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Ranked ARAM (How to make it work.)

Myrlian·6/11/2019, 2:52:38 PM·8 votes·2,740 views

So I know it's come up many times over the years but now I want to talk about it.

The idea of "ranking" ARAM is a bit odd because ARAM is widely viewed as a "fun" mode for quick games that is heavily influenced by RNG and luck. However there is a lot of skill expression in ARAM as well. It strongly favors people with wider champion pools. It tests your ability to make comps work that no one with sense would put together intentionally. There are entirely different metas in ARAM many people don't even begin to understand. The RNG and luck factors generally go against most ideas of what a proper competition mode should rely on, however they are important to ARAM... otherwise you just have AM. ARAM accounts would also a problem without some changes.

So I've considered a few options to make it work without taking the AR out of Ranked ARAM. (any numbers may need to be changed a little or a lot) The first change is largely to prevent ARAM accounts from dominating the ladder.

  1. For Ranked ARAM every player chooses x number of champions to make up their ARAM champion pool. (Say 50 maybe?) _ (alternate: each player picks X number champions as the base for their pool, which is then filled out with 2X of the champions they play/know best (based on mastery or average performance grade or some other metric) and 2X of the champions they play/know the least_*
  2. Remove rerolls for ranked ARAM. Autofill the "bench" on entering the lobby. (autofill bench either from entire LoL champion pool or 2 from each players ARAM pools) any player can swap with the bench as usual regardless of "owned" champions.
  3. Maybe bring bans back for ranked ARAM, bans are important in ranked both for strategy and simply pointing out which champions might need some adjustment to keep from being oppressive.

I think these changes for a ranked mode (with number tweaking) would be enough to make Ranked ARAM viable and competitive without eliminating the randomness that makes it ARAM.

Please let me know if there are any major issues I've overlooked.

10 Comments

True Garen6/11/2019, 5:46:25 PM4 votes

I'd like to have Co-op ARAM though. Can we have that, please?

Saezio6/11/2019, 2:54:47 PM3 votes

What's the point of ranked ARAM anyway?(I say it as someone with over 8k arams) Also, remove 3v3 ranked, it's a joke anyway.

True Garen7/11/2019, 10:11:46 AM3 votes

There doesn't need to be any changes at all to ARAM to have it be ranked. We're gonna have ranked TFT, a game with much more RNG than ARAM.

Cupid Stunt6/12/2019, 3:14:43 PM1 votes

Would be interesting.But I believe it wouldn't really work just like ranked Dominion (R.I.P) that Riot wanted to make at some point.

Minarde6/13/2019, 1:50:58 AM1 votes

I think the changes would be viable, but not preferable.

Champion whitelists have a strong possibility to reduce champ variety, which would make ARAM feel much more stagnant and stale. Filtering by champ familiarity via Mastery has similar issues, but could work (though performance grades are questionable). Given that wide champ pools are generally encouraged in ARAM, there should probably be some sort of incentive to actually have a wider champ pool (beyond the bare minimum).

Personally, a card game-style "Arena Draft" champ select is most appealing to me. Same process as existing Draft queues, but, rather than being presented with a full champ roster, players have to select their champ from a handful of random options (of similar power level). Since picks are locked in, subsequent players are forced able to adapt to the changing situation (e.g. if the enemy team is drafting hard engage, full poke probably isn't the best idea). Plus, "Arena Draft" wouldn't need much, if any, UI work, and champ select maintains the same flow as other ranked queues.