Can we have an actual feel for the difference between bronze, silver, and gold?

Child Puncher·Jul 19, 2016·41 votes·3,905 views

As someone who started in silver(when i should have been placed in bronze 5) who has worked my way all the way up to diamond over the past 5 years, and who smurfs from time to time, I can honestly say, placing new players in bronze 1 to silver 1 just because they played 10 games isn't helping anyone, it really makes the ranked system inaccurate, and just overall feel really bad to be a part of, you have this mold of 3 different ranks essentially, low bronze to low gold that all feel the same because players are improperly sorted into them

The average new player after hitting 30 often does not really play the game well yet, and after 100 games of play would almost certainly be in mid to low bronze, but the fact that players can win 4/10 games in provisionals, that they had no effect one whatsoever and get silver 4-5 on average really just spits in the face of the players who actually climbed out of bronze and into silver, and it's even worse when players who just barely started playing the game get silver 4 or 3 and end up in games with a few gold players, you then have this game full of people who've played a month or less, and people who've played up to a few years, the disparity is horrendous at best

if people start out lower, there might actually start to be a difference between high bronze and low gold, You have a system that can detect smurfs leveling up based on their average performance, and factoring in their win/loss rate, yet you can't tell if someone is carrying games in provisionals versus getting carried while making no difference?

Please do something at some point, you are literally making this range of bronze - gold a terrible experience for the VAST majority of your players, as 80-90% of all ranked players reside in these areas,

This fits your revenue gaining model, this fits your majority pleasing model, this fits your appeasing casuals model, there is no reason to not overhaul the mmr and LP system to properly rank people when almost all of your players are effected very negatively by this.

51 Comments

Penguin EclipseJul 19, 201611 votes

I honestly think everyone should start in Bronze 5. Everyone says smurfs will be a problem but if you go on a massive winning streak out of the gate the system already knocks you up several tiers at a time. They will be out of bronze in no time.

Child PuncherJul 19, 20168 votes

[{quoted}](name=Penguin Eclipse,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=bN6EvF61,comment-id=0002,timestamp=2016-07-19T18:09:36.500+0000)

I honestly think everyone should start in Bronze 5. Everyone says smurfs will be a problem but if you go on a massive winning streak out of the gate the system already knocks you up several tiers at a time. They will be out of bronze in no time.

smurfs are not a problem, you see a smurf once or twice and you never see them again, they get where they belong, new players all getting default s5 to s1 is a much larger problem considering there are a million times more new players than there are people leveling new accounts at any given time while actually having gold 1 or higher skill set

people who are bronze / silver who make a new account and say they're a smurf because they had a good game as Riven or something are just noobs blowing smoke up their own ass

khorneyJul 19, 20161 votes

thtas a good idea. makes all these people who state gettign out of bronze is easy lol. would see how pain ful it truly is

manbearswineJul 19, 20164 votes

[{quoted}](name=Penguin Eclipse,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=bN6EvF61,comment-id=0002,timestamp=2016-07-19T18:09:36.500+0000)

I honestly think everyone should start in Bronze 5. Everyone says smurfs will be a problem but if you go on a massive winning streak out of the gate the system already knocks you up several tiers at a time. They will be out of bronze in no time.

Or maybe, just maybe, instead of just throwing a person into some moronic inappropriate rank for shits and giggles, throw him in a rank based on his hidden normal mmr?

Now I'm not saying throw him into the exact same spot, reduce it by say 100/200 so he would still need to climb a bit, that way we also improve the problem of smurfs, as there's already a good sample size from normals.

Penguin EclipseJul 19, 20161 votes

{quoted}

Or maybe, just maybe, instead of just throwing a person into some moronic inappropriate rank for shits and giggles, throw him in a rank based on his hidden normal mmr?

Now I'm not saying throw him into the exact same spot, reduce it by say 100/200 so he would still need to climb a bit, that way we also improve the problem of smurfs, as there's already a good sample size from normals.

And that would accomplish what exactly? Normal MMR is absolutely meaningless and there are absolutely no queue restrictions. It's not uncommon for a new player to queue with significantly higher MMR players on their way up to lv 30 which completely makes this idea just plain stupid.

manbearswineJul 19, 20161 votes

[{quoted}](name=Penguin Eclipse,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=bN6EvF61,comment-id=000200020000,timestamp=2016-07-19T23:55:39.766+0000)

And that would accomplish what exactly? Normal MMR is absolutely meaningless and there are absolutely no queue restrictions.

I think the correlation would surprise you.

It's not uncommon for a new player to queue with significantly higher MMR players on their way up to lv 30 which completely makes this idea just plain stupid.

And then what? Queing up with higher mmr doesn't make your mmr any higher, it just changes who you are matched with/against.

Penguin EclipseJul 20, 20161 votes

{quoted}

I think the correlation would surprise you.

And then what? Queing up with higher mmr doesn't make your mmr any higher, it just changes who you are matched with/against.

Getting carried through most of your games and having an excessively high winrate doesn't raise your mmr?

Child PuncherJul 20, 20162 votes

[{quoted}](name=Penguin Eclipse,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=bN6EvF61,comment-id=00020002000000000000,timestamp=2016-07-20T00:03:24.627+0000)

Getting carried through most of your games and having an excessively high winrate doesn't raise your mmr?

it actually raises it really really slow, and mmr judging websites can't even give you a rough estimate if you duo too much because it's so diminished when Riot can tell you're being carried, if you duo from say high bronze to high gold, your mmr is quite literally going to be high silver.

manbearswineJul 20, 20162 votes

[{quoted}](name=Penguin Eclipse,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=bN6EvF61,comment-id=00020002000000000000,timestamp=2016-07-20T00:03:24.627+0000)

Getting carried through most of your games and having an excessively high winrate doesn't raise your mmr?

