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League of Legends Matchmaking / Ranking System is Absolutely Horrid

MalaceX··5 votes·1,215 views

I'm certain Riot receives thousands of these types of complaints a day. I alone have sent at least 35 in the year I've been playing, all of which have been humanly ignored and answered by a lifeless bot auto-response. Great customer service there, Rito.

I use to be horrible at this game. Utterly horrible to the point I've uninstalled this game at least 2 times. Now, am able to have consistent games with a select number of champions. I applaud my determination, but have yet to understand how other players I am matched with average over 8-10 deaths consistently. How is it that I average 2-5 deaths, yet I'm still being paired with these players? How can this be?

I have yet to understand the point of getting promoted if you will still be forced to play with players who are clearly ranked under you. How does this promote fair play? I'm played with Bronze 1's and Silver 5's that feed in Bronze games and don't understand how or why they are so bad. I've researched the issue with this and several sources believe that the only way to fix this issue would be to make the average tier Gold. Right now, places too many players in Bronze, mostly due to the game's own imposed difficulty level. There is no reason why someone with my level of play is still in the LOWEST tier when my KDA and stats reflect otherwise.

I can't continuously carry a team, nor should anyone be forced to. This is essentially what is happening. At the VERY least, Riot should group players in promotional series together. It's careless to place someone who is in a serious mindset to win with randomly, unskilled players who may lack the passion to win because it is merely "another game."

On another note, just because I have loss 1 or 2 games in a row is not justified by placing me with another lower tier player who is on a 6 game losing streak. It's extremely frustrating to go 28/5/21 in a game and still lose. If Riot would include overall KDAs and Games Won/Played in matchmaking, the game would improve greatly. If I am going to be forced to play a match for 45+ minutes, I don't want waste 30 minutes of my time because there's already 10 total deaths before 20 minutes.

If Riot isn't going to do their best to improve the player pool, they should just make a 3v3 Ranked Solo Queue so players can have better odds of not getting a troll. 5v5 is extremely toxic as a team game because it only takes one player to throw the game in your opponents favor. You could really learn a lot from DoTA 2 if you would get off your high horse.

16 Comments

ValyrianBlade3 votes

One thing that so many people seem to fail to consider on these posts about "elo hell": Just because it's possible for someone significantly better than their competitors to carry doesn't mean it's not impossible for someone only a little better than them to carry.

It's like saying that you put two soccer (European football) teams on a field, one is an under 9 years old competitive team and the other is a 7-8 year old kids fun team. If you put Messi out there he'll win every game regardless of which team he's on. If you put a 17 year old competitive player out there he'll win every game with the better team and probably a large majority with the worse team. So this means they can be carried. If you put a 12 year old competitive player out there he'll win every game on the good team and lose almost every game on the bad team. That doesn't mean the 12 year old isn't better than the others he is playing with, it just means he isn't enough better. So in league's system the 12 year old competitive player isstuck playing in a division where he's either with 9 year old competitive players beating up on 7 year old fun players, or he's with the 7s getting beaten up.

In this lengthy metaphor, Messi is challenger. The 17 year old is Platinum 5 or gold 2 or something. The 7 year old is bronze 5 and bad at it, the 9 year old is good at bronze 5, and the 12 year old is someone who probably deserves silver 4 but is stuck in bronze 5 for example. It demonstrates that at least theoretically elo hell may exist and just because people in gold/plat/Diamond/challenger can carry themselves out of it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

That all aside, whether you're in bronze 5 or silver 5 you've still got a lot of room to improve and can get better enough to carry out of this "elo hell". Again, all theoretically since I can't play ranked, but this makes sense to me. I can understand the frustration while seeing other players being ignorant to it because they weren't blocked by it or because pros weren't. I don't think these people are complaining about being bronze 5 and thinking they deserve Platinum, they think they deserve bronze 1 or silver 3 or something and at that level of play can't carry in bronze 5 every game.

Peppering for downvotes now...

slippykitten2 votes

you said all the right phrases to get ignored by the community. whether there is truth in your post is irrelevant at this point.

Sailor Mint2 votes

If you are better than them, carry harder. It's literally possible to solo carry games if you crush hard enough. If you're better, you can solo kill your lane opponent. You're trying to play a game of finesse in a street brawl. You should play more for the W than for your KDA. As for 10 total deaths before 20 minutes, that's nothing. Gold/Plat games will often turn into bloody messes.

