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The ranking system is broken

Hurricane Munroe·4/6/2019, 5:13:37 AM·40 votes·16,598 views

I know we hear about this from different players but it really needs to be addressed. The biggest issue lies whenever you get to a point where you lose more LP than you gain. The common response is win more. Well I have gone on winning streaks and have a positive winning record and there is no change. Once you get in the hole you are stuck in the hole. You simply move back and forth between being promoted and demoted. The issue is that you can win four games in a row and almost lose EVERYTHING you've gained if you lose twice. This is incredibly frustrating as it makes climbing nearly impossible. I know for whatever reason this is what Riot wants but it feels incredibly unfair to those of us not in gold and beyond. This is making the game virtually unplayable and not fun. I don't want to be rewarded with logos and banners and bullshit. I want to be rewarded by seeing myself make some actual progress!

65 Comments

Anivia Hentai4/6/2019, 10:57:05 AM7 votes

67% Winrate. win +18 loss -22

[sg-zephyr]

Agapejp4/6/2019, 11:31:00 PM5 votes

My first season to play in league, and got every lane placed in Iron 2.

I have only focused on bringing my top up to gold 4 and left the others.

Lane rank disappears, I'm placed in gold 4.

Wins : 12 ~ 14LP

Loses: 20 ~ 22LP

win 4 in a row and lose 2, I'm back to 0 lol. What's the problem???

Boosted Bon0bo4/6/2019, 8:29:18 AM4 votes

100% Agree with you on this one. I am currently S4 and have been for close to a month now. I am unable to even get above 40LP because it takes 4 wins to reach that. Where I am losing 21LP and winning 12LP. It's utter horse crap of a system. I placed bronze 1 in my placements. Climbed to silver 4 and had a bad day of games and now I am stuck. YOU CAN NOT TELL ME THAT IT IS REMOTELY POSSIBLE TO CLIMB OUT OF THIS UNLESS YOUR A PRO. 2 GAME WIN STREAK IS = TO 1 LOSE in LP. I am so fed up with this system I am barely motivated to even play ranked anymore because I know its pointless because I am getting nowhere. Also, for anyone who is saying maybe I don't deserve to be in silver then your wrong. I am getting into games with iron 1's, 2's and bronze players AS A SILVER PLAYER. Its utter freaking BS. They need to rework this system. It is way to punishing and leaves no room for coming back. I have a friend who is silver 4 that gets 35 LP for a win and loses 6LP. RIOT FOR THE LOVE OF GOD PLEASE FIX THIS DAMN SYSTEM. Silver is an elo hell. People that I get put with either don't care about their rank enough to try in games and not feed/troll or have no sense of map awareness. You get teammates picking champions they have 0 mastery in ranked games or getting secondary roll and because someone wont trade with them they instantly afk or int. This may seem like I am complaining just to complain but I love this game and I cant stand making no progress. It frustrating and not fun in its current state with this system.

mack91124/6/2019, 7:32:41 AM4 votes

But if you are losing more lp than gaining its because you have lost a lot to put you in that position

haaaaaaalp4/6/2019, 7:36:41 AM4 votes

Climbing is never impossible unless you simply aren't good enough to do it. If you are losing more lp than you gain, it simply means that the gap between your mmr and the cutoff for the next division is larger than 100. If you are good enough to get to the next rank, you will be able to sustain a high winrate until your mmr hits the next cutoff. If you aren't, then you don't deserve to climb higher until you get better.

The most common thing limiting a player from climbing is their own skill.

avatarkai4/6/2019, 7:28:09 PM3 votes

All games in d4 u win 13-14 yet always lose 19 its hell here

Ragnaveil4/7/2019, 4:54:15 AM3 votes

This isn't just a low elo problem, this also an issue in Diamond. It needs to be fixed pretty badly.

jng dif victim4/6/2019, 10:05:15 AM3 votes

yea i fell ya . u win 2 and u lose one but it seems u won 1 and u lost 2. pretty unfair

eunekid4204/6/2019, 10:41:53 AM3 votes

[deleted]

zPity4/6/2019, 1:32:22 PM3 votes

The problem with the "always get more LP" on the ladder is rather simple. If everyone was a "winner" and had "fair lp gains" (even when playing above their mmr) the ladder would be in piss poor shape. There would be huge bubbles of players with a monumental variance in skill and then you guys would complain even more than there are "feeders" on your team (see diamond 4 currently).