It depends, if matchmaking sees your team as a lot stronger, you'll lose a lot of mmr per loss and gain little per win(don't confuse mmr with lp though) if it views the teams as even then youI'll have to pull your own weight to win.

Dr PoroJul 20, 20161 votes

I agree, if their MMR is higher, they also won't be matched with other bronzies.

dim2aJul 19, 20164 votes

I can't comment on difference between bronze and silver, but I disagree about silver-gold difference. A new player can not usually get to gold MMR by just winning provisional and a few ranked games, it requires consistent winning. When I was in gold I have not seen almost any recently-started-ranked players who did not know what they were doing (it is prevalent in Silver though, yes. But this is a difference between silver and gold).

It would probably be better to place new ranked players at slightly lower MMR, yes, and then have some kind of MMR injection into the system to compensate (I have guess why current riot's system seems logical, but overestimates MMR of new players -- this has to do with how new vs. experienced players treat normals, but it would be too off-topic here)

DukuesJul 20, 20161 votes

Only person I have seen this happen to was my cousin last season. He only plays a couple characters mostly Malphite . He had played the game before in the past but did not know what most of the characters did, really how to cs well, or a lot of other things. He ended up winning like 8/10 placement games and got placed in gold 4..... Like I have played for years, finally actively started learning and just reached gold 4 on my other account like last week. Needless to say I was pretty shocked and pissed last season because I knew he wasn't a gold player. He played like 10-15 games of ranked after placements, which led him down to gold 5 0 lp and then he quit playing ranked so he wouldn't get demoted to silver.

Somehow he lost his login information and couldn't do password reset... not really sure what happened. He leveled a new account to 30 and got placed in silver this season and can't get past silver 3. At least now he sees what its like to actually try and climb haha. But yea.. I assume it would be pretty rare for someone to get placed into gold who doesn't know a lot of the basics of the game, but I do know one person who did.

Mysticman89Jul 19, 20163 votes

The system actually is pretty good at spotting smurfs and pushing their mmr in the right direction (occasionally a bit too far even).

On one of my various accounts I was pretty impressed/surprised to see myself getting matched with low diamonds before it even reached 30, and I'm not necessarily a diamond level player (currently residing in mid plat).

In ranked I've recently even played with a (solo) silver (that was clearly a smurf) alongside a bunch of low plats, so their mmr was clearly just that inflated.

Smurfs are unfortunate for the legit new players who encounter them in their early matches before the smurfs MMR does get pushed up to levels appropriate to their skill, but for the most part any specific smurf does get recognized by the system, and unless they're actively throwing games to keep their mmr down, that specific account won't spoil many low elo games.

(Also keep in mind that rank itself is almost meaningless. MMR is the only thing that actually matters, so the people who got lucky in placements and play at a B4 level but got placed silver, will still get matched with bronzes despite being silver 5, and similarly those who consistently play at a high level will soon find themselves in matches with comparable skills even if their rank hasn't caught up yet.)

Child PuncherJul 19, 20161 votes

{quoted}

The system actually is pretty good at spotting smurfs and pushing their mmr in the right direction (occasionally a bit too far even).

This is after the fact of what i'm saying we should change, and actually doesn't have anything to do with what i'm typing since i'm not talking about smrufs.

On one of my various accounts I was pretty impressed/surprised to see myself getting matched with low diamonds before it even reached 30, and I'm not necessarily a diamond level player (currently residing in mid plat).

I'm talking about ranked play not pre level 30

In ranked I've recently even played with a (solo) silver (that was clearly a smurf) alongside a bunch of low plats, so their mmr was clearly just that inflated.

MMR makes no difference when you're talking about impossible situations, that player would have to be playing with someone in gold who knows they're smurfing and somehow got match with plats despite being a gold with a silver(not actually all that common)

Smurfs are unfortunate for the legit new players who encounter them in their early matches before the smurfs MMR does get pushed up to levels appropriate to their skill, but for the most part any specific smurf does get recognized by the system, and unless they're actively throwing games to keep their mmr down, that specific account won't spoil many low elo games.

Again...not sure why we're talking about smurfs...

(Also keep in mind that rank itself is almost meaningless. MMR is the only thing that actually matters, so the people who got lucky in placements and play at a B4 level but got placed silver, will still get matched with bronzes despite being silver 5, and similarly those who consistently play at a high level will soon find themselves in matches with comparable skills even if their rank hasn't caught up yet.)

MMR is what decides rank and LP gain/loss...it's a physical manifestation of the hidden MMR and a better representation of the old ELO ladder.

also when you're brand new if you just place s3 or s4 there isn't a realistic idea of what your mmr even is, other than the default, so they're actually not going to be placed with bronze unless the "Queue time > all" system cant find other silvers for this player to play with

this is true of players who have established mmr and somehow get s5 while having a bronze mmr, not so much of new players

Mysticman89Jul 19, 20161 votes

I don't really get what you feel should be changed if your concern isn't smurfs. Excluding smurfs, people play against similarly skilled players currently, which strikes me as how it should work. Trying to force people to only play those in their same divison/tier by contrast (or otherwise making those matter) would just lead to stompy matches, with a lot more variance in skill within any given division since the segregation of skill (in the form of their mmr) would be gated by what was actually available in that particular division at that time.

Ranked play uses MMR just as well as normals. They're separate MMRs, but matchmaking in both cases is based on mmr not rank.

