Have to win against Platinum to reach Bronze 3 - Introducing the next generation of matchmaking

ThrowsTheBird·Jan 12, 2019·52 votes·19,141 views

Dear friends,

What is wrong with this picture?

http://eune.op.gg/summoner/userName=throwsthebird

This is my first time playing ranked...I have been playing League for around 2 years. My current soloQ ranked MMR is 1751 which tranlates to Gold 3. (according to OP.GG)

My elo is Bronze 4 (op.gg says I will skip divisions?) and I have a 67% win rate...really nothing special at this elo. However now to reach Bronze 3 I am placed in matches where the enemy has 1886 MMR on average (rammus - sion game), against players who were platinum last season.

Am I correct in assuming that because of my relatively high MMR (compared to the actual elo) the system will group me with lower MMR players just to average out the team MMR? In other words am I correct in assuming that the system is actively trying to hinder my climb and push me towards a 50% win rate? Is the matchmaking working against the player?

I'm quite new to this mmr / elo system so any info you can give me is much appreciated. Thank you.

59 Comments

GFREEMENJan 12, 201936 votes

Yes this is how the MMR System works.

If you are a good player it will place Dumb as Rocks players on your team to push you to 50%.

Also New accounts will climb much faster then an account that has 1000 Ranked games. The system does not handle old accounts well because you are so close to 50% any wins will be quickly offset by a game with afkers or run down mid feeders.

The system is complete TRASH and I Grade schooler could design a better one.

ThrowsTheBirdJan 12, 201911 votes

{quoted}

Yes this is how the MMR System works.

If you are a good player it will place Dumb as Rocks players on your team to push you to 50%.

Also New accounts will climb much faster then an account that has 1000 Ranked games. The system does not handle old accounts well because you are so close to 50% any wins will be quickly offset by a game with afkers or run down mid feeders.

The system is complete TRASH and I Grade schooler could design a better one.

Well I'm said to hear that. Maybe I should not play ranked then...if the system just wants to fuck you in the ass what's the point? :(

GFREEMENJan 12, 201922 votes

Riot built it like that because people will keep trying to climb the wall they cant climb. Video game Theory is based off an experiment done on Rats. The Rat would be trained to pull a leaver and get rewarded. But then they would make pulling the Leaver a bad experience.

The idea is to make the Rat still pull the leaver in the HOPES of getting a reward even when pulling the leaver was bad. This works on Humans too. Ranked is this to the T.

Few have fun in ranked and still Que up in the HOPES they will get the next reward. Its all part of addiction. If Riot can keep you pulling the leaver they keep making $$ (even if YOU dont buy anything % wise ppl will)

You can look at all video games like this that have micro transactions or monthly subscriptions. Only one time buy games dont do this.

TyrancyJan 13, 20199 votes

Highly agree with this. Ive always laughed every game. Seeing as how I am silver 2, why isnt there 9 other silver players in my game? No my team will consist of silver 2. silver 3. silver 3. plat 5. and an unranked. Its like ok..... whats their team? Gold 5, silver 1, silver 2, plat 5, Iron 4.

Soooo the way they balance this very odd matchmaking is giving them an Iron 4 player because they statistically have the better team with higher MMR? It just doesnt feel right, sure they have an iron 4, but slap that guy on a tank supp and tell him to play safe and now they generally have the better team. Sure we could still win, we got a plat 5 and an unranked, he could be a smurf, but it just feels a bit bs when not everyone is silver, I wanna play people of my rank, not 2 tier above me or below me.

WashyMoneyJan 13, 20192 votes

It’s cause MMR is screwed up right now?

How about showing me a silver player matches with plats in ranked BEFORE preseason. You can’t. Every stupid post here about “silver vs Plat” is always in normals or flex.

Papa BearJan 14, 20193 votes

So riots idea of matchmaking in 3's is that when you change map design but keep the same mechanics of clicking on people, skillshots, etc. Suddenly the system considers you a potato. Why isn't like 80% of your current MMR transfered from 5's to 3's? I'm really sick and f'ing tired of riots matchmaking saying that as a Bronze 2 player I have to matchmake vs 2 plats and a gold, team MMR was their 1800+ to our 1200ish... like wtf, at what point does the math get so basic that 6th graders could objectively easily design a better system than riots genuinely toxic design.

Papa BearJan 14, 20192 votes

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/373532266393239585/534231128480022539/Matchmaking.png

keccak256Jan 15, 20192 votes

im new, and trash (ill get better some day, but hey, it takes time/experience)

my win rate is absolute trash. my kda is trash. my mmr is trash.

and your screenshot here, thats what most my games are like. where im red team.
its like..... why are they stacking the deck against us? its hard enough to learn?

theres enough new players to put new people with new people. without pissing off the exp players, and new players alike by mixing us up and stacking the deck heavily for 1 team.

i even made a log of a ton of games i played. in 80% of them. enemy team had vastly higher mmr avg, mmr total, kda avg, kda total, recent win rate average, recent win rate total, lifetime win rate average, lifetime win rate total, total games played average, total games played total.

like.... this isn't fun.

"goto norms kid"... ok... and there, its mixed just as bad. thats the whole reason i went to ranked. i was sick of having to face random pools with a few people that have played for 5 years running about smashing everything and going 30/0/8..... i WANTED a platform where, as a new player, i can face/team with, other new players...

guess thats too much to ask for.

i'd 100% rather wait in que for 5-15 minutes EVERY GAME for a fair match. than get a game in 1-3 minutes thats so horribly set up.

Papa BearJan 21, 20192 votes

I agree on having increased queue times for better matches. I freaking hate playing 1, 2, 3, 4 rankings well over my head. It is not fun to spend 1/4 of my games vs plats and diamonds, especially if they say I'm iron or bronze. If they want to place me vs plays that's frustrating but I could live with it if they gave me the ranking I'm playing in. Otherwise if I'm bronze place me vs only bronze until I climb out. Then place me vs only silvers and let me climb through that.

Kai GuyJan 13, 20192 votes

I set the starting MMR for the game to be bronze. I lower K factor in Silver 4. Lower it again in silver 2. I can now reasonably keep a majority of the games population under gold MMR. Hell with Iron tier I can make it so less then 10% of the game ever makes it up to gold.

At no point does it rig matches. Any one consistently able to climb to the top 10% will do so.

This is super easy. I don't have to rig a single match. My match maker system does not have to stat track. Or try to find ways to throw matches. I as a dev have 100% control over my MMR to Division Precentiles.

If you think forced 50% is real your lying to yourself.

If you cant climb that top 10% wall, bummer your literally just not good enough or able to invest enough time.

Oh right. Time investment that's something your arguing. I still don't have to Rigg matches. Low MMR gain losses. Low LP gain losses. I can tweak this in relation to the start point. Your new? kudos its going to take 400 wins at a 60% rate to hit gold.

Oh old accounts? Soft resets? easy. Set them to be a much lower value and bleed extra MMR from the system. Then set the K factor to change by account differently for wins and losses. Double your MMR losses. Now you need a 66% win rate in placements to break even, not with your last seasons MMR but my arbitrarily decided Start point.

I don't ever need to try and make impact on the quality of matchmaker. Becuase as a dev i can 100% make ranked ladder work how ever the hell I want.

Rigged 50% is a garbage excuse for not climbing.

SociaI JusticeJan 13, 20197 votes

what the fuck did i just read

Kai GuyJan 13, 20191 votes

Multiple ways to manipulate a MMR system with out ever trying to force a matches outcome in advanced to the game starting.

Sorry, if your oblivious to how they function and operate it probably looks like gibberish. Feel free to quote anything you don't understand and I can explain it in detail.

Let me make it really simple. Rigging the match is incompatible with a MMR or Elo system. Trying to force a result directly interferes with the process. It takes way more work to proactively try and manipulate matches prior to champion select. Meanwhile MMR and Elo are Variable biased statistical systems and all you need to do is change what variables your system uses for its base to influence the outcome of what your ranked ladder looks like.

