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So, about the ranked system...

Fanny Forecast··17 votes·2,700 views

Placements, and the current ranked system in general, is absolute BS.

There are people in Plat 2 S5 getting placed Plat 4. There are people in Plat 3 S5 getting placed in Silver 3. Why such a big gap? Re-doing placements/ranked anxiety shouldn't be THAT big of a downfall...

On top of that, players new to ranked get royally shafted, often placing silver to bronze when they play nothing like a silver or bronze player. It's nearly impossible for a first time person in ranked to get placed in Gold, let alone Plat.

Yes, I understand most of League's playerbase is bad. and I mean BAAAAAD. I've seen some shit and it's god awful. But the ranked system is totally 100% flawed.

Going up/down by upwards of 200MMR (2 divisions) in placements inflates/deflates your skill, and especially if you play League how MOBAs SHOULD be played, as a TEAM, you get royally shafted by this system.

Starting at a flat (hidden) Silver 3 rank then going up/down from there is also pretty flawed. Your normal MMR shouldn't exist until 30, imo (levels in a MOBA shouldnt exist in general, but not the point right now), and your normal MMR should effect your starting ranked MMR, to an extent.

Supports also get 100% buttfucked until you hit about Plat, unless you're playing a "support". (looking at you, Annie) It's total bullshit and makes people who enjoy and are good at supporting not enjoy the game as much. Plus the whole community issue of "OMG I DIED REPORT MY SUPPORT" thing.

The community is another issue with ranked. The community is basically CoD without mics, AKA 10 year olds screaming at you for doing a tiny thing they didn't like. And no, none of you are capable of defending this and you know it. This is the community. Yes, a lot of online gaming communities have gone down hill (oh, the good old days of playing RuneScape in 2005... People were genuinely nice, for the most part...) but League's is by far one of the worst. This needs fixed, and part of it is just that people are obnoxiously rude and hateful nowadays because they can and want to. I understand that Riot is doing what they can, and I KNOW they are, I've gotten numerous "a player you've reported has had action taken against them!" messages. One day, I played 3 games, all 3 games I reported someone and got that message shortly after. The people were so awful, I tilted and stopped played. I rarely tilt.

The last major issue with ranked is the AFK system, or lack thereof. AFKs are not handled at all, they just exist and you get fucked by them. Part of it is community, part of it is the people not realizing "Hey, I have shit ping rn, maybe I SHOULDN'T play ranked...", and part of it is the servers. All 3 work in perfect harmony to create AFKs and DCs that don't get solved at all. Player's dont get a redo, the games don't get nulled, there's no In Game changes, nothing. It just happens and royally fucks you over. Look @ DotA for an example of how to deal with AFKs/DCs properly...

44 Comments

Ugf4 votes

im just going to leave this here. i went 5/5 in placements. http://i.imgur.com/zUIYucT.png

Ñapoleoni3 votes

And this is why I haven't done my promos yet. I have a feeling everything is going to settle out eventually.

Fanny Forecast3 votes

Don't hold your breath. Riot is notorious for ignoring the bottom 90% of the player base for the ELITE TOP 10%.

Then there's games like RuneScape, DotA, etc. who maintain followings (and while neither are heavily increasing, the former falling like hell rn) who actually listen to EVERYONE's opinions, rather than the top % of players/most popular players, thus resulting in a loyal playerbase that draws in more money.

(Yes, RuneScape makes shit all cuz the playerbase is a bunch of nostalgic people clinging onto their childhood. Yes, league topped microtransactions, however a lot of DotA's profits don't count because of the weird methods of them, such as the compendium and steam market.)

Ñapoleoni1 votes

TBH, everything is going to settle out, but probably not as fast as we would like it to. The highest you can get for promos is platinum 1, even if you were challenger last season. We can't really have Diamonds go against challenger players because lets face it, that would be unfair. And here we tie back to the argument that promos shouldn't even be a thing. Also, I agree with you statement that Riot caters to the higher elo players, because what about the golds who get placed into bronze? Silver and Bronze players are going to get shit on, and no one is going to have fun.

