I really won't be convinced to try ranked again or have people tell me I'm not that good. I know I am a good player. Good, not great. With the ranked system as it is now, I feel I can not compete in any fair or rewarding manner. What this about is ideas to improve ranked. This is not a "I hate LoL and I am just venting". I want to throw some ideas out there to try to improve a game that I have really enjoyed and put a lot of time in. With that said...

I feel the greatest shortcoming of the ranked system is the number of low level (skill) and toxic players that are in the pool of players allowed to play in ranked games. There are too many new level 30 players who simply do not understand the game as well as they should to take their game to the next level. Players that simply go for kills, do not go for team objectives, do not support teammates, and have no map awareness. IMO, this causes too many bad teams which often results in lopsided wins or loses and wins and loss streaks. Can anyone really honestly say at the bronze level, that there are that many good matches. Most are very lopsided wins with very ugly gameplay. Its makes for very frustrating ranked play for a player of my skill who is good enough to know how to play right but not good enough to carry bad teams. Not much more can be done with toxic players. They will always be there and I feel Riot does what they can to deal with that issue.

I have a few ideas to maybe improve the pool of players that would be eligible to even play ranked, and give players that are eligible for ranked, goals that are team orientated and help them learn to be better players at the same time.

How about a minimum win requirement before being allowed to play ranked. 250 wins? 300? I really don't know. I do know that a fresh level 30, generally speaking, is no where near as skilled as a player that has say 500 wins or even 200 wins. I know I am a completely different player now than when I hit 30. This is maybe an overly simple solution but an easy one to implement that would keep a lot of the...not as good, immature, nooby players out of ranked until they are more practiced. Or, how about having the requirement to reach a certain level on main position. Say, have at least one champ in each position leveled up to at least level 3 before you can compete in ranked. This is a more steep requirement then just having wins but again, I am just throwing ideas out there.

To take things to another level. How about an achievement or trophy system? LoL games are full of objectives that can easily be turned into a trophy system. Take down say 100 towers for 200 IP. Place 500 wards for 1000 IP. Heal allies for X amount and receive 1000 IP. You get the idea. Of course that would mean making IP actually worth something. How about using IP to be able to buy skins. Make the price for skins using IP a ridiculous amount. I have 20k IP right now with no real reason to spend it. That way, Riot can still charge real money for skins. I know that has probably been brought up before but to me, there should be some sort of reward system. Putting these achievements in the game would give players goals to work for that would automatically make them better teammates by guiding them toward goal/team driven objectives.

How about a mentor program? High level players volunteer to take be trainers, mentors to willing apprentices, for a reward of course. What about an in game clan option. Clans were big in WoW and really the only way to get in on end game raid content. These ideas are a little out there but, like I said, just throwing things around. I'd be glad to hear other peoples ideas or opinions. Maybe something could catch on.

I realize LoL is wildly successful and have very little reason to make big changes (If its not broke kind of thing). I know there are a lot of other players in my situation. Most just grind it out and hats off to you but, I can't do it. I'd just like to hear other ideas and I would love to see LoL really go to the next level.

What say you?

3 Comments

I am Pacman3/6/2016, 9:05:22 PM2 votes

You been playing since season 1 and you are still bronze? I've been playing since season 2 and I've been steadily improving every year.

Im going to tackle each of your points because some have potential and some don't.

Barriers to ranked entry:

There really shouldn't be many barriers to entering ranked once you hit 30. Currently you need 16 champions (and riot isn't giving us more bans because that alone would raise it to at least 18-20 champions).

Winning or playing lots of games doesn't mean you are any better or have any more knowledge of the game. You yourself are literally the perfect example as to why this is true. You have 750 wins and are bronze 5. 250 wins is quite a lot for someone who can only play maybe 2-3 games a week and its a hell of a lot higher than should be allowed. Additionally ranked is supposed to encompass and represent ALL skill levels, from the pros to the worst of the worst.

On the topic of carrying teams:

That never stops. I'm Plat 4 as of writing this and in my last 5 games I have lost 3 due to bad bot lanes/mid lanes etc (obviously I look back on it and I see that I could have done things to help them win their lane even in top lane but its behind me now). I always shot call when to do objectives and when to back off because I can't trust others to do it for me. (also try not to die a lot and if you do then have a big impact with your death, aim for 3.0 kda).

Achievment or trophy system:

I don't like the idea of x ip when you do x number of things in game. I think that would simply result in every player eventually spamming soraka to get the heal ip, spamming wards to get warding ip etc. A reward for getting 1000 wins or something might be nice though.

They are currently testing the hextech crafting system which looks to be pretty cool. (I have like 70000 ip with nothing to spend it on so I like the new upcoming ip sink). You can get champs and skins from just playing the game with it. Check it out.

Mentors and Clans:

I feel a mentor system is a combination of too hard to implement while being too easy to exploit on top of not being worth it with the number of league guides for every single aspect of the game already existing.

Clans are a pretty cool idea and I heard something about them when they removed ranked teams. They might be implementing them to replace that missing que idk.

I say start a fresh account and buy the 5 or 6 champs you really love to play (for me its renekton, jax, graves, xerath, maybe jhin havn't played enough of him yet and jarvan) and then just practise aspects of the game (don't die as much, learn to farm effectively, trade or harass etc). If you get placed around silver at the end then play on and get whatever rank you deserve. If you get placed in bronze then go back to your old account and grind because then it proves you are actually bronze.

I made a secondary account and got placed in gold 5 after promos in season 5 and then i went 5-5 in this seasons promos and got gold 5 again.

Just my 2 cents.

I am Pacman3/6/2016, 9:48:59 PM1 votes

Definitely check out the hextech chest/key rewards thing they are currently beta testing in turkey severs (think its on the preseason page as well).

About the wins thing: Stumbling through 500 wins in normals is actually pretty easy. You simply have to play enough games. Even terrible players still have win rates of 40%, that means it will take 1250 wins and then they get to play ranked. It will significantly delay people from accessing ranked but eventually everyone will be there again. Also back to the point of ranked is supposed to encompass everyones skill level, all the way down to the people who don't use trinkets and build wrong.

Ranked wins on the other hand I agree. Its hard to just stumble through 500 ranked wins (especially in a single season), but with the point I made above, they aren't supposed to, they are supposed to lose until they reach others among their skill level and then win roughly 50% of the games. (most people only climb with a 54% win rate btw).

On a side note. I really miss the ranked teams because I can no longer play in a que that feels important to go try hard in with my silver or bronze friends. Im thinking of making a new account and learning a new role on the same level as I know top lane. (I know pretty much every match up with jax and renekton and all the dynamics of top lane). Until riot releases the clan thing or ranked teams again.

EDIT: found it http://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/site/2016-season-update/champion-mastery.html