League of Legends Matchmaking

Lioxim··6 votes·3,464 views
League of Legends Match History

What the heck is wrong with Riots Matchmaking? Why am I getting unranked players feeding in my promo games? Why do I get players who average 8 deaths a games?

Has anyone else taken issue to this? Has Riot Matchmaking been increasingly awful as of late? I cant be the only one seeing these patterns.

EDIT: What can be changed? What could be done differently to make matchmaking better? Example: Less punishments for dodging lobbies, maybe 3 free dodges in low elo, 1 free dodge a day in Plat+ (cause wintrading)? What about provisional games? Maybe have a seperate type of Queue for players in or about to be in Promos?

17 Comments

The Highest Noon5 votes

You must be new here if you ask "Has anyone else taken issue to this?" lol

Yes, though I won't speak for others I have taken issue with matchmaking. It's terrible at times. Don't even get me started with duo matchmaking. That's another can of nonsense.

Kai Guy3 votes

** duo matchmaking. That's another can of nonsense.**

Thank you!

Tr4shB4NSYST3M1 votes

Kai I know you've been an advocate for the MMR system (and that I have at times railed against it), do you think making ranked solo a pure solo queue would help clean up matchmaking somewhat?

Kai Guy1 votes

On paper? Absolutely. Tighter ranges are not a bad thing as it lowers mismatches.

But... if duoing is so popular and widespread that the ques population size nose dives to the point MM does not have enough players to generate quality matches? Then good ol unpredictable reality kills the math and your left with loser ranges still.

So... Imo my $ is its gonna be here to stay. Thats why I advocate for making it work off similar Class intervals to what MM uses to build "fair" games. Its a compromise that likely wouldn't make a dramatically negative impact

Riots always juggling casual/competitive for their Ranked Ques... that's... honestly kind of a necessity for their company and the games longevity so even when I fking hate something they do/did because I want competitive > Casual for the competitive ques... well... I get it.

The jerk in me wants them to just show all the youngsters out there what mobas look like with 0 MM.

If they disabled everything for a few weeks and forced players to only do coustom lobbys with no MM? Man that would be entertaining. I think there would be a flood of complaints and it would make some folks ragequit the game for good... so.... not likely to happen. Same with a hard Reset. Those both need pretty substantial community support for riot to pull the trigger on.

Honestly clash had the right idea to try and make a more competitive que but it flopped in its implementation super badly. A clan style system has some merit to it and could be used to create highly competitive games for a Ranked Team que. but there's no real data out there on if players would even desire that or have interest so its unlikely to see The nice thing about a set Rooster of players and restrictions on whos allowed to join the team preventing "smurfs" is you can treat that team as a single entity for adjustment and MM.

Riot seems to be playing with psychographic profiles (houses. I am shure some Reds are very happy with everybody who did the quiz.) Who knows, they might find out enough normal players really wanna do dedicated team competitive games.

Err... wandered off topic quite a bit.

But yea. on paper it would make for better MM. In reality... depends on player behaviors. You cant make anything fool proof, fools are shockingly ingenious when it comes to surpassing and all reasonable expectations.

Tr4shB4NSYST3M1 votes

Tbh I think most in Higher elos would embrace it b/c it would give ranked more integrity, many high elo streamers talk about how strong "duo abuse" is.

I think the impact of people quitting would be more so in middle/lower elos, probably most impactful in silver-thru plat which have a decent enough population in those ELOs that it wouldn't be too big of a deal. Now I will say those who would complain would do so incredibly loudly, but i think overall it would be better for ranked.

And on clash I agree, I wish they hadn't shelved the idea :(.

The Highest Noon3 votes

The thing about duo matchmaking is it makes no fucking sense. Not for duos. Not against duos. Including what's already problematic with matchmaking.

Okay, so here's the thing about duos: The team that's against the duo should have a higher combined elo. That's because the duo system doesn't base your group's elo off the highest or lowest elo player, instead it increases the matchmaking elo by a bit. That means you'll be playing at an elo that's higher than you both.

Now, taking what's now known, include what we also know about standard matchmaking. Enemies could be higher or lower and allies can be higher or lower. That means the enemy team could have a much greater combined elo than your team, and your team can have a much lower combined elo than the enemy team. The opposite of both situations are also true if you're fortunate.

