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Equity of League

Tamyron··7 votes·560 views

So, two unranked players are matched against a Gold with 3k wins on a bot lane.

Needless to say they were literally destroyed to 0 by a support. Seems to be a reoccurring theme in my games lately. It strikes me as pointless to even implement ranked system if you are not playing with people on the same level, but instead fill holes to create impression of equal chances. Let me put it straight. IT'S NOT FUN. Not for me, nor for them or even enemy team.

I came back to league (again) because I've heard about the new update. So, I steadily climbed my way to gold until over a night I began to lose a game after a game. On further inspections I was often just put in some highly unfair matches. I understand that it's not always a win, but right now you are rigging the games. And I feel like I was wining before only because until some time into the game it was treating me as the weak link when I was everything but.

Now it's up to me to cover for 3 unranked players. Well, I can't. This is a team game and I rely on my teammates just as much as I'm expected to carry. If I'm really that "good" just let me climb until I hit this 50% win-rate wall, DO NOT CREATE IT. This is exactly what the ELO HELL is. No wonder so many people are so frustrated with the game.

Regardless, I get this idea of "equal opportunity" you are trying to create. Too bad it goes exactly against it. What's fair in those players getting destroyed 0/10/1? And this is exactly the support from my last game, who actually helped me when I asked him to. They were just thrown in there for a defeat against an opponent they stood no real chance with, because apparently they had "50%" chance to win.

What's the point? Why ranks even exist if you are set to have a 50% win-rate? Because this way they mostly represent your luck, not skill. How are people supposed to find their place when they are thrown around with no direction where veterans are mixed with casual players? Your weird system gets in the way and worst of all creates some really bad experience.

If you are Silver II you should be playing with Silver II. If I'm the one who is about to make the difference let me prove myself and move in some direction, don not handicap me for sake of equity. You are only hurting your players.

This is my only major complain. Much changed since the last time I've played and mostly for positive, even community got a little less toxic. But from my perspective matchmaking haven't changed much and I'm giving up on it again.

11 Comments

Jbels2 votes

Honestly ranked should be a mostly even playing field if it wants to be fair. MOSTLY. Sometimes you should have to fight people at a higher level than you, or you'll never go anywhere as far as rising skill level. How the hell do you get better always playing against people who are the same level as you?

Zielmann2 votes

The 'weirdness' of the system is all in your head. It doesn't work the way you think it does. Nowhere does matchmaking look at a player and go "oh, well, this guy is at 55% win-rate, better give him worse allies to push that back down." The game does not "force" a 50% winrate, and never has. There are players in Challenger with 60%+ win rates. If the system worked to force a 50% win rate, these players would start getting matched with mid-low diamond players until they lost enough games to even back out. That doesn't happen.

And your ranking doesn't matter to matchmaking, because MMR isn't determined by your ranking. It makes no sense to match only S2 with S2. You might think you'd have better quality games, but they would be just as bad. You'll have S2 teammates rapidly on their way to gold (with maybe even 200 MMR higher than expected for S2) matching up against players that are S2 and falling (possibly with 200 MMR lower than expected for S2). That's a matchup that never should happen.

Now, there is a problem that exists, and right around the high silver, low gold range. I should know, I'm there right now myself. It's basically where the default MMR is for accounts that have never played ranked before. So sometimes you'll get that unranked guy who only just hit 30 on his first account and dives right into ranked and will wind up mid-bronze by the end of the season if he keeps playing. You might also get the unranked player who is a Plat player on a new smurf they just got to 30 and start playing ranked on it. Add to that the low gold players queued with their low silver friends who average out to around that same starting MMR, and it does make things pretty chaotic in there.

Tamyron1 votes

I haven't really implied it. I think that after a wining streak I got an MMR boost and my team quality suffers from it.

And if there was no MMR stacked on top of ranks there would be no problem. Since now game tries to find players around my rank but also takes MMR into account. So enemy team is filled with Silver and my team is filled with Unranked. It's always a defeat even if we win lanes since you can't always carry lategame with only two players.

I'm exactly there. Silver was a breeze but had grate games that lasted and were actually exhausting. Like actually fun. I was about to give some positive feedback and then it's just a horrible game after another.

Arhkadian1 votes

{quoted}

The 'weirdness' of the system is all in your head. It doesn't work the way you think it does. Nowhere does matchmaking look at a player and go "oh, well, this guy is at 55% win-rate, better give him worse allies to push that back down." The game does not "force" a 50% winrate, and never has. There are players in Challenger with 60%+ win rates. If the system worked to force a 50% win rate, these players would start getting matched with mid-low diamond players until they lost enough games to even back out. That doesn't happen.

