Solo queue has never been in a worse state. There are lots of smurfers, booster and of course, trolls. Here are the 5 effective ways which Riot should really consider implementing in order to keep the majority of players happy.
This is something we definitely need as many high elo players of League of Legends are upset about the quality of their solo queue games. If you listen to the opinion of the most popular high elo players, streamers, and professionals, League of Legends has never been in a worse state than it is in Season 12. Issues from AFKers, intentional feeders, soft feeding, dodging, queue times, and unbalanced teams are all huge problems for high elo players.
These problems also eventually affect the low elo players as the high elo players then create smurf accounts for lower queue times, dodging, etc. and absolutely smash the game because of their skill level. With these five ways, Riot can reduce the number of smurfers and increase the amount of challenge in every elo of the game.
1. Harsher Rules
The thing about high elo solo queue is that you have to think about it and its problems separately from those of the general population. Because of the high skill level, low player count, and the increased scrutiny these players are under, behaviour that might be acceptable in say, Bronze elo, would be game-breaking in high Diamond and above.
I would suggest that Riot intensify their existing rules for players in this high elo and add additional ones. For instance, the definition of “intentional feeding” should be much harsher in high elo than in low elo. A player going 0/10 in Silver is very different than a player going 0/10 in Grandmaster and it shouldn’t just be brushed off as “having a bad day.” Bad days happen to everyone, yes, but players in this high of a skill bracket should be better prepared to avoid huge losses.
Also for players who have been inting consistently should get IP banned so that they cannot create new accounts and ruin more games.
2. A Vote System for Dodges
Dodging has become a big problem in high elo as players complain about the long queue times. It sucks to wait in queue for upwards of 10 minutes only to get in a lobby that someone dodges at the last second. This is a tight line that Riot has to walk because dodging is an important safeguard against players getting trolled in the lobby by another player, playing with a teammate on a champion they’re unskilled on, or just playing with a comp that has narrow win conditions.
Having a feature where all the players in champ select can have a voting system to dodge without any penalties. If 4/5 players agree, everyone dodges without taking any penalties and can continue the queue.
Also read: Best League of Legends Players
3. Honor Level Special Rewards
Currently, the Honor level of a player has no effect in the game apart from a badge and free cosmetics.
Riot should introduce a feature where having a higher honour level lets you have higher LP gains, and a lower honour level have lower LP gains. This will make everyone play nice, whoever has a good behaviour gets rewarded with extra LP and whoever has a bad behaviour keeps getting punished with lesser LP.
4. Having a Special “LP Boost” Time
This feature I have personally come up with is a feature to have special LP boost times in higher elo games.
For example, Riot can say that from 5:00 PM TO 10:00 PM every day they will have an LP boost where players who play during those hours will gain higher LP. This way, all the high elo players will come online around the same time, thus lowering queue times and increasing competitive gameplay.
5. Regulate Smurfing
Riot games should introduce a feature where High elo players can create “new” accounts that are attached to their current accounts i.e., they share the skins and champions but not the level, MMR, and LP.
These accounts all start at level 30 and will all be placed in a different queue than normal low elo players. All these smurf accounts can then play with other smurf accounts or players that have been doing exceptionally good, so they all have similar skill levels.
This can also help low elo players by not letting challengers in smurfs play with bronze players and also helps reduce the number of accounts sold, helping Riot games in many ways.
