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Riot, your ranked system is broken. PLEASE address this issue...

Nethrom·10/12/2014, 5:14:19 AM·17 votes·7,789 views

The TL;DR opening (closing at the bottom): I shouldn't have to play against Plat 5-3 players as a Gold 4 just to get promoted to Gold 3 and have to do it even more just to get to Gold 2.

The actual: I am working on climbing elo, and for a long time now, I have been playing against players who are several tiers higher than me. This has been happening ever since the horrible placement system somehow put me in Silver 4...But, of course, I am a patient guy so I just decided to start climbing. Sure enough climb I did. And the games were very easy and actually I felt a bit bad because there I was way below where I actually SHOULD have been (for real this time) and just crushing all these silver games and ruining the time of 5 other people (enemy team) game after game. It felt like i was smurfing, and it wasn't enjoyable for me or anyone else...

So by the time i reach Silver 1, my MMR was substantially higher than my actual rank was showing, and I was going against Gold 2/3 players consistently. That's fine, gold is also a bit simple. But of course, last season, if you severely outmatched the tier you were in, then you would skip a tier or two, so I patiently figured that instead of going from Silver 1 to Gold 5, I would go to at least Gold 4 or something, since I was already playing against gold 3 people.

Alas, I beat my promo's and ended up in Gold 5.....alright then, that's fine. Let me just climb one more tier, I am sure it will make sense after I beat Gold 5, right?

Nope, get promoted to gold 4. By this time I am constantly against Gold 1 and Plat 5 players, on a team of other gold 1's. And then there I randomly am...a lowly Gold 4...who ends up carrying the game anyway.

So, by the time I am in my promo's I am going against Plat 5-3 players. At this time I figure the logic is SO absolutely broken that it would only put me in Gold 3, so I patiently get through promo's quite handily and get my promotion....to Gold 3....and now I get to climb through Gold 3 going against Plat players.

At this rate, before I even reach Platinum, I will be playing against Diamond enemies.

So can someone PLEASE explain to me why this ends up being logical? How is it that in order to get just to Platinum, I have to beat out ALL the platinum players in the world?

TL;DR closing: Basing your matchmaking on MMR and not the actual tier you're in makes it a completely broken, unbalanced system, and I shouldn't have to beat people 4 tiers higher than me just to get to 3 tiers lower than them.

41 Comments

RiotWookieeCookie10/12/2014, 8:24:48 AM16 votes

Hey Nethrom,

I think I see your point that sometimes it can be confusing to players how the process of them being matched works. There's probably some room for improvement to clarity.

No doubt you've heard that your rank Tier is not the same as your MMR. When you press play, the system won't go, "Nethrom is Gold 3! I will find other Gold 3 Players!"

Instead it will go "Nethrom has XXXX MMR! I will match him against other XXXXX MR players". I figured I would poke around in our tools and op.gg to take a look at your team mates and opponents in recent ranked 5 games and there wasn't that much weirdness.

They've all been between Gold 3 and Plat 5; and share similar MMR as you.

The plat 5 players may seem scary, but it's likely their MMR is a bit below average, and it's possible they are on a downward swing when they play against you. If they don't improve it's possible they'll end up being demoted to gold.

I did double check your MMR though to be safe that something weird might not be going on, and it looks like it's right on target for a Gold 3 Player. It's also pretty cool to see you're on a climb still, no doubt if you stick it out you'll make your goals before the end of the season.

Destîny10/12/2014, 6:08:45 AM6 votes

Personally I hate promos. And it doens't even make sense to me. I want to win to increase my mmr, but if I have a really bad game or if I do happen to get placed with players that DC/afk then the system is holding my rank back from where my mmr is. At least with the elo system my rank was my elo. If I won I increased my elo, and my rank.

At the very least, promos for 5-2 shouldn't exist, only promos from bronze-silver; silver-gold; etc should exist.

Zealsz10/12/2014, 5:49:37 AM2 votes

Following up on this thought. I did my placement matches about half a year ago and did a bit of ranked and I was in Gold 4. Since then I've stopped playing ranked until recently, as such I've decayed to Silver 5. However, I'm still going against Gold 4 opponents.

