CS counts too hard towards Grades in ARAM and RGMs

Dr Poro··77 votes·2,435 views

In Summoner's Rift, farming is incredibly important and it's something that a big part of the game is focused on. It's only natural that it is a significant factor when calculating grades.

In game modes like ARAM and Hexakill, where you are laning with multiple members together, I feel like the Grade system is too much skewed towards the player that gets the farm. Not only will he perform better because he has more gold, but also the CS score on it's own is a huge factor independant of gold-gain. When I pick up the Coin in ARAM and I end the game 3/1/13 with 1 CS because I have the f*cking coin so I'm not supposed to be farming, the game says that I've performed poorly and gives A-, a grade that you can easily achieve with negative KDA if you just focus on farming (even during teamfights). If you are laning with a Kog'Maw and you allow him most of the CS and you dominate your lane with him on URF, going 12/0/10, you still only get A if you didn't farm.

I'm not saying that CS should be removed from the calculation completely But, based on all my games I played since the grades system exists, I feel like it's a bit too heavy in these gamemodes where you don't solo-lane. It's the most common reason why your grade is way too high or low based on your self-evaluated performance. Again, in Summoner's Rift, this is okay. Because having a low CS as ADC/Mid/Top means that it's a point of weakness that you have to focus on. However if you willingly give your CS to the lategame carry in your lane, and stomp lane with him simultaneously, I don't think they should rate it as a weakness.

Perhaps change the factor to "amount of minions wasted in lane" because it's way better for your team if you allow one player to focus on farming to not mess up too much farm (hence the support meta).

I know Riot is working on the Grades system and maybe they have already tackled this issue in an upcoming change, but I just wanted to throw it out here.

26 Comments

Eedat4 votes

Honestly I don't see CS as counting towards much in ARAM. To me it seems grades are piratically random. I can have like a 12:1 KDA with some decent farm and get an A- then have a 4:1 KDA with no CS on a similar champion the next game and get a S-

Dr Poro7 votes

S- with (nearly) no CS in ARAM? I need a picture to believe that.

I've played a lot of (high MMR) ARAM games throughout the years and I find CS to be rather consistently correlating with Grades. Of course, not as sole factor, but one that determines a trend, moreso than KDA (which can never be crazy high because you have to commit suicide occasionally to stay relevant in teamfights, unless it's a stomp game) or Damage dealt to champions.

It Hertz When IP1 votes

I've seen it before, but it's REALLY freaking rare, and it's usually on hypercarries that are getting mutiple quadras/aces/pentas throughout the match.

ChaoticPinecone1 votes

Ive played a lot of ARAM throughout the years too, and I find CS to have a correlation-but-not-causation relationship with Grades. Its more about overall gold. You can have low CS but as long as your gold is high (and you do well) youll be okay. Ive gotten S's on ARAM with Frostfang/Talisman instead of CS.

I've also found that giving up first blood completely ruins your chance for an S, even if you pop off later. Not really relevent to your particular post, but something to think about in general.

junglerboy161 votes

Agreed on the FB thing. I've seen champs get FBed and then go crazy like 27/3/14 and still only get an A+ while 3k gold ahead of everyone else on either team.

Baka Red1 votes

I don't know if by "S" you mean "S" or "S+", but I got "S-" after giving first blood with Ziggs about week ago - so First Blood doesn't automatically mean "No way Jose, no S for you today." I haven't really paid much attention on CS counts or anything while I play, so I don't comment on that. I just point out that it is possible to get S- at least after giving first blood for the enemy.

Sugar Momma1 votes

I don't mean to be rude, but originally Riot had NO grades on ARAM at all. I don't think honestly mastery gained on ARAM on champions is really representative of your skill with a champion, just because the game mode is not similar to how the game on SR is traditionally played.

junglerboy162 votes

Idk about that, being able to farm and keep a strongly positive KDA in ARAM is actually really indicative of how well you can manage a lot of the more mechanical aspects of the game in any mode, in addition to how good your decision making is in team fights. Especially after they added snowball to help break the streak of certain poke champs being totally busted, ARAM plays a lot more like an accelerated SR game than the clown fiesta it used to be (although that still happens from time to time).

junglerboy161 votes

In an average game where other allies are making an effort to farm, I can often make it to about 80 CS in a 20-25 minute ARAM (depending on the champ)

I still get grades that fluctuate most based on my relative gold worth (if I had noticeably more than the enemy team) and overall KDA. I get S ranks on games with no CS and almost no kills if I have a KDA above 5.0 (usually from racking up tons of assists) but games where I get uber CS and die more than 5 times I receive grades in the C+ to B+ range at best.

