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I just heard new players default MMR is now iron

ValyrianBlade··10 votes·24,096 views

I'm frankly really disappointed in this decision.

Since the creation of League, new players have not needed to climb through the depths of bronze. If you did well enough in placements, you could start in medium-high silver or even gold.

I myself went 8-2 in my first ever placements back in season 5 (after playing almost a year in normal draft, waiting to have enough for solid Rune pages, etc...) And got placed in Silver 1. I subsequently felt that I had some games with bad teams and fell to silver 2 0lp, then climbed to gold 5 by the end of the season.

The only time I've ever been bronze was after the dynamic queue fiasco, where I placed bronze 1 in the new dynamic queue for going 5-5 in placements after they brought back solo queue (where I placed gold). And it took me more games to climb from bronze 1 to silver 5 than it took me to go from silver 5 to gold 5 afterwards. Playing in bronze was a nightmare - too many games were simply Unwinnable.

Now, all new players will go through that - and I don't believe any warning was given. I'm picturing if I had started in late season 7 and did the same strategy of playing a lot and being roughly gold quality before entering ranked to have heard this news. My climb was just made about 200-250 games longer due to my not starting ranked a few weeks ago instead.

Honestly, that's a terrible policy. A standard was there for a long time. If you want to change it, that's your choice. That sets a standard of "enter ranked asap" because you're going to start at the bottom anyways. No sense actually preparing and entering ranked knowing what you're doing.

If you're making that kind of change, it really should have been well advertised. Existing non-ranked players should have had the option to be treated like everyone before them was in their first ever placements.

45 Comments

Bobloser35553 votes

If that is true I think it only counts for really new player and the normal mmr for older players that have not played ranked will have an influence. So I think that decision to place new players into Iron is a good thing.

Dynikus2 votes

There's no reason to assume a player playing their first placement matches is far below average skill level. I'm not sure how things stack up with new ranks, but silver 4 used to be the average skill level, which is why fresh accounts were placed there.

Bobloser35554 votes

IMO New level 30 players average around B4 not S4.

Dynikus1 votes

Your opinion based on what, exactly? There's no reason to assume they're significantly below average skill level. iirc, bronze is (was) something like the bottom 12% of players. Bronze 4 was like bottom 3%. New ranks haven't been around long enough to tell where people will land, but it's safe to assume iron will be pretty far below average. Also not everyone plays ranked as soon as they hit level 30. So many people advise against it with reason.

Bobloser35553 votes

Well I think average players have played much more games than a level 30-40 that just started ranked. That's why assume that yes, level 30 players are far below average.

Dynikus1 votes

Number of games played isn't any indication of someone's skill. A player on either a 2nd account or with a lot of previous MOBA experience (say, a person coming over from Dota for example) or even just someone who picks things up fairly quickly can have a much higher skill level than someone who's been hard stuck bronze for hundreds/thousands of games. I have friends that have been bronze since season 3 with hundreds of games played every season, and they simply don't really actively try to improve, so they never climb. On the other end, I have friends who are relatively new and are already silver/gold.

9yrsLATEtoLeague2 votes

Yup I started this game end of Oct 2018 and had previous MOBA experience from HoN. I did my rank placements before Thanksgiving holiday and went 8-2 and placed gold 3. Still have a lot to learn like what all the champions do/what to build etc but I can learn quick. Right now I am learning jungle

Malix Farwin1 votes

{quoted}

There's no reason to assume a player playing their first placement matches is far below average skill level. I'm not sure how things stack up with new ranks, but silver 4 used to be the average skill level, which is why fresh accounts were placed there.

Iron is a lot easier to climb out of then Silver. Sticking them in silver is just setting them up for failure as well those who climbed to silver.

DearPear5 votes

{quoted}

If that is true I think it only counts for really new player and the normal mmr for older players that have not played ranked will have an influence. So I think that decision to place new players into Iron is a good thing.

It'll just move the overall average to that place, making the bell distribution more of a weird summit distribution at point 0.

The rank shows the skill level of a player in a relative way. You know that a bronze 4 is worse than a bronze 2, and a gold 5 is better than a bronze 2. But you DO NOT KNOW what exactly, in absolute terms, is the skill level of a bronze 2. If every players get better at the game in a similar fashion, then tomorrow's bronze 2 will be better that today's, but they'll still be bronze 2.

Considering that for everygame there is 5 winners and 5 losers, it becomes obvious that the precise middle of the skill level distribution is precisely where unranked players's MMR starts. This is just mathematical.

If you move that starting MMR lower, then you'll lower everyone's MMR in the long run.

Bobloser35551 votes

{quoted}

It'll just move the overall average to that place, making the bell distribution more of a weird summit distribution at point 0.

