pacov

So, for the inaugural discussion – anyone else interested in talking about elo and elo boosting?

I’ll start and others can chime in if they want.  Now, we need a preface here.  1^st – I don’t condone elo boosting and do not participate in it.  The other thing that needs said is that we started having this discussion in the previous thread, but I cut that conversation short as it was more about a person than the practice.  I was a bit a rude/abrupt there, so my apologies for being a poop.  That said, please avoid any discussion about individuals and just talk about what it is, isn’t, and provide your thoughts in general.

What is elo boosting?
Specifically, it’s the process of paying an individual, company, or group to raise your current rank/elo to a higher level.  You commit to the transaction and set a specific rank/tier, make the payment, and someone else logs into your account and gets you to the agreed upon rank/tier.   Now, we can talk about people duo queuing to raise elo as well (paid, just with pals, etc), but for now, I’d like to just stay focused on this definition. 

Results of elo boosting
Let’s go with a generic example:  some guy is bronze 1.  He’s played a bunch of games and it certainly seems like he belongs at bronze 1 based on his skill level.  He pays a guy to boost him up to gold V.  Now, his mmr will actually be significantly above where his would normally be due to the boost, so he should end up playing against significantly better players when his account is returned to him.  This, of course, should result in him tanking other player’s games.  To make this practice even worse, in the previous season, once you made it into a division, you could not be demoted out of the bottom tier (eg you couldn’t be kicked from gold V down to Silver 1).  I believe that changed and now you can be demoted (correct me if I’m wrong please). 

Now, is that a big deal?  Well, it is to me.  I’m passionate about the game and extremely dislike this sort of thing because I worked hard to get where I’m at.  Having someone game the system by getting a boost means they didn’t earn their position.  It also means that these people hurt folks who have the misfortune of having them on their team in ranked as they cannot perform at the same level of play as someone in their current division. 

Elo boosting happens all the time, but is most prevalent as end of season awards are announced, etc.  Some folks just want the end of season rewards that you get for reaching a specific goal tier, some just want bragging rights among their friends, etc.

What does Riot think about elo boosting?
Here's a Rioter discussing Riot's policy towards Elo boosting on June 14, 2013:  http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?p=38749905

They define elo boosting as:  "MMR Boosting is an action where a player (The Booster) logs into another player’s account (The Boostee) with the specific purpose of improving the boostee account’s MMR."

That same rioter's take on why elo boosting is poo:

• Our Leagues system has been carefully tuned so that players are placed in the proper tier with others who are within a similar skill level. If a player’s MMR is boosted unnaturally they will most definitely falter when they begin to play ranked at that tier. If a player is unable to keep up with the other higher MMR players in their match they will most certainly degrade the game experience for everyone involved.
• It takes hard work, commitment and buckets of blood, sweat and tears for players to earn a high ranking in League of Legends. MMR Boosting devalues the commitment that many of our players make to earn their rightful place among the world’s best League of Legends players.

And riot's punishment system for elo boosters:

1. A two week account suspension in League of Legends.
2. Removal of any prior Season’s Ranked Rewards (ie: Skins, Icons, Badges, etc)
3. Disqualification from receiving the current season’s Ranked Rewards (ie: Skins, Icons, Badges, etc)
4. Second time offenders' accounts will be permanently banned from League of Legends.

Next bit - Riot bans pro players and a coach back in May 2013:  http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=3239350

2 reasons are sighted for the ban

1. Violation of the summoners code
2. Terms of Use violation.  Specifically :"You may not share your Account with anyone other than as expressly set forth herein..." and "Any distribution by you of your Account and/or your Login Credentials (except as expressly provided herein or otherwise explicitly approved of by Riot Games) may result in suspension or termination of your Account."

Last - they defined elo boosting again:

Definition of Elo-Boosting:
“Elo-boosting” is the repetitive and intentional act of an individual playing on someone else’s account (a “client”) for the purpose of artificially improving the client’s Elo rating. There is no minimum number of games required to be played, nor a minimum amount of Elo gain necessary to qualify as Elo-boosting. An attempt to boost Elo need not be successful in order to qualify as a rule violation.

Holy lots of crap about elo boosting...

