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As a statistician, I find crying about unbalanced matches strange

Z Statistic··51 votes·5,277 views

The Elo formula is set up such that the expected value MMR change of any given match is equal to the difference in the current estimate and your true Elo, independent of your opponent's skill level.

For example, if you are predicted (and have an actual chance) to have a 10% chance of winning due to MMR difference, the change in MMR is proportional to the odds ratio. For a loss, you would lose k/10 MMR, but for a win, you'd gain 9k/10 MMR. Since you will lose 90% of the time and win 10%, when you take the weighted mean of these two values, you get an expected value of 0.

And if your true Elo is higher than the estimate, the return for the events is the same but the odds of winning are in your favor even if you will still probably lose. Thus, you will get a positive change in MMR even if you lose a majority of your games.

Even if you're only considering Promo series, you are now being matched by a biased system that makes the match more fair given the assumption that your true Elo is higher than the estimate.

As for an interesting caveat, playing against people better than you is the fastest way to improve as you learn what they are doing and get used to it through experience.

The only good argument I can see is that people want to have fun in their games; total stomps from either end are not fun. However, since fun in ranked is not the primary goal, this argument still seems odd. It also interacts with queue times. As a diamond, would you rather have 100 instant queue games for literally any role that are braindead easy or a single tough game that has a 15 minute queues?

Maybe I'm discounting how many people honestly want to have fun in Ranked instead of just winning. Though if that's the case, what's with all the bitching about unconventional picks, builds, and other stuff? If you want to climb, then why bitch about poorly matched games? If you want to have fun, why bitch about what other people do?

edit: Interesting discovery. There seems to be a bias depending on how widely spread team MMR is. People who are very good that play with bronzes will play like shit but bronzes who play with diamonds will perform better. This doesn't really affect the predictive quality of the formula, but it does make duo-queue kind of incompatible. Kill the duos :0

153 Comments

Slythion18 votes

behold...and intellectual player capable of common sense and basic thought :0

Valor Bot24 votes

Right, because knowledge of statistics is totally common sense and basic thought.

Slythion3 votes

i mean this kind of statistics isn't that hard...

it's the same exact logic from gaining/losing an even 20lp for each win/loss except all you have to understand is you earn 20% more per win if you are expected to lose 20% more games.

I suppose it isn't exactly "common sense" but it surely isn't complicated either

Z Statistic20 votes

On one hand, Stats and Probability are arcane and inscrutable even for professionals. On the other, the specific example I listed is in no way difficult to comprehend; you will climb if you keep playing and keep getting better irrespective of who you're matched with OR against.

This is more or less the analytical proof of the common sense stance of "you're the only constant factor in all of your games. If you're not climbing, it's your fault, not other people's."

Valor Bot5 votes

I agree it's not too difficult to comprehend; however, to say it's common sense is simply hyperbole. If it were, then there probably wouldn't be a need to make a thread about it.

notice me Sin pi10 votes

[{quoted}](name=Menea Calais,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=k30ia6oj,comment-id=,timestamp=2016-10-10T16:55:12.902+0000)

Since you will lose 90% of the time and win 10%, when you take the weighted mean of these two values, you get an expected value of 0.

but not everyone plays 800 games per season to make it close to the expected value of 0 tho

DrCyanide8 votes

I think the average player wants to climb high enough to get the end of season rewards (mostly the Victorious Skin), and that's about it. Improving doesn't matter, MMR doesn't matter, only LP matters. If they could get a skin for only playing placements, they'd do that and call it quits, going back to Normals.

I think another thing to factor in is how much time someone has to actually play the game. For someone who can play 2-3 ranked games each night, then a fluke loss doesn't matter as much, because you'll play enough games to even it out. However, when you can only play 2 games a week, suddenly each loss matters more to you, and is weighted more.

KVbqbFsC8e7 votes

Now add Dynamic Que to your equation.

Is having premade groups playing against solo players balanced?

No, and it never will be.

