League of Legends: I finally updated the player list in the OP!

[OceansAndrew]

lol because obviously the system targets you in isolation and expressly makes sure that YOU lose your games by matching you with bad people

it's funny becaus e you've been raging about this for months, but now are living the good life in silver

[Nabeel Ansari]

it's funny becaus e you've been raging about this for months, but now are living the good life in silver

I ranked up because I've played 240 ranked games. "Climbing doesn't happen over night but if you're as good as you say, you will normalize your rank and it'll climb through playing more games"

Reason I'm "living the good life" in Silver is because I actually changed my playstyle from the popular "get kills, kill the enemy team" to "get my team shit tons of gold". Easiest way to do this is stop playing selfish champions. These are the champions who excel at assassination and dueling but have absolutely no team utility (like peel and CC).

I kept hovering at 40 LP in Silver V for quite some time and after buying Lee Sin and learning how to play him less than a week ago I'm 57 LP into Silver IV at an 8 to 2 ratio. Because he has possibly the greatest peel (kick the fucking enemy champ THROUGH HIS OWN TEAM AND KNOCK THEM ALL UP) and the greatest engage (flash or ward jump, kick desired champ into your team while Q'ing him, instant 5v4). If you're good at the champions you play and can master the small mechanics on the ones that can make or break teamfights, then you will pretty much climb through the ladder simply by allowing your team to carry itself (too many people think the answer is to carry them, which is close to impossible unless you're a plat or diamond smurf or are playing the adc role).

If anyone is seriously concerned that they're better than where they are and can't get out of "elo hell" then play teamfight champions. Champs that increase stats of your team (supports who build Locket, jarvan, maokai), or give crowd control utility (jarvan/xin, supports like leona or nami), or can make unstoppable engages (master the ward jump Q R Q on Lee Sin, pretty much the only thing you need for Bronze and Silver). Other good ones are Jayce.

You can also play slaughter champions like Mordekaiser and Darius. The rest of your team becomes a lot of punching bags while you mow everything down.

Edited August 18, 2013 by Neblix

[The Derrit]

lol because obviously the system targets you in isolation and expressly makes sure that YOU lose your games by matching you with bad people and matching your enemies with competent people

you're missing the point when you say this, by a lot

the point is because there are so many people who either want to lose, want their team to lose, or just plain have no idea what's going on, individual ability gets lost in a wash of chance as to whether or not you'll be on the team with 2 feeders or if it'll be the other team. because it's so volatile you can go 18/3 and still lose in a landslide, or feed your lane 0/12 and still win. i know because i've done both.

the point is at that low of a level, games are won and lost by if you have competent teammates. if you're *really really* good you can just run train and it doesn't matter. if you're better than the people around you but not by a ton, then you're screwed. it's luck of the draw.

think of it this way. you can have two people at 950 elo that are VASTLY different skill levels, one guy who probably deserves to be there and one guy who's had enough bad luck to where his winrate is a little under .500. you can't have that at 1400-1500, because those people get exposed and lose games/elo until they're not there anymore.

the higher the level, the less volatility, the more likely you'll have an even game. which means if you outperform the people around you, it makes a difference. in a low level game with high volatility, if you outperform your lane and one or two people on your team vastly underperform, like just shit the bed, your contribution didn't matter.

[prophetik music]

the fact that neblix is in silver IV and bardic is stuck in bronze is a clear indication of how broken the ranking system in LoL is.

[Nabeel Ansari]

Yes, definitely. You most certainly know how I play in Ranked, don't you?

Not that you've played a legitimate game with me since 2012.

Seriously, derrit, the ability to carry out of bronze highly depends on your champion selection. If its not someone you've mastered the nuances of, and also not someone who has any use to the team other than suicide bomb an adc, don't expect to climb quickly. You're basically telling your team "I'm better than you watch me go kill this guy and juke while you guys die to their team because I wasn't the competent player who manned up to pick an actually useful champion".

Also, another easy method. Duo queue. Get two competent people in mid and jungle. All map access and if you're as good as you say, roaming and killing is a piece of cake. You can't just win your lane, you have to get everyone else to win theirs. Feed gold to your team, don't hog it for yourself. They dont need to have a clue how the game is played if they see that you're helping them kill everything and keep doing so.

I have very low kill amounts and very high assist counts in my win games.

