Placement Ranks. My personal thoughts.

Firstly, I would like to mention that I have been directed and/or told to create a discussion on the boards about my thoughts on the new Placement Rank system by a number of Rioters. I put this as a prefix, not to shed hate on any Riot member. My problem about some of the response I have received about the rank system includes either "make a discussion" and not a definitive answer, or when I am given a direct counter-argument, it boils down to "the rank system offers fair matchmaking" but I have explicitly proved incorrect in the following monologue (I'm sorry.) Something to be noted, however, I do not hate Riot members for their decisions, most of them have been very nice in trying to help.

I would like to clarify that I'm only a silver I (at best) player, so my opinions may not be 100% correct, however, I have taken some examples from upstanding content creators and high elo league players. Additionally, I have included my own thoughts to which I deem "logical" enough to prove my point. My hopes are that I will receive either constructive criticism or supporting evidence backing up my case, because personally, I do not think that a lot of players enjoy the new rank system. With that said and done, I will now talk reasons why I stand against the new system.

(this was taken from one of my tickets regarding the situation)

To bring about transparency, I'm going to make a number of bullet points on this post. Because league players including myself have issues comprehending and summarizing a lengthy monologue, I'll put them here first, respectively.

• Losing upon being auto-filled, and how the changes were supposed to change that, and how it was not successful.
• Players are not demoting because of how LP losses and gains work in Season 9.
• What I personally think should be done.

-Losing upon being auto-filled, and how changes were supposed to fix that. When you are auto-filled on an unwanted role in the old system, you can always refer to one or two champions. I'm not the only one in agreement with this view, to quote Dopa - widely considered the best solo queue player: "A good player can play all roles, even support players need to". Maybe the player has to accept that he is not capable of the simple basics (auto-spacing, warding, etc) they should live with the blame and not pin said blame on something as trivial and necessary to prevent long queue times like auto-fill. Yes, it sucks, however, auto-fill does make a player good and they can potentially climb. If a player is good on all five roles overall, because simply they get outclassed by similar ranking players on their past main role, they would still climb, and I believe winning from macro and being a good player overall, that skill should be encouraged. Doublelift is an LCS level ADC player, yet he can still play support Blitzcrank or Vi jungle, while his skill at those roles are incomparable to the players of his actual elo, his teammates, the ones who weren't auto-filled or feeding, can win the game. He could also learn on support to have a better grasp/knowledge of other roles, which is beneficial considering League can be such a hectic game at times. Either his contribution to the game was not enough, playing badly in general, or one of his teammates made a mistake, a loss should be the result. (monkaS I actually wrote that)

If losing on auto-fill is a problem that the old system contrives, Riot can make it so that you would lose less LP on auto-fill (Maybe 3-4 lp less for a loss on auto-fill, and not demote from their rank, don't make lp loss deficits too big or there's no point since the player still would not care). A small change alike the aforementioned would be much more welcome than having a massive change that does not make sense, ergo replacing the old system. Placement ranks were made to basically remove the term "auto-fill" from league. Think about it like this: I could play a game where I was on my main role, say Top lane, and get ~20 LP. Why would I want to win as another role, say Support, and get only 3-5LP? I would rather dodge that game and queue up for the next with a very high chance of getting my main role, win and get more LP, and problem solved, right? (this is also not mentioning of the fact that when you dodge as an auto-filled role you don't lose LP on other roles). When I queue up for the next, I stand a considerably high change of getting my primary role,which is something that I would appraise the new rank system for.

Additionally, I could just ask for my primary role, for instance it would be accepted, and play against lower-ranked players of my lane (e.g I'm a bronze support and I'm a gold top, I get support and I ask for top, if I get top now I would be laning against a bronze top as gold), this is presuming that playing with someone of a ~500 LP deficit MINIMUM is a slight advantage for one person. To consider punishing players that abuse the rank system in this way, I have this to say: How can you punish someone for abusing the system, whilst encouraging them to do this, considering that this is the system the very developers have imbued into the game?

When you are auto-filled on your latest game, you are guaranteed the next to be your primary role, so I don't see why it would be such a hassle. Auto-fill percentage is not so high that it breaks the game. I see eye to eye on how frustrating it is to be auto-filled, yet small tweaks can make it less of a ordeal. As I have said, maybe when you lose on auto-fill, you may be entitled to losing less LP.

TL;DR (thanks midnight this is actually useful) If someone looks to climb, they should be doing well on their main, and decent at other roles to play regardless of auto-fill. Auto-fill was a problem to be fixed by the placement ranks, yet it brings along a great number more problems that it solves (there's a video above which summarizes perfectly what I think of it). You cannot technically punish players for abusing the system because it is something you have invented, and the problems that ensue should be your responsibility.

• Players are not demoting because of how LP losses and gains work in Season 9.

Before I go into some examples, I would like to say that in one example was in one of my games. At the time of making this thread (2/26/2019), I am currently penalized for emitting unsportsmanlike conduct, and made very explicit threats to the player exemplified, which I am sincerely apologetic about. Nevertheless, an example is an example, I mention this to inform that my opinion may be biased, but this is still evidence regardless.

--Removed by Moderation-- is a silver 4 player at best on ADC. In his last ranked games up to ~14 days ago by the time of making, they currently hold a 30% win-rate. Yet he still holds the silver 4 rank. I find this a major problem because he's still considered a silver 4 player, while having a win-rate <35%. --Removed by Moderation-- A player should not be able to maintain their rank playing this badly. Imagine what would happen if someone had a win-rate that was only a tad higher than this? They would climb just from spamming games, as amply vindicated by the early month of Season 9, as diamond players would peak at ~1200 LP masters just by spamming games, which was a problem mentioned to be fixed in the "Dev Update".

Moreover, if I "throw" an off-role game, yes, I should be punished, but already you haven't given me a clear incentive on why I would want to win that game. I could get 3x the amount of LP I would get had I got my main role, other than splashing LP on 3 other roles I don't care about. Midnight mentioned "potentially risk being penalized as well just for being filled", well then, if I saw that I had to go off-role, I would just dodge.

• What I personally think should be done.

Every game needs players to function. Without the players, it would not be considered a game. The players are those who interact with the game, and hold critique about what they think about the game, and how it can improve. Naturally, players keep the game relevant, and pleasing the community/player-base should always be top priority. This is why Riot introduce new game-modes, mechanics, champions, etc to keep players happy. The majority of the player-base, outspoken content creators have voiced their opinion about the rank system, and it's very clear how most of it ultimately says "Revert Ranked".

I say this firmly, and I will leave it up for discussion, but I sincerely hope that this isn't met with negligence. My idea is simple: being ignorant and trying to reinforce a bad idea. Smaller changes is much better than making a huge change and ruining the game. Ranked should be reverted to start again, with the system that the player-base are comfortable with, and are recommending. People are practically griping for change, yet it comes off seeing Riot being ignorant just prying to meet League with more novel ideas that end up being disliked by the older players, and not being understood by newer ones.

At the end of the day, the objective is TO KEEP THE PLAYERBASE HAPPY.

To conclude, I sincerely apologize if I came off as rude in this post. I wanted to emit a direct and serious manner because I am very passionate about the game. Thank you for reading.