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Promotional Series Are A Big Issue That Needs To Be Addressed

Void2258·11/12/2013, 10:48:49 PM·6 votes·804 views

The promotional series is a big issue. It literally makes it so that the weighting on a particular set of games is so much higher than everything else as to make everything else almost meaningless.

For example in climbing to silver I literally played 9 Bronze-Silver promo series in a row with win 1 to enter, win 2 lose 3 in series, repeat. That means I had a near perfect 50% win rate, and my MMR was such that by the 9th series I was playing as last pick in several peoples' Silver-Gold promos, so I was literally playing a tier above where I was placed. But because only the 5 games in the series mattered and their is no sensible override for consistent performance (ie you have a 50% win rate vs people a tier above you -> promote regardless of series), I was stuck grinding and hoping to finally get lucky enough to have a team that was carryable enough times in series to advance.

The whole series concept is questionable. Why should your performance in specific matches be so much more important than others? But the fact that the system can punish you for consistent performance rather than reward you is stupid. A 50% win rate vs higher rated players should give you steady advancement, not stagnation. Instead, you continue to play against harder and harder opponents, actually making it harder for you to win the requisite number of games to complete your promo. What generally happens is that after a point (generally about when you r MMR is a tier above your placement), you actually can't help but start losing, drop about 50-75 LP and then have to fight your way back up while clamped, at which point your MMR is about back to where it was when you first got to the series the last time. Instead of having spent all that time getting to rank 3 or 2 in the tier above you, the system ran you in a circle just so you can play appropriately difficult promo matches. The fact that MMR can desynchronize from rating so badly that you can play in promo series for an entire tier above the level that you are playing a promo series for points to a clear and glaring flaw in either the concept of series, the concept of MMR decoupled from visible ranking, or the concept of visible tier ranking itself.

There needs to be a change. I understand the reason for series: It's too prove you are worthy to advance, particularly at the tier barrier where you become highly immune to demotion, even with the new season changes. But first of all they are not needed for every rank in a tier, as this weights losses higher than wins (unless there is also a demotion series), and second there needs to be an allowance for bad luck with teammates, consistent performance that happens to not fall in series, and other factors. For example, provide for an automatic advancement to bring the tier level into line with the MMR if they desync too badly (ie if you win a game and it is too far off, get a message that the system is adjusting and jump up a few levels, ignoring promos etc.), or jump forward on advancement to compensate (ie if MRR is too high when you jump a tier, come in higher in the tier, for example going from bronze 1 to Silver 2 if your MMR is where mine was). Something to allow for steady progress but bad luck in promos to be rewarded instead of punished.

12 Comments

IMadeAMistake11/13/2013, 2:35:03 AM1 votes

i had to win about 7-10 games in a row in "bronze 1 to silver" series to get back into promos. Once in promos , still carried with same scores but had teams who didnt do anything and lost 15pts per game while i only gained 6 per while on that streak. Too much goes into 1 series and makes it much harder to even get out of bronze. Something has to be changed here.

RigJuiceTurbo11/13/2013, 3:40:27 AM1 votes

Especially with the kind of luck i have, i always end up getting afk adc's on my team in my promo's. Obviously this wouldnt be a true showcase of my skills if i dont have an adc, but i still get put back into bronze because of these kind of games. just because of bad luck or bad teammates i am considered just as bad as those players right off the bat and stuck in bronze, it really should be more about how you play out of promo's than in. I'd also like to propose the opposite of your idea, putting people back. it's very annoying to play with silver 5 people who clearly shouldnt even be bronze 5 but had a lucky provisional run and are now losing games for people. it would be better if bad people could be moved down divisions by special placement like you said.

Uncle Istvan11/13/2013, 8:15:45 AM1 votes

I'd really like to see Riot just bring back the Elo system, and if they want have people do promos upon reaching the necessary Elo for a tier (to ensure people deserve to get those rewards). They seem to like the Leagues system too much, though. It's understandable what they're trying to do with Leagues/Divisions. People like seeing incremental progress while they're trying to complete their goal of advancing to the next tier. But a promo series for simply moving up a division within a tier causes needless frustration.

If they really want to keep Leagues and divisions, then I hope they at least remove promo series when advancing divisions and just keep them for when advancing to the next tier. Moving up a division isn't a big deal and it offers no reward other than seeing yourself get a step closer to the next tier, but promo matches are treated like a really big deal. Matchmaking behaves differently when you're up for a promo, and because of their importance the mindset the player has is also different. It doesn't make much sense to have these important games when doing something unimportant (moving up a division). It creates a lot of needless stress and I hope it's changed in the future.

Desert Nomad11/13/2013, 11:00:12 AM1 votes

You guys all have a point, and it is a good one. But I think what Riot tries to do with the Promo series especially is to put more importance on the game to see if the player can rise to the occasion and play even better. They can't really account for AFKers/trolls, that's like a luck factor. Problem there is that you're more likely to end up with those people if you're in the top division and trying to move up another tier, cos like OP said, there are many people in the lowest division in the tier above you who really don't deserve to be there.

Now don't get me wrong, I've already lost 3 promos to Gold. One on the last day of S3 too. In my first promo, i'd lost 2, won 2. In those last 3 games, I was getting matched with gold/plat players, and in the very last one, a diamond player too. Unfortunately for me, he was on the other team. But I guess the point is that you can't really control who you end up with..... I agree that they should work on making the MMR system more accurate. My advice, find a duo queue partner who's at your level or better than you. Yes you do still get bad players but this will certainly mitigate that chance. I took a dive down to S4 after my second promo loss due to consecutive bad teams/AFK's/ragequits. It was bad, but I managed to find someone of my skill level also down in S4, and we worked our way back up to S1 in about 3 days.

That automatic advancement to move up tiers is a bad idea I feel. You may be a very skilled player technically, but all that skill counts for nothing if you don't know what to do and when to do it (objectives/teamfights/etc). And I think that is the main difference between say a silver and a gold player, and even in the higher tiers. Which against bolsters the point of the promo series, and playing with people of a higher tier than you in them.

As for division series', they do allow for jumping divisons (which I did when I first started ranked a few weeks ago). So I think those should stay as well. But the MMR needs to be tweaked, like you said, the system should reward you for consistent good performance in games, even if the rest of your team does badly.

So what I suggest, since I don't know the algorithm behind the MMR matchmaking system, is to modify LP gains/losses. Allow for higher LP gains if your MMR is far higher than others in your division. The highest i've experienced so far is +23 I think, but perhaps this could be raised to around 30 at the max? Of course, the same would go for losses. As for clamping when reaching the top of the first division of the tier, keep that. But insert a minimum LP gain for a win, of 1-2 LP. I have seen people win and get 0 LP for it, essentially making that game useless. That needs to be changed.

SmokingPuffin11/13/2013, 10:23:15 PM1 votes

If you are winning 50% of your games, the odds of you completing a promotion series are 50% as well.

If you are playing as you normally do, the odds of you going 0 for 9 on promotion series are 1 in 512.