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League is progressively becoming more and more intolerable due to matchmaking.

DepresShen·4/4/2018, 8:51:45 PM·16 votes·986 views
Equilibríum - Summoner Stats - League of Legends

About a week and a half ago or so, my friend made a forums post regarding how she was taking a break from ranked until matchmaking was fixed, and it allowed me to evaluate what has been happening this ranked season. It was regarding a riot post on how most player's winrates should vary between 49-51% winrates due to riot's balanced matchmaking system, and how nobody should really be getting stomped because riot is gonna give each team competent team mates. Well, this season has probably been the worst representation of 'good matchmaking' and '49-51% winrates.'

I was a silver player last season. I finished silver 1 and constantly complained about how my team was garbage and how they were the reason that I couldn't climb. I figured I'd stop the flaming and climb the soloq ladder for about a week to test my luck. In due time, I had a 70% winrate and made it to gold 5 from a silver 3 placement after going 8/2 in my placements. (Dropping 2 whole ranks with 2 losses was a bit frustrating.) My friend, on the other hand, hadn't played ranked last season. She played the season before and finished silver 2. This season, she went 6/4 and landed the same rank she left off at. This is something that doesn't make much sense to me. I think it's a reason why these players who haven't played in a while get placed higher than they need to be, and these players that I get paired with, who have under 40% winrates start to break matchmaking.

My winrate has dropped from 70% to 59%, and I believe a lot of it has to do with riot's matchmaking algorithm. Now I know what you're thinking. "Oh boy, another low elo play complaining about his team." Sure. It's just a bit frustrating how my team has a 29% winrate lee sin who's 2 ranks higher than me. How did he end up there? How do people like this get the benefit of the doubt? It doesn't make much sense.

One thing that I've noticed a lot this season is the overwhelming amount of snowballing, and the lack of comeback and good games. Most games are won by the better botlane because of how many tanks are on one team, and how much peel those tanks can supply for the ad. Most games are stomps. There's not many games where each team knows what they're doing, they know how to play from behind/ahead, and they can play those 30-40 minute games where there is a really good team fight at the end and that's what decides the game. I miss those games, and as League ages, those games become harder and harder to find.

The moment you go on a winstreak, you go on a lose streak. Matchmaking has a lot to do with it. Don't want to tilt so you go to play norms, and you and your friend get paired with people that are diamond/masters/high plat. You get stomped. Rinse and repeat. It just makes the game boring. Just as my friend said in her post, "The current matchmaking system makes wins boring and losses frustrating." It's the most truthful thing I've heard, and the post sort of opened my eyes to that concept. I don't really, after a game, lean back in my chair and go "Man, what a fun game. Was close."

There's a lack of macro play in the game now because of the itemization that riot offers to every role in the game. Hard to miss skillshots. Ridiculous range on abilities. Items that offer waveclear capability. I don't know, maybe it's just me, but even LCS gets boring to watch. Sej/Jarvan every game. Trist/Varus. Braum/Janna. Azir/Ryze. At the end of the day, the games end up being the same 30 minutes of farm fest, with about 5-10 kills per game.

Hopefully riot stops addressing shit that doesn't need attention, and they instead fix their matchmaking. I'm not happy where the game is right now. I know a lot of people that aren't. All I can hope is that people stop paying 20 dollar skins for champs they dont play so riot can look at the situation and go, "Man, people aren't supporting the game anymore. (My OP.gg is linked for reference so you can see my winrates/champs I play.)

20 Comments

P4 Silent4/5/2018, 11:18:22 AM5 votes

You need to thank the community players Always said that this is a fair match Always said, this is a balanced game

So RIOT can't find any reason to improve*[sg-miss-fortune]*

dunder kill4/4/2018, 9:02:47 PM5 votes

Your ending rank is 100% meaningless in placements. The only thing that matters is your MMR. Why do people have such trouble accepting their rank? 50% WR isnt forced. Its something that happens noramlly when you appraoch your actual MMR. Weird how all these players end up close to their rank from last season. Weird how a diamond smirf doesnt get forced into a 50% winrste in silver. Weird how people point to a handful of games out of their last 100 as "proof". Weird how people dont bat an eye at a winstreak but lose their mind after some loses.

