Update 5/25/2017
Well, I started a thread back in Dec 2011 that’s seen a lot of activity (some 922,000 views over the course of a few years apparently...). That thread had a good deal of tips/strategies/discussions about League of Legends from new and old players alike. You can find the previous thread (now archived) here: https://forums.joeuser.com/413863. I think its time to start fresh with a new thread.
What’s this thread all about?For those that followed the previous thread, the type of content you see here will be fairly consistent to what you are used to. Please consider this a place to discuss LoL related content as you like. I'll do the same and treat the thread as a blog as well where I talk about what’s going on with me in LoL. Feel free to jump in and join the discussion if you like.
Quick background on meI played a lot of Demigod as pacov/cheesuscrust. Back in August 2011, I started getting heavily involved in League of Legends, and folks from the community were kind enough to help me figure things out. I play LoL most nights, stream, make videos and it’s my main gaming interest.
Some links
jebus... so much new info, new client alpha, crafting... ranked going crazy...
For any of you that haven't read up on some of the season 6 planned changes, one of them is to have dynamic queues for ranked. Meaning, you can even have a total of 5 pals in what was originally ranked solo/duo queue. To this, someone responded over on reddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/3rgb7x/hots_had_dynamic_queue_and_everyone_hated_it/
A few good points here - specifically there being a big potential problem for people going it alone and the potential abuse at the hands of 4 man premades. For instance, if the 4 man is on voice chat, then they are less likely to communicate with their solo teammate. Group mentality abuse (you are the solo guy and now an entire group of twats is dumping on you for X reason). Making the game more fun is cool. Making the game more fun for people that abuse others is less so. Maybe rito would combat this with a higher feedback rating for folks group with a 4 man pre.
If I'm completely honest, I still think solo/duo queue should become SOLO queue. Let that queue indicate how you stack up vs other individual players. Put that together with the new champ select process where you pick 2 roles and I think we have a really good system for measuring individual skill.
I also think grouping as 5 will just skew MMing like it does in normals. Play 1 game with PDT in a normal. Now imagine what happens in ranked... he's gold after all.
Anyway, I'll roll w/ whatever rito decides to do, but I personally think this is a bad idea and think that if they are going this route, they should limit premades to no more than 3 so they don't have ff control automatically. And if they are going this route, I wish they'd create two queues - 1 for SOLO queue, 1 for OMGFBBQ queue.
Oh and the new champ select is now live on PBE.
Not really the biggest fan of the ranked queue changes either especially since I am very much the lone wolf type of player for ranked. Seems kind of silly but we will see how it works out.
Get good team that plows the opponents, group with whole team, steamroll all day?
moobeat posted vid of new champ select process - cool animations
Worth noting that multiple people on the team are making the bans - 1 guy gets 1 pick, another gets another.
There are also individual champ select timers. Once bans are done, it still goes in the same rotation - team X gets first pick, the team 2 gets the next 2 picks. Those next 2 picks each have a unique timer. So, let's say my team has 2nd/3rd pick and I'm 3rd pick. When its time for 2nd to pick, I can't do anything until they lock in. Then I get a unique timer. In short, you just don't pick at exactly the same time anymore.
I'm leaning towards support/jungle as my 2 roles atm. Might all change in preseason though.
Mid and support are my choices with top being a close third.
Yeah, might have to adjust if/when I play with 1-4 buddies with the new Ranked system.
This was addressed by Lyte.
False reports are going to be a bannable offense so it wouldn't be a good idea for the foursome to bully the rando. Also, reports made by the 4 man team only count as one. So if four of us played Ranked and decided to all report the one extra guy, and he reported all of us... everyone just gets one report against them.
I wish they'd create two queues - 1 for SOLO queue, 1 for OMGFBBQ queue.
If they made SoloQ solo only, they would have to bump everyone like you and I and everyone else who played a significant amount of Ranked games as Duos over the previous seasons back down to Silver. That way it would be fair to all the new Ranked players who have to get through Elo Hell going Solo every game because dudes like us wouldn't get our soft reset to Gold.
