Ranking system makes a “bad” player get a high rank
A person who’s not very good at League of Legends was surprised when they got placed in a high palcement, Platinum 1, even though they lost all their placement matches. Even the Lead Gameplay Designer of League of Legends was puzzled.
Making a ranked system fair is hard. You want players to keep improving and climbing the ladder, but it shouldn’t be too easy.
The Lead Designer, Phroxzon, said they’ve been tweaking how new players are placed in ranks. But sometimes, things don’t work as intended. For example, a “bad” player ended up in Plat 1 after losing all their placement matches.
It’s tough to tell if someone is just doing well or if they’re intentionally playing below their skill level to win matches easily. When someone wins a lot during their placements, they expect to be placed in a rank that matches their performance. But sometimes, it doesn’t work out that way.
The player who ended up in Plat 1 was upset. They couldn’t play with their friend who was in Iron, and they struggled in solo matches against stronger opponents.
People on the internet felt sorry for the player and for the teammates who had to play with them. Having a player who doesn’t know what they’re doing can ruin a match.
Phroxzon and others tried to figure out what went wrong. They found out that the player had been playing with high-elo friends in normal games, which might have affected their placement in ranked matches.
Phroxzon looked at the player’s game history and said they were doing okay in Gold/Plat games, even though they thought they were an Iron player. He mentioned that there might be differences between normal and ranked games, and they were thinking about making adjustments.
So, it seems like the mystery of the high placement was solved. Phroxzon and the team are working to make sure this doesn’t happen again by adjusting how normal games affect placements.