Its about the math. MMR systems are made with math. I keep seeing posts by folks with negative win rates on their account. How hard is it to understand that if you lose more then you win ya don't go above your starting value? Your Gains are highest when uncertainty is highest and only get lower as you play. Its not a complicated concept, build your expectations for the system off the system. Expecting everybody's starting MMR to accurately represent their skill is a pipe dream.
If folks stop wasting time on "Elo hell " theory's and rants. We could start addressing some real problems with the game. On that note let me take a few jabs about some problems I have with riots system.
Riots LP system.
I hate how they implement Duoing in Solo Que, it should be restricted off MMR at the exact same range that it considers "fair" at the minimum. Tied to Tiers that don't reflect MMR is a pretty massive range, if you take a high end and low end account. Its just not well implemented and its open to all kinds of abuse.
This is my opinion here but I dislike the feeling that matchmakers puts a high priority on build a fast game. If The priority has not changed and its just population related that should public data. How important it is to the system to try and make quality matches matters, what it values should be listed clearly by order of priority.
Matchmaker should try make a conscious effort to match uncertainty to improve the quality of matches for the folks who have a MMR that's representative of their skill, if riot does this they should communicate that its part of their matchmaker. Agian its about setting the priority's for better match building.
The LP system being detached from MMR directly in theory allows for more dramatic MMR gains and Losses with out it impacting your assigned Tier and rewards. Overall I am indifferent to the lp system but the risk of rubber banding a massive # of accounts is higher if your gains/losses is high. The pros of rapidly moving smurfs and trolls is outweighed if you damage the matchmakers range selection accuracy.
Now its Possible Riot never changed their MMR gains from previous seasons, my suspicion is they have higher gains per match then others so they can lower the # of matches to get you to a reasonable tier. Even for the casual player that's not a good thing. Less matches played = less accuracy = trashed games from team imbalance. By allowing RNG luck to have a higher impact on accounts you make the MMR to skill ranges much wider. It will work in that it will get you into a range of "fair" but the quality in that range suffers by higher # of mismatched accounts. What a Fair K factor should be does vary.
Ultimately I'd love to see more talks on how to improve things rather then yet another Rant about some one having a bad time in some tiny sample size of matches. Like quality of matches are heavily influenced by player behavior, if there is a surplus of toxic accounts then there is a surplus of trashed matches.
But when some one says rubbish like matchmakers "broken" or MMR doesn't work. That's really irritating for me because they work, you can literally make one, fill in the variables, set its rules, and then test it with complete RNG to see how long it takes to be accurate.
Instead we get spammed FOTM tilt threads with no understanding of how matchmaker works, no comprehension what MMR is expected to represent, no clue how the ladder functions. OPs often don't engage once with posters and still collect upvotes. Which bugs me because it bumps the visibility of the thread up and bandwagoners will see some one get rewarded then imitate it. So the boards maintains the exact same direction its had for years. Constant whining that burys real content .
If people provided accurate or relevant information id have less beef with it. Most do not, so I made this post to address it. I hate how much of a echo chamber it becomes on the boards.
If i'm wrong about something? The easy solution is to prove it. I am open to adapting my viewpoint when I get new information.
Now, to directly Address your comment Dope.
It would be dishonest to not say I am a fan of Riots. Their decision to not copy and paste Dota and some of its mechanics was a big deal. Their F2P model was really nice when I had less disposable income then i do now. That's most of it. I do enjoy some of the goofy things they do for marketing and promotions.
Look I enjoy Mobas a lot as a game type and lol tends to consistently be better then most (turn rates for balance is just clunky AF). When its not I play the others. Currently I am playing Undertale and Smite mostly with a few matches of LOL here and there. When game imbalance shifts to a meta I hate I simply don't play as much. If I get bored or burned out I stop playing entirely. The nice thing about infinitely shifting metas is a massive amount of replay value.
Nothing about what I like riot has to do with their matchmaking system. My opinion on them also does not influence my views on MMR and Elo systems as a whole. I don't blindly believe Elo is a working system because riot uses it. Its cuz its a documented system and turns out you can find information on it like the how and why it works.
