Boards›[ARCHIVED] Miscellaneous

Team Builder Matchmaking is Broken

Top River King··2 votes·846 views

And "matchmaking adjustments" are to blame. All they do are cause mismatches. Every other match, it seems, I, a Silver IV player, face at least one Platinum player. One time, I chose to play Tahm Kench top for the first time in team builder... and went against two Platinum Vs, who presumably had "matchmaking adjustments" active as well. My last team builder, I faced two Platinum IIs.

While I understand making things a little easier on people new to the champions they're playing, the "matchmaking adjustments" simply fail in practice because maybe 1 out of every 4 matches looks reasonably balanced, and a similar amount of the matches end up woefully lopsided, with one team or the other getting embarrassed.

I'm okay with matches like the one I played yesterday where the teams looked like this: Silver IV, Silver IV, Silver V, Bronze I, Unranked vs. Gold V, Gold V, Silver III, Bronze I, Unranked. At worst, I at least get to test myself against (presumably) higher-skilled opponents. However, Silvers should not be facing Platinums, even with "matchmaking adjustments." That's taking things too far.

On top of all that, when I do actually get "matchmaking adjustments" that don't pit me against two Platinums, I find that my teammates (and sometimes opponents) are so beneath me that the in-game experience is just a frustrating waste of time.

So I'm with the user who suggested not too long ago that we be given the choice of turning "matchmaking adjustments" off, since I'm through with its shenanigans. What say you all?

7 Comments

Hiemdol3 votes

My personal suggestion would be if a player has a ranked MMR with a massive differential from their normal MMR Riot could do an adjustment to bring their MMR more in line.

To be clear I am not suggesting that MMR from different queues become linked. I just think that if someone has a Plat ranked MMR and a Bronze/Silver normal MMR from never playing it, artificially raising the Plat players normal MMR to be some weighted average of the two MMRs would be in the best interest of all players for more balanced games.

Top River King1 votes

I was actually thinking of a solution exactly like this, since I know normal MMR being its own separate entity also plays a major factor. Just as a crazy hypothetical, a Challenger player could never play normals and have the Silver MMR everyone starts with, meaning any normal with them is destined to be a rout in their favor. These sort of discrepancies need to be ironed out somehow.

Some of the Gold+ players I've been matched with did have MMR in line with their ranked MMR, though, going based off the MMR of their other normal matches, and matchmaking adjustments played a bigger part in those cases.

I never check OP.GG prior to a match, since the information does more harm than good during the match, but always check after out of curiosity. And when I see a Plat, I always check them out on OP.GG to see if they're new to the champion, and they almost always are.

So it's a little bit of both, the normal/ranked MMR discrepancies comboed with matchmaking adjustments. But it wouldn't be anywhere near as bad if Riot could use ranked MMR in the matchmaking formula somehow, so people aren't getting placed against people two full ranks below them.

Serevas1 votes

You could always opt to play draft pick where the adjustments aren't taken into account and you're able to acquire actual MMR so that your matches aren't so off the wall skewed.

I was always of the belief that team builder should only be used as a tool to learn a specific champion against people similarly skilled with the champions they'd be playing, but that's just me.

Top River King1 votes

I am all about practicing specific champions in specific roles and never get tired play what I want in draft pick.

A Bad Mystic1 votes

Maybe they could have the system take into account their highest mr (ranked or unranked) as a base for the adjustments then drop them 2 or three ranks if theyre new to the champ. Something like that would make it more reasonable.

So lets say their normal/ranked MMR puts them at plat 2, drop them to plat 4/5 mmr for the purpose of adjustments.

Jubbinaut1 votes

{quoted}

And "matchmaking adjustments" are to blame. All they do are cause mismatches. Every other match, it seems, I, a Silver IV player, face at least one Platinum player. One time, I chose to play Tahm Kench top for the first time in team builder... and went against two Platinum Vs, who presumably had "matchmaking adjustments" active as well. My last team builder, I faced two Platinum IIs.

I don't think matchmaking adjustments have anything to do with your issue, here. Presumably, if their Normals/TeamBuilder MMR is actually relevant to their skill, even if they have Matchmaking Adjustments active, it shouldn't drop them low enough to be matched with you - especially if you've got the same Adjustment active.

Seems to me that the issue relates more to the disconnect between Normals MMR and Ranked MMR - where they're matching lower than they should because they don't play Team Builder often enough for their MMR to be where it should. That's definitely a cause for concern, but doesn't really have anything to do with the Matchmaking Adjustments.

Top River King1 votes

As I mentioned in a reply to another user, I suspect it's an MMR discrepancy combined with matchmaking adjustments. So one or the other needs fixed somehow. I like the other user's suggestion of averaging ranked and normal MMR for players with huge discrepancies between the two.

P.S. On the bright side, I can say I held my own mid lane against a Plat Twisted Fate one match when I was testing out Nautilus mid. He had himself a pretty good match, but we ended up winning, and I even managed a surprise triple kill. Feels good, man.

Still not worth all the times I've been steamrolled by Golds and Plats thanks to our team being all Silvers and below, but nice just the same.

More from [ARCHIVED] Miscellaneous

Open Letter to Parents of League of Legends Players
[ARCHIVED] Miscellaneous860 comments
2,611
votes
Rewards for positive play
[ARCHIVED] Miscellaneous19,712 comments
1,337
votes
I don't like Boards
[ARCHIVED] Miscellaneous324 comments
809
votes
STOP ALLOWING LEVEL 1 ACCOUNTS TO SEND FRIEND REQUESTS!!!
[ARCHIVED] Miscellaneous291 comments
679
votes
Wanting to do something special for an awesome friend. Riot, please help? <3
[ARCHIVED] Miscellaneous220 comments
614
votes
People that are telling others to kill themselves has to stop! Please help me get this noticed!
[ARCHIVED] Miscellaneous605 comments
600
votes

More by Top River King

Can we talk about Kog'Maw?
Gameplay155 comments
75
votes
Your top 3 mastery champions create one super-champion...
Memes & Games395 comments
70
votes
You CAN learn from bots...
[ARCHIVED] Miscellaneous56 comments
36
votes
PSA: If you're feeding, don't build straight damage
[ARCHIVED] Miscellaneous36 comments
31
votes
Thank You, Riot
Gameplay16 comments
27
votes
Just because it's bots doesn't mean you have free reign to troll...
[ARCHIVED] Miscellaneous11 comments
17
votes