Look, anyone who says "WTF is a K factor?" is some one that has weak knowledge of Elo and has absolutely no business trying to discuss the topic.

So if your confused. Quote it. Example.

what the fuck did i just read

A large list of viable manipulations to achieve a set end result from riots "League system" off a reactive MMR system. With out once ever trying to force a matches outcome.

If you believe in forced 50%? Simply explain what you think it accomplishes for riot. Because I can easily make a system that accomplishes any end goal you think rigging games accomplishes, that's more accurate at achieving this goal, and takes much less work.

I am over this Rigged games myth. It makes the game a lot less fun if you truly believe in it. Its the new OMG ELO HELL!

Look, I get it because I believed in elo hell once. Back in season 1, when I was bronze. see icon.

IllabetheJan 14, 20194 votes

[{quoted}](name=Kai Guy,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=tEkWeQUw,comment-id=000300000000000100000000,timestamp=2019-01-13T20:22:44.308+0000)

Multiple ways to manipulate a MMR system with out ever trying to force a matches outcome in advanced to the game starting.

Sorry, if your oblivious to how they function and operate it probably looks like gibberish. Feel free to quote anything you don't understand and I can explain it in detail.

Let me make it really simple. Rigging the match is incompatible with a MMR or Elo system. Trying to force a result directly interferes with the process. It takes way more work to proactively try and manipulate matches prior to champion select. Meanwhile MMR and Elo are Variable biased statistical systems and all you need to do is change what variables your system uses for its base to influence the outcome of what your ranked ladder looks like.

Look, anyone who says "WTF is a K factor?" is some one that has weak knowledge of Elo and has absolutely no business trying to discuss the topic.

So if your confused. Quote it. Example.

A large list of viable manipulations to achieve a set end result from riots "League system" off a reactive MMR system. With out once ever trying to force a matches outcome.

If you believe in forced 50%? Simply explain what you think it accomplishes for riot. Because I can easily make a system that accomplishes any end goal you think rigging games accomplishes, that's more accurate at achieving this goal, and takes much less work.

I am over this Rigged games myth. It makes the game a lot less fun if you truly believe in it. Its the new OMG ELO HELL!

Look, I get it because I believed in elo hell once. Back in season 1, when I was bronze. see icon.

Oh Elo hell exists. But it's not because of some pre-ordained calculation by Riot. It's because the impact of one in 10 players is generally too small to impact the outcome of a game where the other 4 players on your team have a 50/50 chance of being the feeder, feeding earlier, snowballing earlier, and as a consequence, it takes 3-10 times as many games to climb a tier than it would if you were in your same ranged players. At some point the fact climbing is just "dampened" by the people you play with and how early they introduce gold into the games..... becomes an elo hell.

There are also very few champs in the game who can truly take advantage of this early game phenomenon and turn it into a quick game. When one stands out, they generally get nerfed. Or, they are exclusive to one unique one trick play style, like . Someone who moves around so quickly it's hard to target skill them, they can avoid 50% of your skill shots, and reset their abilities, and have no costs. You literally have to play 150-200 games against a current Katarina to learn how to predict/outplay her enough to consider her a normal champion. And even then, you tend to forget some nuances, and the fact different people play her differently.

Point is...... if you are tied to specific champions you like, which aren't one of the meta hyper carries who can 1v5 a game, and you are in a low elo of people who are 50/50, then yes. Elo Hell Does Exist. But it's because of the general fact that people haven't learned: The early game is the largest deciding factor on a win. Not because of matchmaking. CS, First Bloods, Quadra kill counter-invasions.... That's elo hell.

Kai GuyJan 15, 20191 votes

Eh. Mostly its just the parts of the ranked ladder you start rubberbanding that are "hell". No one likes to get stuck.

Its not to hard to avoid what used to be where you got hard stuck when you improve thou.

Honestly. I would not recommend Katarina . Shes the kind of OMG IMA HARD CARRY! that wont. She needs to work with teammates for her kits best case damages. Mechanics aside all it takes is a list of point and click CC abilitys that stop her and almost every player even in low elo knows how to halt her damage.

To many people are playing for kills. Its less work and more efficient to play for obj and map control.

I actively dislike smurfing, it eats away a lot of other players fun if you do it maliciously. Still, I have done it several times over the years to show RL friends why they are stuck.

Id take Xerath in bronze and silver over Katarina any day of the week. 1 shot a weak adc player mid game with just his R at a massive range. Then siege.

impact the outcome of a game where the other 4 players on your team have a 50/50 chance of being the feeder

That's not quite right. Your 1 slot of your team 100%. that leaves 4 on your side and 5 on the other. As long as its not you, the odds are higher the worst player in a match will be on your enemy team. 20% favored odds are solid, its more then enough to have a "house" advantage.

I have always been curious about champions viability by ranked tiers thou.

ThrowsTheBirdJan 15, 20191 votes

That's an awesome and at the same time tragic analogy. Another disappointment for me.

The first one was when I found out that reworking champions was a business decision as well. They cannot pump out new champions because a large champion pool would make the game (more) inaccessible to new players so they introduce new stuff by using the "rework model". Damn shame because it ruined a lot of champions I loved :(

Give this a read if you have the time:

https://web.archive.org/web/20180706095917/http://nikkone.blogspot.com

(for some reason it got removed but Internet Archive has it all)

Kai GuyJan 13, 20193 votes

Hey throw. I strongly disagree with Gfreemen. Let me explain some relevant information about MMR systems.

So here's what you need to know.

MMR and Team Elo systems work. They are statistical systems. The use law of large numbers to shift out RNG of teammates. Its provably workable, they are mathematically and in practice systems that achieve their end goals. Note that this goal is to sort the player base across the ladder by skill. Weak players sink. Strong ones climb. This is not the starting point but the end result it try's to achieve. You can expect roughly 50% of the games players to sink in Elo and MMR. About half of them will be below the base mmr value all accounts enter into the ranked ladder with. Soft resets and inactive accounts do change this somewhat but its a pretty solid rule of thumb. They do not check how well your playing, its not judging you on each play or your stats. Did you win or lose is core to adjusting. Some games do stat track. But even then the core is still. Did you win or lose? The stat tracking can effectively be viewed as a modification to K factor and only impacts how much extra mmr you got or lose. K factor is something I will talk about more on, going to be in point 3.
Its going to be inaccurate. Often. Very often. Again new accounts have the same start point and that's not bottom of the ladder. The absolutely worst RNG is going to be MMR tiers near starting value of new accounts. But there is no reason to ever assume its rigged or that your unfavored. Its just inherently more chaotic here. If your in a situation where, "I only lose if my teammates are bad and/or enemy team has strong player." and at the same time also feel "I only win if teammates are good and/or enemy team is feeders" your admiting that you make very little personal impact. At this point you rely on the RNG to climb or fall. So it sucks for a lot of folks but the majority of the player base is going to operate in the MMR that's the absolutely most chaotic and by virtue of Percentiles. So just know if that's actually representative of their average skill they will get stuck. They will feel helpless. Its not rigged the system literally does not give a shit about you ever. Its not trying to be nice to you. It just doesn't care. Your good? Climb. If not to bad.Its job is to sepreate who can climb, who cant, and those that are heavy like rocks and sink.

Look, I have a lot of sympathy for people near the starting mmr. Its rough. But ultimately the system does favor you once you improve so focus entirely on your own play and it will get better. I'm using my Season 1 bronzie icon for a reason. Once I honestly and whole heartedly believed in elo hell for about 1 and 1/2 year. Now I don't, I just cant in face of how easy it is to climb smurfing. If you want, I can give you a way to test mmr with dice, But the much easier way Is to look at when you first started playing. Compare it to the you now. And ask, if I had a 5 man team of current me vs 5 man team vs first game me. Who would I expect to win a majority of matches? Traditionally this impossible to create but easy to build on paper hypothetical question is all you need to show yourself that skill impacts win rates.