You're sitting in the bottom 8% of the player pool, you should be expecting bad teammates. Therefore, all you can count on is your own play and your ability to micromanage teammates.

tl;dr: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-VE5Nc8DAg

Play better, don't blame your team.

MalaceX1 votes

I agree and I try to improve on something every game I play in. It's frustrating around Bronze 3 at the 50 LP mark. I always seem to lose and go on tilt. I don't know what it is, but I've never won a Bronze 3 promotional yet. I really feel like I deserve to be in Silver. I don't feel like I'm asking much.

Sailor Mint1 votes

I agree and I try to improve on something every game I play in. It's frustrating around Bronze 3 at the 50 LP mark. I always seem to lose and go on tilt. I don't know what it is, but I've never won a Bronze 3 promotional yet. I really feel like I deserve to be in Silver. I don't feel like I'm asking much.

Well, I can say your cs and deaths per game average look fine. I'm worried about your relatively low kill contribution and lack of objective control.

  1. You only need to have more Gold than your opponent.
  2. Objectives win games. Fights should always be over turrets and dragon/baron.
  3. If you know what to do and aren't feeding, your team will generally listen to your calls.
  4. Know when to respect your opponent and how much they'll let you get away. And take it.

Easiest way to get out of Bronze is to either play a split pusher or a champion with pick potential (ward -> pick -> take objective).

MalaceX1 votes

Thanks for the tips. I've been working on improving my Top lane. I've heard that split pushing is a good way to get out of Bronze. Do you have any other split pusher suggestions other than Tryndamere or Aatrox?

disregardable1 votes

A. It does not take 1 person to throw a whole game, especially in Bronze. People lose 5v4s and 5v3s all the time.

B. If you really were below the skill level there, you'd win games consistently and climb out.

C. If you really think that's impossible, you could always make a smurf that, after 20 games, would probably place you in the same place you are now.

MalaceX1 votes

I don't take your response seriously because of your in-game name alone. Good day, sir.

Rawrful1 votes

Ahahah! I was sitting here wondering to myself how it is possible to be 28/5/21 and still lose a game. So I went an lolkinged your matches, and it still had your games from last week up.

You are just a big fat killstealer who doesn't actually contribute at all. Holy crap dude, look at your damage to champions. You'd be at the bottom of bronze 5 if Riot took game stats into consideration.

Win or loss you are dealing literally half or less damage to champions as the other people on your team.

Look at this! You won a game as Jinx where you went 12/4/19. Big score, right? 27k damage dealt to champions. Your 11/8/10 Heimerdinger did 48k damage to champions. He dealt 21k more damage than you did to the enemy team despite having twice your deaths. That is INSANE. Or, better yet! That 1/9/11 Sivir with the awful feeder score? 24k damage. That's right. You only dealt 3k more damage to champions than the 1/9/11 Sivir. How is that even possible?!

After refreshing it and looking at your games from this week it is harder to tell what was going on, but I do know your Teemo ally did 42k more damage to champions than you did in one of your games despite dying 3 times as much as you. And every game you consistently deal less damage to champions than everyone else in the game.

So, if you haven't picked up on it yet, your problem is you are shooting for KDA not for winning the game. It is clear you just walk away from fights, don't participate in sieges, and just wait around to try to snipe off kills while your team is fighting over objectives and trying to actually win the game. Those people with 8-10 deaths in your games are doing WAY WAY WAY more work than you. They are dying because you aren't helping them, you are trying to make yourself look good. You are the EXACT REASON Riot will never make your KDA have an impact on your ranking.

AnomalousChimera2 votes

Not trying to defend the OP but damage dealt to champions isn't exactly the be-all-end-all metric for overall game contribution. If a group of people all-in all the time vs. a stronger team, maybe they'll get reasonably decent stats in damage dealt to champions, but if they're not actually pushing/taking objectives/getting kills, they're just feeding or getting themselves driven out of lane, no matter how much damage overall damage they throw out. Yes, my example is a bit out there, but the gist of it is clear. Trying to engage constantly at all times does not mean one is contributing to the team. Perhaps you're right, and what he did was cherry-pick kills, but you don't know that for sure without watching his matches.