GenghisEmo3 votes

I play better than most Silver and Bronze. I somehow win lane as ADC, and i suck ADC. The only time i lose as ADC is if my bro is my supp, or i go against someone who should be Gold or is Gold or higher.

While in Mid, i beat the Gold players XD (Gold 1 and some 2 can end even or beat me). I get owned hard by Plat or higher, but i learn (even won the respect of a few Plat and Diamond players, and they teach me here and there).

I love Supp. I really do, and that is something that ppl rarely say in LoL, but LoL in general just does not reward Supps enough. Play your heart out, save ur ADC, save ur APC, Chain CC well, Ward well, Position well, Punish well, and more, but get no reward. And rarely are you ever thanked.

As a supp main, i see ppl blame me more than thank me. Now in Ranked i'd rather play Mid. Three reason: First, i know i will carry and win lane (pretty much guaranteed). Second, other players will feed even when they counter the foe (yet when im countered i win? and easily win). Three, Supps are blamed a lot and it is not the most rewarding role.

Still, i love supp. But lately, i'll even try ADC, and i suck ADC (and somehow with the opponents i have faced in Ranked, i still do as good or better against ADC mains? How? I dont even main ADC XD).

And even with all the weird stuff, i drop in Ranked while simultaneously being very consistent unlike most who have reached "Silver" ^_^. I make it to promos, only to have AFKs, Tilters, Ragers, Newbs, etc b/c Silver is notoriously filled with inconsistent players.

Ranked is broken as fuck. And so is the MMR system.

I know im not that good, but i know im not awful. And i feel like the game punishes me for being consistent and for being "alright".

Johnaldinho10171 votes

{quoted}

I play better than most Silver and Bronze. I somehow win lane as ADC, and i suck ADC. The only time i lose as ADC is if my bro is my supp, or i go against someone who should be Gold or is Gold or higher.

While in Mid, i beat the Gold players XD (Gold 1 and some 2 can end even or beat me). I get owned hard by Plat or higher, but i learn (even won the respect of a few Plat and Diamond players, and they teach me here and there).

I love Supp. I really do, and that is something that ppl rarely say in LoL, but LoL in general just does not reward Supps enough. Play your heart out, save ur ADC, save ur APC, Chain CC well, Ward well, Position well, Punish well, and more, but get no reward. And rarely are you ever thanked.

As a supp main, i see ppl blame me more than thank me. Now in Ranked i'd rather play Mid. Three reason: First, i know i will carry and win lane (pretty much guaranteed). Second, other players will feed even when they counter the foe (yet when im countered i win? and easily win). Three, Supps are blamed a lot and it is not the most rewarding role.

Still, i love supp. But lately, i'll even try ADC, and i suck ADC (and somehow with the opponents i have faced in Ranked, i still do as good or better against ADC mains? How? I dont even main ADC XD).

And even with all the weird stuff, i drop in Ranked while simultaneously being very consistent unlike most who have reached "Silver" ^_^. I make it to promos, only to have AFKs, Tilters, Ragers, Newbs, etc b/c Silver is notoriously filled with inconsistent players.

Ranked is broken as fuck. And so is the MMR system.

I know im not that good, but i know im not awful. And i feel like the game punishes me for being consistent and for being "alright".

What rank are you because I'm curious as you say you're better then bronze and silver players. And honestly as much as everything is brutally fucked in rankings now because resets I've found league to math you where you pretty much deserve to be and I remember in the past is complain about feeders and such but that's never the real issue if you deserve to climb you will if you deserve to fall you will if you stay the same you deserve to. The ranked system isn't as flawed as people say it is there is no Elo hell and there's a large difference between gold and bronze players granted yes I was only gold 5 last season and you can listen to me or not there's many aspects to the game that make you better at it and sure there's some low silvers and bronze that might even be better at laning then some gold or plat players but overall the gold play players are better. Better decision making objective control shot calling there's a reason they made it to plat and some people can't and get stuck in "Elo hell".