Inaccuracy is accounted for. Mismatches, ARE ACCOUNTED FOR. No joke. K factor is a term in elo. its used to represent uncertainty. Its part of the adjustment formula. At the end of a game the variables for adjustment are plugged in and that's what your new mmr is going to be. it usually looks like some variation of this. New mmr = Old mmr + K (Result of match - System Expectations for match). This adjustment is ran and tracked individually by player.

K factor. Less games higher it is. So, a lot of devs add extra mods to it, Dota 2 and OW/Heros of the storm. Honestly I expect riot has several of their own that they just don't mention. For the most part I recommend that players just ignore it, it wont change the adjustments core function of tracking wins/losses. I will talk about why one has to do this in a 3A) point in a moment here. So regardless of modifications you can have a very basic understanding of Elo and MMR. If I win I get mmr. If I lose I lose mmr. Placement matches have very high K factors. You can go far up or down ladder during them. But, in many games in addition to having the K factor lower over time. WIll have Choke points where it lowers off ladder position. That way a Awfull player with good luck wont end up in say masters. The needed # of wins goes up because their MMR gains lower at set points where you need to see slowdown. Same for the reverse, you set slow downs in lower mmr so a good player with bad luck for a few early games wont get buried in the bottom of iron.

The adjustment (results - expectaitons) is because not ever game is going to be fair. The system will have matches it assumes a team is favored. It then changes the adjusments. unfavored teams gain More MMR on a win, the lose less on a loss. Because that's exactly what the system expects. Vice versa, if your favored you stand to gain less mmr on a win, lose more for a loss. This with variance of K factor means that when you get dicked with a unranked player. Odds are they will lose the most MMR by virtue of an exaggerated K factor. You only see unranked players in a set range of the ranked ladder. Hence why I have sympathy for the average player. Lower and higher on the ladder they are non existent.

So ultimately even if you maintain a 50% win rate, you could climb providing a majority of your games your team is unfavored. You stand to Gain MMR. You could also Fall if your on a favored team majority of games. Regardless, If you maintain a Positive Win rate, you will be climbing.

3A) The issue with a Judge rateing. Skill gaps are a thing. In chess there is a 2 move checkmate that only happens if white makes the very worst moves. Winning in 2 moves is statistically very good, but its only archivable if the gap in skill between white and black is massive. in MMR biased matchmaking the assumption is there are going to be unfair games. Stomping folks below your level doesn't prove your a Pro or Top tier player. Just that you can abuse folks much weaker then you. I can destroy my roommates in SSBU with robin and 3 to 0 them stock matches. I will never win a pro tournament. My kda might be much higher then a pro but that's not because I am better then a pro. Its just that my oppositions just to weak to even KO me once.

Trying to measure by stats off opposition, when you don't have a good grasp on the skill gap is pointless. Literally the end goal of Elo/MMR systems are trying to find skill for players.

What ever you think Riot would gain by a "Rigged" matchmaker? Literally its easier to just tweak a functional Elo and MMR system. You can super easily "hard stuck" a majority of your players at any MMR you want. Give them a Garbage low K factor or only have the Adjustment value be a super low #. You can set it to take an expectation of 400+ games for a functional MMR system to get accurate.

To say it rigs games. Implies l that it knows what champions will be played and how well each player will play them. Its well known that different champion interactions affect a match. Hard counters, soft counters. weak team comp, good team comps. How does it know in advanced?

How does riot know some one might lose power or afk then decide oh player X needs a loss. Lets give them this afker? Also why bother? Ranked ladder is percentile biased. You can keep majority of folks in your ladder where ever you want. ESPECIALLY WITH RIOTS LEAUGE SYSTEM.

Like I can set my starting mmr to be in bronze and that means that roughly 50% of the games players are only going to be in iron and bronze. Only a small % of players make It up. Throw in a lot of K factor slowdowns or just have it be absolutely tiny gains for any MMR outside of bronze? Kudos almost no ones even making it up to high gold or plat. And lets be real, riot literally has Force outs in their ladder. There is only 200 slots in challenger. No matter what It can only account for a small fraction of the games entire population.

So people will say shit like OMG forced win rates. Or RIOT FORCES 50% BECUASE X. But that's just bullshit. Rigged matchmaking is hard. Not giving a f**k if you put mismatches into games is easy for mmr and it wont stop it from working. You can easily make it a nightmare to climb and still have a "fair" matchmaker.

"Forced Win rates" Completely f**ks the systems ability to rate players. If it cant get a good judgment on skill and all players of every skill are in the same MMR it uses to build games. Then it is even harder for a forced matchmaker to work. Unless it literally predicts the future.

Sadly its a popular excuse. Because again about 50% of the games gonna be only falling down the ladder. Average players have the highest % of mismatched games due to it being the start point to build a percentile ladder. You see the most mismatches at the expected standard level of play. Just a inherent part of the game.But remember, at no point does the ladder care. Your job as a player is to see how high you can go. The job of the ladder is to prevent weak players from making it to the top.Its impossible to keep strong players out of the bottom. Its a lot easier to intentionally lose then it is to win. Its possible to keep weak players from making it to the top tiers of play.

League system is more then just Team elo and MMR. And hell yes it has some flaws. Just nothing that will hadycapy good players from climbing.

Now despite this long ass post defending and calling out blatant lies and misunderstandings of Elo and MMR. Let me give you an example of a inherently flawed part of the system. Riots needs to address duoing. A basic understanding of Elo and MMR is all you need to have beef with duoing. Because Is not biased off mmr but league tiers and that upsets me. It makes for higher mismatches. It should be off the same Gap of what matchmaker considers its bottom line for a reasonable game.

Anyhow Let me know if there's anything about Elo or MMR you have some questions on.

IllabetheJan 13, 20194 votes

Wall of Text post, but I'm going to attempt to counter point a bit:

isn't entirely applicable, because there are two systems in play when calculating effective player status: Stock reading ranking (Their actual rank) and Flow reading ranking (What the MMR system suggests they should be playing against)

Large Sample laws would be appropriate if you only had one measure of success, instead of two. If you are a Silver IV player who is at a Flow reading ranking of Gold IV, it's very likely you are both getting exposed to players far beyond your skill, and that while your teammates might be that rank, you're not, and your play reflects it, and it ALSO affects the play proficiency of your teammates. If a Silver IV is in a game with Gold IV's it's very likely that:

The Gold IV's have an effective MMR of Silver I, after a series of losses. The Gold IV's still have a Gold IV proficiency of play. The teammates of the Silver IV will behave like a Silver II, because they don't know how to manage their lame duck player.

If instead, Silver IV meant you played against Silver IV players, then yes. Large sample laws would dictate correct. But, since the reality is Silver IV vs Gold IV, you are wrong.

Your argument is valid, BUT there's a very big problem with the very beginning of what you said: New accounts do NOT (unless season 9 changes this) start out at the same exact MMR. In Season 1-8, your placements on a new account have literally taken into account your Normal Summoner Rift record to calculate an approximate MMR to begin your placements at. That is how some new accounts started in Bronze while others start in Gold III. And because the Normal MMR was imposed when placing new accounts everything you said following does NOT apply. The spread of new accounts was (probably still is) random enough between 11-12 ranks that they won't all be in one cluster, offering a fair chance of outcome.
They may adjust based on uncertainty, but a 1-2 LP adjustment isn't as significant as the impact to whom you are going to be playing your subsequent games with. The fact we have promotional series heavily impacts both positive and negative K factors. The stock value of the rank remains unchanged at these barriers, while the K factor of the win/loss doesn't. If you are Bronze I, 0 LP, and lose Three games, your K factor adjusts your teams to Bronze III. This invariably leads to an ineffiency in the K factor. Likewise, if you are Silver I and win 3 games in your promotion, you are going to effectively be a Gold IV with a K factor set at Gold III or II, also leading to an inefficiency. These inefficiencies are creating lag in positive performance and an acceleration of negative performance. The fact that the two are creating polarized results cannot be ignored.