I can pretty much guarantee that if someone ranked silver 1 managed to get a plat mmr, and they solo queued, they would be matched with plats, since that's the whole point of mmr. Getting a plat mmr while still being silver would be tricky, and they wouldn't be able to play many games before quickly getting promoted (probably skipping divisions), but it is something that happens on rare occasions. (The silver 1 in question, if they were in a premade, it was with someone they were playing with for the first time, and haven't played with again since, as I felt compelled to look them up when I first saw the silver in my game.)

If we're not talking about smurfs, then your point seems pretty lost. Bronze-gold all feel like a mix of equally bad to people at higher elos, but to legit silvers, bronzes are garbage, but golds are gods. As far as system detectability though, a silver player isn't going to be hard carrying their way through bronze with an 80% win rate or anything crazy like that (as a smurf might), so it'll be a slow trend up with a 53% win rate or something, which would be hard to distinguish from statistical variance. (Using things other than win rate is pretty sketchy too, since then people might find themselves focused on csing instead of winning and other odd behaviours.)

Rank and MMR are ideally related, but it only directly decides your rank at the conclusion of placements. If you get unlucky during placements despite being a gold level player, your mmr can initially be bronze, and so you'll be placed bronze. That player would still relatively quickly be playing against gold players, even if their rank wasn't caught up yet, so there would be an MMR and rank mismatch.

It takes like 100+ matches before theres a good sense of where someones 'true' mmr is, but having 100 placement matches isn't going to fly. Jamming a bunch of gold/silver level players in with bronze 5's (someone 'starting' at silver/gold skill level as a first time ranked player seems plausible if they have other MOBA experience) with the assumption that the good ones will climb out wouldn't work any better than the current system, wherein after 10 matches they might have a 'wrong' mmr, but the bad ones will fall and the good will climb, and it won't really be any better of an experience. (I recognize the 'everyone starts at B5' proposal wasn't yours, but it's just an example of a 'solution' that wouldn't actually help.)

Did you have any particular proposals on how to differentiate bronze-gold players, particularly those with relatively few games played? It is a hard problem, since at least on the surface of it, anyone theres enough data to make any conclusions on will have already trended up/down to something more fitting in the current system.

DukuesJul 19, 20161 votes

I think OP is more just talking about provisional games and placements. New accounts have a rather high starting mmr around the 50% mark (which is what like silver 3?). And with this starting mmr its pretty hard for new accounts to be placed lower than silver 5 or bronze 1. I have seen new players with 2-3 wins in silver 3 before who literally know nothing about the game. Like bronze 5 players would destroy some of these players I have seen, I will admit its rare but it does happen. So I believe OP is saying new account starting mmr should be lower, which I agree with. Especially now that it takes less time to reach level 30.

There is really no reason to not have a majority of new accounts placed into bronze, because that is honestly where most new players should be placed. People who have played the game for a long time and just don't play ranked can be pretty good, and would probably win a decent amount of ranked games. So there is no reason these players or smurfs wouldn't reach silver or maybe even still gold after placements. But right now its pretty damn rare for new accounts to reach lower than silver 5, especially the closer you get to the end of the season.

Its really ass backwards to place players higher than their skill level anyways. This system does not show your skill level by just playing a 10 placements games. You are supposed to have to play a couple hundred ranked games to reach your rank. And that is fine, but its dumb that it is so easy for new players to be placed higher than their actual skill level. They don't have to worry about grinding and when they try and play they get wrecked and almost single handily lose games for their teams more times than not. If they keep playing they will eventually lose enough to reach their actual rank, but they destroy a bunch of ranked games in the process, cause a lot of toxicity, and become extremely tilted and unmotivated to try and improve. A lot of this could be avoided if more emphasis was put on starting players in bronze and forcing them to rank up. In the end... low elo would be low elo but it would give ranks a little more meaning and teach new players what the grind process is all about and would give more meaning to bronze, silver, gold ranks including the divisions.

Child PuncherJul 20, 20161 votes

{quoted}

I think OP is more just talking about provisional games and placements. New accounts have a rather high starting mmr around the 50% mark (which is what like silver 3?). And with this starting mmr its pretty hard for new accounts to be placed lower than silver 5 or bronze 1. I have seen new players with 2-3 wins in silver 3 before who literally know nothing about the game. Like bronze 5 players would destroy some of these players I have seen, I will admit its rare but it does happen. So I believe OP is saying new account starting mmr should be lower, which I agree with. Especially now that it takes less time to reach level 30.

There is really no reason to not have a majority of new accounts placed into bronze, because that is honestly where most new players should be placed. People who have played the game for a long time and just don't play ranked can be pretty good, and would probably win a decent amount of ranked games. So there is no reason these players or smurfs wouldn't reach silver or maybe even still gold after placements. But right now its pretty damn rare for new accounts to reach lower than silver 5, especially the closer you get to the end of the season.