GenghisEmo2 votes

Elohell is real. Game only gague wins. Carry ur team who cares. Just win. U pkay smart. Who cares u list. Own a gold to the point guy tilts, rages, afks, who cares,

Johnaldinho10171 votes

It really isn't real though I've made it out twice both last season and this season I'm already climbing out at a fast rate. As long as you have the mindset you're teamates are what is holding you back you won't make it out of you're so called "Elo hell". Also stats don't mean shit if you lose that's true so let's say I am jungling and I see my top laner isn't very good by looking up their stats or just by watching how they play early yet I realize my adc is a good player. I therefore camp bot lane and get them fed to help carry the game. Sharing kills roaming and putting teamates ahead is one of the best ways to win games not shitting on you're lane opponent who's bad and then trying to carry lanes that lost despite being preventable if you would have helped them. Decision making is just as important as mechanics if not more so the more you play to improve not to win the faster you'll climb.

GenghisEmo1 votes

I dont expect to lose. I expect to play well. I am positive. But my allies are just so bad. I can literally win mid hard, then i have to do my ADCs job most of the games i play and shutdown the enemy ADC. And this is quite common.

I try to ignore it. And obviously have a fresh mindset every game. There are some great ADCs and some are better than me (and these seem few and far in between, even the enemy ADC that gets fed seems to be worse than me, and very, very easy to tilt).

The only role i really struggle with is Top. There, i really suck. And will rarely win lane, unless i am a Volibear, Trundle, Garen against a Nasus Top lane, then i will wiin (Or if it is against a Voli, Trundle, or Garen, i will also win, since they are my go to Top laners). While i will end even or will lose lane (tower down, once it goes down i can tp or roam a bit and then get back in the game that way). Only lost one time when i was top laner, while winning 5 times or so within the past few months (even when my tower goes down fast).

I play to improve, which i do improve, and i learned a lot (i have impressed Plat and Diamond smurfs that vouch for me that i deserved Gold, at the very least). But no one else improves in Silver and especially Bronze. And the more you get demoted, the more other players get worse. No matter how many times i make it to promos, something stupid and unlucky happens. I never feed in promos, i win lane, i shutdown enemy carries, allies throw or afk, and then i lose.

I have such bad luck. I dont expect to lose, i expect to kick ass, which i do kick ass, but i lose 2/3 games (which makes no sense considering i got 10/3, or afk for 5 minutes as i rush to take my dog outside to stool, then go back into game to get a triple kill). When i play with a cousin, i pretty much increase my chances of winning exponentially, even when they suck as much as the other players, but at least they actually learn from their mistakes unlike others, so they are able to adapt and learn to play as me. Only then do i really start to win. And as a result, they can feed early and turn it around, or if they get fed, they will push their lead like i tell the to.

Rarely, do i find a Top or a ADC that can actually carry me, a person who i dont have to carry at all, i can literally take it easy the whole match, and they will be kicking ass XD. Those rush to add me to be their supp or mid lane. Since they see i can actually hold my own or assist very well.

Most newbs in Bronze or Silver have small champ pools, ban their Rengar, Yi, or Soraka and they feed and then AFK (seen it so much, why do they even play Ranked? XD), while i have a larger champ pool. And i can play consistently with all in Silver or less, and with quite a few i can play exceptionally well against Golds. I have at least 5 different Supps and Mid laners (more like 6 or 7 for both mid and Supp), 3 or 4 ADCs (depending if i get to play with a cousin, it is 4, my "not so lucky as solo, but very good as duo"), as Jungle i have 3, and as top i have 3-4 (once again, the 4th is if i play with a cousin so i can compliment his jungle style).When i play with much better foes, i have to narrow it down further, to my best champs.

I love to learn, makes the game interesting, so i use several champs. And yes, there are several champs i suck with, and i mean there are quite a lot i suck with or are just "meh" with, but i have become quite consistent with more champs than the average Silver, and especially bronze. And shoot, i have even seen several Gold players have a small champ pool, but they were pretty good with em that somehow they get lucky and into Gold (only to eventually freeze and unable to climb out of Gold 5 or 3).

It is quite a busted system that only cares for wins. The game cares nothing about how much you learn if your in low elo. And you need quite a bit of luck to make it out, unless you are a Plat or Diamond, then you can consistently make it out.

