What the heck happened..?
Hey guys! I'll start out by talking a little bit about myself. I started playing League of Legends in Season 3 and I fell in love with the game, although I was trash. At some point, I got really serious about the game and I started focusing hard on correcting my mistakes and playing long hours night and day. By the end of Season 4, I ended in Plat and in Season 5, I peaked at Diamond 3. Unfortunately, as my time investment began to decrease, I started playing League less and less and by the time I knew it, it was over. Over the last few seasons, I dabbled with a few games on fresh accounts but I did not like or understand where the game was going, so I never really committed again. I recently decided to come back to the game and I found that I'm absolutely in love with this gameplay! The game imo is in the best state it's been since Season 3/4. However, there are some major flaws I've discovered since coming back that I believe are a major issue.
- Matchmaking is completely garbage and does not suite the current state of the game.
Ahhh... the good ole' MMR system. I remember back in the day, we'd make a smurf to play with low elo friends or just to mess around with when we felt stuck in our primary elos. Back then, after your provisional games you'd place mid gold (got Plat 5 placement once) and it was about 15 to 20 games to D5 from there. Now, that is not the case. I did a little self case study with my own game play across 3 different accounts. Here are the variables:
- The only role played was Jungle
*The Champion pool was
,
and 
only - All accounts started with fresh mmrs
Here is how provisionals went:
- Account 1 seeded Silver 4 after winning all provisionals *Account 2 seeded Bronze 2 after winning 6 out of 8 provisionals *Account 3 seeded Bronze 1 after winning 7 our of 8 provisionals
After provisionals, I played around 40 games on each account, and here were the results:
- Account 1 reached Plat 4 with a 61% WR *Account 2 reached Gold 3 with a 55% WR *Account 3 reached Bronze 1 with a 46% WR
Now, we're talking about the same player here across different accounts. This little study I did has nothing to do with my actual ability as a player because I am no where near my prime. However, what we can assume here is that Riot is saying that a player with the skill level to achieve Plat may or may not achieve that level of gameplay after "x" amount of games due to xyz variables. I'm sure if the player sat down and grinded out enough games, the odds eventually would even out and they'll move to where they belong. The question is, how many games is that? 100? 200? 1000? No, that's a major flaw and that constant needs to be more defined. Since we're right on this subject though, let's rush into the next.
- Ranked is like Wall Street without the SEC.
A major influence to bad match making is the fact that Ranked has very little to no regulation at all, which is a major issue considering Riot has moved the game from a heavy very solo q mentality to a team environment. The game has evolved, but the ranked system has failed to properly evolve with it. Back in the day, it was very easy to carry new players, bad players, trolls, AFKs and degenerates alike. When someone complained about not being able to climb, we just said carry harder. While this is still somewhat true, the actual percentage of instances have drastically decreased. Games are littered with trolls, AFKs, ragers, tilted players, boosted players, casuals, bad players, new players and more. It makes very little sense that someone without any desire to play competitively troll picks or "tries out" a new champion and/or role in ranked just because there is nothing limiting their ability to do so. It also makes no sense that Riot has never implemented more advanced measures to improve the quality of ranked queue other than the requirement to now own 20 champions to play.
- Most people nowadays have just moved on.
It's very sad to say that I believe the game seems to be dying out over the years. The amount of truly competitive people and the desire to succeed in this game has decreased. Back in the day, everyone who was anyone was playing League. Hell, I was playing League with my college professors at a time. Now, I don't have a single friend out there that still plays this game and it is troubling. I think that maybe if Riot addresses some of the issues it has, this game may have another shot at the limelight.
