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Hypothesis on why matchmaking is so bad

iTaLenTZ·4/12/2019, 1:09:20 PM·21 votes·11,008 views

During season 3,4 and 5 more and more people I knew started playing League. At this moment I know nobody IRL who plays league any more and it used to be 15+. Its just from my own experience but it can't be a coincidence. It is hard to believe the game is as popular as during pre-midseason 5. It can't be that everyone around me and myself have stopped playing League but the game is still growing. Lets face it the game has been on a decline since season 6. Last season I still used to play and ranked queue's time were already double from what I was used during season 3,4 and 5 and I was a diamond player so queue timers were already higher than usual. I know the new champion select has also increased queue timers when it got introduced. RIght now I also believe the terrible balancing and gameplay decisions have contributed to this state because nobody wants to play top any more, jungle got killed and support has always been the less favorite so everyone is going mid or adc.

But it can't be the only reason. Balance has been pretty bad since season 6 and I remember people started complaining about queue timers since season 7 and not just streamers but also regular gold and platinum players started complaining. That was new. Last season was really bad in terms of everything. Gameplaywise it was a mess, damage across the board was way too high and many reworks and class reworks and itemreworks blatantly failed last season and Riot acknowledged that but made it clear to wait until preseason to fix things to not interfere with proplay. In the end it was too little too late and many got burned out of the game at the end of season 8. To make matters worse nothing got fixed during preseason only more problems arose with the removal of runes. I really believe because of the playersdecline Riot has set wider parameters this season to prevent even longer queue timers. For me that is the most logical explanation.

29 Comments

Padoµch4/12/2019, 1:55:24 PM8 votes

Ok Lets face it, League doesnt have more players, it has more accounts, because people are bored, and creating new ones. The actual player base is much much lower, than what it was in S5 or S6. Now, we all say that balance is just bad. I think the biggest downfall is the Runes Reforge. It has taken out the possibility for us, players, to adapt for the matchup or the situation. I remember taking ad runes +15ad, 9 armor 12 magic resist for a mage but going ap. Just for the sake of punishing melee players when they wanna last hit and also having the mana regen... I miss it, but we will have to quit completely, because Riot doesnt listen

Sodeb Lacudomite4/12/2019, 3:28:16 PM7 votes

Maybe as you grew older your friend stopped league because of work, social life, other priorities? It's certainly the case for me, I play since season 3, and I am 30 years old now, still making time to play LOL, but my friends have kids, a wife, work, etc... so they stopped, not because they don't like the game anymore, but they don't want to invest time in league, which I completely understand.

Illabethe4/12/2019, 2:57:45 PM5 votes

The truth is simply that Positional ranking screwed up people's MMR's for when they converted the system back to combined Ranked. Most people haven't played enough yet to re-tune their MMR.

Furthermore, there's players like me who just absolutely got buried by its removal, because we played "Fill." Fill players got their MMR's tanked while they were given their highest earned rank. By the time our MMR has "Adjusted" after the ranked merge, we're so buried in unearned negative account marks and our MMRs artificially low we can not get competent teams.

I was 70% win rate my first 150 games this season, but since I was playing Fill, that only translated into about a 2 tier ranked gain from B I to Silver III. My Second 150 games I began having 2 unranked players per team, and a lot of really bad bot duos when I got Top, and when I got adc, I generally sucked, because adc is my worst role. I maintained a 65% Win rate in Mid/Jungle/Support, but those two roles were only 40%. When Riot combined my rank, they gave me Silver II with an MMR of Bronze I.

I was literally getting 9 LP for a win, 23 LP for a loss, at an overall 52-53% Win rate.

By the time that leveled out to ~17-18 LP either way, I was 500 games in, my MMR barely moving per game, and buried at Silver IV with all the muck players who just can't get carried by the champions I play.

I'm D III on my main right now, and I can't escape low Silver with my Smurf. My account has even gone negative win rate, because every single game is uncarryable unless i play something I don't normally play that is a hypercarry.

