My unhealthy experience with ranked.

(Skip to TL:DR if you need to, would appreciate you reading my story first however)

Hiya, first time posting on the forums. I usually creep on the popular posts and leave. Today i wanted to express my frustration with the ranked system, so hear me out. No this won't be a rant but rather, a story! shared with my fellow summoners and possibly, rioters.

I've started league by the end of season 2. Ranked was a no no to me. My friends (back when we were discovering the game) told me "EY! dont even think about ranked.. i heard you get banned there.. and other bad stuff.." so its safe to say that i've never played ranked till late season 3. which meant i had a whooping 1.3k normal wins + 220 wins on another account (y'know, when you get banned .. you still gotta league).

Basically, i had "experience" i knew some roles and i played "decently". I decided to enter ranked. I was so nervous BUT i made it, i made it through silver 3 all the way to silver 1. And then my heart shook as i was fighting for my promotion to gold. I obviously failed, tried again, failed, tried again and BOOM! success. It felt great man. looking at my noob peers with my chin up in the air. walking with pride. updating my status message to cool stuff just so that their mouses hover of my name; showing my well earned gold v elo. Then i asked myself.. i can easily replicate pro moves. i can easily outwit many foes. I can collaborate with a team to bring the hardest of strategies to fruition. Faker and those guys have nothing on me (i'm joking here..). Why don't i... aim higher? why don't I aim all the way to plat. and so i did.

It was last summer when I started my climb. My first intake of how things go is, since im probably the best and if not then i'm a quick learner, i shall for those reasons, play whatever role that's left out. Fair to say that i lost some and won some more. I've noticed that i couldnt really carry the team (Emphasis on carry) since I didn't perfect the role or champ i played. I merely played to carry my own weight not the whole team's. Therefore I've decided to main a role.Which reminded me of those pures back in runescape.. maining one strat.. one skill..one role.. to perfection. Anyways, Mained mid for a whole month. kept jumping from gold 4 to 3 and back down. noticed that in gold 3+ the adc's were horrible. I thereby mained adc and decided to Gosu my way to plat. Reached gold 2 promo. lost horrendously and got chucked back to gold 3.

I said hey, maybe its time to be that solid jungler.. so that i no longer get those gold lee's that wanna carry with their flash insec. Tried my hardest being a jungler. It turns out its not my role at all. I did really bad. by really bad i dont mean 2 digit deaths because that would be just trolling, but i've lost to enemy junglers. couldn't secure as many kills/lanes/objectives or farm. I admitted defeat to that role. Left it for someone who can handle it. I've tried top and again, did bad. not two digit deaths bad (just to clarify, when i say that, i mean i couldnt carry my team. i only carried my own weight) but nevertheless, bad. 2.5 months in, still fluctuating , i said to myself. This game is not worth it. i've spent almost the entirety of my summer trying to achieve plat but it just didn't happen. So like any addict, i left league for half a day then decided hey lets get back and try our luck again. And i did. University in a week and responsibilities banging on my door; i ignored it all thinking this week would be all i need for plat. it wasn't. I PLAYED GOOD. I mastered the art of cheesing my way to a 3/0 early. out farmed most of my foes. but i always lacked something. whether its luck or a pro team, you never know. then i PLAYED MEH. This right here is the start of the tilt. i started asking my self why is this system expecting me to fight all the odds and emerge victorious. why is everything against me and not with me. i can have an afk or lag or just retarded mmr.. or hell dare i say it, retarded team mates. So whilst flaming back at the flamers, ignoring the heavy criticism . voting no on the 4v5 surrenders(sometimes 3v5..) i got depressed. Not "i wanna kill myself" depressed, rather, "mummy why is this happening to me" depressed. Took everyone's advice and went for a break. Came back, things are still the same, except, this time whenever i lost, instead of being -16 lp it jumped to -20. Meaning, the loss now outweighs the victory. Seriously..? But with the true spirit of ranked, i ignored that unfair judgement and continued playing while being on a really really shit mood. I'm not even kidding, i became the flamer that everyone see's in teamselect. i sometimes trolled. sometimes fed to prove a point. got muted got banned and it felt like i'm just being punished for playing the way this system designed it to be played. left rank. At that point i lost 26lp for every loss and won something around 13lp.

