Stop letting everyone play ranked.

drakwon·Sep 7, 2015·38 votes·3,843 views

What pisses people off is having people on their teams that dont understand the basics of the game, yet they feel the need to ruin other peoples games by playing ranked games. There should be some sort of prereq for joining ranked games. I dont claim to be the best player but I have a good understanding of the game. Too many people just do whatever, end up feeding, dont take objectives and ruin the game for the other people in the game. Thus provoking toxic behavior.

73 Comments

PartholonianSep 8, 201529 votes

{quoted}

What makes people act toxic is having people on their teams that dont understand the basics of the game

No. What makes people act toxic is being bad at handling their frustration.

Lots of people have teammates that do badly and aren't toxic to them.

There should be some sort of prereq for joining ranked games.

Indeed there should, but it shouldn't be based on in-game skill, but sportsmanship and behavior. People who don't meet minimum standards of behavior toward other players should be removed from ranked play (or unranked too).

Maybe a certain minimum amount of games played, like the ones it takes to go from summoner level 1 to 30.

Low skill should be handled by a system that matches low skilled players with other low skilled players -- oh wait, they already have that, it's called MMR (some call it Elo, although technically, Elo refers to a specific system of MMR that Riot used to use but doesn't anymore).

If you are getting placed with low skilled players, then I have some bad news for you: you're not as good as you seem to think you are.

Mecha MaIphiteSep 8, 20154 votes

It's possible to just play bots from 1-30. In all honesty, I think it would make sense for bots to stop giving experience (still give ip) after a certain point.

RalanrSep 8, 20155 votes

As someone who did this, I support this idea. It did not prepare me for pvp.

Pvp did. And I feel much better.

DeathToHereticsSep 8, 20151 votes

Can't agree with this more. I made an entirely new account so I could play with people who understood PVP as well as I did.

Finn Teh HumanSep 8, 20153 votes

Yeah I agree. I played bots for a long time and then when I stepped into PvP I was in for a shock lol.

drakwonSep 8, 20152 votes

Theres a big difference between just doing badly, and someone who has no idea what they are doing. I have lost plenty of times but didnt get angry because our team just got out played. I get pissed when someone on my team clearly doesnt know how to play but is like ya whatever ill play ranked even though I just hit 30 and played bots 1-30

Finn Teh HumanSep 8, 20151 votes

Or someone who honestly shouldn't be in that elo. I mean a BAD game is dying maybe 2 times in lane but holding on. A player who SHOULDN'T be in the elo is someone who dies 3+ times (without getting a single kill/assist) IMO. The reason I say this is because when you die once you know you're probably not going to win the lane by yourself. So you wait for your jungler/just farm and play safe. A LOT of people are too cocky to do this. They keep making the same mistakes over and over again and yet they blame it on everyone but themselves. I've won many games just by realizing I wasn't going to win the lane by myself and being cautious.

T RexHasTinyArmsSep 8, 20151 votes

The last two sentences in this are really important. I think my response to your other post applies to a lot of the situations you mention (a death happens they know they misplayed and instead of refocusing the go on tilt and make more stupid plays), but the last two things you say make such a huge difference in this post. Anyone who is blaming others instead of realizing they're on tilt is likely to struggle to gain LP or will go down if they do that consistently, and the value of knowing you don't have to be the carry is so powerful it's scary.

I tend to have to work really hard on not feeding when I do great and my team does bad bc I feel like I have to carry to win and I play too risky if I'm not really focused on playing smart. However, if I'm struggling, but I have utility in my kit and my team is at least doing okay, I can focus and do really well mid game pretty often and that's important. Instead of raging that I didn't get ganks or another lane fed kills to riven when she roamed, I can just play safe and be tanky and useful when mid game hits. Played a maokai game a long while back where I was against riven and got killed 2 times early. I was down like 40 cs bc I couldn't cs w/out dying and might even have died a third time in lane. My team was doing okay though and I got off a good tp for participation in 3 kills bot lane plus drag, and a good rotation to a team fight for a few more assists and a kill I think. Suddenly, a few team fights after the outer towers are down, and good peeling to keep riven off people, and I'm up in gold over a lot of the enemy team, super tanky, and reduce a bunch of magic damage so my team wins fights easy. Ended up w/ 5 deaths and like a 4+ kda that game, and I was 0-3-1 I think at ten minutes. Playing safe and finding a way back in is so important.