Its really ass backwards to place players higher than their skill level anyways. This system does not show your skill level by just playing a 10 placements games. You are supposed to have to play a couple hundred ranked games to reach your rank. And that is fine, but its dumb that it is so easy for new players to be placed higher than their actual skill level. They don't have to worry about grinding and when they try and play they get wrecked and almost single handily lose games for their teams more times than not. If they keep playing they will eventually lose enough to reach their actual rank, but they destroy a bunch of ranked games in the process, cause a lot of toxicity, and become extremely tilted and unmotivated to try and improve. A lot of this could be avoided if more emphasis was put on starting players in bronze and forcing them to rank up. In the end... low elo would be low elo but it would give ranks a little more meaning and teach new players what the grind process is all about and would give more meaning to bronze, silver, gold ranks including the divisions.

it is what i'm talking about, congrats on the reading comprehension, this other guy is driving me nuts honestly

but YES, people are placed too high on their first accounts, the mmr is WAY too high, people talk shit about silver 3/2/1 but no new player gets there after a month unless they were like a god at original dota or other mobas and have a great aptitude for this stuff, those players aren't gonna have a problem though

and people who say WHAT ABOUT SMURFS, what

the

fuck

about them

Riot doesn't like them or condone it anyway? why the fuck would we balance the game around smurfs

if they're that damn good they skip tiers anyway, adding an extra day onto challenger players' "Road to challenger" streams in 11 days instead of 10, who the fuck cares, ranked is a process where you work at it and see how hard you can push until you're pushed back and have to improve to get further, it's not some badge you get after playing for a week, it's supposed to be a long and tedious process to maximize the highest possible LP / tier combination you can achieve before you can't go any further

DukuesJul 20, 20161 votes

Amen man haha I wish/hope Riot listens to your post.

"ranked is a process where you work at it and see how hard you can push until you're pushed back and have to improve to get further, it's not some badge you get after playing for a week, it's supposed to be a long and tedious process to maximize the highest possible LP / tier combination you can achieve before you can't go any further".

Exactly! I think its funny how many players don't understand this. Lots of people seem really thrown off by the soft reset at the start of each season (which is probably a lot of 2nd season players at least on the boards). Like "why did I drop a tier? I was plat 5 now I am gold5 silver 1... screw this". But its like.... you literally have 10-11 months to reach your rank again. Ranks reset for everyone so your not alone, but that is what each season is about. I know its different than what your talking about in your post but I thought this was a good point as well.

Thanks again for the awesome thread and response!

Child PuncherJul 20, 20161 votes

{quoted}

I don't really get what you feel should be changed if your concern isn't smurfs. Excluding smurfs, people play against similarly skilled players currently, which strikes me as how it should work. Trying to force people to only play those in their same divison/tier by contrast (or otherwise making those matter) would just lead to stompy matches, with a lot more variance in skill within any given division since the segregation of skill (in the form of their mmr) would be gated by what was actually available in that particular division at that time.

Ranked play uses MMR just as well as normals. They're separate MMRs, but matchmaking in both cases is based on mmr not rank.

I can pretty much guarantee that if someone ranked silver 1 managed to get a plat mmr, and they solo queued, they would be matched with plats, since that's the whole point of mmr. Getting a plat mmr while still being silver would be tricky, and they wouldn't be able to play many games before quickly getting promoted (probably skipping divisions), but it is something that happens on rare occasions. (The silver 1 in question, if they were in a premade, it was with someone they were playing with for the first time, and haven't played with again since, as I felt compelled to look them up when I first saw the silver in my game.)

If we're not talking about smurfs, then your point seems pretty lost. Bronze-gold all feel like a mix of equally bad to people at higher elos, but to legit silvers, bronzes are garbage, but golds are gods. As far as system detectability though, a silver player isn't going to be hard carrying their way through bronze with an 80% win rate or anything crazy like that (as a smurf might), so it'll be a slow trend up with a 53% win rate or something, which would be hard to distinguish from statistical variance. (Using things other than win rate is pretty sketchy too, since then people might find themselves focused on csing instead of winning and other odd behaviours.)

Rank and MMR are ideally related, but it only directly decides your rank at the conclusion of placements. If you get unlucky during placements despite being a gold level player, your mmr can initially be bronze, and so you'll be placed bronze. That player would still relatively quickly be playing against gold players, even if their rank wasn't caught up yet, so there would be an MMR and rank mismatch.

It takes like 100+ matches before theres a good sense of where someones 'true' mmr is, but having 100 placement matches isn't going to fly. Jamming a bunch of gold/silver level players in with bronze 5's (someone 'starting' at silver/gold skill level as a first time ranked player seems plausible if they have other MOBA experience) with the assumption that the good ones will climb out wouldn't work any better than the current system, wherein after 10 matches they might have a 'wrong' mmr, but the bad ones will fall and the good will climb, and it won't really be any better of an experience. (I recognize the 'everyone starts at B5' proposal wasn't yours, but it's just an example of a 'solution' that wouldn't actually help.)

Did you have any particular proposals on how to differentiate bronze-gold players, particularly those with relatively few games played? It is a hard problem, since at least on the surface of it, anyone theres enough data to make any conclusions on will have already trended up/down to something more fitting in the current system.

you're not comprehending, or more than likely just not reading what i'm typing about

this has absofuckinglutely nothing to do with smurfs, never did, never will, it's about Riot placing people in too high of a rank after making their first brand new account, and ruining tons of games for players who worked their way to that rank. It's a bad system, i REALLY don't know how you got anything about smurfs out of that.

but honestly i'm so turned off by the lack of comprehension that i'm hoping you don't respond as i am out of advil

Mysticman89Jul 20, 20161 votes

Is it the really bad players ruining the good players games there, or the relatively good players (gold bound) messing up the bad players who are playing at the appropriate level in that scenario?

Placing gold during first time placements, while possible is unlikely for anyone who doesn't actually belong there. At the same time though, remember that silver is really bad, and a lot of clueless people end up there, not because they're above their 'true' rank, but because that's what silver is about. Most people end up silver not because placements are too forgiving/starting mmr is too high, but because most people are silver. Yes, that includes legitimately first time ranked players, since silver doesn't require any particular game knowledge or good mechanics, but basically knowing something pushes one from bronze to silver.

