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Things that doesnt work about ranked

Th3 Rift Hero··119 votes·6,409 views

-too much emphasis is put on the 10 very first ranked games of a player -the system keep placing players lower every season meaning that the skill level needed to get out of tiers like silver might be higher every season -promos feel kinda useless and unnecessarily give stress to the player -games lost at 0 lp have too much impact on the future lp gains and losses of a player -5th divisions are too much of a melting pot of players and tend to create some kind of elo hell -the way ranked is made force a highly time-consuming grind if you want to make any real progress in rank -it feel like when you win too much in a row you get a forced loss streak maybe because your put in a 1v9 carrying spot with teamates way worse than you -the lp gains and losses sometimes feel really punishing and prevent any attempt to climb -you're only 1/5 of your team and let's face it, it's kinda hard to really solo carry a game when your teammates don,t work with you for the win -Bad players, afk and troll have too much impact on the own climbing of a player, for example, you lose the same lp as the troll even when you were the best player on the team and could have won with a decent team -New players inserted in ranked games with experienced players really hurt the matchmaking quality -Sometimes, the difference in ranks in one game is just too much and it sometimes make the games really one-sided

  • The rank distribution is really wrong and put too much players in the same low elo spot, here's some stats about the playerbase by tier from league of graphs : Bronze 22,23% Silver 40,34% i mean, really? maybe add an electrum tier? Gold 26,20%

here's the total elitist part : Platinum 8,87% Diamond 2,30%

yup, don't ever dream of it : Master 0,04% Challenger 0,02%

https://img15.hostingpics.net/pics/176103Rankdistributionbytier.png https://img15.hostingpics.net/pics/795687Rankdistributionbytierdivisions.png

200 Comments

420 grams87 votes

The biggest problem is match making. "Oh, youre a mid silver players who won 5 games in a row? You must now be at a mid gold level and can clearly carry low silver players against 4 gold players (but you're still not good enough to have the gold rank yourself)"

Th3 Rift Hero21 votes

[{quoted}](name=420 grams,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=ZmfIKgFP,comment-id=0000,timestamp=2017-11-23T17:16:10.410+0000)

The biggest problem is match making. "Oh, youre a mid silver players who won 5 games in a row? You must now be at a mid gold level and can clearly carry low silver players against 4 gold players (but you're still not good enough to have the gold rank yourself)"

i totally agree with you man from my experience i feel like it's pretty much this . A better thing would be to just insert the high mmr player in a game full of players from that mmr, not only in the opposite team, maybe that's not exactly how it is but there is certainly room to improvement in the matchmaking to avoid such unbalanced matchups.

or maybe just set the ranks range in one game to 3 divisions max

T4underbolt9 votes

This is the problem that is going on since the beginning but those riot fanboys and riot will keep telling you that youre getting matched with people of same mmr. FALSE. Games are matched so both teams have the same or similar average MMR. For easier understanding I will use simple numbers. average mmr of each team is 1000. though players in enemy team are at 1000 MMR each while you were recently on winning streak climbing hard so your MMR is higher than usual mmr for certain division. You have 2000 mmr. so to make an average mmr of your whole team 1000 you need to be matched with people of 750 MMR which is much lower than usual mmr for certain division. So those players are visibly worse than enemy team so you have to carry hard because for matchmaking both teams have same mmr so its fair. Well as you already know its not. The thing is that unlike Riot, other companies that are using this broken system can admit they are doing this and try to make the system more fair (watch blizzard's hots). Riot just thinks people are stupid and cant see obvious things.

GelsominoKiller4 votes

I can't upvote more, sadly

DarkRooster3 votes

Can i carry a low silver team against nice gold team ? Yes i can, BUY WHY DO I HAVE TO SUFFER SO MUCH ? THIS IS GIVING ME MORE WORK AND STRESS BEYOND ANY VALID REASON

Owyn2 votes

Oh, youre a mid silver players who won 5 games in a row? You must now be at a mid gold level

gold? lol, how about plat+? was climing out of silver 1 few weeks ago, in my 2nd promo game had plats+ [slayer-jinx-unamused]

RottedApples6 votes

yeah and we'll auto fill you support for that game as well. have fun.

support can be op as shit as far as their itemization and cc abilities but if you don't have anyone decent to buff you kinda just have to play a mage or lose.

