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Dear Riot.... Matchmaking for the TRILLIONTH time....

I Have No Future·11/2/2019, 3:50:42 AM·6 votes·3,562 views

I just... I don't even know how to complain enough. Should've fixed all this in like... Season 1. I could write pages, literal pages about how atrocious your matchmaking is, but it's all been done thousands of times, and honestly I don't know if anyone even cares at this point.. why am I even trying? [BECAUSE IT SUCKS. GOOD GOD IT SUCKS, FIX IT ALREADY HOLY SH*T].

Anyways... I happen to be big believer in constructive criticism, so here's how I'd go about fixing things:

  1. New 'True Rank' Mode: you can't do any meaningful changes to the current ranked system without everyone flipping out, so start a new gameplay mode, a second ranked mode, where we can effect meaningful change in an entirely optional way. As the superior justice of this system becomes apparent, everyone who is serious about competitive play will naturally migrate over to it. It will take TIME, not weeks or months, probably years, but if you even remotely plan on supporting league in the years to come I think we can all agree it's 1000% worth it. I realize this is massive data storage and code burden, but it's surely a worthwhile investment.
  2. Eliminate Smurfing: Smurfing is bad. Smurfing is cheating. Smurfing is the root of SO many problems. Client lock this ranked system (and ONLY this ranked mode) so there's only one account per client allowed and enforce sms, this isn't a panacea I know, but it will largely eliminate it and we can even go further with it if we wanted. If you want to compare this to any professional organization in the world, this level of cheating would not be tolerated for an instant, it's disgraceful, it devalues players on both ends of the spectrum, their time, their skill, their experience and it needs to go.
  3. Provide Alternatives: the reasons behind smurfing are, as you know, perfectly legitimate, and you need to provide meaningful alternatives so players can play new champions in new roles without affecting their central rank. Honestly I'd rather wait 5 minutes for a fair match than dodge a bs match, wait 5 minutes, play a bs match anyway, lose, and spend the next 5 games trying to recover from it (and probably failing because I get another bs match). I'm not sure about all the hate for the splashing system that was tested, I certainly didn't get a vote on that, and while it wasn't perfect, it was definitely a step in the right direction (exactly what % hated it so much?). With an entirely separate game mode however, we can ignore all of that and have all the freedom in the world to design something from the beginning that satisfies this need, we can start completely fresh. If something sucks, we can actually FIX IT, and we have the luxury of telling people who hate it: go play regular ranked. BTW, even if there is NO alternative like this, a new ranked system would STILL be worthwhile, let them suffer, just saying.
  4. Eliminate Duos: There are plenty of other options for people who want to buddy up (regular ranked, flex, norms, clash, customs, aram, new game modes, whatever). It simply has no place in general public, competitive, anonymous queues; it's easily abused, it rots the system, it shouldn't be tolerated; it needs to go.
  5. Consider Performance Based LP: I've seen a lot of people suggesting LP be awarded based on your performance rather than your win/loss rate, and I have to say I partially agree. Nothing feels quite so bad as getting an S and working your heart out only to lose the game, 15-20 LP, and have nothing to show for it; it was a waste of time and skill, and I was better off never even starting. That being said, this certainly has major problems: performance data doesn't capture some significant factors, like cc, good engages, smart play and general playmaking ability, not to mention that once the snowball of a game hits a certain point, your performance naturally either increases or decreases as your team dominates or are starved out. You may think about only the first 20 minutes of performance, idk, but I admit that when I get an S, I know I EARNED that. Another thing you might consider is splitting it, so that it's half win/loss and half performance based, or some such. This has the obvious benefit of rewarding real skill.
  6. AFK's after 5 Minutes: these are rare, I grant you that, but dominating a game until a player goes afk at 15 minutes and then losing the game is awful, especially considering how much work truly goes into every LP point. At no point is this more horrendous than during a promo match, good god that sucks, I can't believe this hasn't been addressed yet. Either enforce the remake trigger at every point in a game, or terminate the game and splash some LP to the winners and leave the losers with no LP loss or a SIGNIFICANTLY cut LP loss, or maybe some global remake loss with a lax quorum and some LP splash both ways (positive and negative, but nowhere NEAR a full game's). If someone is AFK on your team during your promo match, that should not count against you, that's bs.
  7. Algorithms, Transparency: Listen I suck at math, but I've reviewed MMR/ELO basics... and yeah.. okay, sure, I see the logic, but you need to be mindful of the reality too. Personally I think the MMR system is intrinsically flawed, but what do I know? Would it be fine if all of the above points were implemented? Honestly, idk. All I know for sure is that the current math in the current system is sadistic, evil and completely unjust. Whatever special juice you have that forces people to win and lose needs to go, DO NOT include this in any future iteration of ranked. DO NOT copy paste the code into this mode. People need to be skill capped, not knee-capped. I would also highly recommend that you make the math public, yes, full transparency. This would create basic TRUST in the system, and would subject it relevant criticisms and improvements. Since we have no idea how it actually works, we can only infer from our experience that it prioritizes outcome over fairness, that you are focused so much on catching smurfs (ironically) that you maul people who are actually gradually improving. Make it public, make it fair, raise the standard, get us out of the dark ages, bring on the enlightenment.
  8. Consider Entry Requirements: whether mastery, honor, or summoner level, you might up the entry requirements for this new mode. This has several advantages. It further discourages smurfing, as you would have to grind much further to actually qualify for it (especially if you didn't allow other game modes to qualify for it, [ARAM]). It encourages experience and thus naturally increases the general quality of matches, and in this light some form of mastery requirement may be advisable.