3A) My counter is similar to 3) Incrementalism supports skill improvement. MMR based on K Factor doesn't. It skips increments and places you directly outside your skill level.

The premise of this point is correct. However, there is one factor that Riot has actually ADMITTED to set the outcome against your skill level: Promotional Series. Riot has actually admitted, that the reason you generally see adversarial performances at promotional series, is because they want to verify that you are ready for the players you will be facing. In other words:

They DO intervene and give you non MMR rated teams when organizing a match with someone who is in a promotion. The K Factor in a promotional series is voided to some extent, and replaced with a protocol that makes you compete above that point.

Kai GuyJan 13, 20191 votes

I thank you for takeing the time to respond in depth. I truly appreciate seeing well reasoned comments.

because there are two systems in play when calculating effective player status: Stock reading ranking (Their actual rank) and Flow reading ranking (What the MMR system suggests they should be playing against

I would like to point out to the matchmaking system that the only thing it care for is the Flow reading rank. Stock rank as you call it is entirely for players. It makes no impact on how matches are built. Which is frustrating for some players who don't understand how the "Flow reading (henceforth referred to as MMR)" works. There are 2 occasions Stock rank is considered in game. At the end of a season for season rewards. #2 is for Duoing limitations which I strongly disagree with riot onI feel it should be restricted by MMR not the player distraction tiers. Who knows, possibly im wrong and they do/did restrict to large of a mmr gap but seeing a gold division 5 play with plat division 1 seems like a pretty gnarly gap to me. Because with MMR gap between assigned skill that could be the same as a silver player MMR Qued with a Diamond Player MMR.

Ultimately for the MMR system it only cares about MMR. The league systems to make folks feel better about losing games, give riot some extra tools for controlling the ladder. its not related to the quality of a match, outside of Duoing. Depending on the # of active players the effective MMR range of Divisions changes, its honestly inconsistent for judging player skill.

If you are a Silver IV player who is at a Flow reading ranking of Gold IV

I assume we are talking about "true skill" when you say Silver IV here? It should be pretty uncommon to see such a large gap in true skill to assigned skill. Now I can think of ways in league that it can exist. An example is if a OTP get their main nerfed/reworked and will now underperform.

Still the matches your describing entirely function to make large #s work. The Silver player is placed higher then their skill so that is a handicap for his team. So he will experience losses and that lowers his MMR. This happens in literally every game he is in until he has lost enough MMR that the system is placing him in a range he wont cripple teams. Now this seems unfair for his teamamtes but remember that His Gold teammates with a lame duck only had him 1 game. Their next match the odds of a "lame duck" increase to be on the enemy team rather then their team so their unfortunate loss from a weak player is compensated if they just play more. MMR systems will always favor a good player who is underplaced and harm a weak one who is over placed. Because matchmaker wont care what division you are. Just what MMR range your in.

Now Ideally you don't want your system to create this large of a gap. The MMR adjustment gap your discussing here truly feels a bit high. You get dramatic rubber banding, players don't like that. I suppose at the very start it might be realistic for an account to see this, but i'd call it a pretty weak matchmaker if it was a common place event rather then exception.

Now

2) Your argument is valid, BUT there's a very big problem with the very beginning of what you said: New accounts do NOT (unless season 9 changes this) start out at the same exact MMR. In Season 1-8, your placements on a new account have literally taken into account your Normal Summoner Rift record

I think you may have the wrong information. Everyone’s MMR starts at the same point when playing a queue for the first time. MMRs between queues aren’t connected. This means occasionally high-MMR ranked players have lower MMRs in normals. Even back in 2009 it seems like the Ques are not related. If you solo queued, its just your personal rating (i.e. ranked team rating for ranked team, normal games rating for normal games)

Far as I have seen only the opposite is true where riots considered using Ranked to splash into normal. We’re looking into some options, such as having better algorithms to get players to more accurate MMRs in a shorter time, or potentially “splashing” small amounts of MMR from ranked into normals without a direct link between the two

K factor adjustment is exclusively for MMR. MMR gap to assigned Division is what then influence LP. K factor is not directly related to LP gains or losses as You can have low K factor and a high MMR gap for your division to mmr and see big LP changes. There's no direct correlation between K factor and LP gains/losses. There Is no negative or positive K factor. Its Higher and lower. It represents account uncertainty. You see it change over # of games played and at MMR milestones where you don't want accounts to travel to far because of luck. Again Divisions are not Tied to MMR so they are unrelated to milestones. Instead its the milestones that will affect the % of players who can get to divisions because it slows down the rate of travel on a ladder making it so luck has lower impact on the ability to climb or fall to far.

You don't build teams off K factor. Matchmaker does this. Its set to have rules when searching for games. There's a range of MMR it considers fair to build a team from when you que up. Now MMR is built using the K factor but that's only 1 variable in the adjustment formula. If we want to try and make more "fair matches" using player experience? Its better to have matchmaker search to matching the # of games played on accounts then it by trying to find matching K factors. Because your going to have slowdowns off MMR tiers to prevent lucky climbing and there is a hard cap for high and lowest K factor values. Depending on where riot puts this a Player with 50 games could have the same K factor as one with 300.

"The fact we have promotional series heavily impacts both positive and negative K factors." K factor does not impact "Stock Flow" Just MMR. Promotional series don't affect mmr gains and losses. Theres no Positive or negative K factors with out extra modifications to your MMR system. And you can make that happen as a dev if you wanted to artificially add difficulty to climbing. On its own thou, there's good reason to do so. High and low uncertainty is all K factor should care about. You want to move accounts to the level they play at quicker with high uncertainty so theres less negative impact on the majority of your player base where on paper fair matches are a blatantly lop sided snowball messes because of mismatched players.

you are going to effectively be a Gold IV with a K factor set at Gold III You don't ever see this. K factor changes are going to be off a set MMR value because that's a consistent number that you can rely on for a matchmaker. Gold III will represent a changing range of MMR averages over a season. If a bunch of new players start playing ranked and are absolutely newbies. They will lose a lot of games, they change the average MMR for the game to be higher. So your mmr values by tier all go up in everything above where the newbies sink to. Theres more MMR in the system.

One of the reasons soft resets happen is to bleed out extra MMR. It removes inactive accounts. It resets uncertainty. It sucks out some of the bloated MMR at the end of a season from all the accounts that stopped playing. Also, again soft resets are a place where riot can minipulate their ranked ladder to reflect what ever they want. but they can also at any point change starting place for new accounts in any given season if the chose as well. So forced 50% remains a BS argument.

They DO intervene and give you non MMR rated teams when organizing a match with someone who is in a promotion. Not exactly. Just how the system functions. MMR gains > Lp gains. So if your climbing your MMR goes up faster then your "stock flow" Your matched vs higher players because you have MMR there. Bigger the gap the harder the promo. Your correct that Promotional games are designed to make people prove they belong in an MMR. The belief that this is because it ignores MMR to build the games as far as I can tell is wrong. Feel free to correct me with a source if you have one. If you don't, then we are just seeing exactly what you should expect from Leauge and MMR, not riot loading games. Just a natural flow of events.

Bit repetitive but lets look at it some more.

If your win rates positive but at low % it will take a longer time to climb. You wont see a dramatic gap between your MMR and Division so when you finally get to a promotional game your going to be vs players at a lower MMR value. flip side, If your hot streaking and killing it with a very high win % your MMR is going to be much higher then your "stock flow" so you have to compete vs higher Players.

Lets say some one blazed it up the ladder and now is struggling in promos. They are Losing over and over and over in promos but consistently making it back to them. It will lower the gap between MMR and your current division until your promo games place you vs people actually at your level. In lower Elo there is promo helper. So you just need 1 out of 2 games to be a win. Or 2 out of 4. Also if your MMR gets super bloated you will skip divisions, the system plays catch up. its not set to harm good players or under placed accounts. K factor will get lower at some point, MMR gains/losses will become less dramatic. LP Gains and losses will get closer to a natural point. The opposition gets weaker.

