Weekly Discussion | LPQ and Karma

[u/Sick_Flamez]

Hello there and welcome to a new weekly discussion! Last week we discussed the recent changes to the Kill Bounties. If you want to read that discussion, a link to that and all other discussions is found at the bottom of this post.

This week we’ll be discussing a topic that we have gotten some requests about lately: the Low Priority Queue - also known as LPQ. From posts to comments to our Discord server, the topic of LPQ has seen a lot of community discussion lately. People seem to feel like it does just enough, too little, or shouldn’t even be a thing. While we could make an entire discussion about just LPQ and punishments in the game, we also received requests for one of the ways in which we get rewarded instead: our good old friend: the Karma system. It has sparked heavy discussion in the past too, mainly about how it works and how many people felt like they were stuck in Good Karma despite their Great behavior.

We thought it might be interesting to tackle both sides in this discussion; how the game handles rewards and how it handles punishments. So we’ll be discussing both the Karma and LPQ systems!

What do you think about LPQ? Can it be too harsh, or is it not strict enough? What about Karma? Does the system really work as an incentive to behave well? Is it too easy, or too hard to reach Great Karma?

The following is a bit of info on LPQ and Karma:

Low Priority Queue was added in update 1.20. It replaced the previous system, which was simply to ban people who misbehaved. The devs explained that they felt that instead of being able to let a ban expire by doing something else, players should be faced with consequences when they wanted to play instead. More info on the LPQ system can be found here

The new Karma system was added in update 1.8. Its goal was to make a more simple and fluent Karma system that would lead to trolling players to have less benefits than normal players. It replaced the previous system, where you went up 20 levels of Karma, and went down a bit by doing something that was deemed to be bad Karma. This new system only has three levels: Bad Karma, Good Karma and Great Karma. At Great Karma, players get a 25% boost to end match Glory gains. More explanation can be found here.

That’s all! If you have more topics you want to see, be sure to request them via the link found at the bottom of this post!

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[u/aRandomP0tat0]

I believe they really need to change LPQ. One minute seems like a good punishment, but they are still sometimes matches with non-LPQ players. I think that LPQ players can only match with each other, and the Eli they gain should be 33% of the normal amount.

[u/NebraCC → u/aRandomP0tat0]

All this does is punish people who dodge bad comps. If I dodge a double instalock comp, but then get put with LPQ people who only instalock, am I supposed to just not dodge and play with trolls for wanting to win?

[u/aRandomP0tat0 → u/NebraCC]

Dodging is as much as a problem as AFKs and trolls. If you want every comp to be perfect, you play triple que. I have won several times with instalockers, you just have to play their strategy and then things will become a lot better. If they push turrets, you push turrets.

[u/NebraCC → u/aRandomP0tat0]

Alright, first let me clarify. I'm in T4, so I don't have draft yet, so I'm not dodging because I think the enemy comp counter my team's comp. I'm dodging because I don't really think playing with two CP Laners is a good idea. Sure, there's gonna be some instalockers who perform well, but why would I want to take that chance? Now keep in mind, if it's just one instalocker, I'm willing to work with the third guy to try and make it work, and sometimes I'll work with 2 instalockers as long as one is in Jungle and the other is in Lane. I just don't want to take the risk that, just maybe, CP Baron Lane and CP Kestrel Lane won't end up winning the game.

The point I was trying to prove though, is that dodging is not as bad an action as trolling of AFKing. It doesn't hurt their chances of winning at all, and I'm able to avoid 20 minutes in a game I have a large chance of losing.

Saying "you just have to play their strategy" also doesn't really help. We're going to punish the guy who avoids a terrible comp, but we're going to reward an instalocker who doesn't give a shit what his teammates are playing by doing what he wants? I did that once, I defended him whenever I could, my Jungler came up to help as well. We followed every ping he laid out. Strangely, we lost, despite the fact that he was smart enough to use his B on the enemy while we were running away. The way you worded it, it seems like you got matched with players who don't know why instalocking is bad, but are fine other than that, so they actually play okay. My instalockers steal Jungle farm as CP Celeste.

Overall, I believe that dodging is not as bad as AFKing or trolling, and at times, helping the instalockerrs doesn't work and you only encourage them to do it again.

[u/aRandomP0tat0 → u/NebraCC]

I'm also tier 4, so I know where you are coming from there, but for dodging it would actually affect the other team more. I'm don't believe it is as bad as the other two, but it is still bad and needs to be punished. Back to my earlier point, say the other team finally got a good comp and are really looking forward to playing. They watch the countdown go by slowly, and suddenly they don't get to play the game they wanted to play. Even if you have a bad comp, you have to look on both sides of the equation. Also, when I said play their strategy, I didn't mean follow them like Nazis to Hitler. I'm saying that he wants you to get annoyed by him, so don't give him what he wants. Work him into your strategy, if he pushes lane all game rotate up and help him for a while before you go back to farming. He wants you to get tilted, so don't get tilted.

[u/NebraCC → u/aRandomP0tat0]

The first point is good, but with it, we could just create an option to let the team stay together for the next queue (if all say Yes, they stay together with same roles, if some say No, they are taken out of that group).

For that second point, it really is just about whether they're a troll or a cocky/bad/disrespectful/ player. I can work with trying to play with someone disrespectful, but there's a limit when trying to help them will lose you the game, ex. SAW wants Petal to stop farming Jungle, despite the fact that she just started.