This solo ranked system gives me cancer.
So it's been two seasons since I started playing this game. (3 if you count preseason 4.) And you know what? Not a single problem I've had with this ranked system has been fixed. Hell, pretty much NOTHING had changed execpt the meta of champions. What kind of problems you ask?
- Provisionals.
Provisionals are a problem because they are 10 games that are more important than any other games in your entire ranked career. Why do I say this? Because in those ten games, a single game can mean the difference between an entire rank. Meaning if you win 8 out of your 10 provisionals you could be MILES BEHIND people who went 9/10 or 10/10. For example:
In preseason 4 this account was fresh and had never played ranked. I won 7/10 provisionals and ended up being placed in Silver 2. Fine, I was expecting higher but oh well. Then season 4 came, reset my rank, and I tried to do provisionals again. I ended up winning only 2 out of my 10 matches for various reasons, but regardless, those eight losses dragged me down from silver 2 all the way to bronze 2. Five ranks because of eight games. And the amount of wins it would take just to break through the series' just to get back to where I was is 11 wins. (2/3, 3/5, 2/3, 2/3, 2/3). After that I made it to silver 5 by the end of season 4 and gave up. The amount of time and effort it would take to make it back to where I was, let alone to gold, just wasn't worth it. So I decided to wait until the next season and try again. And so I did. I won 6/10 of my provisionals yesterday. Wanna know where I went from Silver 5? DOWN. And not just down to something like Bronze 1. I got knocked all the way down to BRONZE 3. From losing four games and WINNING SIX I went DOWN.
But how could that happen you ask? Because of the MMR system. League bases it's matchmaking on MMR in ranked. Meaning if I have 1000 MMR I will be matched against people with around 1000 MMR. Sounds on paper like a good idea. But then the end of the season comes around and resets your rank, BUT NOT YOUR MMR. Meaning if you had a high rank but low MMR, NO MATTER WHAT, you will go down in your next provisionals. I could have won all ten of my games and it would have most likely put me in Bronze 1.
My solution to this is to simply make the rank resets at the end of a season reset MMR as well, so everyone starts at the same level. Also I believe that if we made silver 1 the highest possible rank you could start in from provisionals, we would see less dramatic changes from one win or loss.
"But then you would have bronze people fighting people who are gold+!" That COULD be a problem, yes. But with the sheer amount of smurfs people make, bronze and silver are already so lopsided anyways so it wouldn't make a very big impact, if any at all.
- Series.
To me, a series is second only to provisionals as the dumbest thing about this ranked system. Hence why it's #2. But my problem with series' is this: They value the next 3 games you play over the last games you played. So in essence they have the same problem as provisionals but to a lesser extent. Why does this game value the last 10 matches of my ranked play less than the next 3 in my series if I hit 100 LP?
And to add insult to injury, the grace period for ranks is so pathetic that losing 1-2 games can send you tumbling down again, meaning you have to redo the series and win at least 2 games in a row, usually 3 to make up for the lost LP, just to get back to where you were because you lost 1-2 matches.
I think series shouldn't even be there execpt between divisions, but if they HAVE to be there, if you get demoted, you shouldn't have to do them again. For example, if I go from silver 3 to silver 4, but then I get 100 LP again, I shouldn't have to redo the series to go back to silver 3. I should just go to silver 3 for hitting 100 LP because I've been at this rank before.
- The LP System.
The LP system is far too punishing. Let's say you have the skill of a silver 1. But you have bad luck, or you just have a bad day, and you go on a loss streak. That lowered your MMR, and because your MMR is lower, you get less LP for winning. But you still lose the same amount of LP, if not more, for losing a game. This is the cause of the so called "ELO Hell". The game punishes you far too much for losing games, and unless you go on a win streak, barely rewards doing well.
Not to mention, because the game doesn't always give you points that are multiples of 5, you can end up in a scenario where you have 99 LP. Then you lose a game, and you need 2-3 games worth of wins just to get the CHANCE of getting to 100.
I think we need to equalize the amount of LP given to always give multiples of 5, and we need to make the game stop punishing people who go on loss streaks so much.
Yeah, rant over.
