Living League of Legends’ season 2014 has finally hit and the reset to rankings have gone out, much to the majority of the player base’s dismay. Only one big change has been made to the ranked system, that players can drop down a ranking (i.e. from Gold to Silver) if they lose too many games. Also players no longer have capped LP gains when they’re in division 1. This means that players should be able to gain ranks a little bit quicker. Other than that, no additional changes have been made to the ranked system, which as players are finding out, is a bit of a disappointment.
As players elo’s have been reset, players are now required to play ten placement matches to get their rank. Which is fine, it’s what we knew was going to happen. What we weren’t expecting to happen though was for the European server to be hit by huge lag, impacting most of the games players were having, meaning that players were dropping in rank due to disconnected players and other such things.
Of course with every reset we see some players drop from Platinum rank to Bronze, which is a tad unfortunate, as some players get caught up in the mad rush of players who are desperately trying to win their placement matches and rage quitting if they don’t get what they want. This leads me to a piece of advice, wait a week or two until you start your placement matches. By this time most of the player base will have settled into a rank and hopefully will be returning back to their usual sane self’s.
As with every reset, players become more and more frustrated with a ranking system which doesn’t properly suit their needs. Rage threads appear everywhere as players realize once again how silly the current ranked system is. Why is it silly? Because it doesn’t achieve the goal of giving players a suitable rank that equals their skill level and then paring them with players who are close to their skill level. Instead it just jumbles some players together, putting Gold III players with Platinum IV players, and seeing what happens. If you lose then you drop in ranking, even if it’s not your fault, and if you contribute nothing to the game yet somehow still win then you’ll raise in rank.
It’s a flawed system which doesn’t suit the game in any shape or form.
I have, for many years, wanted to suggest a new system for ranking however I have never done so, until now. Why now? Because I want to get it off my chest and out into the open. I have long since thought up this system, and whether or not it’ll be of any use to anyone remains to be seen, however if I get it out in public then maybe, just maybe, I can receive some feedback. So here it goes.
The current ranked system does two things:
1) Rewards players for winning, and punishes players for losing, regardless of how they played in the match.
2) Provides no information about why the player gained or lost ranking points and what they did in the game to deserve its outcome.
3) The current system encourages flaming and hate among players.
The following points above, I believe, is why the system is currently incredibly flawed. This is how a typical ranked match does:
1) Players joins match queue and gets into a ranked game.
2) Player chooses picks and bans, or waits for them to be chosen, and converses with the team on roles.
3) Player chooses champions, selects masteries and runes and then plays the game.
4) Player plays the match.
5) Once outcome of match has been determined, and the game has been played, the player gets taken to the “End of Match” screen where LP will be reduced or added to the player’s current score depending on whether they won or lost a match.
6) The player then either plays another game (rinses and repeats), or stops playing.
The problem with this system is that the player has not been given any sort of information about how the game went after it ended. Yes, they are given stats such as damage dealt, but how does that help a player who lost a match? It doesn’t. Most players won’t study, analyze their games or play style, and just continue playing the way they have been. It’s an incredibly passive experience, with the player not being taught anything. Not only that, but if a player loses a match they will lose LP regardless of their play style. This system encourages flaming and a horrible attitude, as players are taught that if their team can’t win then an individual player is at fault even if they played at their best.
Now this might be fine for other games, but League of Legends isn’t just any other game. League of Legends is the most played video game in the world, and in opinion, the best competitive game on the market offering players tons of depth and unique gameplay experiences. No, so this ranking system will not do.
This suggested system solves the above issues by doing the following:
1) Giving LP gains and drops based on the players individual skill level.
2) Teaching the player and showing them where they went wrong in their own play so that they can improve on it in the next game.
3) Reducing flaming and forcing player’s to focus on their own individual skill, instead of being forced to focus on how other players are doing because they will lead to the outcome of the match and ultimately decide on whether or not you get an increase in rank or not.
How does it do this? Let’s deal with each point individually.
First off, instead of rewarding or punishing players with increased or lowered LP gains based on the outcome of the game, the game would instead reward or punish players with increased or lowered LP gains based on how and what the player did during the game.
A score variable (for now let’s call it Score) will be added to the game, with each positive action a player does in-game increasing the Score variable. For example:
If a player kills an enemy player, 100 points will be added to their Score variable. If a player destroys a ward, then 20 points will be added to their score variable. If a player places a ward then 5 points will be added to their score variable. If a player gets an assist on the enemy player, then 100 points will be added to their Score variable. Not only that but for the player would receive one point per CS, or two points per monster, and five points per big monster.
