NA Teambuilder Matchmaking formula

Clout Goggles·Aug 2, 2014·9 votes·1,478 views

How does this make sense/sound fair? On NA teambuilder, we get matched-up'd against a team of all gold and above, meanwhile our team is unranked-gold (excluding me). Something must be wrong with the formula/calculations in matchmaking on teambuilder because there is no reason we should be matched-up against a team that is so much higher up in ELO/MMR. Also we go purple side which is usually given to the 'better' team. Plats/Diamonds should not be naturally matched-up to go against Bronze/Silver's. Riot something must be wrong with the matchmaking system. EDIT: Did the math. Their team averaged to 2150 (PLAT I/DIAMOND V) meanwhile ours averaged to 1520 (SILVER I/GOLD V).

19 Comments

AbrasiveAug 3, 20143 votes

This has been happening to me in a large majority of my games since the recent patch. I play most of my games in Team Builder and its really demoralizing to lose game after game because of this =/

arcticturtleAug 3, 20142 votes

It is equally demoralizing to face smurf accounts in lower leagues. There's really not any way to get around it while Riot refuses to control their player base more. I guess there are both good and bad things with less control. E.g. in Korea or China or wherever you need to ID yourself when you create an account, so having unknown smurfs is much more difficult. I'm not sure if they actually use this information, but it would be possible to improve matchmaking like that, both across accounts and queues. But it would also be a bit annoying to have to go to a place and show ID to create an account.

AstropandaAug 3, 20143 votes

The teambuilder MMR is still messed up I spose it'll probably balance out as people use it more.

thunderingiceAug 3, 20142 votes

I saw a game of gold-diamond v a gold-bronze today. just yeah.

AlamarianAug 3, 20142 votes

Just finished a game with all level 21 and below summoners on my side, three level 30s and two silvers on the now. Now about to do the same but with a gold and a silver instead of two silvers. Blargh. I like the idea of selecting the role I want to play but all three games I've played so far have been stomps.

CupcakeTrapAug 3, 20142 votes

Possible explanations:

(1) The other team is a bunch of people who play a lot of Ranked deciding to try out Normals. They don't have a proper Normal MMR yet. (2) I'm not sure if they've implemented this yet, but one cool thing about Team Builder is that it knows who you're playing before it matches you. That means that if (say) you're an ADC main and absolutely trash at Top Garen, it can match you appropriately.

CampheneAug 3, 20142 votes

There needs to be an aggregate MMR for all similar game modes.

MarhsallLee67Aug 6, 20142 votes

Just played a game where there were 3 unrankeds on my team (me included), a gold 2, and a gold 5. On the enemy team were 3 diamonds, 1 plat, and 1 silver player.

Rito plz.

Serpents EmbraceAug 3, 20141 votes

And so Riot released the wolves among the sheep, and when Riot heard the bleating of sheep being led to the slaughter they raised their hands and declared the sacrifice as good and holy.

Jesus is SaviorAug 3, 20141 votes

Riot still thinks "one unique MMR per queue, no shared MMR between queues" is a good idea. Meanwhile normals and ranked teams are completely broken because of this. Riot doesn't care. Because making a "smart" computer program to detect when something is off.... Would ruin "muh competitiveness"

Angry MonsterAug 3, 20141 votes

DId you just add Ranked teams into a MMR talk? Really?

There can be legit issues with normal versus ranked MMR. To bring in ranked 5s in this is sad. All ranked teams start at the same point. Everyone has to start somewhere just like in solo q. You are trying to bring in a unrelated and really a non issue into something that has been frustrating normal players.

Jesus is SaviorAug 3, 20141 votes

Normals starts somewhere too. EVERY SINGLE QUEUE STARTS AT ZERO. Aram? Has its own MMR. Ranked Team? Has its own MMR. Dominion? Has its own MMR. Twisted Treeline? Has its own MMR.

You really think it's fair that the guy who the system KNOWS IS A DIAMOND IN SOLO QUEUE on the all-silver team ends up against my all-silver team in my placement matches for my team?

Then I think it's fair you get the "new to teambuilder" guys who are diamond/plat on the enemy team too. Because teambuilder has its own MMR, just like my team does.

Angry MonsterAug 3, 20141 votes

Its perfectly fair and have been doing team builder and winning more than i lose. Sry u bad. I am not even playing my roles in team builder(jungle/support)

No matter what the players are on a team they should start at the same point as everyone else. Just cause the D may win his lane does not mean his team mates will. Learn to abuse the weak links of the team. Or when you gank the D players lane take extra laners. D players are not gods and whilel they make have more skills you can overwhelm them.

Your 5s team is b4 if you are facing D players down their. they failed their placements and pulling them selves out.

Jesus is SaviorAug 3, 20142 votes

Oh I'm bad? My teambuilder MMR is fine, actually.

But I haven't played it since the change/popularity spike, and I'm not going to until some time passes and all those high ELO people get "placed"

Hyrum GraffAug 3, 20141 votes

Unique MMR has problems. Nobody is trying to say it doesn't.

What you're overlooking, though, is that shared MMR also has problems. If we swapped over to that, there'd be other QQ threads about how people are tanking their MMR in normals, and then pubstomping in ranked, and how they can't even play normals without tryharding, or they're going to lose.