Thanks for your time, hope you make some real changes Nov 2, 2019 ['get me out' emote goes here]

45 Comments

Kai Guy11/2/2019, 4:06:21 AM3 votes

Personally I think the MMR system is intrinsically flawed, but what do I know?

What exactly is flawed about how averages work and the law of large numbers?

Fella Air11/2/2019, 9:30:18 PM2 votes

Watch out, riot's got their bots out here downvoting you because of their new draconian ruleset for this subforum... [sg-jinx]

Żügżwäng11/2/2019, 6:39:38 AM2 votes

They tried role rank and reverted it back. The only change to solo queue I'd request is to eliminate duo queue. Flex already exists, let's keep solo as solo.

Smurfing is annoying (which includes boosting which I'm sure will be rampant in silver league during these last 2 weeks of ranked)... I don't know what the best solution is, other than to boost smurfs up to their true rank as quickly as possible. Boosting should be easy to detect... does a bronze adc with 50% winrate suddenly have 95% winrate in jungle, got gold, then back to adc after, except lower winrate now in gold (since 2 divisions is a very noticeable skill difference), pretty suspicious. There should be other metrics as well (player's apm I'm sure would be one, and if someone's key bindings temporarily change, that's another clear indicator).

Performance is a hard thing to gauge, but I agree that it could be a factor in LP gain/loss. Sometimes that 0/10 yasuo really is just too heavy and it feels bad to lose b/c of that... now double edged sword, if you have a bad game are you willing to take a huge LP penalty for it? (I personally would).

AFKs in ranked should be punished, and repeated AFK offenders should be locked out of ranked at least for the split.

Entry requirements, I also agree that people coming back to league after multiple years, then jumping into ranked really are just a death sentence to their team. Ranked queue should require a certain number of Draft pick normal games before giving it a go in ranked (also that could seed their first match so brand new accounts don't get put in a silver match for their litmus test first game). This is all speculation since Riot rightfully doesn't discuss how their system works, but there are def ways it could be improved (although it's pretty good as is too).

Cptn Han SoloQ11/2/2019, 12:14:58 PM2 votes

People shopuld really stop to just repeat everything their highelo streamers say. In reality everyone below D1 has nothing to do with unbalanced matches. Unfair matchmaking is not the reason u lose ur ranked games.

I Have No Future11/2/2019, 11:27:05 PM1 votes

The only real downside I can see to starting a new ranked mode is that it will in the beginning have longer queue times (depending on how many people jump over to it), and later, if it's successful, will have shorter ones but will then be splitting the ranked player base between two modes, increasing the queue times for regular ranked, until the glorious day when regular ranked can be retired as being obsolete.