Note this is all in reference to ARAM, where having high kill and death counts is far more common than SR.

ragnos2391 votes

I was under the impression that your grade is based off of comparisons to other people playing that champ. So, for example, in SR if you play a meta champ in a meta lane and do well, you're less likely to get an S unless you're just having a phenomenal game. Likewise, you take champ into a non-meta lane and do well you're more likely to get a higher score because you're being compared against a different (and generally less well graded) pool of people.

Astrovert4 votes

I have to agree the grading system in ARAMs seems to not be consistent.

Sraeg20133 votes

The idea is that grades are based on the average of playerbase with that champion in that position.

Obviously getting 12 kills and 10 assists on literally anybody is less valuable that having 50 CS, because everybody gets tons of kills and assists, while getting 10 CS tops in ARAM.

Oh and since that Kog is 12/0/10 in ARAM, it means his damage output - which I'm sure is also a factor - is absolutely abyssmal.

Dr Poro1 votes

I'm not only talking about ARAM. That Kog example was in URF and it was me on Nidalee with that score. (since kog has better waveclear, I allowed him to clear each wave wile I zoned and poked them to death)

Cosnirak2 votes

I worry that damage dealt isn't a factor at all. Also even on SR cs counts too much for junglers. When you're 10/1/12 on Shen jg with only 85 cs you still deserve that S but you're getting an A and that's not right. You shouldn't have to take your laners farm when it isn't correct to do so just to get an S.

And as I'm sure everyone knows, game length is way too impactful on grade because grades are based on total numbers, not numbers over time. The shorter a game the lower every player in its grade is and vice versa.

I get that these grades aren't that big a deal but some of these things seem like easy(ish) fixes yet here we are this much later and Riot still hasn't changed it.

Ęsdeath1 votes

Well, true. Although CS counts too much for junglers, it still requires less. For example:

At 50 minutes, having 250 farm as Jungler is better than 300 as a mid laner - Simply because junglers tend to don't farm as much as other lanes (except supp).

DaFluffyPotato1 votes

I've noticed that it's hard to get good grades in jungle because of the low cs. :P

Micbran3 votes

Wrong. You are compared to other junglers of that same champ who in turn are all, well, jungling. You probably just need to tax more.

doiminat0r36001 votes

I don't think it's 100% CS. The issue is, we don't know what is required to get an S. We don't know what is required to get an A or how bad we have to do to get a C. It could be we didn't do enough damage. We may not have gotten enough kills, too many deaths, or not enough assists. We don't know.

The lack of clarity is insane.

junglerboy161 votes

I'm pretty sure any form of negative KDA gives you a strong shot at C, even if you're only like 1/2/0

Also anything more than around 8 deaths seems to give a C unless you got a ton more gold than average and/or have a surprisingly good KDA anyway.

doiminat0r36001 votes

Not true. There have been many games where I've gone 0/5/10 and gotten a B or higher. I've also had games where I went 3/2/10 and gotten a B.

It's based on how you rank compared to other people in your MMR range, region, and champion you played. The best challenger players can even get Cs even when they go positive because they didn't do so well.

junglerboy161 votes

I guess that's just how the algorithm works out for my elo then, because that's become a pretty consistent pattern for me, of course varying from one champ to another.

doiminat0r36001 votes

Once again, not an algorithm. It's a ranking based on your performance on a certain champion compared to everyone in your MMR and region.

Maximum Morde1 votes

No it doesn't. People just aren't doing as well as they think they are.

Sukishoo1 votes

Grades don't matter in ARAM/TT/RGMS.

Janna mìd6 votes

{quoted}

Grades don't matter in ARAM/TT/RGMS.

It does, for the chests

Vesemir1 votes

I was trying to get M7 ww, went 15/2 highest damage done, highest damage taken literally carried an uncarriable game, i mean you couldnt have played better in any other way in that game yet... S-. Then i decided to AFK farm whole game grab 5 kills 5/0/0 and decent farm and bam S.

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