Z Statistic8 votes

It may or may not be biased depending on how communication interacts with group composition. You would have to measure this interaction and see if it's a linear categorical term or a non-linear multiplicative term.

I have a hunch it's the former, but that's just me guessing-

Conscience: "MAGGOT. WHAT IS THE FIRST RULE OF PROBABILITY?!" Me: "SIR, NEVER TRUST YOUR GUT, SIR!" Conscience: "AND WHAT IS THE SECOND RULE, YOU INHUMAN PIECE OF RAT SHIT?!" Me: "SIR, NEVER TRUST YOUR GUT, SIR!" Conscience: "GOOD GOD, WE HAVE A FUCKING GENIUS ON OUR HANDS HERE. IF YOU'RE SUCH A GENIUS, THEN WHAT IS THE THIRD RULE OF PROBABILITY?!" Me: "SIR, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD ALMIGHTY DON'T TRUST YOUR GUT, SIR!" Conscience: "THEN WHY ON GOD'S GREEN EARTH ARE YOU TRUSTING YOUR GUT, PRIVATE?!" Me: "SIR, FOR INTERNET POINTS, SIR!" Conscience: "YOU FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT. YOU DISGUST ME. GET DOWN A DERIVE THE GAUSSIAN PDF FROM UNIFORM [1,e]!" Me: "SIR, YES, SIR!"

Great Muta4 votes

There are bigger problems though:

  • Premades are a lot more likely to have mics. Mics are a huge advantage. There's a reason the pro's use them.

  • Premades are a lot more likely to coordinate picks that work with each other, while I try to convince my team that Garen ADC is not a good idea.

  • A full premade can pick players who will not AFK or troll

  • Premades learn their partners playstyles and how to play around it.

Z Statistic5 votes

Mic/not mic is a categorical variable. Does it have the same effect regardless of premade size? Irrelevant. Does this have a categorical effect? Probably. History is most likely the only numeric variable here and probably the only potential multiplicative interaction. It might simply just because that you choose people who match your playstyle, not that you grow accustomed to how they play specifically, which is simply a selection bias, not something systemic.

Very Hard Engage6 votes

the issue here is that the game only becomes fair after a substantial amount of games played.

within each and every game theres players of varying skill levels which create a team with a certain average, but because the MMR system doesn't take role proficiency or lane opponent into account you end up with a silver 1 adc main who gets to lane against a silver 3 (who is currently playing adc, but is a jungle main and put adc as his secondary because he was forced too). now the difference between the two creates a glaring lead in lane.

there are so many little things which impact the game that you cant possibly call the game fair and even every single time. its just not fair, ever.

#but thats the constant. the game is equally unfair for both teams after about 300 plays.

the main flaw with your reasoning isn't you going up against better players to improve yourself, its that you have a bag of dead weight to drag around and yell at you while you do it. and then you lose an even amount of LP or gain the same amount based entirely on whether the teemo support was on your team, or the enemy team this time around.

its basically just a giant slap to everyone involved, but we put up with it knowing everyone else is also getting slapped in the face just as hard.

Z Statistic2 votes

The expected value is the expected value. That doesn't change depending on sample size. What you're looking for is an arbitrary confidence of the resulting statistic. That doesn't make sense because in order to use a confidence interval, each trial must be Independent Identically Distributed. These trials are not independent as winning your game prior will make the next one (probably) harder.

But you're really going for the emotional argument here. If everyone is equally likely to be slapped in the face, then the game is fair.

The words you're looking for are 'not fun'. The game is fair. And quite frankly, the conditional probabilities shouldn't be equal either else you wouldn't have a game at all.

Honestly, if the enemy getting a Teemo support or you with the same is so common that it is a significant factor on your performance, then play around it. It's just another playstyle element of the game. I could just as easily say that the games are determined (probably more so) by who has the ADC that can farm more efficiently. The correct answer in that situation is to learn how to play around that. So why don't you do the same with Teemo support?

While we can argue the nitty-gritty of the probability behind the curtain, the whole point of the thread is to say that you are the master of your destiny; you choose how to play the hand you're dealt and you're rewarded accordingly.