But that would be a little silly. I understand why Riot is going this route since it allows friends to play together more often. Also might take away from some of the motivation for people to Elo Boost and stuff if they make Ranked more relaxed and fun.
One solution to preserve the sanctity of Ranked would be to get a 'Lone Wolf' icon/border decoration/whatever if you play every game in a season Solo.
yeah, but I'm more thinking a lets see how this plays out. Also, if there isn't notification, how do we know something was done. Its def a bad feeling to know 4 people have reported you. That happens even a few times and its a pretty huge turn off to going it solo.
DO IT.
Yes, please. This would be completely awesome. Wipe the queues. Make everyone that needs to ride coattails earn their shit. I've played enough solo games and I'm more than confident I easily fit in Plat. I don't really lump myself in with the needs to duo to get there party even if you want to lump me in there. If you are feeling like that of yourself, then prove it to yourself and do it solo! Meant a lot to me personally do earn my elo and so I did. Pretty damn sure I'd make it back to plat playing 100% solo though. For me, the real challenge would be putting in the time and work to see how high I could go in plat and if I could actually hit Diamond. I really don't feel like I need to prove shit to show I earned plat as a solo player though.
All that said, I'm obviously really passionate about having a true solo queue - even more so if its true solo queue with folks getting to play their main role 90% of the time. I'd like to be able to say at some point that I am a diamond support. That doesn't mean I'm a diamond mid, ofc. Or a diamond jack of all trades. My real end game would be to rate people by role and then by champion in that role. That's kind of crazy thinking, tbh, but that's the type of crap I care about. Who is the best regulus in DG? Who is the best spirit Oak? Etc. I just think TRUE solo queue gets us closer to stats like that instead of some horseshit 4 peeps queue up in ranked and carry this shit support up. Or imagine a karls that hits diamond. You probably don't want him to ADC, but having him jungle is great. He's not a D level adc. That's where the rating system fails. I just think it could be alot better and this is a silly step completely in the opposite direction.
Realistically, I don't think they can create the 2 queues. For instance, consider pacovs magical world where there is a SINGLE SOLO queue and a OMFBBQ anything else queue. You have a 4 man premade. Would a solo person choose to queue up for that "dynamic queue" instead of going and playing solo queue? If he only choose solo queue, the what must the queue times be like in the dynamic queue where 4 man pre's are waiting for 1 guy to show up. It could work, but if it was a SOLO queue and a max of 3 peeps queue in the OMGFBBQ queue.
Oh and new meta - cow top poppy, pacov mid donger. GG (forget about mord)
Not insinuating you're not a Platinum caliber player. You earned your border and sorry if it came across like I thought you didn't.
I thought that Duoing was fun for you. You like to call shots, you like to talk in games, and you like to play with pals. I thought that's mostly why you Duo'd so often when playing Ranked, not just that you find people you have synergy with and can climb up to where you belong faster.
You've expressed burn out with the process of getting as high as you can in Ranked because of getting bad luck in promos and being placed in Silver in the past, so I wouldn't think having to slog your way up again without a Hunnybadger to talk to while you play (and possibly expedite the climb) would be appealing.
So yeah, I'm just a little confused why one of the most social people in this game that I know is upset that Riot is trying to make Ranked a more social experience.
