Typically, whenever I play League of Legends, I play ARAM, because they’re quicker, not taken nearly as seriously as Summoner’s Rift matches, and as odd as it is to say, considering the occasional anxiety and unhappiness of randomly getting a champion you don’t like, there’s something inherently relaxing about ARAM, because there’s an accountability that is taken off the table, by everyone having their players randomly chosen. I take a lot of flack about my enjoyment of ARAM from some of my friends, but I don’t really care, because I like ARAM, and I think it’s a mode where it kind of helps players actually dare to think outside of the box, instead of falling into “the metas” that people only on the highest level of play dictate, and everyone believes they can emulate.
However lately, I’ve been playing Summoner’s Rift again, because I’ve again been entertaining the thought of taking the plunge into ranked play, to see where I could end up on the gargantuan player pool of League. Last season, I placed into Silver II, and I made little effort to try and climb out, because it was very late in the season, and secondly I just didn’t care that much. Ultimately, I was hoping that I could squeak my way into Gold-tier, so that I could get the Victorious Morgana skin, whom only Gold or higher players received, but alas, it was just not in the stars for me to get there.
This year’s Victorious skin is Sivir, a champion that I’m okay with, and wouldn’t mind having the Victorious skin for. But that would mean that I would have to take the dive into ranked mode again, and endure the colossal tidal wave of bullshit and stress that entails with trying to win placements, and inevitably grind out enough wins to very slowly, climb the ladder. And I’m wondering if that’s something I really want to bother doing, especially with there being barely a month left in the actual season itself.
Regardless, I’ve been playing some more SR games, to see where I’m at, break off the rust of playing the SR style of farming, poking, warding, calling AFKs and living and dying by the game of vision. At the time I’m writing this, I am exactly .500 in SR games, with me either being on a team that wins by the skin of their teeth, or getting absolutely demolished in a demoralizing, mood-quashing stomping that makes me wonder why I even bother launching League of Legends in the first place.
The jury is still out, but I am very much leaning towards not even bothering playing a single placement game, because if I’m having this much dissatisfaction in playing normal, unranked matches, I’m going to be completely miserable when I play ranked games, and I get saddled with the players that bitch and moan about not getting their desired role and/or champion, and take it out on their teammates by deliberately feeding and/or going AFK to let their teammates lose a slow, agonizing defeat.
But it’s in these games, where I’m getting stomped through the Earth on the cusp of emerging in China, that I think a lot about how flawed the game is, at least as far as a match-making and skill assessment point of view goes.
It makes me think of baseball, when there was once a time in which a pitcher’s win-loss record determined whether or not the pitcher was good or bad. Never mind the fact that the criteria for getting a win or a loss is ultimately decided by their teammates’ ability to hit the ball, catch the ball, throw the ball, and an assortment of skills that have very, very little to do with their pitchers themselves.
Pitchers, were having their skills judged solely by the skill of their teammates, and not their own skills.
Imagine working at a McDonalds, where you are the best cashier on the planet, that can handle any length of line, never make a mistake, and always served food with a smile. But because the drive-thru guy is an asshole, the burger flipper drops too much food, and the fry guy perpetually over-salts the fries, your particular McDonalds location is deemed a “not good McDonalds,” and you are perceived as a below-standard cashier, because you perform at a below-standard location.
That’s pretty much what League of Legends is, and it’s what I think is the biggest fallacy of the game.
It doesn’t matter if you’re like me, a guy who works a regular daily job, with a few hours every now and then to burn, and wants to spend it playing League. Or if you’re a student with vastly more hours to burn, and burns it playing League. Or, if you’re a person with no job and prospects, and have nothing but time, to get good at playing League. All people are in this same pool of players, and nobody outside of Riot, (or perhaps they’re as clueless as we are) has any real idea of just how players are matched together.
All I know is that without fail, I will end up on the team with teammates who “are experimenting” and trot out jungle Yorick, while the other team constructs a Megatron team, full of popular trendy picks that all the Koreans professional players use, and everyone is playing their comfort roles. I will get destroyed worse than Hiroshima and feel dejected and unhappy afterward, and contemplate things like this.
But ultimately, it makes me not want to play ranked mode and try to get into Gold, because in my placements, I can be the best player on my team in all ten of my matches, because inevitably I’ll have the occasional game where I’ll have the toxic teammate that isn’t happy with their role, isn’t happy about themselves or a teammate giving up first blood, or just wants to pretend like they’re the Joker and wanting to create chaos, and will proceed to deliberately tank my games, and contribute to me placing into a rank way lower than my skill might dictate, and there will be absolutely nothing I would be able to do about it.
The fallacy of League of Legends is that personal skill and ranking is solely determined by factors uncontrollable by people themselves.
It doesn’t matter if you’re really, really good at the game, or really, really bad at the game, the bottom line is that perhaps outside of the Diamond or higher ranking, there are monumental numbers of people who are ranked somewhere they probably don’t belong, because they were either unfortunate to get saddled with bad teammates, or very fortunate to have been blessed with very competent teammates.
Frankly, I’d rather be in the latter camp, but given the nature of the game’s chaotic match-making queue, I wouldn’t bet on it; so I wonder if it’s even worth trying at all.