Noblewind37 votes

They need to create a better match between LP rank and actual MMR. Golds should play with golds, not golds playing with good silver players and bad plat players

Th3 Rift Hero8 votes

{quoted}

They need to create a better match between LP rank and actual MMR. Golds should play with golds, not golds playing with good silver players and bad plat players

yup that's how it should be

Sraeg20136 votes

That's how it was before ladders were added.

LP WAS the MMR

The Cane Master1 votes

{quoted}

They need to create a better match between LP rank and actual MMR. Golds should play with golds, not golds playing with good silver players and bad plat players

This is impossible due to queue dodging losing you LP. So one could win 1 game, then dodge 3 in a row (3+9+9) and go back where he was despite his MMR being increased. Needless to say, with enough dedication one could stay silver with challenger MMR just by queue dodging after every win.

Noblewind2 votes

It's possible to have a BETTER match than what is current, it's not going to be perfect. LP rank at the moment (and a lot of the time, not all) spends too much time lagging behind MMR, from things like current promos/demotion protection, and too wide of a variation between win/loss values. Moving up and down in LP rank should be LESS different than MMR ups/downs after each game.

For example in an extreme situation, if you go on a massive losing streak, you should be moving down rank significantly, and vice versa. Currently if you win a lot of games, your LP rate gets so padded that you can lose a lot yet stay close to the same division. The opposite is true if you lose a lot first, your climb in the future is so halted that it takes twice as long to move up divisions.

As a result people get stuck in certain ranks, whether it's silver 5 players taking forever to move up, or diamond 5 players taking forever to move down, and no one actually plays against people in their same division. If division rank was a closer indicator of your skill level, it would be a less frustrating and more fun/satisfying system overall.

Ben Sharpio18 votes

yeah, and at the elo i'm in (plat1), people just duo to get past the D5 0LP players because its actually insanely hard to get pass the boosted OR boosting players as a solo player, or simply someone who doesnt play carry champs.

Like, you literally have people duoing, not because they WANT to, but because it simply means you have 1 less retarded player on your team

and its weird too. Ranked is basically 3 v 3.

in a sense that you have 3 competent players, and 2 shitters, vs 3 competent players and 2 shitters. That's the formula to every game/every champ select lol.

I guess thats why people opgg their entire team the higher you climb. Because otherwise you have no way of knowing who the win condition is on your team

Th3 Rift Hero3 votes

[{quoted}](name=Corsair Sion,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=ZmfIKgFP,comment-id=0003,timestamp=2017-11-23T17:48:29.913+0000)

yeah, and at the elo i'm in (plat1), people just duo to get past the D5 0LP players because its actually insanely hard to get pass the boosted OR boosting players as a solo player, or simply someone who doesnt play carry champs.

Like, you literally have people duoing, not because they WANT to, but because it simply means you have 1 less retarded player on your team

yeah this suck, i think just the way ranked is made rn encourage boosting because you can only really influence 1/5 of the game and no matter how well you do (even if you get a s or had an afk on your team) you don't gain or lose more or less than riot choosed you would according to your sole winrate for matchup history

Pokku2 votes

I think the champion grade you get should be taken into account in LP calculations. In my experience, the grade represents performance quite accurately.

When winning a game (numbers for illustrative purposes): S = greatly increased LP gain (+15) A = slightly increased LP gain (+12) B = normal LP gain (+10) C = slightly decreased LP gain (+8) D = greatly decreased LP gain (+5) When losing a game: S = greatly decreased LP loss (–5) A = slightly decreased LP loss (–8) ... D = greatly increased LP loss (–15)

Psybicilin7 votes

Can you imagine how toxic it would be if people were stealing all farm and trying to ks everything just to get more LP? This would also cause more kda whores that would never go in and die for an initiation, just so they don't get a bad grade. Sometimes I get a c, but I know I did my job because I played a tank and peeled, or absorbed damage for my team.