Heh - next name change will be social pacov with strong opinions about true ranked solo queue - I hear you can use up to 100 characters in season 6. Jokes aside, I've always been kind of weird in how I socialize. I talk too much and too often in some settings and more often than not would actually rather not play with anyone for a bit (remember my whole offline mode thing from awhile back - I didn't figure that out to socialize )
Anyway, the ranked thing is just a personal thing that I've always been on about. I like to feel like i earned whatever in ranked. For instance, if I earned plat last season in solo queue without Herculean effort, I don't really care if I duo or not to get the same stupid standing from season to season. Personally, duo queueing to plat (eg if I never made it there solo) would mean less to me. Same logic would apply for me personally if I made it gold via our ranked 5's team. I'm alot more interested in my solo performance if I'm really making an effort. And again, even more specific in that I'm a plat support and possibly a plat jungler, but not a plat mid/top. I think that would be the best sort of ranked match making - where I'm up against something that is not only plat, but is plat in the role they are playing. BUT - rito don't really care, so if they go through with this change, then I'll either have to adjust my pov or decide not to give a fug. I'm not really looking down on you if you duo'd a bunch, though. I think this queue idea is a bad one, though. Could be everything goes swell and folks just get used to it despite initial smeh feelings.
Or perhaps let me change the tone. Do folks agree with me that a ranked system that evaluates elo by role would be better? Eg you could be a plat Support but only a gold Mid, etc? Does that sound appealing? MMing could be tweaked as well so my plat ass doesn't have to go up against a plat mid if I had to fill like back in the day.
I had the same reservations you did when I first heard about it but am now drinking Dr. Lyte's Koolaid.
http://www.surrenderat20.net/2015/11/red-post-collection-warding-you-ranked.html#more
Here's one of the quotes that helped turn around my perspective: "We upgraded the matchmaking system to pair similar group comps together. It is possible that it might be harder to rank up in a premade group than as a solo because you'll be consistently exposed to crazier, and more competitive strategies."
There is quite a bit of dopeness to consider with the new system. More teamwork in Ranked games and such, less bullshit that poor Karl ran into when he made his last minute run for Plat. Maybe. We'll see.
But think about it this way: Solo Purist Pacov and Teamwork Makes The Dreamwork Thunder both play Ranked next season, you with only going in solo and while try and play with as many friends as possible each game.
For arguments sake let's say having a Dynamic Ranked group of 3-5 is a huge advantage over being Solo. Well... they're going to try very hard to match my premade against another premade of equal skill and size so where's the advantage I get if they manage to pull that off?
You'll be in 1/4 groups or 1/1/1/1/1 or 1/1/3 or whatever against the exact same composition so where is the disadvantage? Why is going Solo harder than having a premade five man team in this scenario?
This of course all hinges on Riot's goal of having Matchmaking place Dynamic teams go against other teams of the same size '95%' of the time. If that doesn't work out, then having lots of good friends will be a big advantage in Ranked.
Re: Adjusting MMR based on specific roles
No.
Current Teambuilder Matchmaking is absolutely horrendous and any attempt to borrow from it's handicapping system would be a very bad idea. If you want to play Mid in Ranked, get good at Mid in Normals. Getting beat by better players is the way to get good at a role, specially Mid or Top. The new system will be in place so you'll get to practice the role most times that you queue up for a Normal Draft game.
So here's what this means.
If you consistently play as a well organized team, you will move up faster.
If you consistently play as a poorly organized team, you will move slower.
If you play solo, there will be EVEN MORE randomness and its going to take even longer to converge to your true rank. If you get the solo role in the 1+4 vs 1+4 matchup, the match will largely be decided by how well coordinated the two groups of 4 are. In other words, you have less control over the game than if it was 1+1+1+1+1 vs 1+1+1+1+1. So its more random and your winrate will be closer to 50%.
Remember: Riot likes this. They want it to take longer for you to converge to your true rank, because the longer this convergence takes, the more ranked games you play. The metric they use for "success" based on their posts is # of ranked games played.
The point of ranked in League of Legends is to win League of Legends games.
The point of the rankings system is to measure (eventually) how effective people are at winning League of Legends games.
The fact that some people do it differently (different roles, champions) is not relevant.
That's all that matters - winning and losing. Trying to prove other esoteric points is just silliness. I mean, when I watch Faker do well with Ryze mid which helps SKT win, I don't think "This Faker guy is really good at mid Ryze, but what I really need to know how good his jungle Shyvanna is". Nobody cares if Faker's jungle Shyvanna is better than Hai's. What we care is that Faker is a better overall player and SKT is a better overall team.
