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The Ranking System

LoserPlaysLeague·3/11/2018, 7:02:42 PM·14 votes·1,921 views

Let me set one thing straight; I love the game mechanics, love the champion pool, and I love playing League of Legends. There is just one thing about this game that tilts me to hell and back: The way you climb in ranked.

What is it about this system that makes it so hard to climb? The answer is simple, it's a team game. Now I didn't say that I disliked league having a cooperative play style, and in theory, it works. However, being that league has five people on each team that gives you four other people who you need to rely on in order to win. it does not happen every game, but every once in a while you end up getting a player who has no idea how to lane, they feed into their pick, or they just straight up troll. I had lost one of my promos after a Kayle top decided to feed because someone had called her bad, and right after that game I got into another where an Annie ran it down mid and afk'd 8 minutes in. I understand these things happen, and I know it happens more so in lower elo where climbing is made harder than it should be. But in both of these games, not a single other person on our team did poorly. We almost won 4v5, and, had Annie not left the game, we might have won.

The question I want to propose is this:** Should players lose LP even if they did well themselves?** Let me explain this a bit. First of all, your rank in League of Legends is a reflection on how well you play the game, not how well your team does. I've lost games where I've gone 13/2/17 just because our ADC would get caught out, or our Top Lane would suicide split push as Maokai or some other hyper-tank. I would still lose the same amount of LP even if I went 0/17/3. Even in the reverse situation, had I won a game going 0/17/3 I would gain the same amount of LP as a 13/2/17 player on my team. You might be thinking, 'It's only one game,' but in reality it isn't. I haven't been playing league for too long, around a year now, but coming from other games this system seems very lacking. Yes, league is a team game, but since Solo/Duo matches you with three to four random other players then some games will be out of your control. Ranked flex is an option, but it still follows the same "Win a game - gain LP, Lose a game - lose LP" format. To me, this doesn't really show how you perform as an individual player.

So how should this be fixed? Honestly, there is no real solution. League is a team game, and you have to learn to deal with and work around people. But is there no hope for our 'Elo Hell'? I have thought about this issue after every loss. Some losses, I did deserve; others, well that is debatable. The point here is that the only option you have in order to climb is the 'Win a game - gain LP, Lose a game, lose LP' style. It doesn't help players who got stuck with poor teammates. My idea, or whatever you would like to call it, is to add on a third option for ranked. In this ranked queue, win or loss would not matter as much as individual performance. Instead, your KDA, Creep Score, Kill Participation, and Damage, Healing done, and Damage Taken would be used as a factor for LP gain instead of just winning or losing. This would not replace the old ranked system, rather be an alternative for players who would prefer a more individualistic ranked system. I can see I few issues with it, but no system is without flaws. First, it might make more KDA players. In order to aid with this the system would have to take all factors on the scoreboard into account, and not just KDA. It could factor in your percent of damage output compared to your team; the damage you healed for your team, or the damage you tanked compared to the rest of your team. Other factors such as Kill Participation and such would help set the players who really earned the win apart from the players who were just there for the ride. Another Issue would be balancing it for tanks, DPS, and healers respectively. The only way I can see this system working is by using the stats at the end of the game to calculate LP growth. That way, it can focus on almost every aspect of the game, and how much work a player actually put in. The game calculates a lot more about our match than we think. It even offers a vision and crowd control score based on your performance. By using these, as well as every other stat mentioned after game, the ranked system can then change your LP or rank accordingly. I am not a coding expert, and I have no idea how hard it would be to implement this system, or if it is even possible.

I know I did a poor job explaining my idea thoroughly, but I still want to hear your opinion on this matter. Should the ranked system be updated? Feel free to use the poll or comment your own ideas.

Thank you for reading.

31 Comments

GripaAviara3/12/2018, 1:43:22 AM5 votes

MMR should not exist, games should be solely based on leagues. This thing will filter out the bullshit that is silver atm where you get to play with a s1 way weaker than a s5 which totally unbalance the system. ELO systems do not work well combined with leagues.

The game was fine a few seasons ago because it was a slow tank top meta and if you wanted to win, pick a champion like trynda, go split and gg. Now you can't really do that anymore. Which in itself in imho is a good thing, but it completly fucks the league system.

5050BS3/12/2018, 7:50:46 AM2 votes

They already wont do a different Q

We have been screaming for a true SoloQ for years and they wont do it.

Total Eclipse3/12/2018, 1:27:17 AM2 votes

Im going to read this post later, but "Im just going to point out that Riot has stated multiple times that the matchmaking is designed for each side to havea 50% cahnce of winning or losing......... Now, where it gets juicy,... Have you ever taken a science class about sig figs and numerical expression accuracy? Well that 50% win chance stated by Riot, they claim it to be +/- 1%. That means that, based on the hoards and hoards of statiscal data for them to use as calculations, they are TRYING to make your games a random grab bag of 50% chance to win. Im going to make this next bit brief because I want to make a whoel post about it. What we need, is tighter MMR grouping in games. MMR needs to be the sole important factor in determining who faces who, and we need to do away with autofill. I want games where everyone is within 1% rank of each other, so that its actually like fighting for a spot on the next rung of the ladder. Ive played many games recently with over a 200 point range in MMR, or ELO. This number should be much closer to 50. Riot cares more about us having a 50% chance to win then being against equally ranked opponents. This, and remove 90% of autofill as we know it. My post is going to be full of good ideas.

