I disagree. Elo Hell is where the Ego is greater than the Elo.
A great quote I totally stole, but which is true never the less.
Bollocks. That just means the enemy team has 5 mouthbreathers who want to surrender while yours has 4. If what you say is the case, even if you do nothing but not lose the game for your team, purely statistically you should rise on account of actually playing the game.
But this is accurate at every level or stage of the game. Therefore everything is elo hellI disagree. Elo Hell is where the Ego is greater than the Elo.
That's how it goes. Losing is unavoidable, so learn to live with it. Also, elo hell doesn't exist in reality. It only 'exists' because you're too much of a pessimist to do anything about losing. Just consider everyone, including your team, to be the enemy, and that you are the only one that is able to win the match.
Look at what is causing who to die / lose the lane, and act upon it (usually by pushing a lane/turret).
For the non-believers, check out Trick2g. Although he mains jungle, he is amazing at analyzing all of the lanes, and he does so very effectively with the replay function.
Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/Trick0850
Last edited by Rampant Rabbit; 2016-04-15 at 09:43 AM.
I'm genuinely surprised more people aren't aware of this. Its fairly obvious for even the most mathematically impared to work out, and has been proven numerous times by players if that wasn't enough.
With the popularity of ZZ Top Portal and Banner of Command you can turn around even the most dire looking of games with the right kind of stratergies now. There really is no reason at all to be giving up so early. I realise that trying to explain that to these kinds of people is a losing battle, but until they get the message they're going to be stuck complaining about Elo Hell, so someone needs to keep trying.
As an aside, most people in those lower elos rely on kills - and they chase, hard. I mentioned awhile back that I've been teaching some people to play, and the hardest thing to reinforce so far has been don't KS from our ADC if you can help it, and don't. fucking. chase. You can chase all you want, but kills are not what win games in the end, objectives do. We've had games where lost a 4v5 team fight bot lane, but thanks to them drawing it and (and stopping da ports), whoever was top lane was able to hard push. We've had games where I've led people on merry chases around the map (I think I've a video somewhere of me doing just that) with Udyr while my team gets objectives.
The biggest and hardest part of Elo Hell is getting people to realize how they should play the game, how they make mistakes, and how they can fix them. It's why I record my games and go over them later - I sit there and I cringe at every mistake I make, but ultimately, it makes me a better player when I can remember and try to avoid making those mistakes. This low, the easiest way to do that is for those of us with higher skill sets to play stupid shit (like full AP Mejais Udyr) and play so aggressively that the B4 Ammumu jungle is useless outside of his ult so even when my ADC does get jumped on, she still has a chance to escape, or some such.
Another thing we've done is have them watch streamers and people who teach the game really well. Our newest expressed interest in learning the ways of the jungle, so I sent him some videos from Trick2g, Pants are Dragon, and some really good LCS players. Our support, even though he's Gold, doesn't play Thresh and figured he'd be easiest to help carry bot lane (outside his comfort zone of Blitz and Morgana), so he's done nothing for the past two weeks but watch prominent Thresh players and practice. For new players, that's the biggest thing I can think to emphasize - you might be stuck in Elo Hell, but it's certainly not impossible to escape from it. Practice your heart out, surround yourself with a team of people you can trust in-game, and go ham.
And one last thing: if you start to lose game after game, do not keep playing. You'll get frustrated and tilt and that's how trolls are born. Next thing you know, you're maining Trundle mid and intentionally feeing.
This game isn't impossible to win. There's the "I'm the only one who can win"-play style, or the "devoted to a cause"-team play style. Both work, but you need to find what champions are right for you, and a team of people you can trust.
It's not that it can't be escaped, it's just an arduous crawl through the molten mud, through the seven levels of ELO hell, past the river of blood, through the forest of adulterers, etc. You can escape ELO Hell, but the likelihood of AFKs / ragequits / trolls / feeders is definitely more likely down there: you experience more silly losses, not just losses to your team legitimately losing.
That's all ELO hell is.
I'd kill to be in low bronze or low silver. Back in the day when we had ranked 5's my friends and I would try to get placed as low as posslble, stomp teams and then surrender so they won. The enemy was really mad about it, but took the win and moved on. I don't feel like we were hurting anyone, but then Riot made that bannable so we stopped :C
Just got the masters founders pack for Paragon through employee accommodation shenanigans, gonna give it a try. Pretty sweet bundle, retails for 100 bucks and you get every hero ever that comes out for free. Time to see if it's worth playing, I played it early in the alpha and seemed fun.
