Can we get a clear answer why we have MMR and Rank?

Horse Grenades·4/1/2019, 12:25:22 PM·1 votes·1,764 views

I don’t know if I’ve ever seen this addressed in a straight forward manner. Riot, I’m sorry I’m usually the first person to complain about the lack of transparency and explanations when it comes to gameplay decisions. The current system just increases frustration. Seems like if you are gonna have both just have a certain level of MMR= a certain rank.

I know you guys get shit-posted all day, but some clarification would be nice!

4 Comments

DeathBurst4/1/2019, 1:37:31 PM3 votes

It was addressed in a straight forward manner a couple times, but usually not in dedicated posts, more as side comments in posts regarding other topics. Let me recap here.

The crux of the issue is that MMR and Rank have different goals: MMR is trying to guess at and represent your skill level as accurately as possible, whereas Ranked is designed to give players an entertaining experience to players all year long.

You can disagree with that goal (I know I do, at least partially), but that IS the current goal of the system. And if you do disagree with that, you need to argue against the goal itself, not against the implementation, because the implementation is working as intended.

Some additional details, in no specific order:

An obvious sign that Rank is NOT trying to model your skill level is the annual reset, and the fact placement series purposefully gives you a lower-than-you-deserve rank. There are a few side reasons (e.g. getting rid of inactive accounts in the ladder), but the main reason for the reset is giving players something to do during the season. You get a "lower" Rank, and you spend your year climbing up to what you actually deserve.
The Rank system is tuned so that you can climb back up with a "reasonable" amount of games for most players, a couple game per week on average over the whole season. It's a system that is designed to maximize engagement, not to accurately model your skills.
On the other hand, MMR is not designed to be entertaining. It's supposed to converge quickly, and then it can oscillate a lot and very dynamically. Ghostcrawler has said that "if you give a meter to players, they assume they have to fill it", and that's not the point of MMR. For most players, their MMR won't climb noticeably over long period of time, but it will go down noticeably in the short term after a loss streak for instance, and both aspects can be very frustrating. Riot has said that showing MMR to players resulted in lower engagement, ranked anxiety, etc. And that's why it's hidden. (Again, not my opinion, just summarizing what officials have previously said.)
Series, decay, etc. are obviously counter-productive to accurately measure a player's skill, and other signs that's not the goal of Ranked. Decay is to make sure players are active, Series is to have high moments of intense satisfaction. Again, the point is to make sure people spend time on LoL.

LaceUpXX4/1/2019, 12:29:58 PM1 votes

We have them to determine what skill you are playing at in matchmade games. Basically, if you're winning the majority of games at a certain rank, your MMR will be higher and you'll win more points and get to your 50/50 point quicker. Same where if you get carried in promos, get placed high and lose games, you'll lose rank faster.