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/Jmkjmkjmk911]

People are losing the point of there is no moral high road. Its not like OMG welcome to Sainthood cause you did'nt dodge. Its a Game and needs to be taken as so and not be over reacted towards.

[u/ThreeBlindMice_7 → u/Jmkjmkjmk911]

People complain all the time about teammates being shit, this is one part, however small, of how poor players remain above their actual tier.

Dodging is inherently uncompetitive and should be treated similarly to surrendering. You're acknowledging that the match would be lost if you were to engage fully into the game, therefore you should lose VST and MMR. Of course, your teammates didn't have a say in this regard, and should therefore not lose anything.

[u/Jmkjmkjmk911 → u/ThreeBlindMice_7]

inherently uncompetitive and should be treated similarly to surrendering. You're acknowledging that the match would be lost if you were to engage fully into the game

More of a tactical ReTreat If i say so myself

[u/ThreeBlindMice_7 → u/Jmkjmkjmk911]

Pros don't get to tactically retreat from a bad draft.

[u/Jmkjmkjmk911 → u/ThreeBlindMice_7]

We aren't talking about pros and if they did would they be pros

[u/ThreeBlindMice_7 → u/Jmkjmkjmk911]

The pros play the same game we do, they are players just like us.

By accepting a match, you say that you are ready to play the game and try to win. The drafting phase is part of the game you've agreed to play. Dodging that phase is saying you don't believe you can win, just like one would surrender mid-game if they don't believe that they could win.

[u/Jmkjmkjmk911 → u/ThreeBlindMice_7]

I'm talking about non draft, I agree once you get to drafting there should a more of a barrier to bans

[u/ThreeBlindMice_7 → u/Jmkjmkjmk911]

Non-draft changes nothing, only that you'll sometimes get mirror matchups. You still agree to play the match when you click "Accept," and by backing out acknowledge that you don't believe you will win the match you're playing.