Why do placements seem so rigged?

Catastrop·10/12/2015, 2:02:33 AM·3 votes·770 views

Seriously, it's like all of a sudden the game decided to intentionally match me with some of the most toxic people it could find. My first 5 games were all well and good, everyone was all friendly and having a good time and were coordinated. The moment I touched that 6th game however, I came to understand why so many people complain about douches and trolls. One game I picked Lissandra mid, when the game starts however, the Pantheon decided that he was Mid instead and I apparently called top in the lobby. Is it because I myself just can't handle the higher levels of skill and this is a sign that I shouldn't have bothered with Ranked? Is it because I played these games at night when all the ones I won were in the day? I think it's a mixture of both, I just seem to win more when it's day which is contrary to my night owl tendencies.

16 Comments

SmokedAlmonds10/12/2015, 2:36:42 AM4 votes

Placements also aren't nearly as important as most people think. You are almost gaurenteed to end up in low silver and no matter where you get placed you are going to be in the same place after ~100-150 games anyway.

If you found things drastically different then its just random chance. Nothing significant would have changed between 2 games.

ModAttysu The Poro10/12/2015, 2:04:33 AM3 votes

Nope, this is Bronze. Have fun climbing elo hell.

Those games you just mentioned is the exact reason I only play ranked when I'm 100% focused and ready to insta-ignore everyone. In my placements, I literally got an afk in 8/10 of my games. I'm not over exaggerating, say it's improbable all you want, it happened, and I proceeded to want to kill myself afterwards cause I got B5. (I was B1, 1 game away from Silver 5 before it reset)

SmokedAlmonds10/12/2015, 2:07:28 AM3 votes

If its your first time doing placements then it may just be that your skill is below the starting point of ranked, which is not the bottom. Everyone starts around low silver so if you are worse than that you are going to find your placements and first chunk of matches to extremely difficult because it takes a decent number of games to get to where you belong.

Matches will get more difficult after you win, and that is going to be even more true with placements since they are worth more. So it could be that. You could hang with the people where you started but after a few wins you just couldn't compete anymore. Id say its most likely random luck. I have always found late night to be the better time to play until like ~3-4am.

ValyrianBlade10/12/2015, 3:07:14 AM2 votes

{quoted}

Is it because I myself just can't handle the higher levels of skill and this is a sign that I shouldn't have bothered with Ranked? Is it because I played these games at night when all the ones I won were in the day? I think it's a mixture of both, I just seem to win more when it's day which is contrary to my night owl tendencies.

I had the EXACT same experiences. No word of a lie. I haven't played much ranked (I only started this season, 47 matches so far) and I can tell you almost exactly how they went.

I played the majority of my placements during the morning/afternoon because it was my last term of school and we had reading week. I went 8-2. I played 3 evening games, 2 of which were the 2 losses.

I then played 9 games after placements during the next week when school started again (and hence mostly evenings) - I had the worst team-luck of my life and went 1-8 and was demoted and dropped to S2 40LP.

I quit ranked after that for several months. Came back only a little over a month ago.

I started playing after work. Can't give anything clear on them, but it felt like if I got home earlier (before 5:30pm) when I played the game, or played on weekend mornings, I typically won. If I played evenings, I typically lost. Overall, I lost the first 3 to get demoted to Silver 3 and then went about 9-6 in the next 15 while losing promos twice.

Then I started playing only mornings/afternoons/immediately after work if I got home early enough. I've gone 9-1 since and am now in Promos to Silver 1 again.

It seems that I have good team-luck during the day and brutal team-luck in the evenings.

I strongly suspect there's a much larger number of trolls / unskilled players during the popular evening hours. My playstyle is largely a safe one where I prefer to earn leads through farming exceptionally well in the early game and maintaining objective control. With teammates who play more passively and don't feed this works quite well, with teammates who rage or feed etc... this doesn't work at all (it doesn't matter if I have 30cs on my opposing ADC at the 12 minute mark when the enemy mid is already 4-0 and is going to start roaming bot a lot). Curious if you have a similar style of play. I'd guess people who play snowbally champs and have the mindset of being really aggressive and depending on themselves to get fed and carry or feed trying probably have better success at night than during the day and players like myself are the opposite.

Although I do also completely believe there has been a luck element to it to. I mean, doesn't matter what happens, you don't go 9-1 without a little luck on your side, nor do you go 1-8 without luck against you.

Quil Evrything10/12/2015, 4:38:10 AM2 votes

yup yup my experiences too. Both in (why do I suddenly get dramaticaly WORSE matching during critical promo games??) and hourly based variations.

I think it's about finding out the hours that bratty little children are in school, and then playing during those hours

Summer vacation, of course, is the WORST TIME TO PLAY RANKED.

ironically, I have children of my own, that play :-/ But I'm happy to say I raised them to not be brats.

Kazaashi10/12/2015, 5:20:50 PM2 votes

Remember:

Hate the players, not the game

It's not Riots fault people are shitty.

It is also good to remember, the 30 games right after your placements are WAY more important than the placements themselves. Those 30 games show the system if you are ready to move up or down from your initial placement. Think of the placement matches as a rough draft, or a good guess, by the system. Don't put much weight in them at all.