League of Legends players, beware — your ranked grind may no longer matter in the coming days! Ed “SapMagic” Altorfer from Riot Games has announced that there will be incoming changes to the ranked system in North America (NA) and Korea (KR). Riot was testing positional ranking in these regions to see if players would like it and if it would be a more accurate representation of players’ skills. Now there is going to be a rank rollback.
Position ranks
The positional rank system is the feature that Riot has been testing in NA and KR. Apparently, it has not been going well. The feature has been around for about six weeks. In those six weeks, there were several bug fixes and patches to improve the feature. Riot cited “grindiness, low satisfaction of off-position games, and teammates” not caring about off-position games as the biggest reasons for the rollback in their announcement.
Why is it changing?
Riot polls players constantly to figure out what they enjoy and do not enjoy about League of Legends. Since the feature has been launched, there has been a 20-to-30 percent negative shift in feedback.
Feedback this serious could not be ignored by Riot and they came together to hammer out solutions. The final decision was made that positional ranks could not be tweaked to make the player base happy.
With this in mind, the positional rank system will be abolished as of March 13. Additionally, there are going to be three different groups that Riot is focusing on during the rollback to make sure that players are kept happy.
Players below Diamond
If you have not reached Diamond rank in any position, you’re going to keep the rank from your highest position. Furthermore, you are going to keep any Ranked Armor and split rewards that you have earned. Any promotion helpers you have earned will stick around too.
The game will not take all of your ranks into account, only your highest ranked role. Being Gold II in all positions means that you will be Gold II. This may be frustrating since someone who is Gold II in Jungle but Silver everywhere else will still be Gold II after the rollback.
Riot announced all players ranked Diamond and above will go through a “partial ladder reset” depending on your rank.
Diamond IV – I
Players in the Diamond rank will be demoted by one division but will not go below Diamond IV. This means if you are Diamond IV, you will not be sent to Platinum I. You will remain steady at Diamond IV. If you are Diamond I, however, you will be demoted to Diamond II on March 13.
Master and above
Riot will be resetting anyone in Master or higher to 0 LP in Master. They felt too many players were able to reach the rank due to early season bugs and exploits. This will cause some issues for players fighting through Master right now; however, there is a purpose. This reset should cause players who do not belong in Master tier to get demoted faster.
On top of the reset, Grandmaster will be locked for one week following the reset. This means that Grandmaster will not be available until at least March 20. Furthermore, Challenger will be locked for two weeks after the reset. The Challenger ladder should unlock on or after March 27.
Be sure to check out our League of Legends page for future updates regarding the ranked system. We will be keeping a close eye on it and reporting any updates! Be sure to let us know what you think about the ranked rollbacks and how they will change players’ ranks in the comments below.