Before we go any further I just want to note that some readers would have picked up that placing wards could be exploited however the system would detect how many wards are being placed. If a player gets 3 wards and placed them in close proximity of each other, in an attempt to increase his Score, the game would only award him 5 points for the first ward, with the game detecting that other wards are in close proximity and have been placed seconds after the last ward.
If a team obtains an objective, either a turret or dragon, then 50 points are given to all of the players on the team.
Now the points awarded aren’t set in stone, they are merely examples. The point is, if a player does something that benefits the team then they are given points.
If a player does something that has a negative impact on the team then they lose points. For example, if a player dies then the player in question loses 100 points. If a player flames, the game would pick up keywords in the chat, then the player would see their points reduced by 5, with the number doubling every time they use a bad word or flame a teammate. Not only that but players who go AFK in the fountain would see a deduction of 50 points, with that number doubling for every minute they are AFK (this effect would occur after 2-3 minutes of being AFK), punishing players who give up or rage quit.
This scoring system would reward, or punish, players for their own play, instead of rewarding or punishing an entire team for it. If a player does good in a game then their score will reflect that.
Onto the second point, how to teach players and reward them for their own skill.
Well, you remember that Score variable? At the end of the game, players will be given, or deducted, LP based on the Score variable regardless of whether or not they won or lost. For example, if I’ve gotten 7 kills, 1 death, 2 assist, and a dragon, yet my team still lost, then I will still gain LP based on my score. In the above example then I might gain 10-15 LP. If I went 0/8/4 and lost, then I might lose the standard 15-20 LP.
I believe that a player should be given LP if they won the match, regardless of how poorly they did, so if a player when 0/8/1 with 100 CS, then they’d earn 1-5 LP.
Not only that but the scoring system would tell the player what things to improve on. If the Scoring system had seen that the player had died 3 times, but not placed a single ward, then in the Result screen the player would be given some advice such as “Try placing wards, this way you can see any unwanted, incoming, enemies”. If a player lost a lot of points due to flaming, then his advice might read “Don’t insult your team mates, instead focus on your own play”.
Not only that but more than one piece of advice could be given to a player. This advice, whilst not necessarily in-depth advice, would help the player refocus and give them a good idea of what to work on in the next game. It’d be simple enough to help the player, whilst also giving them some idea of what to search for in tutorials if they want to seek further help on it.
Finally, the third point. This system helps to reduce flaming, by having a direct effect on a players ranking score with their bad behavior. Not only that but players won’t feel so inclined to insult other players due to their in-game actions, because they will be judged on their own skill, not on that of their teammates.
That’s pretty much my suggested scoring system for solo queue. The win, loss scoring system for ranked teams is fine, because a team’s skill level should be determined by how many games they win or lose. For solo queue however where players are grouped with random strangers of many different skill levels, this more in-depth system should not only help to teach players, but also to place them at a more appropriate skill level.
The current solo queue ranked system, I feel, is currently to grind-y. I’m not a particularly good player, but last season I got to Gold 1 (before reset) from Silver 5. It wasn’t so much because I got better, but rather because I grinded and played hundreds upon hundreds of games. Whilst I admit that I must have gotten better from playing all of those games, I believe that a system like this, which rewards players on skill level, as well providing advice for players, will have helped me get to Gold 1 faster, rather than grinding out millions of games.
It has to be noted that this system is aimed at helping out the average player, who are more than 50% of the player base, not the pro-player who’ll win each game and get to Diamond I regardless. Instead this system is aimed at people like my brother, who did their placement games and got into Silver V, however could never climb out of Silver due to him only being able to play a game every couple of days. He’s a good player, however he didn’t have the time that I did to grind and get to Gold.
LoL doesn’t need a grind-based ranking system to keep players playing the game. All people want is a ranked system where they can be placed with other players of a similar rank. A grind-y solo queue system just pushes people away as they feel that it’s incredibly unfair (which it is) and to be honest just a bit sad that such a large and smart company such as Riot has to resort to such grind-y and pathetic systems. LoL didn’t become the most played game in the world because of a rubbish ranked system. It became the most played game in the world because it’s a damn good game with a damn awesome company behind it.
This new ranked system would help to teach players, whilst also rewarding them for their play, instead of that of others. At the end of the day, many elements of life are out of our control, we don’t need a ranked system that’s the same and forces us to rely on people we don’t know and never ever will know, just so that we can finally get to play a game with people who are at the same skill level as us.
That’s my 2 cents away.
If you’d like to read my other article about the preseason, visit this page.
Hearthstone: Understanding How Weapons Work
Eorzean Evening Post: New Year Plans in Final Fantasy XIV - MMOGames
The Tyrian Chronicle: Happy Two Year Anniversary! .
Versus: Is Blizzard Cocky or Confident? .
The Tyrian Chronicle: Mordremoth's Entanglement .