Season 2021 is reaching its end, Worlds is in the air, and Preseason 2022 is on the horizon. Change is often a good thing, but on the Rift, players have learned to grow wary of new seasonal changes, which should be positive in the new one.
The soft resets we had this year might have been a little too soft, according to Riot, and as League players, we could all sense something was amiss, but could not quite point out the problem.
Resets introduce some uncertainty to give players the chance to show their improvement since the year before. Not resetting cleanly enough takes away the breathing room for players to showcase their improvement, pushing them into negative LP states very quickly. This year, Riot want to provide a longer runway for players to really show off their growth since last season and get the proper liftoff at the start of their climb.
They plan to do this by tuning the resets to be stronger, which puts more uncertainty back into the system. This lets players push their skills to new boundaries and ensures more sustainable growth and accurate system feedback. This should, in turn, make ranked a more positive experience, as everyone will be given an opportunity to settle into their new, or perhaps old, rank. It must be said though, that this will take a while, so don't be discouraged if your ranked season starts on a bad note.
Riot Games
The reason, Riot point out, that they have not done this sooner, was due to technical difficulties which were resolved during the season, and the required framework was put in place.
In addition to the above, Riot are also looking at how the Ranked experience can be improved for players just entering the ecosystem mid-to-late season, players returning to League after a hiatus and many more ways to keep driving League competitive play forward.