Nameless Drifter4/13/2019, 9:19:22 PM3 votes

The Reasons why matchmaking feels a lot worse now:

Is because Riot changed the matchmaking so it pops up games faster, instead of taking longer to get teams with equal skills being matched against each other. Before, a queue would pop up in 4-8 minutes max. Now its pops 1-4 minutes max;

The Balance state of the game ever since the start of last season is EXTREMELY WORSE. Pretty much most of the issues were never adressed. Skill was removed from as a MAIN factor, and now its just who cheeses better or picks high damage dealers;

Never have I seen a Season with so many non interactive, unfair and unhealthy cheese tactics and picks. And the amount of time Riot takes to fix something ridiculously long...Its torture.

Dr Dog4/12/2019, 1:40:13 PM2 votes

wanna know the simple reason match making is so bad rn? smurfs, smurfs are a huge force rn in gunking up matchmaking because of how many there are atm and matchmaking is trying to balance matches around them, the smurfs are an issue because diamond lp gains are completely fucked so most low diamond players are pretty much only playing on smurfs

Cosnirak4/13/2019, 11:06:35 AM2 votes

It can't be that everyone around me and myself have stopped playing League but the game is still growing.

Yes, it can be exactly that. In fact it's very common in gaming and hobbies for that sort of thing to happen. I don't know if League is in decline in regards to number of players, but I suspect that it is, at least in North America and Europe. But I don't know that it is.

Handy Sandy 4/12/2019, 8:40:36 PM1 votes

no matchmaking is so bad because u have people on each team not playing the champions that got them to that rank so they do worse

AnotherFeeder4/13/2019, 12:57:25 AM1 votes

Ive heard people say leagues been in decline in NA but has grown elsewhere. Dont think theres any real way to verify though.

Demolisherkz4/13/2019, 1:55:29 AM1 votes

I think the game is having a couple problems. The first being power creep which makes mistakes extremely dangerous. This creates a stressful environment in matches and puts people on tilt when they make a mistake. The second is the fact that on low elo, people don’t play consistently. They have scores that wildly jump form 16/1/5 to 2/11/4. This is why I keep advocating for people to practice things like champion picks, Csing, trading, and item builds on normal draft. If more people ironed out their play, we’d see more consistent players. Consistent players means better games. The way I see it is either power creep gets lowered or the player base has to get better.

hotarse4/13/2019, 2:11:36 AM1 votes

You are correct. A declining player base is one of the factors. However, their shitty hidden mmr system is also a problem. Smurfs are also a problem. The actual matchmaking algorithm is also probably one of the biggest factors. Auto-fill is a big issue. And finally, Duo Q is one of the factors. As you can tell, there's very little going for the matchmaking system.

I have a friend who is still addicted to league and every once in a while tries to get me to play again. I actually did play a couple games with him some time last year and holy hell the game has gone to shit. I could not believe the damage output that was happening compared to what the game was like in S4/5. Truth is, though, these changes are actually more calculated than you think and the game design has changed this way to make the game more addictive despite being overall, a lot less satisfying. You really should find a way to get out. People still playing this shit in 2019 is actually kind of pathetic.

Banuvan4/13/2019, 3:49:52 AM1 votes

It also comes down to the fact that your personal play doesn't matter. It matters not at all. The other 4 people on the team control if you win or lose. That's how it works. They should have implemented ranks based on your performance a loooong time ago.

They are too egotistical to do anything that makes sense though.

BigFBear4/12/2019, 6:26:44 PM1 votes

It's really sad because for me LoL is still one of the best games out there. Actually it's THE best game for me. The best I've ever played. Better than WoW better than anything. I don't want it to die. I love playing LoL. I also don't understand why there are no new people trying LoL. I mean, what's different now? Why did people try this game first time in S3 but not now in S9? I mean... Yeah. People get older and stop playing games maybe. But what is with the new kids??

But what I don't understand is: My queue time went down from 1:40 (in S8) to 0-30 seconds (in this Season). That makes no sense if player base is declining.

Warpes4/12/2019, 7:13:43 PM1 votes

the worst part is that no matter how many threads like this that people make, some even with hundreds of upvotes to the point of puking, or even pros/streamers making points about it.. it falls on deaf ears.

riot not only will never actually do anything about it, they refuse to even acknowledge the damn problem, let alone discuss it with the community. thats why they dont deserve another penny from anyone, but we all know that wont happen either.