Two days ago, I started to play ranked more and I notice that sometimes Silver Rank player beat me easily while I can do very GGS with Gold/Killer Rank player in a real battle for victory.
I usually go to see the profile of the player who beat me and from his recorded clips, realize that he was an average Gold/Killer player who probably “requalify” and start the climbing again.
What’s the point of requalify?
Seems that people use this feature to hide their real skill just to play with less skilled player for more “easy” battles.
It’s the same as using another profile just to destroy people new to the game in a very “disrespectful” way.
And I don’t think that this feature is useful if someone wants to try another character without losing points.
For that, there’s exibition matches.
This exists because maybe someone makes it into a rank where he doesn’t belong.
Extreme example:
I start playing the game, and during my qualify matches, I’m paired with bronze players all the time. I’m a silver player level, so I win all this matches, and the game places me on Gold. Great! I may be better than I though!
But then, every Gold/Killer player wipes the floor with me. I’m unable to win against any Gold/Killer player. I even lose sometimes against some silvers. I don’t fell I’m in the rank I need to progress into leveling up my skills against players with similar skill than me.
So I hit requalify. This time, I get paired against Silver, Gold and Killers. I end up in Bronze. I’m able to get to silver, and there I am, fighting against other people of similar skill, winning or losing by not much, improving my gameplay, and not getting wiped so frequently by gold/Killer players.
This is just an example. It could be a challenge: Am I able to get to Killer with all the characters? Let’s try! @xSkeletalx did something like this some time ago.
Of course, some people may try to use it just for trolling. But that’s a minority
The Requalify button stemmed from an issue in Season 2. It was significantly easier to get into Killer Rank, and as such a lot of people made it in that weren’t exactly qualified.
Then when it came time to play against their peers, they found that they’d been promoted beyond their ability and simply floundered. This wasn’t limited to Killer tier either: A lot of players were being matched against people way outside their skill level even after the ranking got a bit tougher.
Season 3’s requalify button in addition to tougher ranking guidelines fixed that to an extent. Once per month, you get to requalify. This means that you’ll either fight your way into your rightful place, or have room to experiment and hunt for achievements.
Good points, but the other side of the coin, is that people can start from the botton again even if they are very good at this game just to “light” their experience but, in this way, all the matchmaking system goes wrong.
Beside that, is it true that once per month, people are resets to qualifier?
It happens to me, but when I go into ranked league, the system puts me in gold again even if I didn’t play a match.
It doesn’t automatically reset you to Qualifier: It gives you the option once per month to reset your own rank.
There are other monthly resets though: The Killer brackets get reshuffle every month for the Top 32 placement battles, and Killer Ranked players who don’t play a ranked match for a month are disqualified and deranked to Gold.
There’s also an annoying bug where if you’re invited to a match or do some other things it displays your rank as qualifier until you go to ranked again, but that doesn’t effect actual ranking standings.
As far as the worry about people smurfing with the Requalify option to get easy wins:
Those kind of people are going to try and find a way to do that anyway.
Could be worse. Whenever a Season starts in League of Legends, EVERYONE has to requalify and shuffle their ranks, including low level Bronze and Professional Challenger ranked players, so the issue can be exponentially more frightening.
I have always shared the concerns of the OP in this thread, as I hate people who aren’t playing at an honest skill level. It makes playing games online less fun for those who are still learning and can do some real damage to a game’s community, since it can actually cause people to give it up.
If the whole point was to keep you from getting “too high” up on the rung, why not just allow you to go back down 1 step rather than all of the way down? And only allow you to do it, say every few weeks or month or something? I think that’s far more fair in the long run.
Personally though, if you can go “too high” I think that says more about the problems regarding the system more than anything. Being able to “start over” and be dishonest about your skill is far worse, IMO, than a new player getting “stuck” at a higher level.
I’ve talked about this/seen this talked about. Say, down to 1 below your highest achieved rank or something.
I think it’s a pretty good idea. It’s a nice compromise between allowing the step down and expecting rank.
But in order for the ranking/deranking to get any more consideration, it would probably come at the cost of making the rank system harder. Otherwise Bronze may well thin itself out apart from the occasional boom in casuals.
Well, I side on the fence that believes it needs to be. Outside of top 32, it’s STILL too easy. Even getting to top 32, isn’t really all that hard to do, IMO. It really only takes time and dedication. The only thing that truly keeps any slightly above average player from getting it is the fact that most people don’t want to dedicate every day of an entire month to getting there. That’s largely not skill-based at all.
…but whatever. I spend most of my time in exhibition now anyways. The people there are nicer, and I can do some good by making friends, learning matchups, and teaching other newer players how the game works.
There’s already a limit that one can only requalify once per month. If you requalify, you’ll be Killer again in about 40 games if you don’t lose. If you’re the type who just enjoys mopping up newbies, you’re not going to be doing it for too long unless you’re intentionally throwing games.
The one time I requalified, I did it because I just wanted to see if I could take a particular character up to Killer again, no more and no less. I probably wouldn’t do it again because I don’t particularly enjoy bodying bronze and silver players, but the initial reasoning still makes sense to me. It can be a fun little challenge to run if you’re base skill level isn’t too high I think.
And @GalacticGeek, I’ll actually disagree with you on the Top 32 thing. Truly mediocre players aren’t likely to hit it, because better players get huge rewards for beating them once they start to pull ahead in points. There’s also something to be said about playing the number of games required to make Top 32 - even if you aren’t a particularly quick learner, you learn a lot playing so many games, and that tends to make you a better player. Some of my most potent setups these days were learned and perfected over that month I spent getting my star.
Pro stars certainly aren’t the end all be all of skill, and there’s no doubt that there are better and worse pro star holders out there, but I’m of the opinion that they actually do tend to mean something beyond “I have a lot of time on my hands.”
I don’t blame people who use the requalify to learn new character but, still, it’s an option that can create chaos on matchmaking and defeat the purpose of ranked league.
I personaly use exibition matches to learn new characters and matchups.
Probably one of the few…
As @Dayv0 said, I ran a monthly challenge for myself to reset my Rank and try to learn a new character, in order to see how far I could rise in a month’s time with a character I had only just started to play.
I made it to Killer Rank a couple months into the S2 version, but then spent ever month’s Top32 at the bottom rung. I had climbed too high (over a period of time, it wasn’t a single quick rush) and was then stuck playing against people who I didn’t really belong fighting, meaning I lost the majority of my matches.
When Season 3 launched I decided to do these challenges, and it made me a much better player overall. My general knowledge of and experience with the game helped, but outside of Bronze opponents it still required plenty of work to win.
Kim Wu reached Gold.
Mira reached Silver.
Gargos kind of messed up Mira’s run, and didn’t really get one of his own.
TJ Combo reached Killer.
Tusk reached Killer
Arbiter placed in Silver but I didn’t complete the month.
As others have said, it’s possible that some people choose to reset for a malicious purpose, but I don’t think it’s likely to be a large amount. I also personally think you’re supposed to go all out in Ranked, and I play to win regardless of my current Rank versus my opponent’s.
I’m trying to get a Pro 32 Star, but it’s very hard given my life situation. I think it’s more than just a title though. Think about it. For an entire month, you’ve fought a hard fight to be the Top 32 of that month. That’s pretty impressive.
Regardless, I’m aiming for my first pro star to be with Kim Wu.