Ranked solo/duo MMR tied to toxicity

toxicity exists at all levels of play. However it is very rampant in silver and bronze due to the terrible match making that goes on where players that are no where near the same skill level are forced to play together on a regular basis. When people see a player performing at a level that is not equal to their own it generates frustration as to how they are at the same level as you in rating. If the poor performance continues that frustration can turn into anger that often ends up getting directed at the player doing poorly. Obviously a certain amount of ego and an exaggeration of ones own ability is typically present as well. It may be that both players really are at the same skill level and the one raging refuses to admit it because doing so would mean accepting you are not as good as you think.

This is one of the biggest causes of toxicity but next to nothing has been implemented or done to help solve the issues the matchmaker has. It works well enough in high gold and above and since normals are considered a place for practice the matchmaking there is of little consequence. If the matchmaker were more accurate and could properly evaluate player skill the level of toxicity in the game would drop dramatically outside of the few that are self absorbed that think they are better than everyone.

There are many factors that lead to the inaccuracy of the B5 to G3 solo/duo ranked matchmaking. The biggest is the free MMR that everyone is granted when they begin playing ranked during a season. Since MMR only evaluates whether you win or lose and no other individual statistics players can end up getting launched into skill levels they are not ready for. A little luck can cause you to skip your way past multiple brackets without taking into the account of whether they just happened to get lucky riding other players that can carry coattails. Then there is boosting which happens quite frequently putting the original owners of accounts into skill levels they are no where near. Another factor are smurfs, players in higher brackets creating new accounts simply to play in lower brackets where they can carry and feel good about themselves. Then there is the fact that the player pool at these levels are significantly more populated than those of G2 and up. The larger the pool the broader the range of skill.

The biggest issue however is that creating a rating program based on individual statistics past winning and losing opens to great a gate for abusing the system. Even including factors such as how many times you die in a match would cause players to play timidly so that if they do lose that wont have their MMR plummet because they died to many times. Tanks would no longer want to be the damage soakers because if they couldn't get kills to keep their scores up they would take to much of a risk. Stat padding would become the norm and that takes away from the spirit of the game.

There are ways to better asses player skill however, and that is in the form of win streaks. Rather than giving everyone a boost in LP and MMR no matter the conditions in their first however many games in a season, have win streaks determine whether they should get additional MMR and LP. Going on a hot streak is a better evaluation of player ability. Lucky players who end up with skilled teammates rather often tend to win 1-3 matches before they cant keep up and get a loss. Those players who are actually better than where they are however are more likely to keep winning and building on their hot streak. When you reach your current skill plateau hot streaks will become much more difficult to pull off or maintain which helps better evaluate players within the system. This already exists to a certain extent, as you win more games in a row you are matched with more skilled teammates and opponents. The difference is that, as far as we have been told, the gains in MMR during a hot streak are not that different from the gains you receive from a win outside of one. If it were different you would likely see your LP gains from each win in a hot streak progressively increase but they don't currently. Even thought the difficulty of each match is supposedly increasing the visible gains stay the same.

This evaluation method would help reduce the luck factor that currently exists in the system. It actively rewards players for doing well and provides greater clarity toward MMR gains. More clarity provides better understanding. When you understand why you are at a certain skill level, the better you treat those you are matched with because you actually know how someone reached the point they are at. The current mystery match made rating system leaves you completely in the dark as to how well you are progressing. You never know if you will be the favored or unfavored team and just how much that even matters. Everyone plays ranked to win, aside from intentional trolls, but when you dont even know where you actually stand since LP and rank are superficial how can you expect people to be forgiving of others? When you lose because of a teammates inexperience you feel cheated. You are left asking "how was I matched with someone like that?" or "how is that person the same mmr as I am?" The problem is that there are no answers to that question... We do not know why we are matched with the players that are on our team other than some unknown and invisible number. That leads to frustration, frustration grows to getting irritated, irritated turns into annoyed, annoyed becomes angry. When you are angry you are more likely to lash out at others leading to toxic behavior.