Hypothesis on S4 Ranked Placements

Roaranor·Jan 27, 2014·1 votes·230 views

Riot is trying to "refresh" the system in a sense. Season 3, there were a lot of people in higher divisions who didn't deserve to be there based on skill, and vice versa there were a lot of players stuck in elo lower than where they should be due to massive clamping. With the Season 4 soft reset, players who were placed in the season before trend towards placing lower than where they were the previous season, but are compensated with the fact that it's now easier to climb and clamping is much less of a problem.

Also, keep in mind that who you play against may not determine where you mmr is. You may simply be a balancing factor in the queue (the low player to bring the team mmr down or the high player to balance out the opposing team having a higher mmr than yours)

As far as I know, this system is working as intended. Majority of the players on my friend's list who placed significantly lower than where they finished S3 had no problem climbing back up to where they were within a week or two of play, and some have already climbed even higher.

This is, of course, just my hypothesis based on observation. Thoughts? Opinions? Confirmation or correction from Rioters?

6 Comments

Sir ArmaMalumJan 27, 20142 votes

I agree with you most of the pains felt right now are transition pains from S3 ranks, and beyond that you summed it up very well imho. Another thing or two to add though. Placements are very skewed if you did not play during the the pre-season because the system did not have as good of an idea where to put you. Also if you duo queued with someone decently far from your own ranking, I believe that duo MMR is being handled differently and makes it harder for the duo (as a duo has a natural advantage over solos). This is all from my personal (and friend's) experience and my own educated guesses as well.

LiarLyreJan 27, 20141 votes

I agree whole heartedly. I have encountered some players with me in bronze that were gold or plat last season but firmly belong in lower bronze.

Im ÐanielJan 28, 20141 votes

I ended up in lower bronze last season and this season after my placements. Later on while playing in solo que, I find gold players from season 3 who carry hard in my games. I think this is a bit unfair for the people who get free lp and people who lose lp because they are against higher elo players.

MackleDogeJan 28, 20141 votes

No such thing as free LP. Even if someone "carries", they shouldn't be able to just 1v5 all over your team, and if they can, it's more to do with your teams lack of teamwork and skill then any overwhelming talent by the other player.

RoaranorJan 29, 20142 votes

The whole idea of being able to "carry yourself out of low elo with raw skill" hinges upon the notion of exploiting the lack of teamwork which is common in lower elo. The fact that a single player was able to dominate your entire team in itself emphasizes how little effort your team actually put into working together. If there's a gold-level Fizz player beating out your mid laner, and no one on the team even gives a second thought to helping shut him down, there's not much room to complain when he becomes unmanageable later on in the game.

I had that same mentality when I first started playing and stayed top lane the entire time. Now, if I see mid lane struggling, I shove my lane and roam mid to help secure a kill or force him out and give mid a bit of breathing room.

If necessary, have the jungler hold your lane so that you don't lose turret from roaming.

RoaranorJan 28, 20141 votes

Keep in mind, that the players you're getting matched with likely had low silver mmr coming into S4. That is, either they had a serious amount of elo decay and haven't yet caught up to where they should be, or the system determined them to have the skill level of a mid-high Silver player.

Also, remember that this is how it's going to be immediately post reset regardless of what Riot does. Had they decided to go with a hard reset, there'd be a good chance of you playing against Plat and Diamond players just as easy as getting placed with Bronze and Silver.

Another possibility are low Gold players pairing with Bronze players to play in low mmr, in which case Zileas has already indicated that they are working on a patch for the queue system.

TLDR; If this is a serious,reoccurring problem for you. Give the general player base a bit more time to climb to where they should be.