Well, I feel as though you should be able to obtain mastery tokens on Twisted Treeline, at least if you're playing ranked. Why is it that you only get them on Summoners Rift? Can any Rioters give me feedback as to why this is currently? Looking forward to hearing feedback!!
Glîtchy1 votesWhen you think about it, game score calculations for it would have to be MUCH different, because of the following,
number of turrets
it's 3v3 instead of 5v5
creep score
"jg" farming
not all items exist in Twisted Treeline, thus making even more calculation changes.
Warlord Scrap2 votesWhen you think about it, game score calculations for it would have to be MUCH different, because of the following,
number of turrets
it's 3v3 instead of 5v5
creep score
"jg" farming
not all items exist in Twisted Treeline, thus making even more calculation changes.
But the grading system already exists for tt. Maybe 2 tt s= 1 sr s for terms of tokens as thats roughly the mastery score calculation currently
Gank Is Life2 votesYou still get a score. It's so disappointing to see that S or S+ and not get a token for it.
Mysticman891 votesI think it's to due with how champs are balanced around SR, not TT or any other modes, so some champs might be relatively weaker/stronger there making the achievement less meaningful.
On top of that, grades are based on percentile performances, and I'm lead to believe that theres an awful lot of bots in TT compared to SR that can drag down averages and make S grade performances not that hard to achieve in contrast to SR (I've heard some people use TT as a reliable source of their S rank chests for this reason).
Minarde1 votesYour second reason conflicts with your first reason though. If grades are based on percentile performance, then it doesn't matter if some champs are relatively stronger/weaker, since you're competing against other players using the same champ on the same map. For instance, if Urgot was super-duper strong on TT, the requirements for high grades would be stricter than on SR because everyone you're competing against is also playing the super-duper strong Urgot.
As for the "easier S ranks" thing, that's a little questionable. MMR doesn't seem to factor into post-match grades, so it could just be players taking advantage of MMR differences (i.e. weaker opponents and thus better chances of a "good" performance). Hell, I used to use SR as a fairly reliable source of S-ranks for essentially that reason.
Mysticman891 votesWhile they do conflict for the reasons you outline, I feel like they're both still reasons.
Getting S ranks due relative champion strength in those environments should in an ideal world be the same overall difficulty, but they would still represent different things. In one case it's overcoming adversity and making due with urgots mess of strengths/weaknesses in the SR meta (tbh I feel he's best as support of all things...and where I earned my urgot chest), while in the other it's who is the best at optimising the urgod in an environment where he's naturally super favoured. Potentially the same difficulty, and yet still different achievements.
MMR isn't a factor it's true, so theres certainly conflating factors. Still, I've certainly heard avid TT players complain that there are a lot of bots there, while I haven't heard of much in the way of bots in SR by contrast, so they would be dragging down the bar in general. On top of that, TT(/ARAM/RGMs) isn't nearly as popular as SR, so while SR's performance curve for any champ/role combo would smooth out pretty quickly with players of all ELO's playing lots of games, it's not clear to me that TT would necessarily have the same diversity/volume of players, and so when you set out to do urgot jungle, in SR plenty of people have already done it relatively well to set the curve, but TT urgot jungle may have more of a smattering of data points instead of an actual curve.
Grades are also potentially slightly easier around the start of patches before the curves have adapted to whatever changes the patch brought. This is true for all modes, but in SR's case they're actively making the changes with SR in mind so massive power shifts are unlikely, but TT and similar they don't really consider so it's possible that something could have a much more significant effect there, and due to the relative volumes of players it could take somewhat longer to self-correct.
Minarde1 votesDoesn't the fact that tokens are position- (and build-)independent negate the "different achievements" issue? Even solely within the SR meta, S-ranks with Urgot support, AD Urgot top, and tank Urgot jungle each represent different things. However, as long as your performance meets the grading system's requirements, you'll still get a chest/token. It seems odd that emphasizing different aspects of a champ's kit is fine only on one particular map.
