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Something very wrong with Ranked Solo Queue matchmaking, VERY UNBALANCED TEAMS

Nabi57·3/29/2015, 6:25:24 PM·3 votes·3,701 views

I used to play on the NA servers but a few months ago was able to get a hold of a KR account and just recently reached level 30 and started playing Ranked games. After playing 7 games in the last couple days, I am now 1-6.

I know, I suck, that's why I'm losing almost all of my games, but I wanted to know why my teams kept getting destroyed regardless of how much I suck or don't suck. I went on op.gg and did a team to team comparison and discovered a really F'ed up trend about how the automatic matchmaking is placing the players on each team.

For some reason, the matchmaking is clearly stacking the experienced players on the same team. I've been watching the live game team MMR comparison on op.gg and I'm constantly getting an approximate 50 MMR disadvantage on my team. I've even attempted to dodge 4 games during Champion Select when I've noticed my teammates don't have experience, only to be dismayed that when I decide to just go with the team, when I see the live game MMR comparison on op.gg, the auto-matchmaking has yet again clumped more experienced players on the same team! Against my team!! Why is the auto-matchmaking constantly clumping me (an inexperienced player) with the other inexperienced players and not trying to properly balance the teams by separating the people with winning recent history and season 4 experience??

I've taken it one step further and started analyzing the history of my inexperienced teammates who have a history of losing games, and noticed the same trend for their games: the matchmaking has a trend of constantly matching inexperienced players with more inexperienced players and matching experienced players with other experienced players. So people who managed to maintain Silver/Gold in Season 4 will, in essence, keep winning games through favorable automatic matchmaking, and the inexperience players will inevitably keep losing.

At this point, I know I'm bound for Bronze 5, but I am stunned at how consistent the matchmaking keeps stacking the experienced players. I hope this is looked at by Riot.

6 Comments

Sailor Mint3/29/2015, 6:29:05 PM1 votes
  • New players start around 1100MMR.
  • Older players start around their previous season MMR.
  • The system will try to match players in their placement matches together.
SanKakU3/29/2015, 6:44:17 PM1 votes

Get LSI and check the top live games, it's the same with higher tiers. I regularly see one team stacked way better than the other. It's the rule for some reason.

Matthias91193/29/2015, 7:42:10 PM1 votes

MMR estimates from op.gg and other third party sites are really rough. I would not trust them to be more accurate than +/- 100 from a player's true value. Maybe even +/- 200.

Also, 50MMR is not that big a difference between the teams. That's like one division (it's around 300-400 per tier, typically).

If the matchmaker does create a match with a significant MMR difference:

  1. The higher ranked team goes on red side, which is statistically a slight disadvantage.
  2. Your LP and MMR gains and losses are adjusted. You lose less and gain more when when you lose against higher-rated opponents, and vice versa if your team is favored.
Nabi573/29/2015, 11:42:12 PM1 votes

I just doublechecked my losses again. You are right, none of my opponents were Season 5 Gold, but several were Season 4 Gold who became Season 5 Silver. But I was consistently placed with Bronze teammates and almost no Silver teammates. I think Riot should still look into the matchmaking though. I had 3 games where I had 2 Bronze teammates and no Silver, against an all Silver opponent team.

You are also right it messes with your head. I was playing my matches disgruntled every time I was seeing the MMR and rank disadvantage. Then eventually singled out by teammates and told stop playing LoL.