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A Letter to Riot Games -- On Matchmaking

intarrested··7 votes·928 views

Hello there!

This is an informal attempt at providing feedback about my experience with League of Legends in hopes that my insights might serve to improve your future game design. I feel obligated to provide this feedback because League of Legends is the only video game I've played in the last five years and the first online multiplayer team-based game that ever struck my interest. I'd like to see it improve.

Over the past two years (season and a half), I've spent the majority of my time and money playing this video game. I've enjoyed meeting new people, making new friends (and even a special lady who's the light of my days), and meeting new challenges on the rift. Throughout this entire experience, one haunting feeling has lingered: my teammates are dumbasses. Now, of course, I'm not exempt from this -- I have made enough dumbass plays and decisions to fill an entire YouTube channel with content. However, I have improved; my teammates have not.

Not long ago, I made the decision to put forth a concerted effort to get to gold in order to unlock the Victorious end of season reward skin for the first time in my League career. I consider this the milestone of any skillful player. In that time, I have played my best champions, queued up for my best roles, and employed various subjectively successful methods of reducing tilt. My play has improved, my laning has improved, my cs has improved, my decision making has improved; my teammates have not.

I'm not sure how the League matchmaking system operates. Suffice to say I'm not interested in the algorithmic evaluation of my play over a large sample. I'm simply trying to convey to you, as an entertainment provider, that the current system is not entertaining. There's no logical reason why I should be matched on a daily basis with teammates who intentionally feed or flame when I have maintained the highest level of honor since the system was reintroduced. There's no logical reason why I should have teammates who are on winning streaks one game only to be saddled with teammates who are obviously in the process of tilting away their points the next.

If a player is on a winning streak, the goal should be to provide them with tougher opponents, not weaker teammates. If a player is honorable and courteous towards others, the goal should be to provide them with like-minded teammates, not trolls who test their resolve. Don't even get me started on the upsetting nature of boosters or trolling smurfs. Everything about the matchmaking in this game right now feels unfair, streaky, and artificially balanced -- forcing a terrible team or four upon a player after a smashing victory or two, for example.

I've composed this extemporaneously in order to blow off some steam, of course, but I believe there is some value in receiving this particularly emotional response to a video game I'm supposed to be playing not only to challenge myself but to ENJOY myself. I just expressed a desire to uninstall the game to several friends of mine and in the process of doing so realized that I'd actually rather be doing something else -- like playing chess, scrolling Tumblr, reading a book or, god forbid, watching television. Don't worry too much though, I'll never choose Facebook over League.

Regards,

Matt

[This was intended to be sent through the ticket system, but Blitzcrank apparently doesn't approve of any feedback that isn't made public.]

22 Comments

ChargeItDownMid1 votes

[deleted]

intarrested2 votes

All due respect, a player can have higher MMR than your previous teammate/s and simultaneously be on a losing streak/toxic as hell.

My observations/desires are purely qualitative. I see no reason why user experience and MMR considerations couldn't be married.

Do you really want to solve the perception of the game as unbalanced and toxic? Assign matchmaking variables to player behaviors.

Imagine a League where tarzaned and tyler1 are more likely to be on each other's team. How many times will one of them have to int or flame for the other to realize it's not an acceptable behavior? How many fewer times will other equally skilled but less toxic players have to put up with them?

Imagine a League where you're on a winning streak and so are your teammates/enemies. The match would be epic, challenging, the ultimate test of teamwork. Imagine a League where everyone in the game is on a losing streak. It would be an absolute clown fiesta, but also fair and balanced.

MuffledGarbage1 votes

MMR is on a team/total based system however.

So if two teams have 100 total MMR it could end up being team 1 and 2 with 20 MMR per player.

OR it could end up with 3 teamates with 10 MMR alongside 2 teamates with 45.

Meaning in the second scenario you have two exceptional players paired alongside three bad players.

Assuming that every third game played will guarantee your team is in the second scenario, that means you and one other player have to carry a game against the enemy team who could be in the first scenario.

ChargeItDownMid1 votes

[deleted]

MuffledGarbage2 votes

A better system?

Quite simply, there is.

Riot could make it so 10 total players in a game (out of the millions per server, mind you) can only have a deviation of 10-15/100 MMR. So at worst all people in a Ranked match are 10-15/100 MMR from eachother with 100 being challenger level MMR in this example.

That would be a better deviation than Riot's current setting as it would stop unranked players from fighting against people they shouldn't be fighting yet in the first place.

Riot's current MMR deviation is so WILD that it allows Silver 3 unranked players to fight against Diamonds and Plats.

An entire tier(or 2) is jumped to set these unranked players against Diamonds???

I could get golds because maybe it's someone in gold who has been declining in MMR recently, but a Diamond?

Even if the Silver player's team manages to win, the silver player will have gained the same LP they would have gotten when fighting another silver player.

Riot hasn't implemented a "between ranks MMR upgrade" type of system yet.

A system where if a lower ranked player wins against a higher ranked player, the lower ranked one will gain more MMR and LP whilst the higher ranked one will lose more MMR and LP.

That's how we would improve upon riot's current setup

ChargeItDownMid1 votes

[deleted]

MuffledGarbage1 votes

Riot HAS the system, notice that I said they have that system.

Notice that I also said Riot needs to pull the Reigns on this system to disallow something as Warping as to allow a diamond level player to fight a silver level player in MMR.

now please read my post ENTIRELY instead of a few sentences.