I have never seen any Claims from Riot that they ignore MMR to build promotional matches. Far as I can tell there's absolutely no evidence that it interferes with MMR systems end goals. Weak sinks. Strong Rises. Normal Flounders.

Tldr for this is Riot is correct to say its more challenging for players. Its not because its rigged or ignores the rules. Just a inherent interaction of MMR with the League system that is intended.

IllabetheJan 13, 20193 votes

Promotions also take into account Stock ranking. And that's my biggest rubbing point. When you win 5-7 games in succession to get to a Promotion, it dramatically changes your MMR. It puts you about 2-3 tiers above the rank you are attempting to promote out of. You're better off getting to a promotional game by winning 2, losing 1, winning 2, losing one, etc, just to artificially keep your MMR lower so that when the promotion comes, you are placed with moderately weaker players.
5 ranks difference probably is rare, but 3 is pretty common. If you go on a 10 game winning streak MMR calculations can easily place you 2-3 tiers up. If your LP adjusted by K is substantial, and gaining 23-24 LP/Win, the difference can go even higher.

I had an example of an extreme MMR drop that I often use. When Evelynn was reworked, I had a 69% Win rate Sona account. I used to play the old Evelynn as AD/hybrid. So, It was late Season, I thought I was safe in Gold IV, so I picked up Evelynn to experiment with her new mechanics on the Season 7 Runes. Evelynn couldn't survive a Baron, and could barely survive a drake in Season 7 end. Also, boosters were out (one claimed to be a rank 68 Challenger Zed smurfing), and it wasn't the right time to pull her out. Although I generally performed well in every game, the boosters/people who do not know how to react/play to them, just destroyed my ability to carry with her in that state.

I lost like 23 of 26 games (something like that). I had a 14% win rate with the new Evelynn.

The losses weren't entirely consecutive, but.....the result was: By the time I dropped to 0 LP Gold V, my effective MMR was Silver III. Aparrently my just having lost Gold IV didn't give me a 3 game demotion protection at Gold V, because one loss, and I literally demoted to Silver I. After that, I just began Fing around, because they released a Galio 1 shot patch, nerfed Sona, and my per win LP had dropped from 23 to 14.

On this smurf, I did the same thing with Neeko, although the losses were more of a gradual fall, and dropped out of Silver I to about Bronze II (partially due to people I was duoing; I saw a few people perform really well for a game, so I decided to carry them a little closer to gold at EoS. Turned out only 2 were even competent, and began sloppily feeding level 1-2 every game, and having enough bad games to destroy my opportunity of ever carrying them. Even though I was coaching them on the new voice app...... they still fed hard.... along with the rest of the team. I'd have 3.8 KDAs or better, and my team would have .2 KDA. That bad. That dropped me down to about Silver V. Then I started soloing again because I didn't trust these guys, and Silver V isn't any better than Bronze, so I did dip down into Bronze for awhile to consecutive 1v5's. I'm slowly getting back out to my friends, but euh. It takes almost three times as many games as Gold/Plat)

But anywho...... When I got into a Promo for Bronze I from Bronze II, my MMR was clear up at Silver III. When I was up for a Promo back into Silver IV, my MMR was Silver III. So yeah. The gap can get considerable.

The post was updated recently. So again, I don't know if it continues to be the way it was. But no..... I've had 5 different accounts. My Season 4 account started Bronze I. My Season 5 account 1 Started Gold V and Second account started Silver II. My Season 7 account started Gold IV. There is an incredible variance in the old system. Furthermore, the Silvers were actually more successful at "winning" my promotions than the Golds were. I had 10/10 on the Silvers. I had 6/10 on the Gold V and 7/10 on the Gold IV.

I've talked to enough pros and pro smurfs to know that when they make an account, they try to get the highest win rate possible on their Norms leveling, because it does (did) affect their preliminary Queues. And I believe it. My Gold starting accounts had 67+% Win rates going into Ranked. The Silver account was 53%, and the Bronze account was 49%. I know we're not discussing personal performance as evidence, but that's mine, and smurf's accounting of the situation.

The chat you linked answered a question about dynamic MMR synergies between normals and ranked, not specifically about a starting point. Yes, they do run separately after your starting point.

Promotional Series DO affect MMR, both in Stock and in Flow. The evidence is in how far you fall when you fail a promotional Series. If you lose 2, you will drop to ~ 67 LP. When you lose 1, win one, lose 1, you will only drop to about 75-78 LP. That's evidence that either a passive movement to LP exists, or MMR is moving. Furthermore, MMR tracking websites and correlating teams ALSO tend to emulate the responses to your performance. Game 1 of a Promotional Series may have 1450 MMR, and the teams will reflect that, with them averaging around that. If you win, the MMR average witnessed tends to jump 20-28 points. If you lose, the MMR average tends to drop 20-25 points.

(Even if the websites generally are not correct calculating MMR, they are moving when you lose a promotional series game)

When I get a chance I might try to find it. I believe I was the one who actually got a Rioter to admit it. But it's buried in thousands of posts and I don't know the right keywords.....

Kai GuyJan 15, 20191 votes

Yea but the trade off is you can have a more dramatic MMR adjustment to move the very weak and very strong accounts out of MMR brackets more rapidly with out some one hitting a league they don't actualy belong in with out the ability to back it up. Pros and cons to running it like that. Rubberbandings one of the cons of a higher adjustment/ larger K factors.

Far as bleeding MMR from your account, I find its much simpler to abuse Duo Que for that. You can force matchmaker to have uneven teams with duoing and that will change how it builds "fair" matches. Just need the gap between your and your friends mmr to be large as possible. Way easier then trying to maintain a 66% win rate. Also it allows you to keep playing to win, your hommie might be enough to cost you a game because they are weaker players and that's a shame. but you can coach them, give them a taste of what level they need to play at, bleed away MMR from your account, And not see dramatic slide down the ladder.

Duo needs to be set off MMR ranges. Riot is doing a bit better then they used to be about duoing but its defiantly a place to exploit their system. Or I am wrong and its not. Feel like it is so I tend to use it this way. Take it as an opinion I guess.

I have tanked MMR 1 season helping a friend and ended up starting next season in silver. Was pretty fun for me as it was basically smurfing on my main account. Ended up skipping divisions.

Lp Gains are reflected by MMR gap between assigned League and assigned mmr. They are mostly unrelated to K factors. A high K factor will make a more dramatic gap between MMR and league. But the LP gains are consistent regardless of an accounts # of games. you don't see them diminished over time because of K.

Heads up, game demotion protection far as I know only applys after winning a promotion. Riot used to hand out warnings to folks who fall a full tier (gold V vs Silver V) no idea if they still do that thou. Just don't count on demotion protection apart from a few matches after a promo win.

Sounds like when you put your nose to the grindstone to fix your MMR you did? It got a nasty gap and all but eventually your gonna skip divisions. and if your already able to beat the folks at the MMR your matched with, no reason that having a lower tier harms you with high MMR. Its only an issue when you hit a wall.

A lot of folks forget that MMR is representing a range of expected play. That folks will have good and bad games. So its got wiggle room and is usually represented with a curve.

2B (you repeated a number, sall good.) https://support.riotgames.com/hc/en-us/articles/201752954-Matchmaking-Guide "Everyone’s MMR starts at the same point when playing a queue for the first time." This is consistent for mmr systems. It also gives the devs more control over percentiles of a ranked ladder. Its easier to calculate expectations for how the player base gets distributed.

You do see fresh accounts go the exact same win% in placements and end up at different mmrs. You can even see the exact same pattern result in different placement. Because not every match has the same expectations. The range of MMR change per account will be fairly RNG. K factors at its expected highest point. Any wins when unfavored = Max MMR gain.

so I am more inclined to think that its related to placement win % then normal MMR splashing over. Its an extra step to splash and doesn't really help riot or the players any. Just opens up abuse cases.

There is better ways to accelerate players around the ladder, even with RNG. Far as i can tell, Splashing makes it harder to have a reliable model of player distribution around the CenterPoint/starting point, and doesn't inherently create better matches.