It meant i have to win 3 times in a row to out weigh 1 loss. Went back to normal with the bitter taste of defeat in my mouth. I looked for inspiration. Came across LMK (a korean riven main) decided to main this beautiful champ. All stereotypes aside, i fell in love with this mechanically challennging champion. I thought hey, the only reason i left silver in the first place was because of my mechanics. lets go back mechanics and just pure stomping instead of trying to negotiate plans with 4 monkeys with keyboards. Took me a month to be confident with riven. which is something absurd. it wouldnt take me more than a day or two to feel comfortable with a champion. Lashed out my instant combos and weaved through the enemy lines. I for the first time in a while enjoyed league again; because of the skilled champion that unleashed op damage that correlates to the skill level required to unleash it. and soon enough i jumped from gold 5 to 4. I thought to my self, should i..? should i try for plat now that i have 100% confidence in my self to carry a team without the need to communicate or lick their butts or pray that they had a good day before the match? At this point i was like meh what the heck i know im gnna end up playing this game anyways. i might aswell try. 6 rapid victories in a row later im gold 3. i surprised my self but declined to be optimistic and thought id be back in gold 5 in no time. the victory streak continued. day 2 i reached gold 2 with 24 lp in. at that point i wanted to be optimistic but i couldnt trust the game nor my team. i say this with confidence because i know for a fact that i polished my skill with this champion. i know for a fact that i play this champion on a higher level of understanding. i've watched all the vids i've practed all the builds. i spent over 20 thousand ip learning first hand all the runes and what works best. i've practiced every match up so that even my counters are destroyed by me. i had the undeniable right to say i'm good. and i've wowed every team mate.

back to my elo climb.

24lp in gold2 i decided to just keep testing my luck. next thing u know im laughing.. how did i reach gold 1 so quick?!?! its only been two days!!! i've wasted a whole summer trying to reach this !! at this point i played nervously calculating each step. Finally, I've reached the plat promotion. Here's when i felt a punch to my gut. i knew for a fact the trolls of the past will all come in this promo. the afkers will rejoice in the sounds of my cries. and i was right. i played the match and for the first time i actually did bad as my main. i couldn't outdo this olaf. Yes he was my counter but he had great mechanics. i couldnt blame anything nor anyone. infact i love when i lose as riven. i got to learn and analyze all the mistakes. but the lane was the only thing i lost that match. the enemy team flamed each other. their jungler went afk. their olaf intentionally fed our team 4 deaths. i was siked out. we won that match. next match, the enemy team had 2 afks. third match we stomped hard and the enemy support decided to troll. PLATINUM IN 3 DAYS. Although i thanked god for the plat finally, although it felt great how every one congratulated me. i knew it was a fake victory. but i managed to convince my self that that shit happened to me so its about goddamn time it happened to the enemy team.

A sudden revelation stuck me. its really all about who gets the troll/flamer/afk. you've got 10 players. 2 of them will be cancer cells. they could be evenly spread towards each team OR they can be both put in one team (which is disastrous). The problem wasn't that there are toxic people that we need to get rid of.. the problem is that this toxicity is not defined by race,place or anything fundamental/fix. if it wasnt me today its gnna be me tomorrow who will flame you or end up feeding or trolling your match. why ? cuz i've either had a bad day, bad connection, felt bad or have gotten my games ruined by others. . so plat 5 and i suddenly acquired all the wisdom in league(HOINK){{summoner:2}} . started advising others not to tilt and etc. I asked my self, if i made it to plat in 3 days, i can surely reach diamond too! and so i climbed to my plat 4 promo. which i lost twice in a row. kept jumping up and down the 0-100lp plat 5 ladder. it was during then when i experienced my worst time ever playing league.

