Ranked Needs an Overhaul

Fangcide·Feb 21, 2015·10 votes·1,316 views

Ok, anyone else think that ranked needs a new system? This game is focused on team gameplay, but your personal rank is most of the time unreflective of you as a summoner. You can try and carry a terrible team, or be the only one placing vision and checking objectives, and still lose lp for losing. I believe that there should be a way to add individual performance to lp gains and losses, such as kda, objectives killed or destroyed, or vision placed. That way when you lose a match that you didn't feed or refuse to communicate on, instead of losing 20 lp maybe you only lose 15. I'm sure there can be other ways, but I think one's rank should be about their gameplay and skill, not their luck of getting a decent team in solo queue.

18 Comments

Mandang0Feb 22, 20157 votes

Well, I agree that it should be overhauled, but I think personal performace-based lp gains are a bad idea. You'll develop a new meta of players picking very conservatively and picking champions who get higher KDA (poke champs). It's also gonna be brutal when players get forced into lanes they don't want to play, as they'll be jeopardizing their kda.

On the other hand, I think the lp system is pointless & should just be replaced by mmr. Promos need to go away too, as they only prevent the players' lp from approaching their mmr & they actually don't account for the difference between lp and mmr, like all regular matches do with uneven lp gains/losses.

BluePolarizerFeb 21, 20154 votes

Most games I lose, I could've carried harder. You just don't know how to carry harder.

PonderousSealionFeb 22, 20154 votes

Promos are what's wrong with ranked.

BallisticMouseFeb 22, 20151 votes

How so?

I see you're Platinum and honestly want to know why you think so.

Remlap1223Feb 22, 20151 votes

You need to stop perpetuating this idea that the only people that can complain about ranked are scrubs that need to get good.

Promotionals are a clusterfuck because they take a system that's based around your success against players in your general skill range, and completely throws it out the window. I'll use myself as an example. I'm at about a 35% win rate in ranked right now, and yet I'm 1 LP from entering my promotionals for Bronze III. That's because after Riot's "soft" reset, I got placed in an MMR waaaay below my skill level. So even when I lose 2 matches in a row, that one match that I won gives me more LP, so I don't have to grind as much. Going into promotionals immediately makes me advancing 100% based off of what kind of team I get, instead of how I consistently play. An AFK/feeder/troll in regular ranked play is annoying, but it's crushing in promotionals since you only get a limited amount of tries. So if I get two troll games in a row, I get thrown back to where I started.

Apparently if this happens enough, you'll just get promoted, but that's unnecessary grinding. Why the hell should I be wasting time in a skill level below my own just because some shitlord decides to troll in an arbitrary match that's considered rite of passage?

Spacesuit SpiffFeb 22, 20152 votes

{quoted}

You need to stop perpetuating this idea that the only people that can complain about ranked are scrubs that need to get good.

Promotionals are a clusterfuck because they take a system that's based around your success against players in your general skill range, and completely throws it out the window. I'll use myself as an example. I'm at about a 35% win rate in ranked right now, and yet I'm 1 LP from entering my promotionals for Bronze III. That's because after Riot's "soft" reset, I got placed in an MMR waaaay below my skill level. So even when I lose 2 matches in a row, that one match that I won gives me more LP, so I don't have to grind as much. Going into promotionals immediately makes me advancing 100% based off of what kind of team I get, instead of how I consistently play. An AFK/feeder/troll in regular ranked play is annoying, but it's crushing in promotionals since you only get a limited amount of tries. So if I get two troll games in a row, I get thrown back to where I started.

Apparently if this happens enough, you'll just get promoted, but that's unnecessary grinding. Why the hell should I be wasting time in a skill level below my own just because some shitlord decides to troll in an arbitrary match that's considered rite of passage?

Yeah, absolutely. I'd be fine if they got rid of the 3-game promos altogether. I've spent a lot of this season bouncing around 85-100 lp just because I can't get a decent series, ground out a win, and then sped on to the next promos.

BallisticMouseFeb 22, 20151 votes

You never answered my question, but you're not obligated to so tell me if you don't want to.

Why do YOU personally think promos are a bad idea?

BallisticMouseFeb 22, 20151 votes

First of all, I never asked you anything.

Secondly, I never once said that he was good or bad. I stated he was Platinum, as he is, and stated I wanted to hear his opinion. You took this simple statement into a huge thing to complain about. It kind of makes sense why you would jump to this, I see that you're Bronze 4, but i'm not trying to say that any rank has more right than the other to ask questions, complain, etc.

Remlap1223Feb 22, 20151 votes

Then why mention rank? Rank is irrelevant, unlike so many people on these forums that will instantly dismiss my opinions because I'm Bronze IV.

Yes your statement was simple, and I may have overreacted slightly, but the question remains the same, why does his Rank matter?

BallisticMouseFeb 22, 20151 votes

His Rank doesn't matter per say. Being Platinum I know he has gone through quite a few promotional series. I'm sure you and I have also but his higher rank I assume he has gone through more than us.