In my experience as a duo, my partner and I typically have allies that are incapable compared to the enemy team, and that shit is nonsense.

I will forever advocate for performance-based matchmaking. I would appreciate it if my allies were at LEAST as capable of certain gameplay strats as I am.

Kai Guy1 votes

The concept in mmr as far as I under stand it is that you take the class interval concept from Arpad and try to prevent as much of a gap as possible around that between all players in a match. Tighter range with low uncertainty results in better games compaired to other MM systems. I will try to avoid a long lecture/discourse on the topic. When looking at Elo style systems using logistical distribution for 1v1 a range gap of C is expected to be 3 to 1 odds. Higher rated player has 75% win odds. This in 5v5 my personal assumption and experience is this translates into lane phase seeing low raited player get crushed and you see visiable overall macro gap between two players. That's an opinion not fact. A class gap in Elo was 200 points. For MMR... Depends on if Devs decided to change the arbitrary values. The concept and math for a Class interval will still exist even if the variable values change. Its inherent to the probability theory.

I'm fairly confident in my knowlage on Elo info As I own his book on the topic. Mmr is harder to find super detailed info on so I run a risk of being wrong. I aim to self correct on my own or if some one points it out. As I am talking about opinions** I feel duoing is even worse then you explained it!** Looking at accounts it seems to also have moments that it aims to balance teams mmr by grouping a bunch of close ranged players near the mean average of the duo. Theres other situations where it looks like it just snags random solos into a tier of play that's otherwise abnormal for them to see. I dont know the mechanics, both are observable on op.gg.

I'm with you on the topic of duoing, feels like we have a shared viewpoint that Riots duo implementation is not consistent with competitive principles.

I am happy to meet an advocate for performance MM. Now, personally I have issues with stat systems. Everything I have seen on them implies strongly that they have to be tied to wr for automated systems, you can get away with some subjective raiting systems but once its automated it struggles. Frankly you just cant trust the league community to not destroy its viability. I'd honestly enjoy a chat about pros and cons of stat systems and what is needed to have a viable one. Far as I know they work pretty well when combined into mmr but you have to make effort to prevent abuse.

Like on paper the concept of Positional MM and Positioanl Ques are not bad... but then you see how the community treated it. We are still seeing its impact this season.

Back on topic, Stat padders are highly negative impacts in games like lol due to the ease of generating superficially high stats with no match outcome impact. I have no faith in this community to not break it by being selfish idiots.

Far as why i like MMR/Elo. My bais here is I once believed strongly in Elo Hell and denied strongly that my ranking in season 1 was accurate and blamed teammates. Then I improved and discovered I was an idiot who played way to selfishly for this game. Used to main faceless and phantom lancer and other pub stomp hypercarrys in all stars. Looking at my old playstyles to current skill I have no doubt that I could easily destroy a team year 1 me as current me.

Please always feel welcome to bug me for any info about Elo's system you want to know and call me out if you disagree or see me provide incorrect information.

The Highest Noon2 votes

I don't necessarily disagree. If anything, I don't know what the cons of a stat-system could be in comparison to a W/L system. While a W/L system seems like it should work on paper, it doesn't take into account W/L manipulation that exists outside of any single player's talents. Someone could be boosted. Someone could be rank-dropping (or whatever it's actually called). Someone could be constantly carried. Someone could be constantly held back. Someone could be outperforming the world yet lose through whatever reason.

Now that I typed that last bit out, I suppose the same could also be mentioned about stats. Someone could be spoonfed kills and such. My only advocation of that case is at least they consistently have the stats, even if some of them may or may not be embelished.

Kai Guy1 votes

Basically difficulty and accuracy.

Your system can be easy to break. Assuming Wins and losses don't matter on your rating. Do you trust the League community to not start playing for stats over wins?

So it has to have a good detection for players just padding. Padding is very easy and low skill. You just put up irrelevant data to the system. Spam wards for vision score. Spam abilitys for damage/cc/heal. Play to protect your KDA, that's abandoning any and all fights that might risk your life. Its like some one whos playing to Get an S for mastery over a W for team.

