What is your light bulb Riot?
MMMMMMMMMatchmaking. Oh how I LOVE brilliantly contrived systems that no matter how badly they perform, are still considered amazing and absolutely flawless by the creators. I mean seriously. Whether it is an ELO system, or something more akin to a prestige system, there are very few systems that actually suit the games they are instituted on.
In most games I seriously dislike getting boned over and over… and over again. But funnily enough, I would prefer not to win over and over again. How would I get better? In snowball orientated games, this is one of the most common problems that this particular type of game has. For an example, last weekend I got together with 3 other mates to play a 5 man game (League of Legends) forcing us to Pug one player. Usually that player sucks, and we have to carry him through. I’m definitely no amazing player, But I sure as hell am not a scrub.
It literally goes: Win, win, win, win, win, win, win, Loss?, win, win, win, win. With one or (If you are really really lucky) two really close games. And then, ELO decides that you are winning too much and starts giving terrible players to fill the Pug spot. And decides to match you against people who are expected to bone you. And it goes: Loss, loss, loss, loss, win, loss, loss (Rage quit). C-C-C-C-Combo breaker!!
Lather rinse repeat.
I know that the obvious solution to fix this issue is to play 5 man premade, but I will get to this later.
Why does it go Win*10, loss*8, Win*10, loss *8
And not, win, loss win loss? An even game should have a 50-50 W/L chance.
You would think that with nearly 700 games, they would have gotten my ELO right by now.
Cool story Riot.
The objective of a matchmaking system is to make the majority of players have evenly matched games, is it not? People who do not call missing players cause rage from many players that are average or better in skill, so why do I get stuck with a Shaco who gets killed by golem at level 1 gets Tiamat and does not call miss? Inducing calls of “L2P!!” and “UR A BAD” through “Umadbro?”. Or a Tyr who takes revive and clarity. No, scratch that. ANYONE who takes revive. Jus’ sayin’.
Revive??? OH GOD QUEUE DODGE NAO!
Through one game, I had a revelation when the rain was pattering softly against the roof and the eerie flickering of the computer screen light refracting through the window. Listening to the quiet metallic beat emanating from my headphones as each players comments about their respective mothers ticked progressively across the screen in [All] chat. I realized. Riot fucked up.
Bad players are bad. If they lose heaps they will be like “Losing that much in a row completes me…. <3”
Or, more likely, they will just rage quit and stop playing causing revenue loss for Riot. And as for good players, why should people be teamed up with scrubs? To make the win loss ratio 1:1? Why can’t they team you up with people your skill, and play against people ranked higher? I stopped playing for 6 months just because I was tired of having to carry to victory. Either steamroll, or be steamrolled. [Insert witty pun about Blitz and steampunk being awesome here]
I would believe that the majority of players in the game are Pug players, or play in a group of less than 5. Why does the matchmaking force people who are even a little bit better than average to play in 5 man teams in order to get a good even game? And this brings up another problem. Because of the fact that the ELO for premade teams takes something like the average of the ELOs and adds an amount to “Balance out the advantage a premade gets with familiar teammates and communication.” For an average player, who would most likely find players that they picked up from solo queue, the addition of the “Communication” ELO is too high.
I do understand, however, that if people who are “Pro circuit” and can “solo their entire team if you scrubs didn’t feed” decide to premade a 5 man consistently, or with friends, that the communication is there. And also, the pro guys that top the leader boards and whatnot would have communication and team composition down perfectly and that the communication bonus in this situation is completely legitimate.
The attempt at solving this issue was made by introducing ranked games. However, the average player (and all the scrubs) can still enter the ranked system, and they want to because that is the only way they can play with the draft game type. I believe the solution to this would be an institution of player pools. Beginner through Pro. As with anything once chosen, the rank goes up and down as needed by win/losses, but cannot be changed by the player once chosen. Adding another aspect of matchmaking to the ELO system would narrow the win/loss streaks. Improving it further can be easily achieved through the addition of functionality like:
- At level one you choose your player pool like usual.
- At level 30 you choose your player pool again, however, if you are a good player that wins a lot, disabling beginner options and the like. (Level one starting in the Pro pool would probably not do so well without the masteries and runes)
- The introduction of a quiz with a few questions on typical game play to recommend a player pool. (i.e. Do you pay attention to team comp?, or, Will you play lots of premade games? How many champions can you play “well”? Do you use vent?)
- Player pool preferences over ELO with ELO determining the boundaries of player pools, Expanding the search for additional players/teams.
- Beginner premade teams don’t get ELO bonus for communication, whereas Pro does.
- Achievements (Which will be implemented soon anyway) for selecting a player pool and not going up or down a pool.
- High ELO against low ELO has a 20 min surrender time.
- Exponential ranking system – The more games you win/lose in a row (proportional to how many games played), the faster you rank up/down.
- Cool league-like summoner names for the pools. Caster Minion – Melee minion – Cannon minion – Super minion – Golem/lizard – Dragon – Baron? (Purple caster minion is OP)
- League lore could continue through the ranking process
Furthermore, in an attempt to even out the playing field, good players are forced to play carry Deeps when they might want to play a tank, or support. And beginner players always play carry dps because they want to be good, or don’t have the skill in playing more. If Riot were to fix the matchmaking system so that champion selection isn’t the quickest to get Shaco, Heimy, Ashe or even “Win Nao” in effect, they could make more money, as people would be more interested in buying tanks, or support champions. The highest played characters are ones that you put your face on the keyboard and roll. Or right click win characters. If players were not so worried about losing continuously, people would try more difficult toons, and the range of bought characters would increase.
There are just some of the ideas off the top of my head. I haven’t thought about it too much, But it seems to me that this would solidify the beginner through average player market for Riot.
That’s my light bulb.