season 9 is gonna be the most critical one for league.

MOuHahaHAhahaaaa··51 votes·38,131 views

I actually do think that if riot don't find the solutions and accept the changes community wants by the beginning of season 9 a huge amount of players will leave.

I'll add to this that even new players are becoming less in numbers. The number of non lvl 30 accounts have increased a lot which means lol isn't enough enjoyable for new players to reach max level.

I do not want anyone to loose his job... because everyone has a family and a life which requires a job. However you should begin to change things. I know there is a lot pressure on your shoulders and that many of us are quite salty and agressive. But as we say feed the dogs and they won't hurt you...

If most of the community isn't happy with particular things you should reconsider your approach of handling it. For example turrets...

I mean lcs is a good thing for lol but if the community doesn't find the game enjoyable anymore what's the point of the existence of the lcs ?

For myself i'll be seriously considering leaving the game if pre season 9 isn't a success in terms of "the game being enjoyable"

And i do think many others are just waiting for that too.

72 Comments

Keshaun11 votes

Completely agree. Season 9 is probably the last stand before League spirals downward. Right now it's slowly decreasing, but Season 9 will be the test.

Bonipherus11 votes

I'm on the verge of leaving too. Season 9 will be their last chance.

DNFVixen10 votes

{quoted}

I actually do think that if riot don't find the solutions and accept the changes community wants by the beginning of season 9 a huge amount of players will leave.

I'll add to this that even new players are becoming less in numbers. The number of non lvl 30 accounts have increased a lot which means lol isn't enough enjoyable for new players to reach max level.

I do not want anyone to loose his job... because everyone has a family and a life which requires a job. However you should begin to change things. I know there is a lot pressure on your shoulders and that many of us are quite salty and agressive. But as we say feed the dogs and they won't hurt you...

If most of the community isn't happy with particular things you should reconsider your approach of handling it. For example turrets...

I mean lcs is a good thing for lol but if the community doesn't find the game enjoyable anymore what's the point of the existence of the lcs ?

For myself i'll be seriously considering leaving the game if pre season 9 isn't a success in terms of "the game being enjoyable"

And i do think many others are just waiting for that too.

I am 100% OK with Ghostcancer losing his job. I would actually throw a party over it. [slayer-pantheon-thumbs]

Giga Baboon10 votes

This is like telling a kid who's failed grade 7 3 times that this next time is do or die. At some point you have to understand that even if they wanted to do well, they are literally intellectually incapable of it.

Draven Always8 votes

New Ranked system is trash. I don't want different ranks, I want one rank, especially with meta changing and now it's hard as balls to play ADC nowadays.

IainG103 votes

Enjoy your autofilled Yasuo OTP bronze-tier support

webstar19956 votes

Have you read up on the new ranked system coming out for season 9?

MOuHahaHAhahaaaa29 votes

The new ranked system has nothing to do with gameplay. That is another issue they finally solved.

webstar19957 votes

That IS gameplay. Players will hopefully be less toxic and play their role better.

ISLAMICWARRIOR9916 votes

{quoted}

That IS gameplay. Players will hopefully be less toxic and play their role better.

People are going to be a million times more toxic if they have to rank up each role separately. Not to mention tons of players will probably leave if they lose the feeling of climbing because theyre bronze as a support and d1 as mid. Riot needs to abandon this dumb idea of play every role and be good at it, its now how pro play works and its not how the game has ever worked. None of the top players are good in more than 2 roles and a lot of them can only play one.

StillHittinLicks8 votes

I completely agree with this. This is gonna drag riot down the drain even more.

GripaAviara1 votes

because theyre bronze as a support and d1 as mid

That will never happen.

Now, I don't know to much about their actual implementation, but if they did it the right way, they will a baseline rank which increases (decreases) all other ranks. The rank MMR will just be a variation of that baseline: like if you're very good sup, you're likely to get 2-4 div ahead.

27991 votes

that happend, im d3 jg and sliver sup

IamWindowLicker2 votes

I think it’s more for low Elo, I personally can’t stand when someone says “I need mid I can’t sup” support is easy af, all you do is help the adc. When you say you can’t supp you are basically saying “I’m not capable of helping someone else in a team game.” ADC and Mid are the hardest roles to play. Learn to play every role it’s not hard, just get good enough with one champ in every role just incase you get auto filled. You might even end up liking the role and the champion.

