What is Riot's answer to the declining league community?

ßulbåsaur·Jun 16, 2016·50 votes·10,377 views

Many people are leaving league, especially us old league players. I started playing in Season 2 and I continued to play league for fun late into Season 5(I still play league it's just not fun anymore). I got Plat after climbing from Bronze in 2 Seasons of ranked. What made me, and many other league players, grind ranked? As an ADC (Vayne) main nothing felt better than outplaying bot lane. Nothing felt better than being the "underdog". Where you would be a little bitch and farm up knowing as an ADC your late game is strong and if your mechanics are good you will get some flashy plays. This is similar for other roles also, people love to play the game because you can easily carry your team or at least take some weight off if your mechanically good, it's more of a solo game. Riot decided to change that, they decided that Macro(Game Sense) > Micro(Mechanics). This seems amazing for the eSport scene where teams need to show they are more coordinated as a team rather than show the mechanics of each player. However it is not all that good in Solo Queue, where people play the game to have some flashy plays here and there. It's not all about get your first 2 items and group mid, that just shows your strong as a team. For this you need to have trust in your Solo Queue team, something I will never have. I always have the mentality that whether we win or lose this game it's all on me and my micro plays. What Riot needs to realize is that the viewers of the eSport scene need to enjoy playing the game itself not just watching the professional games. I can easily change that Micro play mentality and transition to the new meta. I have been doing that for the past 3 years, but now I don't find it worthwhile. If i have to change the reason i enjoyed the game, why should I play the game? I can also as easily just move on to a new game.

185 Comments

SeekerofSilenceJun 16, 201633 votes

Riot noticed their community stopped growing. What do they do? Turn towards the casual player. Because people will bring their friends into the game that way.

However, in doing so Riot turned their back on a lot of players who came purely for the competitive integrity that ranked held, one which was better than many other games out there.

I agree fully, being stomped by a premade that is better at macro than your team is frustrating. Personally I enjoyed SoloQ, and I didn't even find it that toxic. That's coming from a relatively new player, as I started playing in season 5.

GrashnimJun 16, 201612 votes

{quoted}

Riot noticed their community stopped growing. What do they do? Turn towards the casual player. Because people will bring their friends into the game that way.

However, in doing so Riot turned their back on a lot of players who came purely for the competitive integrity that ranked held, one which was better than many other games out there.

WoW tried this. WoW has since declined to insanely low numbers. Some people never learn.

DemonofDotaJun 17, 20165 votes

{quoted}

WoW tried this. WoW has since declined to insanely low numbers. Some people never learn.

this. one thousand percent this.

jaymc1130Jun 16, 201622 votes

Riot still thinks it has 32 million players. Apparently since I have 16 accounts now I am 16 players all by myself.

The company is a joke. The short answer? Riot aint doing shit about it. This was intended all along. They made this game a cash grab, its been successful, and its designed to make a quick buck in the time it exists before dying. That's all.

FlahertyJun 16, 20167 votes

Riot counts how many players by the amount of people that log in and actually play, not by the number of accounts that have been created. I don't understand how this game is a cash grab when it's still a free to play game. All the things you can purchase with money aren't necessary to play the game and don't give you any in game advantage

coeurloyalJun 16, 201617 votes

More than that, I'm confused why he thinks that Riot was wrong to design a product intended to make money. How dare companies do things for profit?

ßulbåsaurJun 16, 201612 votes

They did it for profit and now they are declining. If your going down don't take the game down with you.

Eevee In A JarJun 16, 201613 votes

Well no, they did it for profits for the previous 5 seasons too and they did well. THey are declining because they are realizing they need to expand the demographic to wider audience. To do that, they have to make it more casual friendly. To be honest, the hardcore gamer group is still so small that even if all plat and above players unanimously were to put their foot down about something (like Dyn Q) and say no, they'd still only make up like 5-8% of the entire playerbase with the rest 92-95% being bronze-gold players who are among those casual players who can now rank up easily to ranks they don't truly deserve because the game has now been catered that way. If you were here in season 1-2, there were A LOT of bad players but no one refused to believe they were bad. However, if you did not improve yourself and change, you will get stuck below 1200 or in bronze once tiers came out in s3. NOW, they realize how demoralizing that is for casual new players who aren't willing to spend 50+ hours a week playing a video game shaping up their mechanical skills and watching videos. So if they could see some progress, it would keep them hooked in the game. Thus Riot is adamant about keeping Dynamic Queue. It helps their company benefit profit overall. Why shouldn't they take this approach? Dynamic Queue along with decisions and balancing choices this season is driving away the loyal players who were here to make what Riot and LoL is today. But even if they all left, Riot stands to profit MORE and couldn't care less losing such a small niche demographic.

