The Jhin Express

just your avg gamer, might complain about stuff sometimes

[The Jhin Express @TheJhinExpress]

@Verliswolf @NEACETWEETS this is false, ive hand leveled a account this season and i started in gold and was playing in plat 1 -emerald 4 mmr first ranked match

[The Jhin Express @TheJhinExpress]

lets go i hit d4 for the first time, now i lock in and try to hit masters by the end of the season
i love smolder

[Red Bull Gaming @redbullgaming]

Doran is so goated he got five items named after him now

[OneEyeJacked @OneEyeJack11]

Study shows League of Legends players on average become very good doctors

Being able to diagnose people with stage 4 cancer without ever meeting them in real life

[The Jhin Express @TheJhinExpress]

@bluwunk i thought the new boots were bad? do you know when you should take them over tabs?

[bluwunk @bluwunk]

SMOLDER FINALLY HAS A GOOD RUNE THIS SEASON

Smolder is literally one of the best users of Deathfire Touch since he has an unmissable single target ability and a ton of easy to land AOE splash damage

ALSO he's able to build black cleaver which has an insanely broken interaction with this rune letting you stack the cleave really fast and keep up the +20ms almost permanently

Anyways here's his best build now into pretty much any team that isnt 5 ranged champs -

Essence Reaver > Black Cleaver > Shojin > Pick 3 - Deaths Dance | Maw | Overlords Bloodmail | Endless Hunger | Hullbreaker | RFC
DFT, Nimbus Cloak, Celerity, Gathering, Magical Footwear, Jack of all Trades

[Schlatt @jschlatt]

Bro took the unlimited bacon

[Dantes @doaenel]

For years, I've used my Autism to further my career.

Today, I'm using it to save League of Legends.

It took me 4 hours to make this post. Please, take 10 minutes to read it in its entirety and voice support if you agree with any of it.

It's not just for me, it's for all of us.

In this post I detail the 3 main situations that Riot has presented as problems within the Ranked system, as well as their proposed solutions. I then offer what I believe to be the best solution for all parties involved, while giving supporting arguments to further all my claims.

This post is structured with the detailing of 3 core situational problems, insight into smurfing, insight into the ladder reset, and then ending off with how everything could be fixed in the next 39 days and cement Season 16 as one of the greatest seasons for the ranked playerbase in the last decade.

Let's begin.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

SITUATION #1: Masters being more achievable this Season & the best players getting stronger as the years go on is expanding the gap between the bottom of Master and the top of Challenger. Us making climbing at apex less daunting caused us to add Grandmaster several years ago and we’re nearing some of those feels now; the skill gaps in Apex are getting too big. Changes to systems like these [the Master+ system] are a natural part of League being a long-lived game and having growing player skills over time.

Riot-Proposed Solution: In an effort to better differentiate between skill levels, allow LP numbers to become potentially unlimited so the higher-end skill levels among Master and Challenger players is more visible and better represented.

Issues with Riot-Proposed Solution:

- Grinding Master and Challenger now feels unrewarding and unattainable. Players who get into Masters on +/-20 LP gains will not want to make the grind all the way to 1500 LP just to hit Grandmaster (75 net wins, which is essentially the same as going from Iron 4 0 LP to Platinum 4 0 LP) and players who hit Challenger will not want to grind all the way to Rank 1 on even gains since, again, they will have to get upwards of 100 (or more) net wins.

- Smurfing becomes worse. When confronted with a number as vast as what's going to be commonplace in terms of LP requirements, instead of playing on accounts with even gains; players will instead opt to smurf since there's the potential of getting an account with better gains playing in higher MMR lobbies to make the climbing process easier to process. To understand fully and properly, see the UNDERSTANDING SMURFING sidenote after Situation #3.

Ideal solution #1: Add a new (4-tier) rank in between Diamond and Masters and (potentially) remove Grandmaster. This change properly addresses the situation without having the same issues as the proposed solution because;

- Climbing at Apex will not feel daunting since LP cutoffs can even go as low as 1000 LP for Rank 1 and still maintain skill discrepancy since all the players that WOULD be Grandmaster are instead Masters and all the players that WOULD be Masters are instead in the new rank that's been introduced.