The right play will generate stats but objectively speaking just generating stats does not create the right play. A lot of times the opposite is true and your better off saveing CC for when its needed not just because you can add points to your stats for the game. So its usually a subjective system because it needs to isolate how skilled some ones generation of stats are. Then be able to do that for every champion.

I don't entirely like these systems if they don't use W/L + Probability theory. When Blizzard added Stats to their games I don't recall it helping remotely. It was fairly rare to see blatant padders because you still needed to win to climb.

When comparing the two what do you thinks easier to embellish thus a weaker measurement of skill. Winning matches or Generating individual stats in a match?

The Highest Noon1 votes

A lot of people already play for stats over wins, because that's how you get S-ranks.

That said, don't forget that this is a performance-based matchmaking not a performance-based ranking system. What we're discussing isn't that having good stats will increase your LP but that having good stats will group you with better players. Just as there already are players who play for stats to get S ranks, there will obviously be players who play for stats to get better groups. At the same time, decades of gaming have proven that just playing for stats isn't how you win, and if you want to get wins you'll have to balance having great stats and taking risks. Risk and Reward is kinda the staple of League play, after all. Or so The Faceless would say.

I think it'd be fair to mention that wins won't be completely removed from consideration. With the way the system is now, wins are the only factor that matters, and that leads to imbalance in matchmaking. Performance has to be taken into consideration or else you'll end up with a team of 5 mid laners. Wasn't the point of Positional Matchmaking meant to alleviate some of that stress? Though I do think that the system as a whole was still flawwed because it didn't consider performance, it was the right idea. When it comes to making sure that you have the most balanced team for each of the 5 roles available, consideration of performance is the greatest factor. It'll take work, though.

Which are easier to embellish doesn't matter as much as you assume. As I mentioned--and something that a lot of people educated in the matter would say--there will be a point where the difference between stat-padding and GOOD GAMEPLAY will show and the system will balance itself. It's like the idea of an "overpowered, easy champion". An easy champion, such as say Garen and Yi, will be overpowered at low elo where people don't know what they're doing. That would be the same as stat-padding. It only matters the closer to the skill floor you are. When you start climbing and reaching higher ranks, just as people who spam Yi and Garen realize just how easy it is to counter those two when you know what you're doing, people will realize that simply playing for stats won't get you wins and you'll have to eventually risk stats to make better plays. I don't think either cases are bad because that's just the way it should be. Low-skill champions should stomp low-skill games and be difficult to carry as in high-skill games, and playing fo rstats should be beneficial at lower points on the climbing ladder yet burdening the higher you reach.

Regarding "protecting your stats" though, it's a great lesson to learn when you're low on the ladder. In my experience over playing this game for the past 7 years, if a player doesn't know how to secure kills nor keep themselves alive, and they can't balance securing kills and surviving, they're just not good players. That's just the most basic start to playing a PVP game. First you learn how to get kills and not die as often, then you learn that if you can make plays with no kills and all the deaths, stats won't matter.

Stats and Winning is a wild system of checks and balance lol

Kai Guy1 votes

Sounds like you want something like Trueskill 2? https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/trueskill-ranking-system/

Or if not? There are issues with manipulating teams inside MMR ranges. Your MMR rating loses accuracy. If MM is not related to your MMR values, if the steps used to generate your MMR value are flawed you throw off the curve and your distribution is broken. Is why I am constantly frustrated by "forced 50%" Arguments. Forced 50% wants to move bad up and sink good players. MMR wants to do the exact opposite. MMR values and expectations are built from the natural trends of bad players to lose games and good ones to win. They get more accurate with time and data. but if you remove all value from the data (its supposed to naturally get built off wins and losses) Then you lose all meaning to a rating, then your system has nothing to use to accurately rig matches.

Then usually I get Riot is using some statistical system to judge player skill and use that to Rigg matches. You already know how I feel on the **massive **difficulty of making a subjective skill rating system.

https://imgur.com/a/AtZMR2W

I am not great with MS paint. So left, That's what happens if your not doing a good job. It can also be a good representation of a high uncertainty MMR system. When functional it will turn into the graph on the far right after being allowed to run where everything collapses into a curve. X Axis would be "skill" Or win %s. Built from the distribution theory your using. Logistical Typically. Y would be your assigned rating.

