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Matchmaking too sophisticated

Janakin··4 votes·1,565 views

Hello, I feel like I really need to tell this, after long, long time. I think that matchmaking is too sophisticated. I know, that your hidden MMR value is being calculated behind your back, which is a main parameter when it comes to matching the games. But I also know, that your past "X" matches have influence on what teammates you gonna get. That's right. If you keep winning, you are gonna have teammates that also keep winning. If you have lost few matches, you are gonna get teammates who also started to lose recently. That's why the advice "if you lose few matches, take a break, don't play more." is gold. But if you've lost some matches and you keep playing, the odds that you are gonna lose are much higher than usual. I also know, that your KDA has some influence, but I am not exactly sure what weight it has in matching the games. But if your team feeds, you lose, but you have good KDA, you are likely to get better teammates in your next games. But again, with this KDA I am not exactly sure. With those other things, I am absolutely sure. It is my more than 3 year experience, practically from high bronze elo to master tier elo.

Another thing is the MMR average. I would be very careful about that. Some time ago, when I was playing soloQ, I had 3 master tiers in the game, 2 platinum players and 5 diamond players. With all respect, platinum players are the most arrogant, annoying and toxic players in the league. Honor to exceptions. Back then, I was just diamond 3, so me being matched with platinum players, was not something extraordinary. But if I was master tier and after entering the soloQ I would be matched with platinums, I would probably tilt. I believe that soloQ should be a place, where you go, when you want to play with players who are approximately equal to you at this game. And master tier and platinum? That difference is huge. I know, that some of you, especially low elo players might think, that platinum is quiet high elo, but trust me. It really isn't. And games like these are almost never GG. No matter whether you win or lose. And honestly, I'd rather wait 20 more minutes to get players around my performance level, than wait just few minutes and after that, suffer like 40 minutes with players of huge performance differences. And I know, that I am not the only one.

What I would suggest?

Make the matchmaking simpler. Don't take past wins/loses in account. If there is a player whose MMR is much higher than their current division, increase their divison instantly. With that being done, make sure that all of the matched players differ maximum of 2 divisions from each other.

27 Comments

Scruberz5 votes

Just play the game. Never understood people who would tilt because they looked someone up and they were lower elo.

Shut up and play the game.

Janakin4 votes

You probably didn't get the message I've written dude. That was not the point at all.

Scruberz5 votes

Promoting people asap defeats the purpose of playing games, which is what Riot wants. It's why they use MMR. They match you with similarly skilled players even if the divisions are way out of whack.

Play enough games and you'll get to w/e division you should be at. But you have to PLAY the games. Riot isn't going to change that, as it just reduces the probability that people will continue playing once they reach a stagnate rank.

People who have an issue with this are just concerned with the vanity of how they appear to other people based on their division. So ya they will not get any sympathy.

Like I said, shut up and play the game.

Khelb5 votes

Or, he can keep discussing ideas.

Janakin3 votes

"Promoting people asap defeats the purpose of playing games" Do you think that once someone gets promoted, they will stop play this game? Do you think, that if they are placed into the division where they belong to, they will change their minds about going to play the game?

"They match you with similarly skilled players even if the divisions are way out of whack." Just nope. That's exactly what this post is about. The platinum and master tier difference. As I've said. You didn't understand this post.

"Play enough games and you'll get to w/e division you should be at." Exactly. And by the time I reach the divison I belong to, I make the games imbalanced and ruin it to a lot of players. Quality of games should be before quantity.

"Riot isn't going to change that, as it just reduces the probability that people will continue playing once they reach a stagnate rank." People will never know if they have already reached stagnate rank, so they will keep playing.

And even thought I respect opinions of low elo players like you, the comments should not be as offensive as they are. You should first try to understand the point of someone who is obviously better at this game than you. And in IT field overall :-).

Scruberz5 votes

Once you start losing more LP then you gain you know you've reached a stagnate Division/ELO. The climb at that point is a very difficult struggle and there are many players who stop playing. So yes, promoting people sooner would get them to this point more quickly, and would result in fewer games being played overall.

If a master tier player and a platinum player have similar MMR they will be matched together. It's that simple. If this somehow tilts someone then that is their problem. Their sensitivity is not, and should not be, Riot's concern.

