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Why was position rank removed? It was a great idea.

Traveler 001··6 votes·4,879 views

At first I hated it but now I understand why it's a good idea. And I'm sad that it's removed now.

I just had a chat with a D2 smurf playing in my elo, P2. I asked why he created another account to play in lower elo instead of trying to be good at his secondary position. He's Jungle/Top guy. He queues in that order. He said he got to D2 because of being how good he's with jungle. And he said basically almost all high tier players are there because they play those specific roles they're best at.

So basically he created another account to play Top. Riot was trying to tackle this issue. Just because we're so good at a role doesn't mean our skill level is the same on another role.

Imagine someone got to D1 with ADC then one day he decides to feel relax and plays a Top in D1 but let's say his Top skill level is only about P4 then he's not good enough to play against other D1 Top laners. What happens to his team, he'd likely lose all due to his bad decision of doing that.

Position Rank will solve this issue. His Top will be in P4, and if he queue's Top, he'll play against other P4 Top laners. And likewise all other teammates and enemies are also in that elo range.

But now instead of this, whether you're skill level is at D1 or not, his rank is D1. That's stupid.

That's like just because someone is a MMA champion doesn't mean he will be great at Skate boarding or driving a NASCAR. Right? His driving skill could be a rookie and probably can't skate board either. But in the LoL's logic, because he's good at MMA, he's also a good NASCAR driver and also a good skate boarder!

This will solve the smurfs creating new accounts just to play a different role. They don't want to play a different role that they're not so good at in their main account because they fear they will drop rank.

So please, riot, bring back Position Rank. It's a crucial thing to have in 2020.

39 Comments

JackMcCarry9 votes

Because people just trolled when playing their off role.

Lets say a D2 mid main gets autofilled jungle, in this current system, he will still have to try his hardest because it will effect him all the same.

In the position rank system, as soon as you're off your main role, it's "who cares? Im on my off role" and you get a guy who has nothing to lose because he doesnt care about his off role ELO.

I didnt get a chance to play on that system since it didnt reach EUNE, but as soon as i saw people's reactions i thanked god i wont get to experience that, it's one of those things that sounds good in theory, but in practice, people just suck and abuse it.

Woodakoodashooda3 votes

The system did not last long in the servers where it hit live. I was taking a break from the game...a short break...when it went live in NA. I did not get a chance to play while the system was live either. People abused it within the same patch and Riot quickly removed it as a result.

Illabethe1 votes

It was in the game for 2+ months.....

Traveler 0012 votes

Not if Riot also remove the auto fill. So instead of auto filling, if a player only wants to play Mid and there aren't enough Mid spots, they just wait longer much longer. So they don't get filled to their off role by Riot.

And if they troll enough and say, if a Mid main has 30% winrate in Top, and his Top gets to Bronze. Then he'll play against other Bronze players. If that's what they choose, then that's what they'll get. A Bronze game.

JackMcCarry2 votes

And if they troll enough and say, if a Mid main has 30% winrate in Top, and his Top gets to Bronze. Then he'll play against other Bronze players. If that's what they choose, then that's what they'll get. A Bronze game.

Bronze players deserve fair matches just as any other ELO, putting diamond players into bronze matches when they are autofilled will only make them try even LESS than before because "hey, it's a bronze match and im on my off role, this match literally has no effect on my main account's role" - thus putting his team at a disadvantage.

Taking from your analogy, that would be like putting a basketball player in a team of soccer players, and telling him "hey, this game doesnt matter to you, it wont effect your basketball career", yet his team mates are depending on him to try as if his career is on the line just as much as theirs. On the otherside, put that basket ball player in the same situation and tell him "this game effects you just as much as your regular basketball match" and he'll try harder because his career is on the line, he wont be as good as a pro soccer player - sure - but he would play better or at least try much harder because this game has actual meaning to him.

Traveler 0012 votes

You still don't get it, do you?