420 grams3/11/2018, 7:26:07 PM1 votes

People have good and bad games and kda means nothing. People playing pantheon and talon would be MUCH higher elo than say a Shen or galio player. It would also reward power farming more than macro plays, which creates a toxic environment.

I think the real problem is the mmr system. Your mmr is way too sensitive so it changes way faster than your rank, which creates "elo hell" where you can win a bunch of games in a row to climb to your promos, then start your loss streak

InTheory3/11/2018, 7:43:07 PM1 votes

I want to contribute something to your thread which I think is often overlooked. It's a problem that more often appears to happen in low elo and coin the term "Elo Hell" - a place you feel punished to be in, where you feel really bad and can't get out of even though you are convinced of not belonging there.

I think we can differentiate between two groups of players:

a) Standard Players. In low elo you could also say "bad players". This category contains players that are just in the very rank they belong because of what they a capable of. In low elo this includes players that are just "untalented" or don't want to put time and effort into game knowledge. They play casually for fun, don't care about meta or game knowledge and just want to play. That leads to low game quality, but that's absolutely ok. That what's a lowest rank is made for.

b) Then there are players with a very low frustration resistance. They tilt very fast for different reasons: playing worse as expected themselves, having teammates that are much worse than themselves or losing to the opponent or were commented on in one way or another. It doesn't always require being flamed at, but an unmindful comment can already lead to them being tilted.

The second group of players usually play better than players in their rank, but because of their tendency to tilt they often achieve similar bad results and fail to lead the team to victory. They think they are better than their environment and that they stuck in "elo hell" for no reason which further increases frustration and the overall performance.

######Of course there are also toxic players, intentional feeders and trolls but they must be banned anyway so they don't matter in that regard.

Now you have these two groups of players put together into one rank at all times, across all ranks more or less.

This is a problem hat I don't have a solution for. It won't be any better by just seperate them from each other into parallel ranks based on algorithm. If anyone has proper ideas for further investigation on this point they can of course contribute that. Maybe one does find a solution that at least improves the situation even if the problem itself persists.

I Main Swain3/11/2018, 9:59:47 PM1 votes

ive said before that your letter score should be a factor in your lp gain or loss so that it factors in BOTH individual skill AND teamwork considering that both are vitally important. even from the perspective of teamwork its not really a very fair system to have whether you gain or lose progress determined entirely by whether you win or lose the match. it could be an extremely close game with both sides playing amazingly well, it could be that you played flawlessly but your tank wasnt initiating very well, but whatever the circumstances you will either win or lose lp entirely based on whether or not you win the game even if you absolutely deserved to win it. if they factor in just your letter score alone that would probably make the system far more accurate and i think we would see a lot of people quickly climb or quickly drop in rank

SangreDeNoche3/12/2018, 2:16:12 AM1 votes

This is exactly what I've been pointing out for years and people act like it's such a blasphemy. You shouldn't be punished for doing well. If you go 99/0/99, take all objectives but nexus, and farm 9999 minions or jg creatures you still lose LP at the end of it. You're still going down even in the hypothetical best performance game.

DeloricVI3/12/2018, 7:39:58 AM1 votes

Maybe they could also take your grade in mind, but they'd also have to rework the grading system a bit so that it's actually possible to get M7 tokens on Jinx so that it's less difficult to get high marks, since it's dependent on other players' performance on the same champion. I mean, if you're planning on in influencing rank, it better be more consistent than it is now.

I mean, I'm pretty sure it takes into account damage done, healing done, CS, KDA, etc, but no one really knows for sure. Riot would probably have to be more transparent with it, but, hey, it's an idea.

Snowman Arc3/12/2018, 11:35:18 AM1 votes

I have a very good advice on how to climb above Plat: Dodge. During champ select, see your teammates KDAs, main role and winrates. If they don't seem impressive, it would be better to dodge. I had a Diamond 4 Heimerdinger with 300 games and a flat 50% winrate. I dodged it. You might think it's a coin flip, but it's not. The mindset of this player playing 300 games on one champion and having just a 50% winrate means that this player can't be trusted to win. Like, you should be one tricking a champion if you actually see decent results and positive win rates. If I'm gonna play a champ 300 times just to only win half of these games, might as well play something else so that you find better luck.

InTheory3/11/2018, 7:05:40 PM1 votes

+1 for quality thread

TTv Koddok3/12/2018, 4:03:26 PM1 votes

Honestly the ranked system should be more strict with the people you can play with. No more silver 3 jg with a bronze 4 top. mid, and ad against a team of silver 1s - gold 2s.

Subdue3/11/2018, 7:13:13 PM1 votes

Your individual performance is captured within your rating, perhaps not in the micro sense of every single game, but in the macro sense of average game performance across a large number of games. There's no reason to to try to separate it from the team in the micro sense.

ChargeItDownMid3/11/2018, 7:13:57 PM1 votes

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