Silvers are bad in a variety of ways, and in some cases their badness is more apparent than in others (e.g. lacking fundamental mechanical skills, but perhaps at least knowing that towers shoot you), but I would suggest that most people who have video game experience in a broad sense (not necessarily even moba experience), will be silver level upon reaching 30.

Smurfs move up quickly, and bronzes move down quickly in the current system. You still haven't actually given any particular alternative to the current system. If you just move the starting mmr down, the exact same problem exists, but everyone is pulled back a few divisions. You'll then have the bronze 5 people spoiling people who've being struggling to climb through bronze for 100's of games and they finally earn bronze 1, only to have a bunch of fresh to ranked starting mmr bronze 5's ruin things for them. Alternatively, those same bronze 1's who've being struggling for hundreds of games and slowly climbing up get matched against some first time ranked people who are silver+ in ability, and get completely stomped.

The fairest thing to do is start people at around the 'average' mmr just to minimise the amount of games ruined in either direction, and that, by some metrics, is what they do. An 'earned' mid silver rank will stick there, while someone who got lucky during placements will fall. You can move around the mmr where fresh people start, but since starting skills vary, theres always going to be that problem, and you haven't proposed an alternative system.

You even acknowledge that smurfs rise quickly (and hence aren't really a problem), so I fail to see why you have a problem with anti-smurfs (i.e. bad new players), who will fall just as quickly. Both kinds of players ruin games for those who happen to have 'true' mmrs in that starting mmr range, so if you're really concerned about 'fair' matches in that mmr range, you should be addressing both.

Child PuncherJul 20, 20161 votes

{quoted}

Is it the really bad players ruining the good players games there, or the relatively good players (gold bound) messing up the bad players who are playing at the appropriate level in that scenario?

Placing gold during first time placements, while possible is unlikely for anyone who doesn't actually belong there. At the same time though, remember that silver is really bad, and a lot of clueless people end up there, not because they're above their 'true' rank, but because that's what silver is about. Most people end up silver not because placements are too forgiving/starting mmr is too high, but because most people are silver. Yes, that includes legitimately first time ranked players, since silver doesn't require any particular game knowledge or good mechanics, but basically knowing something pushes one from bronze to silver.

Silvers are bad in a variety of ways, and in some cases their badness is more apparent than in others (e.g. lacking fundamental mechanical skills, but perhaps at least knowing that towers shoot you), but I would suggest that most people who have video game experience in a broad sense (not necessarily even moba experience), will be silver level upon reaching 30.

Smurfs move up quickly, and bronzes move down quickly in the current system. You still haven't actually given any particular alternative to the current system. If you just move the starting mmr down, the exact same problem exists, but everyone is pulled back a few divisions. You'll then have the bronze 5 people spoiling people who've being struggling to climb through bronze for 100's of games and they finally earn bronze 1, only to have a bunch of fresh to ranked starting mmr bronze 5's ruin things for them. Alternatively, those same bronze 1's who've being struggling for hundreds of games and slowly climbing up get matched against some first time ranked people who are silver+ in ability, and get completely stomped.

The fairest thing to do is start people at around the 'average' mmr just to minimise the amount of games ruined in either direction, and that, by some metrics, is what they do. An 'earned' mid silver rank will stick there, while someone who got lucky during placements will fall. You can move around the mmr where fresh people start, but since starting skills vary, theres always going to be that problem, and you haven't proposed an alternative system.

You even acknowledge that smurfs rise quickly (and hence aren't really a problem), so I fail to see why you have a problem with anti-smurfs (i.e. bad new players), who will fall just as quickly. Both kinds of players ruin games for those who happen to have 'true' mmrs in that starting mmr range, so if you're really concerned about 'fair' matches in that mmr range, you should be addressing both.

just please...stop...100% of the things you've said are not things related to what i'm talking about, i didn't say new players place in gold, i'm saying golds have to play with silver 3ish and up from time to time and when new players are there it's unfortunate, it is not a gold player ruining the game for someone playing like a silver when they aren't silver, riot placed them there out of negligence and matched them together,

the problem is the game is not fun anymore because it has to be about a team, and now your weakest link if they are worse than their weakest link actually does more damage than an afk player does. so yes they are ruining the game, and i've already said it's not their fault, Riot is the one I want to fix this, I know there is no way in hell a new player has any idea why he's being placed there or how to fix it, which is why I don't expect that of them

blkh1Jul 19, 20162 votes

I am god, the problem is riot is just in denial about it. [slayer-pantheon-thumbs]

AnnoxisJul 19, 20162 votes

I think it work that way due to the fact that, while you are unranked, you still play against players who aren't and they still lose or win LP for these games.

Child PuncherJul 19, 20162 votes

{quoted}

I think it work that way due to the fact that, while you are unranked, you still play against players who aren't and they still lose or win LP for these games.

I don't see why people who already have a rank established need to be playing with people who are not ranked and losing games because of them, there needs to be a better system, no one wants to play with these players, they destroy the integrity of the game, and take the competitive feel away entirely.

HaloDragonXJul 19, 20162 votes

The thing is, the skillgap between Bronze/Silver/Gold is similar while Plat/Diamond/Masters difference is huge. Maybe if league made it easier to get better at the game, therefore forcing B/S/G get better at the game and making ranked more accurate.

Daddy AntsJul 19, 20164 votes

{quoted}

The thing is, the skillgap between Bronze/Silver/Gold is similar while Plat/Diamond/Masters difference is huge. Maybe if league made it easier to get better at the game, therefore forcing B/S/G get better at the game and making ranked more accurate.

