Grading System Flaws
As you might have guessed from the title, I'm here to post some of my personal issues with the Grading System and some ideas to resolve them. Firstly, I'm fresh out of a game where I went 12/1/11 with 309 cs as Lux. Yeah, Lux can be easy to get good scores on but the point is that I am Bronze and my opponent was Gold. Sure, the game was long and my CS was somewhat low but that's partly because mid-game ADC's are the better pushers and therefore get the majority of lane CS after laning (idk if that's spelled correctly) phase. Anyways, I got an A+ for this game - not even an S-... I think the system is a great idea and has great potential but I think it could use some tweaks.
First, I think the system needs to better consider the player's skill. In the match I described above, I believe the system should consider that I'm Bronze and my Opponent in lane was Gold. Lower skill level players should be able to earn good grades even if they aren't completely stomping the way Challengers might. Better yet, the system could grade the player based off their own play rather than comparing between other players in the region.
Secondly, I think the system needs to be more transparent. I think the hidden, internal rubric the system uses should be listed out for us. A player should have the ability to go into match history and click something like "explain grade" and it should tell you WHY you got the grade you did. This would help players see where they are shining and also where they need to improve. It could be specific to role, game type, or even champion. (Used your ult to save your whole team twice as Kindred? Better grade for you! - kind of thing)
Third and finally, I think an S or S+ on any champion regardless of mastery level should reward a mastery token. If I get an S grade on a champ I'm level 4 on I feel so sad because that S feels completely wasted. Getting to level 5 is trivial and preforming well on a level 4 or lower champ should feel just as rewarding regardless of mastery level. In order to compensate for perhaps easier acquisition of mastery tokens, an 8th level could be added that is much more difficult to acquire, say requiring 3 S+ grades and completing a champion specific mission or something. Something to make the final mastery feel really rewarding and hard earned.
Anyways, thanks for reading, I hope this gets seen by someone at Riot as I'm trying to provide genuine feedback for a system I think fell short of its potential. If you agree feel free to add to this and share your feedback and ideas. If you think I'm a crybaby scrub player who doesn't deserve anything higher than an A-, feel free to share that as well because I'm just tryin' to help Riot out here and maybe you too if they decide to tweak this system. See you on the Rift!