Matchmaking is too harsh for unranked players

The Deckowner·Jun 7, 2016·2 votes·1,002 views

I had always thought unranked mmr will match the unranked layers against high bronze~low silvers, but it didn't seem to be the case.

one of my friend, who in my opinion is about bronze 4~5 skill level, started playing league a few months ago and recently finished his placement. I checked his match history and of course he got crushed as I expected. but what I found very suspicious was the fact that he was facing many high silver and gold players in his placements. I mean, how does he stand a chance? this is terribly unfair.

unranked players should face lower ranked players, the entrance to ranked is way too high.

6 Comments

SylverblitzJun 7, 20161 votes

I'm no expert on this and will likely be proven wrong but my understanding is that initial placements, if you have never done ranked before, are based loosely on your normal game rating. A friend of mine said that with no prior ranked history the system will also throw everything at you and adjust as you go. Get stomped by plats? Drop to playing against gold and so on. I have no idea if this is accurate but from this account I know that in normal games I regularly end up against silver - diamond players. I have yet to do ranked because I detest dynamic queue favouring premades.

The DeckownerJun 7, 20161 votes

I ,hedked just in case, my friend has only faced low bronze and unranked players in normal games, rarely does he even face a silver, but in his ranked gane he was facing high silver and gold players.

ShinkoMinoriJun 7, 20161 votes

I face unranked and I am on high silver, they are the main reason I haven't reached gold yet because if you get an unranked you are going to lose, period.

RiupawJun 7, 20161 votes

Right now on Ranked I am facing Plat III+ while on my normal games, all I see is bronze, silver, and unranked, barely ever a gold.

SylverblitzJun 7, 20161 votes

Then it's possibly the other thing that my friend suggested. I would love to know for sure.

JyoeruJun 7, 20161 votes

Unranked players just haven't played this season out much. They could be anything from a new player, a new account, to an existing player/account who had high placements in a previous season but weren't really that placement under this season's criteria. Ergo why we saw a TON of Gold/Plat/Diamond players in Bronze and Silver games at the start of this season. The only thing about unranked that seems to matter to the other players is that they have no idea if they were fairly matched against an equal skill opponent or a smurf-type. But, I've also watched several high ELO games, and I've noticed that those players are prone to the same derps as anyone in bronze. It's not until Diamond and challenger that people seem to really play sufficiently different. So, I guess the moral of the story is that unranked player is literally anywhere from bronze to plat in terms of skill--it just hasn't been assigned yet. Just treat everyone you're playing against like they are better than you and play cautiously, and I'd imagine this won't be an issue. I will know more if I can continue to zippy-doo climb through silver to gold and get out of the so-called Silver ELO hell.