Finn Teh HumanSep 8, 20153 votes

I see what he's talking about though. Sometimes I'm put against and with people who are actually good and you can tell they can be a better player but sometimes you get put with people who truly belong in bronze. I mean c'mon you can't tell me you haven't been in a single game where there was one person who you just couldn't believe they were in that elo. I was in a game where our mid went 4/14 end game. They fed so much early and kept making the same mistakes over and over. THAT'S why the majority of people don't get better, cause they think they're amazing and it's everyone elses fault. You also need to understand that a lot of people get toxic because they're put with people like this many times. And it ruins the game for everyone. I have better games knowing that we lost/won because I or my teammates did/didn't do something correct rather than losing because we had a total moron on our team. And I know people like to say that 1 person doesn't make a difference, but they do, they fill a role.

T RexHasTinyArmsSep 8, 20151 votes

I think part of it is mind set. I do decent on average, but some games I play really tilty and just do terrible. Often when I play really poorly it is in part (sometimes entirely) because there is a player on my team who is really negative or maybe even toxic. If I get "hey man, sorry about the support roam and you getting killed, he seems to be going through river so a pink in the river bush might really pay off" I'm likely to buy a pink and put it down and say either "yeah, I meant to buy one on the next back, I just over stayed and was greedy for the cs" or "thanks for reminding me man, I had money to upgrade trinket last buy and didn't even think about it." However, if I get "Fuck, I got a bad team again. Noob mid gives up first blood and my lane is fucked" then I'm likely to get frustrated w/ my team, especially if I look at the lane where someone just came from to kill me and my teammate is in lane and hasn't pushed.

Usually my worst games are ones where that sort of behavior starts and continues and I start focusing on the game less and making mistakes I don't make in 90% of my games. I actually play at a level where if I consistently did that I wouldn't be in that elo, but when part of why that happens is the behavior of teammates, you have to ask; is the toxic behavior created by adverse situations they can't deal w/, or by the toxic players setting themselves up for failure and eventually lashing out at the inevitable?

Celeste BenalSep 8, 20151 votes

I honestly think the MMR system need to take one's personal performance into account. Not just win/lose. If IP gains can do it, so can MMR.

JAGMAGSep 8, 20151 votes

had a top laner go 8/26 recently in my ranked game the only reason she had any kills was because she was fiora and the game went over 55 minutes

Live2LetDieSep 8, 20157 votes

Lv 1-30 is the prerequisite. Then bronze and silver is where players go to learn the game. If your in bronze or silver then your still learning the game yourself.

drakwonSep 8, 20153 votes

i stopped playing for a while and im in silver now, I was gold 1 last season. Im not talking about the people learning the game, im talking about the people who refuse to learn the game, the ones who go 0-10 at 10 min mark.

DeynaTaggerungSep 8, 20153 votes

That doesn't mean they don't understand the game, it just means they played against someone they couldn't handle, probably on a day when they're playing worse than they usually do for other reasons. Refusing to learn the game is something else entirely

Finn Teh HumanSep 8, 20152 votes

Someone who goes 0-10 shouldn't be in the elo they're in. I've made so many comments about this because people don't seem to understand that if you die once you're probably not gonna win the lane alone. I've noticed a lot of people refuse to accept this, and so they keep dying and making the same mistakes over and over and over and yet they blame it on everyone else. A lot of people don't think before they act, or at least they don't like to.

DeynaTaggerungSep 8, 20151 votes

You're right, they probably shouldn't, so guess what? they'll drop out of it. Just because they're worse comparatively to the people around them doesn't make them bad at the game. If you got dropped in a game 3-4 division above you and found the competition too rough for what you can do that doesn't negate the things that you can do, it just means your opponents can exploit your mistakes better.

Malix FarwinSep 8, 20151 votes

{quoted}

Lv 1-30 is the prerequisite. Then bronze and silver is where players go to learn the game. If your in bronze or silver then your still learning the game yourself.

i think people are still learning the game at all elos. Especially with how often things are changing.

Live2LetDieSep 8, 20152 votes

[{quoted}](name=Malix Farwin,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=ffT95s78,comment-id=00020001,timestamp=2015-09-08T02:10:00.808+0000)

i think people are still learning the game at all elos. Especially with how often things are changing.