I agree catering towards casuals ruin the game but are you surprised Riot is going after money over anything else? I mean majority of the years they did so little and only really focused on skins. It's always been their motto. Realistically they COULD have multiple team design multiple champions to be released every month or have actual balancing done immediately. But not doing so saves money, spreading them out like that insures they won't over invest for a small return thus taking less risks. I fkin hate Riot for doing everything they did this season but this is textbook business. Riot is big time money making machine now and they have serious investors who want more money.

Honestly they say money makes the world more competitive and better but it ALWAYS turns out that money gets in the way of progress.

ßulbåsaurJun 16, 20163 votes

True hardcore league players don't really make up much of the community, but thats where soloQ came in. If you just want to have fun with friends play normals and then soloQ would be left for hardcore players. It just doesn't make any sense that the casual players get to decide the fate of soloQ when they don't even play it seriously.

Eevee In A JarJun 16, 20167 votes

Exactly no matter where you go, hardcore gamers will always make up a very small percentage of the community. Most people want to have lives. Even hardcore gamers want to have lives. Hell I don't know anyone that doesn't like to meet up with interesting people, get laid, and party.

The thing about Solo Q is that it is the perfect symbol for rank for individual players. After 1000 games your KDA will reflect how you play and what kind of player you are. Usually KDA's don't mean anything but if you have a lot of games that show you feed a lot or don't die much at all, that says something about you as a player. It's not casual players that decide the fate. It's like if you're playing basketball the ref calls the foul against the other team giving you guys some free throws. Even if you don't agree, you shut up and just take the shots. That's what the casual players are doing right now.

Troll for TrumpJun 17, 20164 votes

The DynaQ haters are the majority, not just 5-8%. It's not just plat+ players, but even the LCS, and a lot of people from Gold, Silver, Bronze.

General Esdeath Jun 16, 20165 votes

When you ignore problems in favor of trying to make more money, you lose money.

jaymc1130Jun 16, 20166 votes

[{quoted}](name=Man Lee Fisto,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=gu0mfoxz,comment-id=00020000,timestamp=2016-06-16T15:48:17.786+0000)

Riot counts how many players by the amount of people that log in and actually play, not by the number of accounts that have been created.

Exactly. And since I log in on a regular basis as 16 different accounts... I count as 16 players.

I don't understand how this game is a cash grab when it's still a free to play game. All the things you can purchase with money aren't necessary to play the game and don't give you any in game advantage

Its free to play. Its pay to have an increased chance to win. Owning all the champs and all the runes and rune pages is a significant advantage in terms of flexibility which will increase your odds of success over the long term. You don't need skins. That's just flair. But any one who has every purchased a champ or rune page paid for an advantage that aids them fractionally. Its certainly possible to reach high level play without paying any money and I do this on a regular basis but its hard as hell to compete in high level play with a less flexible account that makes it difficult to tailor a set up for any matchup or trade any champion so you can have a proper pick/ban phase.

FlahertyJun 16, 20161 votes

By the time any player is level 30 they should own several champions and have at least a few full rune pages, that's all you really need. Owning all the champions and all the runes and 40 rune pages doesn't really help you win more. I'm proof of that since I own every champion and have 10+ rune pages and almost every rune and I'm not winning significantly more than average. If anything having 1 champion you focus on with a couple rune pages seems to be more common with highly ranked players.

Also having 16 accounts is extremely uncommon so the presence of player inflation due to people like you is most likely not statistically significant.

Eevee In A JarJun 17, 20162 votes

Actually someone released a thread not too long ago about the current state of the game for new players. Players who grind to 30 don't get a single 6300 champ by the time they are 30 apparently even if they play regularly because of many reasons.