DJFluTTersHoK4 votes

i mean you don't have to if you don't care about the other roles still you won't be punished if you're a master tier mid laner for example you're still a tier Master player.....yes only in that role but let's say you're a Talon one trick then why would you care about playing other lanes. They don't force you to play more lanes it's just more fair this way and their goal is to alleviate some of the frustraition in ranked for a more enjoyable experience. Yes there could be some players that are bummed out that they don't have their little shining symbol on every role but that's your own kind problem. Ego issues or what not but you shouldn't view it that way anyways try viewing it from a different perspective "Hey finally when I get autofilled I don't instantly lose because my knowledge about that role is not on the level that I'm currently playing with" or "I might not be Diamond in every role but I still am a Diamond player in my MAIN role that's what matters"

Kapten1 votes

{quoted}

People are going to be a million times more toxic if they have to rank up each role separately. Not to mention tons of players will probably leave if they lose the feeling of climbing because theyre bronze as a support and d1 as mid. Riot needs to abandon this dumb idea of play every role and be good at it, its now how pro play works and its not how the game has ever worked. None of the top players are good in more than 2 roles and a lot of them can only play one.

agree totally!! it! does! not! work!

Illabethe2 votes

Nah. It's going to result in specialization on a whole new level. And when a role gets changed dramatically, it's likely the players of that role are going to be even more hostile than before, rebuke those changes and troll more as a response. You see it right now with adcs.

It also is going to punish 1 tricks. People who one trick are going to be absolutely countered in their roles, and often. For example, 1 Trick Pyke are constantly going to be countered by Aatrox Anivia Tryndamere , etc. People who one trick Poppy are going to get destroyed by Udyr and other versatile junglers.

People are going to have to be able to actually be proficient at 4-5 champions in their primary roles, or they are going to find their win rates plummet.

webstar19951 votes

Poppy jungle? Puke getting countered by Aatrox, tryn, aniv?! What role confusion....

Illabethe2 votes

What are you even trying to say? The comments didn't even detail WHERE Pyke or Poppy are played. If you ever hope to succeed at League, you need to realize... counters are not just a lane thing. They are an overall team thing, and if the team you are going against is comprised of counters, You WILL have to face them, irregardless of where you play them.

P.S. Poppy is EXTREMELY viable in the jungle. She has an early drake, spammable aoe jungle clear, occasional move speed boosts, fast scuttles, and extremely strong ganks. It's actually her best role.

Pyke is also more viable in jungle than as a laner or support, irregardless of what the meta says. Strong ganks, map mobility and better angles for Q/E, etc than you will ever get as a support. It also gets him levels faster, which is PIVOTAL, because Pyke's ONLY source of HP is levels. If you are a support.... you average having 300 less HP at any point of the game than if you jungled him. You also have less armor, less item build up for damage, and less potential overall.

HymanuZt1 votes

Damn dude! Pyke jungle is better than support! Well said Mr. Knowledge Bronze 1 !

Illabethe1 votes

{quoted}

Damn dude! Pyke jungle is better than support! Well said Mr. Knowledge Bronze 1 !

It actually is o.O There's no comparison. Support Pyke generally is prone to the same linear rules in lane as Blitz or Thresh: If minions are in the way, they can't act. In contrary, Jungle Pyke is mobile, farms extremely well with a large gold source, can gank lanes where the minions aren't an issue, and can snowball every lane, rather than potentially ONE lane.

P.S. I'm not Bronze I. This is my smurf account...... where I Queue "Fill." Where I play about 50 different champions. Where in most games I am literally playing a 1v5 game with builds that potentially aren't able to do that.

I really suggest you look at match histories, rather than trying to spew crap about "Rank Discrimination"

P.P.S. I actually have Perfect Score games with Pyke Jungle. And I do not go Electrocute or Aftershock.

It's amazing what Pyke can do when he has item 3142 item 1412 before laners are barely getting their first item.....

kebab box1 votes

You are actually mental if you think pyke jungle is goodXD

Illabethe1 votes

[{quoted}](name=HeS HiddenShadow,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=yMPHiFQI,comment-id=000000000000000200000000000000000000,timestamp=2018-12-18T10:42:05.511+0000)

You are actually mental if you think pyke jungle is goodXD

I have yet to lose to a Kindred :)

I also generally get level 6 before any lane but mid :)

SpamDre1 votes

yeah right, smurf account with 1500+ games and 50% winrate...

