Hard Truth: Matchmaking will never be “good” and you wouldn’t want it to be anyway.
Look guys, matchmaking is never going to be “good”, matchmaking will never be at a point where both sides are all evenly matched up, matchmaking has never been like that either and the only reason it seemed like that is because games were longer thus letting both sides reach that point of being even.
Let’s break down each point however and explain.
First off, why matchmaking will never be good. When you think of good matchmaking, you lose likely think of a scenario where both teams are evenly matched and only the tiniest mistake at the very end decides the winner or, where you just win every game because you only get good players which is equally unrealistic.
“No, I just want games with no feeders.”
Impossible, why? Because everyone feeds literally everyone, look at your own match history, are you going to sit here and lie to me and say there hasn’t been a single game where you just shit the bed, where you stumbled only for it to snowball into a slow session of being dead weight? Did you mean to do it? No. Maybe you were being camped, maybe the opponents were purposely trying to tilt you, or you were simply having a bad game. Now think of the inverse and put that person who did poorly do you honestly think they were purposely trying to sabotage you? Why is it never a case of bad matchmaking when you are the one doing poorly but it is when your allies are?
So is the matchmaking good when you do well and win, is it bad when you lose then? Is matchmaking good when you feed but get carried, but bad when you do well and lose then? That leads into another point, what about those games were you do insanely well? Where the spirit of Faker guides your every click? Where you don’t miss a single cs, your positioning is perfect, and you snowball on your lane opponent? Is that good or bad matchmaking because depending on the side you are on that idea will change.
Second main point, another problem with matchmaking is humans themselves. Humans aren’t consistent at all. As a species we don’t do everything the exact same way every day in anything. In the case of this game, we can’t even cs consistently, some games you won’t miss any and then the exact next game with the same champion you will miss half the cs. One game a player will carry and then the exact next one, they feed which feeds into the cycle of matchmaking being shit.
Third and final main point, if matchmaking was “good”, a massive amount of players would hate it and elo hell would actually be real then. Now let’s assume that by some impossibility that no team based game where you get random players has ever be able to do, make a perfect matchmaking where players always played perfectly every game eventually, players will reach a plateau. Most people aren’t as good as they think they are. The players who are actually miles above skill wise where they are will effortlessly carry themselves out. Top laners will split to nexus, mids will win mid then roam and spread their lead across the team, jungles will counter jungle and deny the opponent all objectives and the bot carry will snowball and easily 2 vs 4 when they get ganked.
It is why you see challenger and master players who do unranked to challenger vids effortlessly carry themselves only losing one or two games during that time.
“Well what about those losses?”
Yeah, they will have ONE game where their allies are simply too heavy and can’t 1 vs 9, and the other 99 games, blind stomps.
Back on point, in the perfect matchmaking scenario, you will eventually hit a point of plateau, where because you are at that point where your current skill isn’t good enough to go higher, putting you in your own personal elo hell until you improve that tiny bit only to get to the next plateau where the cycle continues.
“Well what about my teammates then? How would it be my fault?”
Because in this world of perfect matchmaking, they would be in the same boat with the system putting them in place until they also improve. If matchmaking was perfect, players would hate it for the reason of being told how good they actually are.
Does this mean I think current matchmaking is good? God no, it can always do with improvements, for one, MMR needs to not be hidden and/or rank actually meaning something. As it currently is, your actual rank means shit all besides e peen and whether you get free loot. It would lead to at least some eased frustration if a player lost and saw the players they were with were actually in their rank or MMR rather then being gold, losing and seeing they had a bronze on their team but not knowing it was because their mmr was higher or their personal mmr was low.
“Well then why doesn’t Riot include a system where I can do well and still get points?”
Because stat padding and supports will be selected even less then then they are now. “Well, my team is losing, fuck trying to do the smart thing like trying to get objectives to get back in the game, I’m just gonna bush camp and catch out people to pad my score as much as possible.” It’s a team game, you win or lose as a team. Just because Kyrie, or Lebron scored 50 points, doesn’t mean they should win the game, same applies here. If you don’t want the factor of randoms, find and make a team.
TL DR Matchmaking will never be “good” because everyone feeds including you and humans aren’t consistent and if it was “good”, you would be at a plateau of skill and stuck there for however long it takes for you to actually improve. Matchmaking does need work though.