Noob traps - Like shit tier runes and marks. Don't know why Riot keeps them there. Oh right. Thank God for idiots. Maybe they might spend money.
A new player won't have any idea what kind of champion fits their play style, which ones are in meta, which ones are easier to learn/play. A new player will probably decide what champs they want by how easy it is to play and how rewarding it is.
New players will most likely end up buying the cheaper IP champs first to increase champ pool.

It is close to impossible to get a 6300 champ by the time you're 30. It used to be that you could farm 6300 byt he time you are 30... but the difference today is that it is easier to get to level 30. Doesn't make it any easier for new players.

FlahertyJun 17, 20161 votes

Tier 1 and 2 runes are 1 ip each now I believe, but the other points you made make sense. It's not impossible to just save up ip though which is what I did when I thought a champion looked cool.

Eevee In A JarJun 17, 20162 votes

I forgot to mention the newer players also face an epidemic of smurfs so it is very unfair and not fun for them but that isn't really relevant to what we're talking about specifically. Point is that there are a lot of problems for new players.

One of the primary reasons for your confusion is that as I mentioned prior it took longer to get to level 30 thus you were able to save up ample amount of IP. Also, Riot did frequent IP boosts back then if memory serves me right.

The first champion I bought that was 6300 was Ahri then Diana (shortly after she came out) back when they still sold new champs for 6300. I think I was like level 25 at the time.

FlahertyJun 16, 201612 votes

I would like to see official statistics that show a decrease in the number of players, just because you and some people you know stopped playing doesn't mean that's the general trend everywhere. League has seen substantial growth even in the last couple of years, so I would honestly be surprised if there was any significant decrease in its player base in recent times even with the drastic changes this season.

coeurloyalJun 16, 20168 votes

I'm not sure what led you to believe that the League community is declining short of personal outlook, but I highly doubt that's a factual statement. League has only been growing in international exposure, and I'm willing to bet that that exposure has led to huge growths.

That being said, League was never intended to be a solo game; it was always based on team play and macro choices. That statement proved to be true even before League existed. I played a ton of the original DOTA in WC3, and team play always trumped mechanics. Riot never changed that---they only encouraged it. You're asking for the game to be something that it was never meant to be and telling the dev that they're doing it wrong. You're also implying that the majority of players don't enjoy playing in a macro-oriented game, which is wholly arguable.

If you legitimately don't enjoy the more macro-oriented playstyle being encouraged in this game, then you should probably do as you say and move on to another game with more micro-oriented goals. however, I think it's naive to claim that League was ever focused on micro-oriented play, because that's absolutely false. There is no such thing as a team-based game/sport that promotes individual play over teamwork.

ßulbåsaurJun 16, 20166 votes

You need to get to high elo and understand what I mean by solo play. Yes i agree that league was always a team bases game but how many times have you heard a pro player say he got to his/her skill level by depending on the team. Anyone would love to have an amazing team, that would make up for their bad mechanics but thats often not the case. You need to rely on your own solo play if you want to climb in solo queue.

coeurloyalJun 16, 20163 votes

You need to stop basing your assumptions off the player history on my ARAM account. You also need to stop subscribing to the belief that the 'measure my dick' mentality that was solo-queue is what makes you successful in League because--while it may have been successful previously--it isn't the best way to play the game.

If you want to be part of the success premades are carving out, join a club and install Curse Voice or [insert alternative here]. I have 4 different clubs I can hop in and out of to set up those premades. There's no reason not to, and there's no sense in looking at the game as it is and pretending that it's still solo-queue. SQ is gone.

If climbing the ladder in League was that dependent on solo play, there wouldn't be a single jungler or support higher than Gold.

ßulbåsaurJun 16, 20165 votes

Solo-queue is what got me hooked into the game. The whole attitude of being better than someone mechanically is what made me love the game. If premades take over that than I just need to get that much better mechanically because those premades will win a few games here and there until they reach a point where their skill level can't keep up.

Eevee In A JarJun 16, 20165 votes

Truth of the matter is players who aren't in competitive rank wont' see the hurting nature of Dynamic Queue. It isn't a "Measure my dick" mentality. You might just have egotistical sensitivity. If you are a green marine who just came to the front lines of a war and went up to someone who's been in that fight since the beginning, he's going to treat you like the green little maggot you are. Because you haven't proven yourself yet. You haven't seen anything yet. You don't understand what's going on to the full extent. You can read about it in books or see it in pictures but you won't really understand until you see it yourself... like the Grand Canyon or fighting a war itself.

