I have a theory about positional rankings that Riot might not have thought about

The new positional rankings are designed to help with positional inexperience and lack of knowledge. I can’t wait for this to arrive into my Diamond games, finally it’ll feel like the only constant in my games are me and my own improvement, instead of ‘Let’s see who gets the worst autofill and if that team will be able to carry him’ as it is right now.

But what happens in elos where lack of knowledge in a role isn’t the case, but instead lacking knowledge of the game in general? Positional rankings certainly won’t help in an elo where people don’t know the core game well enough to make skill gaps in between roles. And even if they know their main role better the other roles, that won’t be the thing that decides the game in the end. Many will frequently try out new champs for the first time while on their main role, causing another problem that the system can’t help with, because it won’t be recorded as inexperience in the role itself. Others might feed frequently as a role but autofill isn’t the problem, they just have habits of diving like crazy for kills for example because they lack general game knowledge and they don’t get that hard punished for it in their elo because everybody have similar bad habits.

I’ve seen some people criticize the positional rankings saying they don’t want it because they don’t want to grind for 5 rankings (although that isn’t the point) or that they don’t have the time. A lot of people are casual players in lower elos, and even if they aren’t, off-role inexperience doesn't seem to be a huge problem in their elo. Surely the player that is filled will perform slightly worse, but it won’t cost the game. Because in an elo where you don’t punish each other for mistakes, lacking knowledge in a role won’t instantly be a loss. Even so, lower elos are highly populated so I would assume most get their role. In an elo where very little strategy is used, a system assisting those getting off-role won’t help because you can’t lack what you don’t have, if you get my meaning. A system designed to help people that lack knowledge in a role doesn’t work if they don’t have that knowledge to start off with, even in their main role.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying lower elos don’t have any skill. What I mean to say is that if a higher elo player knows 100 things and lacks 40 when he gets put off-role, a lower elo player could know 5 things, and only lack 2 of those when he gets put off-role. Sure, the statistics show that both elos will lack 40% knowledge when put off-role, which will cause them to make 40% more mistakes let’s say, but in the higher elos they get punished hard for every mistake and in lower elos most mistakes go unnoticed.

The difference is massive between how the system helps in higher elo versus lower, and perhaps massive enough that implementing this system in lower elos shouldn’t be done? I’m thinking akin to promotional helper, it’s a thing that only works until a certain tier, because after you hit a certain rank you’re expected to be less of a casual player, so you have the option to grind out for a rank. Also decaying, it’s a mechanic that only works above a certain tier. This is because lower tiers don’t need or want decaying, a lot of people are casuals, and a lot of people feel like they work hard to maintain their rank that decaying would only be a struggle that might put them off Ranked entirely. So I’m thinking, is provisional rankings really a good idea for lower elos? It seems as if it’s an unnecessary mechanic in lower elos that the players don’t need, want, or even understand. They want to get all 5 rankings to the same because all they know is in Ranked you have a tier, and I want my tier to be the same.

And I’m not even going to get into how many casual players would get problems with their accounts because they wouldn’t understand you wouldn’t be allowed to swap roles for example (if that would be a mechanic to prevent duo swap-abuse). If you play this game once in a while the positional ranking might be too complex for you to grasp, and might make Ranked off-putting because of how hard (in their mind) it’ll be to make all of the ranks higher. Not to mention that the system might not even be beneficial enough for their elo in the end. As I said, the “fault” in lower elos isn’t role-centered inexperience but inexperience in general. A system that assists them with difficulties within a role might not seem appealing enough for them to accept 5 individual rankings. Meanwhile, I would trade my left foot to have positional rankings in my games - but that’s because people know a lot of things were I play, and in an elo where mistakes are punished you aren’t allowed to lack as much knowledge as happens if you get placed off-role. However, I understand that in Season 9 you want to make Ranked more pleasant for everyone, but maybe adding Iron to the lower brackets might just be enough for lower elo. If this seems like a legit theory, then maybe Riot would want to pull some numbers and see if lower elos really need and want this system in their Ranked games, and then perhaps make provisional rankings trigger at a certain tier instead. I’m not opposed to them adding the system to every tier as I don’t play in lower elo, and personally I welcome it dearly to my league, but I do however want to add a fresh perspective that might or might not help Riot figure out why some people are so reluctant to accepting the new provisional rankings.