Understanding Competitive (Ranked) Queue in Multiplayer Games

Competitive or ranked queue plays a significant role in contemporary multiplayer games, and serves as the backbone of their competition system. This queue type allows players to compete with and against individuals of approximately equal skill level. It shares many similarities with standard game modes, with some added matchmaking constraints. A great example of this can be seen in the way League of Legends implements the ranked ladder system where players gain or lose League Points based on their match performances. This ultimately influences where they stand on the ranked ladder.

Ranks and Restrictions in League of Legends

In the game, League of Legends, players have to be aware of ranked restrictions. These are penalties handed out by the game developers, Riot Games, for repeated heavy breaches of the game’s code of conduct. The restrictions prohibit the penalized players from participating in ranked queues until specific requisites are met, all the while maintaining proper gaming etiquette.

Initial Requirements and Rules to Access Ranked Play

It’s important to note that before players can incur these restrictions, they must first fulfill some base requirements to play ranked games:

• The player’s account level should be at least 30.
• The player should possess a minimum of 20 different champions in their collection.
• The player must have completed at least 10 unranked games on the Summoner’s Rift map.

The unranked Summoner’s Rift requirement was implemented due to issues with secondary or “smurf” accounts and players predominantly playing ARAM and Bot matches, which do not provide an accurate reflection of a player’s skill level.

Implementation of Ranked Restrictions

When a player is subjected to ranked restrictions, they must achieve a set number of victories in Swiftplay or Normal Draft games, without exhibiting signs of misconduct. It’s worth noting that only Normal or Draft Pick matches count towards meeting this condition, with games such as ARAM and Co-op against AI not being counted.

Additional Consequences of Misconduct

Ranked restrictions commonly come hand-in-hand with other penalties. Often these include: queue delays and low priority queue status, chat restrictions, ineligibility for receiving end-of-season rewards, a decrease in Honor level and the potential suspension of the offending account for up to two weeks for regular or severe transgressions.

Causes for Imposition of Ranked Restrictions

Ranked restrictions are given out for any conduct that violates the game’s code of conduct. This can range from displaying negative behavior and toxic gameplay, manipulating or boosting accounts, sharing accounts or manipulating ranks. Significant to note, restrictions can be enforced even for actions carried out during unranked matches.

League of Legends’ Rank-Based Queuing Rules

In addition to ranked restrictions, there exist rank-based queuing rules within League of Legends.

For Solo/Duo Queue, only one tier difference (Iron-Diamond) is allowed and there are no duo partnerships allowed upstream of the Master tier; for Flex Queue, only a single Rank (Iron-Diamond) difference is permissible with 5-stacks largely ignoring most restrictions; and in Clash mode, the rules are based on the average rank of the team. It is important to mention that players at Master rank and above are not permitted to queue with players ranked lower than Diamond.