Normal matchmaking should not only take both teams' average ranked MMR into account

Yenn··10 votes·7,514 views

tl;dr if anyone wasn't aware, normal matchmaking seems to only ensure that both teams average ranked MMR is within roughly 4 tiers of each other. Normal MMR doesn't seem to be used if you have ranked MMR.

This means that it considers a team of 5x Diamond I players vs. a team of 5x Platinum I players an acceptable match. Likewise, this is also why we get shit matches where a random Diamond player is thrown onto a team of Gold players against Platinum players, because they 'even out' the average. This is also why matchmaking is a shit show when 4-5 man teams with different ranks are involved.

This is easily verified by looking up both teams on op.gg. If you're above Diamond, most games will have exactly a 4 tier gap, because there aren't enough players to fill games and it starts reaching for whatever it can get to hit the average.

This isn't acceptable matchmaking, and more often than not turns game quality into shit. At the very least, it should take into account the MMR of the person in each role. Alternatively, give us an option to allow longer queues in exchange for better matches.

I'd rather sit in queue for 8 minutes and get something that resembles a close game, instead of waiting 3 minutes and being thrown into a one sided stomp because some random Gold II player was thrown into lane against a Master one trick.

12 Comments

Darkdemon6538 votes

{quoted}

tl;dr if anyone wasn't aware, normal matchmaking seems to only ensure that both teams average ranked MMR is within roughly 4 tiers of each other. Normal MMR doesn't seem to be used if you have ranked MMR.

If you join a normal queue, your ranked (or anything else) MMR is not considered at all. The system will use only your normal MMR (I'm not sure if normal draft MMR is separate from blind pick MMR).

Yenn2 votes

{quoted}

If you join a normal queue, your ranked (or anything else) MMR is not considered at all. The system will use only your normal MMR (I'm not sure if normal draft MMR is separate from blind pick MMR).

Except this is verifiable as false if you look at any Diamond+ player's normal matches.

You'll never be able to find a Gold player who exclusively gets matched into games full of Diamond+ players, because it's not how the system works.

Diamond+ players who don't even play normals are still matched with other Diamond+ players, as is evident by the fact that you constantly get games that are exclusively Diamond+ during every pre-season, despite those players never playing normals.

Hi im 121 votes

I will actually take the time to play a normal game just to prove you wrong :^)

Hi im 123 votes

https://i.gyazo.com/648536c0ec99f554dc129cd1765aa735.png

I can now conclude that I am indeed matched with golds, silvers, unranked and a level 9

Yenn1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Hi im 12,realm=EUNE,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=aH7FVqYY,comment-id=000000000001,timestamp=2019-12-25T10:49:48.805+0000)

https://i.gyazo.com/648536c0ec99f554dc129cd1765aa735.png

I can now conclude that I am indeed matched with golds, silvers, unranked and a level 9

:^) Nice, your team's ranked average is Gold IV and the other team's is Gold III. And there's even a trio queue involved.

I don't think the system counts unranked players towards the average, so it will just throw them in if there's absolutely nothing else. I've very rarely seen a legitimate solo queued level 20 in normal games full of Diamond/Master players late at night, when the queue was nearing 10 minutes.

HP Crookshanks3 votes

Normal MMR is dumb and shouldn't even exist.

Ayzev2 votes

But there's people that don't play ranked, so you don't always have ranked mmr. Do you just forego matchmaking altogether then, just toss in whoever is in queue together with whoever else?

Z3SIeeper1 votes

I think it should exist and it should be the only criteria for normal games. It shouldn't even be factoring in Ranked MMR.

hhaavviikk2 votes

[{quoted}](name=HP Crookshanks,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=aH7FVqYY,comment-id=0001,timestamp=2019-12-25T00:59:50.016+0000)

Normal MMR is dumb and shouldn't even exist.

if it didn't exist match making would be even more shit since not everyone plays ranked so normal mmr is the only thing that makes match making acceptable.

Crescent Dusk1 votes

Isn't it fun to get lanes as a jungler who don't care one bit you're getting invaded at blue lv2 right next to them but then they expect you to secure objectives while they go 1/7 in lane?

Theorex1 votes

This is the exact reason why I have 5 other accounts.

My main in diamond, 4 of my accounts in plat, and 1 of my accounts in gold.

Because when I play norms I do not want to fucking try and win, I want to have a good time and run down a kassadin with Trundle mid.

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