WiegrafOfValor18 votes

It's easy to fix, everyone knows it, but Riot simply won't do it.

Step 1.

**Make that you can only be matched with and against players of your own Tier. **

I can live in a world that I need to play against a Plat1 if I'm a Plat3 seems on my spectrum, and I feel I can bet him. But don't put me to carry 4 Gold5 against a team full of D1s, that's just ridiculous.

Step 2.

Make a base LP value for win and losses, but also add LP bonus and penalties for certain attitudes.

I get it I lost this match, and I deserve to lose some LP. But why the hell I've lost the same amount of LP as the guy who flamed me all game, rage quit 10 min into the game because he was ganked twice.

Step 3.

Ban new champions from ranked for at least, I'm talking minimum 2 weeks.

Dude, you have normals, you have practice tools, you have bots, hell you even have Dynamic Queue. Why do you need to try your new champion on my promos? I really think is too selfish to do something like that and should be considered cancerous.

Th3 Rift Hero4 votes

{quoted}

It's easy to fix, everyone knows it, but Riot simply won't do it.

Step 1.

**Make that you can only be matched with and against players of your own Tier. **

I can live in a world that I need to play against a Plat1 if I'm a Plat3 seems on my spectrum, and I feel I can bet him. But don't put me to carry 4 Gold5 against a team full of D1s, that's just ridiculous.

Step 2.

Make a base LP value for win and losses, but also add LP bonus and penalties for certain attitudes.

I get it I lost this match, and I deserve to lose some LP. But why the hell I've lost the same amount of LP as the guy who flamed me all game, rage quit 10 min into the game because he was ganked twice.

Step 3.

Ban new champions from ranked for at least, I'm talking minimum 2 weeks.

Dude, you have normals, you have practice tools, you have bots, hell you even have Dynamic Queue. Why do you need to try your new champion on my promos? I really think is too selfish to do something like that and should be considered cancerous.

I love the idea of only same tier, i'm silver 5 at the moment and i keep getting paired with bronze, and even if it's supposed to be close divisions, there is a clear difference in skill between a silver and a bronze. Also , yeah I think using letter grades for varying gains and losses would be great, the lp gains rn are really screwed by tanking at 0 lp. Also, well i dunno about step 3, new champs can be tried on pbe also, but maybe a limit of games played with a champion before be able to bring him in ranked would do.

SwiftKitten8812 votes

{quoted}

I love the idea of only same tier, i'm silver 5 at the moment and i keep getting paired with bronze, and even if it's supposed to be close divisions, there is a clear difference in skill between a silver and a bronze. Also , yeah I think using letter grades for varying gains and losses would be great, the lp gains rn are really screwed by tanking at 0 lp. Also, well i dunno about step 3, new champs can be tried on pbe also, but maybe a limit of games played with a champion before be able to bring him in ranked would do.

thats not 100% true... there is a VERY clear difference between silver and bronze players yes.. but only if they silver player CLIMBED to silver from bronze..

half the issue is that riot puts brand new players into silver when they play at a bronze 4 level

Quil Evrything5 votes

i disagee that attitude shoud have anything to do with LP. only game performance should.

notice me Sin pi2 votes

personally i think 2 weeks for banning new champ from ranked is an overkill. 1 week seems sufficient, and i think there's another moba that also bans for only 1 week.

DarkRooster3 votes

There is more than 100 champions to play, we sure can survive for few weeks or more without the newest one being in ranked, while the meta for it stabilizes.

notice me Sin pi1 votes

we can survive a whole season without half the current roaster of champions actually, by your own logic. In fact, that would be a lot healthier for the meta as well in terms of stability.

