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I just read the official Matchmaking Guide and I'm appalled.

xPerhapz·5/20/2017, 7:49:12 PM·4 votes·771 views
Matchmaking Guide

The three things that stuck out to me the most:

  1. Your MMR is determined by whether you win or lose. This means: your rating at the end of the game has no affect; i.e. an S+ performance is just as good as a D+ performance as long as you win. It doesn't even matter how close the game was; a loss is a loss, a win is a win. In fact, they even state, if you leave the game early, and your team still wins, you'll still get the exact same MMR boost the game would have provided had you stayed and contributed.

  2. Your MMR is the only thing determining your matchmaking for Ranked. This means: it doesn't matter if your rank is Bronze or Platinum, you'll get people of a similar MMR (as evidenced by my 3s match-up yesterday, where I was ranked in Bronze, with my other Bronze ranked friends, facing off against players ranked Platinum and high Gold in 3s). Knowing this, let's say you want your rank to not be Bronze. Well, if your match-ups were determined by rank, and you didn't belong in Bronze, you'd be winning your way out of there in a jiffy. Instead, the game pits you against players that are supposedly of equal skill, meaning every Bronze game should give you a nice 50% chance of winning. Whether or not that involves pitting you up against players ranked much higher than you is irrelevant. Sounds like a great way to keep players stagnant in their rank.

  3. Every queue uses the same MMR system. This means: Ranked games are no more seriously calculated than Normal games. Maybe it's just me, but I'd like a my Ranked games to be a little bit stricter when finding teammates that will impact my rank. Since wins and losses are all that matter, I'll gladly sacrifice a few extra minutes to give myself a better chance. Unfortunately, it's even admitted that as your MMR gets more established, the system is likely to be more lenient in your search. This gives a greater chance for an unfair match-up, and is just another way for Ranked games to become less indicative of your actual rank, League, or Division. Your rank becomes rather worthless, and that's depressing if you consider achieving a rank is generally the most satisfying part of a Ranked system.

Everything about this shocked me. I was certain my rank mattered, and only thought I was getting unlucky in my match-ups. After reading this, it's pretty clear how the system is designed against the average player's best interests. It wastes our time and doesn't reward our efforts, and that's really discouraging, not to mention disappointing.

18 Comments

oSEXYPLATYPUSo5/20/2017, 7:53:52 PM2 votes

http://imgur.com/t6ELSzA

deadlychuck5/20/2017, 7:57:13 PM2 votes

You know, I've been saying for years that your rank is meaningless, because while you're shown a rank in ranked (bronze, silver, gold, exc), there is clearly some kind of hidden MMR system in normals too.

So i'd rather just play what I enjoy, have fun with the game, and improve naturally as I gain experience, than stress about having dropped down some arbitrary rank, just because i had fun for a few games or because I had a few bad games.

Though, i find it a little funny that they're basically admitting that they've just gone back to the old system on the back end, but left the new interface on the front end.

Zero Skill Tank5/20/2017, 8:33:43 PM2 votes

Sounds like a great way to keep players stagnant in their rank.

Sounds like something a bronze would say.

Sir Fuzzi5/20/2017, 10:27:58 PM2 votes

Just about everything involved with League caters to the kind of person you'd expect to insult your mom because you asked them if they had room to build Grievous Wounds.

The ranking system does not cater to people who enjoy video games. It caters to people who enjoy competition.

It's not that I do or don't enjoy either; it's the exclusivity that bothers me.

Zelorxon5/20/2017, 8:10:52 PM1 votes

Welcome to league of legends, where the community is utter dogshit, 98% of the playerbase is composed by absolute retards that haven't a single clue on how to play the game and haven't completed the learning process yet (and refuse to learn), where balancing gets done either completely random or around bronze V and competitive pro play during strategic periods of the season, where you get insulted for saying truthful things, where you get flamed for playing correctly, where you get called toxic for the sheer usage of words and where the soloQ ladder is a lottery where skill doesn't matter at all and the only way to climb is either being lucky or being an actual good player that has the patience and the time to grind trough unnecessary extra games and progress by statistics instead of playing actually fair games, where mediocrity gets celebrated as an accomplishment (end season gold skins while some people that don't care at all except for snatching that free skin are stuck in silver 1 because the last month of the season is when the ap rengars and the nomad's medallion mid jhins have +1500% chance to happen) and where you can get trolled blatantly but if you dare to talk back you get punished but the troll doesn't.

