The last weekend in League of Legends was crazy. Last 40 games (I write this before I start playing on Monday evening): 26 wins, 11 losses, 70% winrate. It was great, the lots of work put into this research are paying out. Considering that my winrate was increasing as I climbed, what seemed the end goal - Gold - now just looks as a stepping stone. I can't even guess how high I can climb.
Now, I know exactly that my results have nothing to do with my playing skill. 5.3 kills / 6.2 deaths / 8.5 assists is low. In the last 4 games, I was last in damage twice and second last in the other two. I play a single, undertuned, for-beginners champion. I'm probably one of the worst LoL players, but it doesn't matter. What matters is the "Victory" screen on the end.
I know that I actually did something: figured out how the matchmaker is rigged and developed a counter. Also, I don't expect this winrate to continue on weekdays. On weekends more buyers play, so there are more games which are rigged. On weekdays there are more fair games and while I can maintain near 50% winrate there, I don't expect this to hold for long. In mid-gold I expect to have bad winrate in such games.
The average player who doesn't give second though to anything would easily attribute such winrate to his "l33t skillz". Which is the point of the rigging. The buyer pays for vanity and for new champions and not power. So he is unaware that his next few games are strongly rigged. I'm pretty sure that all my teammates in these wins are absolutely sure that they were awesome and that's why we won. No, on "Easy wins" some of them were buyers, the others were carefully selected to guarantee the win for the team. On the "Sure loss" games, it was all me who won it, if it was up to then, the 80% of those games were lost. But for them it doesn't matter. What matters is the feeling that they are awesome players. This is the feeling Riot sells for money.
Not for long I'm afraid.
Update: I got up to Gold promotion and failed. But I have no doubt that Gold will be here in a day or two and soon more levels.
Now, I know exactly that my results have nothing to do with my playing skill. 5.3 kills / 6.2 deaths / 8.5 assists is low. In the last 4 games, I was last in damage twice and second last in the other two. I play a single, undertuned, for-beginners champion. I'm probably one of the worst LoL players, but it doesn't matter. What matters is the "Victory" screen on the end.
I know that I actually did something: figured out how the matchmaker is rigged and developed a counter. Also, I don't expect this winrate to continue on weekdays. On weekends more buyers play, so there are more games which are rigged. On weekdays there are more fair games and while I can maintain near 50% winrate there, I don't expect this to hold for long. In mid-gold I expect to have bad winrate in such games.
The average player who doesn't give second though to anything would easily attribute such winrate to his "l33t skillz". Which is the point of the rigging. The buyer pays for vanity and for new champions and not power. So he is unaware that his next few games are strongly rigged. I'm pretty sure that all my teammates in these wins are absolutely sure that they were awesome and that's why we won. No, on "Easy wins" some of them were buyers, the others were carefully selected to guarantee the win for the team. On the "Sure loss" games, it was all me who won it, if it was up to then, the 80% of those games were lost. But for them it doesn't matter. What matters is the feeling that they are awesome players. This is the feeling Riot sells for money.
Not for long I'm afraid.
Update: I got up to Gold promotion and failed. But I have no doubt that Gold will be here in a day or two and soon more levels.
8 comments:
Unless you go and publish your work somewhere where Riot playerbase might notice it, i'm afraid Riot will just continue to sell their experience for money regardless of your research.
That would, of course, require actual work to be published and not just "omg look i get wins while sucking" teasers.
Also, you might wanna consider adding replay packs to your posts, just so we can see how your games actually go (i assume LoL has replays).
Would it not have been a good idea to use a control account? Another account where you play exactly the same except you don't dodge queues at all. That would help show that the increase in rank is because you're exploiting the rigging, not because you're improving.
@Maxim: I just published my WoT findings on my blog and people found it and became top hitter post
@Anon: I don't dodge anymore.
so you research your team and the enemy team and then adapt to their playstyle which leads to more wins for you.
I'm curious how you want to prove that the game is rigged and it's not just randomness that determines the teams.
Adapting your playstyle to achieve the best possible outcome for your team sounds pretty much like getting more skilled at the game. After all most team games aren't just about you clicking or reacting fast but more importantly about working together/adapting to your team (the latter if its a random team and not premade) and adjusting your playstyle to counter the enemies.
@Gevlon
Last time I checked, WoT is still a successful pay-to-win game. I doubt your post affected Wargaming's bottom line to any noticeable extent.
@Maxim: "noticable" is debatable. Also, WoT NEVER claimed to be a fair e-sport. It was openly a pay-to-win game, the rigging is just icing on the cake.
@Gevlon: Competitive LoL is definitively a team sport though - meaning that anyone who wants to compete at the top levels of LoL will recruit a full team of specific players that they either already know or will get to know by playing with constantly in a pre-defined team. They don't rely on the matchmaker at all - thus rendering any rigging that may or may not exist ineffective...
Additionally - have you considered how premade teams could be/are skewing your results? You currently seem to be assuming that you are *only* being paired with random players, and never being paired with pre-formed teams...Is that a safe assumption to make? (It wasn't last time I played LoL - but maybe the game has changed?)
Post a Comment