Fix League of Legend's Ranked System
I've complained about League of Legends Ranked system flaws for the last 2-3 years, but I've seen players complain as early as 2011. To date, I have yet to see a Riot employee address the flaws in it's Ranked system. What's worst is that some players aren't even aware of the flaws and feel the system works as intended. I continue to disagree and will start keeping a log of other players who also have issues with Riot's Ranked System. I hope this grows legs and pressures Riot to focus more time on it's Matchmaking and ELO systems. I feel improving the Ranked system will make for more positive experiences for players.
1.) 08/06/2014
What the Hell are you Talking About? Short Version: Riot's current Ranking and League system, because it is poorly tuned and has a massive blob of players stuck in one zone of its ranking system creates an incredibly negative and un-enjoyable experience for a significant portion of LoL's population. The current system only serves the Top Tier of players in any decent fashion - it essentially leaves the rest of the playerbase out to dry. Its nature actively discourages improvement, rather than encouraging it.
Long Version: Riot's current League system is divided into 5 Leagues - Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum and Diamond (Challenger is its own little thing) - each further divided into 5 Divisions (Bronze V, IV, III, II, I etc.). Each Division and League Promotion in Divisions and Leagues requires a win streak of a certain number in a special set of games called a "Promotional Series". The ostensible goal of this system is to create Ranking/Grade of players with Diamond containing the best (non-professional) players in the game while Bronze is supposed to contain the least skilled players in the game. A pretty standard idea, no?
In order to illustrate what has gone wrong with this system, I must show/explain something else first. Just we all familiar, here is a Standard Bell Curve. http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/board/attachment.php?attachmentid=1038618&d=1407364936
A Bell Curve is used to show the ranking/distribution of a group of "things" in relation to each other - essentially where they stand in relation to each other. The center point (the one right in the middle) is supposed to be the "Normal", "Most Average" or "Center" of the distribution. You ideally want to have 68% of your subjects to fall within 1 SDs (Standard Deviations) of this center point, 95% within 2 SDs, and 97% within 3 SDs. In addition, you want them to be distributed evenly on either side of the center point - if they weigh too heavily to one side this is generally and indication something has gone wrong.
This kind of distribution is essentially what all ranking systems in the world are working towards, including Starcraft, League of Legends, Street Fighter, Halo etc. However, League has failed quite miserably at this. How you ask? Take a look at the distribution of players for just North America (from Season 3, as Season 4 has not ended yet). http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/board/attachment.php?attachmentid=1038616&d=1407364793 (Source: NerfPlz.com - http://www.nerfplz.com/2013/03/distr...ers-on-na.html)
Since League, like any other ranking system, is trying to use a standard Bell Curve (since, you know, that is how you measure distribution), that would mean that Diamond 1 should constitute 1% of the playerbase (rounded up), as should Bronze 5 (rounded up). Gold 3 would be the middle or center point of the entire curve - and a Standard Deviation would be every 4/5 divisions on other side of Gold 3. Compare the two pictures. It should be immediately obvious something has gone terribly, terribly wrong.The distributions is EXTREMELY wrong. Less than 10% of players in the Ranked Ladder are within +1SD of the middle of the curve (+1SD would include Gold II-Plat II). Only 24% of the Ranked population is within -1SD of the middle (-1SD would be Silver III - Gold IV). The area between -1SD and +1SD is supposed to contain 68% (70%, rounded up) of the population, but it contains only half (34%) of that! In addition, the -2SD (Bronze III - Silver IV) contains over 34% of the game's population by itself, the single largest block in the game Its only supposed to have about 14%! No matter how you try and jigger the numbers up to suit the information......the system that is supposed to be ranking players is not doing its job.
So What is Wrong? There are several things, but since players aren't exactly privvy to how the system works, we can only rely on the personal information we have from playing and knowledge of how ELO works, etc. However, just a cursory look at how the game works (as above) and knowledge from Rioters exposes the flaws.
