User blog comment:V0ldek/The biggest mistake of Season 3/@comment-5955640-20130416062755

I guess this makes sense if you are really worried about entitlement. Or in other words. Worry about titles themselves. You feel that something should be earned. That if one flukes their way into the higher rankings they should inevitably be punished for what one can assume was their lack of skill their ability. Their worth.

Hence the one ranking ELO. It was very exact with what you have earned and loss. When people see your profile they can see how many wins and losses and what you're ELO is. One would wonder why Riot would impliment a system that would effectively hide the burden of failure and the consquences of incompetance.

I think the answer to this would be peace of mind. Yes, for you see everything that is and shall be comes with both a good and bad edge to it. The old ELO was good in laying out the achievement of that player. To assume that while a string of good luck can be clarified by skills put to the test. That conversely. A string of bad luck would curse the player who are only occasionally given a proper oppotunity to show how skilled they are.

Do we really wish to have such weight upon the shoulders of our fellow players? Elo hell was an apt name for if you were in it. You were stuck as only the worst of the worst was there. Did you deserve to be there? I cannot say. To say one way or the other is to assume that I know how the fights went down and what you could or could not have done to prevent that. There is no one with such foresight, much less me.

The new system simply hides ELO and shows you rankings in the league which shows your positive successes. You can no longer be visibly judged by your failures no matter how much they may verify your skill in some abstract way.

You find disdain with this system. The simple idea that one cannot lose the gold they have obtained makes me wonder if you have ran across quite a few players that seemed far too unskilled from your perspective to have earned this ranking you hold as valuable.

Hmm. Thinking someone has to earn something can be a very dangerous thought process to have. What exactly are we trying to accomplish that we simply must have to punish others for being less than what we want them to be?

It doesn't sound to me that you wished that the rankings could judge people based on how worthy of an opponent they are. Or if they display the knowledge and attitude of a true summoner worthy of the higher rankings.

Rather it sounds like you wished people could be put in their place and know their place within the league. Getting to gold makes them feel like they are good at playing this game. And grants them superficial enjoyment to tout the medal with such honor they expect it to receive. And that is exactly why it exists.

After all. Real ELO hasn't gone anywhere. It still judges you for the matches you will be set up with based on losses and wins. So if you are in Gold or even Platinum. You can be in ELO hell. But now you no longer have the burden of knowing for sure. And you cannot be judged by others who can procure such information about you.

And why would anyone want to do something like this? You think it might be because Riot is far more interested in you having fun and living in the illusion of success than to feel as though the pressure from failure could discourage you from playing and thus invest time and money into the game? The dream of being in the top of the league is fostered by the thought that once you get to the top. You could possibly become the pros who put together teams and win cash prizes and get the honor of being renowned and respected by many players in the league as a whole. Is a great thought to have if you enjoy playing this game.

If you are in the very apparant and inescapable ELO hell. You will somewhat lose hope of being able to be that good at the game and earn any of that glory no matter how lofty a goal it truly was to begin with. Without the chance to feel as though you can succeed. You will submit to failure. And possibly give up on playing the game alltogether which is not in Riot's interest in the slightest.

I think I have made sense of it have I not? The ranking system is just the colorful stickers your teacher would place on your report card to show how well you've done that week. But it doesn't really effect your grading throughout the year. The morale of the moment gives the particpant the chance to believe in being more than themselves. And that is a very important buisness model.