Isn't Plat the land of the boosted animals?

SlushieDeeJul 20, 20163 votes

I've heard it's Diamond 5.

DeepthroatusJul 20, 20162 votes

I would make larger bronze = 1 - 10 ... after exatcly won provisionals you would get into division in bronze, if you are good, you climb, if you are bad you stay in bronze, simple. Dont tell me when you tryhard ranked and after 300 games you cant climb from bronze, thats the guilt of smurfs....

Child PuncherJul 21, 20161 votes

{quoted}

I would make larger bronze = 1 - 10 ... after exatcly won provisionals you would get into division in bronze, if you are good, you climb, if you are bad you stay in bronze, simple. Dont tell me when you tryhard ranked and after 300 games you cant climb from bronze, thats the guilt of smurfs....

considering bronze 5 is 800 mmr and you can still fall to zero, you could technically probably make up to a bronze 15 and people wouldn't be able to say shit about it because it's legitimate, there is reasoning, there is MMR for it, and if you're that bad you should be happy they aren't banning you for ruining every game you've ever been in.

xxxDogmanxxxJul 20, 20162 votes

Dude, in my main account, I won 8 of my 10 placements and got put to bronze 5 at the start of this season. I don't know what the hell was up with the MMR system, since I was plat 1 last season, and Diamond 5 now. Can you imagine my face everytime I go into a game right now? I have a freaking bronze border in Diamond elo.

Child PuncherJul 21, 20161 votes

{quoted}

Dude, in my main account, I won 8 of my 10 placements and got put to bronze 5 at the start of this season. I don't know what the hell was up with the MMR system, since I was plat 1 last season, and Diamond 5 now. Can you imagine my face everytime I go into a game right now? I have a freaking bronze border in Diamond elo.

lmao is there even a bronze border? i thought you just didn't get one, like it looks like you hadn't placed i thought

NoblewindJul 20, 20162 votes

As someone currently stuck in B1-S5 (started playing last season) I have to agree. I find there's players above me who aren't as good and it's only because they got placed there after placement. There are a couple of negative effects to this happening. 1: some of these players should be lower, but they are entering many of a player like myself's games, making it hard to actually climb because every game is like a lottery. These players should start lower down and naturally move up and the competition around the low Bronze to high silver would be better.

2: Based on all this my incentive to climb is lower than it should be. What's the difference between S5 and S3 for example? Not much. Based on all the above points and that of the OP, unless I get to gold then my experience is only marginally improving as I do.

redfeenixJul 19, 20161 votes

I think are major differences between the 3. Keep in mind there will be variance. These nplayers cannot play consistently

Bronze: plays that make you go. Wait what ? I never would thought that was even possible how did you think of that? Silver: watches LCS and so they think they know what their doing. Most are fine but some will make you titled. Gold: idk I'm still in silver

Child PuncherJul 19, 20162 votes

{quoted}

I think are major differences between the 3. Keep in mind there will be variance. These nplayers cannot play consistently

Bronze: plays that make you go. Wait what ? I never would thought that was even possible how did you think of that? Silver: watches LCS and so they think they know what their doing. Most are fine but some will make you titled. Gold: idk I'm still in silver

I know that the core playerbase who belong in each of these ranks plays that way

however there is a massive flood of new players hitting 30 every day playing provisionals and getting placed in mid silver when they should be getting bronze 5 and working their way up, it is really not hard to make a system that detects if a player is doing well or not, and if they can't they need to sell this game to another company that isn't afraid to use their brain and take a stance against moronic casuals who want everything for free

you should not as a new player have to lose 100 games over maybe 120 played to get to where Riot knows they should have stuck you from game 1

when the champions are actually balanced, and the games aren't a 15 minute slaughter on one side every game, the toxicity will die off a lot, i'm not suggesting anything radical or crazy or that would only benefit me or my selected champion or group or anything, I just want a better system for placing people where they belong, and not being Oprah handing out silver to everyone for no reason and saying "as a company that makes almost a billion a year this is the best we could do"

ChangstyJul 19, 20161 votes

I'm not sure whether "average" refers to the entire player base or purely players new to ranked. The median player is at S3, while S4-5 would be something like 60th percentile. If this is the average for new ranked players, then it makes sense to dump most of them into this tier so it minimizes the number of games required to rise or drop into your deserved tier.

Not to say I disagree with you, I had a smurf account which I used to play with a friend new to the game, decided to try getting into bronze to see what elo hell looked like. Went a couple of games as Mundo without throwing cleavers at anything but minions, still ended up S3. Provisionals are pretty arbitrary.

Child PuncherJul 20, 20161 votes

{quoted}

I'm not sure whether "average" refers to the entire player base or purely players new to ranked. The median player is at S3, while S4-5 would be something like 60th percentile. If this is the average for new ranked players, then it makes sense to dump most of them into this tier so it minimizes the number of games required to rise or drop into your deserved tier.

Not to say I disagree with you, I had a smurf account which I used to play with a friend new to the game, decided to try getting into bronze to see what elo hell looked like. Went a couple of games as Mundo without throwing cleavers at anything but minions, still ended up S3. Provisionals are pretty arbitrary.

the average player in ranked is below gold essentially, this includes mmr ranges down to zero and bronze 5 is 800 MMR, so there's a real problem with sticking new players at the average, when the average ranked player actually has some experience playing the game

when you get mid or low silver, you have to lose like 20 games to drop from s5 to B1, and that's if you stop there, most don't, if a new player is average, they will be low bronze at best, and if you start mid to low silver, that could be 60+ games lost to get where you belong,

we ban people for ruining as low as 3 games with the right combination of buzzwords said, and Riot intentionally places people in the position to ruin up to 100 games within their first 2 months of playing? how is this acceptable?