@thunder - re: the doom and gloom of bronze and wanting to help get your pals the heck out of there.  Yeah - that makes sense.  Honestly, I don't know that I'm a good enough player to dig some folks out of the holes they are in (even if I were to log in on their account and try).  I've seen bronze I, and even that is a scary place full of wtf and trolling and afk people and you name it.  Bronze 5 though? 

You've also got to wonder wtf is going on with a person's mmr if after a season reset, they go 7/3 and still end up in bronze.  It would be nice if the reset moved you in such a way where you could get out of bronze 5 going 7/3 ffs. No idea what is up with rito there.  That said, I probably wouldn't play ranked if I was somehow in that position... I really dislike high silver games as it is... make me play bronze forever... must be some other game for me to play then.

Well... temporary in that you can get folks like this in your games and they eventually do poorly enough to get knocked back down.  That doesn't keep them from having a negative impact when they appear... or the next guy they come across or the guy that just was freshly boosted. 

re: awards - idk - that's likely the main reason some folks go for elo boosts.  While I probably should care a little, I don't really care that someone else might have the same victorious skin as me, but never earned it.  I think I mostly care about the negative impact these people have in games and knowing that these people didn't earn getting where I am by hard work. 

 The next discussion re: other ways of inflating your elo (duo queue) should be more interesting perhaps... I also have kind of an extreme view on that stuff...

quick aside - I saw there were a few PBE updates today - downloaded them both and checked - no updated SR map (the map looks amazing imo).  Was hoping that might be up... but no eta I guess.  Will def make some vids and check it out when its on PBE though.

@karl - yeah - fair point and good to factor in psychology.  For me, if I ground my account into the dust learning to play in ranked and was mega bronze 5, even if I had my current skill level, I'd probably just quit playing ranked due to the level of frustration.  On that same token.  I know some people that are bronze.  They belong in bronze even if they think they do not.  I just think if you are that buried in bronze where you can have a reset, go 7/3 in placements, and place in bronze 5 (as in thunder's example)... something is a teeny bit off that could use a fix.

The general stats are there, though (backtracking a bit here) - I've got just as good odds of having someone appear that was elo boosted or a troll as the people on the other team. 

EZ = 27 series to hit gold.  Nothing easy about it - just a predictable outcome, eh (eg good enough to eventually overcome rubbish).  Anywho - I don't think I'm missing your point at all, thunder.

But.. I'm also wiped out and going to bed.  Night all!

So... hear me out here.  1st - congrats on going on a streak on twisted tree line and immediately hitting plat after 10 games. 

That said, I'm not a fan of the game mode and it apparently is very easy to climb (note - I'm not talking about your skill level in any way btw, I'm literally talking about being able to make a team, play 10 games, and be platinum).  I'm guessing it works that way to due to a lower population. Anyone know if you could hit plat after 10 games on SR in ranked 5's?  If not, it seems to be a direct correlation to population in my mind anyway. 

I looked but couldn't really find any statistics on how many people play twisted treeline.  Anyone able to?  I know dominion has an incredibly low pop - I always assumed twisted treeline was similar.

We are gold I - we got placed in Gold II and you can't skip to plat.  To be fair, after murdering a lot of teams to start with, we are playing a lot of harder matches now that our MMR has gone up (a lot of diamond players, and we played a team with 3v3 challenger players last night).

@Karl

My IRL buddies played in two separate phases.  When they started out they all couldn't care less and inadvertently made a lot of people in their ranked games miserable on their way to 400 MMR, so maybe in a way they deserved what happened to them.  They took a break from the game and when they came back they watched LCS, took my advice on Runes/Masteries, learned new roles, etc and didn't take them long to become much better players but still stuck at the very bottom of the MMR ladder.  

As far as starting up new accounts, the guys are my age so have plenty of disposable income, but not enough where they really wanted to say goodbye to accounts that had every MF skin and stuff.  I told them not to worry and that they didn't need to make new accounts because there would be new placement matches for Season 4 and all their problems would be gone.

@Pacov

I just meant I didn't think that you and Karl truly understood how bad things get between when you reach Bronze V and when you keep losing until you don't have any MMR left to lose.  That's where the guys end up who actually try to lose every game for their team.  My one friend actually started playing again and we had a few games last night. He's gotten to his Bronze III promos but it's still really bad even there.  "Wow... I don't think I've ever played a 4v4."  "Oh really?  I play in 4v4's all the time."

