"ELO Hell" What it is Why it exists

I've created this post to explain in more detail what happens in matchmaking systems and to ask those who claim to know statistics to look a bit deeper.

The Dunning-Kruger effect is when players have misconceptions about their their own ability. For example, when players in Bronze or Silver think that they are better than the other players in Silver and Bronze. But it also refers to when players in Platinum and Diamond think that carrying out of Silver or Bronze is easy or when players say that anyone who is decently competent at the game can easily get to Platinum or Diamond. Both are examples of misconception of skill. But "ELO Hell" is more than a misconception of skill. ELO Hell is a feeling players experience where it doesn't seem to matter what their personal ability is and that the outcome of games is determined by factors out of their control. As such ELO Hell is not the Dunning-Kruger effect...

Let's take a closer look at how matchmaking systems, in general, work. Let's say that you start with 100 players all of whom play several rounds of games. When they win they go "up" when they lose they go "down". This is just generally true of matchmaking systems. After one round 50 players are up 1 (i.e. 1/0) and 50 down are down 1 (i.e. 0/1). Players that are up1 are matched with each other and players that are down1 are matched with each other is a good approximation of what happens in matchmaking. That is: players who have performed about the same so far get matched with other players that have performed approximately as well. Then after the second iteration, 25 players are up2, 50 players have gone even, and 25 players are down1. The 50 players that went even include both those who went up then down and those who went down then up. All matchmaking systems eventually mix groups of players that arrive at similar records by different means. So we can notice that the number of player at the top of the ladder is decreasing, the number of players at the bottom of the ladder is decreasing, and the number of players in the middle is increasing. As the players continue to play more rounds of games, the number of players at the top or bottom drops significantly relative to the number of players in the middle. This means that players at the top and bottom are more quickly placed according to their true skill level than players near the middle. This is a general trend in matchmaking systems and it the first contributor to the feeling of ELO Hell: the fact that it takes longer for many players to reach their true ranking.

Almost all matchmaking systems will have a cap on how low you can go but no cap on how high you can go. This is because as spectators we want to see clearly those players that are at the top, but aren't usually interested in those players at the bottom. Often players are assigned non-negative scores and zero will usually be the cap at the bottom. As a result the bottom of the matchmaking experiences a bulging as players hit the bottom cap and are unable to descend lower (for example Bronze V 0LP is the lowest you can go). This effect increases the number of games some players need to play before they are placed properly. Players that bounce off a bottom cap drop lower before having to climb up and players that bounce off an upper cap go higher before dropping down. In most matchmaking systems, we want the number of players to thin as we go up because we want to see clearly those players that are at the top and care less about the middle and bottom. This is the second contributor to "ELO Hell".

The third contributor is the integration of new players into a system. Many matchmaking systems will try to have accounts that are new to the matchmaking system play games until the system is satisfied that it can give a preliminary guess as to where those players belong and during this time it will try to match the new accounts with other accounts new to the system (which is often not possible unless new accounts are constantly joining the system). Inevitably, these accounts have to lose their preliminary status and enter the matchmaking system as if they were any other account. Most matchmaking systems will introduce those new accounts into lower ELOs. This is because new additions at the top of the ranking would muddle the clarity of what players are really excelling. This makes it harder for players in the middle and lower ELOs to be placed accurately by the system because even more games are required to place them accurately. This is the third contributor to "ELO Hell".

Fourthly, the most significant contributor to ELO Hell is the players themselves. Many players are fairly skilled, but they afk too often, surrender too many games too early, or flame teammates too often. These sorts of players drop lower in the the matchmaking system than their inherent skill because these behaviors lose games. This factor is what turns the natural tendencies of matchmaking systems in the middle and lower ELOS into the so-called "ELO Hell". This is why games played at middle and lower ELO can give the feeling that your true ability at the game is not the most important factor in determining your success. This is why ELO Hell exists.

There isn't much that players can do about factors that come from how matchmaking systems, in general, work, but players can choose to change their own behavior to be a positive force in what is naturally a difficult ELO to play in. My advice to players with lower MMR that are serious about improving is: play to improve. Don't take your wins for granted as indicators that you don't need to improve. Don't take your KDA as an indicator of your personal skill. Ask yourself what you might have done differently or done better. No matter how good your KDA is, maybe you still missed an opportunity, maybe you still made a mistake, maybe you used a bad strategy. Maybe you just got lucky

Finally, I would like to say that if you do truly belong at a middle or lower ELO, then you will eventually experience ELO Hell as described here.

TL;DR To recap, ELO Hell isn't about "there are 4 randoms on your team and 5 randoms on the enemy team" and therefore your probability of winning is better and therefore you advance. That is a superficial examination of how matchmaking works at different ELOs and a worthy statistician would not rest on such a skin deep observation. Also, just because ELO Hell exists doesn't mean there is anything RIOT can (or should) do to eliminate it.