People don't really get better when you leave Bronze. The overall skill level between bronze I and gold V is about the same. People just start warding more, that's about it. They still fall for the same cheeses, they still get around 100-200 cs per game, they still don't know how to watch the minimap.

I've been matched with and against some trash platinums too.

Edited August 18, 2013 by Neblix

[The Derrit]

Yes, definitely. You most certainly know how I play in Ranked, don't you?

Not that you've played a legitimate game with me since 2012.

Seriously, derrit, the ability to carry out of bronze highly depends on your champion selection. If its not someone you've mastered the nuances of, and also not someone who has any use to the team other than suicide bomb an adc, don't expect to climb quickly. You're basically telling your team "I'm better than you watch me go kill this guy and juke while you guys die to their team because I wasn't the competent player who manned up to pick an actually useful champion".

Also, another easy method. Duo queue. Get two competent people in mid and jungle. All map access and if you're as good as you say, roaming and killing is a piece of cake. You can't just win your lane, you have to get everyone else to win theirs. Feed gold to your team, don't hog it for yourself. They dont need to have a clue how the game is played if they see that you're helping them kill everything and keep doing so.

I have very low kill amounts and very high assist counts in my win games.

i'm well aware how to get out of bronze. i'm in silver 1, very close to getting into gold. what you're saying has no bearing on what i said to you. in bronze it is common to have players clearly better than their opponents, who are aware of, and do, the things you say, lose due to irredeemably bad play on the part of a teammate. winning a bad player their lane is inconsequential if at the end of the day they can't use the gold that you give them.

i'm not arguing from the standpoint of someone in bronze who can't make it. i'm saying, now that i'm out of bronze and nearing a consistently competitive elo (at 1450 atm), games are so much easier to win it's ridiculous. it shouldn't be easier to win at higher skill levels than at lower skill levels.

[Nabeel Ansari]

i'm well aware how to get out of bronze. i'm in silver 1, very close to getting into gold. what you're saying has no bearing on what i said to you. in bronze it is common to have players clearly better than their opponents, who are aware of, and do, the things you say, lose due to irredeemably bad play on the part of a teammate. winning a bad player their lane is inconsequential if at the end of the day they can't use the gold that you give them.

i'm not arguing from the standpoint of someone in bronze who can't make it. i'm saying, now that i'm out of bronze and nearing a consistently competitive elo (at 1450 atm), games are so much easier to win it's ridiculous. it shouldn't be easier to win at higher skill levels than at lower skill levels.

The reason low skilled games are harder to win is because everyone has an awful attitude with falsely solidified egos. It's like the more they lose, the better they think they are. Rarely do you find people who actually deserve not to be at that tier level. The people you do will be elo boosters and can win their games regardless of volatility because they're actually good at the game.

Popular saying is that Bronze players always blame their teammates. After I got my shit together, I realized that's pretty much the only problem. People are bad, think they're good, and don't climb because they don't improve. They don't up their skill level because they don't see their own mistakes that they need to learn from. I stopped blaming people and I started just playing better, and I climbed from sub 1000 pretty steadily, as steadily as you're climbing to Gold right now. So no, I disagree that higher games are easier to win.

Edited August 18, 2013 by Neblix

[The Derrit]

The reason low skilled games are harder to win is because everyone has an awful attitude with falsely solidified egos. It's like the more they lose, the better they think they are. Rarely do you find people who actually deserve not to be at that tier level. The people you do will be elo boosters and can win their games regardless of volatility because they're actually good at the game.

a) you're not even listening you gave a very good reason that my point has merit c) it's not an 'i agree/i disagree' issue, i'm saying that's what happened. games are easier to win now than they were in bronze.

i understand the 'company line' that you're spitting but frankly it only applies to the highest of high level players that you can easily win your way out of bronze

[Nabeel Ansari]

a) you're not even listening you gave a very good reason that my point has merit c) it's not an 'i agree/i disagree' issue, i'm saying that's what happened. games are easier to win now than they were in bronze.

i understand the 'company line' that you're spitting but frankly it only applies to the highest of high level players that you can easily win your way out of bronze

Your point is that it's harder to win at Bronze, which I am saying is not true at all. You just have to adjust your playstyle.

Also, this IS an "I agree/disagree" issue. Your one experience doesn't dictate the way it is for everyone. Get over yourself. "Elo hell" is a phenomenon that pretty much only those who are in it believe in. Reason "elo hell" is "hell" is because everyone is bad, and if you fall down there, you're also bad. I complained about being Bronze III for a while, then I actually started playing against Golds and Plats in normals and upped my game, and got out of Bronze in a relatively short amount of time. Doesn't take a god to carry out, just takes some basic strategy knowhow.