Last edited by Gib Lover; 2016-04-15 at 06:41 PM.
What I mean by Elo Hell is kinda what Yvaelle was saying, looking over last few games.
>> Support Teemo/Jungle Devour Vayne <-- Loss, why? Enemy Jinx went 9-1 by 15min. Even as 2/0 Renekton 30cs+ I couldn't touch her. I was double auto to death
>> Yasuo top w/ ignite vs Enemy Master Yi w/ tele <-- Loss, why? Master Yi 5/0 by 14min an our Miss Fortune rage quit even though I was 6/2 Fizz jungle. Gold was even til 16mins, tough 4v4's didn't matter. Yi is in base pushing, can't stop him ends at 24mins...
>> In LITERAL unison, all of the lanes died while I was mid first clear of jungle. This one was a complete, clown fiesta. An only made it to 34mins, because they dove past inhib turret into a gragas(myself) an Ryze, got aced an I stole baron. God bless turtle strats. Doesn't matter Ryze really needed those wraiths no wards, got dunked we lost the next 4v5 under turret. An I wasted my ult here! Completely missed it.
Ultimately I haven't the words to express. That my own rating as a player, more often than not doesn't come down to my play, but others. In the example of the jinx, she was literally awful. Didn't try kiting, didn't know how to weave autos. She was just so huge she could literally just right click random things an win.
- - - Updated - - -
I can accept a loss. I just can't accept failure. Losing a team fight sure, maybe accidentally misclick fine. Down 30cs? will come back. But dying constantly within the first 10mins is unacceptable. An I understand how to play this season, an prior. My brother an I always played like women in labor. Never chase kills, just push the turrets
Would you be telling me the truth if you told me you never have a shit game where you die a lot early game, causing other players including yourself to tilt?
I'm calling bullshit if you would tell me that. Every player has shit games, in this case, you seem to be pitted with those players in those exact moments. Doesn't mean there is nothing you can do about it.
Of course I have had shit games, everyone does. The difference is. I won't let my poor performance decide the game. Such an example is I was playing Poppy top. I was getting bullied, under estimated Sion's damage. Got First Blooded, than camped. 0/3 by 13mins. I would ping allies away, tell them to focus something else. Zac an Sion are a duo an are committed to shutting me down. But I was committed to farming, I may have been 0/3 but I was 20cs up on Sion. He tp'd mid to make play, failed. I kept pinging people to back, just play safe. They team death match bot 4v5, I just stayed top hard pushing, took a turret, teleported mid, took the turret, an stole Zac's red side jung before base.
Now suddenly at 18mins sure Sion is 5/0 an im 0/3. But he's down 70cs to me an they lost 2 turrets for nothing. Which means I'm like 1000g ahead of him now.
That said I was definitely carried, an was only allowed back into game, due to team not fighting 4v5's just turtle an letting me ramp. An Sion not properly taking advantage of our gold discrepancy
During my brief stay there, I found that some team friendly phrasing, putting a positive spin on things and most importantly, finding something other than teammates to blame goes a long way. "Its not your fault you're feeding Zed, Galio is just totally OP!". I don't believe that for a second, but it gives everyone an out without the need to blame your Zed who's probably totally clueless about how to handle Galio and just keeps getting more and more frustrated.
It won't totally alieviate the problem, but I've never seen games be anything like as bad in "Elo Hell" as people have made it out to be. Sure, you do get the odd one or two but not its certainly not one or two every game.
Last edited by StrawberryZebra; 2016-04-15 at 09:43 PM.
To be fair I was saying it's about one person every other game. It's real, and it sucks - but it's totally escapable.
People definitely blame it for their own being down there - that's the part where ego exceeds elo - I just wanted to put my foot down on the whole, "It doesn't exist" thing: it's real, it's not as bad as some people make it out, it is escapable, and it's not a flaw of the ELO system so much as human nature - but it exists
I can understand why people feel certain ELO's are ELO hell, because on Rocket League I get that feeling But the one time I played a Bronze account I made it to Gold 2 in about 50 games. Playing a mid hero that can dominate lane and then roam makes it easy. I also did a lot of ADC back then too, but in this current meta I doubt it'd work as well. A few top laners can certainly carry real hard, especially with the right TP plays.
