Idea for Improved Matchmaking at Lower ELO.

Bobovich·Dec 2, 2015·2 votes·418 views

Player experience in ranked games could be taken into account when making team matches (ie. number of ranked games played). Although the team MMRs may be 'balanced', ranked newbies may not be used to ranked competitiveness, hence inexperienced players may get stomped by more experienced players. The ranked newbie may fall significantly in MMR before they 'get the swing of things', their initial MMR on entry to ranked not reflecting how well they do in ranked (because they haven't played any before). I mention this for lower ELO players because in the silver games I play, a player with 3 ranked wins does not tend to do well versus player with 400 ranked wins.

1 Comments

KhaZix BotDec 2, 20151 votes

I get what you're saying, but where is the "low elo" line drawn? Someone with 10 wins in Gold IV is probably a smurf and going to crush anyone still sitting in GV with 600 wins.

I remember back in Season 4, I got matched with an extremely unskilled player who picked Sejuani top and got destroyed. At the time, I was Silver II, and they were Silver I. After the game, I added them and asked if they were new to ranked. Sure enough, they were a fresh level 30 who had jumped into ranked and got a lucky carry to 9-1 placements. They hadn't won a single game since being placed.

I think a big part of it is that new players are able to place too high too easily. There shouldn't be non-smurfs placing Silver I on their first ranked season in most cases. Honestly, I know it's blasphemy, but I almost wish score was considered during your first season placements. Obviously, the player in question had been carried and didn't do particularly well in any of their games. Fast forward a year and a half, they're currently sitting in Bronze V, and I'm not kidding.

In placements, if you're on your first season and are rocking a sick score of 1/9/2 with 34 CS, no towers destroyed, and 3K damage to champions every game, that should drag your wins down a bit.

I should add, yeah this sucked for my team, but it also sucked for that player. Who wants to get slapped around by people who outclass them that hard for a half hour? It's bad because it hurts the outmatched player and their team, while giving what I like to call "false MMR" to the enemy team. Yeah, players like that end up where they're supposed to be eventually, but they ruin a lot of games in the process.