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Fun fact about Season 3 clamping

mi ramfan·11/12/2013, 1:29:43 PM·7 votes·474 views

In many situations in Season 3, because of the way the MMR/LP system was designed, it was more optimal to lose a game then to win it.

I know this may sound counterintuitive but it's true. Many of my friends would be climbing through Silver or Bronze 1 and become clamped. However, for all of us (10+ people) we found that losing one game instantly unclamped us, regardless of how many wins we had won in a row before being clamped.

This is because the clamping system seems to have been designed to prevent you from getting into a tier you don't belong in if you're on a long winning streak, but not if you're playing normally. However, if you're on a long winning streak, isn't that in itself proof that you belong higher then you are as is?

Penalizing long winning streaks only serves to make it more difficult and time consuming to climb divisions, especially when paired with the widely hated promotional series. For example, I peaked out in the fifth game of my gold promo series before falling back to 38 LP Silver 1 after the series collapsed. However, I got that series in the first place by intentionally losing a game at 50 something LP Silver 1 (not intentionally feeding, just intentionally picking a champion I knew I wasn't confident with and hoping that I did badly), which unclamped me and allowed me to hit the promo series in 3 more easy wins.

Here's some simple reforms Riot could implement (regardless of MMR behind the scenes) that would make it always optimal to win in ranked:

All wins, regardless of MMR relative to division or relative MMR of teams, should always grant AT LEAST 5 LP. After all, if a player can win 20 ranked games in a row at their current MMR, surely they deserve a promotional series to prove that they belong higher. By making all matches grant a minimum amount of LP, you remove incentives to lose games intentionally to unclamp yourself.
All losses, regardless of MMR relative division or relative MMR of teams, should never cost more than 20 LP. This makes it so that if you are winning four times as much as you are losing, you are guaranteed to stay where you are at the very least. Under the current clamping system, you will sometimes have to maintain a 20:1 win loss ratio just to stay where you are, never mind making progress.

9 Comments

Void225811/12/2013, 2:27:54 PM5 votes

The promotional series itself is a big issue. It literally makes it so that the weighting on a particular set of games is so much higher than everything else as to make everything else almost meaningless.

For example in climbing to silver I literally played 9 Bronze-Silver promo series in a row with win 1 to enter, win 2 lose 3 in series, repeat. That means I had a near perfect 50% win rate, and my MMR was such that by the 9th series I was playing as last pick in several peoples' Silver-Gold promos, so I was literally playing a tier above where I was placed. But because only the 5 games in the series mattered and their is no sensible override for consistent performance (ie you have a 50% win rate vs people a tier above you -> promote regardless of series), I was stuck grinding and hoping to finally get lucky enough to have a team that was carryable enough times in series to advance.

The whole series concept is questionable. Why should your performance in specific matches be so much more important than others? But the fact that the system can punish you for consistent performance rather than reward you is stupid. A 50% win rate vs higher rated players should give you steady advancement, not stagnation. The fact that MMR can desynchronize from rating so badly that you can play in promo series for an entire tier above the level that you are playing a promo series for points to a clear and glaring flaw in either the concept of series, the concept of MMR decoupled from visible ranking, or the concept of visible tier ranking itself.

In my opinion, the issue is with the concept of iron clad, non overrideable series. There needs to be a change. For example, provide for an automatic advancement to bring the tier level into line with the MMR if they desync too badly (ie if you win a game and it is so far off, get a message that the system is adjusting for desync and jump up a few levels, ignoring promos etc.), or jump forward on advancement to compensate (ie if MRR is too high when you jump a tier, come in higher in the tier, for example going from bronze 1 to Silver 2 if your MMR is where mine was). Something to allow for steady progress but bad luck in promos to be rewarded instead of punished.

Xynaxis11/12/2013, 2:16:38 PM2 votes

Pretty much

CooterTooth2411/13/2013, 2:34:34 AM2 votes

shouldnt you be rewarded for a streak not punished?

Kira Onime11/12/2013, 4:25:05 PM1 votes

if you're on a long winning streak, isn't that in itself proof that you belong higher then you are as is?

No. Even the worst of player will get a lucky break and win a few games in a row eventually.

TY Slappyhorse11/12/2013, 5:12:02 PM1 votes

i realized this too when i was working toward Gold last night (which I got yay) it's weird like i'll only win like 5lp for a win and lose like 3lp then after the loss ill have gains of 12-15

atz999911/12/2013, 11:49:21 PM1 votes

The unclamping mechanic might be true (I honestly didn't play enough games to test such a thing) however a friend of mine skipped a division entirely in gold after slugging it through clamping in silver for weeks. I can say without a doubt he is better then I am and the division he skipped was the one I was placed into. (If he had more time or if he tried I'm certain he would have made it to plat when comparing his play to other plats). How do you think that division skipping is determined and do you think that losing a game to unclamp yourself is worth it if you belong in a much higher division?