1: The system, after your Provisional Matches, which it uses to determine your "Rank" assigns you to a small "area" where it thinks you belong and attempts to force you into this position. The entire time your are playing Ranked you are attempting to defy this prediction. Essentially, when you finish your Provisionals (your first 10 Ranked Matches) the system "thinks" it knows where you belong and puts you there. It gives you a little leeway, but through LP gains/losses attempts to force you to stay in this position. It will only reconsider this idea if you go on a massive win streak (win streaks are going to become a theme you'll see) that proves its original conclusion wrong.And we're not talking 5 or 6 wins in a row - more like 15 or 20. The system is very, very rigid and assumes it knows a great deal more about players than it really does and that there is very little room for change or improvement. It used to be quite common to get "locked" where regardless of your win streak or win/loss ratio you would gain a pitiful amount of LP but still lose a large amount if you lost a game. Thankfully Riot did largely remove this system.
2: The game promotes wins streaks and luck, not consistent play or improvement until you reach the higher tiers. The game is heavily focused on win streaks over consistent play. It takes a win streak to get into a promotional, another win streak to win a promotional, and then 6 more win streaks to graduate from a division. Essentially a player who goes on Massive Win/Loss Streaks (IE: Wins 12 games in a row, loses 10 in a row) will advance faster AND more consistently than someone who constantly goes 2-1, 3-1, 3-2 etc. - this holds true until you reach the area around Gold II+ by most accounts (where it becomes harder to win than lose in most cases). Or, in simple terms - if you want to advance in League its better to be lucky rather than good, because unless you're extremely good at the game advancement is going to be incredibly difficult - the lucky player (Massive Win/Loss Streaks Guy) will actually statistically get more successful Promotionals than Mr. Consistency because luck will advance you faster and more consistently than skill.
3: Because it is so hard to advance and the populations are so skewed, matchmaking cannot possibly work properly except at the highest levels of the system. This is both its own cause and effect repeating to no end. The win-streak heavy system has essentially collapsed on itself, making it even harder to advance making win streaks even more important, making it even harder to advance, and so on. Essentially, because the bottom of the curve has become such a mess of different skills, experience, players, playstyles and other variables the game cannot hope to accurately set up good or fair games - there are so many people in a single lower level division/block that the block in question ceases to mean anything or have any defining traits. You can't make a good division when you cannot possibly come up a good, stable definition of that division.
4: Because players are rated as a team and not individuals, there are many factors out of their control that affect their rating beyond their own ability, further increasing the affect of luck and win streaks. This continues until the higher tiers where players are far more consistent with each other.
Doesn't really need and explanation. Unless you're supremely better than your teammates AND the enemy team (once again, favoring the elite players), their performance can and will have a notable amount of control over your rating. I know its getting a bit heavy. Here is a cute picture of Lulu and a Poro for reading this far. http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/board/attachment.php?attachmentid=1038577&d=1407362123
So Why Does This Affect Player Behavior? There are many things that contribute to this - not least of which is Riot's obsessive focus on Esports and competition. But the underlying problem is this; the players know the system is BS. When they see people getting massive lucky streaks and advancing while they practice day in and out and barely crawl along, they know its BS. They know the win streak system is BS and that it doesn't make any sense they have maintain a near 70-80% winrate to advance at any notable pace. They know its BS when they cannot accurately gauge their own skill or the skill of the enemy until after the game is over because the skill difference and player variation is so wide you might as well just be tossing darts at a board. Essentially, the feeling that so much of the game may not be in your control (randomness in teammates), the need for massive winstreaks to advance (more luck/randomness or ungodly improvement) and the unknown of your enemy every game ("Are they really the same level as I am, or are they someone better stuck down here by bad luck?") create a baseline level of frustration every match, even if you win. Many people can tell with it.....many can't. And the many that can't make the problems worse for themselves and everyone else - as some people (Lyte, literally everyone else) might have noticed. Basically, because there are so many baseline issues in the ranking system, everyone comes prepared to have a bad time, and self-fulfilling prophecy and all that.
