The "Extreme Cases" LP system
I've noticed this in my 6 years of playing League of Legends, but the system currently in place makes it extremely hard to climb. Not because of the times when you would gain 15 for a win but lose 20, but because of the actions of players. I wanted to bring to light an idea that would address this. This new system would reduce smurfing and combat players that actively try to lose the game (whether by feeding or AFK etc.)
LP BASED ON PARTICIPATION When I say Participation, I don't mean logging in to play a game and happen to win, I mean the players that actively damage, crowd control, ward, take objectives, heal, shield, cs, get kills and assists etc. These players are recognized in post game stats, and by a nice letter grade. I believe that more extreme cases, both positive and negative, should be dealt with by adjusting their LP gain and loss. I am sure everyone can remember a game where it was practically a loss, but one player managed to snowball and give the team that win, and I an guarantee every single player has had the misfortune of playing with someone that griefs. The players that decide to AFK, intentionally feed (not just die because they were caught out, but legit walks into the enemy to die) or just plain refuses to participate in the team game in any way. Both of these should be acknowledged, and addressed.
THE SYSTEM Riot needs to implement a merit-based LP system for more extreme cases. I am not referring to a system where a person's KDA is the sole determinant. The system takes into account all the things most players neglect in the post-game stats screen. KDA, Crowd Control Score, Damage to Champions, Damage to Objectives, Damage to Turrets, Healing, Shielding, Vision Score/Wards placed/destroyed, Minions/monsters Killed. If a player is far below their teammates in several of these categories, they should receive slightly less LP for a win and lose slightly more LP for a loss. If a player is far above their teammates in several of these categories, they should receive slightly more LP for a win and lose slightly less LP for a loss. This merit-based system is meant for the extreme cases. It also pushes players to participate more for the goal of winning. Each game, the team's average stats for actively participating are reflected. These gain and loss adjustments are only for extreme cases
"WHAT IF I DON'T CARRY, DO I GET LESS LP? No. This isn't meant for the average player, but for those on both extreme ends. Supports that ward and are active in healing, shielding, CC and even providing damage to OBJs and enemies, even if they don't get kills, won't be affected. Top lane Nasus that wants to Q free farm to hit that power-spike still actively pushed, and if he did damage in duels won't be affected. For those who are behind in lane and can't farm, you can still help the team! poking, CC, warding and helping in late-game team fights would be enough to prevent any slight LP difference. It is meant to push those far above and far below their current MMR/elo into them quicker.
HOW IT DEALS WITH SMURFS Not every game will have a hyper carry to win you everything, nor a person actively driving you to a loss, but these do happen. Imagine this; a player that has taken 7 turrets, warded more than the support and was active in fights while maintaining a much higher KDA than anyone on either team. If this person somehow is in your Silver 4 game, he just may be a smurf. This system will pick up on the player repeatedly winning by an extremely large margin in various in-game factors and grant them additional LP. Clearly, they do not belong in that elo/MMR range, and should be moved up faster. Games with smurfs will happen, but less frequently because they are out of your division sooner.
HOW IT DEALS WITH ACTIVE-LOSS PLAYERS
Everyone has had a bad game at least once. In ranked play, a bad game happens and everyone is salty throwing around the word "report" for every little thing. This system picks up on how the players participate. If the person everyone says to report legitimately is AFK, there is a system that catches that. However, if the player did little to no damage to enemy champs or objectives, did not shield, heal, provide crowd control, ward/clear wards, and went far behind the team's average KDA, for several games at a time, they too do not belong in their current elo/MMR. These games will happen less and less because they lose LP faster than the team that they were on.
ADDRESSING THE CARRIES WHO LOST Losing a game is frustrating, but losing a game where you could 1v4 and have taken almost everything down solo? Now that is soul-crushing. Especially when you know that you lose the same LP as the person(s) who sat back while you attempted to carry instead of pushing, healing, warding, or joining in on the fights. Those that tried to carried steps away from victory, but ultimately lost due to factors out of their control if they actually were the only reason the game lasted 50 minutes, or they were the assassin picking off every squish but can't prevent the top lane from getting caught out, they were the super support that got rid of the entire fog-of-war with 30 assists and barely any deaths... should get less of a penalty.
ADDRESSING THOSE WHO GET CARRIED Now we can all say we've seen a player who was legitimately carried. Maybe it was you being carried, maybe it was you carrying! This isn't about the team going 3/2/5 or 2/2/3 or 6/3/5 and the carry happened to be 20/1/2, it is about the last teammate who did go AFK halfway in the game. The teammate who went 2/23/1 with barely any damage or CC, the person who was by no denial "dead weight". THAT kind of carry. They will still get a win, yes, but if they managed to be on the team that carried them they should get less LP for the win. Imagine it this way, Two people play together and one is clearly a smurf and the other is Bronze 5. After a few games of straight wins, the person hard carrying will move up faster, and the person who gets carried moves up slower. Eventually, they cannot duo together in ranked play. The smurf goes on and wins more until he averages out around people his/her level. The person being carried won't have the carry to boost him/her and they will either average out there or rarely fall into the Active-Loss players situation, losing LP faster until they average out at a lower elo/MMR more suited to their level.
WHY THE MERIT-SYSTEM? Much like in life, there will be times when teams need to accomplish a goal. Take a manual labor job or a school project. If you actively work your butt off to reach your goal, and everyone participates, it is a much more rewarding and honest experience, whether you reach the goal or not. If you have someone who doesn't participate, and even actively attempts to sabotage the team's efforts, they should take the brunt of the punishment if it was a failure, or get rewarded less if it was a success. The same goes for if one person were to near-single-handedly finish the job on their own, they should be acknowledged. The same principal should apply to ranked play.
TL;DR Hyper Carries should receive a little more LP for a win, and a little less for a loss while people who get hard carried should get less LP, and people that ruined the game by hard feeding should lose more LP. This won't affect the majority of players, just those on both extreme ends, either really good to the point of smurfing, or really bad, bordering on ban-worthy feeding.