I'll give you another analogy. Let's say you're a student in high school and you're now in your 4th year. But your English and History are the only Level 4. The other subjects like Bio, Chem and Physics are on Level 2. Because you didn't pass them 2 yet. In real world you don't drop to a lower grade but let's say you do to make the analogy work better. Say if you stay at 50% in Level 2 for long, you'll drop to Level 1 of those subjects and placed in those Level 1 classes.

If the player has the mentality like you said "this is my off role, this game doesn't matter to me", then these player will keep dropping lower and lower on those roles or stay at the very bottom of the possible rank if they keep it up. And that should be the way.

And if riot can put an extra rule on top, that if you keep doing that your other roles also start to drop rank.

Illabethe1 votes

They did. If you just "inted" on non primary roles, the LP loss to your main role was still - 6 to - 8 (unless you were playing Fill)

JackMcCarry1 votes

Look, i explained to you why it didnt work, that's not really my opinion, it's what happened. Yes position ranking has benefits but it has more abuseable cons.

If in school you fail at english, ONLY YOU fail in english, in league if you fail at a match, your entire team loses with you, so by splitting your ranks based on roles, you create an enviorment where people simply dont care about the matches where they arent on their main role.

Would you want a player on your team to play EZ jungle first time in your promo game ? For him it's just a disposeable game to end as quick as possible, for you it's a promo on your main role, but if your team loses, he wont care because his main role wasnt effected.

Are there trolls in the current system? Sure, it's not perfect, but the one you want gives more reasons to troll.

Risk of Fate1 votes

{quoted}

Bronze players deserve fair matches just as any other ELO,

That's the single biggest lie on here if I ever heard one. If people actually cared for their matchmaking, they wouldn't smurf, but the consensus is "Only fair in high elo, fine to rofl stomp noobs."

How many videos are there of "how to get out of bronze?" Too many to count and the debate of boosting vs smurfing always favors smurfs over boosters. It's not okay for someone to boost at all. Zero tolerance yet for smurfing just wag a finger and say that's wrong. This isn't accounting for banned players, I'm just going off legitimate Content Creators whose sole focus is showing of what happens when a Challenger plays in iron.

I know there's one streamer that puts bronzes into Diamond, but if people find out the real accounts, guess who's getting the ban? Ain't the guy promoting it.

JackMcCarry1 votes

I agree that it's not happening in practice 100% of the time, but thats what Riot and the community should aim for

Risk of Fate1 votes

They're too busy making their four thousandth "Yasuo hate" thread and making another list of "why balance is shit."

It will be a long while so grab a seat.

5050BS1 votes

Or you got the Diamond Top who picked Jungle to get into Silver games then abandoned the jungle and played top (without asking top to trade) and because of system said he spent his time top he must have traded so he got Top LP for his Diamond rank but in a silver game.

Saw this ALL the freaking time. They also muted everyone so there was no talking to them, only reporting them but Riot system said it was fine.

Illabethe1 votes

This didn't happen any more or less than normal ranking. What did increase was autofill dodging. If people knew they sucked, they dodged.

People "Theorized" that would happen, but it turned out to be speculation. Game lengths were just as long as any other season.

Their primary reaction issue was that as you went higher in elo, LP gains were noticeably lower than previous seasons. Like 12-15 LP with 53% win rates at Diamond.

On the flip side, people playing multiple roles were complaining about slow climbs.

It basically suffered the same problem as every new champion release: Social network fad resistance to anything new and mass spammed protest.

Sweaty Gopher1 votes

yeah but this was easy to fix - simply remove autofill. The q's would be longer, but people who play ranked are fine with longer q's if it means higher quality games.

Daddy Ants3 votes

It did more damage to the ladder than good.

Remember early S9? When S8 Golds were sitting in Master and Grandmaster?

That system caused a mmr bug that allowed 30% win rate players stuck in low divisions to climb to high elo.

haaaaaaalp4 votes

Well no, the ranked reset caused the mmr bug which allowed for players to be boosted into masters. Remember, position based rankings was only in NA and korea but the mmr bug was happening on all servers.

haaaaaaalp2 votes

Riot tried to do too much at once. They introduced position based ranking at the same time as they changed how they soft reset the ranked season and how lp was calculated. This resulted in an unintentional lp inflation early into the season which players attributed to people "abusing" position based mmr to get into masters and riot decided to just damage control by reverting most of the system.