This is entirely my fault. I was unclear. What I wanted to convey was MMR works the same regardless of promotional matches. What I said was "Promotional series don't affect mmr gains and losses. "

I see how that can be unclear.

Yes. You still will gain and lose MMR during Promotional series. The lack of LP change is irrelevant. Your going up or down every match, even promotionals. I did not covey this very well and I see how you can take it as me saying that your MMR freezes.

That's evidence that either a passive movement to LP exists, or MMR is moving MMR is defiantly moving. You can actually make a higher MMR gap if you keep losing promos to luck. I have done it. Unreliable internet = lobby dodges = free loss with 0 mmr impact.

Repeated losses then returns will act the opposite. It lowers your mmr. because your Lp gains higher if your MMR is higher so you only need 1-2 games to return. Then if you flop it over and over even with promo helper your win % suffers. MMR can start to drain out, because mmr changes are more dramatic.

It can be grindy but end of the day you can overcome promotional matches. Also,I think Duoing is still the best way to bleed MMR. I don't have riots # so that's very much an opinion of mine and not a fact.

Honestly I always wanted to make a bronze 5 smurf and keep it as long as I can in bronze by que dodging in promo games. Its a lot of effort and I wouldent get it to high. But some challenger player doing this and getting it into diamond would be a hilarious shitstorm of tilt. WTF RIOT WHYS OUR ADC BRONZE 5!

I never have seen this, usually its the opposite. Well here's the sources I built my knowledge around.

https://nexus.leagueoflegends.com/en-us/2018/02/dev-matchmaking-real-talk/ http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=3712300&page=114#post40484597 http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=2744128 http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=12029 http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Elo_rating_system http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/League_system

I also checked a bunch of other games when I was trying to learn more about MMR systems. dota 2 Matches played in normal matchmaking do not impact your ranked matchmaking MMR, and vice versa.

https://heroesofthestorm.com/en-us/game/ranked-play/ Does not say anything related to Normals or Ranked interaction far as I saw. same for OW.

Smite.

Do I have different MMR Values and Variances for the different game modes? Yes. Each game mode is tracked separately as they all require different skillsets to be measured

What are Qualifying Games? When first entering League, you will be required to play 10 Qualifying games**. Your MMR starts at the average MMR for everyone in the system,** and your Variance is set to be very high. After playing 10 games, the system will place you into a Tier. https://www.smitegame.com/news/matchmaking-faq

I have No idea if riot does the bolded part or has a static number btw.

IllabetheJan 13, 20196 votes

{quoted}

Well I'm said to hear that. Maybe I should not play ranked then...if the system just wants to fuck you in the ass what's the point? :(

That's NOT quite how ranked works (It's just how players often feel it works)

If you go on winning streaks in ranked, you will be placed ever escalating with mmrs much higher than your own rank (Suppose you earn 20 LP a win, but still have to endure promotion series; those promotion series are still increasing your effective MMR, but aren't increasing your rank. In other words, you very well could be Bronze III and be put into Silver III games, if you've had a streak of consecutive wins.)

As a result, players often feel like the system is stepping on them, because their effective real skill level might be Bronze I or Silver IV, and their games are placing them with players who are better (Silver III) than their current rank (Bronze III), and better than their current skill level, but doing so increases the likelihood of losses.

Because the system calculates streaks as effective rank displacement, it often seems the best way to rank is to just win 2, and then lose 1, to keep the system from escalating the mmr of your teammates and opponents.

What he said about New accounts ranking faster is half true.

In reality, New accounts both fall AND climb in ranks faster. This is because LP rewards/losses take into consideration your Win/Loss Ratio, and 1 game affects this far more when you are at 10 games than 1000 games. If you are skillful enough to maintain a 65% win rate at 1000 games, you can technically climb just as fast as a 65% at 10 games, but 1000 games is far harder to maintain, especially if you gamble on a new champ or something, and lose 10-15 games in a row, ranking your ratios. It's far more likely that at a low sample size, you pull off 65%, while at 1000 games you might be 53%. Or, instead of 53% (Positive) You very likely could fall to 48%, because the irregular play you get stuck with in low elos after you have that one less streak further exacerbates the issue, and every game becomes a 1v5, as your 4 teammates feed.

I'm not trying to say that will happen with everybody; I'm just saying..... up to a point the ability to climb/fall is sheer luck. Skill only accounts for about a 3-4% margin in your rate of success. But that 3-4% matters. It's the difference between winning 21 LP/losing 17 LP, and Winning 18 LP, and losing 20 LP.

Old accounts have an opportunity to semi-renew themselves every season. Even if one year you end in the gutter, and your next season will start off at a reasonably low rank, there IS hope:

-Every season, you start off at 0 games. So although you have had 1000s of games weigh you down, and gotten nowhere in Season 8, you very well may be able to climb in season 9, because the LP gains/losses have reset. So if you get that 65% win rate right off the bat, and maintain it, you're going to climb like a new account. If you lose that 65%, and drop down to 50%, you'll experience what GFreemen suggested: Normal LP gains/Losses which often tread water.

So go at a Season start intelligently:

-Be aware that right after a season starts, the trolls/booster accounts are still out in droves, trying to either place/not care about placing because they have an opinion it won't matter (when someone is a Silver IV or Bronze, often they have the mindset their outcome in placements do not matter, so they just wiff and throw 10 games in a row just to get to games with actual LP/Loss/gains), So I highly suggest waiting a few weeks.

-Go hard on champions you dominate with. Don't deviate and try to play something exciting or fun, until much later.

-If you have reliable friends who consistently perform better than your elo, play your placements/early games with them. This will preserve your honor by keeping you out of chat, and it will hedge your ability to control your game, rather than leaving it in the hands of 4 strangers.

I hope this helps.

Ok sure but whyJan 13, 20193 votes

No wonder people make smurfs.

Snarf of thunderJan 12, 201913 votes

lots of players are leaving the game. Riots been in enough trouble

BeersteinJan 12, 201911 votes

op.gg has no clue how to calculate ratings right now, but so what, you'll skip a buncha leagues. Just play a few more games.

OrangeMarineJan 12, 20199 votes

yeah because of the rank restructuring MMR ratings are probably unreliable for a while. Still, every year you should wait a few weeks before ranking. This will let all the higher ranked players climb a bit and the actual low elo players to drop. So you win on two fronts and should have an easier time climbing.

otherwise you might lose a bunch of games to players who are currently ranked way lower than they belong and tank your mmr

ThrowsTheBirdJan 12, 20194 votes

{quoted}

yeah because of the rank restructuring MMR ratings are probably unreliable for a while. Still, every year you should wait a few weeks before ranking. This will let all the higher ranked players climb a bit and the actual low elo players to drop. So you win on two fronts and should have an easier time climbing.

otherwise you might lose a bunch of games to players who are currently ranked way lower than they belong and tank your mmr

Thank you for your response. That makes sense.

Also does that mean that I am right about how the system works? Is it grouping me with lower mmr players to have the proper team mmr?

OrangeMarineJan 12, 20192 votes

{quoted}

Thank you for your response. That makes sense.

Also does that mean that I am right about how the system works? Is it grouping me with lower mmr players to have the proper team mmr?

in the past yes it would do this. for simplicity say your MMR is 2000. your opponents' collectively is 1800. Now you're gonna get some (Relatively) really bad players with like 1600 on your team. It's a dumb system. But again, can't be sure about your MMR via websites atm because the restructuring and removal of 5 tiers really messed with it all

also worth mentioning, I forget who, but I remember a pro saying the difference in skill between diamond 1 and challenger is greater than the difference between bronze 5 and diamond 5. Pretty crazy stuff so unless ur climbing through diamond and beyond rank doesnt mean thaaaat much.

