An in depth look at the state of League and what should happen

Let’s all be honest with each other, League, at least since I joined at the end of season 2, has had toxicity. Some will say it has not been that bad compared to other games, while others consider it one of the most toxic online gaming communities around. When I say toxicity I mean all of it: afking, harassment/verbal abuse, refusing to communicate with team, and everything else.

I feel Riot entered season 6 with the goal of reducing toxicity more than anything else, especially with people fighting over roles. Sending 5 random people into a match and expecting them to work out who was playing what, was hurting many games. New champ select has had both pros and cons, but a big pro is that fighting over a role - while not nonexistent - has tremendously decreased. The cons include longer waiting times because of the lack of players willing to play the support role which has led to the autofill feature in Diamond and above.

It would have been interesting to see what the new champ select would have been like with solo queue instead of dynamic queue, but Riot decided to implement them both in season 6. Dynamic queue allows people to play with friends in ranked. Strictly looking at toxicity, such a system would definitely decrease all toxic levels in the long run. It doesn’t mean that toxicity would disappear, but it would make it go down by x amount.

If new champ select (y) is already decreasing toxicity levels and you add in x you have toxicity – x – y = new toxicity levels (which would most likely be lower). This is a crude formula and in no way extremely accurate as premade teams would most likely be able to work out who played what role, but that only matters with 5s. Even premade 4s could face a stubborn player who refused to play the leftover role. Just looking at the data this system would decrease toxicity levels. I think most of us can agree on that.

This system does not eliminate toxicity and there are still many toxic players out there as I’m sure we all have seen, but Riot might have been looking at the bigger picture. What has happened, though, as everybody and their mother has pointed out, is that premades can be a big knife in the back of solo competitiveness. There are many elements to the game but let’s look at three: freedom from excessive toxicity, fairness, and competitiveness.

There is nothing Riot can do to eliminate all excessive toxicity. When I say excessive I mean things that ruin a game that are out of one’s control such as afking out of anger, griefing, and champ select trolling. These are things that have a direct impact on the game that can seriously affect the outcome. Raging is a form of toxicity but different people respond to it in different ways and one can always hit the mute button thereby negating it from the game. New champ select has most definitely improved champ select trolling. I do not know about afking and griefing across the board so I cannot comment on those. But if these elements persist, Riot needs to implement a stricter punishment system.

Not all games will be fair because that’s life. There are smurfs out there and sometimes teams just get matched poorly. Larger premades have caused some matchmaking issues that I have experienced personally, and I know many of you have. If you ask me, lower and higher - in the sense of skilled players – do not balance out. Forget premades for a second and just consider a solo team of 3 low silvers and 3 high golds. Some may argue that there is no difference in the skill level of these champs and that may be true. The mmr is different though and let’s say to balance it out the silver team gets 2 diamonds and the gold team gets 2 low bronzes.

I don’t know about you, but I would rather be on the team with the diamonds, especially if the solo lanes (mid and top) both feature a low bronze vs. a diamond. Trying to create a balanced mmr by adding high and low mmr players creates unbalanced games especially when the lowest and the highest are pitted against each other in lane. I had a game with a High gold GP vs. a season 5 Diamond Yasuo and you can guess how that went?! Furthermore, premades ranging from 2 to 3 to 4 to 5 further complicate the structure of games depending upon how well a team communicates with one another and if they utilize voice chat or not. All these elements have been thrown into ranked and it has become messy.

This messiness has created some problems in competitiveness. As aforementioned, it can create mismatched games that can be one-sided. This is nothing new to League games overall, but Dynamic Queue has the potential to create these games. I have also seen more streams of master and challenger tier that end in an open mid. This could just be the evolution of the game – people realizing snowballing effects and so on – and I don’t want to contribute it entirely to Dynamic Queue, but I think it has played a part. And as many have mentioned, League measures people strictly as solo players. That is, at the end of the day, what is on your own page is your solo status regardless of if you have played with a team or not. Riot encourages playing with friends but they still measure solo success. This may not be their intent, but it is sending many players a mixed message.

Lastly, before I sum up, I want to talk about teamwork. I think Riot is going in the direction of encouraging teamwork and I am all for that. Even though we may queue up as solo players, we are still on a team, and we win and lose as a team. There have been negative effects of dynamic queue but it is one step towards encouraging teamwork whether or not that means playing with friends. In watching streamers I have noticed those who play pretty much for self (you can probably think of a few) and those that are really committed to working as a team.

I was curious who was ranked number one right now and so I looked him up and watched a bit of his stream. Other than being a good player and knowledgeable, he really worked with his team when they needed him and he was calm and didn’t rage. Not everybody who is ranked high plays this way, but it was comforting to watch.

Riot isn’t done and never will be done making changes. I think they are aware that there are flaws of Dynamic Queue and are working on making changes. If you ask me they will, probably implement a ranked system with different branches that measure solo and team play as opposed to measuring everything together.

I have still had fun this season and there is still a lot of season left. There have been bad games and unfun premade experiences, but I have climbed higher as a solo player in this season than in any other. It’s a hard thing to incentivize everybody in the one of the largest gaming communities to cooperate and work as a team, but they do little things like the pregame notes that say “players who work with their team win x% more games”.

It will be interesting to see what they do next and I am not close to quitting. I really think they will try to improve the solo experience while encouraging team play. I love new champ select despite its cons (probably because I am a support main lol), and hope Riot makes the game better and encourages players to be less toxic and work together with one another.

Sorry for the long post. I couldn’t come up with a tl:dr so feel free to create one.