I Have No Future11/7/2019, 8:00:10 PM1 votes

Hey just in case some Riot employee reads this some day and is like... this dude is making a lot of good points actually... Here's another thing you might consider:

*** Possibly Consider a Matchmaking Quality Slider**: the idea here is to give users some level of control over their own matchmaking. On the one end of the scale is fast matches but with inferior quality and on the other hand is superior matchmaking that will give you players in your league, with your level of experience - and this will probably take longer of course. Obviously, you would limit this so that it is not absolute control, only partial, but I for one would always have my slider maxed out for better matches. I've had enough poor matches. People who don't care can throw it down to nothing. Can this be abused? I don't see how. Just a thought.

I Have No Future11/7/2019, 9:27:12 PM1 votes

You should've started this thread with "Matchmaking is perfectly balanced, just play better" Default response anticipation overcome.

I Have No Future11/7/2019, 9:28:22 PM1 votes

Yes I KNOW I'm the only one commenting. No YOU start a new thread. Oh wait. Hmmm.

I Have No Future11/7/2019, 9:47:12 PM1 votes

I'm honestly quite disappointed that nobody is up in arms about the state of matchmaking. It's so predictable, awful. I guess they're too burnt out or they don't play enough to notice. As soon as "the clamp" is on, oh my god it's such horrific torture, you get such terrible teammates, such strong opponents. Then, once "the clamp" is finally released, ahhh man it's so easy and pleasant, you get good teammates, easy opponents. I roll my eyes every time I see the clamp hit. Here we go again.

I Have No Future11/9/2019, 3:04:23 AM1 votes

I mean, has anyone else offered any suggestions that i missed?

I Have No Future11/9/2019, 4:46:59 AM1 votes

For example, if I happen to win 5 games in a row, suddenly I'm afraid to play anymore because I know for sure I am going to have to lose the next 4 or 5 straight.

I Have No Future11/12/2019, 8:55:20 PM1 votes

Shame on you for solving all ranked problems in one post, we hope you rot in hell.

I Have No Future2/22/2020, 1:30:31 PM1 votes

I still sucks

I Have No Future11/2/2019, 6:01:09 AM1 votes

Listen, any future commenters. If you disagree, that's fine, but you need to at the very least explain why. You think the current system is the god-send? Great, tell us why. With like... actual reasons. Give us bullet points, give us facts, give us logic. Don't character attack me, talk about the actual issues in a smart way... PLEASE. I've seen SO many matchmaking threads derailed by people who want to throw mud rather than be constructive.... please be constructive. Please.

ˉBird Brains11/2/2019, 8:25:49 AM1 votes

Just wantd to say you hit all the points great stuff

Fella Air11/2/2019, 8:52:40 AM1 votes

I agree with a lot of your points, especially performance based rewards AND penalties. You should not get as much LP for getting absolutely hard carried by your team. (You shouldn't lose any, I don't think, but you should only gain like a fourth as much for the worst possible performance.) You should not be losing as much LP if you're the only one playing with a brain. This would incentivize people to actually give a crap about ranked, which is a feeling that right now seems to be at an all time low.

The one point that's kinda iffy is when you talked about how you were in favor of that new system they tested at the start of this year. Let me be frank. While the idea of that system was good, the execution was absolutely abysmal. What started happening pretty quickly was that a mid and a support would duo, let's say, but the mid is qued for support and the support is qued for mid. They swap in the lobby and are now playing a full league or two down from where they should be, because neither of them is "On their main" and they just stomp. It sucked. They tried to fix this with a bunch of BS that would penalize your gains if their faulty software detected that you were playing a role other than what you qued for. Since human oversight for such a vast amount of games is legitimately impossible, this system was completely reliant on the aforementioned faulty software and it was awful. I had several support games where, just because my adc kept dying and I had to clear the wave, their system thought I had stolen mid and so my LP gains were cut severely. Total bull.

There were other problems, too... Promos had some weird issues from the splashing, as I recall, although it's been so long that I don't exactly remember what the deal was. But to make a long story short, don't be sad they got rid of the positional ranks. They were bad. You're just gonna have to trust me and the other people who did the seemingly impossible and complained to riot about something until they actually changed it. [slayer-jinx-catface]