Is There Something Wrong With Matchmaking Right Now? Or Did The System Consider This Fair?

Tentacle Advisor·Oct 10, 2016·3 votes·760 views

I just got out of a game where the enemy team had 3 Gold Players, A Silver Player and A Plat Player. Meanwhile, my team consisted of 2 Gold Players, Myself (Silver) and Two Unranked Accounts that weren't even level 30.

The unranked players were Levels 26 and 27. So, I'm just curious. Did the Matchmaking system have a simple "hiccup" case just now or does the Matchmaking System somehow find this as fair?

[P.S. - I'm not only asking this from MY P.O.V, but also from theirs. I can only imagine how much it'd have to suck to go up against a bunch of Gold/Plat players while not even Level 30 and not even having the runes/masteries to even attempt to face against them.]

27 Comments

S0kaXOct 10, 20163 votes

Haters will downvote and will say "IT'S NOTHING WRONG YOU SKRUB"

Tentacle AdvisorOct 10, 20163 votes

And I'd respond with, "Good to know. Now back to my original question." =p

Seriously, though. I'm, like, in actual shock of how the matchmaking decided to put this match together.

DTPandemoniumOct 10, 20163 votes

İt's normal I get D5+ players in my normal games on the enemy team most of the time while my team has gold and plat and also level 29~ players. It just means that you and those lower elo players or non level 30 people just were winning a lot and your mmr improved or it's the other way around and high elo players barely played normals and their mmr is low. The former is 99% of the time the right one

Tentacle AdvisorOct 10, 20161 votes

I'd feel more confident if it were the other way around. (i.e. I were winning more than I lose)

I mean, I'm okay with facing a higher ranking player every now and then, but sometimes I just wanna take a break and go up against people at my own level, while also in a normal game environment, ya know.

DTPandemoniumOct 10, 20162 votes

{quoted}

I'd feel more confident if it were the other way around. (i.e. I were winning more than I lose)

I mean, I'm okay with facing a higher ranking player every now and then, but sometimes I just wanna take a break and go up against people at my own level, while also in a normal game environment, ya know.

I used to exactly think like that at some point but I got over it and just improved and now I actually win most of the games I play against them. If I actually had time to play ranked I'm certain I can at least get to D5 now. But yeah I feel you, sometimes you just want to not try as hard. I think currently the only way to play with low elo players is make a new level 30 account or I think normals mmr resets after season ends as well just like ranked ladder at least for actual summoner's rift games. You always play against lower elo players in featured game modes but it's not the same.

Tentacle AdvisorOct 10, 20161 votes

I mean, if I had a better/stabler PC, I'd try the whole ranked approach like others suggest. A lot of people tell me that if I win as many Normals as my profile says, then I should be able to climb with moderate ease.

As true as that may be, my PC (with the unfortunate fact that it's a semi-old laptop) can only perform so well with League. Witht that being said, teamfights are probably the hardest on my system, so I just play Normal games since teamfights arent as commom in Normals compared to in Ranked. (At least, from my experience.)

However, I fo plan on working towards a new PC so that I can attempt ranked again (hopefully next season). I have confidence that I am at the very least Gold 3-4 abled, at least as support.

But, for now, all I have is Normals. I may just do what you've suggested and create another account to use it for Normal games in place of this profile.

Harvey RabbitOct 10, 20163 votes

Don't worry, their matchmaking is perfect and if necessary they can produce charts and graphs to prove it, just like with dynamic queue. :)

Tentacle AdvisorOct 10, 20162 votes

Not sure if sarcasm or not, but I shall accept your response either way. ^_^

Harvey RabbitOct 10, 20162 votes

It's sarcasm, lol. :)

RandomoniumOct 10, 20162 votes

Ranked MMR and normal MMR are completely separate. If the gold/plat players don't play many normals they may have lower normal MMR than you do as a silver player. That's why matchmaking feels off in normals.

I agree it sucks at first but now I kind of enjoy it. I routinely get matched up with plat/diamond players. If your normal games are harder then your ranked games it makes your ranked games feel really easy. I've been spamming a lot of normals lately and I feel like I'm improving much faster.

Tentacle AdvisorOct 10, 20161 votes

I mean, I get how the ranked and norms MMR is separate and all, but why does it have to have such a huge gap between one another? It's cool that you find it fun. I do sometimes, as well. But, other times, I just feel...discouraged.

RandomoniumOct 10, 20162 votes

If someone only plays ranked or only plays normals then there can be a huge difference between their MMRs. Not to mention that sometimes high elo players will queue up with their low elo friends in norms. It sucks getting smashed but its a great learning experience.

Tentacle AdvisorOct 10, 20161 votes

May I ask how you learn from a game where you get "destroyed"? I mean this question, genuinely. I've never been able to take any kind of knowledge from these types of games so I'm wondering how someone else (yourself, for example) would go about it?