Enjoy your stay, good luck and have fun.

Cocho5/20/2017, 8:35:47 PM1 votes

If you're in bronze, playing against gold/plats in ranked.

I'd have to question how your placements went

Your MMR is determined by whether you win or lose. This means: your rating at the end of the game has no affect; i.e. an S+ performance is just as good as a D+ performance as long as you win

Of course, a player doing poorly KDA-wise could be drastically effecting the map split-pushing. Once you hit that 40-50 minute mark, kda or CS doesn't matter anyways. I don't want my team playing for a grade, I want them playing to win.

Whether or not that involves pitting you up against players ranked much higher than you is irrelevant. Sounds like a great way to keep players stagnant in their rank.

You're completely wrong. You'd climb if you could maintain a 30% winrate. Since you'll be receive 25+ LP a win, and about 10 per loss. Think of it this way. 6 wins, 5 loss, you've gained 100 LP. There are plus sides to MMR matchmaking. It lets you climb much faster, stomping less games if you deserve to climb that much, because of your MMR.

Ranked games are no more seriously calculated than Normal games. Maybe it's just me, but I'd like a my Ranked games to be a little bit stricter when finding teammates that will impact my rank. Since wins and losses are all that matter,

Normals has to take into consideration groups of drastically different MMRs, you dont have to deal with a Diamond MMR player queing up with a silver MMR player in ranked. Grouping up evenly matched MMR-wise teams isn't about being stricter, it is about making the best match with the cards that were dealt. What you're saying is that you want the MMR difference between 2 teams to be smaller. The difference depends on several different things. Like the amount of players in that queue.

So because of that, don't compare 3s matchmaking to soloqueue. There are simply not enough people in 3s.

You have this pre-determined notion that riot wants everyone to have a 50% winrate. Your winrate doesn't matter. Your MMR and LP gains/losses is what matters.

The fancy silver/gold/plat divisions are just to make players feel good and give an idea of where they're at.

Would you rather say, I'm gold! or I'm at 1500 MMR! :D

Daklore5/20/2017, 8:00:27 PM1 votes

Point 1:

MMR is comporable to elo. They're the literal exact same thing. Winning and losing is all that matters in that regard. Getting an S+ doesn't necessarily mean you did better than your rank for that game, it just means you had the necessary number combinations to meet that general global "average" on that champion that says you get an S. Or a B. Or a D. If i'm having an extremely poor game, but I do my part, and only get a D because I have a bad KDA, does that mean I deserve less rating because of my D for the win, compared to you getting an A? No. Exactly.

Point 2:

If you're in Bronze with a platinum MMR, and you belong in platinum with your MMR, you'll climb out of there. And pretty quickly. Placements are 10 games. That's not going to say, "oh, this person is clearly diamond tier, let's place them there." For a fresh player, they have a fresh, let's say 1200, elo rating(roughly bronze 2ish, maybe bronze 1). These 10 games have a larger fluctuation on elo, or MMR, shifts, than a normal game. If they win 10 straight, their rating is going to go up very fast, compared to someone who wins one, loses two, wins one, loses one, wins two, etc etc. That's how placements tend to work, it's not a "here, this is where you belong, good for you." it's a, "here, this is your starting point, good luck, have fun."

Point 3:

Not every queue uses the same MMR. Normals use their own MMR, ranked use their own MMR, Twisted Treeline uses their own MMR, ARAM even supposedly uses their own MMR. Your ranked MMR doesn't directly impact your Normals MMR, and vice versa. They use the same elo rating system, but outside of that, they are completely disconnected from one another, for the most part.

ZephyrDrake5/20/2017, 8:05:54 PM1 votes

first, no if you leave early and get affected by leaverbuster you won't be getting anything even if your team wins. It counts as a loss to you. The only thing that matters in the game are the nexus and who blows up the enemy nexus first. Everything else is just a means to that end. Every queue has it's own separate MMR , yes the way MMR is calculated is the same but normals and ranked aren't different because of it but because of how people actually take each of the modes. People don't try their hardest in normals and just try to have fun or new things vs ranked where they are trying their hardest to win (at least in theory). You are always matched against people of similar skill, it has always been this way and people still find ways to climb the ladder so... the only way it stagnates you is if you just simply stop improving so there is no one's fault but yours if you are stuck in the same rank