Give the player a choice in matchmaking

Below is a long post discussing matchmaking but if you just want the idea:

Give players an option to choose how strict they want their matchmaking to be. Like if I wanted to play with the same division, silver, than it would only pair me with and against silver players. If I wanted to play specifically with silver 3 players, maybe a rank or two difference, than it would be even stricter at the cost of longer queue times for me personally. Or if i didn't care it could stay with the default, current matchmaking. I think this would solve or at least help figure out the problem with "elo hell" and would help deal with the random luck factor of matchmaking.

To elaborate, I'm tired of getting placed with really low bronze players while fighting golds. But I am not here to blindly suggest random shit because I have actually done research. Please read the thread in it's entirety if you care. The information was found at

https://support.riotgames.com/hc/en-us/articles/201752954-Matchmaking-Guide

So to get started, riot says that the matchmaking is setup in a way that "the system will attempt to assemble two teams as fairly as possible to create a game wherein both teams have an equal chance of winning." You can't possible tell me that this is working as intended right now. Here are all the rankings from my previous 5 ranked games as a Silver 3 player.

So I was originally going to list the rank (not names) of every player on both teams but that was taking too long so I came up with this system for averages. Basically

Unranked = 0 Bronze 5 = 1 Bronze 4 = 2 Bronze 3 = 3...

And added the numbers together and took the average. The higher the average the higher collective rank of the team.

Game 1: Lose

My team average: 6.8 Enemy team: 7.4

As you can see, there isn't much disparity. HOWEVER, Their combined ranks average higher than ours and these numbers don't show the role placement. Both teams had unranked players but ours was ADC and he was fighting a silver 1 and silver 2 player.

Game 2: Lose

My team: 8.8 Enemy: 9.2

So here My team consisted entirely of silver 3/2 players. That was the most balanced out of all the matches I looked at. The enemy team however, got 2 gold players in carry positions being top and mid.

Game 3: Win

My team: 10 Enemy: 9

Where as last game had a difference of .6, this one had a whole point difference in our favor.

Game 4: Win

My team: 8.8 Enemy: 8.4

This one is deceiving as it appears a lot closer than it actually is. The enemy top laner was a gold 2 and was stuck with low silver players on his team. Ours was more spread out.

So is anyone starting to see a pattern? For games that my team has a higher collective rank, we win. But if their team does, we lose. The matchmaking system isn't as fair as riot would want people to believe and I think several people are already against it. For players like me, we get the shitiest luck when it comes to our team mates.

So what else does Riot say about matchmaking? Well for starters, your personal MMR is based on how your team performs. Not you, as a player, but the team that you get matched with. The luck factor that goes into this is extremely high and unfair. So I get in a game and let's say i'm on the opposite side of game 3 where my team is the 9. The enemy team has a whole point rank advantage with one or more of their players being in gold while we are all silver. I play well, which I tend to do MOST of the time, but still lose the game because of maybe bot lane dying 10 times in lane or something like that. My MMR is negatively affected by that and I will now be placed with people who have the same MMR.

So after a while, with lower MMR, I go into another ranked game. The same thing happens. Basically, you don't have control over it. I understand that League is a team game, but there are so many individual players who should be ranking higher than they are.

Riot has covered this on their site by saying it's the Dunning-Kruger effect. Basically they say that people perceive themselves at a higher average than they may actually be. Im sure everyone is guilty of it but is it entirely false? Looking at my last several ranked games, I performed well in all of them with the exception of one where I was auto filled to support. Despite my permanence, I only won two of the last five.

Riot wants to say that "Elo hell" doesn't exist and people can just keep playing and climb. That is simply not the case. From what I've spent the last hour looking over, games are more or less decided in matchmaking. That's not to say that you can't win a game with a lower average, but it is statistically unlikely.

But what am I proposing to fix the issue? Simple. A system for the player when they go to launch the queue that allows them to say how strict they want their matchmaking. Set the default as it is currently so people that don't care can just play, but add options for players.

Something along the lines of :

Matchmaking: default/slightly strict/same ranking

People that pick default can still get matched with strict and slightly strict because it's still the same queue. This would increase queue times but only for the people that want to play against and with the similar ranking players.

I for one would be playing on same ranking because I am tired of the RNG of getting matched against all these different ranks and with lower players. Maybe I wait 10 minutes for a match. I wouldn't mind. I could actually sit in queue and not think about how fucked the difference in our teams are going to be.

Thank you for reading. Please consider.