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Ranked Placements no-sense, impact on community, and possible solutions

HeavenlyPervers·2/18/2016, 10:18:18 PM·1 votes·1,266 views

Hello Summoners, Hello Riot!

I'm here to give feedback about this season placements and the negative impact of this system, and suggestions how to fix it. I'm writing here as suggested by someone from the riot team, after a ticket i submitted about wrong placements in ranked.

We all know that the placements this season have been a mess for everyone, and some of the consequences are:

  • it made me and many other players not play ranked, and wait until Riot fixes the problem (i only played after 1 month).
  • It made many players consider quitting LOL (me included), after getting placed 1-2 leagues below the league they achieved last season.
  • it demotivates players, when they see their efforts are not been compensated, and in some cases it's even humiliating and offensive from riot's part.

In my particular case: I have been placed in Bronze 5, after 7W/3L, was bronze 1 last season, i got mainly A scores. I won my first 4 games. If i was in bronze 5 and not in provisionals, that would mean i've had started series for promo to bronze 4 (3 losses, 3 wins remaining). so i should be bronze 4 at least. I got promoted to bronze 4 in just 1 day (only lost 2 games so far, one had an afk).

My thoughts about this matter are:

  • I could have just AFK all my 10 games and the result would be absolutely the same. (why did i try hard to win, and gave my best, to get placed at the lowest division possible (bronze 5), after 7 wins and A scores? )
  • Why do placement matches exist if i'm going to be placed at bronze 5? Riot made me loose my time.
  • I don't understand why in the korean server calling someone "silver" is humiliating, and here they put you in bronze 5...

Riot's motives, and my answers (after i submitted a ticket because i thought my issue was a bug):

  • "We're sorry to hear that u got placed in a lower... (blablabla)" - It's not lower, it's the lowest possible, even with 7 wins, and mainly A scores
  • "We made it easier to climb this season so you should get back fast... (blablabla)" - Making it easier to go up doesn't justify completely wrong placements -"Our system was set up this way to prevent abuse" - Really? I don't see how. I'm the one feeling abused here, as if the laugh was on me

Conclusion: Disable ranked placements, at least in some divisions, they make no sense anymore if you're gonna auto-place people in lower divisions and leagues, no matter how good or bad they perform Make your placements more friendly, everyone seems to agree you screwed up this season, by the amount of complains i've been seeing here and on facebook. It's time to admit your mistakes if you want to improve the game and make it better for everyone just like you have to do in low elo.. admit your mistakes and learn from them.

Summoners, feel free to share your thoughts, struggles and suggestions if you have something constructive to say about this matter (please avoid only complaining about your placement, that brings nothing new. i'm trying to help riot improve this for everyone).

See you in the Rift!

HeavenlyPervers

17 Comments

Live2LetDie2/18/2016, 10:26:34 PM3 votes

Every year the same crying. Diamond/ master/ challenger are all placed in plat, plat gold, gold silver, etc.. It should be known by know where you are roughly going to get placed.

Calabok2/18/2016, 11:44:41 PM3 votes

It's fine now. What's done is done

Chaotic Sage2/18/2016, 10:21:29 PM2 votes

Gonna file this under the yearly -new season people whining about ranked placement system- that I'll continue to not actually read cause they all sound the same after the 2nd or 3rd. They've actually improved how ranked works with the free win system so getting demoted sucks less. I'm gonna continue being happy about that and not ask for more since I believe the way they do it makes sense.

Iqqi2/18/2016, 10:56:27 PM1 votes

Riot has had years to fix this. They are not smart enough to do so.

DrCyanide2/18/2016, 11:19:27 PM1 votes

I was Silver 2, I'm Silver 5. My wife was Silver 5, she's now Bronze 4.

From an experience standpoint, we should expect to be placed lower than we finished last year. You'd have an issue with players feeling like they'd plateaued if they were at the same level. If that's your cap, why play more ranked that season? Just give up after placements and get your reward. Or the even worse scenario, players could lose a few games and started slipping into lower ranks than they were, enforcing the "don't play ranked" mentality. Starting lower we've got the mentality of "I was X rank before, I can get back there again!" which motivates you to play ranked.

So if we have to start lower, the real question is if we should have placement matches at all or if we should just be placed at a lower spot and told "work up from here". I think that's what's really brought into question. Should I just be demoted 3 tiers? 5? Do you drop players an equal amount of ranks or do you drop them a fixed MMR value? Do you drop them individually instead of a sweeping change to all, and how would you compute that? How does that effect the pre-season, when fewer players play ranked? Do players feel compelled to play more in the pre-season because they'll be randomly dropped a few ranks later?

There is no good answer to these questions. All of them have their nice things and their flaws.

TL;DR: No matter what system you pick, there will be people who feel cheated by it.