RandomoniumOct 10, 20162 votes

Any time I die I ask myself how the guy killed me. Usually that gives me insight into how I can avoid death and how I can kill people in the future. Any time I get zoned off a minion wave I learn how to better position. Any time I get harassed or have an unfavorable trade I learn from my mistake. Plus I can get insight into that particular matchup and how I can exploit it in the future. I'll also review my replays if I get really smashed and do a more in detail analysis of how I was beaten.

Tentacle AdvisorOct 11, 20161 votes

I'll note all this somewhere for future refernece and see if I can imitate it. I feel your replay thing will be the most useful.

NiamhNyxOct 10, 20162 votes

If it is in normals, its normal match making. Im only silver 4 in ranked but constantly face plat and diamond players normals. (SCREW DIAMOND DRAVENS, they are a royal pain in the ass and are a dime a dozen.)

MMR is calculated differently for normal than ranked, and usually higher ranked players are in ranked games more often than normal games so the normal mmr they have will be a lot lower than what it should be. Some lower levels are either a smurf, can get lucky, or duo with a higher ranked player and their normal mmr just explodes. Its probably not super fair cause teams can be extremely unbalanced, but just take it as a chance to learn to carry and adapt.

Tentacle AdvisorOct 10, 20161 votes

It's one thing to learn to carry, but it's a whole other thing to adapt to multiple players with varying ranks, with varying play styles. I can only retain so much new knowledge at one time before my head starts to hurt and I start tilting as a result. (I'm a pretty easily tilted player, to be honest. Due to this, I no longer play ranked.) I play normals as my way to learn as slowly as I need to without tilting as much as I would in a ranked environment. However, the way normals Mmr works kind of goes against me, in that sense.

l Helios lOct 10, 20162 votes

Don't forget some people may queue together. That can happen too and the system would try to fill in where it could. I also play against plats and the occasional diamond pretty frequently.

Tentacle AdvisorOct 10, 20161 votes

I, like literally, play with Dia's and Plats all the time. In almost every game, in all honesty. I'm not complaining about that (or matchmaking at all, for that matter). I was just lost as to how non-30's could be matched up in a game like this one. Another player in this thread, however, reminded me that they could have possibly been smurfs and that could explain their placement in the game.

Sona PingOct 10, 20162 votes

Because it's not a perfect system and people do things all the time to throw wrenches into it. A matchmaking system needs to take everyone who is queuing in the same small section of time and try to sort them onto teams so that there should be about a 50/50 chance. But how can you design the system to deal with all the variables and make it "fair"?

What do you do with the high Elo player who queues with his low Elo friends? What do you do with near-30 players? You can't match them with low level players, but if you match them with 30+ players they have an objective disadvantage with their weaker accounts. What if those unranked players in your match were second accounts? That can just double the problems of the preceding point. What do you do about new players in general when there are simply far less of them?

There are so many things that can mess with how matchmaking functions, like the Platinum player who has been queuing with a friend he is introducing to League, for example

Also, keep in mind that things like champion borders are not an accurate representation of a player's ability. Borders just represent the league where the player was at the end of last season. Same goes for their current league. Last thread about matchmaking I saw had the OP complaining that it was awful, that there was even a Gold player in his game when he had a couple Bronze players on his team. That Gold player had the Elo of a mid Silver, while the Bronzes were doing relatively well for themselves.

Tentacle AdvisorOct 10, 20161 votes

Oh, believe me. I am, by no means, complaining. I was just lost, to put it simply. I often forget that the system has too much information to pull prior to every match. It's frustrating, yes, but I'd never actually complain about HOW it works.

Although, I also forgot that a non-30 account could be a smurf or something so that would possibly explain why those two got placed in the game.

GULAG 4 UOct 11, 20161 votes

M.M.R. Heard of it? ??

Tentacle AdvisorOct 11, 20161 votes

With all the comments that came before your own, yes, yes I have.

G4LLOWSC4L1BR4TROct 11, 20161 votes

If it's a normal game it has a separate MMR than ranked games, so a play player who mostly screws around for fun in normals will play with silver or gold players more than actual plats because they don't have the same MMR as they do in ranked.

Tentacle AdvisorOct 11, 20161 votes

Sounds like that means I'm trying, more than I'm aware, to win games then.

G4LLOWSC4L1BR4TROct 11, 20162 votes

I think it's partly that and partly the plats and high golds are trying a little less and more focused on having fun because it's not a ranked game. It's not that they don't take it seriously, but I for example am much more open to trying things like a Nunu Urgot botlane in a normal because ultimately it's not really a big deal if it doesn't work out.

Tentacle AdvisorOct 11, 20161 votes

Makes sense. I'm open to anything in Normals. And even sometimes in Ranked, to some extent. I never know when a time may come when I complain about something done in my ranked game(s) that ends up working out in the end, or ends up being the "next best thing", so I don't really complain all that much. (Besides, if I wanted to flame people, I'd do it off my keyboard anyway. Because, in that case, I'm more-so flaming myself for losing to whatever it is I am complaining about, in the first place.)

I can completely understand higher ranked players being more laid back in Norms due to the high level of focus and effort Ranked games require. Easiest way to avoid tilt, in my opinion.