I don't consider Karl to have been stuck in Elo Hell when he was struggling to get from Silver I to Gold V anymore than myself, or you when you were struggling to get from Bronze I to Silver V.  We all have valuable skillsets... ones that are much more valuable in games with competent players.  None of us are "I'll go Top and be a pentakill hypercarry machine." type of players so last season we relied too much on our teams not sucking and so struggled at certain MMR levels and then thrived later.  Well, more you and Karl as far as the thriving later thing went to be fair.

However, even if you take Karl who barely ever solo lanes down to Bronze V I think he'd dominate enough games to get himself up to Silver rather quickly.

I personally did an experiment about the MMR, elo and how deep you can go. On my smurf I played very not seriously (not obviously intentionally throw, but playing as a something very low skill level). And believe me, bronze 5 games are difficult to lose. It requires a pretty strong effort, when your MMR is that low to achieve that. Lolnexus website was showing calculated team mmr of something like ~150, lolking showed like 400 if I remember correctly (it doesn't show below that no matter how many more times you lose). Other websites also were showing weird things. Additionally queue times were like ~10 minutes. So I guess that was the real bottom. Players play like normally, but... They afk, have bad connections more often. As for the rage... It appears not that often actually, but when it does, the player often quits. The most obvious thing is bad calls, bad decisions. They don't do much. Win a team fight and back to base even if all enemies are dead. They drag games very long. People tend to be more scared. Not dive to kill, not give the finishing blow if you yourself are low. Missing skill shots all over the place. I couldn't lose some of those games literally, because if at least one silver or high bronze level player was on my team (talking about skill level, not rank) it was an easy win for us. He'd carry and you can even afk. You'd still win, because enemies will not know what to do about an aggressive player.

If you intend to climb up from that after going so low. You can just play however you wish. Most likely you will win. I am not sure who even plays there at that level... The bronze 5 MMR is something about 700, I think. To climb to that it's easy. After that players get slightly better, but still... If any of you were in bronze, you'd see the significant difference. Might not carry all, but most are easy.

Soon after my experiment RIOT changed the ToC or something... That players shouldn't intentionally play below their skill. Like pros showing climb from bronze to diamond, so I stopped that experiment as well. Still it was interesting to see differences.

Grendel, finally someone else who has actually played in extremely low MMR games with an opinion on what it's like to play in them!  First of all I'm curious what your experience and skill level are.  What league/division is your main account in?

Just to make it clear, I feel my issue with bumping my buddies up to where I feel they belong is the mythical Smurf Detector Algorithms they supposedly have in place.  It feels like after I get fed my MMR goes up no matter what, win or lose... and yes you can get fed and lose against bad players who actually want to win when 3/5 of your team is completely atrocious and/or AFK.  If I was smurfing alone, I don't think I'd have a problem until I reached a point where my lack of runes and champions would become an issue.

There's an art form in duoing with a friend while playing a smurf account, and I still have a lot to learn.  For instance last night I learned that even if you get 28 kills while playing Graves, the Bronze Master Yi who has gotten fed off of your team is still terrifying cause he at least knows how to build Yi properly, who his target is, and has a tanky Renekton who follows him around to back him up.  That scenario is especially scary if the only thing standing between you and them is the Thresh who thinks he built tanky cause he rushed a Zhonya's, but usually that Thresh is most likely split pushing top alone without wards while Yi and Rene chase you around though.

My main last season was on high gold (Gold I). Was often playing against low platinum, so I am around high gold/ low plat. This season I still couldn't bother enough to play ranked to get my placements done. As for the experience, it is difficult to describe, but I play since season one. There are times, when I go serious mode and am extremely competitive and there are relaxing times, when I don't care about wins at all. Also I enjoy trying out new things and new strategies (even if troll strategies), which can work to a certain degree in low MMR, but obviously not so often in a high one.

