Riot Games revealed the ranked changes coming to League of Legends, including the new Emerald Rank and ways to make climbing the Ranked ladder easier.
They also revealed the Victorious Skin for Season 2023 – Split 1: Victorious Anivia.
League of Legends Emerald Rank
Evan “Riot Revenancer” Humphreys, Game Design Manager and Systems Design Lead for the Motivations initiative in Riot Games, outlined the changes coming to Ranked League of Legends this year.
He began by discussing Riot's philosophy on ranked – and the changes that it is currently experiencing. “Historically, League has had a very bottom-heavy distribution of rankings. Setting aside Iron at the bottom and Diamond+ at the top, most other competitive ranked games have the equivalents of Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum roughly similar in size. This means that Bronze and Silver represent below average/average, while Gold and Platinum represent above average and very good players respectively,” said Riot Revenancer. “However, our ranks have typically biased low, with more than 60% of players typically in Silver and Bronze. Currently in League, many Silver players are actually above average in skill, while Gold players are significantly above average.”
This means that League of Legends' Silver rank is actually higher in skill than the perception of their visible ranks reflects. “Compared to most games with similar ranking systems, we label a significant portion of players one tier lower.” After the changes to the Ranked ladder ship, a huge chunk of the player base will be able to land a higher rank than before.
On the other side of the spectrum, Riot Revenancer emphasized that it is important that the highest ranks retain the “exclusivity and prestige” of these ranks, and therefore will not change the rank distribution in what they call the “Apex Tiers” of Master+. However, they have to compensate somehow to avoid players crowding Diamond, so the Emerald rank is being added to League of Legends. This is not a completely new concept, as League of Legends: Wild Rift implemented this years ago.
Other Changes to Ranked League of Legends
Riot Revenancer also discussed other changes coming to Ranked.
The first change is Placement Games going from 10 to 5. Considering that they added one reset in the middle of the year instead of the previous annual reset, this is a good change and would save a lot of players time in getting their rank. Riot Games also clarified that it will be 5 placement games only from now on.
Another change is the removal of the promotion series. Riot Revenancer added more context to this change:
“Promotion series have long been a divisive element of the ranked climb. Promotion Series were meant to add drama and stakes to import moments in your League Career. While they certainly did this, they also created situations where players would bounce off them multiple times, stalling their climb and creating frustration. After looking at how frequently players are likely to be playing them with more climbing and two splits in a year, we’ve decided that the stress of repeatedly running through promotion series for ranks you may have earned before outweighs the benefits of having that significant series of games. Starting next split, you’ll be able to move directly through tiers whenever you’ve accumulated enough LP.”
Earlier this year, Ranked received a lot of changes too along with the reveal that there will be a mid-year reset. such as:
- Promotion Series going from best-of-5 to best-of-3
- Removal of visible rank influence in matchmaking, and
- Victorious Skin and New Rewards track.
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