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Ranked favors people who research their teammates before a match begins and dodge accordingly

i cant move wtf··76 votes·3,711 views

Case in point, I just played a game with a yi that went 0/8/1, doing his placements and he lost all 3 of the games so far, hard feeding in each of them. My MMR is low gold to high silver. How come the enemy team isn't guinea pigging their elo with a similar "wildcard" teammate?

This proves to me I can't trust the matchmaking system. If I had op.gg'd my team before the match I would have sensibly dodged on seeing this guy. The fact that doing this is such a huge advantage, it's almost like the new version of blocking the first spawn of creeps so the enemy's creeps are closer to your tower (which was justly removed). The same is true with teammate information, if you don't make tactical dodges based on it then you're at a disadvantage.

I'm not going to ask Riot to improve their matchmaking. I honestly think they're doing the best they can already. But can Riot just partner up with op.gg and let me access my team's information in the client? This way I don't have to go through the hassle of copy/pasting my teammates into the search before every game. I think it would be more fair for everyone that way and not just the people who already exploit this.

80 Comments

Poske30 votes

Sad because its true

i cant move wtf4 votes

Yep, Riot needs to embrace "pre-game analysis" as a valid strategic option and give us a reasonable way to take advantage of it in the client and not a 3rd party site.

Douglas Funnie15 votes

I call it Strategic Dodging, and it works... Since dodging doesn't affect MMR, it's a worthy investment.

Rainfall1 votes

its a bad investment in a sense that you lose lp without your winrate dropping so you get placed with worse teammates in an attempt to get your winrate closer to 50%.

Douglas Funnie6 votes

Wrong. Players will not lose MMR. The hidden MMR stays the same after dodging.

So, players will be facing others around the same MMR before the dodge took place.

Rainfall1 votes

you probably just did not understand what i said.

Douglas Funnie7 votes

Quite the contrary. I understand your statement clear as day. You believe that dodging and losing LP will put you with teammates at a lower skill level, just to bring the winrate toward 50%.

However, LP is just the progression system to climb the ladder. The real magic lies behind the scenes which is known as MMR. The MMR is hidden, but it's League's main system that matches you with other players.

For example, if your hidden MMR is around 1448 (Around Silver 1), the Ranked System will try to find players around the same MMR.

Since dodging doesn't affect MMR, the hidden MMR remain the same. So, the system will find another set of players around the same MMR after you queue up for another game. Like nothing ever happened... Except, you'll have 4 less LP than before, though.

Sdars2 votes

You'll win a bit more LP though.

Edit: it's 3 lp for the first dodge and 10 for subsequent ones within 16 hours, if I'm not mistaken. Also, yes I realize the effect is tiny. It was just a quick remark, didn't expect it to somehow turn into an all out internet war.

Douglas Funnie1 votes

Wrong. LP earned depends on a lot of factors. If the enemy teams total MMR is higher than the apposing team, chances are a player will earn a reasonable amount of LP and lose less. (only if your current MMR is around the same as your current rank.)

Also, if MMR is higher than the current division a player is at. I.e, ranked is at silver 5, but hidden MMR is at a silver 3. LP gains per win will be significantly higher, to help catch up to the skill level a player should be at. That is why some players skip whole divisions after winning a promotional series.

For example, after winning silver 5 promos, someone could actually skip silver 4 and land silver 3.

So, players don't always win more LP after dodging. It doesn't work that way. There are a lot of factors.

If a Gold 5 player with a silver 4 MMR wins a game, the players LP gains will be extremely small and when the player loses, the LP loss will be huge.

Sdars1 votes

You just contradicted yourself. As you said, if your rating is lower than your MMR, you'll win more lp. If you dodge, you'll lower your rating without changing your mmr. If you just dodge 1 time, you probably won't gain more lp, but if you end up dodging a few times, you'll win a bit more. Won't be enough to cover the lp lost from dodging, but it does help in compensating it.

Douglas Funnie2 votes

Here are easier examples to understand.

If your Hidden MMR matches where you are currently placed. (Silver 1, with 1448 MMR) and with a 50% win rate, you will gain more LP when winning games and you will lose less LP when losing games.

If your Hidden MMR is higher than where you are currently placed. (Silver1, with 1600 MMR) and with a 50+% win rate, you'll gain higher LP's when winning because the Ranking System wants to place you where you should be at. This is why players can skip divisions, (If you're currently at Gold 5, and enter the promo series to Gold 4, you could possibly skip gold 4 and get placed at Gold 3)

If your Hidden MMR is lower than where you are currently placed. (Gold 5, with 1300 MMR) and with 50% or less win rate, you will gain very little amount of LP when winning games. You will lose a lot of LP when losing because the system wants to place you to where you belong at a lower ranking.