TourianJul 19, 20161 votes

This is pretty accurate. I remember my first placement getting 6-4 placed in s2 or 3. Tilted down to s5 immediately because i wasnt ready.

Even now in high gold it just feels like slightly more mechanically skilled silvers.

AnagsJul 19, 20161 votes

First there is an issue in that some people are actually much better at certain roles.

So you may see a gold player play a role they normally don't and think....my god they don't belong here. Maybe they don't know the best build for that champ or the matchup very well.

When really they are playing a role and likely champ they don't play often enough. Then they might play a different role on a different champ and look like a completely different character.

It will never be perfect. There are too many variables. This isn't a game where everyone has the same champ and items.

I have seen diamond players play off roles and get stomped by silver elo players just because the diamond played a random character they don't know and the silver player is playing a champ they have 500 games on.

So I don't think what you are asking for can actually be done.

CerealBoxOfDoomJul 19, 20161 votes

give customs a try

Child PuncherJul 20, 20161 votes

{quoted}

give customs a try

the problem with customs is there's no reward for it, i am competitive because i want the bragging rights of working hard for something,

it may sound lame, but it's my reality.

and this post isn't really for me, it's for past me, and those who are like me who are new at one point and don't want their ranked experience to completely suck

CerealBoxOfDoomJul 20, 20161 votes

[{quoted}](name=Bottom Penance,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=bN6EvF61,comment-id=000b0000,timestamp=2016-07-20T00:17:42.526+0000)

the problem with customs is there's no reward for it, i am competitive because i want the bragging rights of working hard for something,

it may sound lame, but it's my reality.

and this post isn't really for me, it's for past me, and those who are like me who are new at one point and don't want their ranked experience to completely suck

thought you wanted a "feel"

really though dynamic queue gives us a chance to try out for teams which should be a great thing for people who need incentive

GigglesOJul 20, 20161 votes

[{quoted}](name=Bottom Penance,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=bN6EvF61,comment-id=,timestamp=2016-07-19T17:56:58.234+0000)

The average new player after hitting 30 often does not really play the game well yet, and after 100 games of play would almost certainly be in mid to low bronze, but the fact that players can win 4/10 games in provisionals, that they had no effect one whatsoever and get silver 4-5 on average really just spits in the face of the players who actually climbed out of bronze and into silver

They addressed this issue 2 years ago (or something like that), where they thought bronze 5 would be too terrible of an experience for new players, and would just force "more bad games" because of the smurfs that would start at the bottom.

How about we talk about the real issue, boosted plat players?

Child PuncherJul 20, 20161 votes

{quoted}

They addressed this issue 2 years ago (or something like that), where they thought bronze 5 would be too terrible of an experience for new players, and would just force "more bad games" because of the smurfs that would start at the bottom.

How about we talk about the real issue, boosted plat players?

the game should never be balanced around smurfs, bronze 5 wouldn't be a terrible experience, it would be a fluid transition from what they're used to, which is chickens running around with their heads cut off, and one guy carrying,

smurfs would skip tiers like they always do from 5 to 3 to 1, and be out of their range of ability to even play with after 15 games or so? and the odds of running into the same smurf twice if people start in mid to low bronze is highly unlikely. I don't care what kind of craziness the system wants to impose if you win 5 in a row after being put in low bronze, if they want to boost you straight up to silver, but keeping new players in provisionals out of silver games, and 4/10 - 5/10 W/L players who just were along for the ride out of mid silver would be way more beneficial than the problems you'd see caused by smurfing,

if people started there, and people deranked accounts specifically JUST to pick on new players, Riot would then have to do what they should've been doing all along and permanently ban them from the game for losing on purpose and ruining the game for players so that they can sit in bronze 5 and stomp new players all day,

i mean people can do that now, and they don't often do it, not sure why it would become an epidemic, and like i said, any real smurf would be out of there in a miniscule amount of games anyway,

I'M ALSO NOT SAYING to put everyone in bronze 5, but if the provisional system started you in bronze 5, and you won a game out of 10 total, and it put you with say bronze 3 from game 2 out of 10, and then silver 5 for game 3 out of 10, and then silver 3 for game 4 out of 10, and you kept winning all the way up to a potential plat 5, and it was a system based on clarity, being intuitive, and actually making sense, people would have a clear path in front of them, and if they freaking lose 6 out of 10, they would be in a better place, with the furthest they could possible have climbed being to say around silver 4/3 and then losing 6 would shoot them back down to mid to low tier bronze, whereas a player who won 6 or more out of 10 would be much closer to silver 2ish and a player who won 8/10 would be low to mid gold, and obviously 10/10 winners would be plat 5

The key here being that as they win each provisional they actually start to play with higher up ranked players, since it's only 10 games there is a chance that a player will be escalated too high and ruin a game, but shit happens, if we wanted it to be truly accurate, it would be 100 games, as Riot and many pros have said themselves, within 100 games you're usually within 1-2 divisions of where you belong, but unanimously, everyone, including Riot themselves have said 10 is not enough, and they use 10 as the standard so that casuals and smurfs(people who should be being punished for breaking the rules, and who the game SHOULD NEVER be balanced around) don't complain too much

i suspect the biggest argument would be too much clarity to allow people to say hey, win 10 games for me and i'll pay you and boosting services would escalate, but look at the state of the game, right now 5 people could pay for a boost individually or together, and a company can put all 5 people playing on the customer's accounts on one team and just steamroll their way up the ranks, whereas before Dynamic Boost a moron Queue, it was harder to do playing solo or duo only, and often times companies would resort to using hacking programs to complete the boost that resulted in the cheating player being banned anyway, the road is paved for the cheaters and boosters by Riot themselves with DQ, so this would not raise boosting rates IMO

GigglesOJul 21, 20161 votes

[{quoted}](name=Bottom Penance,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=bN6EvF61,comment-id=000c0000,timestamp=2016-07-20T08:13:27.786+0000)

smurfs would skip tiers like they always do from 5 to 3 to 1, and be out of their range of ability to even play with after 15 games or so?