Also riot insists on keeping autofill just to keep flex queue alive which adversely effected how position based ranking worked in solo queue. As long as autofill is as prominent as it is right now, there will always be some issues with the ranked system and the playerbase will always be too stupid to understand the problems. This leads to players blaming stuff like mmr or position based rankings for problems and slowing progress.

Illabethe1 votes

Not really.

  1. There was a glitch 5 people used to boost to Masters. Their accounts were reverted.
  2. LP gain was actually lower on average than our current system. LP loss was also higher (sometimes being -21)
  3. By removing positional ranking, Riot actually buried people who were doing well and had above 50% performances, because they were good in one role and bad in others.

https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/L2j5dAKG-what-we-have-to-look-forward-to-now-that-position-ranked-is-gone (When I wrote this, I had a 69% Mid win rate, 65% Jung win rate, and 58% Support Win rate. But my adc/top win rates were like 34% and 41%) https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/q8cT2tzi-ranked-reverts-actually-created-an-elo-hell ^ (I nailed it on how long it'd take to improve my MMR. It's just NOW getting back to where I can climb)

Before this change, I was gaining 22 LP a win, losing 18 for a loss, with 6 LP spash. But I was placing "Fill" Exclusively.

I can frame this further: I had a Silver Friend who placed Silver I, only played and unlocked Adc during his Positional ranking. He maintained a 51% Win rate as well.

His post Positional Ranking LP gain on a win was still +32! And his adc performance never impacted his LP post Positional ranking in OTHER positions.

Basically..... I got punished for unlocking Top and Adc, and am getting plagued on forums basically for having 800ish games on an account that is a smurf, but only being 50% (Started just using it to play after 12 hour work days, when family is around and distracting). I refuse to disclose who I am at D II, so there's no real remedy here.

haaaaaaalp1 votes

Cool but none of that is relevant to the discussion at hand.

Illabethe1 votes

Except it's extremely relevant, covers all the bases of what occurred with Positional ranking? Unlike 8 in 10 people who are posting in this thread, I actually experienced it.

Up until they cancelled it, I support it. When they cancelled it, it created both high and low elo nightmares; boosted LP gain glitches at high elo, and perma stuck low elos.

haaaaaaalp1 votes

No actually, it covers a bevy of problems with how poorly you understand mmr. None of them were due to position based rankings.

Illabethe1 votes

No...... they literally were caused by positional ranking lmfao. And Riot even admitted it (one of the links actually has a response).

MMR had absolutely ZILCH to do with why a 51% account with 65%+ in main roles as win rate went from gaining 22 LP and losing -6 per role, 16 on a loss, to gaining 9 LP for a win and losing 21 LP overnight due to the removal of the positional ranking.

It was literally a riot created situation.

But by all means; Try to explain how I'm trying to explain this wrong. I'd love to see you try to scapegoat what actually happened onto some MMR theory you yourself do not know.

Hi there! The reason you LP is lowered is actually because your highest rank was gaurenteed. Since every player got their highest rank their LP would drop because they may have had other ranks that were lower. Lower ranks added into one will cause a decrease in MMR which results in a decrease of MMR, especially for players whose other ranks were significantly lower than their highest.

Luckily within a few weeks your MMR should even out as you play more games.

It's a bit tricky to explain but in short: since every player was gaurenteed their highest role their MMR was shifted and LP gains lowered to compensate for the high rank allotted.

As a Hextechnician I have no control over Riot's ranked system. If you would like to express your concerns to a Rioter I am more than happy to reroute you. I cant justify their choices I'm only able to tell you what they announce.

And the followup:

Heya,

I understand how frustrating it must be to have such low LP gains after the disabling of the positional rankings :( As my colleague said, this is most likely because of the fact that you had different divisions, from Bronze I to Silver II, which makes it harder for the system to adjust immediately. But as I can see, the LP gain is starting to get better, and you receive slightly more LP than in your first games since this reset happened (your first win was 9 LP, your most recent one is 13 LP). I know it's not a big difference, but as long as you keep playing and show that you've better than your current ranking, your LP should eventually get back to a bigger value.