Very Hard Engage2 votes

oh i agree the game is overall fair because its equally unfair for all.

but at the same time two evenly skilled players, in their main roles, then it all comes down to champion choice, i could end up with rammus directly counterpicking a master yi and im super favored to win the match overall. and thats just dumb, neither of us should be climbing or deserving to advance higher because i would be expected to win.

its not that yi cant win, its that he has to be significantly better than i am to outperform such a gross handicap hes presented with.

and that gets factored into our placement on the ladder when it shouldn't.

people dont care about who they are matched with or who they are playing with.

they just want a 50-50 at winning the match when they just dont get that, the game is so heavily decided on champion selection, on what role you get, and who you are up against.

what people complain about the most is having team mates which are too far apart in skill level to have a fair game. 2 silvers vs 2 silvers > 1 plat + 1 silver vs 1 plat + 1 silver.

you're being selective with your statistics on the majority of players and in overall win rates. but you're ignoring what creates each individual piece.

performance is rarely a determining factor in winning the game, just ask dyrus/qtpie

Z Statistic3 votes

Champion selection is part of skill. How you allocated your training is also skill. While it's probably good to make it so that the odds of winning are not 99:1 for a given team pairing, it's not going to be 1:1 and shouldn't be. We would have to go through every single factor that could influence a game and arbitrarily decide what is and is not acceptable displays of skill.

I prefer to label everything the player has control over as 'skill'.

In any case, I was musing this in another conversation:

Do you believe that a player's skill is affected by the skill of his teammates? That is to say that a bronze merely playing in the same team as Dyrus inherently plays better than bronze and Diamonds who get surrounded by a team of Wood 16s play worse.

I think that's the fundamental question that determines how useful the Elo model is to represent winrate skill.

Very Hard Engage2 votes

the mmr system is terrible at representing a persons skill level.

it only becomes asymptotic to your current skill level after countless games, but you can still be screwed out of games you otherwise should have won for being monumentally better than everyone else and you have no control over those factors. "you could do everything right, play perfectly, and still lose the game" - Nightblue3

if i said you picked first vs last, which would you prefer? last is better. but over say 10 games RNG hasn't factored in, lets say you had first pick 4 times, super unlucky and unrepresentative i know, but it happened. now you were not favored.

its just the law of large numbers. league functions on it.

people want games to be more fair than they currently are, is that really such a bad thing?

TequilaZombie5 votes

As a random player I think it's kind of crappy that you might be placed in a situation in which the odds are that you will lose 9 games out of 10. Specially because of the way that LP works.

There is also the fact that you're not granted to be placed in that 9/10 scenario 10 times in a row, making it very likely to just get a almost granted loss (even though the MMR impact will be small, it's still an impact) and then be put at your normal level of play again.

Blåbæret4 votes

Everyone knows quantitative methods have serious flaws. Statistics don't mean much without qualitative additions.

Z Statistic2 votes

Except I'm not dealing with statistics, I'm dealing with the probability function that governs matchmaking and the expected values of such.

Nameless Voice4 votes

Your statistics make two assumptions: that the MMR of a player is accurate, and that MMR is the only factor which decides the outcome of a game.

Let's start with the second one. Is the average MMR of the players on each team the only deciding factor of which team wins?

MMR, as a representation of a player's overall skill level, is an important factor, certainly, but it isn't the only one. As others have suggested, whether or not a player is playing their primary role and/or is knowledgeable with their chosen champion has a large impact. So does the champions chosen and in which order (pick order is random, so some players may end up getting countered. Also, the random distribution of toxic players / flamers / trolls / network problems / etc. can seriously affect the outcome of a game. The second assumption is wrong.

So, given that MMR is not the only factor deciding the outcomes of games, it means that sometimes players will win games that they should have lost, or lose games that they should have won.

Each time this happens, the MMR of the players shifts away from where it belongs, which breaks the first assumption that MMR values are accurate.