And no, it doesn't only apply to the highest of high. My Silver I and II friends played on Bronze accounts and carried out with win streaks (on SEVERAL accounts). Pretty much nullifies your entire argument ("only pros can do it").

Edited August 18, 2013 by Neblix

[The Derrit]

....

my face

and my hand

how do i get them off of each other

[Tensei]

Elo is kind of a terrible way to rate your skill in the first place. If I lose a few games and my Elo drops, am I suddenly a worse player than before?

[zircon]

And I assume the Dota 2 Master Race method is presumably better?

Elo is a fine system, works very well for most any kind of game or sport, but obviously it's not gonna be 100% accurate in a team-based game.

[Tensei]

People in these kinds of games tend to not look at Elo as a ranking (as it should be), but as a direct reflection of their own skill at the game. It sucks as a measure of skill because it's a relative, rather than a static system. You can fairly safely say that if you play a game regularly, your skill at it will increase. At the same time, though, your Elo might fluctuate or even drop if your improvement happens to be slower than that of the rest of the playerbase. A constant influx of new players muddles things even more.

And that's not even touching on the problems associated with using a ranking intended for single player games for a team game.

[zircon]

Elo is supposed to approximate skill - why would it be ranking instead? It's not going to be perfectly accurate in a team-based game (as you said), but that is a problem inherent to any team-based game. I don't believe there is a truly better alternative in terms of measurement, however the way you display data to players is important.

Here's a good article by David Sirlin on the topic of ranking & matchmaking systems, looking at the StarCraft 2 system as an example. LoL took a big page out of Blizzard's book so it's worth a read.

http://www.sirlin.net/blog/2010/7/24/analyzing-starcraft-2s-ranking-system.html

[Nabeel Ansari]

Of course it's terrible in a team-based game. Even worse that Tier bottoms are elo walls, and no matter how bad you are, if you got boosted to Plat V you can never get demoted unless you stop playing, but your elo doesn't really drop below normal Plat V elo.

As a result, even Diamond has some pretty garbage players.

The only real problem with the system is elo boosting, it pretty much is the sole reason why people are not where they "should" be.

....

my face

and my hand

how do i get them off of each other

I am directly contradicting you and you are saying "you're not reading what I'm saying" because you don't have enough substance for a counter argument. Perhaps your hand is blocking your vision and therefore your ability to read.

All you've been saying is Bronze is harder than Silver and I'm saying that it isn't and have given plenty of reasons. LoL is a strategy game and if you're only good at one thing (winning your lane) you're obviously going to lose because you don't actually know anything about macro or mid and late game. If you get fed 18/3 and still lose the game it's because you have a garbage presence, you're not buying wards, and you're not catching people out of position (or you're playing a garbage champion). Fed people are supposed to be scary. But if you're bad, you're just a guy who soaked up gold and ensured that your team is going to have no chance.

And get off the "this doesn't apply to me" train. I'm talking about players in Bronze. I don't care that you're Silver I and I don't care how you play.

Edited August 18, 2013 by Neblix

[Bleck]

they should rename this game to Ward Wars

also using Elo for a team game is dumb

[Brushfire]

Wasnt ELO invented for Chess? A decidedly non-team thing?

[zircon]

Yea. It's also used by a lot of single player competitive games and to a lesser extent in some team sports (college football/basketball in some capacity, at least according to Wiki) but it definitely originated for Chess.

I don't think it's possible to come up with a better system. The only stat that matters in a game like LoL is if you win a game or not... that's why tournaments are based around who *wins* as opposed to who farms the most, buys the most wards, has the best KDA, etc. And since only an entire team can win or lose, as opposed to a single player, it's just sort of a necessary evil to only view the game result (W/L) when determining ranking.

[Newt]

Yea. It's also used by a lot of single player competitive games and to a lesser extent in some team sports (college football/basketball in some capacity, at least according to Wiki) but it definitely originated for Chess.

I don't think it's possible to come up with a better system. The only stat that matters in a game like LoL is if you win a game or not... that's why tournaments are based around who *wins* as opposed to who farms the most, buys the most wards, has the best KDA, etc. And since only an entire team can win or lose, as opposed to a single player, it's just sort of a necessary evil to only view the game result (W/L) when determining ranking.