Because making a "smart" computer program to detect when something is off

You mean like matching people against better opponents when they win games? Like, if people (say, Diamonds who are new to team builder) win a super freakin' high percentage of their games, their MMR spikes dramatically, so they'll be matched against people of their skill level?

Good news: this is how the current system works. But there will always be games which aren't perfectly matched, no matter what system we use. At least when you see a Diamond against you, you know what you're in for (as opposed to a smurf).

Jesus is SaviorAug 3, 20142 votes

If they made it "smart", though, you wouldn't be able to tank your normal MMR and then pubstomp ranked. It would likely just use your highest MMR in any queue to place you in a new queue. And then if you don't play a certain queue for a really long time (eg: you play a ton of ranked, and avoid blinds/teambuilder), it would re-place you based on your now higher ranked MMR in your blind/teambuilder queue.

I would also say, make normal MMR not affect ranked MMR except for your first couple placement matches. Then you can't grind normals and get your normal MMR high to "skip" bronze if you've landed yourself in the pit of bronze V after your placements. But you CAN grind normals before ever touching ranked to have a better placement match series. This would also prevent stupidity such as the attached image from ever happening again, because you wouldn't be able to be in silver MMR in your placement matches if your normal MMR is Bronze V (and yes, this WAS a ranked game). Is it really fair that a bunch of bronzes in their placement matches ruined my silver 3 -> silver 2 promo series?

Hyrum GraffAug 4, 20141 votes

That's a fair point re: pubstomping ranked or skipping divisions. However, you'd still run into the issue of "If I don't tryhard in normals, I'm going to get rekt, because I'm being placed against people who are my Ranked skill level." Thoughts?

Jesus is SaviorAug 4, 20142 votes

I dunno. I tryhard in normals. If I'm playing a role I'm bad at (practicing), I try my best and expect to lose (since my normal MMR jumped quite a bit when I was spamming jungle to practice my main role after a garbage patch changed everything).

I can see 2 situations though:

You play bad and lose, because you're up against plats because you're ranked plat.
You play bad and win, because you're up against plats, but no one is tryharding on either team because its normals, even though you're ranked plat.

I'm sure some testing would clarify which situation pops up more, and maybe matchmaking can adjust.

I mean, teambuilder already has a "you're playing a new role? lets lower your MMR for a bit" feature. Maybe if you're a plat jungle main (which it would know if it had access to your ranked stats), it puts you into a mid gold teambuilder game if you're trying out ADC? At least it's not putting you against bronzes and completely ruining their bronze game. At least it might still be somewhat even.

Hyrum GraffAug 4, 20141 votes

I dunno. I tryhard in normals.

But what if you're just playing a game for fun, and don't want to have to tryhard in order to win?

If I'm playing a role I'm bad at (practicing), I try my best and expect to lose (since my normal MMR jumped quite a bit when I was spamming jungle to practice my main role after a garbage patch changed everything).

What I see here is that you're OK with losing, because you're focused on getting better. That's awesome! I wish more people who played league were like that - I think it would make for a healthier community. But the fact is, it's fun to win, and I believe that people should be able to be able to win while I'm learning, too.

More importantly, though, what about the other 4 players on my team? I'd say it feels just as bad to lose because because of a "Plat playing like he's silver" as a Diamond on the other team.

I can see 2 situations [...] I'm sure some testing would clarify which situation pops up more.

I'd be interested in doing a trial period of linked MMRs, just to see the data about this.

I mean, teambuilder already has a "you're playing a new role? lets lower your MMR for a bit" feature.

I was going to say, "Yes, but it's not clear what role you're playing in Ranked," but then I realized it's probably possible to tell what role/lane you are, from data like:

Where you got kills / deaths / assists
Where you got cs
Your items
Your XP
Your masteries (maybe)

Tell me if you disagree, but it seems to me that there's going to be problems no matter which MMR system we use. As you've pointed out, there are also ways of making those problems, less of an issue, often by borrowing from the other system.

With that in mind, what if it's possible to find a middle ground: a semi-linked MMR system, which gets the best of both worlds? Let me back up a minute, though.

In my opinion, the beauty of the separate MMR system is that it takes you to where you belong for each queue, given enough games. So if you never tryhard in normals, but you're diamond in Ranked, maybe you'll end up as plat or gold in Normals. **And that's fair **if, say, you're a fiddlesticks main, but in norms you play crittlesticks exclusively.

The problem with a separate MMR system is that you can play many games and improve a lot in one queue, then come back and pubstomp in the other. If you use a separate MMR system, this can't be prevented entirely. But what if it could be mitigated to the point of not mattering?

Suggestion: When there's a big disparity between your normal and ranked MMR, your normal MMR becomes unstable. That is to say, you gain/lose elo in larger amounts for each game won/lost (especially for win streaks). This way, if you're a Diamond, and you enter Normals at the silver 5 equivalent, and you win 10 games in a row, your MMR will spike to a plat 5 equivalent (or something like that, I'm making up numbers here). Have it scale equally in both directions, so it's not just an artificial MMR boost - it's actually dependent on you winning.

Thoughts?