Vekkna4/4/2018, 10:39:41 PM4 votes

Matchmaking does seems like it's deteriorating, does it not? I had a recent game where our team was on red side, blue team had the higher MMR, and my team also had two new unranked accounts duoing in bot lane.

Just based on MMR alone, we started the game with ~30% chance of winning before factoring in the two brand new ranked players. I've noticed blips like this in the past, but recently I've started wondering why so many games look so one-sided just by the pregame stats.

k wìx4/4/2018, 10:15:44 PM3 votes

I fundamentally believe that this will never change until **player skill has more impact in how players are ranked. **

You need to get away from win and loss being the only thing players are judged upon. I think its the most important metric, by far, but if you rock an S ? Why not get 2 or 3 bonus LP for that game?

**We need a better system to gauge a given players skill an value to a team. **

Nygerant4/5/2018, 12:40:37 PM2 votes

My approach to complaining about matchmaking by other players was like, get good mate and stop crying. But many things have changed since sometime. Now days matchmaking looks excatly like you said. You get on winstreak then you go on lose streak. Honestly I don't want to lie, but safe number will be like 60% of my games are completly stomp of each side. Sometimes I do, sometimes enemy does. Game ends with score 30/5. Really sad and boring. You will get on 5 games win streak, then you get for example (like I did) first time ranked player who will end up 0/14/1 in 15min. He wasn't trolling. He was just bad. When lose streak time comes, I was getting for example 0/6/1 gp in 10 min, 0/5/0 darius in 15min. (Im from botlane so even if I help my midlaner I can't help top before mid-game). Same thing is on my botlane. When lose streak comes, there were games that I end up with 1/6/0 and so on. While win streak are totally opposite. My team gets 4x S at the end and enemy loses 2 inhis before 20. Really sad, and boring. You don't expect to keep wining anymore. You get used to those losing moments and just keep playing with thoughts like mb someday I will get good enough to get 6th win in a row instead of 5. Sorry for english. Im g3. Almost exact 50% after 100 games. Yesterday had losing streak, now I have 2 winining, both S.

Updiving4/6/2018, 11:14:05 PM1 votes

As you get closer it's harder. For instance I peaked at Gold II this season. At this tier I started facing tons of Plat players in my bot lane which I think is a problem. Am I not basically Plat V if the enemy adc is plat IV and the support Plat V? Even then say I would be really helping my team as support while the enemy support is often a non-factor. However the enemy adc is way more experienced than mine and carries late.

The problem is in these games I'm just not THAT good. Because you get stuck in silver I may mean you are a gold V or IV player, however as you get closer your skill may not be enough to make that much of a difference, it's just that simple. I think I'm a plat V or IV player because I do well against people of that rank, however it's hard to actually climb to that tier because the difference I make in a game at Gold I or II isn't as much as it is in a silver I or low gold match.

Had the same problem in DoTA 2. Was in between 3.5k and 4k and constantly fluctuating. Usually that means you are in the ballpark of where you belong.

Malix Farwin4/5/2018, 12:11:38 PM1 votes

I think ranked matchmaking has always worked this way, its just games were more carryable in the past and from multiple lanes. Right now outside of Bot and Jungle, you just do not feel like you have that much impact on the game.

haaaaaaalp4/5/2018, 12:24:41 PM1 votes

Has nothing to do with matchmaking. Matchmaking hasn't chcanged, the meta has changed significantly. That is all you need to know to figure out which component is causing the changes over the past few years.

GodlyBane4/5/2018, 10:10:55 PM1 votes

god tell me about it! i had a 75% WR in ranked and dropped to a 40% because of 4 inting teams in A ROW