As for the bumping friends. I have a friend, who was bronze V-IV most of the time. Most would say that he belongs there after seeing his plays, but I helped him to get to the Silver III and he stays there now. He doesn't drop. Of course, he loses a bit, he wins a bit, but it basically is about 50%. Pretty much just like it was in that bronze V-IV. The problem with some players in low MMR is that like I previously mentioned, they don't know well what to do in a game as whole (like push and actually win instead of running around doing not so useful things). Weaker players have difficulties in climbing up, because if they go against the flow and try to do "the right things", they get destroyed, because team doesn't listen. They get blamed after and with team morale dropped it's even more difficult to win. Better players can pull off those things while worse cannot. If you put the same player in silver, he will do fine because team work is slightly different.

Overall, I still don't like the idea of helping friends and the new rule of being able to duo queue with one rank above or below will be just perfect to give an excuse to friends, when they ask for the help, hue.

As for the champs. Yeah, you are right. Fed Yi is a monster especially in low MMR. You really need friends to do something about him, if you are an adc. That's why some champs are easier to climb out of it. Graves would still eventually climb out of it, if he gets fed often enough.

well.. team coordination should certainly be a bit easier on that map with all objectives so close together and only having to coordinate 2 people instead of 4, etc.  Still, the game I watched of u fellas, you made really good calls while the enemy team made gambits here and there that cost them. 

also... those players you mentioned - high elo based on that map or on something else?  Makes quite a difference in my mind...

Mikasa Kamisama

Challenger in Ranked 5's this season, Challenger in solo queue last season.

Super exciting pacov recap:

Currently in gold V solo queue.  Starting promo series again (2nd time I think in gold V - side note, I really don't give much of a rip about the tier to tier best of 3 matches).  I expect I'll be promoted to gold IV or gold III soon.  My mmr is currently about the same as hunny badger's gold 1 mmr (last I checked anyway).  Anyway, this means I'm getting matched up with gold II's and I's, which is good for me.  The level of competition is pretty low imo.  I've been running adc most games and haven't felt like I've been getting outplayed at any rate.  We'll see how this continues, but its still my experience that silver is substantially more difficult than gold. 

I've been duoing a bunch with a fellow I met a few weeks or so ago while I was playign solo ranked.  He went thresh support for me while I ran lucian and we just cleaned house.  So, now we duo on and off.  Eventually we realized our odds go up when he and I play in different lanes so often end up with 2 carry roles.  The guy is gold V with mmr that is lower than mine, so his presence actually brings down the level of competition a smidge (I'd normally be queued up with gold I/II with my mmr, with him its gold V-II typically).  He's a nice guy, but is really hit and miss as far as performance goes in solo lane.  Cost us a game the other night playing as jax but not wanting to group as often as he should.

Other ranked stuff - played a game against a support ww where we lost (that was the jax game I mentioned).  I went adc as lucian and played fine.   Made a pretty big mistake imo in not get a ga earlier though.  It was a mega bruiser team including warwick, but every single other fight ww was ulting someone else like a goof and I was cleaning up.  Anyway, bad on me.  If I had picked up a ga, pretty decent chance we would have won.  We would have won earlier if my bud had been a bit smarter with his jax, though.

Re: my ranked 5's team (the one I keep going on and on about quitting).... smeh.  I don't know.  I had fun with things last night.  Our support is fairly consistently missing practice of late.  Our mid is being a putz.  Talking on the phone during team practice and playing xin out of mid... 100% of the time he does this, he's fine early/mid, then smeh later as we have no nuke on the team.  So.... now I'm thinking, well, kids must not be serious and if I'm supposed to be "serious," I'd rather not play (serious means being team captain, getting these folks in line and busting balls on kids missing practice, choosing to talk on the phone instead of communicating with the team during practice, etc.  A bunch of really annoying things to sort.  So, now I'm thinking I can just be like IDGAF, show up and have fun (have you seen my mao jungle build setup?) and let someone else handle the serious part.  Not really sure how that's going to pan out,

Other stuff - haven't played a game with karl in like 20 years.  Let me give any of you a tip in case you'd actually like to get in some games with me.  At least with my usual crew, I'm not sending out invites as often as many have been declined/ignored either due to afk or folks having something else going on.  If you'd like to get a game in, shoot me a pm in LoL and I can join you.  I've been playing a bunch more solo/duo queue ranked and more frequently with madcast folks as a result of many of you being busy.  That's fine, but ping me sometime if you are looking for a game otherwise you will fall off my radar further.