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Ranked Mastery Requirement

Rumren··1 votes·2,256 views

It is clear from Riot's perspective that autofill is needed to keep the queue times down and that is something that is not going away. However it is also clear that the level 30 requirement is not sufficient for many new/existing players to perform competitively in ranked. This leads to a more toxic environment both for players trying to win the game and for players trying to do their best in an autofilled role. Often times the loading screen for a game pops up and you could see your team or an enemy team with mastery points. Mastery points do not guarantee a win, but they do provide a baseline that the player has at least played several games with the champion so regardless of how they perform their issues are tied to the individual game matchups and scenarios and not to a lack of experience in using the champions abilities. It would be nice for Riot to consider having a mastery lock on champions played in ranked, so they have played sufficient normal games prior to taking it into a more competitive environment. I'm not saying that people need rank 6 or 7 to play in ranked on a champion, but even 4 or 5 would prevent first timing a champion in ranked across any elo which often times results in a harder time for the team winning the game. I know there will be counter arguments that it makes it more difficult for smurfs getting into ranked and getting their accounts into higher elo, but as the majority of players are not smurfs and are trying to play the game from Iron-Gold it would be nice to make it slightly more balanced with a mastery baseline to avoid trolls from autofill or just from people trying something new due to frustration of a bad game on a champion they are experienced with. I just wanted to put this idea out there for devs to think about as a way to reduce toxicity/trolling in the ranked environment, it will not eliminate it but would be a nice start in that direction and several players I have come across agree that this would reduce their frustration in ranked games.

10 Comments

Ginger9762 votes

I like it. People will cry about having to rank champs up and how they don't need to because they are so good, but I wish ranked was MORE exclusive than it is. On the few occasions that people have asked me, I tell them they should play at least 500 games in normals before trying ranked.

Unker1392 votes

{quoted}

I like it. People will cry about having to rank champs up and how they don't need to because they are so good, but I wish ranked was MORE exclusive than it is. On the few occasions that people have asked me, I tell them they should play at least 500 games in normals before trying ranked.

Why does it have to be more exclusive?

I'm iron and I play with and against other iron and bronze players. I run a 45% win rate in games where the average rank is 3 levels above me. Sometimes I'm the best player in the game and sometimes I'm the worst. Inconsistent play is part of low elo.. ..not just me.

I'm competitive at my rank. When I get better, I will be competitive at a higher rank.

I'm sure you don't believe i deserve to be playing ranked games. I'm also sure that every platinum + player with your attitude believes you don't deserve to play ranked. Where is the cutoff? Maybe ranked should be limited to only aspiring pros.

Do you think that making more exclusive will make climbing easier? If everyone worse than you were blocked from ranked, you would never climb because you would always be the weakest player in the game. The bottom 5% of the ranked player base will be iron if there are a million ranked player or a thousand.

As far as mastery limits, they will accomplish nothing. I have 5 mastery 5+ champions. 3 of them, I have not played in ranked in almost 18 months and with 2 of those, my win rate in ranked is below 20%. Better to first time a new champion that is similar to my mains than to take those back to ranked. On top of that my weakest games are not playing new champions, but playing against new champions. At least when I'm playing someone new I know what the abilities are even if I don't know the best way to use them. If the other team has a champion I don't see much, I don't know what abilities to avoid.

Ginger9762 votes

{quoted}

Why does it have to be more exclusive?

I'm iron and I play with and against other iron and bronze players. I run a 45% win rate in games where the average rank is 3 levels above me. Sometimes I'm the best player in the game and sometimes I'm the worst. Inconsistent play is part of low elo.. ..not just me.

I'm competitive at my rank. When I get better, I will be competitive at a higher rank.

I'm sure you don't believe i deserve to be playing ranked games. I'm also sure that every platinum + player with your attitude believes you don't deserve to play ranked. Where is the cutoff? Maybe ranked should be limited to only aspiring pros.

Do you think that making more exclusive will make climbing easier? If everyone worse than you were blocked from ranked, you would never climb because you would always be the weakest player in the game. The bottom 5% of the ranked player base will be iron if there are a million ranked player or a thousand.

As far as mastery limits, they will accomplish nothing. I have 5 mastery 5+ champions. 3 of them, I have not played in ranked in almost 18 months and with 2 of those, my win rate in ranked is below 20%. Better to first time a new champion that is similar to my mains than to take those back to ranked. On top of that my weakest games are not playing new champions, but playing against new champions. At least when I'm playing someone new I know what the abilities are even if I don't know the best way to use them. If the other team has a champion I don't see much, I don't know what abilities to avoid.

