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It's Time for a Change

Finagwag·3/7/2017, 9:42:56 PM·1 votes·506 views

Preface: THIS IS A BIT OF A RANT. I'm going to do what pretty much everyone else with enough time on their hands and anger at the game for a number of reasons does, but hopefully one more on the pile eventually makes a difference. I'm going to discuss a few topics that all link together to explain why veterans are leaving league, and the community isn't working to change for the better.

  1. ELO and MMR, and how the current system works against the hot streak

So most of you are well practiced, and some now learning, how the elo and mmr systems work in this game. The standard rankings on top of the LP that works towards those rankings and the mmr that plays both foreground and background into why you get matched with whom you get matched with. Currently, I notice weird patterns. I have been playing this game for 3 years (nearly), and the same thing happens each and every time ranked seasons begins: I place somewhere between S3 and B1, I climb up to S1, I IMMEDIATELY lose 10ish or so games in a row, and by the end of the season find myself in S3-S5. Now what I've noticed as a "veteran" is that as your hidden mmr grinds up by winning multiple games back to back, whether it be by being carried or doing the carrying or just playing the game well, you naturally get matched against more talented players. The funny thing about this is that if you happen to start pulling a 60%+ win rate you end up getting over matched, or having lower mmr teammates filled in with you. As a support main this is a double-edged sword because it gets increasingly harder, as it should, to get your teammates fed as elo grows. However, it comes to that tipping point where I showed my usual pattern in elo (climbing then falling drastically) where it shows that the mmr system fails for individuals who are "just doing their job for the team". I try shot-calling, warding near objectives that historically teams that I've been on who snowballed took at certain time intervals and points at the game, etc. IT DOESN'T WORK. Teammates want to complain when things don't go well, blame others and what-not, whereas they will trash talk and BM if things are going well. This brings me to point 2...

  1. Player Behavior (for most self-explanatory, so feel free to skip)

If only I took screenshots, or even wrote down some of the things my teammates and enemies have said. Some of it may even surprise other veterans of the game. Player behavior (imo) is at an ALL TIME LOW for League of Legends. Its not even aggressive chat and hateful speech that is at the top of my frustration, its the "well that's just league" conversations. THAT'S JUST LEAGUE??!! You've condemned all of your fellow summoners and taught new players that its just a terribly toxic environment, and you're perfectly OK with that? I have had more and more of these conversations as time has gone on, and I've started asking what and why questions in end game instead of ignoring, simply reporting, and/or in some cases admittedly: flaming others on the game. It makes no sense? Why would you make the excuse that it's acceptable to be rude, condescending, threatening, and in some cases downright racist just because a lot of other people are doing it? Player behavior no doubt is holding a lot of potential back from certain players. It's also breaking down others whether or not you can prove it. So with this point being detrimental physically to the game and mentally to players the final point comes up...

  1. The Report System (Redundancy overload, I know)

"Go ahead and report me, I've been banned before it means nothing." Oh and my favorite that came out of the game I finished 15 MINUTES BEFORE I BEGAN WRITING THIS POST: "look I've been banned before and I understand what you're getting at, but nothing is changing and this conversation isn't going to go anywhere." When your players outright admit that you can get away with anything, YOU LITERALLY GET TO GET AWAY WITH EVERYTHING. Why Riot, why are you allowing this to happen. You have so little control over this community that individuals in all tiers feel power over the game that is YOURS. Don't bot the reports, have live individuals read them. The community is at such a point that every report needs to be reviewed to measure the current state of player behavior. Feel free to go back to a much more algorithmic answer to reports once the community is mostly positive/receptive to the rules and expectations. Play some games in all the elos where teams win by a landslide, or lose miserably and watch what they think they can get away with in chat! So to wrap up...

They've made videos all over the internet, interviewed old-school professional League players, and all sorts of other polling and forum posting to find out why players are leaving. EVERYTHING I'VE EXPLAINED IS WHY. Coming from a player who is so ready to drop it all and walk away, why is change not taking place? I have more games than not where I feel that reporting a player (or MORE!) is not only the right thing to do, but backed by the expectations and guidelines we agree to when playing the game. Please Riot...

It's time for a change.

4 Comments

Soulhavok3/8/2017, 11:43:48 AM1 votes

Wow I liked this post you made some great points. It would be great to have a manual review but the game is way too big now. Perhaps that's the problem it grew so big so quickly that no one could keep up with it all. Still a great game but I do wish the match making was a bit better

Subdue9/30/2017, 4:14:02 PM1 votes

This entire post is based on fundamental misunderstandings about the way things work.

MMR. MMR is basically an averaging system. By rising when you win, and falling when you lose, it estimates how frequently you win when playing with various groups of players. If you take someone with 1000 MMR and stick him in the 2000 MMR bracket, he'll lose most of his games. Note, he won't necessarily lose ALL of his games, but most of them. The opposite effect is also true. If you stick a 2000 MMR player in the 1000 MMR bracket, he'll win most of his games. Again, not necessarily all of them, but most of them. Given these two principles, you can see that by raising a player's MMR when he wins and lowering it when he loses, eventually he finds himself at a point where he wins about half his games.

In your example, you talk about oscillating between Silver 1 and Silver 5. There's only about 200 MMR between Silver 1 and Silver 5. That could be as few as 10 game streak. It is entirely possible, and really the most probable conclusion, that your skill level is somewhere around Silver 3, and while you're able to carry from Silver 5 to Silver 3, you are basically relying on luck of the draw to get you carried further. This is why your rating seems to oscillate.

IFS. This one doesn't need too much explanation. One need only look at this board to see how proficient the IFS is at capturing chat based toxicity.

Reporting. Again, one need only look at the board to see the severity of the penalty system. League of legends has over 100 Million Monthly Players. If those players play only 1 game a month (Low Estimate), that's 10 Million Games. And if only 1 out of 10 games has someone reported (Again, Low Estimate), that's 1 Million Games to review. If you then assume it takes 5 minutes to review each game, then that's 83,333 Hours, or 10,416 Work Days, or 437 Work Months. And as that's a monthly number, that's 437 employees reviewing games full time for 8 hours a day. Paying only Minimum wage and excluding benefits, it would cost Riot $750,000 A MONTH to have someone reviewing every report, and again, that's based on VERY low estimates.