@Riot - Regarding Placements Questions, Concerns, and suggestions
I'd like the community to respond how they feel about Placements? Should we Placements stay as is, or if you don't like the current system to you have an alternate system? and lastly, Do you think Riot should remove placements?
I dislike the placements because I don't understand the benefit it provides to the Players.
TLDR:
My Suggestion - do away with placements and allow players to start a new season where they finished. All new players who never played a ranked game start in Bronze 5.
Last season I placed in Bronze 5 and it was accurate. I only started playing in the last part of season 6. I hadn't even picked a main as a support. Althought by the end of the season 7 I climbed to Silver 5 (peaked at Silver 4).
This season I placed in Bronze 4, which yes based in the win/loss and MMR seems justified, yet I feel Bronze 4 is unfair. The following explains why.
Implementing this system could potentially save players at least 80 hours of play time climbing from a division they already climb from last season. And instead theybwill spend that 80 hours gaining valuable experiencein their correct division.
End TLDR:
Suggestion:
1. All new players who never played ranked before and are eligible to play ranked receive an MMR of Bronze 5 which is where they are placed, regardless of pre-season. I'm not going to go into theories or the details behind how Riot would/could accomplish this. I'm confident if they really wanted to implement a system akin to this they could.
2. All current veteran players, veteran's are defined as any player with 1 full season of ranked under their belts, remain where they finished in the prior season. If they finished in B4 they start with 0 LP in the new season.
#2 is super important, because I think this would go a long way to assuage anxiety in the new season. All players who don't ace their placements face climbing from one full division below where they finished. That relegates those of us with low to modest win rates to a long climb just to get back to where we finished in the prior season and it's quite frustrating.
Most of the current arguments you hear from higher ELO players go something like this "If you're good enough and deserve a higher ELO, then you'll climb." and I agree 100%. Yet it seems the current placement system doesn't take into account the climb from the prior season.
**My personal experience - **
Laat Season I started in Bronze 5 and Climbed and Finished in Silver. This year, I went 4-0 in my first 4 placement games (all with low Bronze players) and then lost the next 4 (All mid/low Bronze Players) and won my last two placement games. I was placed in Bronze 4. Even though I feel that I belong in Silver 5, which I have no doubt I'll get to by the end of the season. So what gives?
You can argue I deserve that Ranked based on my Win-Loss record. And I'd be hard pressed to argue except to say that I wasn't parried with my fellow Silver players.
The next piece of advice players typically receive is, "play carry champs. Carry yourself out of Bronze/Silver/Gold..." which hey by the way I did last year, but I digress. It's why I play support - because I'm not good at carry champs (something I aim to improve this season).
While I'm sure some players can carry from Support, I cannot. Consider that I mained Sona last season. I picked her because she's an easy champ to play that has targeted Q and can help heal away positioning mistakes of Bronze ADCs.
Last season, I did quite well with her, out of 311 games, I won 55% of them. I know the ins and out of her matchups, I feel comfortable taking her against her "counters" (as much as counters mean anything to low elo players). Hell I even took her Top lane last year in Normals and won.
Now imagine if I had to switch to a Carry champ. A), I'd have to start hitting Skilled shots, (get gud right? ;) ) I'd have to learn concepts like Auto Attack Canceling (thinking Riven as an just one example) all those additional concepts PLUS I'd have to learn every match up. If I picked a Top, Jungle, or Mid? That's a quite a pool of Champions matchup I'd have to learn. By accepting that advice would like starting in B5 all over again (Ha! I pretty much did this season ;)
Consider I only have time to invest maybe 3 -4 games per day. It might take me at least a complete season to be comfortable with a new Carry type champ which means I couldn't use it to carry myself out of Bronze this season.
Which brings me back to my point - all this can be fixed by letting Summoners stay where they placed in the prior year. Last year was a grind for me, and I didn't mind. At last years win rate of 52% around it took me rougly 300 games to climb from B5 to S5.
And this season your asking me to prove I don't'belong in Bronze again - even though I proved it last season.
It seems a little unfair.
Let's say I improve this year, and instead of 300 games, I cut that in half 175. (Highly unlikely, but for the sake of argument). Great! after 175 games I'm out of Bronze and Into Silver.
But those 175 games I spent in Bronze has only reinforced a play style adapted to Bronze players. Now I have to break those habits to get out of Silver. That's quite and adjustment to make in one season from an average to below average player, meaning a win rate of 52%.
How nice would it be to spend those first 175 games slugging it out in Silver 5? Pretty damn nice. At an average of 27 minutes per game that's about 79 hours of game play I could save. That is 79 additional hours of gaining experience in Silver towards my Goal of Gold this season.