Even the higher level players who climb out seem to have this admission that the rank system is **** until you hit the higher levels - and that they only got out because they're already supremely good at the game or because they found a way around the **** (or both). Even their advice often comes across as sarcastic or condescending because most players can't help but think "Have even been down here buddy? That isn't what play is like at all down here.", which isn't helpful to the community. The winstreak-heavy nature of the game ALSO gives trolls and ragers far more power than normal, since they know their bad behavior is going to hurt people A LOT more than it normal would. And unfortunately, Riot's approach to solving this issue is a lot more stick-based than carrot-based.....which rarely ever works.
So Why Does This Server Higher-Ranked Players? If you look just at the higher Gold into Plat and Diamond, you'll notice they have a much more normal, though depressed Bell Curve. Statistically (and logically) their games are going to be more consistent and close in nature. Essentially, the Ranked System works up there while it fails at the bottom because people are much more equally distributed and thus of similar skill, while the lower levels are a mosh pit of insanity and differences in comparison. The League system as it stands serves them extremely well because it allows them to advance to their "higher" tiers extremely quickly and then reach a more consistent plateau, while moderate/lower end players are left in a quagmire. So You're Saying Something Must Be Done. But What?
The basic idea of the Leagues is sound. However, a few key changes could be made to make the Ranking System better, less luck-focused and less rigid. There are plenty of ideas, but the ones I prefer would be ones that even out the severe imbalance in the distribution and reduce player frustration.
2.) 12/12/2011
"So when I'm not playing sc2, I like to play LoL. League of legends uses an elo rating system to rate his players basically like how chess players are ranked. Theres a problem with that, chess is an individual game, League of Legends is five. The people on this game are generally brain dead apparently as well. I was 1500 elo last season and now I'm below 1250. Why? I don't know, I guess my ability to carry 4 other idiots on my team is terrible. I mean, how is it fair that I lose rating when I completely win my lane mid with significantly more creep score and at like 3 or 4 kills on the other mid. What annoys me more is that in these game, my team gets destroyed. The kill score would be like 6 to 18 with me accounting for all the kills or something. I win my solo lane more times than not and at the very least I stay even yet people just love to die and die and die. They're like that marine group who keeps running into a siege tank line. I don't know, maybe its late and I'm tired or something but I simply fail to see how anyone mid laner could account for top and bottom dieing twice in the first five minutes of the game or something. Oh and before someone tells me I should gank other lanes, I try, a lot more than I should tbh and it's pretty freakin hard to gank fed lanes.
edit: It's funny cause before this, I always believed people could carry themselves out of their elo but tbh I've won too many lanes just to have my team feed to believe that anymore."
3.) 01/17/2014 I just started to play LoL again. I started Ranked back in season 2 and didn't really know how to play the game that much which lead me to getting Bronze 5. I came back about 3 weeks ago to ranked and started playing hardcore. I went to Bronze 5 to 1 in 2 week. Those in elo hell know that pretty hard to do when your not pro. I ended the pre-season for in bronze 1 With 1091 LoLKing score. I just played my 10 matches. I went 7-3 and got stuck at bronze 1 with 1080 LoLKing score. How is that possible? All the teams we beat had higher MMR ranks then me and my duo. Most of them ended with silver ranking and we even played some gold. I am not saying I should be PLAT by any means but I know I play at least at a GOLD level. You can look up my stats if you would like positive K/D and W/L ratio. The story getting better. My duo ended the pre-season in silver 4. We won 7-3 and he got sent back to bronze 2. HOW is that possible. He was higher ranking then me and I got place ahead of him when he both played same teams and won the same games. Please look at the teams we played. Everyone had a higher MMR then us. I AM PRETTY SURE RANKING SYSTEM IS BROKEN! Also remember I am noting saying I am pro and should be PLAT so plz don't flame me. I just saying I play at least at a GOLD level and how am I ever going to play with players the same level if this happens.