Now, assuming that most of the other factors are equally likely to happen to either team, on average, over a huge number of games, the player's actual skill level should end up being the deciding factor. How many games that will take depends on how heavily the random factors decide the outcomes of games. I don't have an answer for that value.

There's also a couple of other things that I didn't cover, such as the difference between intentionally playing to solo carry vs playing as a team.

Z Statistic4 votes

No, I am not assuming the first statement; it's a consequence of how the formula is built and based on the Well-Ordering Principle. While we can theoretically say that there are infinite potential measures of skill, we have arbitrarily chosen the one purely based on win rate. If you want to discuss the philosophical implications and assumptions of that arbitrary decision, that's fine, but it's not grounded in probability.

As for the second one, let's differentiate between the parameter (skill) and the estimate (MMR). MMR does not cause you to win. Having higher epeen does not make you a better player. It predicts your performance based on the historic performance of you and your opponent according to the Elo function.

Now, as for the underlying philosophy of what makes someone more likely to win, it is a combination of an inordinate number of factors. However, we can dichotomize these factors into two groups: 1) things the player in question can control and 2) things they cannot control. The first is what we call 'skill,' the other 'error'. In order for the model to break down, 'skill' and 'error' must be non-independent. This breakdown occurs because of an interaction term that stems from this non-independence. The reason it is possibly from the interaction and not the error term itself is because:

  1. Error is fair; hence the expected value is 0
  2. If this Error is heteroscedastic for whatever reason, we can simply transform the data (i.e. simple functions of the formula) to make it homoscedastic.

Let's assume that there is this interaction term. Then that means skill and error are correlated. This is a contradiction to how we set up the model in the first place. Therefore, we must ask one fundamental question: is a player's skill independent from other players? If yes, then this model is perfectly fine. If no, then the conclusion is that a player's skill depends on his teammates. We will standardize good and bad players as the skill someone would have if they were playing with the same quality teammates.

This is a seductive explanation as it does explain supports' lack of ability to contribute to a team as explicitly as say a mage. However, this applies to all roles. And just like how a bad player on a good team will play better, a good player on a bad team with play worse.

So, do you believe Diamonds play worse when matched with Wood 16 irrespective of role? Not differently. Just worse.

Nameless Voice1 votes

From a non-statistical standpoint, I actually think that they do. The reasoning being that Diamond players expect the other players that they are playing with to have an equal level of game understanding, and to react to actions around the map in a predictable way. When they are matched with people who don't react in the expected way, they play "worse", because they make "bad" calls and decisions based on incorrect expectations. That's not to say that they aren't still going to be better than the other players in their game - just that they are playing "worse" than they would be if they were playing with other players of an equal skill.

I don't think that's really relevant, though?

The main point I was arguing was that I don't think MMR is in any way an accurate measure of skill, because so many factors go into deciding if a game is won or lost. The error decides games, which in turn feeds back into the MMR which is supposed to be the static value that we are measuring against.

If we were measuring skill level instead of MMR, then it would hold up. But since we are using MMR as a measure of skill level, and MMR is affected by the outcome of errors, it doesn't work.

But, on further reflection, I've completely missed the point you were making.

You're saying that statistically speaking, one-sided matches still work towards pushing people towards what the system thinks is their expected MMR (whether MMR aligns with skill nor not), because of the vastly different amount of LP gained/lost.

I don't think that even matters. The match quality of stomps is awful. In ranked, people are trying to win, sure, but ultimately they also play the game because they find it fun. Winning is great, but it isn't everything, even in ranked. No one would be excited to win a ranked league of tossing coins - it's not engaging. League is engaging because it's about moment-to-moment displays of skill allowing you to change the outcome of the game. When games are stomps because vastly missmatched teams are pitted against each other, then the outcome is decided in champion select, almost like tossing a coin, and it's not engaging any more.

Z Statistic2 votes

Yeah, from what other people have said, there seems to be that interaction term. It doesn't completely destroy the usefulness of the model, but it does significantly limit its usefulness in the presence of dynamic and duo queues.