Disagreed. Somewhat. I think it will depend on an individual players strengths and weaknesses and I think yours make you biased.
You'll do great with the new system IMO. You'll thrive with more organized teams whether you are part of them or join up. Now a mechanically gifted Mid/Top/ADC player who thrives in the current system by steamrolling his lane and carrying games so hard his team can't fuck it up for him will be sad with the lack of disorganization to take advantage of. Organized teams will be able to take him down easier or better yet help keep him from getting out of control to begin with instead of just bitching and crying "Waaaaaahhh! Who fed the Lucian?! Waaaaaahhhh!"
If you play solo you're playing against other solos. If you play with a group, you're playing against other groups. Which one is more advantageous depends on an individual players skillset and mindset.
Not everyone playing with premades will have an advantage climbing when they're playing against other premades. Some people will thrive in teams and others will do worse. It all depends and it will vary from player to player and team to team. And game to game! Think about our Ranked Team. Sometimes we work well together, bring each other up, communicate well, etc. Other games we distract each other, argue about calls non stop, and tilt each other.
Its a statistical argument.
Let's say that you are the 1 in a 1+4 vs 1+4. If your 4 is not well coordinated (a bunch of people who don't play a lot together) and theirs is (they play a lot together), your chances of losing are very high regardless of individual skill. Since your chances of being on the well coordinated side of this is 50%, this drags your winrate toward 50% (assuming it was above 50%).
Essentially a 4 has a much larger say on the game than a 1+1+1+1 if they always match up 4+1 vs another 4+1.
If its 1+1+1+1+1 v 1+1+1+1+1 you don't have this effect.
Also, being the jungler when the other people are all in the same group and you aren't is generally not fun. Its blame the jungler to the nth power.
That's exactly the point. Which one you get as the odd person out is random. Sometimes you get a 4some that is well organized and its good. Sometimes you get a 4some that is crap, but you are now forced to play against a 4some that is organized, so your chances of winning are zilch. And since I'm pretty sure that 4>1+1+1+1, this makes the entire process more random.
Yes.
That's a bit of a leap - to go from win/loss matters to any other way to specifically quantify how often you win/lose = silliness. There's nothing even remotely wrong or silly with being able to break down X person is good in X role. You already do that. I already do that based on familiarity at least with folks in our group. I just propose that ranked would measure skill by role. Sure, you could still have your rewards based on highest tier reached, but I for one would find it a lot more satisfying to have my rank classified by role - and with the new champ select, that might actually be very possible to do. I take it a step further (al champion mastery if it was just a measure of # of games played ><) and say I'd also like to have a ranking based on champion that was actually meaningful.
So, ranked elo by role along w some other sort of good measure of champion skill (champion mastery 2.0) - that's what I'd like to see.
Agreed. Pretty sure we see eye on eye on this one. And I'm not a fan. I really dislike skewing things further and further away from a measure of individual skill. And tossing in a 4 man pre at someone that wants to solo pretty much skews things as much as possible. But hey, its cool - except that the same ranking applies to the 1 guy with 4, 2 guys with 3, etc. Previously there were 2 things that skewed things - champ select and duo queues. Now, it will be Less champ select (still some variance due to 2 roles/fill) and now the skill level of the queued up folks.
I wonder what sort of impact all this will have on queue times seeing as some folks will gravitate to playing ranked as a group more often.
So how about that ohm wrecker zz portal top taric?
It's nothing compared to my zz portal rylai scepter donger mid.
How would your system of Ranked Elo by role work? Dropping people down in MMR when playing off roles/champs wouldn't be fun and would be subject to a lot of abuse.
I think they have a good way to measure champion skill right now. It's called the Krazikarl System. It involves winning games.
Truly outrageous!
I'm glad you could find a way to carry with an unpopular champion. Almost like you found... a hidden gem in Taric Top. A... diamond in the rough if you will.
