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Normals Match-Making

Asdw120·3/23/2016, 3:27:19 AM·1 votes·649 views

The beginning section probably can just be seen as me venting my frustration. Skip to the last paragraph for main point if you don't care for reading my rant

So recently, I've been thinking a lot about match-making for Normals. I've heard that there is next to no basis on match-making for Normals, but I haven't exactly ran into a diamond player playing norms yet, so I feel there is at least something going on with that. The reason I've been thinking so much about this is because recently I've been playing against, and with, a lot of platinum and gold players when I'm playing solo, or with a party of two/three. Now, as a bronze player, I'm heavily outmatched in these cases, and although they make for great learning curves, imho, it's not exactly enjoyable to get sacked over, and over by someone who greatly out-skills me in the game. I think the main reason I feel compelled to make a comment on this is because I had three back-to-back games where I played adc solo, and was matched against a platinum pair (There is a good chance that they were partied up, as I feel the chances of facing two random plat guys, and a gold top, while everyone on my team was bronze isn't too likely), a gold duo queued w/ another gold jungler (They had the club tags), and a platinum support and gold adc. This was also in Draft mode (Because I like to think I'm preparing for ranked). Although, I have had cases of the odd gold/plat player here and there in my games in the past, it has only really been prevalent recently, as I play against more, and more higher elo people (Mainly gold). Now, if it is correct that there is next to no match-making criteria for Normals, then this spree shouldn't continue, correct? I'm just curious, that even as someone who really wants to improve their gameplay, I kind of want to play against people I know I'm on an even-ish playing field with. I feel that facing people who are a little bit better than me, or around my skill-level is the greatest way to improve mechanically, but when I'm facing someone who is two-three elo divisions higher than me, I can't really find much room to improve, as the skill-gap is just too wide.

I guess the main reason for this is to ask: Is there anything that influences normal match-making? I don't know if I'm doing something wrong, or if I just got sacked by luck in order for me to be facing players who are several divisions higher than me, several games in a row. Another factor I guess I could consider was the division reset, as that could explain the rising levels of gold players as they try to climb back up, but I can't see how that'd work for the plat players, who from what I've faced, were already high gold/plat already.

2 Comments

Fusarix3/23/2016, 3:30:09 AM1 votes

"So recently, I've been thinking a lot about match-making for Normals. I've heard that there is next to no basis on match-making for Normals, but I haven't exactly ran into a diamond player playing norms yet, so I feel there is at least something going on with that."

I'm currently Plat 1, when I play norms with friends, we get matched with gold and silver players, so yes normal match making is whacky

Mysticman893/23/2016, 3:38:13 AM1 votes

Normals has a separate mmr from ranked, so theres lots of players who primarily play ranked and have climbed/fallen quite a bit in terms of their ranked mmr, while their normals mmr stayed the same. As a result, theres lots of people who may have relatively high ranks but get matchmade at a comparitively low level in normals.

On the flipside, theres also people who have a normals mmr that is actually higher than their ranked one, so get matched with higher level players than they're used to in ranked.

That said though, I wouldn't put that much emphasis on what rank players in normals are. Many people use normals to learn new champs, experiment with builds, and try new roles, and so usually perform at a level much worse than they would in an actual ranked match where they're (hopefully) on a champ they main. It's quite possible to bump into a diamond rank player who is playing at a level you'd expect of a gold player in ranked since they're learning a new champ/role, so I wouldn't worry about people mere divisions away from you (who tbh I wouldn't even be concerned about in ranked games, as the skill difference of a couple divisions isn't that much).