IAmWoralo3 votes

If the system was that easy it would be balanced, however things turn out to be different in reality. For instance whether you are on blue or red side of the map decides if you get a higher or lower MMR team against you. So one game you could be playing against a team that is slightly better than your team and the next match you could be playing against a slightly worse opponent.

You could argue that the map balance makes up for this, but the skill gap between these elo's is too much. So one game you can get away with some crazy play and the next game that exact same play punishes you hard for it. So if a player has some kind of MMR checking tool they can adapt to it but for those who are not using any additional software it's just a guess how strong or weak the opponent is and that is an unfair advantage to those who do use MMR info.

Simply said if I know my mid laner is Silver 5 and the enemy's mid laner is Plat 5, I'll be really careful around mid lane. More often than not the Silver 5 players get utterly gutted by the Plat 5 and you have to find away around this inequity.

So you can say that it is statisticaly fair, and that's exactly how Riot looks at the numbers, but in reality things are a lot different. As a statistician you should know that information can suffer from great biasses and especially large sets of numbers can create incalculable variable changes throughout the system. It more or less looks like two lies making one truth.

I am just speaking from personal experience but this season I have seen so many games where the MMR/ELO difference is more than a whole division. For instance I was Gold 1, playing with a Diamon 5 ADC in my team, whereas the enemy team was full Gold. Not really fair is it? Ofcourse people say that this ADC was probably in my team because she had such bad MMR and was playing poorly or that maybe she was duoing with some plat 5 in our team, but she had decent stats and a 50%ish ranked winrate so no, it was just broken matchmaking and I think for the enemy ADC everything but a good game experience.

ChargeItDownMid3 votes

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Z Statistic2 votes

I'm not confused about who is complaining.

I'm confused as to why people think balanced matches matter for placement. It's like the people who want Free Trade except they want tariffs on trade with Mexico.

AMYS GRAVE2 votes

I'm confused as to why people think balanced matches matter for placement.

Because a coin flip (matchmaking in this case) deciding the winner of a game is balanced, but it is not accurate. If the games are not fair you never have a chance to express your skill to climb.

"If you're not climbing, it's your fault, not other people's."

If you're going to make that assertion, then fair games are a necessity. On the other hand if you are making the argument that the statistics will balance themselves out over time then that has the built in assumption that this self responsibility statement is false because you're leaving it in the hands of matchmaking to balance out the statistics.

Also having a 1% chance of gaining 100LP or a 99% chance of losing 1 LP will leave the player climbing overall, but will be subject to large statistical fluctuations where the player receives feedback on their successes disproportionally to their achievements. The variance on that system is too high and would take tens of thousands of games (if not more) to accurately place them. The problem with that toy problem is analogous to the problem that these players are complaining about.

Z Statistic3 votes

LP != MMR. They are not interchangeable. I honestly don't know how LP is calculated from MMR change other than they are positively correlated.

In any case, you're using the parameter and the estimate interchangeably and you're not understanding the mathematical version of 'fair.' The random variable is the MMR change, not win/loss. Even if the estimated probability of winning is not fair, the outcome of the MMR change is. Unless the parameter is different from the estimate, in which case it's not. And you're correct. Climbing is a result of truly unfair games even though they are estimated to be fair.

The self-responsibility means that your MMR is of value = R. If you aren't climbing, then it's because R.hat = R. So you have to git gud and increase R (self-responsibility) in order to climb so that R !=R.hat

But as I've come to reason, there is an interaction term between player skill and inter-player skill. Maybe this is where the frustration lies? If you estimate is more likely to be determined by your teammates' skill effect on your own than your own raw skill, then that would definitely need improvement.

ChargeItDownMid1 votes

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thefance1 votes

Unlucky streaks happen. But if they keep playing, they can expect to regress towards their true elo. Not everyone on ladder is a smurf.