The rank shows the skill level of a player in a relative way. You know that a bronze 4 is worse than a bronze 2, and a gold 5 is better than a bronze 2. But you DO NOT KNOW what exactly, in absolute terms, is the skill level of a bronze 2. If every players get better at the game in a similar fashion, then tomorrow's bronze 2 will be better that today's, but they'll still be bronze 2.

Considering that for everygame there is 5 winners and 5 losers, it becomes obvious that the precise middle of the skill level distribution is precisely where unranked players's MMR starts. This is just mathematical.

If you move that starting MMR lower, then you'll lower everyone's MMR in the long run.

Well, you are right that where the new player starts is the average elo, that does not mean the new player has the average elo skill. Look at chess, online chess for example some sites start you at 1500 elo, but almost no new player can keep that elo because it considers the new players who already play chess on different sites or in real life so it is the average of all skills not the average of the new players. You are correct that if the new player starts at a lower point it will lower the elo average of players, so perhaps it is better to start the new players at Bronze elo and then they get adjusted to either silver or iron over the course of their next 30 or so games. Again, LoL can learn from chess that the first few games win or lose have a bigger effect on your elo, so you get to your correct elo faster. LoL has mmr for that purpose but I believe they have some flaws in their parameters because it felt off to me many times. Of course with time it will still reflect your approximate skill level....I could go into more detail but too lazy now.

FantomBandit2 votes

I disagree. It makes getting smurfs in iron so much easier so iron is just going to be a true and complete shitfest now.

Bobloser35551 votes

yes it might, but before this silvers had to put up with complete noobs that were not even high Bronze level players.

GFREEMEN3 votes

New players HAVE to start at the bottom.

The old system created a waterfall of bad players in S3-B3 making it so those in those ranked had to swim up stream with a stronger down steam current.

Dynikus2 votes

Where did you hear new player mmr was iron? Are you sure it's not just a bug with the new ranked system?

HarunaHideaki3 votes

There you can hear it, and even if u are 8-0 your promos games, you still get iron 1 but ur mmr is gold or plat, so in the end you become iron player with gold or plat mmr ( GG)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-bHek6B-10&amp=&feature=youtu.be&amp=&t=1400

Sukishoo1 votes

{quoted}

There you can hear it, and even if u are 8-0 your promos games, you still get iron 1 but ur mmr is gold or plat, so in the end you become iron player with gold or plat mmr ( GG)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-bHek6B-10&amp=&feature=youtu.be&amp=&t=1400

Yup. I just finished a fresh account last night went 4/4 overall and Iron II 10LP with "1,522MMR" as the estimated MMR that Op.gg says (which is Gold 4). So it's kind of funny. Makes me think that if you can continue winning from this point that it will skip a lot faster (should that MMR be semi-accurate)

LVB2 votes

Wait a second... To get the rank you deserve and the rank the game think you deserve you're gonna need to play 75-150 more game than what you're suppose to ? AND you're playing through the deep iron division on your way to bronze with and against people that has your supposed rank ?... So if you're Plat III, end up Iron II or let's say you were lucky and you got BRONZE III, you're gonna need to grind for something everyone agree you should have ?

I'm sorry did I miss something here, what's the point ? why not giving the player what they should have ? Do they introduce "pay to climb faster" next season ? That sounds like a terrible idea to me.

Sukishoo1 votes

{quoted}

Wait a second... To get the rank you deserve and the rank the game think you deserve you're gonna need to play 75-150 more game than what you're suppose to ? AND you're playing through the deep iron division on your way to bronze with and against people that has your supposed rank ?... So if you're Plat III, end up Iron II or let's say you were lucky and you got BRONZE III, you're gonna need to grind for something everyone agree you should have ?

I'm sorry did I miss something here, what's the point ? why not giving the player what they should have ? Do they introduce "pay to climb faster" next season ? That sounds like a terrible idea to me.

Its all right here https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/developer-corner/XqxKvJ4p-ranked-changes-update-known-issues-2

Unironic SJW2 votes

The vast majority of fresh level 30s are Bronze in skill level though. Why shouldn't they be in there? If they're naturally good Moba players or have previous MOBA experience they'll wreck Iron/Bronze because even Silver level players can annihilate those elos. Whereas if you start the average player in mid Silver they'll just lose the game for their team a good chunk of the time.

A fresh level 30 should basically NEVER be in Gold, and should have a winning record at min to get anywhere beyond Silver 5.

EmergeJhincy2 votes

I have 1400 mmr and it still said fuck you no silver no gold iron you go. Its like a slap in the face all i wanted was a clean smurf acc but nope gotta grind that shit out and they said it would be less grindy its not.

You still have to endure the pain of bronze. atleast silver is somewhat better with warding and micro macro knowledge.

Marshbouy2 votes

I have no pity for someone who smurfs.

Kaitô1 votes

{quoted}

I have 1400 mmr and it still said fuck you no silver no gold iron you go. Its like a slap in the face all i wanted was a clean smurf acc but nope gotta grind that shit out and they said it would be less grindy its not.

