Two Questions about MMR

TheTarians·Mar 18, 2016·3 votes·268 views

So I recently found out about the site, OP.GG. It is a really nice thing to have and helps me keep score of win rates and other stuff. But recently I have encountered a weird thing, the MMR that it displays will sometimes go down even when I win.

So my two questions are:

1.) Is the MMR that OP.GG produces correct?

2.) Why can my MMR go down, even when I win?

To anyone that responds, I would like to say, Thank You.

To anyone that has at least read this, I would like to say, Have a Wonderful Day.

3 Comments

xl Kirito lxMar 18, 20161 votes

OP.GG is theoretically correct. As long as all the numbers are constant, it should be able to get a relatively accurate result. With that being said, the actual algorithm is unknown.

OP.GG does't automatically update. It takes time to log in W/L into MMR. If I had to guess, it went down from a prior time, and not the most recent.

Weasel KenseiMar 19, 20161 votes

Recording wins/loses is fairly swift, thats easy client side info. The thing is there are hundreds or thousands of games at a given moment sometimes. It would crunch their servers pretty hard to run the algorithms constantly for real time MMR changes. So they dont. Instead they update ever so often after a batch of calculations.

Now there are reasons you can get wins in certain competitive systems, and go down in your respective match making value. Its because the environment your in changes around you.

Say you start play the new exciting (fictional) sport of "Finnicky." its played with 6 people, 2 ping-pong balls, and single 1 meter long stick. Dont ask about the rules, its very complicated.

So youre really into this Finnicky and you play at the pro level. Youre in a division with 24 players where you have played 11 games and won them all your 11/0 win/loss. You are the best, youre matched up against the best, its great and stuff... You take a 2 week break from the game, and all of a sudden there are 12 new players in your division, and 2 of them have surpassed you. One is 15/0 and the other is 27/1. The second guy lost his very fist game but then went on a 27 game winning streak and thats much better than your 11 win streak. You are no longer "the best," and when you win your 13th match, your stats are updated in the Finnicky pro league records and you see your "rank" go down. Everyone is trying to beat the two who surpassed you now, YOURE trying to beat them too.

I could go on, but I think you see how if other people are performing very well, compared to you, that even though your not doing bad you could still lose standing in a division. I dont know their algo. and it probably dosnt work like that, but that system is one way to fall despite still doing well.

GigglesOMar 19, 20161 votes

Op.GG isn't riot's MMR, So they rate everyone on their own arbitrary scale. Then they look at who you fight against.

Example: Say silver 5 is 1000 MMR and Gold 5 is 1500 MMR. Now say you are in gold 5 and you win a game against Gold 4, your MMR goes up to say maybe 1550. Now this is where it gets tricky. You win another game, but this time It is against silver 1 players. In Riot's eyes, you still gained MMR, but since you played against Silver 1, and not Gold 4, your MMR on op.gg goes down (maybe 1520).

This is because Riot doesn't release actual MMR. So the only way OP.GG has to calculate it is based off of who you fight, and their arbitrary "you should be at this amount" if you are at this MMR, and if you aren't fighting that MMR then you are at the MMR of the people you are fighting. This is why it says (or at least used to say) if you duo queue too much the results may be inaccurate.