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A long long article explaining "WHY I LOSE 20LP and gain 8LP RITO WTF"

21198243_DEL·4/6/2015, 11:45:30 PM·4 votes·1,435 views

So many players are confused about their LP gains/loses so let me explain that because Riot didn't explain the ELO system clearly.

The "division" word i use has same meaning as "league" or "rank" because it really doesn't make difference for me but it might confuse some of you. (So before you continue reading ASSUME: There are 5 divisions - from 5 to 1 - in silver, gold, plat etc.)

Each player has 2 kinds of elo:

  1. League points - normal elo which is visible for everyone and determines your division (for example silver 5)
  2. MMR - hidden elo - You can't check it in lol client or webside. There is no official formula counting it but you can use calculator on "op.gg" webside, you have to use "check my mmr" or something like that (i use this webside in polish so i don't know translation)

League points: You gain LP for winning ranked game and lose LP for losing game - it's simple. The amount of LP you gain/lose everygame is connected with your actual hidden elo.

MMR - You gain/lose some of your MMR score everygame. MMR function is complicated but it includes your in-game performance like assists, deaths, kills and also the MMRs of your teamamtes and enemies, not only the result of game. (Generally, it grows/drops slower than League points)

Every division has an average MMR. For example average MMR for silver 5 is 900. It means when someone is in silver 5 and his actual hidden elo is 900, that player will gain or lose equeal amount of LP when win or lose. When player has less MMR than 900 he will lose more LP when loses than gain when wins because "he doesn't deserve his current division". When someone has more than 900 MR he will gain more LP than lose.

Example 1: (bad side of hidden elo) Silver 5 player with 900 MR (current division average MMR is 900). He has 50 LP. A player somehow wins 12 games in a row and climbs 2 divisions - to Silver 3. The player was playing soso during that games - he wasn't carrying hard but he wasn't feeding too so he gained 140 MMR and the player has 1040 MMR now. The average MMr of silver 3 division is 1150. It means now the player that climbed 2 divisions fastly will have a hard time because he will gain low amount of LP when wins and lose huge amount of LP when loses because his current MMR is 110 points under his division's average.

We can say that player is in elo hell.

Example 2: (good side of hidden elo) Silver 5 player with 900 MR (current division MMR is 900). He has 50 LP. This player is for example Failflood on his smurf account so he picks Warwick and crushes enemy team having 15/2/10 average K/D/A after 12 games. Unluckily he had feeders and ragequitters in his team, so he lost 7 games and won only 5. So after that 12 games player has 40 LP. Poor player looks at his LP and says: "This damn rito trolled me, i carried hard but those trolls made me lose my LP, rito i hate ya". BUT after that 12 games (5 wins and 7 loses) his MMR gained by 50 points because his performance meant he shoudl be in higher division so he has 950 MMR now and the player gains more LP than loses now which helps him reach higher division.

This player will climb higher in divisions soon.

Last thing i can tell: There are separated MMRs in different game modes. For example you can be in diamond 1 in ranked solo and have ranked solo MMR in average of that division, but in your normal games your MMR is very low and you get teamed with players at way way worse level than you have in rankeds. From my experiences i can say that, there is one MMR for Normal blind and draft, and separated MMR for Teambuilder. (I am not sure how it goes for ranked solo and premade but i think there is one MMR for ranked solo/duo and different for Ranked team (if exist)).

I can be wrong in some places because i have read about that some time ago from unofficial sources, so if you want to correct me or tell me something new feel free to do that.

5 Comments

SleepyLionCub4/7/2015, 1:42:44 AM2 votes

Its not exactly about not understanding the system. its about "why do we really need this broken system?" If you lose a few games in a row, then BAM ur in elo hell, and it takes forever to get out. You can get stuck in low MMR for a very very long time, since it hardly changes. We dont really need the MMR system. We need a fair and normal system that gives equal gain and loss for wins and losses. You already have to win 3 of 5 games just to move up a division.

GoldenMean4/7/2015, 10:53:04 AM1 votes

It is popular opinion that LP gain/lost is based on hidden MMR (for each game type). I'm curious if it means that it compares your hidden MMR to your current division/LP, or if it compares your hidden MMR vs those that you play (making it like a true elo system).

21198243_DEL4/7/2015, 11:56:34 AM1 votes

The matchamker is trying to find players and make as much balanced teams as possible. It counts a team's MMR which is based on every teamamte's MMR (not LP, that's why sometimes you see team of silver 5 vs team full of silver 4) and tries to match teams that have close MMRs - that's an ideal situation and then your LP gain/loss depends only on your MMR compared to division's average, but it requires very high amount of players looking for game at the moment.

BUT, when matchmaker cannot create 2 teams with almost similar MMR (it would take very long to start games because of long matchmaking), the teammaker lowers the balance requirements over time trying to create a game faster. In result the teams are not balanced - one team has higher mmr than another and then your final PL gain/loss after game includes that fact.

Example 3: When the player is looking for ranked game for 5 minutes it means that, the teammaker cannot create a balanced teams and his balance requirements are very low at the moment just to speed up matchamking - in result matchmaker creates a game with players at very different MMRs and there is a huge difference between team's MMRs - for example 90. The game starts, but teammaker assumes that, with that huge MMR difference it is simple that, the team with 90 higher MMR shoudl win. Also , the team with 90 lower MMR has a small chance to win.

Now: when team with lower MMR loses - there is nothing special about it, they had no chances to win so their LP lose will be lower than just compared to division's MMR average, also the winner's team will gain low amount of LP.

when team with lower MMR wins - it is unusal situation which means that, the players rater lower were better than those rated higher - in result winner's team gets higher amount LP than amount that they should gain and losing team loses higher amount of LP.

Personally, i stop looking for ranked games when i am looking for team longer than 1 min because i just don't want play a sure lost game, or risk a high LP loss, gaining only few points when win. And i start looking again after 20 sseconds