people were legitimately bad. i came to the conclusion that they were boosted cuz honestly i worked really hard for my rank. even if i havent, the fact that i've accumulated 4k+ games across my accounts is worthy enough to be plat. so why in the name of everything that's good am i playing with literal dummies. out of 10 matches i had 3 matches where i got carried by truly good and well behaved players. the other times i played with players that were really really depressed. they had some issues with their lives im not even joking. it came to the point where i was legitimately asking that 1/12 malphite about his day in which he revealed that he got demoted because of a troll and now he will proceed to make our lives miserable for the next 20 minutes. Logical me said, it doesnt matter. why are there players higher than me if im more skilled than them (or so i claimed) they surely went through the same hell. decided to suck it up and fight for my elo. i ended up tilting. I thought maybe if i left for a while and came back on one of those lucky days i can climb real quick. NOPE i kept losing miserably. i tilted hard at this point. walking into champ select depressed, fighting with my teammates at the first min flaming them, dying trying to do flashy moves. paying no attention to the map whatsoever. its fair to say that i played the way alot of my previous sad team mates have. i became one of them. i tilted back to gold 1. at 75lp i thought ok, its time to pick my shit back up and fight. i set up a new password for the router so that no one connects but i ( to eliminate lag or any other excuse). I lost. and when i lost i noticed the big red -30lp on the top left of my screen. i cringed hard. really? -30 lp ? all it took is 3 losses to reach the bottom of gold 1. when i won (here's the funny part) it gave me a humble +13 lp. hilarious! lost again and now i'm at gold 1 0 lp. decided not going to play ranked because of the fear of dropping down even further. cuz it was generally unfair. so there goes my diamond dream. on the plus side however, i dropped league and played darksouls 2. i enjoyed it with all my heart. i forgot how awesome it is to hone your own skills instead of kissing up to 4 players to enjoy a game. now you could say "alright then, just leave league" to which i reply: nope. it's where all my friends are. it's where all my money has gone. its were all my time and memories have gone. i'm not leaving league until it crumbles down to a crappy useless p2w game.

(TL:DR) (TL:DR) (TL:DR) (you can skip the large text and read below to get a hint of what this is all about)

So my question, that arose from this horrid experience. Why doesn't Riot improve the gameplay rather than the aesthetics of league. the superficial parts of league.

Yes a new skin is bloody awesome but you know what's better? a kick feature to kick that troll off and have the flawless matchmaking system throw in another player.

Yes a new ultimate skin that has its own music is awesome but you do you know what's better? a ranked cooldown system to calculate elo, give better judgement, give feedback, give players a break to try out stuff in normals etc.

Yes... a new teemo skin is not that bad but do you know what's better ? having fixed or atleast fair lP distribution instead of one that rewards the good (the rich get richer) and penalizes the bad (the poor just get poorer)

Yes a new skin for howling abyss is freaking sick but do you know what's even better ? having the ability to cross vote between teams for a pause. so that laggy player can fix his issues. so that afk person can either come back or get kicked at the end of the pause.

YAH team builder is cool but do you know whats even better ? Removing the potential for "TeamLeader" to troll a team, act obnoxious, ban only what he wants, instalock a vital role jeopardizing a whole compo.

Yes introducing sets of skins is awesome but do you know what's even better? getting a ping / fps meter at the main league of legends menu.

i can keep ranting about my awesome ideas that quite frankly, have been thought of by other players and implemented by other games. Riot i know you're not unsmart. I know that you have alotta shit to do. Actually i don't know, who knows you might even have more than what i imagine you to have on your project list. You're the number 1 game for a reason. But please.. priorities.. there are stages in which every league player go through. the flirting stage, where they are checking out all the 100+ overwhelming champions that they have to explore, buy and try out. the honey moon as they reach level 30 and buy runes and try out sick moves with friends. and then comes the married couple everyday life routine which is ranked. I don't wanna divorce league, therefore please improve the ranked system. Ranked is the endgame level of league. its the only thing apart from playing with friends, that keeps us from getting bored/leaving. Its never the player's fault. its the system. We all have tongues on us and so we can all effectively flame on a bad day. you can't just be stricter and hope that solves the issue. Strike toxicity at its roots not its leaves.

Frankly put, i wouldn't flame anyone IF my ping meter, provided to me by riot at the league of legends lobby, told me that i'm good to go for a ranked match. Then i entered team select where all 5 members have the EQUAL chance of banning 1 champ each.Then i clicked my handy "Declare Role" icon in which an icon easily identifiable, blinks next to my champ portrait to publicize my role to the team.Then i enter the match comfortably; knowing that at any given moment i can ask for a 1-3minute break OR kick a toxic player incase i really needed to.

And last but not least, Riot I thank you with all my heart for all the effort you've done to perfect this game. I ask of you to keep improving and do what you do best. I truly wish you success.

(If anyone wonders how am i to solve my ranked crisis, i plan to get a ;);) go;)od ;) friend to duo with me and carry some of the burden)

( i apologize if i sounded obnoxious. I'm usually quite sarcastic when i describe things about myself, to kinda downgrade instead of sounding like a douche. idk if that translated well in the crappy essay i just wrote...what am i doing at 4am writing this stuff up..)