It's not about "My dick is bigger yours is small, go sit down and stop talking." It's about "You haven't experienced this yet. How could you understand? Yet here you are arguing like you profess to understand when you don't even look at it from other people's perspective." People at higher ELO's though DO understand from YOUR perspective because they have been there before.

It's not that climbing the ladder was THAT dependent on solo play. Even Riot mentioned that 3-5 man queue premade would ruin the balance of play in ranked game for 6 years before they put in Dynamic Queue. And they finally put it in when they decided they couldn't care if they lost even 5% of their playerbase because they're catering to replace what they lost by x2 of casual players.

No skilled and talented player attributes their success to their teammates. Sure you can credit teammates for games but ultimately most skilled players would agree they got to that rank because they are that good, not because their teammate is that good. You DO need to get to higher ELO to understand that concept that Solo play is important because at this point Riot is basically saying it is OK to get elo boosted as it is OK to depend on your teammates for carry/win every game rather than what it used to be which was "your consistency contributing to the win every game."

jaymc1130Jun 16, 20167 votes

{quoted}

You need to get to high elo and understand what I mean by solo play. Yes i agree that league was always a team bases game but how many times have you heard a pro player say he got to his/her skill level by depending on the team. Anyone would love to have an amazing team, that would make up for their bad mechanics but thats often not the case. You need to rely on your own solo play if you want to climb in solo queue.

Not any more...

Sadly.

Eevee In A JarJun 16, 20169 votes

Actually there's legitimate declining numbers of League players and data to support that fact. Most of those that moved are on Overwatch or some other video games. To be honest though there are a lot of big titles coming out this year. League is basically being tested for finally having somewhat of a competition though I wouldn't compare the two yet. League has people who doesn't even play the game tune in to watch the pro games. Overwatch doesn't even have competitive game mode yet.

In comparison, FPS type games do reward you for better reaction time/mechanical skills aka your own individual talent in the game and they don't micro manage the community like Riot does even when there is a mute button.

coeurloyalJun 16, 20163 votes

Can you cite any data for declining player numbers? Unless you can provide supporting information from a legitimate data source (not some third party data magnet), I don't buy it.

jaymc1130Jun 16, 201610 votes

{quoted}

Can you cite any data for declining player numbers? Unless you can provide supporting information from a legitimate data source (not some third party data magnet), I don't buy it.

No official numbers. Of my 27 friends and family members who have played all of them have quit. Even myself for almost a year. Only my brother and I still play. And he quit for almost a year as well. Both of us quit playing ranked this season for the most part. Clearly, casual players are actually less inclined to stick with the game.

coeurloyalJun 16, 20164 votes

I will admit that that's a pretty big sample size for a local player. However, my personal experience shows the exact opposite in terms of growth, and both of us are looking at a trifling number of players when Riot is counting in the tens of millions. Unless they release their data there's no factual proof that their game is declining.

I do agree casual players are less inclined to stick with the game (probably what defines them as casual gamers), but if there was a legitimate threat to their player acquisition/retention rate, I guarantee they would have done something about it by now. Because we haven't seen them try to address it--even going so far as to make a move that would threaten their player base-- I can't believe that they're remotely concerned about their retention rate. If they truly lost that many players to the removal of Solo Queue, they would have reversed their decision by now.

Eevee In A JarJun 16, 20164 votes

There's no denying Riot's going to lose good population because they turned their backs on that demographic. But Riot stands to gain MORE than what they lost by taking the casual catering route.

coeurloyalJun 16, 20163 votes

The thing is, I don't even believe that they're losing people. There are a lot of people complaining about the decision (which I don't blame them for), but they aren't leaving. Even the person that hosted this forum has claimed that they're still maintaining six individual accounts. Another supporter of theirs claims to be managing sixteen--and they aren't leaving.

I know that there are bound to be thousands of players that chose to leave without posting, but those that stayed to complain aren't choosing to disconnect-- they're continuing to play and voicing their dissent on the boards. I would bet that that's the case for most players that threaten to quit or believe that the player base has declined. I think a lot of the dissenters will stop complaining once queue times get fixed because the actual number of games lost due to premade bias is negligible.