IF YOU DODGE, YOU WILL NOT LOSE MMR.

YOU WILL ONLY LOSE LP.

THE MATCHMAKING SYSTEM DOES NOT COMPENSATE LP GAINS WHEN SOMEONE DODGES. IF THAT WAS THE CASE, THERE WOULD BE AN INFLUX OF BOOSTED PLAYERS AT A RANKING THEY DO NOT BELONG.

Bobovich2 votes

Err... I think SDars is right.

You seem to lose the plot at about the same time you hit capslock.

Sdars1 votes

The irony is that you're patronizing me when you didn't even understand what I said.

I never stated riot compensates you for dodging, otherwise, there wouldn't be a point to the penalty. What does happen is by losing lp, you're getting to a lower rating than you were before, without changing your mmr, so for example, if your rating and mmr were perfectly matched, dodging leads to this:

"If your Hidden MMR is higher than where you are currently placed. (Silver1, with 1600 MMR) and with a 50+% win rate, you'll gain higher LP's when winning because the Ranking System wants to place you where you should be at."

Your words, not mine. But go ahead and downvote + insult me some more. I'm already used to getting downvoted for speaking the truth anyway.

Douglas Funnie1 votes

If a player's Rank and MMR were perfectly matched, the player would only lose a small amount of LP. And that applies to anyone who dodges.

If the player was continuously dodging and somehow got demoted, then we're talking about something different. Dodging and losing games as an attempt to get demoted is completely different than strategically dodging to climb the ladder.

Players don't gain more LP if they dodged and happen to win the next game they queued up. It doesn't work that way because MMR is unaffected.

The amount of LP gained depends on the current rank and MMR the person is at.

i cant move wtf3 votes

The factor you're not taking into account is that if the dodge was warranted then you only lost 3 lp instead of 20 for the loss AND your mmr is unaffected so it might work out to even less than 3 lp in the long term.

Douglas Funnie1 votes

Exactly. Here's an example that would be a great moment to dodge.

A player who gains 25+LP a game and currently at 80 LP. Champ select doesn't look good, so the player dodges.

After dodging, the player sits at 76 LP

If the player would have played the entire game and lose he would lose 15-25 LP

At worst case scenario, the player's LP would drop to around 55 LP.

The player would have to win 2 games to get to 100lp for a spot at the promo series.

However, since the player dodged the game at 80lp, the player only loses 4LP.

If the player actually wins the next game, the player will make it to 100lp and secure a spot at the series.

i cant move wtf3 votes

Yeah, there's the potential save a bunch of elo and time if you can interpret and use the information effectively.

Bobovich1 votes

.... because if your LP is too low for your MMR then you gain more points for a win than a loss.

You have actually agreed with the post you're arguing against.

i cant move wtf3 votes

We're assuming the game has been identified as likely a loss, hence the name "strategic dodge." I don't see your reasoning at all.

Bobovich1 votes

If you win/lose approx. 20LP for a game that means your team's MMR is matched with the enemy team's MMR. Matchmaking attempts to find balanced teams, based on current MMR for each player in each team.

The assessment for a likely loss is a subjective call on your part. Or perhaps you see players on your team playing off roles, bad champs etc, in which case fine.... but the win/loss LP isn't adjusted because of Soraka jungle on your team. But yeah, I would dodge for sure in this case.

Imagine a scenario where the best matchmaking can do is place a bronze team against diamond players. If you are on the bronze team and lose, you lose approx 3LP, if you dodge you lose 3LP.

i cant move wtf1 votes

MMR doesn't account for the dumb things people do regularly, like play a champ for the first time in ranked or queue up for a role they have no history of playing. Then there's placements where Riot assumes you're plat even when you lose your first 3 games. Think of using the stats of you teammates to inform tactical dodges as a "safety valve" for the holes that exist in matchmaking. If Riot invents a perfect matchmaking system then no one will ever want to dodge, right? Until then people are going to get an edge for themselves by patching the holes through 3rd party stat aggregators.

Douglas Funnie1 votes

That's not how the system works. I just explained it, too...

The actual Rank, along with MMR, plays the factor when it comes to LP gain/losses. (Bronze 5,4,3,2,1 | Silver 5,4,3,2,1 | Gold 5,4,3,3,1, etc.)

So, if you're Silver 3 with a hidden MMR of a Bronze 4 player, you'll gain less LP when you win, and lose more LP when you lose a game. The Ranking system wants to place you where you belong.