By this point i feel my MMR got destroyed since i was nice enough to adopt-a-newb and to introduce family to the game. And i feel to some extent Normals affected me so much so, from all the hald holding i had to do, that when i get into Ranked, it punished me for it. Not sure if this is how Ranked was supposed to work, but sure feels like it, seems that is why people make smurfs and stuff XD.

Johnaldinho10171 votes

I've been trying to help you but you don't seem to quite understand the fact that if you stay in bronze or silver over 100s of games then that's where you deserve to be there's a huge philosophy in those Elos where they all deserve play or gold or whatever if you deserved it you'd have it. Have you ever heard of a professional player being stuck in bronze or silver on their smurfs? No because the system overall works over large amounts of games now I'm not saying you can't get fucked over with afks several games in the row but the numbers work to where if you play at a level above where you are at then you'll climb because the afk or troll has a greater chance of being on the enemy team as theirs 5 randoms there and 4 on you're team. Trust me I know how you feel currently I felt that way for several months last season but it's just not the right mindset to say you're better then everyone in you're game. Even after the reset when people get placed low like I got placed from gold to silver 5. I still don't feel that I'm the best player in my Elo I know I'm good enough to climb though as I have been climbing and winning a majority of my games especially when I get my main which is Diana by my name pretty obvious. I have an 80% win rate on her with a kda of something like 11/5/6 and I still don't claim I'm better then almost everyone in my Elo. If you really think you're teamates hold you back then dynamic queue with people equally as good or that at least won't feed. Now that dynamic queue is out that shouldn't be an excuse, well it never should have been but it doesn't work now more then ever.

Fanny Forecast1 votes

Actually, there have been numerous Plats and Diamonds who have complained on both Reddit and the boards about how Silver is so difficult to climb out of when they do their Bronze->Current Rank climb on a smurf. They want to prove they earned their rank in Plat/Diamond, but they get discouraged in Silver because of how erratic it is and that even if people get leads, even if people get SPOONFED leads, it's hella iffy if they'll actually use it or if they'll waste it and end up giving the lead back.

Johnaldinho10171 votes

Never said it isn't hard or unpredictable I'm saying if you play enough games you'll make it out. The system is meant to put you where you belong after a large period of games meaning 100s of games.

GenghisEmo1 votes

A hundred games. A waste of time. I know i deserve gold. I play good enough for gold. Why be punishrd for it?

Ugf2 votes

hundreds of games each season? where as master and challenger dont have to reprove themselves with hundreds? its all about money and not letting many new people compete against the best even if they deserve it. So why does everyone else have to waste their time every season in hundreds of games to climb to the same spot? That means people can never learn or really progress. They start getting good, make it to plat, then get thrown to silver. Now they have to spend all their time getting back to plat rather than climbing out of plat to diamond. League has come to 100% luck of teammates in anything below diamond.

Left Hook Larry2 votes

There are people in Plat 2 S5 getting placed Plat 4

Ha I wish. I was Plat 2 with a high mmr last season (Getting 25 lp a win and had a 58% win rate) and got placed in Gold 2 going 5-5

Fanny Forecast1 votes

Still better than a friend of mine who dropped 2 entire leagues... Broken system is broken.

Also, why do we have resets in the first place? I understand the master/challenger brackets being designed like that, it makes sense that they loop with the top players at that current moment, but the rest of the leagues don't need reset... ever?

Left Hook Larry2 votes

Probably to get rid of the boosted people. If ranked never reset higher elos would be flooded with people who got boosted there once and barely play

Fanny Forecast1 votes

That's another thing I don't understand... Just ban the boosted people, like they already do. Also, why tf would you get your account boosted in the first place??? It's a competitive game, I don't see a point, at all, in being boosted. It doesn't show your true skill, at all.

Then again, with the way the community works (10 year olds who are extremely toxic and like to brag about everything) I can see it...

Llanite1 votes

And how are they supposed to catch boostees who were there before the system was implemented?