Eevee In A JarJun 16, 20162 votes

Some of them will most likely come back. Honestly this is still the "Overwatch is new hype" so we can attribute a lot of that. Many players will still probably come back but whether or not they will stay for long is up for speculation.

The thing is Dyn Q's main selling point was to help lower queue time. Honestly with people leaving (mostly competitive players who enjoyed solo q), it increased my average queue time from 1-3 min to 10 minutes. I'm just saying even if Riot pisses off the small demographic of people that leaves and don't care about them, they will easily replace them because their game caters to casuals. It isn't just Dynamic Queue though. Not having Solo Q is a real mess and how the entire rank system now rewards players who shouldn't have left bronze that can make it to plat. Plat and low diamond is full of boosted scrubs but they weren't even "elo boosted" thanks to the existence of Dynamic Queue. I mean don't let my bias over Dyn Q affect the topic what we're originally talking about though. I just hate DQ.

coeurloyalJun 16, 20162 votes

I agree. I don't hate DQ, but the queue times are awful and it's an underlying issue that's really jading the conversation on all ends of the spectrum. I don't believe that a Bronze player can make it to Plat though; if they truly deserved Bronze they would be crushed in lane repeatedly in high silver/gold and no amount of team play would save that. Larger premades may misrepresent micro skill, but that doesn't mean that bronze player isn't learning and growing being surrounded by better players.

It's also worth mentioning that large Gold premades are matched to mid-low Plat players, so that advantage should be somewhat nullified. That may not be the case in high elo, but that should be addressed somewhat with the coming changes they've announced.

Eevee In A JarJun 16, 20162 votes

I know that the matchmaking algorithm should work as you're mentioning it but it doesn't. It's worse than it was before. You just cannot have an algorithm that works for a rank system that does solo to 5 man queue that works efficiently.

jaymc1130Jun 16, 20162 votes

{quoted}

The thing is, I don't even believe that they're losing people. There are a lot of people complaining about the decision (which I don't blame them for), but they aren't leaving. Even the person that hosted this forum has claimed that they're still maintaining six individual accounts. Another supporter of theirs claims to be managing sixteen--and they aren't leaving. I know that there are bound to be thousands of players that chose to leave without posting, but those that stayed to complain aren't choosing to disconnect-- they're continuing to play and voicing their dissent on the boards. I would bet that that's the case for most players that threaten to quit.

I did quit this season for 3 months. I haven't spent a dime on RP in over 4 years. There's a reason.

I may still be here, but riot makes no profit off of me and never will.

I've been playing this game since it was a Warcraft 3 user map settings mod 13 years ago. I'm addicted to DotA. Straight up addicted. I even helped fine tune the map for the WC3 mod using email to assist with the map creators. Back then we had a community of about 2000 total players. I sill play baseball on occasion, despite being an adult and not making the cut as a professional. I still play basketball. I still play golf. I still play a lot of things that I loved.

I still play this game, but I no longer love it. It's like cigarettes. I simply can't give it up even though I know its terrible for me and causes me nothing but health issues. I still play original DotA from time to time. Its far more enjoyable although its not easy to get 10 players in a game any more.

jaymc1130Jun 16, 20164 votes

{quoted}

I will admit that that's a pretty big sample size for a local player. However, my personal experience shows the exact opposite in terms of growth, and both of us are looking at a trifling number of players when Riot is counting in the tens of millions. Unless they release their data there's no factual proof that their game is declining.

What your personal experience dictates to me is that you are more likely a newer player. I've been playing since season 1. After season 3 the only person I knew who still played out of those 27 was myself. And I quit early in season 4. Came back at the end. Brother came back at the beginning of season 5. This isn't a new phenomenon, casual players have been leaving for better games for a long time. Only dedicated players stick with it. And mostly those have gotten fed up with the state of the game and the direction Riot as a company takes it in every regard, from Riot stance on toxicity (those who were around for the Tribunal would LOVE to have it back as it was a MUCH better system at eliminating trolls, afks, griefers, scripters, and ddosers. The new systems only work for verbal toxicity. Which of course is usually caused by one of the other forms of toxicity first, meaning the players who get upset at being trolled are now punished instead of the trolls when the trolls don't use chat.), to Dynamic Queue and Ranked in general over the years, to skins and map modes we have been promised but never get, to sandbox mode, to any number of other things. It doesn't bode well that Riot, for years, consistently lies to the player base about anything and everything while continuously ignoring their concerns.