ChargeItDownMid1 votes

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thefance1 votes

Do you know what's even more insane? 20 consecutive losses. Not only because 20 consecutive coinflips is rare (~0.0001% rare), but because each match gets easier with each prior loss. If we assume that each match awards or deducts 20 LP, 20 consecutive losses represents a drop of approximately three divisions. Now let's be honest. If you drop three divisions and still can't carry a single match, do you believe that you deserve to be at a higher elo than the rank you started at? Really? I'm no diamond. But when I'm personally in a match three divisions below my "true" elo, there's a tangible difference in my opponents' play that I'm absolutely able to capitalize on.

I suspect this type of whining is motivated by the rationalization that oneself is a challenger-level summoner without recognizing their mistakes and thereby admitting that they belong in the elo they reside in. It's the Dunning-Kruger Effect. It's like 3rd graders who all think they're going to be president when they grow up.

"When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?" Likewise. If I believe I deserve a higher rank then lose the next 20 matches, I hardly expect my extant elo to magically increase to reflect to my platonic elo. Rather, I decrease my platonic elo to reflect my extant elo.

The only way I would find the Time-Commitment Argument relevant is if a summoner were steadily climbing, but didn't have enough time to continue climbing until their elo stabilized. Which is unfortunate, yet insoluble due to tradeoffs. If Riot makes the ladder faster to climb, this also makes the ranking algorithm more volatile, which results in slightly less balanced matches for those already at their "true" elo.

[EDIT] This hypothetical Bad-Luck-Brian who's lost the past 20 consecutive games, how many currently exist? I'm rank #329,645 on the NA server according to na.op.gg, which is below 17.4% of the population. Working backwards, there's ~1.9 million ranked accounts on the NA server. (1,900,000 * 0.0001% = 1.9). So basically, you're fretting over 2 accounts on the NA server at any given moment. And that's at best, since this figure doesn't account for the fact that matches get easier after each loss. If we instead use your figure of 60 million accounts worldwide, the final figure becomes 60 accounts worldwide. Now, out of all those who are crying that their curreent elo is unfairly low due to an unbalanced MMR system, how many do you believe are part of the "Chosen 60"?

ChargeItDownMid1 votes

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thefance1 votes

And likewise, the algorithm will drive the player's MMR back to equilibrium way before they reach 20 consecutive unlucky losses. Each additional consecutive loss represents a drop in MMR which increasingly likely cannot be attributed to chance. Given that each player's MMR accurately reflects their True Skill, and that True Skill is a stable parameter -- even a single unlucky match will drop MMR below an accurate rating, which will pressure the rating algorithm to match the player against weaker opponents for more favorable stakes, which will raise their MMR back to their original level.

As far as I understand, the discussion concerned whether the complaints were justified. What's "justified" is totally subjective. To participate in a productive discussion, we must agree on a shared definition of "justified". The definition I'm working under is "riot should change something in response to the complaints". This is productive because the consequences imply an actionable response. If your definition is "the complainants' fee-fees do too deserve sympathy", then I don't see much point in the discussion. What did you plan to accomplish by commenting on the forum?

If not 20, then what number would meet your threshold of "justified"? Ultimately, I don't think defining an exact threshold is productive. What matters more is the ability to distinguish between regular occurences vs outliers. Those who complain appear incapable of drawing such a distinction. Additionally, you don't seem to want to make the definition shared or measurable. You threw out a figure of 20 consecutive losses. But when I started doing math to demonstrate what an outrageous figure it was, suddenly 20 isn't the correct threshold. "Better not suggest a falsifiable alternative, that might compromise my thesis."

AMYS GRAVE1 votes

Yeah, the OP clearly just finished his first or second stats course. He's a good student I'm sure but doesn't know how to apply what he learned to real problems yet.

Z Statistic4 votes

You're a several years late with that guess though I would still like to get more on-the-job training and few grad/post-grad courses to diversify my knowledge. While some fields overlap, many do not, so even though I'm highly familiar with statistics used in Psychology and Medicine, I would have to familiarize myself with different methodology for economics or environmental sciences.

