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Forced to Smurf : Questionable Matchmaking?

Supp Hero·5/15/2015, 9:49:11 PM·2 votes·1,039 views

I'll start this post by assuming matchmaking takes into multiple factors: W/L Ratio, Overall Games Played, and K/D/A. Neither of these 3 factors should be weighted much more than the others, except maybe W/L ratio. Other factors to be considered could be: CS, Damage Dealt/Received/Healed, and possibly # of wards placed. It's hard to tell otherwise if a player was 'good' or helpful to the team, so these factors have to be the main consideration.

So I play on a level 30 account, and get matched against Silvers and Golds with 100s of more Wins than I have after playing 5 pvp games on my account, so obviously that is not an option - I make a smurf account. Surely at low levels, the games will be a little more fairly matched - I was wrong.

With all that in mind, it makes me question the underlying system Riot uses for matchmaking when I see games such as this, under solo queuing for a normal game: Team 1: Team 2: P1(me): 4 Wins P1: 70 Wins P2: 30 Wins P2: 125 Wins P3: 50 Wins P3: 90 Wins P4: 80 Wins P4: 30 Wins P5: 25 Wins P5: 80 Wins

All it took for this game to be more balanced was a slight rearranging of players. AGAIN I'm not saying W/L is the most important factor, but keep in mind the total wins for this games' matchup was Team 1: 189 wins, Team 2 : 395 Wins

You'd hope this is the exception more than the norm - however this is what happens when I start playing on any account, smurf or not. I am P1, I've only played 5 games on this account, and I get matched against these people? Joke, I seriously hope. You could always use the age old argument for this type of comparison "Their overall games played could be much higher so their W/L ratio is actually low", yes you could. But if you played this game with me you would see the P2 and P3 on their team brutally destroyed every player on our team, mostly solo.

Every game is like this, including the games I win. The games I have won, the enemy mostly had no chance, they were just seriously out skilled by most players on my team. The games I have lost, there were always 1-2 really good players who were just eons above the skill level of the other team.

I would rather have slightly longer queue times than to be matched instantly and have no apparent calculation of skill match up.

And if your only reply to this thread is that 'This topic again?' well then maybe that is an indicator of the problem that needs to be addressed.

This complaint is not about 'noob teammates' or anything so if you're going to mention that kindly gtfo, this complaint is about seriously uneven teams for games I have won and games I have lost. The complaint is that I'm consistently getting matched against players that are either: A) Much better than I am, B) Much worse than I am. The rare game where things are balanced is a nice refresher.

19 Comments

Wickedfates5/15/2015, 10:15:39 PM2 votes

well, i have notice as i level that ofn when i play a normal game i will see match ups like a lv 10 on one side and a lv 30 diamond player on the other.... how would that match up ever be fair? no clue.....

but then i have been told by people (take that as u will) that since match making is trying to keep players at a 50 win / 50 loss ratio that it will often one side matches so that one team should lose all else being equal (think AI matches u to lose but the enemy team has 2 dc's and u win that is outside what it wanted)

even in ranked....

COWmanLord5/15/2015, 11:22:38 PM2 votes

Well you are wrong about 1 thing. Matching takes 1 thing and 1 thing alone in to account when creating games and that is the players mmr. Even in normals your account still has an mmr value. W/L rate in turn is the only one of those stats that has an effect on your mmr, but a much more important factor is who you beat. Number of wins alone is a generally poor way of determining skill level. It gives you a basis for how much experience they are likely to have, but you get no other information than that.

Here are a few examples using myself:

To give you some of the background for my experience level and time spent playing. I am currently gold 5. I first played the game some time around the start of season 3, but it didn't hook me right away and I only played until level 10. Closer to the season's end I met some friends who were into the game and I joined them and began to play much more actively since then.

Now 1 friend of mine began playing 2 years before I did. As such he has around 900 wins to my 600-700ish wins. However while I am gold 5 he is only silver 5 and frankly a much worse player than I am (this isn't bragging he would very much admit this to you himself and so would a everyone we play with). He has played the game a lot longer and has many more wins than I do, but just isn't as good.

Another example would be my experience in ranked. As stated earlier I am gold 5, but typically I see at least 3 plat 5s per game with the rest of the players being a mix of gold 3-1 (I am in my promos and have a good win rate so my mmr is a bit higher than G5). These plats typically have upwards of 1000 wins with a few of them even branching into the 2000 - 3000 range. I have not been keeping track, but as I make up 1 player on my team and I quite frequently duo with my brother who is the same rank, simple statistics dictate that these plats typically end up on the opposing team and from my memory that is how it usually is. Despite the monumental difference in amount of wins, I find myself very capable of playing at an equal level.

Now a variety of factors could influence this. I may be just getting lucky or I may just be good, but either way it shows that amount of wins are not everything.

Despite all of this I understand that matchmaking can be a stressful thing and it can be confusing how the system works. If you are interested, I would be willing to keep track of some of the games I play later today and can put them on this thread in a similar fashion to the game you recorded in your post. I will probably begin playing at around 6-6:30 and can mark down a few games to see how they line up with what you say. In the even that this remains unseen before the time stated earlier I will probably add them to this post anyways, but if you have no interest in this and see this comment please let me know.

Krigjer5/15/2015, 10:18:15 PM1 votes

Just because you have more wins, doesn't mean you're a better player.

BringYourOwnPuma5/15/2015, 10:48:17 PM1 votes

You have no idea how many losses those "high win" teams you're up against have. And at 4 games you cant even begin to know if you belong with them or not. Riot has said that it takes approximately 150 games to settle into your correct MMR.