You still have to endure the pain of bronze. atleast silver is somewhat better with warding and micro macro knowledge.

no lol. You play against higher skill level people and your LP gains are ridiciulous if u can carry( over 40 now where a fresh accoutn would only get 29-32 to start if they were smurfing) the idea is that it doesnt place anyone at a higher benchmark than they deserve just because they got lucky. i say this is very fair as people who wont deserve higher elo wont get placed at a benchmark division( bronze4,silver4,gold4,plat4). instead they will be given the equivalent MMR. where if they end up losing 80% of those games their mmr will rapidly change and actually make them an iron player. if u can win just 50% of your games when your mmr is plat and youre iron, youll still probably skip divisions til you hit at least high bronze or low silver. thats how it works. The fact is yooure not gonna be facing any worse players with this new system, its just a benchmark rank that they want everyone to start at and work up from. instead of getting placed higher because of luck. and then being it insanely difficult to drop from (even if u win 40% of your games at silver 5 before, it was unlikely that youd demote to bronze)

ODiiiiiN2 votes

I am 100% with you and I bet there's hundreds of thousands of people who have been playing for a year or two and still never entered ranked. I've been playing for 2 years and only did 5/10 provisional games, mainly bc of how toxic ranked is. But now that I'm getting bored with the game and sometimes get frustrated with the lack of skills in most normal rift games, I started thinking about playing ranked. However I almost feel like its pointless to start now, if I'm just going to be thrown at the bottom of the pit. They're clearly doing that to make ranked a grinding game. No thanks.. last grinding game I played was World of Warcraft and I wasted 2 years of my life. I guess their targets are young teens like I was in my WoW days, so it makes sense. Video Games are a teenager's Drug. Riot is just trying to make their "high" last longer.

Sukishoo1 votes

It's true, it's posted over in the dev section.

I tried a game out on an unranked account as well and it's iron 4, however, it has 60+ points after that single game, so if you continue to win it goes up fast.

ValyrianBlade2 votes

{quoted}

It's true, it's posted over in the dev section.

I tried a game out on an unranked a count as well and it's iron 4, however it has 60+ points after that single game, so if you continue to win it goes up fast.

Even at 60 points per game and free promos, that's a maximum of 600 points for going 10-0, which puts you up to bronze 1.

That's still worse than the old starting point. And that requires going 10-0, which would have given you a rank of gold 5 or higher (as high as gold 1) in past seasons.

I'd be interested to see if that 60 points starts growing exponentially rather than linearly though.

However on the flip side, losing a game or two would likely crush any exponential growth. And even a diamond calibre player does still lose the odd game with bronze/silver players. I watch a diamond 1/2 Smurf take a fresh account to diamond every season and he typically maintains around an 80% win rate while in Silver and Gold MMR.

Sukishoo1 votes

{quoted}

Even at 60 points per game and free promos, that's a maximum of 600 points for going 10-0, which puts you up to bronze 1.

That's still worse than the old starting point. And that requires going 10-0, which would have given you a rank of gold 5 or higher (as high as gold 1) in past seasons.

I'd be interested to see if that 60 points starts growing exponentially rather than linearly though.

However on the flip side, losing a game or two would likely crush any exponential growth. And even a diamond calibre player does still lose the odd game with bronze/silver players. I watch a diamond 1/2 Smurf take a fresh account to diamond every season and he typically maintains around an 80% win rate while in Silver and Gold MMR.

I did win another and it jumped to Iron III with 18 points, so gained roughly around 54 points. So it's still a bit iffy at the current time.

The highest you could place from the previous years was Plat 1 if you had played before though. So with the new setup higher elo players can essentially get placed higher than plat 1 now. So it's somewhat better for people that are higher rather than new players. They could probably work on it a bit more though to make it better for lower players.

Edit: Update on the placements, seems there are only 8 games now? I just finished them and there was only 8 in the end instead of 10 which I thought was odd but okay.

meowwow71 votes

you get to see what ranked you can be just from the 1st placement match. i'm thinking what they mean is you start off placements in iron and can go up based on placements

ºFerrAhriº1 votes

so just climb up...

LearnToKite2 votes

The problem is that you're in Iron 1 but you play with Gold and Plat players. Meaning if you belong with Gold or Plat players you'll stagnate in IRON 1 which is absurd

Marshbouy1 votes

Since the creation of League, new players have not needed to climb through the depths of bronze. If you did well enough in placements, you could start in medium-high silver or even gold.

if you did poorly in placements, you got put in low silver and would feed your way down to bronze. This happened to me when I first hit silver. The default MMR should be bronze ish, not iron, but for god's sake, definitely not silver.