However, I have to mention that there's no way for us to modify the system, since we have to let it adjust by itself - otherwise it could cause even bigger problems in the future.

Wish you all the best, and hope I could be of help.

You try to maintain a 70% win rate just to tread water.

-I did 40 Provisionals. -I had to go through Promotions for EACH ROLE (the promotion series didn't cross over from role to role, and if you lost on one role's Promotions, and you had 100 LP in another role, you would actually drop to 94 -96LP, and have to win ANOTHER game just to get back to 100 in that role, and if the game that put it back into 100 LP wasn't that actual role, you actually had to play ANOTHER game just to unlock the promo series.

In other words, doing fill had a TON of built in extra games, and each role had its own MMR. When they combined the ranks, all these MMRs went away. They took your lowest one and assigned it to the same account as your actual highest RANK. All those extra games became meaningless.

They literally gave me a 36% win rate MMR B I on an account that was Silver II. It takes a LOT of games to fix that MMR.

haaaaaaalp1 votes

You got put into a higher rank than you deserved. When position based ranking went away, they put you at your highest rank. That made getting to a higher rank easier, not harder. Look at the ranked ladder, there are more players in diamond this season than last. There are more players in plat in this season than last. There are more players in gold in this season than last.

The fact that you "play after 12 hour work days, when family is around and distracting" is completely irrelevant The fact that your friend is in a completely different situation is completely irrelevant The fact that you have a main in d II which totally exists in irrelevant The fact that you care other people don't believe you is hilarious but also irrelevant

Illabethe1 votes

No. Not even close.

All ranks on this account started at Bronze I - II. The Silver II was after climbing on FILL. Some 180+ games maintaining 65% Win rates in 3 roles. They didn't PUT me in Silver II. I climbed it.

[img]https://i.imgur.com/s63jwJ9.png[/img]

^ Where it was after 48 Games (69% WIn rate overall)

If this was standard ranking, 69% in 48 games would have friggin been Gold I/Plat IV or even Plat III.

This account's first 40 games on Morgana were 95% Win rate! Nami was 75%. Zyra started out 68% in her first 60.

I know you think it's fun to troll, but facts will come and smack you in the face.

I know you see Bronze..... Silver..... think..... NUB.... but you really need to get past your own narcissism and realize that this was a brand new account exclusively for Positional Ranking.

haaaaaaalp1 votes

They put you at the highest rank. I would go find the quote myself but you found it for me:

Hi there! **The reason you LP is lowered is actually because your highest rank was gaurenteed. Since every player got their highest rank ** their LP would drop because they may have had other ranks that were lower. Lower ranks added into one will cause a decrease in MMR which results in a decrease of MMR, especially for players whose other ranks were significantly lower than their highest.

Your account was set to your highest rank. This is why getting into higher ranks got easier. Look at the ranked ladder, there are more players in diamond this season than last. There are more players in plat in this season than last. There are more players in gold in this season than last.

Also, I don't bother to look up the ranks of accounts on the forum. The only reason I know yours now is because you brought it up.

Illabethe1 votes

Except when they merged, my Winrate was 51% overall, Mid/Support/Jungle were all 60%+. If the same work had been accomplished on a traditional ranking system, that would have been GOLD IV.

They literally gave a 51% account with Silver II an MMR of an account that was 36% Bronze I.

There are most players in Plat and Diamond right now because Boosting is a rising industry and high elo players are creating a lucrative industry of streaming smurfs. Many of those accounts are the same exact player making new accounts every year. What you're seeing is high elo players expanding their account volume.

The glut of high elo accounts didn't happen right after the merge, except among a few 1 trick accounts that only unlocked 1 role during positional ranking. Those accounts got 30+ LP while people who played fill got punished. There was also a bug that allowed a very small number to actually skip promotions and go straight to Grandmaster.

