League players shocked as noob hits Plat 1 despite losing every game
Riot GamesA self-proclaimed “bad” League of Legends player was shocked as he got placed in Plat 1 despite losing all of his placement matches. Even League’s Lead Gameplay Designer was confused.
Getting a ranked system right is difficult, and the struggle to find that balance between consistently ranking up while not giving players an easy ride through the ladder is difficult.
And, while games like Apex Legends seem to have finally gotten it right, the process of manipulating the ranked algorithm and making improvements can have some unintended side effects.
Lead League of Legends Game Designer Phroxzon claimed in the most recent dev update that they’ve been tweaking the ranked algorithm and how it places new players behind the scenes, but it seems that this has had some loopholes as a “bad” player got placed in Plat 1 after losing their placements.
“Bad” League player frustrated after getting placed Plat 1
The line between a player having a good streak at their level of play and someone smurfing matches is a narrow one, and properly detecting smurf players is difficult. When a player is on a hot streak through placements, they understandably want to be placed in a rank that reflects that.
However, all that got thrown out the window after a very distraught player got placed in Plat 1 went on a freefall loss streak in a rank that’s way too high for them.
This player recounted their plight as they began losing game after game, wondering what could have gone wrong for them to be ranked so highly despite having lost their placements.
You’d think this player would be elated by the fact that they’ve achieved such a high rank, but their reaction was much the opposite. They weren’t able to play with their friend who’s stuck in Iron, and their solo queue matches saw them flailing against players who outmatched them.
“What is just pissing me off is the toxicity of players who realize that i’m actually a way worse player. It makes me wanna quit after every single game. The amount of times I have to use /mute all is insane,” they lamented.
People in the thread felt bad for not only this player, but the people who got into matches with them. Having one player who doesn’t know what they need to be doing can easily throw a match, and the team that got this player on their team would be at an inherent disadvantage.
Riot Games“Just sorry for you man, the system f*cked up majorly by taking normals into account too much. I’m not gonna sugarcoat it, good chance your skull is gonna get crushed in for the next 20 games or so,” one Redditor claimed.
Lead Gameplay Designer Phroxzon hopped into the thread to try and shed some light on what really happened here.
League dev responds to ranked turmoil
Phroxzon put a few replies in the thread as he and other Redditors pieced together what may have happened here. From the original poster’s account, he was playing normals with friends who were high ranked and getting carried in support, meaning that his MMR in norms may have been weighed too heavily in their initial ranked placements.
After figuring out what likely happened here, Phroxzon offered some words of encouragement:
“OK so I looked at your opgg, I think you’re heavily underestimating your skill level!! You’re not an iron player, you’re doing pretty well in Gold/Plat games!! That said, Gold/Plat in normals is probably not Gold/Plat in ranked, so we’d already been thinking about adjustments to move people even further down if we see that.”
This ranking mystery may have been solved, with Phroxzon and the team likely working to adjust the way normal matches are counted to reduce the chances of this happening.