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@ Riot employee, How does match maker choose my team?

Dyex·12/18/2015, 6:19:04 AM·3 votes·920 views
Matchmaking Guide

I just want to reach out and ask how does match making work choosing the players I am teamed with? Right now it feels very "set up" for one side to win, - to the point I'm starting to feel frustrated that my impact matters little due to predetermined player groupings, because one side is notable better skilled or has reliable players (bad connections included) to carry the team as a whole.

I feel that the algorithms/match making somehow predetermines which team wins and who loses before you hit the rift and, no matter how "Try Hard" you are or how passive you play, you will lose if you are on the losing team. Lets say you win 5 or 6 games in a row, you WILL lose the next game you play no matter what or who you play with. Not even Faker can carry you at that point. It is losing streak street for you at that point. Maybe i am missing something and i know some will say "Get Good", but getting good will not save you from the hand of the match making God lmao. You win some you lose some i guess. well played Rito, well played.

I read your Matchmaking Guide 2015, and it says players should be grouped with people with similar game experience (MMR) at the start of creating a profile and as time passes, *"the system will very slowly broaden the range it considers acceptable to team you with". It also says MMR is part based on number of games you played.

This all adds up to makes me feels like players on my team are treated as part of a way to control my win ratio, directing some frustration at my team mates rather then feeling challenged by good opponents and worth defeat. Honest I don't want to feel like that.

I understand that the match maker algorithms wants to keep players win to loss ratio to be close to 50%W : 50%L to keep players challenged but when people have over 3000+ games under their belt I don't understand why I see player in the same match with less then 150 - 300 games in the same groups.

I am not trying to complain I love the game and it's a sincere question I think everyone feels now and then and like some Riot acknowledgment. Thank you. (This is just my opinions from my perspective, based by my experience and skill mostly in non-ranked normal games and with some ranked games. I would think ranked match maker would work similarly to normal though.)

6 Comments

Kinjishi12/18/2015, 6:38:35 AM2 votes

"Make games less toxic by matching you with the right players" - Riot hahaha, good one. If that becomes true someday, it will be surprising.

"the match maker algorithms wants to keep players win to loss ratio to be close to 50%W : 50%L " This is untrue. I've kept track of my individual W/L ratio in PvP for League. It doesn't do this, especially for SR.

Mokkun12/18/2015, 7:05:06 AM2 votes

There are 3 things here that I think are affecting your perception and how the games go.

  1. This is a snowball meta. Effort was spent during preseason to make the game easier to just end, and that results in stompier games.

  2. You may be essentially at your proper MMR. That means that you won't necessarily have a significant impact in your games because you aren't substantially better(or worse) than your average opponents. So it simply comes down, on your end, to who's having a good/bad game.

  3. Confirmation bias. It has to be said, but it's very easy to get in the trap of noticing the games that fit your hypothesis, and ignore the ones that don't. Add in the fact that things can be streaky, and you set yourself up for a flawed perception.

The game really does have no way of knowing who's going to be better than who, outside of MMR. MMR is permanently in flux, and players can easily get on a roll, or on tilt and do better and worse than their average play level. The game doesn't know who's internet connection is better (outside the fact that leaverbuster is relatively aggressive toward whole dc's and so heavy dc'rs probably aren't in your game), and it certainly doesn't know who had a bad day today before they got online. All it knows is people's average performance over however long they've played that game mode. Computers just aren't smart enough to stack it up worse for you, and actual match fixing would be so universally blatant that we'd all know.

BluePolarizer12/18/2015, 7:06:43 AM2 votes

I firmly believe in a "losing streak alley" where you are stuck there after a winning streak. You can counteract it by duoing with a friend on a winning streak.

Dyex12/18/2015, 7:31:53 AM1 votes

I agree with you. And I know we have bad games or counter picks wreck our picked champions we want to explore with and may cost us the game. I'm not getting too frustrated with that and I hope I'm understood enough. And some times I Know I was the one that person looks down on my team too bad play or pick. It's just - If Riot wants it to be a uphill battle to win, don't make the challenge by handicaps in my own team. It just leads to fustration I don't want to feel at my team mates.

Dyex12/18/2015, 7:37:02 AM1 votes

Thanks that's one option. :)