Illabethe1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Violent R%%%%%,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=yMPHiFQI,comment-id=000000000000000200000000000000000001,timestamp=2019-01-12T09:53:04.631+0000)

yeah right, smurf account with 1500+ games and 50% winrate...

My Main ended season 8 Diamond III. It has 3,273 games.

You do realize that smurfs have to stay a low elo somehow? They don't just win....

Unstoppable Monk5 votes

{quoted}

The new ranked system has nothing to do with gameplay. That is another issue they finally solved.

It's not a solved issue, but it eliminates a fair amount of problems.

Illabethe6 votes

Nah. And here's why:

League is just as balanced as it's always been, and in the same way.

That's not why people are angry. It's only why they THINK they are angry.

Here's what's really happening:

  1. Players believe they are better statisticians than statisticians, even though the vast majority have no background in it, and the ones who do, don't actually have full access to data, so trying to compile some query is going to be absolutely biased toward their own play tendencies.

  2. Players have generally got a lot of what they want from Riot/Tencent, which has resulted in some culture of entitlement. I know players don't like to hear this...... but the evidence is everywhere around you right now. Complaints/Concerns are not at all focused on one or two champions right now. They are focused on ALL AND ANY Champion....even those who are already doing extremely well. They are hostile and protective of champs who are unconditionally becoming pivot points in every single game they are played in, and pull 53%+ win rates in average length games.

Most of the current complaints have nothing to do with actual champ balance, or trying to improve the game. They are about personal bias, and fear...... fear of not being able to adapt to change.

  1. 70%+ of the community is in Silver/Bronze. That's not an exaggeration. That's a fact (about 55% are silver!) And they've been there for 3-5 years! They keep playing ranked hoping for those Gold Skin prizes, borders, etc, or higher ambitions, and never get there. Some of it's because of an inability to learn, but some of it is for various other reasons:

-Win LP scaling is punishing. If you are around 49-50% Win rate, you progress LP about 19-20 LP for a win, but lose 21-22 Per loss. If you go on a string of losses, you can get down to where a win is 14 LP and a loss is - 24 LP. That's massively punishing, and can happen even if you are a 50% player, because it calculates this based on your RECENT games, not your aggregate.

-_**Smurfs have fully realized they can profit off of streaming dominant games. **_Twitch feeds and Youtube are being used to solicit donations, and there is almost 1 smurf per game. Not all of them are that impactful...... Some are Gold in Silver games..... but MOST are Platinum Plus, and often play with a duo. The teams at those elos don't realize this and don't care when you warn them. They don't understand the skill gap. It's leading to irregular results where actual performance's results are diminished by forcing players to compete WAY outside their skill group. (Gold in silver is actually healthy; they need to prepare for promos. Plat -Challenger in Silver = they have no margin to learn or prepare). If Smurfing didn't exist, it's very likely Bronze would only be about 9% of the population, and Silver would only be about 40% of the community, pushing "some of the community toward Gold at least" increasing satisfaction among the aggregate player base. (I am pulling those numbers out of my behind, but that's about what I'd expect)

-Players really do want to see progress. Season rank results dropping them 4-5 ranks is extremely depressing for the majority of players, because they cannot cope with players in a compressed pool of Platinum/Gold/Silver/Bronze all playing together as much as they can Gold/Silver or Bronze/Silver. The LP loss, Season resets, and smurfs generally destroy all morale.


This all has led to an extraordinary increase in player toxicity and trolling. And that, not champ imbalance or some season's meta..... is what is the root cause of this season's fears and worries.

If the vast majority of players learn they cannot climb, are being buried by factors outside their control like LP rates/smurfs/resets, they begin to look to changes in the game as something to project their frustrations upon, even though most of those are minimal changes.

I mean Feral Flame was a bigger change to the game than anything else in the last 4 years in game impact. Even more so than the new runes. But, you know... It's been 3 Seasons since then. And League only grew after that. It's still growing, if you track players on OP.GG.

