4 Ways to Fix Ranked in the Coming Seasons

We're going into a new season here in the coming months, and I'd like to appeal to the better angels of our nature on something we all care about - the quality in Ranked games. Because Ranked outcomes have a lingering effect on a player, I think it should be given some more thoughtful consideration on what we let fly in Ranked, and what we don't.

To that end I've made some suggestions below as to how I think we can best clean up Ranked more than it currently is (i.e. not absolutely but relatively) and give people who go to ranked a better assessment of their skill than we currently get. I've lobbied for any of these suggestions for awhile, but given both that we're walking into a new season, and that I've lost more than a few games recently to either AFKs, or text book feeding I thought it would be a good time to present them comprehensively as a "please do this for next season."

• Incentivize Normals.

If everyone were decent, people would only play ranked when they were prepared and when they wanted to climb. Everyone isn't decent, though, and without any real incentive to play Normals, people are making decisions based on subjective self-interest. If you want a low stress game, maybe you play Normals. If you want to troll, you get more bang for your buck in ranked.

Heretofore, these are some of the prime movers in terms of ranked selection. My problem here is that customer satisfaction (CS) isn't being valued correctly, because it's assuming queue time is a major component of CS. But if you apply that to other sectors, it doesn't add up. McDonalds is faster than Ruth's Chris, and while people might say they're satisfied with both, that doesn't mean they value each product equally.

To resolve this issue, you should do the following:

• Ranked no longer provides chests, levels, keys, or quest completion
• Ranked no longer gives you BE
• Normals no longer has Autofill
• Normals should gain "All Except" fill option meaning they can select 4 roles instead of 2 or 5.

The goal here isn't obscure. Make Normals a place where games come quick, fun is expected, and non-winning goals are accepted. Ranked, conversely, should be a sparse game mode that provides a merit-based evaluation of your player and not much else.

So long as Normals is ranked-lite, you're going to have substantially more behavior problems.

• Fix Matchmaking

You can't fix matchmaking until you incentivize Normals because until you pick off the low-hanging fruit of the non-try-hards you can't mitigate the risk of people showing up to not win. Eliminating even 30% of the non-serious players in ranked would be a marked improvement. I don't blame people for wanting to complete quests, but if they do it in Ranked (to me) that's trolling.

Therefore, as it currently stands, disparities in ranked play and talent seem heightened because someone who is 3 brackets below you and isn't trying isn't the same as someone who is three brackets below you and is. They know their champs, they read a guide, they've played with them before, they're familiar with matchups.

For actionable items, you need to start considering champ selection in LP assignments. No amount of measuring is going to determine if someone is good. Period. No exceptions. So we don't need to determine how good someone could be, but how familiar they are with what is bad. Mastery mandates are often met with some amount of pushback for the usual, beyond-a-shadow-of-a-doubt reasons. "What if I'm on my alt and I select a champ with no mastery!" the folks cry, defending the .02% that both smurfs, and shouldn't be thrown into traffic.

This is resolved by adding modifiers to experience with a champ.+/-2/3/5 LP if you're Master 5/6/7 on wins and losses. i'm old and I'm tired of a broken system, so I'm not going to argue with people on this issue. Take it or leave it. I've heard all of your arguments before "But what if the trolls play until Mastery 5?!?!" I'm sure you're capable of doing the math. Those rare trolls who enter into ranked, despite no incentives, and who play enough until Mastery level 5 so they don't lose as much LP can squeeze in an extra game or two. Good for them.

The lock on the door to your house doesn't keep all intruders out. But it creates enough of a barrier that it keeps most folks from trying. This is the same concept.

• Separate DuoQueue

I play with people in LoL a lot. It's usually the same two guys but occasionally there's a larger group.The advantage of being on the same page as your allies is as much of an advantage as picking a champ you've played 5 times before is trolling. Which is to say it's an advantage/trolling that is currently not given the appropriate weight to it's effect on game outcome.

I personally notice this advantage most painfully when the top lane and the jungler are not only on Comms but have synergy. I would guess that you could climb out of your bracket with ease if a majority of your games had this combo simply because of geography. Top is the easiest to get into a base, it has the Herald, and even if the enemy jungler is competent, they aren't constantly camping top lane.

Again, this is predicated upon both Incentivizing Normals and Fixing Matchmaking. Having duo's go to Flex doesn't fix anything without the other two.

• Create Ranked Bans

Finally, you need to find a way to let people know that while they can play the game however they want, if they choose their own path, and it leads to multiple failures, then they need to reconsider things because it's tantamount to trolling. I've made this accusation a few times here, so I think it warrants explanation.

If you run down lane and die repeatedly. We think that's detrimental to game play and you get banned. If you take Smite while being the support. We think that's detrimental to game play and you can get banned. If you tell the enemy what your team is doing. We think that's detrimental to game play and you get banned.

All three of those examples don't blow up a nexus. But statistically they result in a loss. But so do playing champs you don't know and trying strats with items that don't work. So why isn't that bannable?

This shouldn't lock in a meta. If you win, then there's no problem, and even if wins come intermittently, I don't think that should be met with a Ranked Ban. But the game needs a way to tell players, who seemingly don't get that they're part of the problem that, in fact, they are the problem. You could measure this against all other players win records to say "jeez, these other guys are at least winning 30% of their games, and you're not...so..."

Ranked Bans should be that. A 3/5/10 game benching from Ranked - but not Normals - to suggest to the player without preventing them from improving that they need to go back to the drawing board. What I find funny about this suggestion (and I've made it prior though mostly as a resolution for Bronze 5 where you can't suck your way to a lower devision) is that they went forward with Chat bans, despite A.) having a mute function and B.) chat being the least problematic portion of toxicity (AFKs, and feeding being worse).

If you're willing to ban chat, why not try ranked. Where it matters?

• Conclusion

What I'm really trying to do here is create conditions that lead to better game play. I'm not attempting to solve every problem with the game, so I'd hope feedback can be seen through the prism of improvement not perfection. In all the examples and suggestions I've made above, I've offered the moderate version of what I believe would be correct. I'm spympathtic to Riot needing to find a middle ground in which new players can learn and enjoy themselves and old players get a fair shake - that's not an easy task and I'm certain that nothing they do will be accepted by a strong majority (except for that Smite auto-assign, that was great).

I'll leave you with this. I worked the phones like a telethon to get friends to play with me. By and large it was unsuccessful. Most of my friends have now having children and don't have time for the distractions they already have, nevermind new ones. But the few times I've had someone join me, the experience was less than pleasant. I'm not without empathy for the folks who create this game and attempt to keep it up, running, and well received. But some of these suggestions I consider to be low-hanging fruit, and I think will lead to a more enjoyable game-play experience for everyone involved.

I thank you for your attention, and I'm looking forward to both the next season, and some much needed Maokai buffs.

All the best, RookPusher

P.S. I'm willing to sell out and say everything is fine if you give me the name TowerPusher, which someone had the audacity to take before me.