It's basically just each league has a better grasp on the very fundamentals of league and basic skills like CS and map movement/watching

SukishooJan 13, 20193 votes

Yeah, MMR has been messed up since Iron and Grandmaster shifted the ladder around. It's supposed to get better when the reset happens at the season start

CalebindestrctblJan 13, 20193 votes

What happens is that you get tons of lp per win and skip divisions when you win and don't lose much lp per loss, and if you lose your mmr will go down more than your lp goes down, so if you're losing to the plat players you don't lose much lp and if you're beating silvers then you gain a ton of lp mmr goes to plat and hten you lose a little bit and then you're over time gaining more and more lp, but if you beat the plats then you gain even more lp and skip more divisions until your mmr gets around its "true elo" and you climb up to that and then you stop gaining tons of lp and losing little and skipping divisions because your mmr is normal.

WashyMoneyJan 13, 20192 votes

MMR system is bugged right now.

Anyways. Avoid boards like the plague. It’s infested with low elo players spreading misinformation. If you actually wanna climb look at YouTube or Reddit. If you want to moan about how Riots holding you back, you’re welcome at boards.

ThrowsTheBirdJan 13, 20191 votes

{quoted}

MMR system is bugged right now.

Anyways. Avoid boards like the plague. It’s infested with low elo players spreading misinformation. If you actually wanna climb look at YouTube or Reddit. If you want to moan about how Riots holding you back, you’re welcome at boards.

Not looking to moan at all, I'm trying to understand how the system works. So far people confirmed my fears, the MMR system is indeed working against the player. I should be playing in Bronze instead of Gold - Plat right now. If I beat bronze players I should climb if not then I should stay there. This is completely made impossible with the MMR system.

As for Reddit...well I have never seen more whiners in one place constantly crying about everything. I will however follow your advice, I will steer clear of all forums. Thanks.

WashyMoneyJan 13, 20192 votes

Lol. They whine but not as much as Boards.

Anyways, I meant /r/summonerschool or /championmains (ie /r/lucianmains).

Ask this question on summonerschool and you will get better answers. MMR system is bugged because they made everyone start at iron 4. Before you’d be placed accordingly.

Forced 50% is stupid. I climbed from silver 2 to Plat 4. You only need like a 53% win rate.

OP Garen SupportJan 13, 20192 votes

Ranked is simply rigged in this game. In a decent game you would be with and against bronze 4 +-1 rank. MMR shit is only there so Riot can force people to play a lot of games instead of actually letting them climb to the rank they deserve.

GoodwillJan 13, 20192 votes

Yes, the system will try and force you to 50% which is so trash in my opinion. Awful system.

Frontline FuryJan 13, 20192 votes

You do not actually get placed in a rank until you complete 10 ranked games.

And the season 9 ranked experience starts on the 21st or 22nd of January - your current rank is your 2018/preseason placement.

GodlyBaneJan 13, 20191 votes

tbh tho, plat 4 isnt even that much better then gold 2 players, so rlly its not much a difference in skill tbh

LauchmelderJan 13, 201916 votes

You're missing the point. Plat shouldn't be the gatekeeper for anything lower than plat. Hell, I (gold 5 last season) shouldn't be the gatekeeper for someone trying to climb up to silver just because that persons MMR is that high.

Forcing a 50% winrate is bad because it's artificial. Once you hit the rank you belong into you'll have a 50% winrate. It's a natural process, or at least should be.

LeetriJan 13, 20192 votes

Good thing Riot isn't forcing any 50% win rates then.

LauchmelderJan 13, 20196 votes

Their system tries to force a 50% winrate. And yes, it's working as intended but that's a bad system. Rank and MMR should be tied close to each other.

Last season I played my promo to G5 against people ranked G2-P5 at the time. My smurf was playing against G3+ in that same promo. I shouldn't have to show the system that I belong into G5 against people in mid to high gold.

Promo series' need a new system where you play against people at max 2 ranks above the rank you are at atm aka people with an MMR similar to the rank you'd have after promoting.

Hell I don't mind playing against plat in my default ranked games but keep them out of my promo series if the rank I'm trying to get is half a tier below them.

Kai GuyJan 13, 20192 votes

No they don't. It cant work. it breaks how MMR tracks players.

Rank does not = True skill or MMR. Its just there to make folks feel better about playing lots of matches.

K factor is not the same by account.

MMR gains are not set the same value by matches. its a variable system.

If your MMR to assigned division gets to large the game will play catchup. Division skipping. In lower mmr with Promotion helper its absolutely reasonable to assume that If you cant complete a promo at a catch up MMR its a fair guess the system is wrong about your assigned mmr and your true skill is likely going to be in-between your current division and assigned mmr because you lose.

If you only failed promo 1 time that's nothing. Its MMR, expect a high # of games to achieve your skill. In a system Riot claimed to need about 150-300 games do you really want to try and call 3-5 matches of a promo for reaching gold as statistically significant?

The starting MMR division will have the highest RNG of teammates and opponents. Bad luck will slow your climb. Wont stop it.

The systems not trying to force 50% because that would once again break how MMR tracks folks. It does add slowdowns. It does want to prevent folks from climbing off luck.

LauchmelderJan 13, 20195 votes

You're completely misunderstanding this.

When people talk about the system forcing a 50% winrate it's not a matter of MMR, it's a matter of rank. If you're winning a lot of games the system will put you up against higher ranked enemies because your MMR increases. The problem with this is that it creates an imbalance between rank and MMR.

If my MMR is gold 4 then I want my rank to be gold 4 as well. I'm specifically saying gold 4 because there's probably thousands of players that are in silver 1, play games with an MMR higher than that and can't advance because of an inflated MMR.

Ranks should be tied closer to MMR than it currently is. I don't need the system to play catch-up, I want my rank to represent my MMR.

Coming back to the silver1 to gold 4 example, put yourself in that S1 players shoes. You worked hard but were unlucky, the season ended and you're silver 1. Your MMR is gold 3 though, you just couldn't win those 2-3 games. What can you get for that? Nothing at all. You won't get the Victorious skin (even though you deserve it), you won't get the gold border, you won't get the icon. Why? Because you couldn't win your promo games against people higher than the elo you'd end up in.

That's just one reason to take a look at promo games. Objectively seen a silver 4 player with a silver 3 MMR has a way easier promo series than a silver 4 with a silver 1 MMR. Again: Why? Because the first one has to proof himself worthy of silver 3 against silver 3s while the latter has to do that against a team of silver 1s. This is fundamentally flawed.

Promo games need to be normalized. The difficulty of reaching a certain rank needs to be the same for every player.

Kai GuyJan 13, 20191 votes

There is a massive number of people who treat forced 50% as the game proactively trying to load bad players onto your team to prevent you from climbing. That you Deserve a loss because your winning etc etc. I hate this argument. Its elo hell all over agian.

Honestly on the boards I see more people who believe in this then your viewpoint. I want to formally say I am sorry for my bias in treating you like one of them. I was wrong to do so and you proved it me wrong about this in your post.

When people talk about the system forcing a 50% winrate it's not a matter of MMR, it's a matter of rank. If you're winning a lot of games the system will put you up against higher ranked enemies because your MMR increases. The problem with this is that it creates an imbalance between rank and MMR.

That's just one reason to take a look at promo games. Objectively seen a silver 4 player with a silver 3 MMR has a way easier promo series than a silver 4 with a silver 1 MMR. Again: Why? Because the first one has to proof himself worthy of silver 3 against silver 3s while the latter has to do that against a team of silver 1s. This is fundamentally flawed.

well... Your honestly not wrong here for the functionality. That being said, All it takes if riot shifted back to say Team ELO is to lower their Adjustments per match and it will be just as grindy as the current league system, but with a higher Range of mismatches near starting MMR because accounts wont flow as rapidly up and down in MMR ranges.

Its pretty clear that Players get fooled by the shiny icons and divisions, they play more games. They don't feel as bad about it. Reasonably it should be expected that if you cant win when placed vs players at a higher MMR you don't belong there. You shouldn't hit the mark then be allowed to quit if your actively a handicap to your team. Hell there is a reason so many other games adapted it to their systems.