Dissatisfaction and loss of utility for the game are on the rise. I'll agree to that. But it's far more because of natural game spirits than it is because of some change that happens every year.

And there is something they could do about it. Allow some of those Silvers to have a better chance of gaining LP. Reduce the penalty for going on a losing streak to LP. Make LP gains/losses something like 20/20 flat, instead of sliding on gains and increasing on losses, until something like Gold IV. Give them a better chance to filter the "Gold skilled" players out of Silver and into games with Golds who take their games a little more seriously. Make them feel like there's less pressure on spamming the game and playing thousands of games on tilt, and more comfortable that they get to the elo of their skin reward earlier, so they aren't paying for illegal boosts in October, or have less reasons to rage in a game.

There's not much they can do about smurfs.... except perhaps sweetening the pot to play their primary accounts. Create a Platinum reward worth obtaining. Like an annual Legendary skin exclusive. Create a Diamond Mythic skin. Masters Ultimate skin. Or offer those higher elos a free RP balance to spend as they please. Keep them playing in their real elos.

And then...... you'd find most games..... would be: -Longer -More same skill matched. -Less toxic (at least toward feeders/snowballs) -Less snowballs -Turrets lasting longer -More diversity in champ selections (smurfs heavily create the metas, because you expect to have to deal with them on an assassin or an adc, and some are exceptionally effective in a smurf's hands compared to other champions). -Less trolling


Ofc, even if Riot did this, it's likely 2-3 years down the road even the Gold stucks would begin to get upset and project. But it would buy the game a couple years of satisfaction.

Automated Riven3 votes

-Win LP scaling is punishing. If you are around 49-50% Win rate, you progress LP about 19-20 LP for a win, but lose 21-22 Per loss. If you go on a string of losses, you can get down to where a win is 14 LP and a loss is - 24 LP. That's massively punishing, and can happen even if you are a 50% player, because it calculates this based on your RECENT games, not your aggregate.

This is incorrect. LP gains and losses are based on your mmr, not your win loss percenetage. If your mmr is higher then the rank your at then your lp gains will be higher. However if your mmr is lower then your lp gains will be lower.

5050BS2 votes

Ether way its massively flawed

Automated Riven1 votes

It is. But likely not in the ways you think.

Because they use two systems to classify people it forces a grind to reach your actual skill level.

So for the sake of argument I will use last year for me playing ranked. I was placed in bronze 3 I think. Within like 20 games I was playing against silver 1-plat 5 players. However It took me almost 300 games to make it up to silver 1 before I simply gave up ranked.

The reason for this is that while I had nice comphy LP gains it still took about 5-10 games to go from promos to promos. (so 30 LP gains and -14 LP losses at a ~50% winrate takes you like 10 games to hit 100 LP. And then when you get to promos it requires a GREATER THEN 50% win rate to get through. So you win the game that hits 100 LP, after you have to win 2 out of 3 games. And then you have to not lose two in a row or you drop back down. So that means out of 4 games to rank up you win 3 and lose 1 and then win 1 of the next two. So best case you have to win 4 out of six games at a 66% winrate. This creates a bunch of promos where you lose and it forces you to reclimb and take them again.

Plus LP gains get smaller and smaller the closer you get to your actual rank. So it starts taking more and more games to actually rank up (still maintaining a 50% winrate.) So me with probably a gold 4-3 MMR had like +5-+8 LP for each win/loss. Making my effective LP gains at +4 per game in silver 1. Add on the winstreaking through promos and it just became too much of a pain to play.

IMHO the system should either be purely MMR based with brackets attached to MMR (1100-1200 is like silver 2 and 1200-1300 is silver 1 {not saying that's what it is. It's just and example})

Or you should be purely matched against other people within your bracket. So silver 1 players always get matched with silver 1 players. You still have to win streak out but it's against easier players. In this case tho wins and losses should always be a set gain/loss. So say 15 per game won and -15 per game lost no matter what.

Just my opinion.

Illabethe2 votes

This is not true at all. Your LP is based upon an aggregate of your recent game trends versus your average performance. Recent trends are used to excise penalties. Overall performance is used to discern how many LP you are awarded.

You can have 2 people, sitting at 48% win rate, at 1280 MMR, and one will gain 23 LP and lose 21, while the other gains 14 and loses 25. If it was just based on MMR, that would not happen.