Furthermore, what if the situation eventually reversed? What if Urgot became naturally super-favored on SR, but not on TT? If "different achievements" is an issue, that should invalidate previous Mastery tokens because they wouldn't reflect the current situation.
As for the "grading accuracy" thing, I see where you're coming from. However, denying rewards helps neither the human-bot ratio nor the amount of data points. If anything, it discourages players from venturing beyond the Rift and keeps non-SR playerbases relatively low. It feels like Riot's just continuing their old "We're waiting for the situation to magically improve. In the meantime, fans just have to deal with it."
Mysticman891 votesPower shifts in SR are usually pretty slow (it may not feel like it as one buff to one item might suddenly make it so you only see say, 3 adcs, but thats more a reflection of relative power than changes in absolute power), so the tables turning would be a very gradual change for urgot*, perhaps slow enough that no one feels that their achievement was invalidated by any one patches change. I think the system is designed as SR exclusive more to keep people from complaining that their achievement in earning their tokens was cheapened, versus necessarily being the case that other maps actually would cheapen the achievement. That is, it's appeasing player perceptions rather than the reality, as they often do. (e.g. the constant cries of nerf zed/yasuo/lee/etc, compared to something like Janna, who has long been in reality a statistically stronger pick for a team comp and yet never sees bans.)
Also, I don't think they want players venturing beyond SR really. SR is their main game, and everything else is meant to just be a sort of refreshing change of pace on the side that they're willing to support, but SR is still their first and main priority, since thats what new players will be exposed to, what the majority of players will ever seriously play, and what they build league as an esport around. Certainly there are people who almost exclusively play one of those other modes, but they aren't the core audience, and it's a reasonably safe bet that even those players weren't originally drawn to league because of those modes.
There's also figuring out where to draw the line. If one concedes that TT deserves mastery tokens, then why not ARAM? It has a grading system as well, that is in theory appropriately tuned for the meta in that mode. How about <insert RGM here>? Most of those have grading systems too. If they all get mastery token eligibility, then does that throw any design constraints on future modes? Every new mode entirely tends to have a period early on while the grading system (and players themselves) learn and adapt to that mode, where getting S grades is almost easy.
(I might mention I'm not saying that TT and similar shouldn't be eligible, and just putting out thoughts why riot may have made the decision they did regarding token eligibility. It may well be the case that allowing it was [and may still be] the better choice, but I don't think riot made their choice completely arbitrarily.)
*= This is in reality going to be false, since urgot has an upcoming rework, and reworks are massive changes, and notably they don't reset mastery levels when they do reworks. This is a contentious issue.
Minarde1 votesFocusing resources and attention on SR is entirely reasonable, since, as you said, it's the main face of League. Spiting the other maps in League to funnel attention on SR just seems petty though. There shouldn't be a need to have "tangible" rewards for choosing SR when there's already so many other factors encouraging that choice (e.g. balance changes, esports advertisements, tournaments). It's not like convincing someone to play League over DotA2 or something. Regardless of whether someone prefers TT or SR, they're still a League player.
Furthermore, enabling Mastery token drops for other maps should be a negligible cost, as all the systems already exist. "Keeping people from complaining that their achievement was cheapened" is also dubious, as Mastery tokens dropped in RGM modes for a few weeks prior to Champ Mastery being enabled for TT/ARAM. As far as I'm aware, people were just excited about the extra Mastery flair rather than complaining about exclusivity.
Ideally, every mode with Champ Mastery enabled should also have tokens. If Riot's confident enough in the grading algorithms to award chests, which are also linked to outstanding performance, tokens seem like a logical inclusion as well. More conservatively, every permanent League mode should have tokens. If a game mode can be the main draw for a player, then that player's achievements in that mode should be recognized. At the very least, ranked TT should have tokens. Riot claims Mastery tokens should be associated with high standards of competition, and ranked Treeline is, well, ranked. It still wouldn't explain how normal SR hits that competitive bar, but it'd make a little more sense than the current situation.