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The 50% win rate problem

Barkley··2 votes·733 views

**How matchmaking should work in ranked: **

  • I win - I get placed against better players.

  • I lose - I get placed against worse players.

  • PERIOD.

How matchmaking feels like it actually works in ranked:

  • I win - I get placed against better players

  • I win again - I get placed against better players and possibly a person with a history of feeding/inting. POSSIBLY.

  • I win again - I get placed against better players and much more likely a person who intentionally feeds, or disconnects.

  • I win again - I get placed against better players and almost definitely someone who disconnects or feeds.

  • I win again - I get placed with significantly better players and at least 2 people who are very likely to int or disconnect

  • I win again - I get placed with exponentially better players and at least 2 people on my team definitely disconnect, and a third person feeds

  • I win again - I get placed against people a full tier higher than myself, and all 4 of my team mates disconnect or feed

  • I win again - I get placed against literal, actual SKT T1, and am paired with all bronze 5 players, all of whom disconnect or feed or both

  • I win again - I don't even get a team, and am placed against an international all-star lineup of pro players.

  • I win again - Riot employees in black suits show up at my house and beat me up, and then restrain me and force me to watch them purposely lose on my account until my win rate returns to 50%. I am informed that if I ever go on a win streak again, "something bad might happen." ** EDIT: A lot of salt and snark and salt in the responses to this. I would like to point out that I said "This is how ranked FEELS so keep that in mind when you comment. Thank you :)**

17 Comments

Chermorg6 votes

{quoted}

**How matchmaking should work in ranked: **

  • I win - I get placed against better players.

  • I lose - I get placed against worse players.

  • PERIOD.

This is how it works in ranked. PERIOD.

Der Lindwurm3 votes

{quoted}

This is how it works in ranked. PERIOD.

[{quoted}](name=Attticus Finch,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=yjufkWGa,comment-id=00010000,timestamp=2018-02-01T20:54:41.352+0000)

"The 50% MM" system doesn't actually exist. You just think it does because A) You suck at understanding probability and B) you have no understanding of confirmation bias.

I once believed this. What always happened every time my winrate got close to 60% proved me wrong.

Chermorg4 votes

Your one case does not override the two facts:

  1. The programming itself

  2. Statistical analysis of many players' data that does not corroborate your claim.

Confirmation bias is real and people fall victim to it all the time with this type of conspiracy. You want some reason that you're losing more games - you think your skill should keep increasing exponentially - so your mind makes up this crap about being purposefully matched with feeders/trolls. Even going so far as people claiming people are trolling when they aren't, just because they don't want to accept that their skill level has leveled off.

I see it all the time - the complaints are the same, and they're just as false.

Barkley3 votes

You're running around this post shitting on everyone with some holier-than-thou attitude about statistics and facts and whatnot, when honestly people are just sharing their experiences about how they feel when they play ranked. As far as I've seen, nobody's been in here saying "Riot is purposely fucking us and I've got proof" or "This is how the game works, factually" or "Here is my statistical analysis on how the ranked system is totally rigged"

Most of the comments I see are in regards to how people FEEL when they play ranked, not trying to make any factual claim.

Just a bunch of people griping and joking and complaining to let off steam, man. No need to stand on a soap box and talk down to everyone. Especially not in like..... 4 different comments.

The whole point in me making this post was to add some humor to a situation which can feel like a pretty shitty experience for players. It was a joke, for the most part. Ha ha, funny..... but you've just completely bypassed that so you can run around here waving your spreadsheets at people and talking down your nose at everyone.

It says next to your name you're an advisor, and that's fine. Spreading knowledge is cool. Informing people is cool. Do it once and be done with it, and maybe try not to be a complete and total asshole about it.

Azadethe4 votes

I agree to some extent. That's not how Promotional series feel though. Either players intentionally Op.GG you and choose to troll games just because they see you're in a promotion, or they legitimately are much worse players. I don't know if it's a bug with the cusp tier team placements, but Promo games are almost always long, 1 sided games where you either have to have a duo and 2v5, or 1v5 long enough that your team actually begins playing or attempting to win.

In this account's Gold IV Promos in October, My game 1 had 3 UNRANKED players. My game 2 had a Zed that had 89% win rate with Zed who claimed to be a rank 68 smurf who was boosting someone, and went 26/0/9 in 18 minutes. Game 3 had 2 Unrankeds.