That's mastering the game. Learning the game is the basics, how to last hit, objectives, ward, roam, etc.. Mastering is looking at the patch notes and knowing what they mean

Jesus Died 4 YouSep 8, 20153 votes

[deleted]

JoquanSep 8, 20151 votes

Agreed, as a gold player, we are still learning the game as the rest, although if you're not in diamond you're still learning to me

ShynkleSep 7, 20155 votes

How can you have a prereq for knowledge?

PhifeSep 8, 20151 votes

question and answer

Kei143Sep 8, 20151 votes

They won't know that they need to ask that question if they don't know such subject exists.

Until they are exposed to the subject, they won't know how to ask the proper questions.

PhifeSep 8, 20151 votes

i meant more like a test.

JoquanSep 8, 20151 votes

this is what low elo is for, people who start ranked instantly ( most ) are among this.

M Dragon14Sep 8, 20153 votes

2, almost 3 years ago, I would have agreed with this. I was bronze 4 or 5 then. I also believed in elo hell too. I'm now gold, and probably going to hit plat by season 6. To say that someone is too bad to play in ranked is kind of a bad argument. For starters, you only played one game with the person more than likely. To call someone bad after only one game is silly. Everyone has bad games. Get over it. If you feel bad players are keeping you down, and that you deserve a higher rank, know this: Elo hell does not exist. You are in the rank you are in for a reason. Want to get out? Carry yourself out. That means you have to be good enough to do so. If you can't carry, you are not good enough.

drakwonSep 8, 20152 votes

nothing you say has anything to do with my post, I never said elo hell was real, or that they were even keeping me down, I will be plat again soon, im just bringing up the issue of players have no idea how to play but que for ranked. I bet you search posts just to spew your two cents about how elo hell doesnt exist and blah blah

JoquanSep 8, 20151 votes

that's basically what this post is. You're crying about bad teammates. It's what low elo is for.

M Dragon14Sep 9, 20152 votes

{quoted}

that's basically what this post is. You're crying about bad teammates. It's what low elo is for.

Exactly this. You are bitching that bad players are keeping you down. Guess what "elo hell" is? Same damn thing. The only reason why I compared your post to elo hell posts, is because they are both saying the same basic thing.

Finn Teh HumanSep 8, 20152 votes

A bad game looks like 3/7 endgame. A bad player is 4/14 endgame most likely. (Granted it depends on the role.) This usually means you don't know enough about the game to even be in the elo you're in. But I do have to say that I've lost a lot of games because of other people. I like to take every loss and look at it, and see what I could have done better. I'm not saying I don't make mistakes, but I am saying that you can only control 1 person out of 5 on your team.

M Dragon14Sep 9, 20151 votes

Not true. If you are consistently getting bad scores as such, then I'd agree. But if it's not that often, then no. Most of my losses have a combination of problems. I will say that on average my team makes more mistakes than myself. That is when it is up to me to carry. If I can not carry, not only is it my team's fault, it is my own as well (for the most part..... If you have trolls or your entire team is feeding for absolutely no reason, well, that's un-carryable).

TreeofwarSep 8, 20152 votes

how would they do that? What if you suck at the game and you are bronze 5 and the only way to get out of it is the play the game are they now unable to play because they are bad?

DrNovaSep 8, 20152 votes

Except that it doesn't. It matches people with a similar elo as you, which is based solely off of win loss ratio and not skill level.

blizzardbeamSep 8, 20152 votes

OP is just victim blaming. People have a choice to act toxic or not, they have a choice to take a deep breath and not flame others.

{quoted}

What makes people act toxic is having people on their teams that dont understand the basics of the game, yet they feel the need to ruin other peoples games by playing ranked games.

I would wager that many people that do poorly in ranked are not intentionally trying to ruin other people's games. They just want to play league just like everyone else, they may be in an off role or an unfamiliar champion. That doesn't mean that they are intentionally trying to ruin other games like you imply they do.

Also, I don't know if or when you were gold 1, but it certainly wasn't at the end of last season. A quick look at your lolking http://www.lolking.net/summoner/na/19754363 shows that you were in silver 1 at the end of last season. Also, you certainly don't have a good "understanding" of the game if you are where you are. A good understanding of the game along with rudimentary mechanics should be enough to get into plat.

Wallaroo0226Sep 8, 20155 votes

{quoted}

OP is just victim blaming. People have a choice to act toxic or not, they have a choice to take a deep breath and not flame others.

I would wager that many people that do poorly in ranked are not intentionally trying to ruin other people's games. They just want to play league just like everyone else, they may be in an off role or an unfamiliar champion. That doesn't mean that they are intentionally trying to ruin other games like you imply they do.