I assume the logic of ranked decay is that as you stop playing your skill decreases, and your ranking should show that. I agree, that makes complete sense; my skill did decay quite a bit in that time and I totally lost track of where the meta was and all that.

It seems though that even though my rank has decreased, my MMR has stayed the same. This seems to be not the way it should be. If I'm Silver 5, I should be playing with people around Silver 5, namely Silver 4 through Gold 5. But I've mainly seen Gold 4 and 3. Sure this could be a problem with the time when I'm queuing and there being no Silver 5's available, but somehow I don't think that's the case.

Yasa10/12/2014, 7:34:53 AM2 votes

I think elo should be more limited. Gold 1's should be going against plats to prove by winning that they are platinum material, but everyone else should be going against people their same rank. We just need that cap on elo and I think we're good.

Communismo10/12/2014, 3:52:34 PM2 votes

To the OP

The point you are missing from the red post is that while you may be matched against people in higher divisions / tiers from you; it is solely because your skill level is higher than average for your tier.

The purpose of MMR based matching systems like this is to eventually get a player to a level where he is winning around 50% of his games. (because at that point he will not be advancing or declining very much if he stay at the same skill level)

Keep in mind that most people will not be climbing the ladder, but staying in their current position or declining. (this is obvious when you look at the player distribution for the leagues, and how the number of people in each successive league goes down immensely)

So keeping these points in mind, when you are in gold 4 and are being matched against gold 1 or platinum 5 or whatever, it isnt because your mmr is at the average of those tiers. It is because the people you are playing against likely have a below average mmr for their tier. (and likely that your mmr is above average for your tier)

The system is not broken this is how it is supposed to work. In my experience with the exact same kind of system, (getting to the master league in starcraft 2) the best thing you can do it just not think about your league or mmr so much and just focus on improving your game knowledge and mechanics, and the ranking will take care of itself.

Quietimp10/12/2014, 5:31:39 AM2 votes

MMR = matchmaking rating, I don't think anyone needs to argue with that... Tier is just icing on the cake for you to try and get 1 tier higher but it's all about wether or not your mmr is high enough or not.

Edit: I looked at your history and I see no problem at all, it's completly normal.

laehorian10/13/2014, 4:26:57 AM1 votes

clearly broken. as i climb my mmr up with succesfull win streak, i get match with person less skill than me. you defenetly need also more tier for splitting bronze players. wayyyyyy too many bronze players. some are fuckgin good and cant climb cuz 1 chance of 2 to get a retard. the average players should be in the middle of the ranking system, not at the bottom. you guys need to add more rank under bronze but to lower the number of people also like you are doing while you climb to challenger but in the other way. :) hope you get the thing and watch cs go ranking system. way better.

Kereton Arindale10/12/2014, 6:22:47 PM1 votes

Mine is even worse. I'm in Silver 1 and I constantly face high golds and low-mid plats (a couple of plat 1s, actually).

I just want to get the rewards for being in Gold, but I shouldn't have to face high Golds and Plats to prove I am gold quality.

WookieeCookie, I know the likelihood is slim to none, but can players in my situation hope to get a bone thrown our way as the end of the season nears? Thanks!

blissless10/12/2014, 8:50:37 PM1 votes

I've had the same experience as the OP. I'm consistently the lowest-tiered player on either team no matter what the outcome of a game. Sure you can say it's your MMR that matters but then why have tiers at all to begin with? I'm playing with plats, playing against plats... you know, if it looks like a duck and walks like a duck.

Marenjii10/13/2014, 12:10:51 AM1 votes

As Wookie said those players of a substantially higher rank than you, that you are being matched up against are not playing at the level for which they are ranked. That is why you are not skipping divisions. Why have you skip a division because you played someone higher ranked, but with similar MMR?

Grey Wolf10/13/2014, 12:12:54 AM1 votes

Don't worry, the next season will be here soon. And, based on this past season, you'll probably go 5-5 in your promos and be put in Silver.

Yes, Ranked is broken. Unfortunately, normals is worse.

CoolSpot210/13/2014, 12:25:53 AM1 votes

It seems to me that you under impression that there are enough people of same rank playing at any time .

Then you must realize that the important part is to get Qs that don't look for match for 20 minutes which I have seen in games that tried to do what you want