Recently, Riot Cody “Riot Codebear” Germain, Product Lead for Competitive Gameplay on League of Legends has posted an article about how Riot has been doing and what they are up to with their plans for Ranked in 2020.
Goals
In late Febuary 2020, Codebear talked about their plans for Ranked in 2020. Underneath is the reminder for what they promised:
- They want to improve matchmaking quality without compromising queue time and availability, transparency around ranked and matchmaking systems, progression satisfaction and skill expression in their systems.
- Make rewards more recognizable and relevant for time spent in League.
- Players can play with, and find, others they want to play with.
- Further into 2020, they also added a new goal to “Provide players who are subject to bad behaviors more visibility into actions taken”.
Results
Even though the list is fairly long, Riot has only focused on the 1st goal so far. It will be a surprised if they manage to finish all their goals in 2020. They put themselves a hard task to both eliminate problems and remain the same queue times. They have achieved:
- In 10.6, Riot introduced Autofill Parity, equalizing the number of autofills across teams. Also in 10.7, they removed a bug that altered autofill accuracy.
- In 10.7, Riot made matches fairer by equalize number of premades on each side.
- In 10.10, they introduced a new matchmaking algorithm but only in Normal. It will not be available until the next preseason to avoid major impact to the curent ranked MMR. Also they improved their Player Feedback system’s notification and actioned punishments. It will be much clearer going forward.
Coming soon
- Ranked Account Seeding: Up until now, all new players who start their first ranked match will be placed in a fixed position (or fixed MMR). Although it may seem “fair”, this mean they might end up playing with higher or lower skill players who was also placed in that fixed MMR. With the new matchmaking algorithm they have sucessfully tested, this problem will be solved next season. Since MMR in Ranked is close to a bell curve, players at the top of the bell suffer the most because of fixed MMR.
Champion Select Reporting and Muting: Starting late June/early July, they will give players the ability to report a player in Champ Select.
Opening Flex Restrictions: Flex queue will be switched to be more similar to Clash feature, letting you play with anyone you like instead of nearby ranked tiers.
Ideas in Exploration
- Promo Series: It’s likely they will be removing inter-division promotions (such as ranking up from Platinum 3 to Platinum 2 will not need BO3 rankup series anymore).
- Ranked Informed Matchmaking and Transparency: It’s absolutely frustrating to play in a Platinum Ranked Match and come across Silver Frame player, regardless of how close everyone’s MMR is. Riot is looking to modify it.
- Rewards and Legacy Recognition: They will make thematic changes to the Victorious skin line and highlight your curent and past ranked accomplishments to acknowledge other players your past achievements without diluting your current ones.
- Organized Group Play: After the successful launch of Clash and increase of premades across queues, they’re finding a long-term solutions:
- Clash and Flex play together to create a healthy team ecosystem.
- Ironing out how you find others in League like you to play with.
- Regconize teams that stick together and give them something to strive for long-term.
Read more: https://notagamer.net/everything-you-must-know-about-wild-rift-league-of-legends-mobile/