Wednesday, March 14, 2012

League of Legends: Ranked Team Advantages

I mentioned last week that we've started playing ranked team games on the 3v3 map (Twisted Treeline) in League of Legends. While we first gave it a try pretty much solely because Lino suggested it there are some reasons why I want to keep playing it and they don't have very much to do with the map itself. Instead the reasons deal with the differences between playing a ranked team game instead of a normal team game or a ranked duo game:

  • Teamwork - Both teams are preset in advance which greatly increases the likelihood of communication and coordination on both teams. This is important because I don't think it's that much fun to win a game against people who can't work together.
  • Sportsmanship - Trash talking amongst teammates is an all too frequent thing with random teammates. It isn't enjoyable when it happens on my team and it isn't enjoyable when people on the other team start ranting at each other either. It's not completely gone, of course, and teams will still trash talk each other. But it is reduced.
  • Seriousness - People tend to care more about winning in ranked games which tends to result in better played game. At the very least people are more apt to play champions they know how to play. Don't get me wrong, I have fun playing new champions and think everyone should try new stuff frequently. But it's nice to have games where everyone is going gung-ho. 
  • Matchmaking - We haven't really played enough games to get to a stable rating but I feel like matchmaking has to be better for ranked teams than for the solo queue. There are so many variables in terms of team composition and if people's styles mesh together in good or bad ways for the matchmaking system to have a good shot at splitting 10 people into two balanced teams of 5. It does a decent enough job of it but it feels like it has to do better with only 2 real variables instead of 10.

1 comment:

Robb said...

I've been feeling the same way ever since we started playing 3v3s. I'll duo-queue occasionally, but I'm much happier to wait and get some 3v3 or 5v5 action. I basically never solo-queue any more. It's kinda sad, since I think the 5v5 game is better - but playing with randoms is just such a questionable experience.