Last edited by Varvara Spiros Gelashvili; 2016-04-16 at 02:30 AM.
Violence Jack Respects Women!
And again you completely ignore the enemy team, who has a HIGHER chance of having MORE of these trolls/afk's/noobs/whatever in their team.
Thus it's simple, if you're better then those people you will get higher. Thus the system works. Enemy teams don't magically have better people in them. Or magically have a professional 5 man premade with voice coms for that matter.
Not totally true riot does have systems in place that try to keep your w/l ratio at 50%. I noticed it this season more then ever with the new team based design they're pushing for and its annoying but overcome able.
It's a problem when the other team death balls and groups 24/7. You stop that by avoiding it, wave clearing, or out split pushing them but that takes coordination. People at low elo aren't good at that and some don't even how it works. Not to mention one or two people not grouping can cost you the game, its insanely frustrating when your on the receiving end.
Last edited by Varvara Spiros Gelashvili; 2016-04-16 at 06:09 PM.
Violence Jack Respects Women!
I didn't ignore it at all, you're ignoring me addressing it - ELO hell can be escaped precisely because you have a higher chance than the enemy team. However, if both sides are slogged down by people on both sides who aren't taking ranked seriously (whether AFK or trolling, which are both much more common at lower ELO), then the escaping it takes longer (that's called ELO Hell). In my napkin math example above, if every other game includes either an AFK or a troll, then the crawl takes four times longer to escape: meaning you have to consistently perform better than your division four times longer than you would otherwise.
If you consistently perform better, than you drag your average up, yes. ELO Hell again - isn't inescapable - it's just harder to climb than other brackets. And that particularly applies to people who are closer to their correct division. Examples:
Let's say you are a Silver 5 calibre player, but you end up in Bronze 4 for whatever reason. Climbing to Silver 5 (where you belong) is going to be harder than someone who is Gold 5 calibre, in Silver 4. Obviously, if we drop a challenger into any of these divisions, then everyone dies and ELO hell isn't something they can perceive - because by the time they get close to their ELO (once in diamond where they have to put effort in again), everyone they are playing with is not AFK, and not trolling.
So ELO hell can't be perceived by people above Gold. It may be perceived by low Gold players in Silver. It's a part of life for Silver players in Bronze. If you're a high bronze player in low bronze, it's probably the reason you quit League and went to HotS (or don't play ranked).
Again - I keep saying it works - it just works differently when you change the assumptions underlying the players motivations for playing: if you assume that all participants want to win (aren't trolling / feeding), and are at keyboard (not AFK) - then ELO works very well. If those assumptions aren't true (Bronze, low Silver particularly) - then the outcome changes - and moving up ELO is harder because your team is far more likely to throw matches.Thus it's simple, if you're better then those people you will get higher. Thus the system works.
If your team throws matches slightly less than the other team throws matches - that doesn't mean ELO hell doesn't exist - it simply means moving up is harder/longer. The system works, differently. Different inputs, yield different outputs.
Thresh away the excuses and focus on the behaviour for a moment. Excuses are an attempt to rationalize failure - to comprehend what went wrong. It may also be to pad their ego (absolutely). But don't deny that advantages can exist, like voice coms, like not having AFKs or trolls - these things do happen (they're real). The important thing isn't to dismiss excuses as all being false - but to help excusers to recognize the underlying criticism of their performance - which they may actually correctly be identifying.Enemy teams don't magically have better people in them. Or magically have a professional 5 man premade with voice coms for that matter.
- Enemy team is coordinating better? Maybe you should communicate more.
- Enemy top+jungle are in a clan/probably voice? Maybe you should play with friends/voice, too.
- We lost because we have an AFK/Troll, and they didn't? That's tough - play 5's I guess - or just play so much that it slowly balances out.
Do you have anything to support that Riot does enforce a 50% win/loss ratio? If anything, its an indication of MMR working correctly more than something Riot have intentionally added to the system. Unless you're at the extreme ends of the spectrum, you should be getting pushed towards a 50% win rate naturally due to how the system works.
As for Deathballing, you can get around it with a zz top portal and/or a banner of command. They allow you to both split push and be present where you team needs you. At the worst, it forces the other team to split up to deal with it giving you an advantage to force a fight with and at best it takes their towers out unimpeded for you, netting you and your team some important gold.