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How Did This Match Happen?

Kivolan··2 votes·399 views

https://matchhistory.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/#match-details/NA1/2660657922/51443151?tab=overview

For the first time in my experience with League, I actually said "bad game" at the end of a match. I'm extremely concerned as to how the matchmaking system thought that this was, in any way, a good pairing. By the 20 minute mark (somehow people rejected a 15 minute surrender), I was actually becoming toxic.

Plat 3, Diamond 5, two Diamond 3s and an unranked player (who was autofilled, by the way) against a Challenger, two Masters, a Diamond 1, and a "Gold 4" who was obviously Smurfing, or otherwise not playing on their main account. Their team MMR total was around 250 higher than mine.

If this Gold player was matched with these other four as a fluke, Riot needs to ensure this doesn't happen in the future. If they all queued up together intentionally, Riot needs to know that this game was completely unacceptable, a waste of time, and completely demoralizing to five people.

If one low MMR player on the other team is going to mean five people are facing four others well beyond their own abilities, the system needs to favor the five over the one, especially if they have decided to play with friends that are at a much higher rank.

7 Comments

Mysticman892 votes

Keep in mind theres no way to know team MMRs (or individual MMRs), op.gg and similar merely estimate it (and more than that, most of them estimate it based on ranked matches, which aren't applicable to normal matchmaking which has its own MMR).

Theres lots of relatively high ranked solo/duo players who have normal mmrs more akin to silver or gold since they don't play normals very often, but preseason is often the time of year when those sorts of players do come out from ranked and play norms so you'll see more of them these days.

If 5 challenger players happen to have a normals mmr more akin to silver, and 5 bronze players happen to have a normals mmr also akin to silver, as far as the system is concerned it's 5 silver skill players facing another 5 silver skill players and hence completely reasonable.

DemonBoneJangles1 votes

{quoted}

If 5 challenger players happen to have a normals mmr more akin to silver, and 5 bronze players happen to have a normals mmr also akin to silver, as far as the system is concerned it's 5 silver skill players facing another 5 silver skill players and hence completely reasonable.

if that's how it works then the matchmaking system should take your ranked rank into account, because there is no reasonable way that a bronze 4 would be matched against a gold 4 unless someone was either really bad or horridly boosted.

that said it should really combine the mmr's to get the rough estimate of a players skill, unranked players would have only their normal mmr to worry about while people who have a rank fight people within one or two steps of their rank until they lose or win enough matches to fight better opponents. this wouldn't apply to ranked of course because at that point you might as well combine bronze silver and gold tiers into one and call it alloy teir,

Mysticman891 votes

I know that sounds like a good idea, but it'd probably make matches worse.

If a diamond player uses normals almost exclusively to practice off-roles/new champs/silly builds (which is often precisely what high ranked people use normals for), they might genuinely be playing at a silver level. If suddenly they're being matched against people playing at a plat level, they'll get stomped pretty hard. So then their normals MMR will fall until it's some MMR otherwise associated with extremely low bronze skill level so that their average puts them in matchs with silver ish skill level players, and perhaps things work ok for a time. The new season starts and ranked MMR is soft reset, and now their MMR average leaves them facing low bronze skill level players, and it's just a big stomp fest again.

As it stands, MMRs will adjust pretty quickly to the actual skill level they tend to play at in normals if they play enough games. The issue is they're not necessarily playing enough games, but the fact they aren't playing very many games is also why it's not really a problem in the big picture. It certainly can suck to get into a super one sided match, but the nature of normals means those are always going to happen (if a challenger queues with a bronze, no matter what systems are in place it's gonna be spicy).

Kivolan1 votes

{quoted}

Keep in mind theres no way to know team MMRs (or individual MMRs), op.gg and similar merely estimate it (and more than that, most of them estimate it based on ranked matches, which aren't applicable to normal matchmaking which has its own MMR).

Theres lots of relatively high ranked solo/duo players who have normal mmrs more akin to silver or gold since they don't play normals very often, but preseason is often the time of year when those sorts of players do come out from ranked and play norms so you'll see more of them these days.

If 5 challenger players happen to have a normals mmr more akin to silver, and 5 bronze players happen to have a normals mmr also akin to silver, as far as the system is concerned it's 5 silver skill players facing another 5 silver skill players and hence completely reasonable.

Yes, there's no way to know it for sure, but it's still reasonably accurate. 250 is a HUGE gap, even after the "give or take" factor.

If there are indeed two separate MMRs, the system should really run a check against both of them. Again, I understand a small margin of error and I frequently play against people several ranks above or below me. A Challenger against Diamonds (let alone the two Masters), however, is simply unacceptable.

Mysticman891 votes

There are definitely unique MMRs for every queue type (including each of the RGM modes).

Checking peoples MMR in other modes opens up various others cans of worms. If you use the highest MMR from any queue, then most matches will be disasters unless they're playing their main champ in their main role, which is unlikely to be the case (since if they wanted to do that, they'd probably just play ranked). If you use an average of some sort, you'll have a seasonal disaster due to the ranked soft resets and ones normal MMRs no longer being directly linked to their win rate in normals.

Theres also not much to be gained, since a premade of (4 challengers+a bronze) is going to be a stomp regardless of the underlying MMR unless they happen to find another (4 challenger+bronze) premade, and even then it'd depend on the particular role match ups since it won't necessarily be bronze vs bronze. 4 challenger+bronze is an extreme example, but any mixing of skills is gonna pose an issue. Plus since the point is to be able to play with your friends and not necessarily have a competitive experience, they can't just restrict who you can queue with like in ranked.

z63XnLCMwX1 votes

You got out comped. Everyone knows in this meta 2 ADC > 1 ADC.

Kivolan1 votes

It should really match them upwards, then, rather than downwards. Better that one person has a bad game than five.

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