RlTO lS TOXIC1 votes

I don't think that's the reason why u r silver 50%....

Illabethe1 votes

Yes and no. Inherent performance is one thing. Getting dropped into an MMR where people are 36% and you're a support player generally F's with your ability to carry, even if you are a high elo player. Snowballs now occur so fast that even if you are on game, your team going 3/20 in 8 minutes just makes the carry hard to impossible.

I also have a propensity to rage at them, which probably accounts for a good loss of 4-5 % win rate, simply because they react poorly to it.

I did manage a 66% Win rate for the first ~ 70 games after the merge and went up to some 54% Win rate. But I was still losing LP on average, because of the hefty difference between LP gains and losses. (At 14 LP a win and 21 LP a loss, you need 3 wins per 2 losses just to break even, and need 6 wins per 2 losses just to climb like a normal ranker. You can slightly climb at 4 wins per 2 losses, but the net gain is only 7 LP per 1 net positive win opportunity versus normal).

^ After I did that, I started caring less about the account, and just started playing it after 12 hour work shifts where I hand-lift about 3000-4000 lbs a day, and started doing my good ole experimentation with new champ releases. Got chat ban, so really didn't care about the account anymore.

When Senna came out, I decided to one trick her as Support/Top, which isn't exactly where she shines in an elo where people are constantly trolling. That gave the account a some 20 loss deficit.

Right now I'm pulling over 80% 1 Tricking Soraka :S

haaaaaaalp1 votes

{quoted}

Except when they merged, my Winrate was 51% overall, Mid/Support/Jungle were all 60%+. If the same work had been accomplished on a traditional ranking system, that would have been GOLD IV.

They didn’t merge your ranks, they just set your rank to the highest of your 5 positions. Under the old system, your rank would have been lower.

They literally gave a 51% account with Silver II an MMR of an account that was 36% Bronze I.

Because the account didn’t deserve the higher rank. It was granted a higher rank to make climbing easier but it was given the mmr it deserved.

There are most players in Plat and Diamond right now because Boosting is a rising industry and high elo players are creating a lucrative industry of streaming smurfs. Many of those accounts are the same exact player making new accounts every year. What you're seeing is high elo players expanding their account volume.

Boosting and bronze to challenger streams has been around since season 1. It is easier to boost now since it is easier to climb the ladder but that is the same for everyone.

The glut of high elo accounts didn't happen right after the merge, except among a few 1 trick accounts that only unlocked 1 role during positional ranking. Those accounts got 30+ LP while people who played fill got punished. There was also a bug that allowed a very small number to actually skip promotions and go straight to Grandmaster.

Actually, everyone was given the highest rank of their 5 roles so the players who played all five roles benefited the most from the change.

By the way, I have to hand it to you, I have never seen someone spend so much energy coming up with excuses for why their “smurf” is in silver. Everyone else just doesn’t care about the ranks of their smurf (because seriously it is a smurf why would they?). Ranking systems rely on players actually trying in order to determine a proper rank. If someone isn’t trying on their smurf, it is impossible for any system to properly rank the account.

Illabethe1 votes

I'm done with you troll.

My MMR at the time of the merge was friggin 1600+ on 3 roles. You can keep making blanket garbage statements all you want without explaining anything to feel smart.

It deserved the higher rank. Period. 51% overall and 65%+ in several roles.

No. Fill created a range between roles, whereas one tricking or two tricking only creating an MMR that either was taking at face value or averaged between 2 main roles.

Furthermore, since On tricking put all your LP gains into a single role, only had to promo on one role, and never hit 100 LP ceilings, your baseline MMR and rank were by default MUCH higher for the same result. 69% WIn rate in 150 games would have resulted in a Diamond MMR simply for 1 tricking support.

haaaaaaalp1 votes

{quoted}

I'm done with you troll.

My MMR at the time of the merge was friggin 1600+ on 3 roles. You can keep making blanket garbage statements all you want without explaining anything to feel smart.

It deserved the higher rank. Period. 51% overall and 65%+ in several roles.