My stats http://www.lolking.net/summoner/na/31168592 Ended with 1091 and then 7-3 and places Bronze 1 with 1080 LoLking score MY duo http://www.lolking.net/summoner/na/34353441#profile 1235 LoLking score and then 7-3 places him in bronze 2
** 4.) 02/30/2015**
Hello Riot and whomever else is frustrated with ranked,
I will start off with saying, I have been playing League since the middle of season 3, which is not too long ago, so I'm not a not professional. I enjoy the competition and am involved with fantasy LCS and regularly follow the matches (NA Rules). I love the high speed action and all of the calculations that go into every single play. I LOVE the artwork, the community, the animations, the lore, and all of the diverse champions. Season 4 I was in Silver 4 and would be able to fight the battles, win some loose some, the normal way the game works. In all honestly, I have put well over 1000 games into league and have a passion for the game and believe in what it stands for.
As I began to play with my friends that were newer to the game, I noticed the skill level was lower, which was a good thing for the incoming summoners to learn and adapt to the game. After many long nights and close wins and looses with the team, I began to solo que again. I noticed the summoner skill began to decrease, the well known tactics began to fade and more and more B5 mistakes arose. Becoming frustrated with the the reversed progress, I quit playing with my newbie friends and began to solo que to try to boost my elo back to where I had worked so hard to to get it. Too bad it was already too late.
This is where I begin to get to my point. It also turns out that players in Silver players won't survive, with any sanity left, in bronze either. The play style is so massively different the two ranks cannot possibly mix (hence B5, B4, B3, etc right?). Wrong! they are all so closely related no major change happens until silver anyway... This made me, as an experienced player, frustrated and longed to que with summoners of my similar skill set once again. This never again happened. The bronze summoner, couldn't support properly, went in at the wrong times, fell for the baits, became wayyyyyyyy too greedy and would give up first blood because of a lvl 3 tower dive in Renekton and get stunned because they have no clue what has happening. other lanes didn't know how to fight champs and would feed until became stronger than all 5 of use together. This made games impossible to win, I constantly found myself trying to teach others players how to read situations and properly build champions rather than actually playing the game (no does go mid with a , yes it happened...) . These situations occurred in ranked games!! I stayed away form blind pick to avoid this, it seems it carries over like cancer. I could go through 50 examples in all positions on the rift with scenarios much like this one. This is the epitome of the new B5 player, not a previous S4/5 player dragged down by poor matchmaking and unskilled players.
To finish this ongoing rant and try get some support rather than post a sob story, the ranking system MUST become more complex and integrated with the summoners knowledge, awareness, reactions, performance in game, and skill with the actual champion. I feel, and some of my fellow summoners too, that the ranked needs just as big of a rework as the Rift did. Make it more difficult to become ranked, take into account more detailed information, make the rank about the summoner overall, not whether they can sit back and ks 75% of the time become the only one that can keep up with their team, try to 1v5 and well ...yeah. It makes me feel like I'm Johnny Knoxville in The Ringer.
Riot you have already put strong tools in place to have the ability to track incredibly advanced data in every single game (tribunal, detailed match history, etc). This will assist summoners, just like me, that wish to progress their skill but cant win any ranked games because of all the rest of the team being miles below their skill level. I believe in league and I am enjoying the direction the game is taking, but there needs to be a way for experienced players to increase LP or reduce the amount of LP lost. Make the amount of LP differ from summoner to summoner in the match based off of their performance not the win or the loss. This LP team bonus is a step in the direction.
Finally as I said before, I'm no professional. I'm a student in college just trying to enjoy his favorite video game.I'm open for any other information you guys want to put, and suggestions. I'm reaching out to the community to see if I'm the only on in this situation. I want to save my desire to play the game, but I dread playing, I hate being place in a lobby where i know I'm not matched in knowledge awareness or even desire. I grind on to try and reach the Valhalla of skill and competition. That is what league is about, that is what ranked is about, and that has always brought every single one of you summoners back and back again. Its the desire to compete and better yourself.
**5.) 01/30/2015 ** My girlfriend is not an amazing league player by any means, but its better than average holding a silver rank all last season. With the new placements she landed in bronze 5. While others i know who are much worse who WON LESS PLACEMENT GAMES WITH WORSE SCORES are ranked higher. This seems completely wrong and unfair. I've even noticed pro and ex pro players ranking much much lower than they ever have before. Something is screwed up here!