DarkRooster2 votes

The difference is its about ranked games, people usually go there and play mains with which they have put in plenty hundred hours in each of them, mastered all their capabilities, limits and are capable of making plays others couldn't imagine. The new champion have not been even around for so much and instantly its released someone plays it on ranked, especially if it has new set of unique skills. First few weeks now all the Zoe players are a big joke. And she is playing against some people that have been years on their champions. There is no benefit of newest champion flooding around rankeds. Go normals with them, its not like you lack champions to play.

So no its not my logic at all, don't twist it because i disagree with you.

Kloqdq12 votes

I've always been a, just get rid of LP and work with MMR, kind of guy. LP is a system that has too little weight and it causes a lot of the problems that players fill when climbing. MMR is the number that matters and it is completely invisible so I don't know why we don't just focus on that and have looser tier brackets in favour of tighter MMR ratings and matches.

DarkRooster2 votes

In good old times when i could solo carry i jumped from plat 5 to plat 3 without promos and to plat 1 without promos, when given +30 and more LP per game i surpassed 100 i was automatically placed 2 divisions higher till plat 1, and never again since i didn't have the same chance, won every game with outstanding performance and this is what happened, honestly.

Now the meta is so shifty, plenty times whatever i do i am not the for example adc that will solo win this game and whole system is putting me back though i completely destroy my lane, gank and destroy other lanes, secure any objective i can imagine for a moment and am fed like a beast, or at least i should be.

All this together makes a silly situation where 3 people in our team are fed and abuse enemies like crazy, we all have very nice scores, kda and enemies have very bad, but we had even score botlane no matter how much attention we all put in there. and in mid game enemy adc hit a powerspike, but not from being fed or anything, just hit a power spike and basically soloed us all. The games are so inconsistent its just beyond silly.

And together it made a situation where 3 people that should definitely advance higher doesn't, but 3 people that should definitely fall lower since they can't basically play are advancing higher. Idk why do i go ranked on such meta, i should just smarten up, wait it out and go when preseason is over, but i am so curious of what mess of garbage ranked is right now.

And when the meta will finally be set, i will be in some low golds or even silvers and i will completely slaughter them for endless games since i dropped my LP gain by marinating in this preseason, and i will feel sad for enemies, they will flame each other, hate their laner, jungler, everything while i go in endless slaughter which is simply unfair against them. And this happens more than often and them more forums posts will be made where ''i had this toplaner go 0 10 and this stupid midlaner go 0 10'', but i will be the guy that puts enemies in such place.

My point is even though i profit in cruel way its just fucking unfair, all this LP system doesn't give any share of fairness. I would myself gain more from actually having strong enemies, so i can faster learn to be stronger than them, not to waste time slaughtering them for another game.

Edit: another point of unfairness, i was in bronze smurfing and solo carrying a game, my own account in another server, and there enemy vayne smurfing who was actually diamond 1, we basically both played against each others and rest of 8 people were left for slaughter quite literary. And since imagine how long time it takes for separate account to advance to silver, gold, plat, diamond, imagine how many games can we ruin together.

I completely agree with you.

Sraeg20138 votes

The good old days of Season 1 and 2 where there was no obscure "this is to make you feel good about yourself" system.

Back when your ranking was a single, visible number which was used to match you up with other players.

ChargeItDownMid7 votes

[deleted]

Sraeg20133 votes

That is needed to ensure it doesn't take 200 games for everyone to get to where they belong. Also, remember that it isn't a huge drop off between first 10 games and next 10, it is a gradual drop off of how much mmr you gain and lose.

Bullshit.

Those first 10 matches determine whenever you'll be placed in the depths of Bronze or get Gold outright.

There does NOT exist a case where you could be able to make such a tremendous difference within 10 games outside placements.

ChargeItDownMid7 votes

[deleted]

Sraeg20131 votes

Placement games are +/- 48-50 mmr. Afterwards, mmr change goes down to 24 and then 12.

And how exactly do you know that?

Cosnirak1 votes

There is no fix for this.