Maybe more exclusive is not the right way to put it. Maybe it's that people need to be better informed of the difference between normals and ranked before they play. I can remember one instance in particular where I was supporting an obviously new adc. Their CS was really, really bad. Also, they had no concept of positioning and the danger arcs of champs....But let's focus on just the CS portion of it. They were missing last hits, they had no idea how to last hit minions at turret (2 shots for melee, then last hit; 1 auto, turret shot, last hit for casters) and I finally asked them if they were new to ranked. They said yes and we had a back and forth discussion after the game about how different ranked is. Simply put, they had no idea that the skill level that you are put into when you start ranked is way beyond what you get just from hitting 30 in norms. That was the last instance I can think of where I gave them the "You need to play at least 500 games, if not 1000, before playing ranked."

Unker1392 votes

{quoted}

Maybe more exclusive is not the right way to put it. Maybe it's that people need to be better informed of the difference between normals and ranked before they play. I can remember one instance in particular where I was supporting an obviously new adc. Their CS was really, really bad. Also, they had no concept of positioning and the danger arcs of champs....But let's focus on just the CS portion of it. They were missing last hits, they had no idea how to last hit minions at turret (2 shots for melee, then last hit; 1 auto, turret shot, last hit for casters) and I finally asked them if they were new to ranked. They said yes and we had a back and forth discussion after the game about how different ranked is. Simply put, they had no idea that the skill level that you are put into when you start ranked is way beyond what you get just from hitting 30 in norms. That was the last instance I can think of where I gave them the "You need to play at least 500 games, if not 1000, before playing ranked."

I would agree that it probably takes 500 to 1000 games to play at the skill level required to not drop off initially based on starting MMR.

However, I also think you learn faster in ranked than not. My experience is that normals are just as toxic as ranked, far less predictable, and you have no way of measuring your progress.

I went into ranked as a support with a 55% win rate in normals with both janna and soraka. After 100 games in ranked, my win rate on both were below 25%. My practice in normals did very little to prepare me for ranked play and in fact probably reinforced bad habits that worked in normals but would never work against more skilled players.

Every skill you learn in normals can also be learned in ranked. Every bit of helpful advice I've gotten that has helped me get better has come in ranked games.

Bagebus1 votes

{quoted}

I would agree that it probably takes 500 to 1000 games to play at the skill level required to not drop off initially based on starting MMR.

However, I also think you learn faster in ranked than not. My experience is that normals are just as toxic as ranked, far less predictable, and you have no way of measuring your progress.

I went into ranked as a support with a 55% win rate in normals with both janna and soraka. After 100 games in ranked, my win rate on both were below 25%. My practice in normals did very little to prepare me for ranked play and in fact probably reinforced bad habits that worked in normals but would never work against more skilled players.

Every skill you learn in normals can also be learned in ranked. Every bit of helpful advice I've gotten that has helped me get better has come in ranked games.

Yeah the issue with norms is People are often practicing off rolls or Learning a primary if New so You might destroy first time LeeSin as Eve in norms then go to ranked and the Lee sin one trick destroys you. Ultimately the whole 500 games in a roll is just a good idea. though As you mentioned norms can teach bad habbits. Over all people just need to refine the basics, like on last hitting I think its like at least 80cs by 10 mins is the goal , Setting bar markers like that for yourself can help any new player. People over focus on trying to force kills ignore CS get behind. From there understanding how vulnerable you are when you over extend, When can you engage vs when to play passive, Learning to freeze waves. I feel like riot should make some kind of mini game kinda like https://loldodgegame.com/choose_game.html that would allow people to practice good habits.

Subdue2 votes

It doesn't matter how good someone is or isn't at the game. If you suck, you lose more often than you win. When you lose, you move down in MMR and are matched with weaker players. Eventually the players you're with are as weak as you are, and you win about as much as you lose. The mistake is looking at someone who is doing poorly in a game and thinking "This person sucks why am I with them". At that point in time, that person is statistically just as effective as you are in winning games, playing against the same level of players you're playing with.

gottmilk1012 votes

How would this work with swapping in champion select? Would I need mastery points to first pick a support's champion for him/her? Pretty hard to play the game when you are cutting people's champion pools

ZephyrDrake2 votes

You can have be a mastery 7 whatever with a billion mastery points and still go 0/10. It really wouldn't change much of anything other than screwing up people who don't mind trading champions and screwing people even harder when they are playing a role they don't usually play while autofilled.

Zyniya1 votes

what's the min level tho? 90% of all my M6 and M7 have been from 20 min they lost in champ select stomp them in lane or games where they had a troll game.

Do you mean mastery LEVEL or just mastery POINTS?

Bagebus1 votes

Couple of issues arise from this. How do you first pick for someone if its your off role and I can't even pick them there champ? Second what happens if say I'm support main but play only three champs (or at least only have mastery on 3) and 2 get banned and the other is first picked. Now I'm unable to pick a support champ, and I guess now I'm random support as what ever else I happen to have mastery on. Finally as many pointed out Mastery doesn't mean your good it just means you played a lot of that champ. Plus you can gain mastery in ARAM and URF. Oh and If a champion is majorly reworked the mastery doesn't reset. So that could lead to a odd bypass if not fixed.

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