My new account's first 3 placement games literally had 2-3 int feeders each and each resulted in a 15-18 minute surrender where I was the only person who voted No. 2 of the Int feeders actually ran down mid, rather than even bother hiding it.

I have never had Gold players in a Gold V or Gold IV promo. They are always Silver III-IV and the OTHER team has Golds, and I've been there about 50 times since 2014. That might be shitty RNG, but it sure feels like a matchmaking bug, and most of the community probably agrees. You can win 8 games in a row to set up a promo, and they can be easy, and then suddenly, promos are 3-4 times as hard.

Chermorg2 votes

Promos will always be hard to win - the point of promos is to prove that you deserve to be in a higher tier/division. You aren't going to get matched with the best teammates against crappy enemies. You'll be matched with people around your skill, and matched against people of the skill you're trying to promote into (at least that's the idea).

Further, you cannot take the rank of a player to correlate to their MMR. There's plenty of Gold 5 that have a MMR that equates to mid-silver, but haven't played enough games to be demoted from Gold 5. Further, there's plenty of high silver who have MMR higher than that of gold 5s.

Azadethe1 votes

That is true, and I usually don't have time to individually update 9 people per game to figure out whose below their rank in MMR so Silvers might deserve gold and Golds might need demoted, but that's not my major issue; it's the abundance of "Unranked" players who have no actual sample size who get into a Promo game. It's the fact I know there's not much of a difference between a Silver I player and a Gold V player (there is a marginal difference in skill, but it's not something I could pin down and say, "Silver doesn't know how to patiently farm, while Gold V does." Imo, both tiers still suck at it, and still make aggressive plays which result in fast snowballs regularly)

Gall2 votes

Who you're placed with has everything to do with your current mmr, and nothing else. There would have to be some hidden algorithm in place that Riot has never disclosed for anything else to be true.

Getting placed with or against certain people is a huge RNG element. So really, every game depends on a major element of luck. However, in the words of Seneca, “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity". So the better you get, the more you needn't depend on your jungler not being brainless, or botlane not going 0-14, etc.

TheProfezzor2 votes

League matchmaking is hot garbage and anyone defending it is a moron.

Der Lindwurm1 votes

I think matchmaking must try to team you with people who get reported a lot when it goes into penalty mode because you won too many games in a row or your winrate is getting too close to 60%. I can't think of any other explanation when the people who wreck your games often have a higher rank than you do.

And you haven't even touched on what happens when you lose a game while it's trying to beat your MMR down to where it "belongs". Oh, you had a terrible team and lost? Clearly, what you need a lower level team next game, where you'll "fit in" better. Oh, you lost that game too? you obviously need an even worse team next time!

Dragfin1 votes

Yes, the idiot who invented the 50% win rate slapped competition smack dab in the face hard and should be feathered and tarred.

My theory is it only exists because there are so many casual players who pay money to RIOT. If the system was fair like you said in your opening remarks then those casual players would not play the game. I am sure most of them get carried more often than not and they need to have a sense of success so they don't get frustrated to the point they quit playing the game and giving the green.

This 50% win garbage enables shitty players to stay shitty players. Nothing more and nothing less.

Attticus Finch3 votes

"The 50% MM" system doesn't actually exist. You just think it does because A) You suck at understanding probability and B) you have no understanding of confirmation bias.

Barkley4 votes

I'm fairly certain riot has explicitly said their system aims to keep you at a 50% win rate. I'm out and about with family right now so I can't go digging for articles, but I'll look around later if I remember.

In the mean time, you can go try to find something to prove me wrong, but I'm fairly certain they've straight up said it tries to keep you at 50%.

Chermorg3 votes

It does that by matching you against players of your own skill level. If your skill level increases, you are matched up with higher skill players. If your skill level is higher than your actual skill, it will match you with lower skill players (that match your skill).

Azadethe2 votes

Probability assumes skill levels are all the same, when in fact they're not. Probability explains a lot, but not all of matchmaking results.

Dragfin1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Attticus Finch,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=yjufkWGa,comment-id=00010000,timestamp=2018-02-01T20:54:41.352+0000)

"The 50% MM" system doesn't actually exist. You just think it does because A) You suck at understanding probability and B) you have no understanding of confirmation bias.

I understand fine. It's people like you who have to make things more difficult than it needs to be with your math that does in fact make the 50% win rate a reality.

ChaddyFantome1 votes

this should be in memes and games

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