Hey all, have seen a few posts on this recently. While we know there is an issue with low LP gains in diamond 5, looking at the number of players with 0 and low LP scores doesn't show there is an issue with LP gains. If you look at any division you will see a similar pattern. In fact, 25% of players in every division are at 0 LP and all those players experience healthy gains. There is two reasons this pattern occurs:
1. Players are driven by standards. This dictates engagement patterns around reaching new divisions. In other words, nobody is setting a goal of reaching 97 LP then taking a break. The goal is always the next division or tier. Similar groupings appear in most systems structured in this way (for example, grading systems with minimum pass criteria).
2. The system is very lenient about demotions, and players cannot fall below 0 LP except by dodging. This means that any player who is technically below 0 LP will still be displayed at 0 until they fall far enough to be demoted. This also means that players climbing back out of an MMR technically below the amount expected for 0 LP will get smaller gains while they climb back up.
Why is this important? While we do have a fix on the way in the coming patches for this issue, it won't change the number of players who are at 0 LP in diamond 5 or any division. That isn't the problem or really even a symptom of it. I want to make sure the community understands the actual issue being discussed here.
The real issue is that LP calcs work differently d5 to challenger. Right now it's tuned too aggressively, so if you're out of sync from going on a losing streak after getting in it can feel really painful to climb out. The change we're implementing smooths out the gains over all of diamond instead of just immediately hitting full force in diamond 5, so it's less noticeable in any given game.