Fanny Forecast1 votes

Do one final rank reset when the booster catching system is implemented. Or, y'know, do it an easy way, check IP addresses based on location. Usually when someone is getting boosted, they won't be allowed on the account for the duration of the boost. They'll still want to play league more than likely, so look into other accs on the IP address who are playing while the boosted account in question is in the process of being boosted. It's not foolproof, at all, especially considering how easy it is to mask an IP address, but the first system can and will work efficiently assuming it gets implemented properly.

Left Hook Larry1 votes

Another reason is that overtime people get to a rank they don't deserve. For example, I'm already back to where I was, Plat 2, after roughly 50 games while there will be people who it will take around 1k games to get back to where they were. This means that they didn't deserve to be there in the first place

Ugf1 votes

its 99% luck of teammates in the mosh of silver and gold. it will prob take me about 200 games to make it back to plat 4 from silver 4, with most of the losses, me being the only person on my team with a positive KDA. When 4 people on your team start fighting, wont listen, all feed, or any of the comnination, most games become uncarriable no matter if you are huge. Takes teams to push objectives.

Left Hook Larry1 votes

Only morons believe such a thing. I've gotten smurfs from bronze to plat in less than 80 games and I've seen people who do unranked to diamond get diamond in like 50 games.

most games become uncarriable no matter if you are huge.

Not at all. Just need to be good at the game.

People who think ranked is luck are usually trash at the game themselves

uberpimp2 votes

The MMR and ranking-system in league is working very well. The only downside is, that you possibly need more than 150 games reach your true elo. I was plat last season and was placed in silver 1 but i do gain huge amount of LP (28-34 as of yet) while i only lose around 10. Now, even though it can be annoying to climb back, it is in fact fairly easy since your hidden elo didnt change that much (i still get matched with plats only , and occasionally see a high gold or low diamond). All i have to do is keep a consitant 50% winrate to get back.

I agree that it's not optimal but as long as everyone reaches his personal true elo at some point im fine with the system.

Also: Players in bronze or silver often refer to themselves winning laning most of the time. And while this is a good indicator of their skill level, winning lane is only one part of winning a game. I can confirm that some silver players have really sound mechanics yet lose games against me as of my superior game knowledge over them. So stop focusing too much on your laning phase only.

Fanny Forecast4 votes

The issue with silver is that it's a ginormous clusterfuck that shouldn't exist. It's such a huge range of skillsets that should be split apart upwards of 2-3 leagues, not just one. On top of that, in Silver, League takes a completely different form. In Gold, Plat, Diamond, etc. you win the game by using advantages globally to secure your victory. This is why roaming works so well, it's why dragon control is so important, etc. In Silver, dragon's helpful but not important, and roaming is actually a good way to ensure you lose the advantage you had, unless you're lucky enough that another lane is doing just as well as you are.

Silver is all about lane dominance, securing the lane, pushing it out, and just constantly laning. You eventually generate enough pressure that the other lanes get to breath and get to get an advantage themselves, and if not, you split push an inhib out. This is why top lane is so contested over in Silver, some people realize that by playing a split push dominant top laner you are more likely to win than if you play, for example, Lux, who while she can split push, she doesn't have all 4 facets of it, only 2. (the 4 facets being waveclear, tower pushing, 1v1 potential, and safety. She has 1v1 potential and waveclear, and you can argue safety) The best for this are people like Jax, Akali, Kayle, Tryndamere, who EXCEL at 1v1ing people and have excellent waveclear (jax being the exception, but he still clears quickly, just 1 at a time) can push towers quickly due to building attack speed, can 1v1 with ease, and are safe due to having escapes (Jax's ward hopping, Akali's shroud/dash, Kayle's ult and heal/speed buff, and Trynd's ult/spinny blade)

The game completely changes in Silver/Bronze, and thats what a LOT of people don't realize, and I just recently came to this conclusion myself.

Róanin2 votes

I'm pretty sure right now the ranked system is like this:

Bronze = Silver 3 and Below Silver = Gold + Plat players Gold = Lucky plat players + low diamond Plat - Diamond - Master Etc = High diamond and challenger players.

Once everyone climbs back to their original tiers in a few weeks/months everything will go right back to normal.

