The Matchmaker in Normals is Completely Unacceptable.

Water of Eden·7/2/2014, 6:03:51 AM·2 votes·692 views

I'm being consistently placed against several opponents that are in gold 5 - at least - when I'm in bronze 1 and most of my team is on that range. How is it fair that their jungler is gold 5 and our jungler is bronze 5? Why is there no mmr balance being taken into account when the matchmaker decides who to pair up? I just played two games against the exact same summoner who is in Gold 5. So the choice between "do I play normals and get creamed by an all-gold team" or "do I play ranked and deal with the stress and verbal abuse that comes with it" is one that is slowly driving me away from this game as a whole.

6 Comments

NinjaFifer7/2/2014, 7:22:55 AM1 votes

The matchmaking system is kind to people of different skill levels who party together. Because of this, it's also really easy to break. I once had a game where two individuals on the opposing team had more normal wins than our entire team combined (specifically, over 2000 wins apiece, while we had 200-300 each). There's some serious problems with it when people try to abuse it, but for the average game, it works fine.

Edit: I do doubt your use of the word "constantly." Flukes happen. If you feel it is actually happening on a constant basis, make up a spreadsheet with the LoLKing stats of everyone on each team. If you find very constant discrepancies, send that file in a support ticket to Riot. Your case may just be a one in a million where your MMR number got borked.

Hyrum Graff7/2/2014, 12:13:41 PM1 votes

thefifeman makes some good points. One other point is that you have a completely seperate Ranked and Normal mmr. If you play normals more than ranked (which it sounds like you may, from the way you describe ranked), you may have a higher mmr in normals than ranked, so you're getting paired with better players. Also, the gold players, may have a lower unranked mmr. In both of those situations, matchmaking is "working as intended," even though it doesn't give good results for you.

Hiphoppopatomus7/2/2014, 12:23:34 PM1 votes

On a personal note, I'm platinum and I use normals as a chance to try out new things and have fun with my friends. This causes me to play roles that I'm not necessarily comfortable with or with champions that I'm trying for the first few times. This, in turn, makes my normal MMR to be much lower than my ranked MMR and is possibly why you are finding players of higher rank in your games.

Side note: Don't judge the enemies' skills too much on their ranks. I've played with plenty of bronze people that beat me and gold people that deserve to be in cardboard 7. It can be intimidating to see but rank doesn't mean everything :)