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Ranking system for ARAM

Saeiren·8/11/2015, 8:34:30 PM·4 votes·4,700 views

I've been playing LoL for about 2-3 years now, and Ive yet to get tired of it. I started out playing mainly normals, then went on to Ranked and a little ARAM, and since then I have moved on to almost exclusively ARAM. The main reason is that at this point in my life, I've been busy with other things (work, college, family), and I don't feel I have the time it takes to maintain a Ranked account, where games generally take about 40 minutes or longer to complete. Also I haven't really kept up with the current rules, but at the time, in order to maintain my Ranked status, I was required to play certain amount or face the consequence of eventually being demoted which played a big part in dissuading me from playing ranked. ARAM tends to be shorter games, generally around 15-25 min for me, making it much easier to fit in a game or two here and there when i can find time.

Now, I basically only play ARAM. In my early LoL days, I didn't play ARAM much because it requires an immense amount of knowledge of ALL champions and items which new players don't have. Playing ARAM early on felt unfair because of the RANDOM champ selection aspect of it, BUT I've come to enjoy it because its takes such a wide variety of knowledge of the game, that the people who are great at it are really good. They actually KNOW a lot about ALL of the champions and items, and how to counter specific champions, the timing of any champions abilities etc... So even though it is random, it doesn't really make a huge difference. Some people choose to specialize in specific types of champs and mainly stick with that, and its limiting, but I've purposely learned as much as possible as well as play all champs, and there are still a couple that I haven't played much but I'm working on it.

I think ARAM has made me a stronger player even in normals. For a long time I would be the one to always try to play it safe, and if that meant I didn't get many kills it was OK as long as i didn't die. Now that I've played so much ARAM I'm a lot more confident in my abilities and I'm not as timid of a player even in normals because generally ARAM requires an ALL IN play style.

So, finally my request is that there be some sort of RANKING system for ARAM games. Not necessarily a traditional complex ranking system like in NORMALS (Although that would be awesome). But something to give me and other ARAM EXCLUSIVE players a general idea of where we stand amongst other players. I play many ARAM games and often wonder how many people play ARAM, and where I land in that group. The only clue I get to my ranking in ARAM is in the loading screen where you can view other teammates ranked borders, but this isn't always an accurate measure because people who never play ranked have NO border but they could be Gold, Silver, or Platinum level for all I know. My silver border from last season still shows, but I often am grouped with Gold and Platinum players when I play ARAM so what should I classify myself as? ARAM is a completely different play style in itself, its held up to the test of time because people still continue to play it regularly and I feel like it deserves its own sort of ranking system. My last thought is that it would also be pretty cool if the new ranking system for "played champs" that was recently implemented into normals/ranked, that shows your skill level for each specific champ you play, would be of great value for ARAM as well. Thanks for the consideration :)

9 Comments

Saeiren8/12/2015, 1:55:38 AM3 votes

In my opinion, the way its set up now would still work. Overall, if you play a ton of games regardless of how random it is, whether you get completely terrible team comps or whatever, the outcome would still be the same to me. I tend to get MANY more good/decent games than bad team comps. What I've noticed over the past year of constantly playing ARAM only, is that I've gone from playing with nothing but silver borders, to gold with some platinums mixed in here and there, so that in itself tells me that I seem to moving up the ranks.

What determines how good you are is how many champs you know well and can play well. That goes for you playing any champ, and KNOWING champs that your enemies are playing.

As for combating rigged accounts, maybe only allow the ranking system to start once you've unlocked (X) number of champs, say 50 out of the 120 something there are. Or say "To be qualified to access Gold Tier, you must first reach 75 unlocked champs" or whatever number is determined to be fair. Meaning that you aren't even allowed to play for higher rankings unless you've unlocked a certain amount of champs. It could be something like:

Bronze/Silver: 20 Unlocked Champs Gold: 50 Unlocked Champs Platinum: 75 Unlocked Champs Diamond+: 100 Unlocked Champs

That way, people who think they're going to cheat everyone by having an account with only 5-10 of their fav champs can think again...I have around 100 unlocked maybe a little more. We have so many champs now, half of them are cheap enough (~3150 or less) to allow the bar to be set high.

If anyone else has any ideas, please post, I would like RIOT to see this :-D

Maximum Zilean8/11/2015, 9:35:01 PM2 votes

With how the current champ select is for the mode. Any form of ranked would just encourage everyone to make rigged accounts to cheat the rankings. I'd be fine with this if they just enabled every champion at the same time though.

Just at the moment, it is to easy to rig accounts for ARAM.

Ozias of Scagnar8/12/2015, 8:20:33 PM2 votes

I like the idea, but other than dealing with the smurf/rigged HA accounts, I personally think they need to balance out M/D or remove before it goes to ranked, granted I'm against M/D as a rule but if they would make it longer than 30-40 second CD it might become something that could be useful in the game, but as it is now, its just a free engage tool that greatly alters the current state of the game mode.

cHampDAcHizLa8/11/2015, 10:17:36 PM2 votes

I like the idea, but with the current system, people would just make accounts with only the best champs unlocked, and then play normals to get rerolls so they're almost guaranteed to get one of those champs. You would have to completely open the champion pool, or create a new system with some sort of banning phase before games. I would like to see this get some consideration though.

Kholdstare138/12/2015, 2:51:45 AM2 votes

as has been said before, this is feasible only after 2 things are fixed. Smurfs and dodgers.

Balance champ select to remove smurf advantage, and penalize dodging properly with MMR loss, as well as reworking the repeated dodge penalty to only decay with games completed, and only count down the time while logged in.

Saeiren8/12/2015, 8:40:41 PM1 votes

Thanks for continuing the conversation everyone, I appreciate everyones input and would like more people to see this and give their input of how to fix potential problems and move this idea forward. I also have a PBE account, so I'm going to post this there also and see if I can get more exposure :)

FaRmErX8/12/2015, 2:56:16 AM1 votes

rigged aram accounts are a myth.

Dr Jarjarbinks8/11/2015, 9:32:36 PM1 votes

I would like this also. What criteria would be used though? W/L doesnt seem ideal because comp has so much to do with winning or losing. You can kick ass or at least hold your own and get stomped based on random factors.

Even if it was largely based on total games played it would be a nice thing to have.

What do you think the ranking should be based on?