Iqqi2 votes

So league is completely corrupt and leagues leadership has sold out to Tencent who now have complete control of the company. In the past LoL leadership only cared about their total player base number, they didnt care about the satisfaction of their player base which is why Riot have taken 5 years to even implement a fully functional AFK system that cant be easily exploited, but still fails to curtail the practice. Why? Because if they ever adjusted the system to be more strict they would inevitably exclude players and cause players to quit which in turn would lower their total numbers, but more importantly to Riot, would lower their total revenue!

Recently Riot has fully sold their company to Tencent a Chinese conglomerate who absolutely only cares about profits. Now currently Tencent has not unseated Riots CEO, but they can at any time. The idea that Riot would do anything to improve the experience for their players is hilarious. Riot will never take any actions that will reduce revenue. The only reason why Riot bans people at all is because that player is so toxic, that they cause other people to quit and it is in their financial interest to cut off the poison than let it fester and infect others.

Riot has had years to prove that they care about the quality experience for their player base and year after year they have failed to do so. The reason why LoL bacame so popular wasnt because it was a good game, it was because there was no legitimate alternative. That is it. If Dota 2 and League had been released at the same time I can say Dota 2 would of won. See League continues to exist not because it is the best game in terms of providing a quality experience, no league exists because it established itself first and continues to do so by going into new markets before competitors. Riot knows it is a terrible and loses to every other MOBA when it comes to player quality enjoyment, so instead of spending the money to rebuild their system processes or hire anyone with even a sliver of intelligence (LoL leadership is the perfect example that where you went to school, or what degree you have in no way shape or form reflects a persons intelligence, unless Riot's only goal is to increase revenue in which case they do a great job) Back to my main point. The only way Riot succeeds is by establishing itself in a new market first, then by the time a competitor is able to introduce itself, players are already well into league.

League is extremely corrupt and ran by some of the dumbest human beings in the industry. The fact that they cant even think a change through is hilarious. The reason why dynamic queues in ranked are still disabled has nothing to do with so called technical issues and has everything to do with the fact that it was only after the release that their leadership realized they forgot about ranked 5v5's and they no longer had a way to legitimize their Challenger, professional, or college 5v5's leagues. In one fell swoop they removed the professional scene from this game and they still needed a way to legitimize their professional scene. That is it! Again it is hilarious just how stupid Riots leaders are. Forget game mechanics, forget new champions, price of stuff, champion balance, all of that and just look at the game design changes and you get a really great picture of how stupid they really are. The very moment another company makes a MOBA similar to DOTA 2 but with a lower learning curve league is completely dead. Riot will only change and hire actual intelligent people only after they start losing people to competition. Only then will Riot change. Not because it is the right thing to do, but because they are finally getting hit where it matters to them, their pocket book. I seriously hope league starts to fail. Not because I want this game to collapse, but because Riots leadership has proved over the past 5 years that they only care about money and only when they start seeing less will they actually look at themselves.

Awhile ago one of Leagues founders posted on the Reddit boards how sick he was hearing people talk about how Riot doesn't give a shit, how he was always so upset "when the servers went down". I just laughed at this. If he actually gave a fuck he would prove it. If he actually gave a fuck Riot would of handled their toxic player issue 5 years ago. Again they dont because it means less revenue. Which is all he cares about. Sure it bothers him when the servers go down, it should! it means people are not playing the game buying things and their opinion of the game goes down! It is just so insulting. Now with him selling out for I am sure a really nice lump sum just again proves that Riots leadership does not care. Year after year they have failed to do anything about their ranked match-making system (everyone knows MMR is a complete sham, if it wasnt Riot would of posted a long time ago how it calculates matches. The fact that they havent and last year removed the ability for players to go to 3rd party sites and check duo queues is proof there is no real MMR system) The fact that Riot again has refused to handle their toxic player issue, their trolling player issue, or their DC/AFK player issue after so many years is again proof of Riots priorities. Player Base size >everything else. Riot will never create a change that reduces their player base. The fact that Riot has refused to create a true solo queue ranked ladder or adjust their scoring system to be an accurate representation of the actual game is even more proof. (League of legends ranked in one sentence "It takes a team to win, but it only takes 1 person to lose.") In league 75% of their player base is in silver and bronze. People who dont have the game knowledge or skill to know what to do when a teammate is feeding, after the lane phase that 1 fed player leads their team to victory. However 4 people on the other team are punished just as equally for the failures of 1 player.

