In the free-to-play MOBA game League of Legends, some enthusiasts create secondary accounts specifically to get into low-level matches and dominate. The developers are looking for ways to combat such unfair players.
Lead game designer Matt Leung-Harrison shared a simple solution that Riot Games came up with — players will have to play several matches in regular mode to unlock ranked ones (previously, you just had to level up your account to the required level):
“In patch 14.15, we're going to require that players play 10 unranked SR games [Summoner's Rift] before they can enter ranked queues. This change has been a long time coming and there were several things we needed to work through before [introducing it].
Some genuine new players use ARAM [All Random All Mid] and bot matches to level up, and we don't get enough information about their true skill level.
A certain number of them are also alt accounts [players already familiar with League of Legends creating secondary accounts], which we would like to place at their true skill level rather than mistakenly placing them too low, [where they could] stomp everyone on their way up.
We remain committed to auditing accounts that are leveled and change hands for things like leveling / account selling via Vanguard, etc.
We will also be looking out for accounts that intentionally distort their skill in these calibration games to be matched with lower-skilled players.”
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Cover author: Riot Games. Image source: leagueoflegends.fandom.com