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How much does rank really matter? An empirical investigation.

CupcakeTrap·6/27/2014, 2:44:01 AM·4 votes·703 views

How much do rank differences really matter? Which rank differences matter the most? Are Golds and Silvers pretty much interchangeable, or would a Gold team absolutely wreck a Silver team? Would the outcome change if you gave the Silvers a couple Plats to help them out?

If you'd like to play a mixed-rank match or two to help us gather data, click here. You can also just join the in-client chat:

http://i.imgur.com/3Sar1So.jpg

Below, I share the results of an initial survey on player perceptions.

A hypothetical scenario

Imagine that you have 5,000 RP riding on the outcome of a LoL match. But you aren't allowed to play in the match: instead, you get to build a team, using a set budget of points. Rather than selecting individual players, you select ranks. Would you rather have a Diamond, three Silvers, and a Bronze, or a team of five Golds? How much more would you "pay" for a Gold than a Silver?

A little while ago, I conducted a survey on this topic. You can read the results here. Ultimately, though, that's just guesswork. Ever since, I've been wondering what actual empirical testing would show.

The experiment

I can resist the urge to science no longer, and therefore I seek your help in answering this question.

Here's how you can participate. Basically, you just throw together a custom match with any mix of skill levels, then send in the results.

The form is set up so that all results are fully public as soon as they're submitted. This will create a public dataset that anyone can use to perform analysis. I will also be running my own analysis, which I will (of course) share freely.

So, if you share a love for empirical investigation, or you just want to see how much rank differences really matter, or you're up for a bit of imba fun, please join in! Every bit of data helps.

You can think of it as an ethical alternative to smurfing to see how hard you’d stomp lower-ranked players, or as an ethical alternative to buying an Elo boost to see how you’d really measure up against higher-ranked players.

8 Comments

Sneak Dog6/27/2014, 5:33:06 AM2 votes

Interesting point, but I think you might miss a few things:

Roles. Different roles snowball more or less and have more or less impact in the game, could be interesting to see if a diamond mid player can just reliably carry by snowballing his lane then snowballing his silver level botlane over the enemy diamond botlane.

Leadership. Personal opinion coming: I think the main difference between gold and higher is teamplay, gold has the laning phase relatively well, but after that it's still shaky. A diamond level player with a team of gold players that he leads into mid/lategame would be mildly superior to a platinum team. However, if the diamond player does not take this upon himself, well, the end is nigh.

Knowledge. Knowing what ranks ones teammates and opponents are will influence behavior, in ranked you generally only know allies since opponents' borders no longer show.

skippersd6/27/2014, 1:13:18 PM1 votes

A few other problems:

  • Some ppl are silver 1 with 100 ranked games. Others are silver 1 with 1k. Does the two player have equal skill?

  • Main roles: I personally know some silver ranked players who can go toe to toe with a diamond ranked one if they get their main role/champ.

With this in mind, I'd recommend adding a few layers to the experiment.

  • Note every player's main role, and their best champ (both in their opinion, and based on a data site)

  • Note their worst role (in their opinion)

This way a fair comparison would be between two mid lane mains, when they are on their best champ (and compare THAT to the average of the matchup)

SherdDergin6/27/2014, 6:54:40 PM1 votes

Is that even a question? of course it doesn't. A person can only get as good as they are mentally capable of being. Your rank in game has nothing to do with that. If anything it just shows that you've spent a lot of time playing ranked. Not that it isn't fun to try and clime the ranks and makes you feel like you can compare yourself to others like a badge of honor. However, lots of people are actually scared of playing ranked, because it's more stressful and people are extremely prone to raging and reporting. So there is a lot of people that don't like to play it at all, but that doesn't mean that there not good.