In the past people have argued that it would be impossible for Riot to create a true system that judges a players performance individually. Sure I agree nothing is perfect but anything is better than what they have now which is nothing. I would also add that Riot already has something like this in the game with their Mastery system. You get a grade after a game, is it perfect? no but it again better than nothing. Also they added the new queue system in which people are assigned roles and matched together so Riot has even more control of making sure the performance equation matches the champion and role rather than 1 all encompassing system. Will they do this? no. Why? Because of money. It costs money to do things like this :)

TL:DR Riot has never shown a record of caring about 95% of its player base. They recently sold out to a company which definitely doesn't give a shit about the player base and only cares about money. League is run by morons and will never change until a competitor emerges and they start losing money. The moment League starts losing people and money to another game is the only time Riot will ever consider any changes.

Fanny Forecast1 votes

I agree with this post for the most part, however one thing I will point out is the DotA 2 vs League argument, on why League is bigger. I'm an ex-DotA 2 player, started in the first-wave of "open" beta (where they gave players access, then gave those players keys to give to friends to unlock the games, then gave them keys, etc. spread DotA 2 like the plague, basically)

So, yes, DotA 2 was released officially after League's official release. However, DotA 2 had a significantly larger playerbase at the beginning due to playerbases from DotA Allstars, Warcraft (both World of and III), and Starcraft coming in because they all at least heard of DotA, so they wanted to check it out. The system they used for spreading the open beta also created significant hype and was very very efficient in gathering a huge playerbase off the bat.

Why isn't DotA 2 more popular now? Why does DotA 2 only have (as of March 2015, so old number) 11 million monthly unique players and League has 67 million (maybe not unique) monthly players (January 2014, so VERY old number)?

The key isn't in the gameplay, DotA 2 is significantly more balanced and cares about ALL of the playerbase, not just the top 10%.

It isn't the difficulty level, if it were, games like TERA (very popular Korean based MMO, claims to be first real-action (think FPS style aiming, unlike WoW's approximate aiming) MMO on the market), wouldn't be as popular as they are either.

It isn't the platform it's on, if anything, being on Steam makes it MORE accessible, especially since it's in the top of Steam's list.

Part of it is the fact that in DotA, making smurfs is unnecessary. The ranked system and game in general are balanced, and it's linked with your Steam account (and Steam doesn't approve of multiple accounts per person anyways).

The reason DotA 2 didn't gain the popularity League did is for 3 reasons:

  1. DotA 2's champions aren't as unique as Leagues, even with the new releases.
  2. DotA 2, while they hotfix and balance more often (sometimes even once a day), they don't make major changes as often, usually only 3-4 times per year, compared to League's once per month.
  3. DotA 2 doesn't have region locks, which makes for an unpleasant experience for everyone.

So, despite the fact that DotA 2 is OBVIOUSLY a superior game, it gets stale because updates aren't even relatively close to as frequent as they need to be for a MOBA to survive. MMOs can survive, EASILY, on DotA 2's schedule, but that's because it's a completely different type of game. MOBA's are the same thing over and over, it needs to be freshened up every once in a while to actually stay alive. That's why the DotA Reborn update was so fantastic and drew in a LOT of players, old and new alike. It allowed for players to create their own game modes AND allowed them to be played whenever. Think URF/One-For-All, but with more (and community created) options, and available 24/7/365.

Fanny Forecast1 votes

And before anyone says anything, besides an afk system and community LEARNING HOW TO BE NICE, CIVIL PEOPLE, I have no suggestions on how to fix the major part, the actual ranked system. If you have an idea, go ahead and comment, but I don't know, off the top of my head (I'm sick as fudge rn, cant put forth much more energy than this rn) how to fix it.

Fanny Forecast1 votes

Anyone have any advice on how to fix the ranked system specifically?

