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Love the idea of new masteries, runes, even honor system. How about fixing MMR a little.

Billybaroo2314·6/2/2017, 3:38:04 AM·5 votes·504 views

I know Riot is trying, I see them all the time making attempts to improve the community. How about helping those of us out a little that may understand the game, not flame everyone for their own faults, and actually are trying to improve with fixing the MMR system. Just today I have lost 4 of 5 games due to other players feeding their lanes, flaming, or just not working as a team and throwing the game (even with 3 tower lead) to chase kills and flaming. I can go 10-0-10 every game and lose if people will not work together. That has nothing to do with my skill, that has everything to do with being stuck with players that think going 12-12-5 is ok, because their fed, never mind that they killed their team because they gave away all their towers chasing the kills, then since they lost the lane, came to another and took that person's cs (so they couldn't help) and then want to flame everyone else because they are being 2 shot by the person or more often people they have fed. MMR needs to be looked at. Here are a few suggestions:

  1. If a player is consistently being reported as toxic, and (even if you want to check the logs and they are being toxic, but not ban worthy) put them together with other players that are being reported as toxic. If a player is voted as a good team mate or good attitude, or whatever it ends up, match them together. Let the trolls eat themselves and reward those that want to work as a team, and get better play together.

  2. Find some way to reward good play at lower elo. This is a hard one I know, because K/D/A isn't everything. But if a player has taken 3 towers, put out a good ward score, has decent farm, you know doing the things that are suppose to show learning the game, find a way to reward them. Again, if I am mid and I go 11-2-11 and destroyed both mid towers, had a good amount of cs, bought control wards and used them, placed wards, but we lost because the other lanes are toxic, fed, whatever, do I deserve to stay bronze because I can't get 4 people to push? I know this is a team game, but people who think kills win the game, and not blowing up enemy nexus are rampant. I know this is a tough one and may not be possible, but being stuck in bronze and doing things right, but can't get your team mates to help you, kinda sucks.

  3. Maybe to help teach new players the importance of objectives, and pushing, and other things that are actually important in "skill" development find a way to make them focus those things more. Ex: Maybe in bronze elo make towers worth more gold, csing worth a little more gold to lane champs and less to jg champs, and make the jg camps worth no gold to lane champs and worth a little more to jg champs. As you advance change the gold values as with skill people understand when to push, when to drag, when to baron, when to farm the jg vs cs. That way the upper level ELO who actually understand that with 5 dead and a full minion wave in front of you is not the time to farm your jg it's time to drag/baron/push (whatever is most optimal) and newer players may start to learn some of this as well. This is a tough one also, I know, but I'm tired of losing games because your team wants to farm jg, get picked or never push because they think farming jg is all you do till 18 then push. Time and a place for everything I know, but needs to be some way to help people learn that this is an objective based game.

  4. I have watched countless video's of how upper Elo (Master/Challenger) just destroy even 1 level below them because people have said numerous times that there is not much of a skill difference between Bronze and Gold, and I have seen many say Diamond and Plat the skill difference between them and bronze is not usually that great. The levels should mean something. Bronze should be for new players who are learning the game, Silver more skilled, gold more skilled...etc....etc. I play with and against gold players. I don't see that big a difference in anything they do. Sorry to burst some of you all's bubbles but if rank actually means something, I should see it. This last point that Rank does not mean skill should make people say hmmmm.

Look I know none of this is easy. I also though know that if your say a sup main, and people won't work together and your in bronze, it is a pain to move. You may play your role perfectly, you may feed your adc, you may ward, you may do everything right, but since your not a damage champ you don't move. I have been up to my gold promo's a couple of times, and then dropped back into bronze because I am dependent on team. I know the excuse "just play a damage role" but even then, when people no longer really can just solo carry, being stuck in ELO hell really doesn't feel like a skill situation anymore, just luck in team match-up. I try to examine my play, see if I can improve every game, but you know, 1 Lux can not push to the nexus if team NEVER wants to push with them. No easy fix Riot, I understand, but please try to find something to at least get the toxic players out of games with those of us that try to stay positive and actually improve. I have tilted, not immune to it, one of my flaws working on, but I can also say that when 2 lanes feed then want to complain because of whatever and start flaming you, I really don't feel like helping them win sometimes. And I don't have to help them, and may take a loss to prove a point, but that's me. I would be far less inclined to worry about that if I knew that with consistent use of the honor system the right way, and reporting those that are just toxic messes on a consistent basis and I wouldn't have to play with them again, would make my tilting less often.

Long post I know, but really, just help those that want to improve, get better, try to actually climb in elo get away from the trolls and toxic messes. That would be a great start.