On the other hand, if you're Silver 3 with a hidden MMR of a Gold 4 player, you'll gain a lot of LP when you win, and lose less LP when you lose a game.

Bobovich1 votes

I say this:

".... because if your LP is too low for your MMR then you gain more points for a win than a loss."

by LP I mean league position here

You say this:

"On the other hand, if you're Silver 3 with a hidden MMR of a Gold 4 player, you'll gain a lot of LP when you win, and lose less LP when you lose a game."

So we agree.

Douglas Funnie1 votes

You don't gain more amount of LP per win because you have low LP... Players can have 0 LP and only get 15LP per win. Another person can have 0 LP and get 25 LP per win. It depends on the hidden MMR and the current rank that person is at.

You gain more amount of LP per win when you have a higher MMR than your current Rank.

Sdars1 votes

Of course it works out to less than 3 lp long term. I stated it in the comment. Also, I'm not talking about the strategic side to dodging. I'm well aware of its power. I was having trouble in plat 3 last season and climbed to diamond when I started strategically dodging when the team looked bad or when the enemy team had enough champions I found hard to deal with at the time.

I did that because I was frustrated with several champions, so I made a list of those champions and a rating system for how tilting they were, then asked myself what would happen if I were to dodge whenever the enemy team had a "tilting rating" of 4 or more. (some champions had tilt rating of 1, some of 2) I checked my match history across a ton of games and realized I had like 66% win ratio when the games didn't warrant dodging, but 30 something % when they did, so I started strategically dodging and got diamond in no time.

Blåbæret7 votes

Lmao. People abusing this are downvoting.

i cant move wtf4 votes

It's one of those things where it can't be stopped and so it should just be embraced. Something as simple as making it possible to hover over each teammate and see their rank, top champions and the relevant stats of their last 20 games would be enough. Riot already has this info in player's profiles but for whatever reason you cant access it or see a summarized version in champ select. You'd know who to play around, or... when to dodge. And just to be clear to anyone else reading - people are already doing this and reaping the benefits.

Sun Wu Ryuumoku6 votes

I use it... not for dodge but for camp a lane when im jungler (i completly rekted flex thing).

i cant move wtf3 votes

That's an equally important benefit from this information, I agree.

Teémò4 votes

Pokedex : know yourself know your adversary and you hold the key to victory. [sg-poppy]

Khristophoros3 votes

Is there a utility for this yet? I could develop one. Like a program that quickly goes through each teammate and rates them and tells you their recent W/L so you don't have to research manually.

i cant move wtf3 votes

I think there is but it's lame I have to utilize tools outside of the game to compete with people who already do this.

Khristophoros5 votes

[{quoted}](name=i cant move wtf,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=wwXIqfP6,comment-id=00030000,timestamp=2017-09-15T22:34:06.922+0000)

I think there is but it's lame I have to utilize tools outside of the game to compete with people who already do this.

sadly this is the reality in every competitive game because the devs don't want to go the extra mile for their players

i cant move wtf2 votes

I think Riot do want to go the extra mile but they've never made an official statement on this so it's hard to know what they think or if they even recognize the advantage it gives to players that utilize it.

Critmaster Garen3 votes

{quoted}

Is there a utility for this yet? I could develop one. Like a program that quickly goes through each teammate and rates them and tells you their recent W/L so you don't have to research manually.

as far as i understand, there are a couple of programs like that already available.

recent w/l on its own wouldnt be enough. youd need season winrate on a specfic champion with number of games played on the champion over the season, and average k/d/a plus kill participation + objective participation + cs to support that.

so you can really make an informed decision of, is this person playing the champion for the first time or is he proficient? did he get carried a couple games and dies too often with low cs and kill participation?

does he have low kill participation but an unusually high amount of turrets and other objectives taken? (signs of heavy split pushing, which is also positive contribution).

it also needs to display the persons main roles and put up a huge red flag, when the guy is auto filled. especially when its the jungler or a bot laner.

Red Wreckage3 votes

or...or....fk this current match making and actually match us with players around our skill level in ranked games.

i cant move wtf1 votes

I wouldn't be so quick to assume Riot's matchmaking is inherently bad. It has to take into account many factors beyond a 1:1 ratio of the average mmr of both teams (one obvious one being time). However, if more people get access to their teammates information (like if, I don't know, it was accessible in the client) then dodges would no doubt increase and Riot could use this increased dodge information to improve their matchmaking. It's a win-win for all parties involved.