- Players will not feel 'cheated' out of getting demoted out of Masters since the new Rank is essentially taking the place of Masters and Masters is now essentially Grandmaster.

- The prestige of being Masters and viewing it as a true Apex tier due to lower player-count finally returns.
Smurfing gets DEINCENTIVIZED rather than INCENTIVIZED because the climb for Masters and Challengers feels like it's truly attainable and the actual ranking process of getting into the higher elos takes longer.

It's important to note, however, that this could have been done in the past by Riot when Emerald was introduced, but the execution was improperly handled and as a result didn't change anything. To elaborate, back in the day Apex players would start, at the highest, Platinum 1. When Emerald was introduced most people were led to believe that this would still be the case which would have resulted in significant elo DEFLATION among the Apex tiers since all the Diamond level players would now start in Platinum and would have to climb a LOT to make it back to Masters. By allowing everyone to start in Emerald 1, this elo deflation did not occur.

For this solution to properly do its job, players MUST still maintain an Emerald 1 start [at the highest MMR end] so that the vetting process can properly occur.

Ideal solution #2: Add promotional series BACK to Diamond+ SoloQueue. To preface, this does NOT NEED to happen; but one of the issues right now is that there is such an LP spread among Master+ players that adding promotional series BACK to Diamond (as well as the new rank) can add 9 net wins to promotion between tiers (assuming +/-20) while also making the ranks seem more competitive and exclusive since the rules become different. A popup can be given upon first time promotion into Diamond explaining the system changes while also being done in a way that EXCITES the player (e,g. Congratulations on promoting! Since you're now approaching TOP-LEVEL competition, we're making things even MORE competitive so you can really test yourself!)

---------------

SITUATION #2: The addition of Challenger duos made it more challenging to balance some of these games. While we took pre-emptive mitigations to reduce the impact of things like Rank 1 & 2 duoing together, they weren’t powerful enough and resulted in the best players catapulting further ahead.

Riot-Proposed Solution: In an effort to make things more competitive, potentially look into the limiting of duos between the highest ranked players while also uncapping the LP soft-cap so that players who did play Solo are still able to make progress.

Issues with Riot-Proposed Solution:

- Does not address the issue that already took place (i.e players ALREADY catapulting ahead)

- Does not give an actual timeframe on when this limiting will take place, allowing for further abuse to take place.

- Restricting RANKS from duoing with each other (i.e Rank 1 with Rank 10) does not prevent the Rank 10 player from playing on a Grandmaster account and duoing with the Rank 1.

- Uncapping the LP cap leads to a whole other slew of problems which are detailed in Situation #1

Ideal solution: Resetting the ladder and making it so that upon reaching APEX ranks, duoing becomes limited to a percentage basis of games played. This change properly addresses the situation without having the same issues as the proposed solution because;

- Players who were catapulted through duoing are now reset to 0, allowing for a fair playing field for everyone.

- Players will NOT be able to catapult themselves in the future.

This is a 2 part solution, and as a result I will give 2 different paragraphs explaining the necessity of both changes.

SOLUTION #1: RESETTING THE LADDER - Explained further in depth later in this post

SOLUTION #2: Duo Restrictions - The only way to properly allow for duoing in high elo is if it's limited. This is how the sliding scale should work;

Masters: 75%
GrandMaster: 50%
Challenger: 30%
Top 200: 20%
Top 100: 10%

To preface, the numbers can be adjusted. This would allow for duoing to STILL be possible in high elo and allow for players to have fun, while also making it so it cannot be abused. It's important to note, however, that restrictions should be made AT CUTOFFS rather than at RANKS or else people will use this to their advantage in an effort to camp 1 win below a certain threshold one day, then spend the entire next day abusing the lower threshold and duoing more than they should until the ladder updates.

