Why Isn't Matchmaking Based Off Of Rank?

TrevorAlu·3/27/2018, 9:03:37 PM·4 votes·695 views

I was just thinking, and wondered why matchmaking wouldn't just put you into games with people of the same rank as you. That way, if you're better, you move up, instead of being stuck in silver because you're always playing against golds because you have a higher MMR. I think MMR should place you in a rank, but not be used to determine who you play against. IMO its not fair that a silver player should be stuck in a lower rank because their MMR has them playing against higher ranks, which basically makes them a higher level player who will never get to where they should be if that makes sense. Is there a reason we use MMR?

4 Comments

ShuyinTheX3/27/2018, 9:05:41 PM2 votes

Because Ranked is based off of your rank.

Mysticman893/27/2018, 9:37:52 PM2 votes

Your lp gains/losses depend on your mmr relative to your rank, so the silver ranked player with a gold mmr (who is hence playing with gold level players, some of which are actually gold ranked) who wins 'only' 50% of the time will still be climbing until they're gold ranked, since their LP gains will exceed their LP losses.

Rank itself isn't used as a factor because it's easy to manipulate rank. Anyone can just dodge a ton of matches in order to lose LP (but not mmr) and never promote, which is why theres lots of diamond+ players who have bronze accounts just for the lulz. Their mmr on those accounts is still well above bronze (a few years ago their was a reddit thing about a bronze 5 ranked player in a challenger match because their mmr was that high) so theres no real harm done to competitive integrity, but if rank was a factor in matchmaking that would no longer be the case.

SirLime3/27/2018, 9:32:18 PM1 votes

beause they hide your MMR and the rank isn't always identical to MMR