You'll also notice that new accounts with fewer games get different LP rewards than older accounts with a lot of games. After placements, a new account tends to have loss/gain LP far more stable and of higher numbers than old accounts with a lot of games at the same elo.

The reason your argument sometimes appears to hold water, is because loss streaks generally coincide with massive losses of MMR. But it ignores the fact that people of that same MMR who didn't have a losing streak..... are gaining stable LP.

Try creating a fresh Bronze/Silver account and smurfing in it. You'll find you gain 21-26 LP regularly, even though those are bottom rung MMR's.

Automated Riven1 votes

When I climb out of bronze I have a ~50 % winrate playing against gold players. I gain like 30-35 LP and lose like 10.

Illabethe1 votes
  1. Your account is UNRANKED.
  2. If you had a 35 LP at win/10 LP loss, that's reflective of a 80% win rate and absolutely defends what I was saying, because you're talking about Bronze. If you're in Bronze, your MMR is tiny, even if you pull 80% wins.
Automated Riven3 votes
  1. this is not my only account.
  2. your matchmaking is based on your MMR, not your rank. Your rank and your MMR are completely separate. You can have a Challenger MMR and still be gold or something and you WILL be Matched with Challenger players to reflect your MMR.
  3. I have played league for nine years. Even though this account is unranked this year I have been placed in bronze 3-4 every year since season 2 and have ended every year silver 1 after a few failed attempts to get gold 5 and j give up trying from boredom.
  4. since you are matched by your MMR rather then your rank if your MMR is higher then your rank the LP gains see what reflects it. It had literally nothing to do with winrate.

Edit I should also point out that I played like garbage and I started out last year with like 36 games on riven with a 13% winrate and I was still getting 30+ LP for each win and like 10-15 LP loses. I almost ranked out of bronze 3 to bronze 2 with a less then 20% winrate. Your entire premise is completely wrong.

Badnik964 votes

or maybe possibly the game isnt fun anymore if you arent stomping? because of how bad damage creep has gotten? thats the entire point of 90% of these complaint threads

Khelb2 votes

Your entire premise is wrong. I don't mind being hard stuck at any rank as long as playing the game involves strategy, decision making, and the ability to counter-play.

Also, this is impossible to know or define, but it's definitely conceivable that a large part of the reason we see such ridiculous burst dmg and movement ability spam from champs is because Riot is putting way to much fucking focus on statistics. I would definitely make that argument in regards to you talking about them having professional statisticians as an argument for why they "know best".

Yes, rank matters to people, but it's a side effect of enjoying the game. It's not the reason to play a game.

Illabethe1 votes

When has a game that focuses on no "objectifiable gains" ever succeeded? You're saying rank is not a reason to play a game, but accomplishment is EXACTLY why people play games. They want to prove they are comparatively better than other game players (maybe not all, but some.... to some threshold)

There's a genre for "cigarette butt" players (trying to get a high off a brief puff). It's called first person shooters. And they generally last less than 2-3 years per game, are cheap to produce, and players behave like nomads.

And..... that's you. If everyone acted like "you," games would never have toxicity, feeding, or other forms of intentional game losses.

There 's legitimately only ONE champions that I know of which has recently (or at all) reached a point of "ridiculous burst damage," and that is specifically the adjustments to Taliyah . She is literally the only champion who can currently reach that point with little or no effort, items, etc, because of how they gave her spammable passive move speed and turned Q into single targets with a LOT less damage reduction.

Every other champ.... has to work for it, even hyper carries. If you see other sources of ridiculous burst damage, it's because they are either far ahead on CS, have accomplished drakes, or have accomplished a 5:1 kill/death ratio, or all of the above.