Chief Kebbie3 votes

As for an interesting caveat, playing against people better than you is the fastest way to improve as you learn what they are doing and get used to it through experience.

This is not true. You do not simply learn mathematics by observing your teacher (arguably better than you) and mimicking what she does. Learning is an active process requiring multiple reinforcement techniques catered to the individual student. Riot has put no effort into providing these opportunities to its players. For instance, the grading system is pointless because it offers no concrete feedback. If we are going to reward players for certain behaviors you need to tell them. When I grade a student's paper I do not simply put a C or A or w/e I provide the reasons for why the grade is earned. The student can then reflect and repeat positive behaviors and eliminate bad ones.

The point is that Riot has established a culture of non-improvement for their games, in order to deal with a reward system with hidden metrics in their game the players have attacked alternative sources. This complaining you are citing with mis-matched games is really confusion as a result of the reward system remaining unclear. If riot wants to clear up their game they need to be explicit about how they distribute rewards including wins and grades. Simply waving their hand is what is causing the problem you see.

KilljoyX2 votes

[{quoted}](name=Menea Calais,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=k30ia6oj,comment-id=,timestamp=2016-10-10T16:55:12.902+0000)

The Elo formula is set up such that the expected value MMR change of any given match is equal to the difference in the current estimate and your true Elo, independent of your opponent's skill level.

For example, if you are predicted (and have an actual chance) to have a 10% chance of winning due to MMR difference, the change in MMR is proportional to the odds ratio. For a loss, you would lose k/10 MMR, but for a win, you'd gain 9k/10 MMR. Since you will lose 90% of the time and win 10%, when you take the weighted mean of these two values, you get an expected value of 0.

And if your true Elo is higher than the estimate, the return for the events is the same but the odds of winning are in your favor even if you will still probably lose. Thus, you will get a positive change in MMR even if you lose a majority of your games.

Even if you're only considering Promo series, you are now being matched by a biased system that makes the match more fair given the assumption that your true Elo is higher than the estimate.

As for an interesting caveat, playing against people better than you is the fastest way to improve as you learn what they are doing and get used to it through experience.

The only good argument I can see is that people want to have fun in their games; total stomps from either end are not fun. However, since fun in ranked is not the primary goal, this argument still seems odd. It also interacts with queue times. As a diamond, would you rather have 100 instant queue games for literally any role that are braindead easy or a single tough game that has a 15 minute queues?

Maybe I'm discounting how many people honestly want to have fun in Ranked instead of just winning. Though if that's the case, what's with all the bitching about unconventional picks, builds, and other stuff? If you want to climb, then why bitch about poorly matched games? If you want to have fun, why bitch about what other people do?

At higher elo getting the right role dramatically determines who will win the game.

Sire Hippington2 votes

The issue with statistics is that they give an average value which holds true if you have a sufficient samplesice. For players that only play a few rankedgames, like <100 per season, unbalanced matchmakeing can be an problem besides poor unfun games.

There are probably alot players that still want fun in ranked games, it's still a game after all(besides maybe for master+ when it starts to become semi-professional). And i think most don't mind unconventional picks/builts as long as they are reasonable and actually contribute to the win of their team. There simply is a fine line between unconventional and trolling(which kills fun for other players), and that line is damn blurry.

Also, normals have bad( read 'unbalanced') matchmakeing aswell, and those are most certainly for fun only...

dEAdbUs2 votes

Did I miss the point where you said to say that Elo is not perfect system even while there is no better system? Did I miss the point where you said that statistics work with huge numbers, and even 100 games in rankeds won't show true state of players skill and close to random?

Poske2 votes

As a statistician you decided to make up statistics!!!! Legit

You do realise Since season2 NONE KNOWS The formula of MMR - ELO

Sites like lolking Lolskill are missleading as fk

Serika Zero2 votes

Hey mister statistician. If a Russian/American/Mexican/Spanish/Italian/etc Special Forces dude would beat the living crap out of you daily, for 1 year. Do you think you would learn and be able to fight like him? Or just take it like a bitch with a bit more endurance?