I do agree casual players are less inclined to stick with the game (probably what defines them as casual gamers), but if there was a legitimate threat to their player acquisition/retention rate, I guarantee they would have done something about it by now. Because we haven't seen them try to address it--even going so far as to make a move that would threaten their player base-- I can't believe that they're remotely concerned about their retention rate. If they truly lost that many players to the removal of Solo Queue, they would have reversed their decision by now.

They have lost a significant portion of the playerbase for ranked games. Its dead obvious from the absurd queue time increases this season that DQ is not only complicating matters and causing longer queues, but is driving away players from ranked, which also increases queue times.

coeurloyalJun 16, 20162 votes

I've been playing since midway through S3, so no I'm not new. That aside, we've been told that there are more players in ranked than ever before, which runs directly counter to your argument. If you believe they lied, then I don't really have anything to say here because we disagree and nobody can prove anything either way. However, if that statement is true they aren't losing seasoned players nearly as much as people like to think they are.

DQ is complicating things for sure, but that doesn't mean that they're hemorrhaging ranked players.

jaymc1130Jun 16, 20164 votes

{quoted}

I've been playing since midway through S3, so no I'm not new. That aside, we've been told that there are more players in ranked than ever before, which runs directly counter to your argument. If you believe they lied, then I don't really have anything to say here because we disagree and nobody can prove anything either way. However, if that statement is true they aren't losing seasoned players nearly as much as people like to think they are.

S3 is fairly new. Not as new as I expected though. You've been around mostly as league's gameplay has been declining except for the short period of season 5 that was terrific pre fiora and juggernaught rework. That was the best gameplay has ever been tbh.

I think riot lies constantly to us as players. However, when they talk about ranked play I don't think they are lying per se, I think they are deluding themselves. I've played less than 25% as many ranked games to this point this year as I have in previous seasons. However, I have played on twice as many accounts as I did last season in ranked. Some of those were for experiments for the boards, so you can say that doing it on those ones and posting what I discovered about various things was really in the name of science and not in the name of climbing or playing really and I can't argue the point. Never the less I have played on more ranked accounts this season than last season. I'm still only one person though.

DQ is complicating things for sure, but that doesn't mean that they're hemorrhaging ranked players.

That's probably an exaggeration but its true that we are losing players for ranked slowly, particularly in high level play as most players in diamond and up are far less enthused about this season than all the previous ones and are content to merely stave off decay and earn the skin and border.

AlüeJun 17, 20162 votes

If it helps the debate at all out of 167 friends on my list only about 30-40 are on anymore. My closest friends have all swapped to overwatch and are preparing for wow legionm

ßulbåsaurJun 16, 20164 votes

Most of the "growing" community comes from smurfs. I have 6 different accounts, each counts towards the monthly players.

Eevee In A JarJun 16, 20165 votes

http://i.imgur.com/FraDeWJ.jpg This is only in PC Cafe's so the data pool is still a small sample but it definitely does show a trend that is pretty accurate in just about everywhere in the world.

FlahertyJun 16, 20163 votes

A sample of one internet cafe in Korea isn't statistically significant. And how do you or anyone else know it's a pretty accurate depiction everywhere in the world? Like you have no significant proof

Eevee In A JarJun 16, 20166 votes

This isn't one PC cafe in Korea... Do you know how PC Cafe's work at all? PC Cafe are linked to a network that records what games you play, how long, and it rewards you for it. Even NA PC cafe's have that where if you play league, your KDA gets saved and it records your KDA; rewards it accordingly while having how long you played and what games you played.

My friend also owns a PC Cafe store in NJ that also does Xbox. His store is linked up to a network gaming company that's linked in NA and Europe. They have data of popular rising games to promote new games that come out on their main TV screen. The data there shows massive drop in League play and massive rise in Overwatch too. I'll take a pic next time I'm there.

Eevee In A JarJun 16, 20165 votes

For 5 seasons Riot themselves said Solo/Duo queue is the only way to go for rank because 3-5 man premades affect the game way too much. Also including 3-5 man can be abused and will actually hurt the integrity of competition; which is WHAT RIOT SAID for years.