Except for the obvious fix of not gaining/losing LP solely based on win/loss and mmr as has been mentioned thousands if not millions of times before and other games already do...

ChargeItDownMid1 votes

[deleted]

Cosnirak2 votes

No we didn't. The grading system was never meant to be a part of LP or MMR and so never has been. They don't give it much mind or focus and don't attempt to fine tune it much if at all like they could. It's heavily focused on k/d/a and cs, minorly affected by a couple other things. It could be so much better, but they just don't care enough because it's not a big deal.

If actually done well and kept up with it could absolutely work. As I said, some other games already do it.

ChargeItDownMid1 votes

[deleted]

Cosnirak2 votes

The grading system was riot's attempt at creating a formula which could eventually replace mmr

Says you with no proof whatsoever...

If they had kept updating it like they tried to initially, it would be in no better state than it is now.

Says you with no proof whatsoever...

Performance based grading simply does not work in a moba.

Says you with no proof whatsoever...

That is why only failing mobas like hots try it as a cheap attempt at grabbing more players while dota and league stay with mmr.

Wait hots does it? I was talking about Overwatch. My understanding is that it's a small effect, as it should be, but does certainly matter and at least somewhat work from what I can tell.

In team games I feel it's an absolute necessity. Without it luck is far more important than skill as to whether or not you go up or down in rank within a certain range, the edges of which are a bit far apart (like more than an entire division typically) and where your skill (or lack thereof) eventually is different enough to overcome the fact that you're just 1 person on a team of 5 (or 6, or whatever depending on the game/mode).

ChargeItDownMid1 votes

[deleted]

Cosnirak2 votes

Because you have been providing sources for everything you say. Why do you think riot tried so hard to create a formula that judged individual performance?

So you're just assuming.

I'm 99.999% sure you're wrong because they made an entire new system known as champion mastery to use the grading system and it'd be silly at best to do that just to disguise it. And here is where you say "why not use it for both?" And I say "technically possible, extremely unlikely, and ya know they would've said something about it because they aren't evil villains trying to hide their dastardly plot."

overwatch is not a moba. No serious moba does it.

It isn't about being a moba or not. All that matters in this regard is team game vs individual game. Pure MMR/ELO is a terrible way to rate individuals playing a team game. I can explain why if you want, but I feel like it's pretty obvious.

Also you don't get to decide which mobas are "serious" and which aren't. Also there aren't a lot of mobas. Also very few games period have ever tried individual performance affected rating systems within team competition because yeah it's complex, nuanced, a good bit of work, and inherently imperfect. It's still better and totally worth it. But just using the old standard is free, minimal effort, and there's safety in numbers (aka "No serious moba does it" defense).

ChargeItDownMid1 votes

[deleted]

Cosnirak1 votes

They weren't disguising it at all. They straight up said the grading was made to reflect individual contribution to team performance. Originally, it even broke down exactly what percentage of the mastery points your own contribution accounted for.

Gonna need some major proof here. I'll wait.

Actually, it is very important because of what is and what is not possible in a moba vs in another game. What you are proposing is straight up impossible to do in a moba. You have to stop living in your own fantasy world. There is no magic formula which can calculate individual contribution well enough to be a better rating system than mmr.

It's impossible to do it perfectly either way for any type of game. Even in a 1v1 game ELO is not a perfect system. That isn't the point. Incorporating some amount of individual performance metric to simply influence the degree you gain and lose rating would be an easy improvement even if only halfway decently done. MMR systems are simply that awful at rating individuals in team settings. Most people are just so used to it that like you they accept it as somehow ok. It isn't ok. It's wildly bad.

I never decided, I played all of them.

It doesn't matter if you played them or not. You alone do not get to decree which are serious or not. No one person does. Even popularity alone doesn't decide that. Nothing decides that for everyone. Each person decides how they feel about it and that's it. It's fine for you to not think it's "serious." It's not fine for you to tell me that it isn't "serious." And for the record, I actually agree with you about hots. It just doesn't matter in this discussion anyways.

Also, league already tried individual performance and failed.