MM is about taking players in a range to build your curve. You want to make reasonably fair games so that every time system is correct OR incorrect on its assumptions its moving players the proper directions. You want your system to have the option of being wrong because there's no point to using a self correcting method if you don't.

Elo and MMR are more then Wins. Its wins, losses, and who your playing with. There is probability theory involved in this, which is why adding changes that damage probability theory damage the ratings.

Stat MM. this is still stat rating. Your judging the player and assigned a value to them. under, average, above.

Performance has to be taken into consideration or else you'll end up with a team of 5 mid laners

I played seasons 1 and 2. That used to be a thing. My opinion is biased on the topic so take this with a grain of salt. If you get stuck in an MMR and are an OTP? Your a less skilled player then everybody in that MMR who can play multiple champions and roles. Your a handicap to your teammates if you don't get to play the 1 thing your remotely decent on and you deserve the losses you get when you fail in other positions.

Riot did the exact opposite of what I woulda liked. They catered to more casual players by trying to fix issues created by them with positional Que positional MMR. But casual players don't seem to care about competitive integrity so the whole positional Que was a bust.

Riots still playing with positional MM but they hid it again like most things because the player base cant be trusted to not abuse systems. Call me old fashioned but having a shallow champion pool is a weakness on a player imo.

First you learn how to get kills and not die as often, then you learn that if you can make plays with no kills and all the deaths, stats won't matter. Stats and Winning is a wild system of checks and balance lol

So... I'm thinking your likely wanting something similar to True skill 2. Is that correct? Or do you want to see Stats only used on a portion of the Ladder? Sort out some chaff low skill players in lower MMRs?

Suí1 votes

Use the individual stats of each player for matchmaking not for climbing purposes!

Malix Farwin4 votes

The ranked changes at the start of the season screwed up matchmaking bad on top of the issues it already had.

Kai Guy1 votes

Its not just MM that's an issue. Its a PVP game. Players make the most impact on experience for other players. Currently it seems pretty clear we need Better player behavior systems.

This season seems to have had issues Keeping the expectations for competitive que as competitive among the community. To many folks are using the MM changes as an excuse to not try.

Far as the MMR side goes. Duo needs to be reworked. Class intervals allowed for MM might need to be tweaked, I feel thats slightly longer Que time before it widens acceptable ranges.

A soft experience accounting where the system looks to reward Low K factor accounts by placing them with other low K factors might be nice but honestly I have no idea if current population supports the ability to do this.

Most the MMR systems that protect players... only do it by protecting their rating. they don't actually give a dam about the quality of your matches. MMR for the most part does not give a dam about match quality. And you kinda see some stressful (for players. Talking about promos here btw.) oddities because of riots extra steps to use LP/Tiers. So even if MMR value was protected it "feels bad man" when your losing a game you valued for getting into or winning promos because of RNG nature of teammates.

Stats etc... it wont care. The core of it can be summarized as its just about W/L and whos playing.

Crystalysk1 votes

I feel like i'm constantly 1v9 or 9v1.

KnKitsune1 votes

"We're not making this change in other skill ranges because when we look through matchmaking data we're not seeing the same pretty substantial MMR differences between players." - Meddler

Trixsoo1 votes

Riot match making system is cancer, I'm officially leaving League of Legends for good!!. I'm a Gold 4 right now, in my last game. There is a Kaisa player on my team who feed 1/12/3 with only 78 cs by the end of my rank game. When the game is over, I check her profile and it turns out that she is a level 34 unrank account. WTF!!!! how can Riot put an unrank super low level account player into a Silver 1 and Gold match???!!!!. That is outrageous, I was extremely mad at her during the game, but then afterward. I felt bad for that player but instead now I'm super mad and frustrated at Riot. That kaisa has to lane against a gold 2 Xayah which basically tear her apart, and everything crumble. That Kaisa is a new player, so how can Riot do that?. A gold 2 Xayah against unrank lvl 34 account. Jesus I wonder who would win!!. Riot match making is simply cancer, I'm done and my reccomendation to everyone is dont waste your time on this game. This game is no longer base on skills but instead simply by rolling the dice and wait to get lucky!.

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