And your ranking doesn't matter to matchmaking, because MMR isn't determined by your ranking. It makes no sense to match only S2 with S2. You might think you'd have better quality games, but they would be just as bad. You'll have S2 teammates rapidly on their way to gold (with maybe even 200 MMR higher than expected for S2) matching up against players that are S2 and falling (possibly with 200 MMR lower than expected for S2). That's a matchup that never should happen.

Now, there is a problem that exists, and right around the high silver, low gold range. I should know, I'm there right now myself. It's basically where the default MMR is for accounts that have never played ranked before. So sometimes you'll get that unranked guy who only just hit 30 on his first account and dives right into ranked and will wind up mid-bronze by the end of the season if he keeps playing. You might also get the unranked player who is a Plat player on a new smurf they just got to 30 and start playing ranked on it. Add to that the low gold players queued with their low silver friends who average out to around that same starting MMR, and it does make things pretty chaotic in there.

I haven't checked it, but my friend recently said I have like a 65% winrate in norms.

ShinkoMinori1 votes

the game is not 50% chance to win:

If you have positive win ratio you are likely to keep winning. If you have negative win ratio you are likely to keep losing. If you have a win ratio around 50% then you are not likely going to move anywhere.

Its as easy as that... also unranked are the worst thing you can face... mostly kids just hitting 30 and trying ranked coz "why not" you need to get out of that elo if you want to get somewhere

Tamyron1 votes

It's not. But that's exactly what developers are aiming for. Maybe you don't experience same games as I do. I find myself in position where it's impossible to win. So either I was boosted or I'm getting screwed. Either way this should not be happening.

ModKnightsKemplar1 votes

This is all about stats. It CANNOT always match you against equal players. If you're getting matched against better people, that just means your MMR is inflated, and it will come down. One-sided matches happen in all games/sports.

You ever watched Demetrious Johnson fight in the UFC? It ALWAYS looks one-sided, despite the fact that he's always fighting the contender for the belt. He's just that good.

Did you see this year's Super Bowl? In the second half, the Pats made it look like they were playing a college team.

This is part of the game. If you hate losing that much, play a different game. This one is competitive, and in competitive games, you have to match people up without knowing who is necessarily better. That's kind of the point.

King of Demons1 votes

Who says that those unranked players HAVE to play on a lower skill level than you?

Tamyron1 votes

They literally do play on a different skill level?

Having teams build from such a wide range of players introduces unnecessary frustration when it's so reliant on teamwork. One person feeding can ruin the whole game. Now expecting two players to carry a team of 3 feeders is unrealistic but these are the games I have to face.

King of Demons1 votes

No, they don't. You are matched with them, you play on the same skill level.

That's what happens if you are average. New people will be considered average until placed otherwise.

But no, just because they are unranked they are not inexperienced players.

Tamyron1 votes

I'm matched with both Silver and Platinum. I assume there must be a slight difference is skill between 3 leagues. If there is non however my point stands. There is no point in stacking two systems when it's only arbitrary. From my perspective it may be even punishing.

Matchmaking tries to predict instead of letting people to battle it out. So it doesn't really know. It puts you is some situation it thinks it's fair and then tries to rank you? So it unavoidably affects the outcome. You may think that I'm complaining because I can't climb. I'm complaining because I'm falling like a rock to the league I breezed trough. Now I'm supposed to do it all over again? If I belong there then why I was allowed to climb so quickly in the first place? If I'm unskilled then I'm not playing with people on the same level.

But no, just because they are unranked they are not inexperienced players

Some of them are some of them are not. If this is your main point then I could cherry pick games all day long. But those players are definitely a wild card like pretty much any player ranked by this system so I can't even complain.

So dose matchmaking really ranking you with players of your own skill? Why my every match-up ranges from Silver to Platinum? Is there no difference in skill between those?

https://support.riotgames.com/hc/en-us/articles/201752954-Matchmaking-Guide

Just at the begging it puts:

Create fair and competitive matches

Over:

Make games less toxic by matching you with the right players

Now as vague as it is from my experience I'm constantly thrown into highly mixed games. And "matching you with the right players" doesn't stand form some filter of toxicity. As latter stated they don't put people in different queue based on it. So I only assume your team is just slapped together from players whose combined MMR (with some modifiers) is equal to opposite team and if possible with people of your own skill. Now first situation is the biggest culprit. This means that terrible players can be matched with someone much more experience against an average team.

There is this old saying that chains is only as strong as its weakest link. I had games from both sides of spectrum and these are the most frustrating of them.

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