---------------

SITUATION #3: In the Live Ranked system, the max LP attainable has a soft cap to prevent LP gains from getting too high, which combined with the above issues has led to a less than ideal apex ladder experience. We might also reconsider the top end of how much LP you can gain per win, but need to be considerate of how much this incentivizes smurfing.

Riot-Proposed Solution: Uncapping LP gain for high-end players in an effort to make the grind feel more rewarding for people in Challenger and top 10.

Issues with Riot-Proposed Solution:

- Delegitimizes an entire decade of 'lp quotas' and sends the entire ladder into disarray as to what's considered good and what's not (it's important to note that this has ALREADY been the case this season, but now it's tenfold worse)

- Encourages smurfing since players at 1400 LP will only see an LP gain of +23 and as a result will go new account to hopefully get +30 in Challenger so they can compete with current Rank 1s who are already getting +30 at 2500 LP.

- Doesn't actually make the grind feel more rewarding since now LP is just a number that is going up rather than a benchmark of success. To explain, in the past people used to view 1k LP players as insane and 2k LP players as god-level. Nowadays, 1k LP isn't even Challenger and 2k is becoming commonplace. This is actually REMOVING incentive from players to grind since previously respected and sought-after benchmarks aren't even present anymore.

Ideal solution: Static gains across the board, with there being a bell curve amongst the top 10 players.

In Apex tiers, MMR should cease to exist. Once you achieve Masters, the LP curve should look like this;

Master: +20/-20
Grandmaster: +18/-20
Challenger: +16/-20
Top 100: +14/-20
Top 10: +12/-20
Rank 1: +10/-20

The real reason behind why high elo players have been smurfing this season is based upon 2 lines of reasoning, -30 feels awful, and people just want high MMR accounts (explained later in UNDERSTANDING SMURFING). By making gains static you not only deincentivize smurfing since people cannot get high MMR accounts anymore, but you also make it so that the losses don't feel AS bad since it's only -20. A baseline of -30 is just unsustainable for the game long-term because of how huge that number really is. This also fixes the issue of people complaining about matchmaking since now MMR won't even necessarily be a factor inside of it which makes it so that players end up feeling a lot better about game quality too (even though no changes actually happen to matchmaking).

Needless to say, the only way to fix the third point is a ladder reset (explained later). New benchmarks will not present themselves because nobody even know what is or isn't good anymore and one year is not ample enough time to do so. In previous seasons boundaries and limits were pushed slightly every year to make it so that people could have generalized ideas of skill based upon LP. This season has completely unwound an entire decade of progression, the only fix is a reset.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thank you for making it this far.

Now, it's time for us to talk about two concepts. The first, smurfing. And the second, the Ladder Reset.

Let's start with Smurfing.

People do not enjoy smurfing. Contrary to popular belief, most people actually resent it.

The idea of going on a new account and stomping 50 games in a row is just not something that people care about anymore. There's a reason why high winrate accounts don't get many impressions anymore on Twitter.

The only reason why Master+ players do it typically falls into one of 4 categories;

- Practicing new roles/champions
- Getting banned
- Master players trying to get high MMR to climb to GM
- Challenger players trying to get high MMR to climb to Rank 1

The vast majority of smurfs that you will find in your games is apart of one of the last 2 points. Even among lower elos Diamond players will smurf to hit Masters, Emerald players will smurf to hit Diamond, and so on. By removing the concept of MMR while maintaining the ranking system you're able to actually reduce (I would assume) over 50% of smurfing cases if not even upwards of 75%.

Players want to play in the highest elo they can, and the reason why they smurf is because they believe that getting an account with better LP gains is their ticket out of whatever rank they're stuck in. Removing this option removes all incentive.

---

I saved this part for last because it's by far the most important.

The Ladder Reset.

As things are right now, it's only getting worse.

2500 LP players are gaining 30 per game, with players around the middle (700-1500 LP) gaining 22-23. If you're somebody who wants to grind for top 10 or Rank 1, which believe it or not is most of the high elo playerbase, you will not even want to try competing with players like GeneralSniper who are gaining more LP than you with double the amount that you have.