Neither of those things is true as far as I've seen. Certainly not if you're talking about champion mastery. Yes it's clearly flawed in a number of ways, but I wouldn't call it a failure at all. I think if Riot decided to use it to affect MMR they'd take it a little more seriously, tune it, get feedback on it, and keep tuning it over time. They simply haven't decided to do that and I doubt they will any time soon sadly.

ChargeItDownMid1 votes

[deleted]

Cosnirak2 votes

They say it straight up in the support section: Riot never hid the fact that the grading system was a way for them to attempt at measuring your own performance.

You're completely right in regards to it literally being that. But I assumed we were still talking about it in the context of it having anything to do with MMR. What they said has nothing to do with MMR. You haven't remotely proven that they ever intended to use it to affect MMR (or even LP) in any way, shape, or form. When you have proof that they did, come share it.

This has never been the case in a moba.

No direct bearing on if it could become the case. It's only related in the sense that change is hard, making something new takes effort, people will be scared of change, blah blah all that typical stuff. Nothing is inherently wrong with doing it.

Individual performance metrics are simply too hard to evaluate well

I strongly disagree and I don't think either of us can convince the other on this issue. But regardless, that's not even terribly relevant. What matters more is that current MMR systems are so stupendously terrible for team games that even a bad individual performance system slightly influencing one is an upgrade.

Riot took it very seriously and tried to tune the mastery system for over a year without much success.

According to who? I certainly didn't see that from Riot. They certainly didn't sound like they were fine tuning it after the first month. Where are you even remotely getting this idea from?

Dota inhouse league have been trying for many years abeit on a smaller scale without any success.

I have zero knowledge about such a thing. But based on how you see League's champion mastery system and your out of nowhere assumption about Riot's intentions for it I honestly have no faith in your assessment of the situation so... shrug

ChargeItDownMid1 votes

[deleted]

Cosnirak1 votes

It has been such a huge failure

How has it failed?

Also, stop pretending individual performance is remotely as easy to measure in a moba as it is in overwatch. You are grasping at straws.

What? How is it any harder? If anything I suspect it's easier.

ChargeItDownMid2 votes

[deleted]

Cosnirak1 votes

How has it failed? You're once again just asserting that it did. You did nothing to answer the question. And on top of that you made yet another assumption (that Riot dumped a ton of resources into it) you have no proof of. Can you even provide reasonable evidence supporting the possibility of your claims?

ChargeItDownMid1 votes

[deleted]

Th3 Rift Hero2 votes

{quoted}

The system failed because it does not measure individual performance.

Just google league of legends and grade or mastery and you can easily find stupid examples of grades. http://lmgtfy.com/?q=league+of+legends+grade

Look at the mastery change log if you don't believe me that riot dumped a ton of resources into it.

Start with patch 5.6 http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/V5.6 and go through the patch notes if you want a detailed history.

Now it is your turn. Can you provide any proof that an individual performance system can outperform mmr in a moba? (And don't bring in the overwatch crap, it is irrelavent and just makes you look desperate). Every example of an individual performance system in dota or league so far have been so bad that the developers gave up on it.

i mean, it's not really like a team sport, sure it's totally fine to count only winrate when you always have the same teammates but in the case of solo/duo queue you always get a different team with different players, a win/loss only system can't really be accurate in that case. What i've been suggesting is the removal of lp gains and losses based on match history, like, i'm just suggesting some tweaking on lp values dependign on how you performed in this individual game, i don't see how it would break the matchmaking since you still need to win if you want to climb

Escheton5 votes

If you win a lot your mmr rises a lot. Which put you against higher mmr players than before. Which in turn gives you more LP if you win. However, you might go on a loss streak if that hightened mmr is too much for you to handle or adapt too. In that, you may have the skills to play at that lvl, but because you are used to playing against lower mmr players you make moves to counter something that doesn't exist any more, setting you back more than needed. Gradual changes, or the ability to quickly adapt might help there. But then, thats what happens after the loss streak.

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