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While there is a buzz about Preseason 8, can we talk about Ranked?

metaworldpeace10·6/2/2017, 6:49:40 PM·2 votes·824 views

I'm pretty excited about the upcoming preseason from the Runes Reforged announcement as I think the majority of the community is at this time, but I couldn't help but to think about another pressing matter that could be potentially looked at during the Preseason and that is the topic of Ranked. Ranked has seen a couple of small QoL changes (adding a free win the promos if you've already reached it previously), but there are various pain points in the current ranked system, I'll outline a few of them.

  1. Matchmaking. The system that creates matches is quite frankly not good and its been this way really since the ranked system's inception back in season 3. Adding to the fact that Dynamic queue ruined ranked for an entire season really puts a damper on the whole issue. Recently, I had a game where I (Gold 4) played against a Silver 3 Support and a Platinum 5 player. That's basically an entire league and a half difference between players and I can honestly say that the skill gap between a Silver 2 player and a Platinum 5 player is very large. It was not fun for this particular support player (I was bot lane and we smoked them) Although the enemy team seemed cordial in all chat + after game lobby, I couldn't help but to feel bad for this poor Silver 2 support who is trying to climb to gold facing off against players who were already in Gold and some were close to Platinum (Had a Gold 1 midlaner if I remember correctly). My hope would be to use this preseason to show some clarity in the matchmaking system so we can avoid players that are 1 and a half leagues apart playing in the same game.

  2. Promo matches. Promo matches have been a pain point within the system. It forces you to win 2/3 games when technically you need to win >50% in order to climb in elo. Promo matches require you to hold a 66% winrate in order to promote and climb. To add insult to injury, you need to do this at least 4 times to climb through the league (Silver 5 - Silver 1) and that's only if you are 100% successful at getting the best out of 3 games during the promo series, not to mention that the system always puts you at a disadvantage when you start your promotional rounds. This is what makes climbing harder than it needs to be. Promo matches make the system feel like its working against you. It feels bad when you're rocking a solid winstreak and to enter your promos and you're fighting players who might be an entire league higher than you (seriously this happened to me when I entered Gold 4 promos, had to beat 2 Platinum 5 players in order to promote to Gold 4) while you teammates who are 1-2 divisions BELOW you. It creates an unfair advantage and feels like you are fighting the system, rather than just climbing organically. I'd like to see a change to promotion matches, or even downright removing promotion matches between divisions (keep the league one). Much of this point coincides with point 1.

  3. Win Streak/Loss Streak. As stated in point 2 and some of point 1, the system seems to favor losing streaks over winning streaks. When I say favor, I mean that you aren't rewarded as much as you should for winning streaks and losing streaks are downright devastating. For example you could be on a winning streak and get to 96 league points. You win the next game, only gaining 4 lp, only to lose your next two games in your promos and drop to 50 lp and feeling bad/salty knowing that the system is punishing you more for two losses in a row than potentially 3 or more wins in a row. Same deal for demotions. You could be at Silver 4 17 LP, lose two in a row and all of a sudden you are Silver 5 75 LP, when normally you lose 17 LP per loss, but for some reason the system takes 25 LP away from you because??? who knows.

These points have been painful for many seasons and without much discussion from Riot's end. I would assume that this preseason would be a perfect time to address some of these pain points and add a little bit of clarity to the ranked system. What are your thoughts on the system as a whole?

2 Comments

YokoNomi6/2/2017, 7:51:01 PM1 votes

To be perfectly honest, I feel like opinions in ranked should be taken as a grain of salt, no offense intended to yourself. But with how unusually different my experiences are in reflection from what I'm seeing here, spite of myself as a low elo player, I can say I haven't been so disheartened as to question the rate of progress.

To lead by example, nearly every win I've ever gotten this season (from what I recall) has been 21lp, and each loss seem to range from 14-18lp lost, with a bank of around 15-25lp lost if I'm ever demoted.

The only thing that I can say with up-most certainty is that the toxic community has felt to be more rampant this season, which always feels to play in conjecture with a good deal, if not almost all of my games (this is not an over exaggeration). The stress coupled with the desire to progress has lead me astray, many a times coming close to actually succumbing to my anger and taking it out on someone who didn't deserve the backlash.

Mechanically, I feel like I'm too low to share your thoughts, as well as to sample what may feel to be the problem. But from where I'm at, despite being at the bottom of the cliff side that people feel the need to climb, I see no problems that haven't already existed with this game for literally years now.

Douglas Funnie6/2/2017, 7:53:01 PM1 votes

If you're gaining 4 lp per win and losing 50 lp, you must have shared your account and got it boosted out of this world. After playing ranked on your own account, you lost many games in succession due to the lack of experience in higher tier play lowering your hidden MMR.

Also, Riot hands you a free win in promos with the promo helper. If your hidden MMR is around the same tier you're currently at and have a 50% win ratio, you will climb no matter what...