Logic Of MM System - Why is it hidden and how can this potential make Riot eligible for class action
Riot is silent about matchmaking, making it one of the few opaque parts of this game. Everything we have is from third parties and assumptions.
But why is that?
The official statement: You can abuse the system. There is a big problem with this statement. Almost every ELO system is transparent in its math, and for a reason. When you don't have control to which opponent you face, you can't really abuse the system since nothing you can do affects the outcome in a positive way. So herein lies the paradox. Then it had to be something more why Riot is keeping it under wraps. In the following lines I will try to break the wall and shed some light on the shady world of matchmaking. So let's begin.
To understand the mind of game design, we must stop first a Gacha games. Gacha games are freemium games where the actual game is hidden behind a lottery system. Same thing as loot chests. Gacha games are highly profitable games, and the game design industry has tried to borrow a lot from them. Culminating with EA Battlefront clusterfuck.
Gacha games don't disclose their lottery rating. Because most of the times the values will keep the players from actually participating in the lottery. And this thread (https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/general-discussion/f4Pv2bm9-skin-rerolls-are-highly-weighted-no-1350-skins-data-inside) proved that Riot is no stranger to this. They knew their weighted rate will affect the people rerolling for skins so they kept it hidden.
So here's where our trail starts: Riot is keeping MM system algorithm hidden because it might cause an outcry.
But why?
To understand the next part is to understand ELO system. An ELO system is not perfect and it was not specifically conceived for games like LoL.
The first problem arises from the fact official chess ELO games, where the system originated, takes a big span of time. In LoL you can play 20 games in a day. The big issue is that ELO system foundation is that the player skill is slowly rising, it takes years also the number of games is way smaller. For example, Kasparov has around 2500 ELO games in the course of almost 40 years.
So the ELO system in itself would prove a flawed approach. So they need to make tweaks.
You know how you get that 10 games losing streak? Where every game feels like a hell? Well, that could happen the other way around ... Except it never does. Because this is exactly why it all happens in the first place.
If you leave the ELO system by itself, due to high number of games vs how much it takes for the player to actually improve, you'll have a lot of players getting lucky and be out of rank.
A lucky 10 win streak could propel a player way out of his league. Which alone would be a problem except there's more to this.
You see, ELO system is very resistant to change. And all of this is due to K-factor. K-factor is a thing people omit when talking about ELO systems, but it's highly important. Is a factor that caps the growth or decay of ELO based on difference. So if the difference is small, the ELO growth is small, if the difference is big, the ELO growth is ... caped. LoL doesn't follow this rules.
A balanced game would give you little ELO points no matter how good you are. A big difference in ELO would have the following outcomes: if you are smaller ELO guy, when losing a game you lose little ELO and when winning you gain more. If you are the big ELO guy, when lose, you lose more ELO points and when win you win little.
In LoL is the opposite. And why's that?
In the early days, Riot strived for faster MM ques. They lacked the current system. So the games where chaotical. Due to so many roles, you can end up 5 main mid in team a lose. There was too much randomness, a slow system but fragile system like ELO would an ineffective and slow process. So they went for something else entirely: a system that resists randomness.
So return to our earlier point: a very chaotic system could easily propel a player out of his league. But not only the player would get out of his league, but the chaotic system could keep him there and cause tons of unpleasant games before being sent to his place.
The problem with a system that resist randomness is that you have to force it. The best way to force such a system is block excessive growth. This means after a while if a player is getting momentum you try to stop it.
How you do that? Using an opposite force, so you add players that have opposite momentum.
And here lies the cluster fuck. Players with upward momentum are not necessarily good. They could have a lucky game. Player with bad momentum are not necessary bad, but they are clearly tilted. Also the oppostion might have a different "momentum balance", which makes for a more stable team. So the chance to of getting a winning streak is very small, but the chance of getting a losing stream is considerable
**But why hide this? It simple, the game forces you to lose putting yourself against impossible odds. And in a place where people invest their passion and time, doing something like this is called mental abuse. **
Riot is mentally abusing its player base.