Edit: Checked stats for that Jinx match, and the OP brought 16 wards. You can say that he/she didn't contribute, but in all likelihood, his team was probably going into fights with extremely limited vision or just flat out overextending. That Sivir on the other side was just bad and a clear case of all-ining with no contribution. And what's most funny of all is that I just checked your stats too, and you often have better KDA but do the least or second least damage to champions on your team (2-3 times less than others), lol. You are clearly are walking from fights and not participating in sieges too (if you couldn't tell, this is sarcasm). I'm not going to pretend I know what's going on here (because I don't. And I'm not suggesting I'm a good player either), but it seems to me you subconsciously want to be the hero of your team who carries hard and are projecting your insecurities onto the OP.

Rawrful1 votes

Kay, so I made some logical jumps that you missed and looking back on were not too clear in my post. The OP often plays ADC and APC. These champion's role on a team is to deal damage. Corki and Jinx (The two ADCs most played by the OP) are very team-fight oriented champions that are great at killing objectives and have strong poke. Ahri, his most played APC, is both an assassin and an AoE damage dealer. These roles and champions exist in their team composition as the main sources of damage.

If the OP was playing split pushers, tanks, supports or similar champions then damage dealt to champions would be a terrible metric. But since he is playing champions who exist to deal damage to the enemy team, it functions much better. Now, it is also true that damage to champions can be very wishy-washy in short games due to jungler presence, how aggressive your lane is and whatnot. But the longer a game goes, the bigger the gaps between the damage threats and the supports/tanks/split pushers should become.

So, when the game goes long and the OP is playing as one of the main damage threats on his team, yet fails to deal significant damage, it is clear he is not actively participating in fights. When the rest of his team is dealing vastly more damage than him, yet dying more than him, it implies to me that the OP is either not there for fights, or is not willing to risk his own K/D/A to go 'all in' in fights.

His low deaths, even in losing games, implies to same thing to me. That he would rather have a good K/D/A after a loss than risk his score in a risky bid to get back in the game.

I suppose another way of putting it would be that he plays too conservatively. You cannot win without taking risks, and spending half your gold on wards then not committing to fights is not going to win you games, but it will get you good scores.

MalaceX1 votes

The fact that you continuously suggest that I'm not helping in team fights, but my assists state otherwise. If you call choosing my battles playing conservatively, so be it. Since I play Corki and Jinx well I have been able to escape many deaths. I chop this up to mechanics.

From my understanding and studying, they say that every death is equal to a mistake that player made. For example, if someone is going for a kill and dies, they either a) wasn't as strong as thought or b) got anxious and outplayed. If a player engages without backup, even when warned, that is no one's fault but their own.

Lastly, another thing Rawrful can't see is that I rarely die in lane. As you can see, I ward a lot all game. I can usually get 3-6 kills via trading on mistakes in lane before taking the turret. It's usually when I team fight or try to save someone that I die.

I am the Remedy1 votes

Sorry OP, this guy in 100% right. If you aren't dealing at or near the most dmg in the game playing these champions, you're not doing your job. Period. Maybe you're there for team fights, but you're not doing much in them. My guess is you don't know how to kite well and or are positioned so far back that you can't really do more than a couple of auto's before running away when someone tries to jump on you. This is not how you play damage dealers. Especially corki, and ahri who are very safe. Jinx is also safe if you're playing correctly (positioning, watching cd's, etc.)

MalaceX1 votes

For starters, you are comparing physical damage to magic damage. If you feel my damage is low, you must be reading the wrong category. Be less emotional and take another look.

Secondly, how can you say I'm a big killstealer then later on say that I don't help in team fights. That's a flawed observation considering the number of assists I have per game. How can I be "waiting on around" when my cs is high, if not the most on the teams?

In closing, your emotional response and obvious ignoring of specific stats makes your argument invalid, sir.

Sailor Mint1 votes

OP's scores wouldn't look out of place in higher elo low kill games.

The problem is that he's those scores in getting in low Bronze slugfests (20-40% kill contribution) and the time he's spending away from his team doesn't contribute to anything worthwhile (i.e.: farming sidelane without getting objectives). I would love a damage to structures stat.

AnomalousChimera1 votes

I would like to see a damage to structure stats too, and as I stated in my reply to Rawrful under one hour ago, the OP actually has comparatively similar scores to him, lol. Yeah, I know there's clearly a difference since one is Gold and the other Bronze, but Rawrful's post was just so bad. He was glorifying feeders for doing crap he wouldn't do.

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