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Should the elo system be changed?

yeldahman13·2/2/2015, 5:08:13 AM·7 votes·1,369 views

I personally think the elo system should be changed. Right now the elo system judges you by wins. That's it. So, thatmeans, a wood 5 player can que up as much as he wants, but as long as he gets lucky and gets carried in his matches (maybe a due que partner), he's alright. You don't neccessarily have to be good to win on a team based game. Your team could simply carry you even though your unskilled. Like if Le'bron carried the Jazz to the playoffs.

It should be based on k/d/a ratios, objectives taken, gold per minute, heck, even honors. If a player gets honored, you know he did good. If i forgot any things that rank should be judged by, please say it in the comments. With this system, at least if I lose 13 lp because of a troll, afker, feeder, rager, flamer, or wonderlocker, I keep 5 points of it because of my own efforts.

The elo system was made for chess, a 1v1 game. That's because a chess player loses because of his own mistakes and no one else's. The way it's being used in ranked for LoL means that the team full of people you don't know can mess up your rank, making you drop into less actually skilled teams. Causing a downward spiral.

Now, I'm not just some bronze player complaining on the forums; I am getting much better at the game. In fact, I'm starting to carry, but that's my point. No player that is wood 5 should be against a Silver or Gold level player just because that silver or gold went on a short losing streak because of bad team matching.

The current elo system does make sense for ranked team matches though. It can stay there because a formed, organized team should be one player and mind.

If anything I said anything that doesn't make sense, please tell me. And please while your here, upvote this so it can get more views, and maybe a Riot member will see it. Thank you.

21 Comments

PrinceOfStorms2/2/2015, 5:26:19 AM6 votes

It should be based on k/d/a ratios, objectives taken, gold per minute, heck, even honors

Problem with each of those are as following

KDA isn't everything. What about the tank, that gets the beautiful initiate, but dies in the process and your team aces them? You probably won't get assists in that case, because you just get deleted before you can do anything, Using KDA as the only measure of skill doesn't capture everything that can be done.

In a somewhat similar vein, there are only a limited number of objectives. Basing league off of objectives taken would cause everyone to circlejerk trying to steal it from each other (even people on the same team).

Gold per minute penalizes support and junglers, who get less, and are expected to do more.

Honors are abuseable and not everyone honors. Sometimes you also honor for silly reasons. For example, in one game that I played today, our team got curb-stomped because our midlaner never connected from the start, and we surrendered @ 20, however, they surrendered .25 seconds before us, and we got the win.

Their whole team got honors for that.

Sythriel Draken2/2/2015, 5:16:41 AM3 votes

I agree that it needs to be changed. This is my first ranked season of league and already it's very flawed. I'm getting tired of working my ass off in a game, only to have trolls throw the game, call me bad (and subsequently pissing me off for me to start making mistakes) or generally uncooperative teammates. I personally think that if you are in bronze you should be rewarded based on how well you do as an individual so that you can get out of bronze faster to get into actual competitive games with less trolls in them. I know I am greater than b5 in terms of skill, but losing 20 ranking a match after working my ass off gets frustrating after a while.

Buffalo of Lies2/2/2015, 2:47:26 PM2 votes

I gave up on taking my ranking seriously last season. As OP said, it's silly to rank the performance of an individual on the performance of others, especially when you can do so well and win most of your games and still not advance. I ended season 4 at a 50-50 win ratio (interestingly, about half of my losses only started during the latter half of the season, but that's another story), even though my KDAs were pretty strong. The way I see it, the only thing ranked does is attach a semi-arbitrary number to your performance. That's not a constructive way to encourage advancement. When I want to consider how good of a player I am, I look at my KDA's and win/loss ratio, not my ranking.