Instead, you're going to smurf in the hopes that you can get an account with +30 to be on the same playing field.

And this is why I wanted to structure my post in the way I did.

There are many solutions that have been proposed, so let me just take a second to tell you what I would do if I were in your position, Riot.

There are 39 days until 'Season 1' ends.

With the exception of adding in an entirely new rank, every other change can be done within that timeframe.

If there's one thing I've learned in my life as a content creator it's that it doesn't matter what you do, it's about how you present it.

The same is true for everything.

I know you're worried that some players will end up feeling demotivated at being reset, but I can promise you that the alternative is things will only get worse. Smurfing will become worse, player perception will become worse, communication lines will weaken, and overall trust among the playerbase towards you will completely fall.

You have the opportunity right now to be heroes. Genuinely.

Let me tell you how I would do it.

Work together with the team in charge of the client and the overall seasonal progression.

We're in the Demacia season, right?

Demacia vs Noxus is a war. So play into that.

Have popups appear over the course of the next few weeks talking about how something big is coming in the Apex tiers.

Get people excited. Make Master+ players want to grind hard, and make lower elo players strive to also rankup so they can take part in whatever the event is.

Then, when the new season starts, say (something along the lines of) the great battle is taking place.

Master+ players can choose to be either Noxus or Demacia, and once they make their selection their ranks get reset. To prevent abuse of people just playing on new accounts and constantly smurfing once the season begins, make it so you can ONLY be a contender if you've reach Master+ in Split 1.

In the client, you can view the players that are apart of both factions and see which ones are competing for which side, with a tab showing how the battle is faring (think similar to the pool party event you had years ago with the Mundo skin).

And then, after 4 weeks, the event ends, with the side that gained more LP in Master+ taking the trophy.

Players get some kind of in-game reward who participated based on if they were on the winning side and how far up in the ladder they made it and you can even have low elo players choose which side they want to support (even if they're not apart of the actual battle) with maybe an icon that can have a prestige edition for the winners.

You would fix high elo.

You would reinstill a sense of community.

You would play into the seasonal hype and make everyone excited

You would avoid (almost all) the backlash from the people who are getting reset.

And you would save the game.

Just remember that for many of us this isn't just a game.

For me, it's my life.

I had trouble sleeping last night,

I didn't really feel like getting out of bed this morning,

And I spent 4 hours this morning typing up this tweet.

And it's not out of hate, or malice, or anything negative.

It's out of love.

So please, for not just me, but for all of us who love this game and just want to feel excited playing it daily, I'm begging you to hear me out.

Thank you for reading.

[The Jhin Express @TheJhinExpress]

@bluwunk ty for the smolder guides, i should hit diamond for the first time ever by using them

[Caedrel @Caedrel]

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[The Jhin Express @TheJhinExpress]

@ValorantUpdated Finally fixed this stupid collision bug

[The Jhin Express @TheJhinExpress]

@GiveMeBanHammer Ah yes i love devs nerfing everything in a pve game it makes it sooo fun to play. L game devs

[The Jhin Express @TheJhinExpress]

@Milliam @Dexerto Yes as someone who was awake for almost 80 hours during military training i was hearing thing that were not there

[The Jhin Express @TheJhinExpress]

@GunloverClub1 Glocks are dog shit dont know why anyone uses them

[The Jhin Express @TheJhinExpress]

@BRICSinfo W UK

[The Jhin Express @TheJhinExpress]

@LSXYZ9 People in the replies seem to forget that Korea is the birthplace of esports. Many people in here arnt old enough to understand the impact SC had globally on esports as a whole. FlaSh is the true goat

[Anime Tweets @AnimexTwts]

Real 😭

[The Jhin Express @TheJhinExpress]

@Dexerto He admitted to having inappropriate conversations and messages with minor. No need to show the convo

[The Jhin Express @TheJhinExpress]

@LeagueOfLegends

[The Jhin Express @TheJhinExpress]

@MarioNawfal W