Janakin2 votes

"The climb at that point is a very difficult struggle and there are many players who stop playing" That does not apply to those, whose MMR is way higher than the MMR of other players in their division. If your MMR is much higher than the MMR of other players in your current division, then it means you either smurf or you were placed too low after placement matches, or you dropped due to inactivity. In any case, you are making imbalanced games way too long before reaching the division you belong to. As you might have seen some pros smurfing. Being platinum 4, but playing on diamond 4 elo. I suggest: put them into that diamond instantly.

The second part of your comment...It seems like you have absolutely no idea how matchmaking works. The increasing time in queue causes to broaden MMR range of players and making a game of players, in which both teams have approximately the same AVERAGE MMR. Let me give you dumb-proof example, so you can finally understand the main point of my post:

Consider 2 sets of natural numbers:

set A: 4, 6, 5, 4, 6 => average: 25 / 5 = 5. And for any arbitrary numbers x, y in the set applies, that their difference in absolute value is always less or equal to 2.

set B: 5, 5, 5, 5, 5 => average: 25 / 5 = 5. Same as A. The difference between x, y is always 0.

Now consider these 2 sets of natural numbers:

set C: 1, 9, 3, 6, 6 => average: 25 / 5 = 5. The difference between x, y can now be even 8. set D: 10, 10, 1, 3, 1 => average: 25/ 5 = 5. The difference between x, y can now be even 9.

Now, imagine these numbers are MMR values. Lets say, that 10 means you are master tier and 1 means, that you are platinum 1 player. The averages of these sets are the same. What I wanted to say by this post is, that all of the ranked games should consist of players like in the set A or set B. Games where players are like in the set C or D should NEVER happen.

Now, do you finally get it? Please say yes...

Scruberz2 votes

Using the extreme high MMR as an example is not relevant to your argument as they are forced to do this to ensure queue times aren't absurdly long. It only gets worse as time goes on, as you have many high elo people playing at the beginning of every season, and that number decreasing as the season goes on, making queue times longer and longer as the season progresses. Usually it comes back down a bit at the end of every season.

For your argument to hold any water it has to work for the system as a whole. You continue pointing to a small set of outliers that throw the system off and cause the occasional "imbalanced" game as you say.

However, these outliers already climb through the system relatively quickly, gaining increasingly more LP up to a point, and increasingly facing high elo opponents while their MMR increases alongside.

Your sole concern here is born completely out of vanity. Your concern is that they are not in the correct "division" or "tier" fast enough. For a system that uses MMR, the division/tier are, in fact, irrelevant. They are simply put in place to give a player the proverbial "carrot on a stick". They are used to give out rewards like borders and skins and make it easier for a player to understand their "rank" quickly. Saying you are Silver/gold/plat/diamond is easier than saying "MMR 1000, 1500, 2000" etc.

So why would Riot go to the trouble of individually picking these outliers whose MMR is wildly higher than their current division, when the current system will already put them in their appropriate place after they play a certain number of games? Under any system, you will always get the occasional imbalanced game. Especially in a game that is free to play. New accounts pop up all the time, balancing the game is a delicate process that they will not always get right.

Your complaint is that these players do not get their fast enough, which is, quite frankly, music to Riots ears. The more games it takes to get there the better as far as Riot is concerned. MMR climbs significantly faster than you can climb in a division for this very reason. They want it to take time to climb. And it is very obvious, as it has been this way for years, that they are happy with the amount of time it takes for everyone to climb, including these players.

Janakin1 votes

This thread was not meant to be primarily focused on these exceptions in the system. It was about fixing them, in order for the main reason of the thread's problem to work. And the main problem was the thing that I've explained with those sets A, B, C, D in the comment above. To your point about queue times. That's why the autofill was implemented. Yes, it might not be enough when we speak about those like 0.1% of players on master tier+ level. But still, the least there could be implemented is the option whether you'd rather wait longer in queue, or less, and have an imbalanced game. And I am pretty sure most of the players would rather wait and have balanced game. Same goes for the autofill. But that would be for another thread.

The main point still remains. Ranked games should always be plus, minus two divisions, no matter how long the queue time is, unless the players want to be in imbalanced game.