You are right, some folks will lose out on season rewards. Many players wont have a Division that is truly accurate to their skill, but a good # of folks wont put in the min required # of games to sort out RNG inherent with the game.

If your consistently playing at a higher level then your assigned MMR your still going to climb even with promotional games. If your playing weaker then your assigned MMR you should be losing because your a handicap for your team.

Eventually the MMR Gap will lower, fail a promotion enough times and the difficulty goes down. Some players do lose out, but I don't see any reason the system should care about them.

If you had the required # of games you'd have the ranking. If you don't that's a shame but its not really a positive to give high uncertainty accounts rewards they don't clearly prove they can earn.

Riots # last time they gave one was about 150 to 300 matches for their system to accurately place you at your skill.

Once you hit season rewards, once you make it out of the starting range for soft resets. it is easier to achieve them next year. Proving it once and keeping that level of skill is enough. soft resets go off MMR if your willing to trust Riot on this. A player with a 1500 rating will be around 1400. from a post in 2012 explaining interaction to new season as they adjust from Team Elo to League system.

Edit. Incase others don't check the link. That number is specifically listed as a hypothetical example by a Red. It may not accurately reflect how soft resets work, even back in 2012 when it was posted. Take it with a grain of salt.

reaper4042Jan 14, 20192 votes

You keep saying how there is no 50% forced winrate, but explain to me how I can get a team of people at my actual elo, and after easily winning 3 games, suddenly I get an autofilled support, and a bronze 4 mid laner, in a silver 2 game. I was gold 5, got demoted because after a 10 game win streak, to get to gold 5, I then lost 12 games because of shit like this.

Kai GuyJan 14, 20191 votes

Link me the game please and I can check it.

but uh... 3/1 and 10/12 does not result in 50%?

Also...I got to ask. How do you think your teammates feel about your skill as a player in games you do poorly? When your the weakest member on a team is the game trying to punish your teammates by putting you in the match? Do you think your skill at the game is so consistant that it can accurately predict what champion your going to run in a match and how well your going to play it?

Like lets look at that Vayne game. 5-6-6. Sona got cheesed for FB in an invade and also died quite a few times early to some Jungle and mid roam. Plus looks like she was just Aggro af all game. Was the FB a huge handicap that prevented you from recovering? Why did you die 3 times at tops inhibi tower rapid fire? Did you overcompensate and spend the game to cautious resulting in your low damage?

also if your gonna say its sona's fault that you lost lane because FB and burnt SS sucks.

Jinx game, your the guy who got cheesed and died on an invade. You give FB and died 6 times in 11 min. Ali Died 4 times. You where in the game I was not. Was alistar mad at you, did he blame you for the loss of lane?

Tell me, do you think the system knows when your going to be the weak link or does it only apply to teamamtes?

https://matchhistory.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/#match-history/NA1/227362929?matchType=2 I don't see this. I counted 8 consecutive wins. And a 9 consecutive loss streak. I don't see you go 10 then 12. If your exaggerating, it get it thats common. I would rather discuss specifics. Things that provably happened.

If its on a smurf or alt account you really need to convey that information and again please link it to me.

I can tell you that most the time. you see nasty streaks of losses because the system simply does not care about you. There are bad players, there are mismatched players. Some times your going to get them on your team and it sucks.

Some times your teammates think that YOU are the guy put on their team to lose a game or that your mismatched by the system and don't deserve your rank.

MMR systems are blind, they don't coddle any one. Luck is a factor in them, but not enough to outweigh the impact of consistent play and skill. Riot claims it takes 150-300 games, my man That's a pretty big range of games, I have also seen some one build and test MMR Rabbitonthemoon team elo testing and he was not happy with his system till 400-600 games.

Anyhow, feel free to link me the game your talking about. Here's my expectations. If I see a history of a teammate that cost you games be consistently trashy. They are falling down ladder as a direct result. If I see some funky BS matchmaking mismatches? Low # of games or Duoing is often involved.

Riots system does have issues. No mistake. Again ill keep making this point as an example because I freaking hate it. Duoing with out MMR restrictions is an issue because I feel it skirts around the MMR range Matchmakeing would need to obey to build better matches.

Also Riots making changes to their system this season. Expect some Fuckery because of that.

reaper4042Jan 15, 20191 votes

I have over 1000 games this season on this account. ( technically last season now but whatever). And i generally go from massive loss streaks to massive winning ones and it keeps repeating. I agree I have a lot of room to improve on, my cs is terrible of late, but thats because I havent played as a lner in months. My only qualm is that while you can argue that theres no such thing as 50% matchmaking, the system does not like you to have large winstreaks. Even in high elo theres soft losses ( i may have this term wrong) where if you dodge your mmr drops, and after you get a winstreak all of a sudden you will be matched up with players slightly lower than you aginst people slightly higher than you

Kai GuyJan 15, 20191 votes

I hate when people treat 3 as a "streak" Its just not nearly high enough to be of statistical significance. 3 games out of 1000 is 0.3%.

To be clear, this is an opinion for me and thus only applies to me but I do not count 3 games as a steak. Hell i don't even consider 4 or 5 to be relevant. https://www.random.org/coins/?num=200&cur=60-usd.0025c-nj Look how many sets of 3 show up in pure RNG 50% flips.

You also expect to see MORE streaks in the game. Because we expect different win % then 50/50 for any one player.

Also if you do think its rigging games. by your own admission your playing some one your rusty with. Have not brushed off for months. Mechanics are a bit weaker for that. How would a matchmaker know prior to you doing this that you would make that decision? Doesn't that Decision of yours hurt your odds and your teammates odds? Why do you not feel that other players who cost you a loss might be making just a bad decision but would be the systems fault, intention ringgers to lose you a match, and not just humans making a questionabal

where if you dodge your mmr drops,

Dodging does not impact your MMR. One of the stated reasons riot shifted to "League system" from Team Elo. " Players are punished for queue dodging in a way that makes more sense in terms of progression. Again this reduced dodge rates dramatically"

Even in high elo theres soft losses

Making mismatched games hurts the functionality of MMR systems. They also will calculate for it, its a part of the adjustment formula. Updated MMR = Old MMR + K(Results-Expectations)

Expectations calculation makes it so if 1 team has higher mmr then the other then the "advantaged team" Stands to gain less mmr for a win and lose more on a loss. Vice versa.

So you can call that a soft loss, teams are mismatched, your risking less mmr. But I am not exactly shure why you'd consider it to be a punishment rather then just the system pulling players from the pool when it did not have enough around to build a better match.

I check MMR before a game ends. A lot of people check MMR after a game concludes. I know that you need to run 10 Adjustment formulas that may have different variables. A lot of people incorrectly assume every player loses the same MMR and Gains the same MMR. Inherently flawed because you need to rate players individually to track them accurately.

Some folks get mad tilted over a loss streak and make increasingly bad decesions until they drop so low that its really really hard for them to not overperform in games.

Its easy to winif your usualy the best player in a game with undervalued mmr.

Its a statistical system. look at %s.

LeetriJan 14, 20191 votes

So you're not actually arguing that a "forced 50% win rate" is a thing, you just don't like how the promos work. At this point I'd rather Riot removed ranks altogether and went back to showing MMR so people would shut up about their rank conspiracies that have no real evidence at all.

ThrowsTheBirdJan 13, 20195 votes

{quoted}

tbh tho, plat 4 isnt even that much better then gold 2 players, so rlly its not much a difference in skill tbh

To be honest I do see quite a skill difference between low plat and high gold. However my problem is not that we get plat players...my problem is that it only occurs on the enemy team. I am playing a relatively tard proof champion top lane (Quinn) so I can at least go even with plats but whenever the enemy ADC is plat he / she will wipe the floor with my gold 4 ADC. These matches are not even close and that is my gripe.

ArammusJan 13, 20191 votes

lately i come across more and more topics that i called out like 3-4 years ago and the community hated me into abyss... and now everyone starts to hate on this stuff.

im like spongebob. "i was cool before everyone else was" lul