{"id":39976,"date":"2014-10-17T22:53:28","date_gmt":"2014-10-18T02:53:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=39976"},"modified":"2020-07-13T22:53:44","modified_gmt":"2020-07-14T02:53:44","slug":"the-misery-of-ranked-mode","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=39976","title":{"rendered":"The misery of ranked mode"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"border-image alignnone wp-image-39977 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/totfc.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/rankedsucks-e1415309955738.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"420\" height=\"176\" srcset=\"http:\/\/totfc.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/rankedsucks-e1415309955738.png 420w, http:\/\/totfc.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/rankedsucks-e1415309955738-300x126.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 420px) 100vw, 420px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">I\u2019ve never really had any aspirations to play ranked mode in\u00a0<em>League of Legends.<\/em>\u00a0When the day is over, I know that I\u2019m a fairly middle-of-the-pack player at best, and don\u2019t necessarily have any aspirations to rise to the Challenger ranks or anything.\u00a0 I play with a locked camera, which I get a ton of grief for, and my preferred role is that of ADC, specifically either Jinx or Miss Fortune, to which I receive much more grief over the fact that I have allegedly \u201cfour champions (in spite of the fact that my \u201cfriends\u201d trolled the shit out of me and mystery gifted me like 15 new champions, thus polluting my stacked champion deck with champions I\u2019m less familiar with).\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">I never really saw much point for me to play ranked, because I figured it would ultimately end up with me placing where I probably figured I\u2019d belong, somewhere in the middle of the pack.\u00a0 Additionally, once ranked, I put myself in the crosshairs of the tryhard players who scrutinize their peers\u2019 accounts to check their rankings, so they could use what they find as fodder for harassment.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">This is doubly worse for those who end up placing bronze (the lowest) on account of their own talent level, or in most cases, by being tanked by the weight of trolls who deliberately and flagrantly sabotage games, in order to grief others.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">And that\u2019s what served as the impetus for me writing this, the trolls of an online video game.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">Despite my reluctance in playing ranked, I went ahead and jumped in the pool regardless.\u00a0 All my regular playing friends were doing it, and I\u2019d be lying if I wasn\u2019t intrigued at the idea of possibly be carried into a gold ranking, and getting the end-of-season reward for gold ranked players, being the Championship Morgana skin.\u00a0 Sure, it\u2019s akin to an Xbox achievement, meaning it\u2019s ultimately useless and serves little benefit, but like the achievements, I still wanted it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">There was a point in which I also thought I might succeed too, when after my first seven provisional games played out of ten, I had a pretty nice 6-1 record.\u00a0 I wasn\u2019t sure on whether I needed one more win, or two, but I thought that if I could carve out an 8-2 or 7-3, I stood a good chance at landing in gold, because logically, if I were to inexplicably go 9-1, I just might be put into a diamond ranking, which I\u2019m clearly not, skill-wise.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">Naturally, I would ultimately lose all three of my final placement games, and when the dust settled, I was given a Silver II ranking.\u00a0 Sure, Silver II is not terrible, it\u2019s two notches underneath a Gold V, and is probably higher than what I would have expected from myself based on skill alone, but I have to say that I\u2019m still immensely disappointed in it, based on how it came to be.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">Seriously, I felt like the 1996 Washington Redskins, who started their season 7-1, before going on a losing skid so bad, they actually missed the playoffs.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">But losing, losing in a video game, I can handle.\u00a0 Defeat happens in all forms of competition, and I understand the importance of the concept of defeat.\u00a0 Without defeat, there is no joy in victory; without defeat, victory is completely without meaning.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">It\u2019s just how I lost the final three games that chaps my ass, because in all three instances, my team didn\u2019t just get beat, they simply imploded.\u00a0 Imploded.\u00a0 From within.\u00a0 Trolls, flamers, and those who simply weren\u2019t as good as their placement into my games dictated.\u00a0 All three games had people who deliberately queued up with the intention of tanking, those who took the bait and began flaming the tankers, people who were ill-suited for their roles, or all of the above.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">In none of the three games, did I think the other team was necessarily better than my team, but they frankly didn\u2019t have to be.\u00a0 Those trolling my games did more than enough by deliberately dying, arguing with teammates and simply sucking enough to where the opposing teams may as well been the 1972 Dolphins running roughshod on my hapless teams.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">Sure, like most gamers, I get frustrated with games in which I don\u2019t do well, but given the stakes of playing ranked, it was a time in which I actually grew legitimately upset.\u00a0 Of course, it\u2019s silly to get upset over a video game, but it\u2019s not so much the video game as much as it is the retards playing it.\u00a0 Seriously, I often wonder what makes people wake up in the morning, swing their feet out of bed, and stop and think \u201c<em>You know, I feel like being a colossal douchebag today.<\/em>\u201d\u00a0 I\u2019m not saying I\u2019m a saint by any stretch of the imagination, but it\u2019s never my intention in just about any situation where I want to outright ruin an experience for others, especially those whom I\u2019m supposed to be collaborating with for a common goal.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">Sour grapes?\u00a0 Yes, definitely.\u00a0 I feel like I wasted a lot of time giving an earnest attempt at a goal, and I started great and had high hopes, only for it to quickly turn into a catastrophic failure.\u00a0 If it were on my own volition, I wouldn\u2019t even be writing this in the first place, but because it was on account of those hellbent on making life miserable for others, it aggravates me.\u00a0 They found a vulnerability in me by tampering with a difficult goal.\u00a0 They got one on me.\u00a0 They won.\u00a0 And it sucks.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">My foray into ranked was most definitely a negative one, and I\u2019m on the fence on whether or not I want to bother continuing.\u00a0 At Silver II, I\u2019m close to gold, but it\u2019s going to take a whole bunch more games to play, before I can even attempt to break into gold, and that\u2019s provided I win them.\u00a0 The stakes of advancing or falling in standings puts a pressure on players to try their best, and not everyone can handle pressure, when things get heated.\u00a0 And of course, given the nature that the player pool for ranked has as many trolls in it as it does, it\u2019s definitely a game of Russian Roulette on whether your team gets one or more, or not.\u00a0 To which then, it removes credibility from the ranking system to a degree, if it boils down to a game of \u201cwhich team has the troll\u201d where all victories become somewhat tainted and hollow.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">However, I think the conclusion to all this is pretty obvious: ranked sucks.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019ve never really had any aspirations to play ranked mode in\u00a0League of Legends.\u00a0When the day is over, I know that I\u2019m a fairly middle-of-the-pack player at best, and don\u2019t necessarily have any aspirations to rise to the Challenger ranks or anything.\u00a0 I play with a locked camera, which I get a ton of grief for, &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=39976\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">The misery of ranked mode<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[45,154,15,52,124,49],"class_list":["post-39976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brog","tag-fail","tag-league-of-legends","tag-og","tag-owned","tag-trolls","tag-wtf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39976"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39976\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39978,"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39976\/revisions\/39978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}