Khelb3 votes

Or, he can come to the boards under the category "Gameplay" and attempt to start a good discussion in an attempt to make everyone's experiences better. What I've never understood is why people think it's acceptable to say "shut up and play the game" or something else equally useless to someone in a place that's designed for discussion.

S0kaX4 votes

{quoted}

. If there is a player whose MMR is much higher than their current division, increase their divison instantly.

I would upvote this 6 times if I could

Janakin3 votes

Right? Some time ago I was diamond 5, playing on low dia/ high plat elo, autofilled to support. And I got silver adc to my team. He fit into that elo perfectly. I wonder how many games did this guy had to play before he got placed to the divison he belonged to.

Janakin2 votes

I "love" how people down-vote something without any explanation...

S0kaX2 votes

That's the boards in a nutshell

ChargeItDownMid1 votes

[deleted]

Janakin2 votes

I have no idea about some misquoted post. I just know that after 3 years of my experience. And I know, that matchmaking is way more complex than any of you think. The MMR is main parameter. But there are other parameters it uses. I get you. You don't trust me. But it is true. Like these past wins/loses. You got some MMR. And you had some MMR yesterday (lets exclude the case when it's your 1st time in league). It might be taking the difference between your today's MMR and your yesterday's MMR. Is that value positive? Is that value negative? How much does it differ? It might not be comparing today's and yesterda's MMR, the time interval may differ. It might not even be time interval. It may be interval of X matches. I don't know that exactly. But it IS implemented in matchmaking.

ChargeItDownMid2 votes

[deleted]

Janakin1 votes

Not sure whether the new lolking still contains lolking score value, but the old one was showing it. It was basically a number that showed how you perform lately. It was negative if your MMR was decreasing, positive if increasing. And if you had like +200 lolking score, you were doing very well. If it was like -200, it means you had to drop a lot lately. Everytime I started to winning, I also started to be matched with those, who also had positive lolking score. The amount of it also mattered. And I am not speaking about one-time experience. I observed this like 2 years. It is this way.

ChargeItDownMid2 votes

[deleted]

Janakin1 votes

I am not speaking about their MMR estimation. I am speaking about your past games being a parameter when it comes to matchmaking. And I used lolskill score as an example to paint you the picture... Seems like you still don't get it...

ChargeItDownMid2 votes

[deleted]

Janakin1 votes

I don't know how easier could I explain it to you...

After the lol matchmaking creates a game and you check their past games, they approximately match in win rate with the win rate of yours, in the past games. These sites like lolskill/lolking served me to notice that. That's all.

ChargeItDownMid2 votes

[deleted]

Janakin1 votes

Man I feel like it's a waste of time speaking to you. I have no idea how to tell this to you even simpler... I shouldn't have mentioned lolking website. I thought it would help you to understand, but you just stick to it and speaking about something absolutely different. So, once again... Imagine numbers and think of them as MMR values:

Set A: 1 2 3 4 5 6 Set B: 1 1 3 5 5 6 Set C: 11 7 8 7 6 6 Set D: 4 5 4 3 5 6

As you can see, sets A and B are never decreasing.

When set A is your history of MMR, then you will be matched with players of similar MMR history => your MMR is increasing, same as MMR of your team-mates.

And if your MMR history is similar to set C, you will be, again, playing with those with similar MMR history => your MMR is decreasing, same as MMR of your team-mates.

Other 2 sets I mentioned just so you can picture it for yourself. I hope you can... And I really hope, that now you finally understand what I was trying to say.

ChargeItDownMid1 votes

[deleted]

Janakin1 votes

"those are false trends that you will observe while trying to use stat tracking websites due to the flaws in how they report mmr." You still don't understand...You still don't understand. Oh my god... You still don't understand, that I used lolking score as an example to better picture your recent winning ratio. It just shows how many games did you win recently. Nothing more. Don't mention that MMR again. Why do you even mention it? How many times do I have to tell you, that this has nothing to do with that? Do you realize, that your match history in league is the same as match history at those websites? As I've already stated with that lolking score. It shows something like your win rate in past game. If you do well recently, you are likely to get team-mates who also did well recently.

"The queue times needed for the system you are proposing would require 1-2 hours." I am not saying it is EXACTLY by the pattern in your last matches. It is not finding so long, because once it finds suitable players, it then SORTS them into 2 teams. And that's when the parameter I've mention comes in play.

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