Ranked Feels Bad in Lower Elos

I know I am probably going to get automatic downvotes for the title alone, then a few more downvotes from people who legit disagree with me, but I don't care I feel like it needs to be said.

So I feel like I need to explain myself here a bit because I know my Match History is going to be brought up, people love to throw that in your face which is valid. Yup go ahead take a look, it is not good. I have lost a lot of games and in those games I have gone very negative. First off, it doesn't prove anything because you don't know what went down in those games. Second, i fully admit to playing badly recently, and its mostly due to the fact I am not enjoying the game very much. A lot of the points and arguments I bring up below APPLY TO ME AS WELL, yes I am guilty of some of the stuff I complain about. Just make sure you keep that in mind when you read this post, I am aware of my own misplays. Honestly I have been playing worse and worse lately, because I am having less and less fun. I look bot lane at 10 minutes and already they are 8+ kills down, I am being camped and enemy mid lane is roaming all over the place while our mid lane complains about us feeding them. I do play worse because I am tilted, which then effects my next game, same shit happens and I am even worse. I take a break and try again later or a couple days later, and same shit happens. So in my mind League is slowly becoming associated with this feeling of negativity. The more that builds up the less fun I am having because it is hard to just shrug it off, the less fun I am having, the worse I play, which feeds into the negativity and it goes on and on.

My hope with this post is that people see this and feel the same way, or perhaps it opens their eyes to what they are doing. If everyone is aware of these issues they can possibly make an effort to fixing it and in doing so will help others fix their issues. There will always be toxicity and imbalances in League, but if we as a community, can make an effort to not be negative it will improve the overall fun everyone is having. Ranked can be stressful, but remember one thing THIS IS A GAME. Ranked is also meant to be fun, it is suppose to be fun to test your skills against others. It is not meant to be as stressful and rage inducing as it is. Normals and Ranked are two different kinds of fun, but they are suppose to be fun at the end of the day.

Ok now on to the post:

A few seasons ago (before Season 6), Ranked was decided by who had the one person on their team who could carry the rest. It was 1-2 people going head to head to carry their team while everyone just sat there being heavy. Sometimes it was you, sometimes it was a teammates, sometimes it was an enemy (I am obviously speaking about lower elo since teamplay is generally more prevalent in higher elos from what I have seen). This obviously was not a good thing for a "team-based" game. So we have season 6 and the changes to turrets and how fast games are suppose to be ending.

Now you win or lose based on your team, sounds good right? Well no, no its not good for everyone because while the direction is good, the implementation is not good. For several reasons, some you may agree with and others you may disagree with, either way I do believe I am right because its my opinion. Just remember I am talking about Low Elo here, these things may not apply to higher elos. I know some of you may not care about us noobs but honestly this game is no fun right now, playing it feels like torture even when you are just trying to have fun.

#A) Papier-mâché cotton-ball launchers (AKA Turrets)

This was done, I believe, to counter the high elo/pro scene lane swaps right? Well I can't say if it worked or not because I am low elo noob, but what I can say is that it had a positive effect on "teamwork" but an incredibly large negative impact on "individual play/solo performance". What happens is the team that is more coordinated or just has naturally better teamfight, goes bot lane as 4 and murders the ADC and Supp at like level 4-6 and take the turret before the 10 minute mark... Good teamwork, great coordination, awesome strat, you get 2 kills, turret, and drag control. The issue is on the other side, the bot and supp who did not get their teammates help. There is literally nothing you can do, the turret is absolutely no threat anymore, and I mean literally zero threat... they would have to stand there taking turret shots for free for it to actually kill anyone (which does sometimes happen, i mean its still low elo). You can't kill 4 people and even if you did, you are both dead (maybe even more if your team did try to help but aren't a good teamfight comp) and there goes your turret and drag.

Top lane is decided by the jungler, and that is partly due to the Jungle and junglers in general being too strong, but what happens is you just get dove over and over again. It is not a matter of "should we dive?" it is "ok we are diving, who wants to take turret aggro first?" because lets face it you are most likely not going to die to the turret if you have 2 people. So again, your individual performance here doesn't matter unless you are just straight up stomping your lane, but that is irrelevant to my point because its situational. What matters here is teamwork, thats fine and dandy but no one likes getting dove time and time again while their team does their usual nothing... You don't decide what happens in this lane, your jungler does and if they are bad, well guess what you lost your lane. Now the Jungler should be the deciding factor here because that is what their role is, but being able to reliably and consistently dive someone under their turret with no threat to yourselves removes any chance of them being able to "outplay".

#B) Top Lane is probably one of the most frustrating lanes to play in (not the worst lane, just the most frustrating)

The last paragraph in the above point, bleeds over into this one but I didn't know which one to put it in. The jungler's impact on Top lane can be an issue if your jungler is not as good and it feels like you are being punished because your jungler has no presence. Almost like your skill or what you do just doesn't matter, you are going to get dove over and over again.

The viable top lane champions are fairly varied, but most of them are pretty unhealthy for the game (I mean wtf is Darius even... Sure you can counter him but if he isn't banned or you pick first its like dealing with an immovable wall that can 2 shot kill you then kill your jungler, even if you win lane he will just go kill your entire team...). So unless you are picking one of them, you do feel like you are at a disadvantage. It is hard to even roam bot lane with TP after those nerfs/changes so you feel even more isolated than before. Rift Herald is just not worth the risk... Unless Dragon is down and you already have the bot lane turrets, there isn't much reason to take it. It hits hard and has a lot of life, plus its impact, while huge, is isolated to one person basically.