No. Fill created a range between roles, whereas one tricking or two tricking only creating an MMR that either was taking at face value or averaged between 2 main roles.

Furthermore, since On tricking put all your LP gains into a single role, only had to promo on one role, and never hit 100 LP ceilings, your baseline MMR and rank were by default MUCH higher for the same result. 69% WIn rate in 150 games would have resulted in a Diamond MMR simply for 1 tricking support.

Your mmr was invisible, you can’t just pull a random number out of your ass and pretend it is real. The truth is that you didn’t deserve a higher rank. You are just blinded by your own denial.

Also, 100 lp ceilings don’t effect mmr gains and losses. You are going to have to try harder if you want to just invent new excuses.

Jamaree1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Traveler 001,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=pLkwARuP,comment-id=,timestamp=2019-12-29T11:23:39.124+0000)

At first I hated it but now I understand why it's a good idea. And I'm sad that it's removed now.

I think you kind of answered your own question here. That said, that kind of is how things are, don't really know what you got until it gone huh?

RekSai CoffeeCo1 votes

China didn't like it.

5050BS1 votes

Because Riot didnt plan it out enough and fuked everyone. They reset all the Diamond+ ranked but not under so those of us that started playing from the start of the season got our MMR totally fuked up with no correction.

Malix Farwin1 votes

Because it was abused. if people goot lanes they didnt care about they would troll.

Kai Guy1 votes

Can't Trust the community with it. On the bright side there is no information that said they got rid of Positional MM. Something Value is looking to Copy.

Through our investigation into the topic of matchmaking volatility and how parties affect the game, we’ve noticed something that fans likely already know: players have very different comfort levels when playing core roles versus support roles. Some players perform really poorly when they play a role they are not used to, and in turn introduce a lot of volatility in the system for everyone by causing your MMR number to drift away from your actual skill level as well as causing imbalanced games. So because of that, and because of our abiding love of having multiple MMR numbers, we are adding a new concept of Core and Support MMR numbers. In order to achieve this, we need to know what role you want to play in advance of the match being formed. So for this experimental update, we are moving the Ranked Roles feature to the base Ranked matchmaking and expanding on its capabilities. Now when you matchmake, you will have the option of selecting roles from position 1 through 5 (Safe Lane Core through Hard Support), including multiple selections. So if you like playing Mid or Offlane, you can select those two, or if you like playing Hard Support and Mid, you’ll be able to do that as well. You will be matched based on either your Core or Support MMR. Each MMR type will also have its own leaderboard, and for the purposes of this short experimental period the existing rank will be applied as the initial rank for both Core and Support. If we end up keeping this feature in the future, there will be a separate calibration phase for each one.

IainG101 votes

Because Riot are afraid to actually punish trolls; that is literally it.

Because people were safe in the knowledge that if they trolled their off-role, they wouldn't be punished because 'it's just a bad game bro, not troll, lololololol'. Riot just refuse to accept that with a competitive mode, people not playing competitively are a detriment that breaks the system. There need to be a lot more Queue-specific penalties (i.e. banned for 2 weeks from playing Ranked only, still able to play every other mode). And the whole system was to get around the effects of Autofill, which they still haven't solved.

Autofill did more damage than gain as far as I'm concerned (and yes, I DID play Pick Order; at least Pick Order people asked to trade instead of assuming they are the only filled player). It is entirely unnecessary in the majority of queues, and does not need to kick in until people have queued longer than the average time. And if that still isn't enough for the pay-by-the-hour internet cafe market, then maybe Riot should engage their fucking brains and have different queuing for different servers rather than fucking the entire globe over for one (admittedly large) market. Because right now it's the team with more autofills loses (especially if it's the jungler that's filled).

MaskedMadness1 votes

because it was a terrible idea and would and will never work in practice

it has been explained so many times why it was bad i dont feel the need to say. but if you had forgotten i will kindly remind you of every detail

RlTO lS TOXIC1 votes

Yeah. That would totally benefit someone who plays thousands of games every season on various roles with a 50% wr. :)

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