Also, I don't know if or when you were gold 1, but it certainly wasn't at the end of last season. A quick look at your lolking http://www.lolking.net/summoner/na/19754363 shows that you were in silver 1 at the end of last season. Also, you certainly don't have a good "understanding" of the game if you are where you are. A good understanding of the game along with rudimentary mechanics should be enough to get into plat.

I actually agree with the OP. When I queue up for ranked I have no intention of flaming anyone or verbally abusing them, but there are a ton of people who treat Ranked as if you should automatically select it after reaching 30. I can't tell you how many times I've seen people say they don't care they are losing or rage quit after 1 death. This casual attitude causes others who are trying to win to become toxic. A lot of the changes Riot has made over the years has pushed this game towards less runaway games and snowballing of an individual player. It used to be that a player could hop on Lee Sin and face roll lesser skilled players if they were good with him. While I understand why Riot changed this and to some degree I agree with it, they made the ranking system even more punishing than before because of promotion series.

The promo system also seems rigged in some circumstances. My first Silver 2 promo series today I was playing Vayne and absolutely destroying the enemy team, but the rest of my team were playing as if they had just hit Level 30. I was rated S+ yet I still lost the promo game, and the following match was just a crushing defeat. I'm not saying I'm the best player in the world, but I have go to champions that I tend to carry hard with and yet still lose.

MaknetoSep 8, 20152 votes

{quoted}

What makes people act toxic is having people on their teams that dont understand the basics of the game, yet they feel the need to ruin other peoples games by playing ranked games. There should be some sort of prereq for joining ranked games. I dont claim to be the best player but I have a good understanding of the game. Too many people just do whatever, end up feeding, dont take objectives and ruin the game for the other people in the game. Thus provoking toxic behavior.

If you are being paired with people that don't know how to even do the basics...what does that say about your skill level?

JoquanSep 8, 20151 votes

he's bad as them

Celeste BenalSep 8, 20151 votes

It says that there is very little to distinguish players in lower elos because there are so many of them in a very narrow MMR range. 70% of all ranked players are either bronze or silver. Whether you win or lose is pretty much random, and determined only by how many smurfs or feeders/ragers/afkers you get per team.

CEO of AspergersSep 8, 20151 votes

[deleted]

JoquanSep 8, 20152 votes

Individual skill holds you back more than feeders. I got feeders in my promos to plat, and I lost as a 10/3/2 garen. Does that mean the feeder made me lose? Sure, but there's always something you can do better.

TahyanaSep 8, 20151 votes

If you're going to have a ranked system, you should try to match ranked players closely. I was in a game with a ranked person who invited me, and I was doing everything not to feed, but it just didn't work. Turns out, I was against gold players when I just started playing PvP. The person who invited me apologized (Feeling blessed for not being cussed out.), and said it wasn't fair to me.

The whole ranked system needs a tune-up. Players should be matched with other players around the same level. Meaning, if you are lvl 22 (me), you should be put in teams with people that are lvl 20-25 max. I feel this would provide for a better chance to further learn the game without getting flustered because your flashing, healing, and poking at a distance and still get wrecked.

JoquanSep 8, 20151 votes

You can't join ranked until you are level 30.

You can't play with gold if you are bronze, silver can though.

TahyanaSep 8, 20151 votes

I didn't say i was in a ranked game. I said I was in a game with a ranked player. I know I have to be lvl 30 to be in ranked. :)

JoquanSep 9, 20151 votes

Oh I'm sorry, I was very confused when I first read it.

TahyanaSep 12, 20151 votes

No problem.

LuggSep 8, 20151 votes

I agree. Someone should have at least 300 games on normal before playing ranked.

XonraSep 8, 20153 votes

I'd say 100, because 300 is a little excessive. But quite frank I don't think it should be less than 25-50, because you can honestly have zero and have your first pvp game be ranked.

That shouldn't even be allowed quite frankly, but technically you can.

slippykittenSep 8, 20151 votes

I agree completely but sadly both Riot and this community thinks you should have to let people ruin your games and waste your time and be happy about it.

drakwonSep 8, 20151 votes

Theres no way to automate it, it would need to be done by reports. If a player recieves x amount of reports they would be locked out of ranked untill they play x amount of normal games, and they would need to know they are locked out for not cooperating with their team.