[2019] There should be more clarity in regards to Honor level progress

I think the root cause is that feedback on honor level progress in not frequent enough for you. Having an XP bar is one type of solution, we did consider it during development and chose not to use it for the reasons Riot Simurgh outlined. We don't want it to feel like you're trying to fill a bar, but we do want it to feel like you're getting regular meaningful feedback on your progress to higher levels. This is why checkpoints were added in an update. It may be that we should have more so they can be closer together. An XP bar doesn't really match how the system works behind the scenes. It sounds like at some point you lost honor levels? Unfortunately, your progress will also be slower than others until the system is more confident in your honorable play. I do think we can do more for players who are on the path to reform, but I haven't been on the team for a couple years so I'm not sure what current plans are.

Recommend reading through the original thread if you're interested in the design philosophy behind the system.

Relevant quote (also covered in the linked article above):

1. We didn't want to anchor people on the "grind" to honor levels. By not having progress indicators, we wanted to root the reinforcement for being sportsmanlike on the feedback you get from other players (the honors), not any artificial motivation from being "close to the next level".
2. Our behind-the-scenes systems which determine honor level ups aren't simple. The types of calculations we do to determine if a player is ready to level up take into account their holistic behavior across many games, and don't lend themselves well to being surfaced in an "XP bar"-style system. Anything we surface here could also warp behavior around trying to "minmax" the most honor points, which really refocuses it away from the point of the Honor system - play good games and you'll make progress.
3. We wanted to have a few discrete levels in Honor, since bloating the number would make each feel less meaningful. However, we wanted players to progress over the course of a season or half-season, which means that progress to the next level would necessarily be fairly slow. We didn't think it would be a great experience to reinforce this through some progress indicator.

It's also the risk that people start thinking that playing honorably is just about getting higher levels and rewards instead of it making them more effective at playing in a team and creating a better environment for all players. We were intentionally conservative with how we gave rewards and reinforcement to try to reduce the risk of this.

Yeah IMO we don't always do the greatest job of supporting players on the path to reform and we have made some improvements to give players more feedback when they are reforming. Truthfully it's something that's hard to prioritize improvements for because it is affects a small percentage of players and often we can have a larger impact by making things for all players (this is a common struggle we have with any feature for a small audience). It is definitely something the team was aware of and discussed post-release when I was on the team, so we understand the pain and were always looking for opportunities to improve it. Unfortunately, I'm not up to speed on any recent changes or plans as it's been a while since I worked on that team.

Edit: missed a word