GayFluffyUnicorn5 votes

No riots matchmaking does what it can do keep you down. Not only did i fail 9 fucking promos in a row already with every single game being a horrible shitfest the last i looked up i get a plat 1 49% winrate midlaner vs the d3 midlaner and a d2 promo to d1 adc vs our low lp d5 ADC. Tell me how this is "fair" matchmaking for my d3 promos? Oh yeah i forgot i have to "prove" i can carry especially as a toplaner. Yeah great system. Last night? My botlane premade plat 1 with shitty winrates (coincidentally the same midlaner i just talked about who ruined my promos a few days ago) and the rest d5 and me d4 vs a full high lp d4 team. Yeah great matchmaking. Premades play in an elo they don't belong get way too good enemies and i get thrown into this bunch of dogshit to "balance" them out because i have the highest mmr available right now.

Edit: Also these kind of games fuck up my mmr so heavily that i now lose 20 points and win 16 even tho it has been the other way round for quite some time but since i lost against a low mmr team from my POV my mmr gets fucked heavily.

i cant move wtf2 votes

And if you had easy access to this information in champ select then you would know to dodge or (if you're in promos and can't) who to play around.

Trias0003 votes

Penalties for dodging should be increased

i cant move wtf2 votes

I'm fine with that actually. But give us our teammate's information conveniently in champ select so we can make those more punishing dodges in an informed way.

Quepha2 votes

Player performance is so wild that I don't really see big gains from 'scouting' out my team mates (except in cases where I see them pick extremely skill dependent champions like Lee Sin or Azir).

I found way bigger gains in climbing speed when I decided to stop caring at all about my teammates.

i cant move wtf2 votes

Exactly, it wouldn't be useful for 90% games. It's for the 10% where you see crazy off-meta picks or skill-dependent champions like you say, it would be nice to have a way to explore that person's recent history in champ select (and not a 3rd party site) to see how you want to approach the upcoming match (or not at all).

Leonerdo2 votes
  1. Your post relies heavily on confirmation bias from one game.
  2. You're still right about research being a benefit, but only if you are good at and only dodge the 5% of cases that are obvious losses.
  3. (Somewhat unrelated) I'd expect dodging based on team-comps to be much more important.
i cant move wtf4 votes

My argument boils down to this:

The information is out there. There's no way to stop people from doing it. Therefore it should just become another tool you can utilize in the client during pre-game like runes and team comp evaluation to make it more accessible and convenient for everyone.

Leonerdo3 votes

To be fair, it's already pretty accessible; all you need is a browser.

But more importantly, I think it's much better as an opt-in tool. Reasons why it's rarely a useful feature:

  • It's rare that you'll be put on a team where player stats matter enough to dodge.
  • The matchmaking system already compensates weaker teams (MMR-wise) with more MMR/LP for winning, and less lost MMR/LP for losing. So having a bunch of low-rank players on your team isn't a problem in the long-run. It'll be a harder game, but you'll earn more from it if you pull through, and the cost of losing is more forgiving.
  • The only reason to dodge based on players is if you know the matchmaker is not taking something very serious into account. For instance, people first-timing champions, or players who are obviously new to ranked (default/incorrect MMR).
  • It requires a trained eye to make that decision correctly. New or casual players won't be able to use player stats well, nor will they care about them.

Reasons why adding such a feature to the client would be harmful/costly:

  • Obviously it takes time/money to implement the feature
  • The feature would require computing resources to run within the client (and software performance is pretty valuable to Riot).
  • Even if the stats are hidden behind a drop-down or whatever, it still requires some screen-space, aka it clutters the client.
  • Players would abuse the feature, and their teammates. Not "could". They would. Especially people who don't know how to use player stats smartly. People would find all kinds of bogus excuses to dodge easy games, ridicule teammates, and blame their losses on irrelevant factors.
  • People can (and do) already abuse op.gg and other sites like that, of course, but putting player stats in the client, is the same as asking people to use them, for better or for worse.

I just think it's better to leave it be, where players who really care about their ranked climb, and are prepared to evaluate a bunch of stats for a marginal benefit, can spend 10 seconds opening op.gg in another window. (And yes, it should only take 10 seconds if you're used to it, and you're using the multi-search.)

Dope Solo2 votes

This is something that certainly happens all the time, for a multitude of reasons. Good post.

just OK jungler2 votes

Riot's matchmaking doesn't care at all about tilt, thats not even a factor in matchmaking, its only mmr that matters, cant complain about the system, its fair on a design standpoint, and honestly, its a silver game, if you cant carry your team mates you deserve that rank.

Dream High1 votes

I never saw this as an unfair advantage or anything but common sense to see what you're getting yourself into before you commit at least 30mins + with your teammates. [sg-lux-2]

i cant move wtf2 votes

I agree, it's not an unfair advantage BUT it's become part of the game now and you are hurting your win % by NOT doing it.

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