9 Comments

Weathered6/2/2017, 4:18:17 AM2 votes
  • You aren't going 10/0/10 in your games, or are very rarely performing on that level. I have been in bronze, players can definitely cause you to have a score a little or much worse than what you normally perform, but it very rarely makes a lasting impact over almost all of your games performance wise.
  • You are currently on tilt, which is probably making you perform worse and notice small issues in your teammates a lot easier. I would take a break and play normals and then come back to ranked when you are feeling more fluid/relaxed.
  • Riot has stated before that the idea of a "prisoner island" of toxic people being paired together is not an idea they like and does nothing to fix or resolve the issue.
  • I don't think changing in game values (like gold) for specific ELO's is a good idea. Consistency and equal play for all play levels is something Riot cherishes (or tries to cherish) a lot, since it allows familiarity and an even playing field for all players.
  • People (myself included) do say that some ranks aren't very different in skill level in some games, but rank is more determined by consistent play rather than being able to play like a gold player in a bronze game I watch. It's a generalized statement to group up ranks like that, and although some of the differences in ranks don't seem noticeable, there are a lot of small specific details that set ranks apart that I can go into a bit more detail on if you'd like.
  • Damage roles certainly help to carry, but I'd argue and have seen personally that certain supp playstyles can be very consistent and easy to climb with in lower ELOs (like Janna and Blitzcrank) because they can easily cover up team mistakes or capitalize on enemy mistakes when played properly.

A good portion of your points have basis for concern and are legitimate propositions for changing the ranked setting, but there is a lot of reasons the current ranked system is set the way it is to cover the range of concerns for all of the players who participate in it. I've experienced Bronze through Platinum in climbing, and I can tell you that lower ELO is a very different perspective of ranked than mid to higher ELO and can sometimes look illegitimate to people (and in most cases, it is legitimate, just perspective). I can type out some more if you'd like, but I'll probably not respond till a little later because of sleep.

This Is Your Dad6/2/2017, 6:20:03 AM1 votes

I think it'd be nice if there was more teamwide gold distribution for things you've done. The tower gold advantage is great. I think supplementing other players with your accomplishments might help players individually impact their games more.

hotarse6/2/2017, 9:02:24 AM1 votes

I don't think any of your suggestions would help. I also don't think any of them are implementable.

Here's what needs to happen to fix the MMR/rating in order to have better matchmaking.

  1. We need less variables in matchmaking. The more variables the higher the chance something goes wrong. One variable is blue vs red side. Currently, red side is disadvantaged, and to make up for it matchmaking attempts to put higher skilled players on red side. Another variable is number of premade players. I believe there should be a pure SOLO q since premades cause a lot of variance to match making. Autofill also adds another variable to the list. The team with an autofill is more likely to lose than one without it. To fix this I would suggest fixing the problem of no one wanting to play support by giving supports much of their power back. I'm talking their season 1-3 power that got nerfed out of them. By making the game enjoyable for all roles, autofill would cease to be a necessity.

Riot Game, instead of fixing their problem, put so many bandaids onto that now matchmaking is incapable of creating an actual good game that feels close and fair. The fact that games are getting shorter is an indication of this. Unfair matchmaking leads to ranking not representative of actual skill which leads to more unfair matchmaking... a vicious cycle.

  1. Riot needs to, simply put, make it easier for players to end up in the ranking tier that is closer to their "true" MMR. When people ask why they are being matched up against players of much higher ranking (and losing horribly because of it) Riot provides the explanation that the player is actually as good as those of a higher ranking, that his MMR is not representative of his ranking. Thus we get games where a silver player may be matched up against a Diamond player. This excuse is ridiculous. If the player is indeed worthy of a diamond ranking due to his MMR, then the system needs to find a way to get him there FAST. The longer it takes to reach your true ranking, the more uneven the games in ranking will be. It will take ages for players to finally sift into a range of rankings that they belong to.
Just Blame Jenny6/2/2017, 1:00:18 PM1 votes

MMR is fine.

For every loss streak you get, you're also going to get a win streak, provided you're playing on par for your elo.

Play better, and you'll turn more games and earn more win streaks.

Play worse, and you'll earn more loss streaks.

There's a random element to it, yes. And I sympathize. It can be extremely frustrating when you play five games in a row that are straight up impossible to carry (for anyone remotely near your elo). It happens, though, and is just part of the climb. Statistically, there's no way to avoid this. The more ranked games you play, the more likely you are to run into an unfortunate pattern like this. That's just reality. That's math: select an arbitrary portion of any given series, and you'll start seeing patterns.

Though remember, the opposite is also true. I'm sure you can think back to plenty of amazing win streaks you've had. Maybe you felt that you "carried" them. Of course you felt that way! It feels better to. But I'm sure that, if you're being honest with yourself, you can also think of plenty of streaks that you won simply because the enemy team was bad. It wasn't even a challenge.

At any rate, here's the deal.

You can't reward players with rank based on individual performance, because the only true determinant for skill is winning. Individual performance metrics will cause players to stop playing to win, and instead to pad out those metrics. I've already seen this. You've already seen this. Think back to that jungler that refused to end the match, because they didn't have enough CS to earn their S grade yet. (And then they nearly threw by dragging on the game, didn't they?)

Remember that with statistics, the fewer games you play, the more likely you are to experience statistical variance. But play a ton of games, and it all evens out. In the short term, random factors are a pain. But in the long term, your skill is the only factor.