Glicko http://www.glicko.net/glicko/glicko.pdf

Glicko-2 http://www.glicko.net/glicko/glicko2.pdf

TrueSkill http://research.microsoft.com/pubs/67956/NIPS2006_0688.pdf

I'll throw in another for good measure http://jmlr.org/papers/volume12/weng11a/weng11a.pdf

ELO has a lot of problems. People hoard their ranking when they're near a placement cutoff. Rankings don't adjust quickly. There is never a point in which a high skill player would want to play against a low-medium skill player. And all of that doesn't even touch the team dynamics issue.

[zircon]

I'm not a mathematician but those strike me as variants of Elo. LoL does not use unmodified Elo either, in fact reading the description of TrueSkill, it sounds MORE like that. For example after I was in Bronze I for awhile, the system was more confident about my place and my ranking (LP in division) only changed minimally per win, whereas once I went on a streak, the system became less confident and I started getting larger chunks of LP. LoL also has rating/ranking decay etc.

I don't see how any of those are fundamentally different from the IDEA of Elo, or whatever variant LoL is using. You can still only measure skill of an individual based on ONE factor, whether or not their team won a game. The common criticism of LoL's ranking system is "But I played well, and my team lost"... my point is that you cannot develop a good system based on anything but W/L, which happens on a per-team and not per-player basis. There will ALWAYS be cases where you "played well" but your team lost, and you will pay the same penalty as if you played poorly, insofar as that game's impact on your rating goes.

[Bleck]

I think saying that the only possible way for matchmaking to work is to use a rating system that is inherently incapable of taking into the account the idea that sometimes you'll get matched with players far worse/better than you is more of a supporting argument for the idea that the game just shouldn't have a rating system

[Nabeel Ansari]

League doesn't use elo...

It uses MMR, and has since the start of Season 3. Elo as the actual system is gone.

People just call it elo by habit.

Bleck hit the nail on the head, solo queue in general having a ranking system is kinda pointless and dumb and means nothing. If you're actually interested in competitive LoL, make a team.

You can't go into solo queue and expect your matchmade pubs to be on the same page as you. They're random people from all walks of life who you can't even voice chat with for reliable communication.

Solo queue is a different game.

Edited August 19, 2013 by Neblix

[zircon]

But the alternative is no matchmaking which would be way worse. The current rating system isn't perfect (that would be impossible anyway) but it is certainly better than having random games where you're against Challenger-level players. It works reasonably well. If you're in Bronze, you will generally be playing people in the ballpark of your level. If you're in Gold, the skill level will be generally higher. If that much is true MOST of the time, then the system is working.

[Bleck]

The current rating system isn't perfect (that would be impossible anyway) but it is certainly better than having random games where you're against Challenger-level players.

is it really, though? because I'm of the opinion that grouping players up into castes where wildly different strategies are successful and there's virtually no in-game experiences that teach the player how to get better is definitely not as good as the alternative

basically I'd rather have a random game where I'm against a challenger level player and lose but be able to learn from what they did than have game after game after game of silver scrubs and have virtually no idea what I'm supposed to do to get better

I remember playing TF2 and half of my favorite engi nesting spots were things I learned from watching other players while playing the game; the game shouldn't be structured in such a way where I never actually encounter people who are better than me to spare my precious feelings and if I ever want to get better I have to stop playing the game so that I can either go read about how to be better or, worse yet, go watch somebody else play it

[relyanCe]

is it really, though? because I'm of the opinion that grouping players up into castes where wildly different strategies are successful and there's virtually no in-game experiences that teach the player how to get better is definitely not as good as the alternative

basically I'd rather have a random game where I'm against a challenger level player and lose but be able to learn from what they did than have game after game after game of silver scrubs and have virtually no idea what I'm supposed to do to get better

I remember playing TF2 and half of my favorite engi nesting spots were things I learned from watching other players while playing the game; the game shouldn't be structured in such a way where I never actually encounter people who are better than me to spare my precious feelings and if I ever want to get better I have to stop playing the game so that I can either go read about how to be better or, worse yet, go watch somebody else play it

I'm totally down with this because this actually used to happen in beta days

A lot of the first-wave pros were people that I remember playing against pre-launch, and I was by NO means good at the game then

HoN was cool about this too because you could get in matches against higher-rated players which won you more and lost you less rating (I have no idea if it's still like that)