Here are 9 suggestions to Riot for improving the experience for solo queue ranked players.

I would appreciate it if people take the time to read this, upvote it and bump the thread to increase the chances of Riot noticing it.

1) Make the solo queue ranking system fairer for blatent 4v5 situations and have instant penalties for the leaver
2) Remove randoming entirely from ranked
3) Implement Hero swapping properly
4) Have different penalty schemes for ranked vs blind pick
5) Have different honor pools for ranked vs blind pick
6) Allow reporting in hero select and show hero selection chat log in tribunal cases
7) Add lane position roles to the matchmaking
8) Shelter the experienced players from the brand new players
9) Add ward only item slots

1) Make the solo queue ranking system fairer for blatent 4v5 situations and have instant penalties for the leaver
EDIT: updated for Season 3 matchmaking system by replacing ELO with LP/MMR and adding exemptions for promotions and demotions

Summary

• Give special treatment to games where there is an easy to detect 4v5 situation (never connect, extended afk/disconnect etc)
• Make the team of 4 lose less LP/MMR for a loss and gain more LP/MMR for a win
• Penalise the Leaver's LP/MMR gain/loss to balance the total LP/MMR to zero sum game. This means they will lose more for a loss and gain nothing for a win.
• The team of 5 would receive normal LP/MMR gain/loss
• Automatically ban the Leaver for a day from ranked games (they can still play blind pick, dominion, custom, etc). Longer bans for subsequent offenses within the same season.
• If the team of 4 loses it should not count as a loss for purposes of promotion games nor should it result in them being demoted a division.

2) Remove randoming entirely from ranked

• There should be no ability to choose random in ranked. Blind pick is the place to try heros. EDIT: picking random heros in ranked removed in Patch 3.7.
• Also if someone doesn't lock in on time then this should be treated as a dodge rather than resulting in them getting a random hero, i.e. they get hit with the standard dodge time penalty and everyone gets requeued. EDIT: AFK randoming removed in Patch 3.5. Thanks Riot!

3) Implement Hero swapping properly

• Picking a hero on behalf of someone lower in picking order is a good concept but the current Riot implementation is flawed.
• The main flaw is that it requires both the picker and recipient to own the hero. Sometimes the people earlier in the pick order own hardly any heros.
• This is not fair as you do not get a say in who your teammates and captain are in Solo Queue and should not be disadvantaged by what heros they do or don't own.
• I propose the following solution (credit to Pøtatoes)
  • During hero selection, while you have not picked yet, you can click on another player that has yet to pick and a dialog would pop up offering to trade positions in the picking order.
  • If they agree it would simply swap the players in the pick order.
  • Note: Existing functionality to swap heros after everyone has finished could also be kept, though in 90% of cases it would no longer be necessary.

4) Have different penalty schemes for ranked vs blind pick applied simultaneously

• Playing ranked should be treated as more of a privilege than blind pick as the ratings in ranked matter more to people than just IP gain.
• Right now my impressions are the chances of going to tribunal are same for blind pick vs ranked and the penalties are the same for ranked and blind pick.
• If you get banned currently it is typically for a short period of time (1 week or less) and the ban applies equally to all forms of the game.
• I propose that the reports from ranked should have more weighting in terms of making it into tribunal cases
• I also propose to have short bans from general play (i.e. the current system) and longer bans from ranked applied simultaneously. For example someone might get a one week ban from general play but a one month ban from ranked at the same time. This allows someone back into general play relatively soon to prove themselves but means they cannot play ranked again until a much longer period has elapsed. Every time they try to queue for ranked they will be given the message that "you are currently banned from ranked play" which will reinforce the privilege of playing ranked. Subsequent offenses that result in a longer ban from general play might result in a season ban from ranked.

5) Have different honor pools for ranked vs blind pick

• Right now there is no difference between honor gained in blind pick vs ranked
• Given there is more at stake in ranked people that are decent teammates in blind pick can become total trolls in ranked.
• I myself have seen people with "good teammate" flags that behave like total trolls in ranked
• By having different honor pools for ranked vs blind pick people will be more incentivised to behave well in ranked

6) Allow reporting in hero select and show hero selection chat log in tribunal cases

• At the moment people can say and do whatever they like in the hero selection with no consequences.
• Examples of blatent troll behaviour can include threatening to feed or go afk, randoming their hero, deliberately choosing a hero and summoner spell combination to annoy the team, verbal abuse etc.
• The troll behaviour generally results in one of two equally unpalatable situations
  1) They manage cause a dodge and therefore get off get off scot free as you cannot report them if the game does not start. Solution is to allow reporting in hero selection.
  2) The game starts, the troll plays badly but is smart enough to not say anything incriminating on the in game chat. People may report them after the game but since the tribunal cases do not show the hero select chat log and activity they are not punished by the case reviewers. Solution is to include full hero select chat log and hero ban/selection activity (including if they randomed their hero) in tribunal cases

