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If a MMR is supposed to be an accurate gauge of skill why does it change so suddenly?

MrSc0tty·Aug 29, 2014·3 votes·1,128 views

It just seems like a system designed to accurately gauge your skill and adjust your gains and losses to reflect that should adjust them over time, rather than suddenly and quite annoyingly.

For instance: I have been playing consistently with a 55%+ winrate since I was Silver 3. That went up when I got into silver I and I started playing only my most efficient champions. All the way up through there I hovered at around 25lp a win, -20 for a loss, which lead me to believe I was steadily doing okay. I expected it to taper off slowly, but it didn't seem to, until I got to Silver I 60LP-when suddenly the system decided "Welp, we have concluded that given your consistent 3.5:1 KDA and 60% winrate in this league that you are getting lucky and being carried and therefore we are dropping your LP gains by 12. In the space of one game. Because fuck you." So now I gain 13, and lose 20 for a loss, so even with a >50% winrate it is impossible to climb any higher.

Why have this kind of a system? What is the point of leagues being tied to LP if LP is inherently a system just built in place to mask what's really going on? If I could see my MMR, and realize it's not yet gold level, but see it steadily rising I would be happy-instead, I'm just frustrated by an apparently imbalanced system that arbitrarily decides "this is where you belong! Screw your attempts to climb!"

I would love an explanation for how the league system is designed to do anything but frustrate the people who are trying to climb it and comfort those who are caught at the V League 0 LP level.

9 Comments

DromeasAug 29, 20141 votes

TLDR at the bottom

My first comment would be that you are still stuck on the idea that MMR and LP represent the same thing. In the past, MMR or ELO was your ranking, that was how you were divided into tiers.

The new system is very different in its approach in Solo Queue, your MMR is now hidden and used ONLY for matchmaking, meaning if you are consistently winning (+50%) your MMR will increase. This means that you will continually face opponents that are at your skill level, (not necessarily in the same division or tier)

LP reflects how good you are with respect to the other players in your division. The reason you see the drop in LP is because you are approaching the skill level of the players in the top of that division/tier. And because of the (+50%) win ratio, ALOT of players are stuck in the division 1 of their respective tier.

There have been cases where players in silver 1 finished their promos and get placed into gold 1/2 because their MMR was just that high but their win rate kept them from promoting a while ago

I definitely agree that Riot should be more transparent with their MMR system. I know the feeling of seeing your LP taper off, but keep working hard. I believe the threshold for consistent promotion is somewhere around 56% (<- Read this on a blog) Which isn't that high, compared to other games.

TL;DR MMR is your skill level, LP is your skill relative to the top of your division/tier

Hope that helps!

MrSc0ttyAug 29, 20141 votes

So, I'm getting matched with players in gold league.

But my LP is clamping because despite my MMR apparently being high, my LP is low, because my LP is clamping, because my winrate is consistently high.

And this isn't a broken system because....

DromeasAug 30, 20141 votes

Do you think you are the ONLY person in Silver 1 or you have the highest MMR out of all the silver players? LP reflects how good you are in proportion to the rest the players in your tier. So if you are approaching the tops of the league naturally you will receive less and less LP. Its not broken, you just need to adjust your thinking.

MrSc0ttyAug 30, 20141 votes

If my MMR were in silver 1 I'd be playing silvers wouldn't i.

DromeasAug 30, 20141 votes

except a lot of players in silver 1 also have high MMR just like you do,

MrSc0ttyAug 30, 20141 votes

And that indicates a poorly designed system. If your MMR is equivalent to a gold player, then you should be in gold. If a whole ton of people are artificially stuck in silver, that is a clear indication that the MMR->LP system doesn't function correctly and is holding players back where they don't belong.

Look, I'm not saying "waah the system is unfair for just me and Rito just places me with ragers and feeders"

I'm saying the system is poorly designed for a majority of bronze and silver players. The increased randomness in low Elo causes the clamping and promotional periods to take dozens of games longer than they should and often cause a player to be Silver II MMR by the time they get past bronze I promos. There are often three times as many players bunched in the I division and cesspooling in the V division than there are in II, III and IV. Instead of a system where you gradually rise if you have >50% winrate and eventually reach where you belong, you get a system that actually rewards the lucky 10 game winstreaks it's supposed to compensate for and clumps players at B1 and S1 for 20+ games steadily accumulating MMR and then catapults them to G2 in another six games.

It works great once you pass gold and you have players around the same skill level in a division. But in bronze and silver, where 80% of the player base is stuck, the system is straight up busted for everyone.

DromeasAug 30, 20141 votes

I agree to some of it and disagree with some of it =)

The fact that there are so many players in the lower division and so few in the higher ones is strange to me. I think the underlying problem is that MMR and LP don't work nicely with each other. At the moment there is no correlation between your LP and your MMR.

I'm not trying to say the system is perfect it most certainly not. In fact Riot is making some changes to the top of the Tiers, because it is not perfect. My guess is that they are experimenting with the system of challenger/Master so they can use it for the others.

FYI you can have a MMR of a Silver/Bronze player and be "stuck" in Gold, that's why they have soft resets every season to counteract those who have lucky streaks, good or bad.

TheShinxAug 29, 20141 votes

That's Rough Buddy.

But I know what you are talking about. During the whole season 3 LP clamping BS of EACH league, I capped at 99 LP Silver 1 with 50+% win rate. (not sure exact numbers Sorry.) However I have learned not to question the system that is riots Ranked. I find it's pointless since nothing we can do about it other then ask questions with an answer of what Dromeas said.

I personally feel like Match making is more of an issue then the MMR/LP calculation issue stated by you. I don't know if I am just stupidly unlucky or what, but I constantly get 4/5th pick in Draft mode games.

MrSc0ttyAug 29, 20141 votes

I just hope at some point riot figures out freshman statistics-the average skill level of a level 30 player should NOT be 80% in bronze/silver, 20% in the FIVE other leagues. There needs to be a more viable way to climb without artificially holding back the 80% to stroke the e-pens of the 20.

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