Fighting against people better than you isn't always a way to improve. Sometimes it can be destructive, sometimes it can barely offer you anything. Like in the example above, the only thing that would happen is you having more endurance to getting a beat. You still won't have a chance in hell of winning, and you still won't be no where near as good as the person that beat the living crap out of you daily.

Z Statistic1 votes

Maybe if you roll over like a hotdog. Everyone has their tells. If you just watch and do and experiment and perform trial-and-error, then yes, I will be a better fighter.

Or I could just get killed. I am assuming that I live, and that conditional information does influence to probability of getting at least X% better after 1 year.

Serika Zero2 votes

really no, you don't really learn how to fight from that

if someone is just much stronger than you, you will get stomped, and that offers nothing to learn in my example above, the only thing you would get is endurance and resistance. As in, you won't lose AS hard coz your body will resist more damage from the enemy. But you still going to have no clue about technique, no clue about training, no clue about mind set, etc

Aptest2 votes

You have a core error in your line of thought.

thought experiment. Let's suppost the match maker is creating games according to one of the two options below:

option A: team 1 and team 2 have equal MMR but MMR distribution in each of the teams is +-25 [on elo scale].

option B: team 1 and team 2 have equal MMR but MMR distribution in each of the teams is +-200 MMR [on elo scale].

Both options, if the match maker is working ok, result in overall 50% win rate for a non-improving (non degrading) player. The player will win some games and gain MMR, lose some games and lose MMR, and overall his (her) mmr will be around some value that is not moving.

The player does not get to win more, and does not get to win less. neither option results in more "wins". however, what happens within the game differs wildly.

In option A the chances of "a player" getting mega fed in the game are not that big. A player can succeed in lane, but the capacity of that player to push success into completely demolishing lane and becoming too much to handle are not that big because the skill of the player is close to that of opponent (s).

In option B, the chance of a player getting mega fed are much larger. There is at least one far above norm player in each team and at least one far below norm in each team. chances are there are 2 lanes with high MMR difference, resulting in players getting fed.

I.E. option A is much more likely to have win result from team play. Option B is much more favoring the "our fed guy VS their fed guy" win condition.

Since the amount of fed guys in an "option B" game is small compared to the total number of players, most players will feel lack of agency in the game, i.e. poor game quality.

Again: this has nothing to do with how much winning is done, overall.

Hell Week1 votes

i always said you had to grind the game to reach diamond which im not up for... just imagine the stress it would literally kill me, not healthy at all. rather stay bronze for the rest of my life could careless about what others think :)

Z Statistic2 votes

That's perfectly fine. After 4 seasons of ranked, I simply stopped and now play Blind pick and ARAM.

Hell Week2 votes

[{quoted}](name=Menea Calais,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=k30ia6oj,comment-id=000d0000,timestamp=2016-10-10T20:55:23.206+0000)

That's perfectly fine. After 4 seasons of ranked, I simply stopped and now play Blind pick and ARAM.

ive being playing for 4 years and i havent played more than 50 ranked matches in total. i can beat plats and golds any day of the week in my normals. what im not down for is the grind.... i come from runescape i know what it is to grind games. if the grind there was stressful then i can only imagine the stress of playing with people who arent giving their best when youre over here trying so hard.

Z Statistic3 votes

Eh, I have the opposite problem. Because it ultimately only matters how good you are in the long run, I have a propensity to blame everything on myself.

It's very emotionally stressful when you believe that you don't belong in gold because you weren't able to carry a feeding top and mid as support Janna.

SaltBender2 votes

The problem with this is you will only know if you beat gold and plat like you say if you play in a rank game against them. The reason for this is, when rank player go into normal games, it is mostly to play with off role, champ they never played or are not good in or to take the game less seriously therefore not playing to their respected ELO.

Now, i am not saying you are not of the mentionned skill, however you won't know until you play in rank at this elo. Normal games unfortunatly doesnt mean anything in this matter.

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