Just Jangle2/2/2015, 5:33:26 AM2 votes

Only bronzies complain about the system, because they believe is the system fault that they can't climb when actually it isn't is their own damn fault.

eyes wide shut2/3/2015, 2:57:39 PM2 votes

it's definitely a grind fest to climb, that's for sure. what frustrates me even more than the MMR system, are these horseshit "soft resets" that they do every season. How can I drop from gold 3 to silver 4 going 4-6 in placements? literally every game i play now, all 10 people are former gold players. in silver 4. because logic. it would be a lot easier to climb out of silver if I was actually, you know, playing against silver players. but I'm not. hell, theres quite a few plats down here in silver atm as well.

yeldahman132/2/2015, 10:21:15 PM1 votes

Guys, you're making it look like I have this complex of "Oh, I'm Korean level, why am i getting held down by Wood players? Rito pls!" complex. It's more of a "I know that i am in bronze because I deserve to be, I have watched enough pro streamers to know that. I'm just suggesting a system that could possibly be even better than the one we have" complex. Please, if there is a way that YOU believe the system could be better, than tell it in the comments. I know why I'm in bronze, and I am working on that. But think of a system where you don't have to go SUPER MEGA ULTRA TRYHARD MODE just to win one provisional. Or, maybe I am that stupid. Oh well, let's see where this goes. Big decisions started as small arguments.

Just Jangle2/3/2015, 6:42:51 AM1 votes

Bronze IV, sorry i can't take you serious.

SmokingPuffin2/4/2015, 3:34:35 AM1 votes

It should be based on k/d/a ratios, objectives taken, gold per minute, heck, even honors.

It's a truly awful idea. The big problem: if you create metrics to judge players, people will optimize their play for your metrics rather than trying to win. For example, if you seek a high kda player, nobody will play a split pusher and people will hate initiating fights.

The elo system was made for chess, a 1v1 game.

Elo turns out to be quite predictive for team sports. fivethirtyeight.com maintains elo ratings for NFL and NBA teams. You should check it out.

The way it's being used in ranked for LoL means that the team full of people you don't know can mess up your rank, making you drop into less actually skilled teams. **Causing a downward spiral. **

Nope, this can't actually happen. It's like poker. In any given game, the players you get paired with mostly decide the outcome. Over the long run, all the variance averages out and individual skill level shakes out.

You might get a string of bad beats and be underrated by a division, but there are zero bad challenger players and zero good bronze players. In the event you do get a bad luck streak, if it's really luck, you'll bounce back quickly once the matchmaker stops being mean to you.

No player that is wood 5 should be against a Silver or Gold level player just because that silver or gold went on a short losing streak because of bad team matching.

This is probably a true statement, but it has nothing to do with elo. Please forward this question to the matchmaker.

Starcall Casey2/2/2015, 9:43:19 AM1 votes

I looked at this post and maybe thought you guys were getting bad teams. then I looked at your Lolskill.net profiles and oh boy, it tells a differant story then "omg, teams so bad can't carry" and "I dont belong in bronze 5, I should be in Diamond." I truly feel you all need to look up youtube videos on how to become a better league player because always believing you're better wont get you that promotion higher. actually winning games and carrying not just in kills, but pressure, objectives, map control, ganks, vision, smart decisions, etc etc. Picking champs and roles you are good at helps, but if you're in a low elo, try going champs that can carry hard and don't require much skill.

I see people all the time in bronze and low silver build the wrong items and have the wrong masteries and runes. one major tip i want to give is, having the right runes and masteries along with the knowledge on how to make them will make you better by a ton. one of my old friends made it from bronze 5 to silver 3 pretty quickly because of all the tips and advise I gave him. I could see potential and after a while of me coaching him, he made it out of bronze.

Right now in season 5 am Gold 1, and I am in no way a perfect player, and nobody should think they are if they want to improve and reach a higher division. It's not your teams fault you go on losing streaks or are stuck at your elo, it's your fault for not learning from your mistakes and becoming better. if any of you truly want to become better and learn how to carry yourself out of whatever elo you are in, I'd suggesting starting at youtube and watching Trick2G because he gives amazing low elo tips on every video he does and his newest video's are even better then his older ones because he gives so much more info. if you want to go more in depth try visiting skill-capped.com/lol if you would like a hyper improving site to skyrocket your knowledge.

Remember that you can always run into bad match ups and teams but that doesn't mean those games are uncarryable and that there is no hope, because there is always hope in solo Q and you should never give up.

Have a good day everyone and good luck in Solo Q.

TL;DR, you should read the whole post if you're interested on climbing the ladder.