PonderousSealionFeb 22, 20154 votes

{quoted}

How so?

I see you're Platinum and honestly want to know why you think so.

Ok, TL;DR version: you're expected to win a ridiculous percentage of games in a small window of them.

Long version:

Let's say I'm at 88 LP. If I win my next game I'll be in my promos. So I win it- hooray! In my promos, I then have to win 2 out of my next 3 games, or 66% of the games in that window. But then you factor in the game BEFORE that, the one I won at 88 LP, and really it's a 3 out of 4 series, meaning I have to win a ridiculous 75% of my games. If I won 75% of my games regularly I'd be Rank 1 right now.

Plus the fact that 2 of 3 series are kind of a ridiculous method of advancement when you only make up 1 tenth of the factors contributing to victory and defeat. While you usually could have "carried harder", and I certainly don't play perfectly, the problem with that theory is I'm only slightly above the skill level of my allies and opponents, or possibly even with them. The difference between Plat 5 and 4 is absolutely nothing. There is no difference, so why should I have to carry harder in order to gain an incredibly minimal difference in my rank?

I'm Plat, yeah, so I've won a fair number of promos before. It certainly isn't an impossible thing to do. It's just frustrating to have such little control over such a bad system. If League were a 1v1 game then promos would make perfect sense. But the fact that I have 9 random strangers to factor is really frustrating. If LB goes 1-9 vs Zed, the game is over. I then have to win 2 games in a row guaranteed to be moved up a division.

The funny part is that you actually have to win fewer games to move up a tier- game before and 3/5, which is a 66% win ratio to move S1 to G5, or P1 to D5, etc.

I think the best system would be to just give you a higher number of LP and a bit less than usual for losing, do away with promos and make each tier one big melding pot of 500 points. Then, at the top, you can do a big Bo5. The reason I say more LP in general is because of the soft barrier you're given while at 0 LP in any division. There would be no barriers at all in my system so giving a slightly better cushion on LP gains would be a good idea imo.

Poorly thought out system that makes no sense for soloq. That's just my take on it.

BallisticMouseFeb 22, 20151 votes

You have many great points.

I seem to lose my promotionals often and I normally find it's because of the stress of having to win or I won't rank up. The stress makes me play worse, I think. While non-promo matches don't matter as much unless i'm at 0LP and might de-rank.

Cam169Feb 22, 20153 votes

I agree 100%. To the comment about carrying harder, you are just trolling. You shouldn't have to "carry harder" in order to win, in which the guy that "fed harder" gets the same credit as you.

I proposed this just now. Let me know your thoughts: http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/LNEQJmH4-new-scoring-system-for-ranked-play

Spacesuit SpiffFeb 22, 20152 votes

Gonna say no to your question. The one thing that would make soloq even more insufferable is if your team wasn't even focusing solely on winning the game anymore (well, feeling good about their performance and then winning, but I won't get into that).

If you're going to play ranked, you have to play in the long term. It's possible to have a huge impact on the game, so that even if someone feeds and you lose, you know odds are you'll gain those points back over your next few games. If you know how to capitalize on opportunities and control the game, it'll take ridiculous shit like this to cost you the win: -Volibear constantly hard-engaging 4v5s or 3v5s -Mid and Top feeding and crying at each other and then afking at 15 mins even though you steamrolled botlane -Someone never connecting -Nasus freezing lane for 25 minutes while the enemy team ignored him and pushed 5v4 -Sona getting hooked once and going afk after blaming the whole team for it somehow

...yeah I'm a bit salty about my games last night. Don't play on friday nights if you want to come out of it with some sanity left. But either way, this shit happens, in bronze and silver and gold and plat. It happens a lot, especially if you aren't playing during school hours. But the thing is, you don't need to win those extreme cases, you just need to win most of the rest of them.

NIEKUHFeb 21, 20151 votes

just bump this people. duh!

Zeus JukemFeb 22, 20151 votes

Well, actually, the higher your win rate is, the more LP you get for winning, and the less you lose for losing. As long as you win even 53% of your games, you'll climb

ƒæµFeb 22, 20151 votes

Just another "Ranked doesn't show my individual skill, that's why I'm bronze when should be challenger, gg" thread, nothing to see here. It's not a fluke that decent players always average out into roughly the same elo no matter what. You dont see plat players getting stuck in bronze and blaming teams lol.

PonderousSealionFeb 22, 20151 votes

I do believe your rank is determined based on how well you play- I truly believe I'm going to hit diamond this season if I work hard enough for it. You eventually will win that promo series if you play it enough times. I'm about to try for Plat 4 for the 5th time this season after being placed in Silver 5, and I think I only lost maybe one series on my way up because I did in fact "carry harder"- those elos were pretty much a pubstomp except for a rocky stretch in G3. But now that it's evened out, i think I play at around a Plat 2 or 1 level most of the time, so I'm not that much better than my allies and enemies. That means I can't just spam Kat games and get an easy win, I have to play smart and actually rely on my teammates to a decent extent. Which sucks when you absolutely need to win those games.