ValyrianBlade2 votes

{quoted}

if you did poorly in placements, you got put in low silver and would feed your way down to bronze. This happened to me when I first hit silver. The default MMR should be bronze ish, not iron, but for god's sake, definitely not silver.

Just because you weren't adequately prepared for ranked when you first tried it, doesn't mean no one else is.

As I mentioned in the OP, I placed Silver 1 and climbed to gold 5 in my first season of ranked.

Default in low silver and falling to bronze made sense. Default Iron 4 and needing to climb is... illogical. I was better than bronze players before I hit level 15 (and I know this because I was consistently beating bronze and silver players in normal draft games despite not having runes or even the tier 7 mastery unlocked).

Dark FaIz1 votes

Can confirm it's not just new accounts. I was in gold for two seasons, then skipped a season and didn't play. Now they placed me in Iron 3.

TranscendentSol1 votes

This has also been a problem for my friend who wanted to make a Smurf

http://euw.op.gg/summoner/userName=uxjeff

He made an account during the PreSeason, he played his Placement Games, winning 8/9 and even carrying most of 8/9 of them, I believe there is something wrong when someone who hard Carries a game and winning the majority of his Placement games gets placed in such a low rank such as Iron 1.

This is a waste of time if someone does very well compared to other people, it is definitely not fair if a former Bronze Player gets placed in Iron 1 meanwhile my Friend who is smurfing from Diamond 1 gets Iron 1 ... This will definitely scare Higher Elo'd players from making Smurfs indeed, but what happens if someone who just started playing is better than the Average Beginner player do they get to play with other beginner players at a lower level in which (Hypothetically) causing them to play at a lower level. Players should play at their level, it is definitely not fair if someone is playing at a level they aren't on.

Escheton1 votes

It would mean that the toxic yolo youtubers taking their Diamond/Masters main champ on a new smurf account to bronze to be a dick, no longer have to intentionally lose game till they hit bronze to do it.

I Sell Dildos1 votes

Yeah i made a new account because of low honor lvl issues, went 9/1 in my placements and still got placed in iron. BS policy

The1ULost21 votes

Confirmed fresh account qued my first ranked game and it was a remake 0 lp change and now it shows im iron 4. as a returning player who is starting over on a fresh account and was d4 season 5 i think this is a stupid idea.

martinpir2211 votes

It is quite interesting .... I stopped playing LOL 4 years ago, made gold just to get rewards at that time. Why am i placed in Iron now when op.gg shows my MMR being well in GOLD 2 elo ( 1720+ ) ?

ValyrianBlade1 votes

{quoted}

It is quite interesting .... I stopped playing LOL 4 years ago, made gold just to get rewards at that time. Why am i placed in Iron now when op.gg shows my MMR being well in GOLD 2 elo ( 1720+ ) ?

It seems that everyone who wasn't ranked in season 8 will get placed in iron for season 9. Very unfortunate for anyone to have taken a year off of ranked (or for any neglected alt accounts).

The nice thing about MMR at least, is that if it's accurate you should rank up and skip divisions pretty quickly (assuming you're able to win about 50% of games). It's the same for ranked decay, your real rank may decay but your MMR remains and you'll gain back the lost LP quickly IF you manage to win games when you return.

Doom emissary1 votes

This is not true ! That was just a bug, you can make a support ticket and they will correct your rank. Only new accounts get seeded in iron. Old accounts (even if they didn't play in Season 8) shouldn't end in iron.

Also, MMR is hidden and sites like op.gg only tries to guess it, it's not your real MMR.

BooBoo Custodian1 votes

Just did my first ranked game of the season (and on this account ever), got a B grade with Rakan and was rewarded with Iron 1. I feel your pain OP. I've been playing since season 2, the highest I've ever gotten was Gold, and that ended up decaying to bronze because I took a long break from the game. Other than that, once you sink, you're sunk. We might as well just get comfy in Iron, because it's the new Bronze.

PaintedLoyalty1 votes

I just played my first ranked game, Won with an A+ on Nami, had Silver before on this same account.

My rank is apparently Iron I. fml

Why do they do this?

JackMcSnipeyz1 votes

Your first game places you low, but you'll skip promos and ranks in your next 9 games. I started as g3 and im 1 win away from plat 4

Even if you lose you dont drop rank, so you can get at least b3 if you play well.

Dr Shwaggîns1 votes

Yeah its like every second game in silver/bronze they now get a smurf. Quite unfair for players who belong there because they will never have fun or learn something while going 0-10 and getting flamed by there teammates

JRobin311 votes

If the entry point for new players has been moved to Iron, then it is a huge improvement for the game over previous seasons of Silver/Bronze (or even Gold?) entry point madness. Play ten games and get ranked Silver or Gold? How was that not bullshit?

Tailypo1 votes

People say they can start at or near gold now. I know when positional matchmaking was a thing, I was getting started in mid iron even after winning a majority of my placements.

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