Diamond 4 has a mix of players who are holding onto their rank (only playing when decay is going to proc), a group of players who are way better than d4 (the good old ranking smurfs) and players who legitimately want to be there. So, if you were in d4 (top 2% of players by the way), you get 13 LP and lose in the 20s. If Riot were to just "fix" the lp issue and let them all gain 20 lp per win and lose 20 lp per loss guess what! This would just happen in diamond 3 or diamond 2.

The point is, win-rate is not always the best indication of your lp gains. Neither is streaking wins anymore (because the ladder was expanded two tiers (iron + grandmaster) which reduced the effectiveness of streaks (because the ladder is longer).

Riot might need to consider being slightly more transparent about what your MMR is, and what the average MMR of your opponents are, to quickly gauge the health of your climb on the ladder (however, if they release any of that, 1,000,0000 x 10^9 support tickets are going to be written in because players just "don't believe they are that bad")

p.s. i'm bad and okay with it.

Snowy Neko4/6/2019, 5:12:19 PM3 votes

I just want it to be known, that I climbed to diamond 4 before getting stuck for a bit with only 6 played games in diamond and then went on a 13 game winning spree only getting 20lp a game at best with the average of 15lp per win. What is this?

Fella Air1/23/2020, 4:53:15 PM2 votes

This is what happened to me last season. I did eventually go on a twenty game winstreak by playing yuumi with my duo's fiora, and that cracked me out of it. Then I ran into an entirely different problem- Their "Self balancing" algorithm that requires you to lose an equal or greater amount of games after a winstreak. Because otherwise it wouldn't be fair to the other players. You're doing too well. You need to be nerfed.

I know it sounds weird but I'm not the only one convinced that matchmaking is intentionally designed this way. I've suspected it for several years and after watching many different videos on it, I'm convinced that riot does this so people don't feel like they've "won" or "mastered" the game and move on to another one. Additionally, I've started going several months at a time without playing this game and I've noticed that whenever I come back after one of those I win my first couple games pretty much no matter what no matter how rusty I am.

They're scared of permanently losing players to disinterest, and so they have to keep you on a treadmill of equal wins and losses. The matchmaking is not designed to facilitate you growing in skill and prestige, it's designed to just keep you on a ratwheel running in place. It's very disingenuous, and it's one of the many reasons that I'm switching over to the card game as my main riot experience for now. It's that, and the fact that people can still move and cast while stunned. Ezreal, Trist and Jarvan can still jump while rooted. The whole system just feels imprecise, and in such a skillbased game there's nothing less appealing.

Sorostaran4/6/2019, 8:41:42 PM1 votes

Basically, your hidden MMR is what's important in the long run. It determines where Rito wants you to be rank-wise (which is why dodging troll games in Ranked helps you in the long run even though it's guaranteed LP loss). There are several "feel" mechanics in Rito's rank system which cause your hidden MMR and your rank to diverge.

If your hidden MMR is higher than the "intendned MMR" for your current rank, then you gain more LP in wins than you lose in losses; if your hidden MMR is lower than the "intended MMR" for your current rank, then you lose more LP in losses than you gain in wins.

Essentially, based on your hidden MMR, Rito doesn't think you deserve your current rank. Your LP gain/loss will level out when:

You fall back to a rank more commensurate with your hidden MMR.
You prove Rito wrong by improving your hidden MMR (or, as you say, WIN MORE).

[sg-soraka]

Thanatoszane1/23/2020, 2:59:41 PM1 votes

I have been dealing with same problem. I started LOL about 4 years ago and would not play ranked for almost a year till I felt confident to do fair. Finished bronze is 2017, silver in 2018, and gold in 2019. Thus I seem to gradually be doing better. Now opening season for 2020 I won 6 of 10 games and got placed to bronze 1. My problem is bad team mates , afk's, or just beginners not knowing how to play or pick champs well ect...and I know we all deal with it, but it's to the point I cant amke any ground and have dropped to bronze 3 fixing to be bronze 4. Point is, the matchups are unfair, the placements for new season is unfair and should be same rank you left off from prior season . If you was in gold, you have better chance not getting bad team mates, but to be in bronze and not be able to climb due to actual bronze or iron team mates in your game, then you are certain for failure and helpless to get away from bad teams to climb out of rut. I'll be first to admit I'm not best player and barely consider myself advantage. I too make mistakes and have bad games, but not every game. Honestly, I just want to quit and find a more satisfying game if these issues will never be resolved.....Oh, and I'm not just a whiny baby, I'm probably one of the oldest players in game at 50 years of age....Please help

Kai Guy4/6/2019, 6:54:56 AM1 votes

Quick Question before I respond in depth. If I asked you between Highest, Med, Lowest for the current season, which of those do you think your K factor is?