6.) 10/9/2013
Hello. I'd like to point out why, in my humble opinion, the current Ranked Games Divisions and League system is broken and not reflecting the actual players' skills.I'd much appreciate your feedbacks, since i know i may make some mistakes (i talk on my personal and my friends' experience) and i won't have any problem admitting i was wrong, if someone would point me out the things are different from what i believe.
To start, let's consider this situation: 20 ranked games played, 10 games won and 10 lost.
• 1st Scenario: one wins 10 games in a row, then he loses the rest of the matches. With the first 10 qualifying games won, one could be put in Gold Division 2 or 3 (i have a friend in Gold 3 after 8/10 games won). After the 10 losses streak, one should at most get demoted to the previous Division.
• 2nd Scenario: one loses 10 games in a row, then he wins the rest of the matches. With the first 10 qualifying games lost, one should be put in Bronze Division 5 (more or less). After the 10 games winning streak, one should be promoted to the next one or two Division (i think).
Basically, the two players would have the same number of games played and the same win/lose ratio but, at the end of the 20 games, the first one would be Gold Division, the second one would be Bronze. Is this a good system for ranking players on a personal skill basis? I don't think so.
The first 10 qualifying games are a terrible way to start ranking players and it's the main reason why we can find really good players stuck in low Divisions as well as unskilled players in higher ones, ultimately compromising the much needed balance in any rank system.
7.) 07/03/2013
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVctS6AgVqc
8.) 07/12/2013
I am aware of the stigma of "finding a scapegoat" in LoL, on the other hand I'm about to disregard that right here right now.
Because this game is a team game and you HAVE TO rely on other players to perform to get wins. And getting win get you ranked higher and higher. But here is my issue. Sure people are "pursuing challenger" but those of us stuck in Bronze (and even Silver) have a serious problem. For me, I watch lots of pro play of multiple leagues, conceive strategies and different builds for champions, and have a generally high knowledge level of the game (pretty much followed Compy's example for ranked). I know what works and what doesn't. But I am stuck in Bronze V. Sure I will not push all of the blame away from myself, but what am I suppose to do for a team of randoms that seriously shouldn't be playing ranked (or PvP for that matter). They jump into ranked, for whatever reason, and became a ball and chain for the players trying to miraculously come out of the black hole that Bronze is. Riot can keep the system but make a few changes. LvL 30 means absolutely nothing except that u have played for at least 1 and a half maybe 2 months. They should keep track of the tenure you have with LoL (I personally have been playing for about 2 years on LoL), much like Xbox does for XBL. That number on the gold bar with your gamertag is how many years you have been an XBL gold member. Use that tenure and make that how you get placed as well as performance. Weed out the people that drag down players that know what the **** they are doing. Because I honestly believe I am better than B5. After almost 1000 ranked games still being in B5 I can say that this is ELOHELL, that is a thing. I don't even know why I play ranked to be honest, it seems rather pointless. But when I do get a series, it is exciting, just as Riot wanted it to be. The Excitement is short lived when I get demoted 6 games later... winning 2-3 of them. "Its hard to get demoted" they said. Why is this so hard, am I just suppose to become HULK and carry every gawhdamn game?I thought this is a team game, why can't I be with people that understand the game like I do? For all the good that Riot does with this game, this is something that needs a lot of work.
I will watch my team, that is behind, start pushing a lane. Get caught, die. And this is a normal thing, happening multiple times a game. Or, for instance, I am clearly free farming a lane (I pinged it and chatted it) and my team chooses to engage a 4v5 and lose the fight. After I chatted and pinged out that fact I WASN'T with the team.
9.) 02/01/2013
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WVDWyjqU1A
10.) 10/08/2015
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zf3IKZy61ho
11.) 05/16/2015
This video isn't about matchmaking or ranked, however it does address MANY of the issues I have the with the broken Report/Punishment System.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqwbtZT2mD0
Post Revisions
- 11/30/15: I Added a few more videos.
- 12/09/15: As expected, I received the usual trolls offering no constructive information and ultimately overlooking the post's intent. I add bold to the dates. I will take more time to format this post to allow for scrolling or easier reading. The first entry in the post has a lot of information in itself you one prefers not to read all.