STAHP
I'm not sure exactly. I think its better to simply and just focus on the ranked elo by role bit (though I think champion mastery should have some sort of impact, its not really realistic).
There's exactly 1 thing that team builder occasionally gets right - it does do adjust MMing if its your 1st few times with a champ. With TB, there's no guarantee you'll actually be laning against someone with a similar handicap - just that someone on the other team will have that handicap. With the new champ select, they could very feasibly put 2 folks that primarily play a diff role against each other playing their new or weaker roles. I like the idea of some sort of very temporary adjustment. Doubt we'll ever see such a thing, but I think that would be cool. just a role level and only for a set number of games. Or if there was some sort of role MM adjustment that could take place.
Again, a system that I think would be awesome would be 1 solo queue that is truly solo. Your elo is earned per role. MM is based on your elo per role. So, P support pacov is matched against other P supports. Gold Mid pacov is up against other gold mids.
With that in mind, there would probably have to be something in place to factor in a players understanding of the game, etc (eg plat level mechanics/knowledge means I might have much higher odds beating a gold mid with gold mechanics).
Anyway, I think that would be a more satisfying experience and actually would drive me to play much more often in many more roles. For example, I see my Top lane is silver and my support is plat. Shite - I want to work on my top lane to improve a bunch. And so on. And it probably results in you having very even matches in your lane. That would not be the case if I just went from say support to top lane against a plat level top. It's ok to lose a bunch and learn, but isn't it a bit more fun to lose and learn to someone that is closer to your skill level at least initially?
All of this is pie in the sky, though. Dynamic queues are coming, will be here a bit, and will get trashed if it blows.
That would be one of the main issues. I've watched Cowsep carry a game hard in high level Korean Solo Queue as Support Master Yi. He certainly didn't need to have to play against worse players to make it fair. Mechanics and overall understanding of this games fundamentals are a bigger deal than you might imagine they are. Most of us just see good players as good players and don't really need to categorize them or ourselves when it comes to skill at playing different roles.
And there would be abuse and just too many things to try and adjust. When IreliaCarriesU goes Irelia Mid for the first time, does he go against a Bronze, Silver, Gold, Plat, Diamond, Master, or just lower ranked Challenger Mid player? For how many games?
And howabout all the people like Karl and you who complain about being in an MMR with bad players who fail to follow up and play well as a team? Wouldn't putting them at a lower MMR with 'goomba' teammates hurt their chances more than help some games?
And... Ranked is for playing what you know. If you want to learn a new role, there will be Normal Draft games with the exact setup as Ranked. Hell, they're even modifying the new system for Blind Pick so you can get the role you want to play.
OK - so you personally wouldn't care to see any differentiation between a player being rated as Plat Support and as Gold Mid?
Maybe we just disagree there. I like qualifications like that and they drive me to improve. Lyte said one of the problems with ranked is folks getting to a set tier and then quitting. Ex I hit plat then didn't care. You probably hit plat and now you are like fug it for this season. A system where you were ranked by role would likely drive more folks to play more often.
Also, I wonder if this dynamic queue system will get folks to lighten up a bit more in ranked and play ranked together more often.
Don't get me wrong, it would be kinda cool to have rewards for getting to a tier playing different roles. I'm all about unlocking achievements in games, though nowhere near as passionate about it as you are.
I just don't think it would be worth all the problems and possible abuse issues that I brought up. That you didn't address or offer solutions for. It just wouldn't be worth all the downsides to me.
And I don't think it would be that hard. I think you could easily get to Plat as whatever main you wanted to put a little time into. Cow is Diamond because he's an awesome player much more than he's an awesome Mid/Brand player IMO. I'd say that knowing how to play a specific role is a relatively small percentage of a player's overall skill. You seem to think it's much larger and needs to be celebrated. That's the thing we probably disagree on if anything.
Yah - I wasn't trying to solve the problems or imagine the exact problems as much as trying to get anyone to even indicate if they dug the concept to find out if I was alone in my opinion or not. Sometimes it takes a really long time to get there.
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