7) Add lane position roles to the matchmaking

• Most of the troll behaviour in solo queue ranked hero select is caused by people clashing over what lane positions (top, mid, jungle, bottom, support) they want to play.
• Some people are happy to play any position but others want to play just one or two as they specialise. There is nothing wrong with this in principle.
• The problem comes where people disagree over positions which seems to happen a high proportion of the time
• Some people "call" their desired position by frantically typing it as quickly as they can into the chat log. They feel that gives them the right to trump the pick order. "I called top first!"
• Other people ignore chat and simply pick their position when their turn comes. They feel that "calling" roles is merely a request and pick order takes precedence. "I'm top. I don't care what you typed! Ranked works in pick order"
• Then it all spirals downhill from there resulting in trolling behaviour (verbal abuse, afk at fountain, doubling up of roles, etc) or a dodge
• The solution I feel is fairly simple
  • When you Queue it gives you a list of possible lane positions (top, mid, jungle, bottom, support) which would all be checked by default and you can uncheck any that you are unwilling to play.
  • The matchmaking process would then assemble teams that had all positions covered.
  • In the hero selection it would highlight the position the matchmaker has assigned to each person to eliminate arguments.
  • It would also however show the list of position each person checked in case people want to informally swap positions based on the hero selection activity such as bans on their favourite heros, counter picks, etc.
  • If the person doesn't change anything from the defaults then they will be treated as willing to play all positions.
  • Obviously players that leave more positions checked or are willing to play the less popular positions such as support will have shorter queue times so there is built-in incentive for people to leave more positions checked.
  • Note: There will be no restrictions at all on what specific heroes or hero types (ranged adc, ap carry, tank, bruiser, assassin etc) can be used in any given lane position as this varies considerably and there is no "right answer". My suggestion is solely focused on resolving lane position arguments, not trying to compose a balanced team.

8) Shelter the experienced players from the brand new players

• Which would you rather have on your team? Someone playing their first ranked game ever or someone that has 500 wins and 500 losses?
• I'm pretty sure 95% of people would answer the latter. Yet according to the original ELO system they are rated the same.
• It is VERY frustrating to be lumped with a bunch of brand new players to ranked just because you happen to currently be sitting in that awkward 1000 to 1300 ELO segment (EDIT: Silver 5 Tier and below in Season 3).
• I have seen a few ideas floated around how we can help improve this. They include: -
  • Require a small number of Normal Draft Pick wins before playing ranked so at least they understand how the process works.
  • For the first few ranked games new players are matched in their own pool sheltered from the rest of the more experienced player base. They would only join the main pool of players when they hit a certain number of completed games
  • Require a minimum of one rune page filled with level 3 runes so at least they are on same playing field as more experienced players

9) Add ward only item slots

• This is a quality of life change that would encourage better teamwork in ranked and blind pick.
• Right now in any game beyond a certain length only the designated support is able to ward as they are the only player with space left in their inventory (EDIT: or are willing to use a slot on a Sightstone)
• I cannot tell you the amount of times I have seen conversations like this...
  
  Quote:

  Player 1: Support - we getting nailed in jungle - please ward more. Support: I am warding but everyone needs to ward not just me Player 1: I don't have space Player 2: Me neither Player 3: Me neither Player 4: Me neither Support: zzz

• I don't mind if someone actively chooses not to ward for team but it is frustrating when you want to contribute but can't because the item slot is too precious to give up
• Seems crazy that players have to choose between a 6th item that may cost 3000+ gold or being able to place a 75/125 gold ward for the team.
• Solution is to add a slot or two that can only be filled by vision wards or sight wards.

This post reserved for future content

This is complicated for no reason.

Instead of swapping hero at the end of selection, why not allow players to switch places during selection. That way, everyone picks their own heroes and nobody ends up with a bad surprise.

Player 5 wants to play Morganna since she isn't banned, but is afraid someone else will pick her first. Player 5 asks to switch with someone else. Player 2 accepts. Player 2 becomes player 5 and vice versa. New player 2 picks Morganna. Player 5 knows which hero he owns and will pick himself.

Love it. I will update and credit you.

Really like the post on everything, but still a little unsure on number 3. It seems a bit complicated and has the potential to be very gimmicky. However other than that very nice post upvoted and cheers towards making ranked a more enjoyable experience.

So what I was discussing with a couple WoW friends of mine, is that it could be similar to the Dungeon Finder that was implemented during Cataclysm. The big issue with role calls is that queue times increase, as there will be fewer supports to queue into the system. This was fixed for tanks and heals in WoW by giving them bonuses and extra daily incentives to queue as that role to increase queue times. Also, the biggest problem I feel is the champion selection. There are multiple champs like Zyra, Lux, Nid, Fiddle. etc that people see pros play and feel are viable supports. If you were choosing the support role, could you pick any champion? Heck, if you choose any role, what determines the champion for that role? People could still troll by picking retarded ADCs or what not, as well as take advantage of the support incentive. I believe to fix this issue, Riot should talk with the eSports division, and talk to the pro players and give each champion up to 3 roles, most only 2. For example, Zyra is of course a viable mid, and secondary can be played as support. Each player would then be given a set list of champions base on what they own. Yet, this then poses a problem of, "what if I want to trade my selection down in order to counter?" In this instance, your for-mentioned solution of implementing a system of asking a player to trade pick order would suffice.

Just my 2 cents.

Thanks for the comments.

My view on this is that Riot would not try to mandate which heros can be used for a role. It would be unreasonable to try and enforce this. It is however very reasonable to allow people to specify which roles they are willing to play.

Yes queue times would increase but I also see this as a self correcting problem to an extent. Those players that are willing to play more roles will have shorter wait times.

Thanks. I agree it was a bit complicated which is why I have updated it with Potatoes much simpler suggestion.

I cant agree with this post more. A lot of the leaving and trolling happens due to everyone fighting over roles, that is usually what starts it, and then it just snowballs from there. When setting your starting elo, they should factor in more than just ur first couple of games. Your total number of normal wins ect should play some kind of role as to your experience level with the game.

Added suggestion 9 around ward only item slots. Been mentioned many times on forum and it would allow for better team work in ranked and blind pick.