I actually tried bring this up a few years ago, and I was just letting you know what they said at the time. I was complaining that smurfs were ruining games for gold players, and that there were too many new fresh to 30 players in high silver/low gold, and it was creating an imbalance in games.

Unlike your post here I was pretty much instantly downvoted, because of how many people are concerned about their precious smurf accounts. If I remember correctly for awhile there they also tested out a filter that only placed you with players that had a similar number of games. So if you had 400games, you would get placed with players that had 400 games. It was pretty great.... they took it down after one or two weeks of testing.

There are a lot of things they could do. If you ask me, they don't do them because they want to keep milking the cash cow.

Mojihito666Jul 20, 20162 votes

Balancing games around smurfs, make sense.

GigglesOJul 21, 20161 votes

{quoted}

Balancing games around smurfs, make sense.

Except it doesn't....

PiVoRxJul 20, 20161 votes

Actually theres no actual feel of difference between bronze 5 to diamond 5, everyones boosted thx to dynamic shit.

SnowLeopard91Jul 20, 20161 votes

I'm not 100% sure how it works, but I'm pretty sure that when a level 30 player goes into ranked, their placements start off based on their Normals MMR. If their mechanics are weak, their map awareness is weak, and their gameplay knowledge is weak, they end up in low bronze. As you increment any of those abilities, their overall performance is higher (and their normals MMR is higher), so they end up placed either higher in bronze or someplace in Silver.

Having been stuck in Silver for 5 years (because apparently I don't improve much faster than the overall playerbase), there definitely is a difference over time and over rank (climbing out of bronze after placements each year was so easy just because I have above-bronze mechanics and map awareness, and climbing to Silver 1 wasn't too much harder for the same reasons and because I've gained knowledge about the flow of the game). Playing now with a lot of high silver and low gold players, there is a definite difference between somebody below me and somebody beneath me in rank who has a large number of ranked games for the season, just in terms of mechanical ability. When the entire enemy team is above me in terms of map awareness and game flow, I can see it in action as they out-rotate my team consistently.

So, to answer the title question, I believe there is a pretty solid "feel" difference between the three low-elo divisions. Bronze players suck at basically everything, Silver players have reasonable mechanics and some map awareness, Gold players have solid mechanics, reasonable map awareness, and at least some understanding of game flow. I would speculate that Plat players have solid to excellent mechanics, solid map awareness, and at least a reasonable understanding of game flow, and Diamond players have a very solid grasp on all of these things, being differentiated from the semi-pro tiers only by reaction speed and communication.

Child PuncherJul 21, 20161 votes

{quoted}

I'm not 100% sure how it works, but I'm pretty sure that when a level 30 player goes into ranked, their placements start off based on their Normals MMR. If their mechanics are weak, their map awareness is weak, and their gameplay knowledge is weak, they end up in low bronze. As you increment any of those abilities, their overall performance is higher (and their normals MMR is higher), so they end up placed either higher in bronze or someplace in Silver.

Having been stuck in Silver for 5 years (because apparently I don't improve much faster than the overall playerbase), there definitely is a difference over time and over rank (climbing out of bronze after placements each year was so easy just because I have above-bronze mechanics and map awareness, and climbing to Silver 1 wasn't too much harder for the same reasons and because I've gained knowledge about the flow of the game). Playing now with a lot of high silver and low gold players, there is a definite difference between somebody below me and somebody beneath me in rank who has a large number of ranked games for the season, just in terms of mechanical ability. When the entire enemy team is above me in terms of map awareness and game flow, I can see it in action as they out-rotate my team consistently.

So, to answer the title question, I believe there is a pretty solid "feel" difference between the three low-elo divisions. Bronze players suck at basically everything, Silver players have reasonable mechanics and some map awareness, Gold players have solid mechanics, reasonable map awareness, and at least some understanding of game flow. I would speculate that Plat players have solid to excellent mechanics, solid map awareness, and at least a reasonable understanding of game flow, and Diamond players have a very solid grasp on all of these things, being differentiated from the semi-pro tiers only by reaction speed and communication.

I heard that this was a thing, but after winning 70/80 games leveling up, playing against nothing but plat and diamond smurfs and occasion gold smurfs, and then going 7/3 in provisionals and getting silver 1, i kind of didn't believe it anymore, then you see Cowsep go 10/0 after having a record of like 68/32 hitting 30 and getting p5, the system is just unclear and there is no good reason for the lack of clarity

Nice FellowJul 21, 20161 votes

Everything I make a thread about things like this people tell me I'm a shit silver 2 and silver is bronze. But honestly there is a big difference between silver and bronze.

Also I once had a guy who was playing his second rank game who played Morgana who rushed zz portal first item and flamed me, ping spammed me. He said me trading was diving (as jhin) and always black shielded me after Allstars combo. Please I know I'm not good, but I don't need new players playing with me in my games