Provisional/Placements vs Climbing

So I am not sure if I am posting in the right section and please forgive me if I am not but I would like to take a moment to talk about something that involves gameplay but is not exactly the game itself but more of skill.

So first off let us talk about MMR no one is quite sure how it works, MMR is kept private and the only way to find out our exact mmr is to use second resource websites. Now if I remember correctly your once a year placement/provisionals test is calculating your MMR with your score. However I would like to take a second to talk about where this system is flawed.

While this system is quite effective for people plat and up, it is quite poor for people who are gold and lower. The reason for this for the majority of players who are in silver and gold are MOST the time new players who have only been playing for a few months to a year. (no offense to anyone who has been their for longer)

Now some people may go with the "if your good you will eventually climb anyways philosophy" and I will say YES this is true. But even for good players this system is frustrating. The reason is for new accounts, I mean fresh new just made accounts have what I like to call a "clean slate" they just joined the game they did nothing to mess up their MMR yet. Now this is fair, you just joined, you did nothing wrong, you deserve a clean slate.

Here is where it goes wrong.

New players who do their placements test will loose about 50 percent of their games sometimes even 70 percent in ranked placements. Meaning they scored a 3 out of 10 and SOMEHOW still get placed in silver. Some will do better then that, and once in a blue moon, not often, will get placed into gold. (never heard of anyone getting placed higher)

Why is this a bad thing? For MOST the time, not all, new players are quite honestly horrible, they know nothing about the game, they don't know anything about minion wave control, some may not even know they can press TAB to see what everyone is building so they can plot better. Now some people will go "how does this effect me?"

The answer is simple, you are now playing with this new player or against this new player who has no clue what to do and most the time they will feed, and feed by a lot. I am talking go 0 10 0 type feeding. The sad part is, it is not even the players fault, they simply got placed to high so now they are facing against good players who are experienced in the game who will quite frankly curve stomp them in lane and probably snow ball.

Why is this bad?

1. It frustrates the team who has said new player and puts them at a unlucky disadvantage.
2. **It tricks the laner who is facing the new player into believing they are good. ** You learn little facing weaker players, you get better facing people who are at your level and provide a challenge. Thus putting the player they are better then they really are while harming their growth process. 3-It frustrates the new player into quitting the game, because since they are loosing so often and probably getting flamed while feeding, it takes away the enjoyment and turns the game into a chore, a task, and after a while they will just quit. 4-It harms the quality of the Elo you are in. For example I remember their was a point in time where people would brag about being Gold or Silver, and now since season 5 started, you are considered a bad player if you are anything less then plat. And even Plat is a Elo I notice my friends questioning in terms of quality play. Meaning if you allow bad players into respectable ranks, then that rank is no longer respectable after a certain point of time.

Things I notice Riot is doing to fix this

1-The new forgiveness policy if you are lower then plat where if you fail your promotionals to the next rank but get back in you automatically get one win. 2-the new ban selection policy during draft 3-the new team creation process to make sure both teams have a good comp.

**Why this is not enough? ** Bad players will still be getting placed higher then they really are through provisional. Eventually these bad players will get demoted back to Bronze, but how many games are gonna be harmed till they get demoted?

How do we fix it?

I have no clue to be blunt, that is honestly up to the balance team to figure out, but what I suggest is to make a second factor for ranked games to evaluate you, for example find a way to have the Grade system on how well you did in games to help out your ranked scores. For example I can tell you their were many games i got a A or a S in with a AMAZING kda but still lost, and frankly every player has, and it sucks to be punished for your teams actions when you did well. Sure the phrase carry harder exists, but i make the counter argument with a "single player can only do so much"

That is all I have to say, and I hope this issue is addressed before season six provisionals begins. I am not salty, I am simply saying the feelings that every player feels in every elo.

Sometimes a player who is clearly not at said Elos expected skill level gets in, and when this happens it harms the quality of the game.

What am I asking for? A better way for Riot to place people in ranks and frankly I think we all want that.

These are my thoughts, share your opinions

Happy climbing _ ~PhanatosG2 the Silver scrub. _