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I'd like to discuss performance ranks and chest drops

Talisid·10/28/2016, 4:07:18 PM·2 votes·564 views

And just so you know, I already have every champion and most of the skins I want, so I'm not making these comments because I have difficulty getting chests. In fact I'm usually close to maxed out on chests.

Personally I think that linking Chest drops to S ranks is a really bad mechanic.

it encourages players to play for kills and farm and gold totals more than objectives and winning the game.
It ties your ability to get chest drops into your game performance, which is discouraging for new players who need the chest drops the most.
It encourages players on the winning team at the end of the game to camp in front of the fountain and fish for kills instead of ending the game, which I find very annoying. I've actually had a player on my team rage at me for killing the nexus because they wanted more farm/kills to get a better shot at s rank.
It discourages people from playing support, although you can get S rank on support it tends to be significantly harder unless you want to take your ADC's farm. It could even be encouraging people to take support champions into solo lanes, which generally doesn't end well.
It encourages people to play a more diverse pool of champions, and while this is a good thing in some ways it could also be having an impact on ranked play.
The way that chests are limited to one per champion per season favors players who already have a large champion pool which I think is not ideal.

I'm sure this conversation has come up a lot in the past but I think its a good time to talk about it now that season 7 is coming up soon.

8 Comments

dunder kill10/28/2016, 4:22:57 PM3 votes

it encourages players to play for kills and farm and gold totals more than objectives and winning the game.

Except it doesn't. Objective participation and warding are also big factors

it encourages players on the winning team at the end of the game to camp in front of the fountain and fish for kills instead of ending the game, which I find very annoying. I've actually had a player on my team rage at me for killing the nexus because they wanted more farm/kills to get a better shot at s rank.

One billion percent wrong. If youneed proof, just look at the 100 "WHY NO S?! BUT MUH KDA!" threads posted on the boards daily

It discourages people from playing support

True

It encourages people to play a more diverse pool of champions, and while this is a good thing in some ways it could also be having an impact on ranked play.

That is not a bad thing. I'm a one trick pony in ranked but have no problem getting chest on other champs and roles in norms and ARAM

The way that chests are limited to one per champion per season favors players who already have a large champion pool which I think is not ideal.

^Pretty much the same thing as the prior

Mysticman8910/28/2016, 4:38:47 PM3 votes

I'm pretty sure people avoid support for S ranks because they're bad at support, and think they have to take kills/cs to get an S rank, which is false (and related to the bigger issue of people don't seem to understand the grade system and only care about kda/cs despite game-winning stuff being much more relevant).

The vast majority of my S rank chests (which I've gotten weekly without fail) have come from playing support in a supportive manner (so not ksing or taking cs). As a support main I find getting S ranks in support the easiest, presumably because I'm actually halfway decent at the support role. A lot of people never play support and only do so when forced, so they end up playing it similar to the role they did want and just end up being a gold starved mini-carry, which rarely results in a good grade. The key thing to remember is you're graded against other supports on that champion, not against all people on the champ in all roles, so you don't need much cs at all for good grades, since the majority of supports wont get much (and similarly they patched it so kills are weighted exactly the same as assists for supports, so theres no grade reason to ks if you're getting assist credit).

I think the system probably would encourage proper behavior (i.e. behavior focused on winning the game as effectively as possible) if everyone actually understood it, but theres a lot of ambiguity around it to prevent people trying to game the system. Unfortunately, people try to game the system anyway based on their own (often inaccurate) assumptions about how it works, and more often than not it just results in frustration all over.

Desolas Arterius10/28/2016, 4:31:23 PM2 votes

Ranks are based more than just kills/cs/gold. Getting objectives like dragon, towers, etc so apply to your score. So you can't just afk farm in botlane all game and expect to receive an S.
Only 1 person has to get a S on your team for players to get chests if they didn't receive one. This still encourages new players to not only play well to get chests on champs, but also helps veteran players to continue playing well since both of them can receive a chest so long as 1 player gets an S rank.
This isn't really related to chests because again, the system incorporates more than just KDR/cs. That's more of an individual attitude than a result of the chests. People have been doing that way before hextech crafting.
Not sure where you're getting that info from. Support is the easiest role to get an S rank on since your kills weigh less than your assists to simplify it, and you don't really need CS in all honesty since it doesn't apply that heavily to your score. Supports usually rely on deaths, assists, damage taken, healing (if applicable), objective participation, and warding. Way more outside of CS/kills since that's not a support's priority.
I don't get it. Encouraging players to play more than one champ is a bad thing? I mean, isn't it better than having OTP's in ranked that get pissy when their champ gets banned, or are worse since they only know how to play one champion? Also, players have to practice somehow, whether it be in ranked or normals. Normals doesn't allow for players to get a real understanding of how ranked play/meta is since normals generally consists of off-meta and more casual play. If they want to take learning a champion seriously, why bar them from ranked?
This is because of point 5. To encourage players to play more champions instead of sticking to one. You can still play your favorite if you want to, and get rewarded from it (mastery ranks), but if you want free stuff you'll have to explore outside of your main and try to learn other champions. There are a lot of cheap champions to buy and learn, so this isn't really a bad thing nor does it favor larger champion pools.

I think the crafting is fine, just the key drop rates need to be adjusted more. The chests and requirements I think are pretty well-tuned. I just think the keys really need to be looked at since they can be inconsistent and never drop for as long as month of playing.

Edit* fixed formatting.

Paladin 0f Life10/28/2016, 4:11:06 PM1 votes

Bumpp

NiamhNyx10/28/2016, 4:39:58 PM1 votes

{quoted}

it encourages players to play for kills and farm and gold totals more than objectives and winning the game.

Ever since the start of these chests I have had maybe 3 games where people only focus on kills and farm. Thats 3 out of close to 400 games. Its not that common.

It ties your ability to get chest drops into your game performance, which is discouraging for new players who need the chest drops the most.

They do not "NEED" the chest drops. All it can do for them is make it easier to get champions and possibly get a free skin or two.

It encourages players on the winning team at the end of the game to camp in front of the fountain and fish for kills instead of ending the game, which I find very annoying. I've actually had a player on my team rage at me for killing the nexus because they wanted more farm/kills to get a better shot at s rank.

I have yet to have a significant amount of game where this happens. In fact I have more 3v5's than I have had of these games.

It discourages people from playing support, although you can get S rank on support it tends to be significantly harder unless you want to take your ADC's farm. It could even be encouraging people to take support champions into solo lanes, which generally doesn't end well.

Not really, There are quite a bit more people playing support this season. Now, for supports getting an S, CS IS USELESS. Our S is based on Assists, Wards, Healing (if you have a heal), and for poke supports, damage. I consistently get S- - S+ on Sona, Lulu and Leona as SUPPORTS. My average cs? 8-9 with Lulu and Sona, 35 with Leona because relic. Average Kills between those three? 3 per game. Not really encouraging me to go steal kills and cs when all i need to do is place wards, heal, poke and have assists.

All of you who continually think Kills and CS are all it takes, are idiots. Sorry but its true.

It encourages people to play a more diverse pool of champions, and while this is a good thing in some ways it could also be having an impact on ranked play.

People will most likely play for chests in aram and normals.

The way that chests are limited to one per champion per season favors players who already have a large champion pool which I think is not ideal.

If it was not limited to 1 per champion per season all i would need to do is play my 3 best champions.