Fanny Forecast1 votes

One thing I've thought of, along side removal of the reset (can a rioter explain exactly why it exists???), is the removal of the tiers, or making tiers directly related to mmr rather than the current indirect method. An MMR system works a LOT better for showcasing true player skill and, while it would remove league's defining attribute (coughsSmite tho), it would end up, in my opinion, working a lot better. Even just keeping the league system but having the mmr (which does still exist) and the league be directly, instead of indirectly related. This would be hard to do and would require dynamic coding (which we all know riot isnt good at coding, so good fucking luck, me...) but would end up being a lot smoother.

A VERY crude example of this would be: Bronze: 0-500mmr (with tiers every 100 mmr) Silver: 500-1250 (the mmr brackets should get bigger with each tier, to show that it's slightly harder to reach each.) Gold: 1250-2750 Platinum: 2750-4500 Diamond: 4500+ Master: Players with the highest mmrs, excluding the top 200, total of 1000 players (ranks 1200 to 201) Challenger: Top 200 players

PabloMaster543211 votes

I know right, my friend won 3 out of his 10 placement games and got silver 2, while I had to climb out of bronze when i won 6 out of 10 doing pretty decent on my games.

TDubH1 votes

Seems somewhat ragey, but does point out inherant problems for supports; ADC's are twitchy and unreliable, especially in lower elos Many people get shafted in their placements and rank lower because they get the AFKs and bad luck... And afks while handled by leaver buster, and can be unfun there never seems to be a change in the SHEER AMOUNT of them. I guess i can see where the rage is coming from.

Fanny Forecast1 votes

It's not even just for supports, a lot of people get royally shafted. I know I seem hella ragey too, I'm not feeling well at all and can't seem to process anything properly without coming off that way (I rewrote this 3 times, this is the least ragey I could get it...)

But AFKs and the community are huge problems that need dealt with, but the biggest one is the system in general, imo. The system COULD work in a utopia, but League is so far from that...

Timewinder1 votes

I do agree that unranked people who are clearly bronze should be placed there. That being said, I was Plat 2 last season and got placed Gold 3. It's been a fun climb. I support the ranked reset system; that being said, Plats getting placed silver probably is not good.

Dayblazer1 votes

I'm a gold 2 placed in silver 2. And now I'm gold 5 after 20 some games. If you belong higher you'll get there. Yea the climb can be annoying but who cares chances are you were gonna play anyways. I've seen some @#$% this season though and I have fun playing against the plats.

Jofeyy1 votes

Did you play alone or with friends?

Dayblazer1 votes

{quoted}

Did you play alone or with friends?

A Mix of solo and Duo.

Fanny Forecast1 votes

Supports get still shafted in solo brah. Also, have you seen the Team Recruitment boards? Supp mains are DYING for teams for dynamic and there's like maybe 2 teams total that need one because supp mains are so terrified of solo ranked, at least in lower elos.

Greekscope1 votes

Honestly I couldn't care less about people being toxic, but it infuriates me that Riot has tried harder to make people nicer than it has to fix its shitty system. I completely agree with the rest of your points tho. But alas, Riot doesn't give a shit. Ranked doesn't make money.

MozartInAGoKart1 votes

I ended gold 5 last season and somehow got silver 1 .-. yet all of my friends were like silver 2 getting bronze 4 with 10-0 placments wtf why me?!

Seenan1 votes

All of S5, and a chunk of S6, I've heard people go 'Gold is Diamond, Plat is Silver.' and whatnot. Seems like Riot wanted that enforced.

The Bíg Ticket1 votes

It is true that the placement system is a bit messed up; I was Plat IV at the end of season 5 and Plat V 30 something LP at the end of Preseason, 7-3 Placements and I get Silver II. The year before I went 4-6 and also got Silver II except that I was Gold V before. So 3 more placement wins and having been 5 divisions higher netted me the same result as the year before. However it is very easy to climb back, I am already in Gold I due to 26-35 LP per win and under 15 LP per loss. Maybe Riot just tried to sort out the boosted players by making a harder reset than usual.

Dukues1 votes

Good post man.

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