ChargeItDownMid1 votes

[deleted]

MuffledGarbage1 votes

Now I know you haven't been playing league more than a year because a common problem for people last season that trickled into this season was the matchmaking system being weird with MMR.

This is evident that your lack of knowledge shows you don't know how LEAGUE'S mmr system works.

P.S. a petty downvote? really? That only goes to show how little credibility you have.

Red Wreckage1 votes

{quoted}

If a player is on a winning streak, the goal should be to provide them with tougher opponents, not weaker teammates.

as logical and fair this sounds, the motherfking morons who are responsible for this matchmaking systems seems adamant on doing exactly the opposite, and somehow the same has been up and running to its full capacity, inducing rage/tilt in a lot of players who are on a winning streak of 3+, since the past 2 years I started playing ranked.

Too harsh/bad words?
No, thats exactly how I feel towards anyone responsible for this ranked matchmaking mess

Quepha1 votes

There's literally no way for the system to predict if a player is going to suddenly play much worse than they have been in their next game. There isn't a device, equation, scientific law, or psychological study that has a way to predict that a player is going to start inting in their next match.

Nothing in the game tries to find you weaker teammates when you're on a winning streak, it actually tries to find you stronger teammates (except in the very rare case where you are one of the best players in the queue, which is not applicable to you as you have indicated your goal this season is only gold rank).

Some of your perceptions of the Matchmaking system are incorrect. Some of your requests for goals for the Matchmaking system are impossible to accomplish. Such is the way of team-based online games.

intarrested1 votes

No doubt I have a lot of misconceptions. I'm not a game designer or a mathematician. I'm also not suggesting predictive algorithms, just some sort of refreshing metric for aligning trackable in-game behaviors. The real world always has surprises but we shouldn't use that as an excuse for complacency.

Quepha1 votes

{quoted}

just some sort of refreshing metric for aligning trackable in-game behaviors.

Reporting and punishment systems.

Sometimes when I encounter a player I perceive as terrible, I check their match history. When I do this I pretty much never find that the behavior is a pattern for them. Players are just inconsistent.

intarrested1 votes

You're right. That is often my experience as well. The punishment system just seems ineffective because I experience so many offensive players. I should probably experience it for myself before making such a foolish assumption.

Distorted Sorrow1 votes

This entire post was entitlement bullshit.

intarrested2 votes

You found me out. I'm totally not entitled to enjoy a game I haven't mastered.

Distorted Sorrow1 votes

" I WORKED HARD TO GET HONOR 5, ONLY PUT ME IN GAME WITH OTHER HONORABLE PLAYERS REEEEEEEEE"

" I WORKED HARD TO GET ON THIS WIN STREAK, ONLY PUT ME IN GAME WITH OTHER PLAYERS ON WIN STREAKS REEEEEEEEEEE"

The variance factor is one of the aspects that makes matchmaking balanced

LeftyRaydy1 votes

{quoted}

You found me out. I'm totally not entitled to enjoy a game I haven't mastered.

Hey Hey! did you not see the sign

"Do Not Feed The Trolls" (in reference to you responding to Distorted Shadows)

I liked your post although a little too nice in my opinion.

Progressus1 votes

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD

I pray every day for change of one sad fact - the difficulty of series games is based on autism of my "teammates" not on skill of my enemies. IF YOU WOULD CHANGE IT I WILL PRAISE RITO TO THE END OF MY LIFE

the present system brings me more cancer that fun, i feel so disrespected by you RIOT

JayPea991 votes

Hello everyone. I struggle a lot with this matchmaking system. I really don' t mind loosing but no one can deny that the system sometimes prefers to give you random players in low elo or low MMR for that matter. Sometimes the system is really unfair. It judges you for the number of games won or lost rather than judging your game-play. I had games where the total body count was 28 v 10 where i had 7 kills and was on the loosing 10 kills team... I had games with bronze players (no offense) or unranked bad players against summoners in the same rank. All this affects my MMR. I can t always complain. I know when it s my fault, but you just can see how teamates are sometimes not responsive to anything you say or do when it comes to pinging for help or falling back etc... The system has alot of issues. I don t really mind having toxic players. I m sometimes toxic myself. I don t blame the players though. It s most of the time the system s fault. And also, if you had a bad pre-season and improved over the season, your MMR will always drag you down. I m having this issue currently. Sometimes I play badly and all. Okay... judge me on that. But you can t judge me on the 40% of my games. You can't improve in ranks and plays if your MMR keeps dragging you down. I like to play champions that can t 1v5. I don t like brain dead champions with all due respect to Garen mains. It's just bad matchmaking and everyone knows it. I experienced a 12 loss streak from 91 LP silver 3 to 30 LP silver 4 after a 5 win streak. Explain to me that this is just luck... that i am unlucky to have bad teamates that makes me want to quit the game uninstall it completely and go back to my life before i met this game and its system. I sent several report asking for you to do something about these kind of players, to fix this Riot games. Fix that please. But all I keep getting is a bad team against a great team. Im ok with loosing a game, when it s fair, not when i get teamates who can t play safe after loosing their lanes or that can t defend and wait or farm and leave in team fights. It s just stunning that I find some players in silver if not most of them that do not know how to look over the map. I m looking forward for all you guys replying. and i would love a reply from Riot Games. I just want to understand if I m right. And if not why not. (sorry for the bad english... not my native language)

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