Solo Queue players are much better teammates in my personal experience because we help each other indiscriminately even if they raged at each other or not. Premades won't help no matter how well you play because they're over there helping their butt buddy who's 0/10 in the first several minutes. Every time I get premades in my team, they never cooperate well with the non-premades, are completely oblivious to their premades mistakes but god forbid you make a tiny mistake all of a sudden you're getting reported by 3-4 people.

League has always been a team-oriented game yes... but RANK has been about how good you are personally. How do you find your individual skill level and net worth in a team game? How does any player do so in a team sport? They play a lot of games; generate average stats. One game could be a fluke but you can take averages over the course of many games and you will get stats that accurately reflect the player's consistency at how skilled they are. This is what Solo/Duo Queue used to be. We had Solo/DUo queue and we had Team Ranked. Separate entities. No problems at first. The only time people cared about not getting roles they wanted were in noncompetitive ELO's like in Bronze. But overall the rank game would test your consistency. How your consistency would contribute to the game. If you had high win rate percentage and positive KDA, it meant you contributed a lot to many of the wins. If you have low win rate and positive KDA it might mean you don't know how to close out games despite playing decent. This was the essence of rank; it would test your competitiveness and you would eventually found out how good you were individually while also ranking you in a team oriented game. It also reflected on how good of a teammate you were because you could fit and mesh with just about any stranger you meet in Solo Q. And let's emphasize Solo Q players never forget about teamwork so don't mention stuff like "Well this is team game stop worrying about your individual skills" I often find the players who say stuff like that to me are worse team-oriented players than me. Solo Q was about individual skill rank yes but players always prioritized teamwork over selfish goals in game. Stop using that arguing point as an excuse, you (not you, general you to everyone who says it) sound ignorant. People pretend like Solo Q supporters have little teamwork in their play... which is not true. Solo Q players are better teammates than the scrubs who ONLY work well with specific people.

Now that's all gone. Competitiveness. Gone. Individual skill. Gone. Now you get premades in your team that suck massive dick but they yell at you for one tiny mistake even though all of their premade trash scrubs are 0/5 in first 5 minutes in a PLAT/DIAMOND rank game! If you aren't getting crap premades in your team, you're getting premades in enemy team which make coordination taht you have with your teammates in a downright disadvantage compared to players who played multiple games with each other and therefore knows each others' tendencies without even talking to each other. Right. Dynamic Queue promotes skill, competitive nature, and teamwork. It doesn't. Dynamic queue has ruined teamwork overall. Players are simply discriminatory when it comes to picking teammates to work with or not and Dynamic Queue is only exacerbating the issue.

BluePolarizerJun 16, 20166 votes

Ironically there's not really solo macro play either.

You can't get premades to listen to you if you have good decisionmaking.

I used to pride myself on my macro: when, where and how we contest objectives, what to do in situations and how to close out games or stay in them. And if I got fed or got good engages/picks, solos would listen to me. But now you can be 10-1-5 and the premades will still not listen to you, still feed, and there's literally nothing you can do about it, since they won't listen to a random over their buddy Mike.

Eevee In A JarJun 16, 20162 votes

I always hated how Dyn Q fanboy bitches say stuff like "Solo Q players don't have good teamwork" which isn't true. So that asshole who only helps his butt buddy Mike is better a teammate than someone who helps all teammates without discrimination?

SammystormJun 16, 20161 votes

Wait what makes you think the community is getting smaller?

trash sionJun 16, 20167 votes

The fact that Riot hasn't released player statistics since 2014.

The fact that there are tons of posts every day about people leaving.

The fact that even pro players have started playing in-house queues rather than Dynamic.

The fact that queue times have been taking longer and longer as the days go by.

SammystormJun 16, 20162 votes

So basically you are using supposition and lack of facts to prove your opinion. That isn't how it works man.

trash sionJun 16, 20162 votes

You're not wrong, I'm just saying that there has to be a reason for all of these things. I guess we'll see in a few years how LoL is doing.

blacknerdtakuJun 17, 20162 votes

he used observation and came to a theorhetical conclusion, that is quire solid.

There are a lot of symptoms pointing to League dying. I experienced it before i left. queue times went from 1-2 mnutes (with the occasional glitchy reset) to 7-8-9 minutes.... actually i do believe i made a post about it. (though i deleted the image in cleaning out my IMGUR profile, sorry)

http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/90EcqZra-dynamic-queue-is-so-awesome