Khelb2 votes

When has a game that focuses on no "objectifiable gains" ever succeeded? You're saying rank is not a reason to play a game, but accomplishment is EXACTLY why people play games. They want to prove they are comparatively better than other game players (maybe not all, but some.... to some threshold)

I'm saying that it's a side effect and does matter, but it's not THE reason to play a game. Not sure how you missed that to be frank. I sense an irrational argument, sort of like your mess of text originally in order to make it seem like you know wtf you're talking about. For instance, if i enjoyed Starcraft 2 the rank would matter to me. However, i don't enjoy Starcraft 2 and therefore rank doesn't matter to me at all. The point is that if LOL is shit to play b/c of poor balancing, idgaf about my rank. So, if LOL is fun and engaging and I get hard stuck in gold 2, I'm not upset that I'm stuck in gold 2, rather I'm trying to learn the game to figure out how to improve and get out of gold 2. But, i do care about my rank in that situation. Right now LOL is not fun or engaging. Which is why your wall of bullshit missed the entire fucking point of what's wrong with the game right now.

There 's legitimately only ONE champions that I know of which has recently (or at all) reached a point of "ridiculous burst damage," and that is specifically the adjustments to . She is literally the only champion who can currently reach that point with little or no effort, items, etc, because of how they gave her spammable passive move speed and turned Q into single targets with a LOT less damage reduction.

Hey man, if you think the damage in this game is fine that's all on you. You're wrong, but I'm not going to persuade you otherwise. Just know that a large subset of players disagree with you and are quitting the game b/c of it. Here's one small example. A level 2 lulu can gimp you for half your life with one auto + Q + E. Sorry, but that was not how it used to be and it's not an acceptable thing for an enchanter to be able to do at level 2. It's also not what Lulu was designed around. However, thanks to a slow 2 year process of improved dmg and decreased defenses (either through champ buffs/nerfs, runes/mastyery changes, or item buffs/nerfs ) it's now considered normal. I also disagree with you that champs have to "work for it" now days. Everyone builds damage and at some point everyone gets one shotted. Let's not even mention the absurd mobility spam of all new champs that has ruined other LOL fundamentals ranging from vision to position.

And..... that's you. If everyone acted like "you," games would never have toxicity, feeding, or other forms of intentional game losses.

Are you claiming that I'm here for one game highs? If so, wouldn't i want stupid damage creep and one shots? Honestly don't know wtf you are trying to say here. It makes about as much sense as the rest of your bullshit.

GigglesO3 votes

{quoted}

I'll add to this that even new players are becoming less in numbers.

I was playing with two new guys, and an old friend of mine... I guess me one shotting everyone on the enemy team and getting a penta-kill as morde scared them away from the game... They haven't been back on since...

Dustpartical3 votes

{quoted}

I was playing with two new guys, and an old friend of mine... I guess me one shotting everyone on the enemy team and getting a penta-kill as morde scared them away from the game... They haven't been back on since...

The dmg is stupid high rn, riot said they will be nerfing it but im not really seeing any progress in that area. I thought they might start with the crit changes but those don't really feel like that big of a deal. Beside real problem is the mages that are so strong they might as well be called ranged assassins.

5050BS3 votes

Isnt S9 where your Rank will be by Role?

Wild Geese3 votes

Regardless of what they do The new ranked system is going to kill this game, it'll be worse than dynamic queue.

People should be trying to convince riot not to do it. But it's almost as if we beloved they won't actually go through with it? They're going to do it and it'll take a lot to convince them not to...

saltran2 votes

I actually agree, and I would add that the Worlds patch of this year will also be really relevant

hi ìm groot2 votes

If there's still gold funneling strats, and average game time is 25 mins next season, im not touching this game.

Illabethe2 votes

The average game time atm is actually 29:28. And it's been averaging 28:12 - 31.33 during its entire existence, so I don't know why you think games are significantly shorter.

Rıots Bad Client2 votes

season 8 will be the last season.

League of legends 2 baby.

(This is a joke)

Ąvatar Qiyana2 votes

fun is for the weakitem 3147 Rengar

Vlada Cut2 votes

Same title I see every year. It lacks... originality.

Boreas IX1 votes

Remember when positioning, team comp, items, vision, macroplay, early vs late game, movement, and focus mattered in League of Legends? Riot Games doesn't. I've honestly lost my passion for this game and it's because so many champions do too much and have little to no weaknesses. Fundamentals have been murdered in favor of the minority that does not keep the game or the community afloat.

Riot games wants to milk us of our money and then abandon us the same way Blizzard did World of Warcraft.

Kapten1 votes

the elo/ranked system is also more busted than before now... i havent felt so many strongly imbalanced games in season 8 as i feel in these first two patches of season 9. HOW could riot even make it worse??

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