This is why a lot of Junglers at low elo don't even bother coming top lane, which is frustrating for the laner because the enemy jungler doesn't always feel the same.

#C) Ranked should have been much much stricter at low elo

This I know will be a very unpopular opinion, because people are complaining about getting Bronze even though they were Silver 2+. However the issue is that last season was DYNAMIC QUEUE and a lot of these people were carried to their rank. This is a problem because right now, even though I am facing off against and with people of the same MMR, their mechanics, knowledge, and strategy is obviously far below everyone else. What happens is the better people feed off the worse people and steamroll the game or they just don't know what to do. I mean I don't know how many games I lost simply because my teammates didn't know how to end, like 3 inhibs down 50% hp Nexus and 3 of my teammates are off chasing the Nocturne in the jungle... You try to tell them what to do after the 4th time they run down mid lane and all die and they flame you non-stop. You try to tell them what your team comps strength is and they don't care they think everything needs to be decided with a 5v5 clash, even if you have been losing those every time you try. You try to tell them how to split and how to pressure lanes, and they are off farming the jungle or sitting in base waiting for gold to buy items.

Solution: Stricter rank placements. At low elo everyone is placed very very low, that way the "better" people will climb out very fast and the "not so better" people will slowly climb out, the "not good people" will stall and stay where they belong. I don't mind starting in Bronze 5 (I was placed in Silver 5 in both queues btw) because I can get out of Bronze easily, I have done it every season since I hit level 30 and started Ranked (since season 3). I honestly feel like this is what we need, a clean slate after the chaos that Dynamic Queue inflicted on the ladder.

#D) Auto-fill is just terrible...

I don't mind getting Auto-filled because the only role I am truly terrible at is ADC and most of the time people will switch with me because they don't want Support. However that is not the case for everyone, most people just don't want to play Support and 2 things happen they either dodge thus extending Queue times and nullifying the original point of having Auto-fill or they pick a Support they don't know how to play (i honestly don't understand why they pick Bard if they can't Support, it is always f*cking Bard... DON'T PICK BARD IF YOU CAN'T SUPPORT PLEASE) and end up playing bad or just straight trolling.

You can't tell when someone gets Auto-filled because most of the time, unless they get Support, they don't say anything. You only figure it out later when they pick something like Elise top after everyone has already picked and end up feeding and flaming all game. So not only do we have skill gaps like I mentioned in Point C, but we also have people who have been auto-filled into a position they are very uncomfortable in. This just makes all the above points worse because they can't play at the same level as their opponent. I am sure some of you are saying "omg you idiot it works both ways, the enemy team also has these issues", yup true and it does happen, when my team is stomping you better believe that is what I am thinking. Rarely ever "oh we outplayed them" its normally "damn they were just bad...". That doesn't make my point invalid though, why should a game be decided because Player X on Team B got autofilled and thus the game is lost?

#E) My final point: Toxicity, Trolling, and AFKing

I don't understand where Riot is getting their numbers on toxicity from but literally every game 1 or 2 people are toxic. It doesn't both me because I honestly find it funny, I mean someone raged at me asking if I was Autism, not "are you autistic" they said "Are you Autism???". It isn't a nice thing to say but I found it hilarious because its just ridiculous. If I am dead or running back to lane I will mess with them, which I know I shouldn't but honestly the game is usually done because they are spending more time typing insults than actually playing. It can be seen as a form of toxicity from myself, but it is 100% joking, wouldn't be surprised if I got punished though (i would prefer they also get punished in that case lol).

This real issue is that toxicity has a negative impact on the game, we already have all these points I mentioned and now the cherry on top is that everyone on the losing team is tilted, far beyond the point of no return. I try to tell people the game isn't over because its low elo and no one knows how to end, but they don't listen, they are tilted and too busy raging. Half the time they "AFK" but they do it in a sneaky way, they will run down lanes with no enemies and farm or farm the jungle or pretend they are split pushing or that they are defending, sometimes they will just straight intent feed but make it look like they aren't. Honestly I have done some of that myself, if I am pushing out a lane and my team suicides in a completely unnecessary 4v5, sometimes I won't recall... I will just keep pushing and watch the base go down :I. It is something I try to fix, because I get tilted and it negatively affects my games, but sometimes I am just too far gone myself.

Honestly I think Riot should be stricter on Toxicity in general, it is not uncommon to see someone obviously trolling and intent feeding in over 20 games straight. You report them, then a week later you see they are still doing that bullshit. Now I am not saying the ban system doesn't work because I get notifications all the time that someone I reported got punished, I just wish it happened more often. If the trolls get banned quicker and in greater numbers, it will help ALL elos.

My advice for my fellow low elo scrubs, just remember that it is just a game and try to have fun. The game isn't necessarily over, so don't lose all hope, mute your team if they are being toxic and try to press on by yourself. Don't waste time typing irrelevant things to your team, use pings or just go do what you want. If your team sees that what you are doing is working, they may just follow your lead. I talk a lot about how I lost games because my team doesn't know what to do, but I have won just as many games because the enemy doesn't know what to do.

This is something I need to tell myself too, even if you can pin the loss on a teammate, there is always something you did that was bad. Look for those instead of the mistakes in your teammates, because if you can fix those mistakes you will climb. If you fix your attitude you will climb too, and if the game is getting to be too much, TAKE A BREAK.

Good luck climbing.