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Lower Ranked Divisions & Player Skill Balancing

Badfish2·5/3/2016, 6:57:17 AM·1 votes·631 views

Season six is the first season that I've been dedicated to playing ranked (played the last few months of season five to try it out, and played some of this pre-season). Has it always been this ridiculous to climb out of Bronze and Silver?

Today I started by winning two matches, then lost two, then had a three game win streak, then lost two, then a four game win streak. That seems like a normal pace for Bronze, nothing wrong there. The games I lost were close, and I did well in most of the games I won (I play support).

After my four game winning streak, I got my series to get from Bronze I to Silver V. Lost the first three games in one-sided feed-fests because all of our lanes collapsed before or around 10 minutes. My teams were over-extending, had a lack of ganks, had no map awareness, chased kills, and were going into fights with low HP and/or low mana. They avoided objectives, ignored pings, became toxic, and so on.

Is this just the way things go? It seems like the divisions are very inconsistent in terms of player skill. I'll do well in a division, get to a series, and then it's like I'm cursed to get stuck with feeders, unskilled players, trolls, toxic players, etc. This isn't to say I never have bad games, or that I never get mouthy or make bad plays. And I'm not saying "I demand to never lose!" One, that's childish and irrational. And two, I don't mind losing as long as it's a good game.

But the inconsistencies make it difficult to keep the motivation to play. Earlier in the season I was one win away from Bronze 1 and fell straight to Bronze 4 in two days. If I spend weeks climbing only to have that progress nullified in two days because of incompetent players, where's the incentive to keep trying? I ended up taking a break from the game for a few weeks because I was burnt out from that insane losing streak.

And yeah this is pretty much just a long grumbling rant. I know there's nothing that can be done about it. There's going to be feeders, and trolls, and people with dial-up (or so it would seem), and full teams of plat smurfs, and scripters, and people somehow knowing that I'm going to play so they ban him or take him before I can...yeah I'm onto you...

tl;dr bronze sucks, i want out

3 Comments

I Do Support Gud5/3/2016, 7:51:15 AM2 votes

Been playing since season 2 and here is my input on what you're getting at:

No, it has not always been this hard to climb elo. Most of my friends who were once "Plat Players" now get started in low silver or sometimes bronze at the beginning of their season. I think the climb started getting ridiculously hard around the mid-season of season 4 because that is where league of legends really started to peak as a popular game.

My take is that the more people who play the game, the harder it is to climb up. I also think MMR is a terribad system for determining your placements. Someone like me who is a veteran so to speak is finding it impossible to get out of silver. Why? Before i get into that i want you to know that my stats are better than most people I know who are in Platinum Division 5-3. The stats that are lacking are winrates (on very few champions) and CS. I know what you're thinking: "Well if your CS is bad per game average, you don't deserve to be anything higher than silver". Well again, here is why its impossible for me to get out of silver.

I last hit every minion in my waves, I keep to minimal deaths in lane, I win my lane i would say 75-80% of the time, I ward appropriately, I counter jungle when i can, I roam and help lanes that need it, I am usually ahead and can pull of some pretty decent plays with the champions i'm comfortable with. All of that doesn't matter in silver. It doesn't even matter in gold division. You have players who somehow make it to the same ELO as you who:

Spawn and run straight into a losing fight.
Steal someone's position EVEN WITH THIS NEW SYSTEM
intentionally feed
Don't ward / clear wards
Try to "outplay" their way out of a gold deficit
Sit there missing CS while typing in all chat about how their support missed 1/15 Q's
Give up / surrender @20 when an inhib has not even been claimed

How do you counter that^? All i have gotten is "you probably just think you deserve a higher elo, but are just bad lol". Yeah? Then tell me what i need to work on when i play a sound game and still take a 50% loss rate. I'll admit i have games where i'm the feeder. I have games where i'm dived under tower and there is no stopping the pain train, BUT I TRY AND I PLAY WELL. Its not very often where i'm disappointed in my gameplay.

Sorry that was a long rant on your post, but i'm frustrated as well haha. One thing that is helping me is finding people to play with who know how to play the game as well as you do. I have a few friends who make it out of ELO hell by making the right choice in teammates for dynamic que. Don't play with toxic players, and try not to flame <3 we all play bad games sometimes so sinking the whole ship won't help your team any. Just patch the whole the best you can and hope you stay afloat. I'll post some examples of games i'm referring to.

JRobin315/3/2016, 10:47:35 AM2 votes

This is the way things go. If you want to climb, then you have to be exceptional. Even if you are exceptional, there will be games you lose. It can be depressing to lose a game with a score of S+. I had a game like this recently.

The system does it's best to match you with other players at the same level as you, but the system doesn't necessarily care about player consistency. But if you aren't consistent in your play to begin with, then I suppose it's somewhat hypocritical to demand that your opponents and teammates be consistent.

I Do Support Gud5/3/2016, 8:54:54 AM1 votes

In all honesty there needs to be a better skill placement, or more ELOs. Rito plz add cardboard or wood division. Play flawlessly, lose games #SilverEloIsGreat

^ in that game: Lowest deaths, Most kills, Most Assists, Most Wards, Most Damage to Champions, 2nd Highest Damage Taken, and most gold on my team as a jungler. ADC farming top and bot with no response to pings or in-game text. Mid "Is so high, i am fucked up fam", Support initiates away from team leaving no peel for mid/adc, Fizz "main" using e to engage full health sejuani, Support decides cannon minion in mid > dragon control, Whole team doesn't know what positioning even means.

Does this sound like you? PLEASE watch these videos and play 200 normal matches before attempting ranked. Positioning in lane Teamfight Positioning