Greedy Goblin

Thursday, November 17, 2016

Silver 3, Bronze 2

Hallelujah readers, my election and related economy punditry is over!

I wrote how the matchmaking placement in League of Legends is either horrible or rigged. Here is another evidence:
As there will be a different Flex and Solo queue ranking, there was a 10-games placement pre-season series for Flex. I won 6 times (2 losses because of AFK-er). Still I ended up in Bronze II. My solo queue rank is Silver 3.

I have no idea how the system could create this result. I won more than I lost, so I should be higher than the starting guess. If the starting guess is my solo result, I should be in Silver 2-3. If the starting guess is the average, I should be in Silver 3-4. Yet I am in Bronze 2. My opponents in the games were all over the place, I was teamed with unranked zero game players and Platinum ones. I simply have no idea what they use for placement, but it's surely not consistent with winning or the two queues with each other.

20 comments:

Hanura H'arasch said...

Isn't it obvious? They have a separate elo rating for flex. And Riot being Riot they made everyone start with a rating of essentially 0.
Meaning the system can make no sense out of anything, as winning against afkers gains you the same amount of elo as winning against diamond players.
Additionally, the system is setup in a way that only allows people to rise to higher ranks after sufficient wins. Meaning bronze and silver leagues are flooded with people right now.

You can certainly argue that it's stupid to do it that way, but I don't think that means the system is rigged.

Anonymous said...

There could be several possibilities why the results are different:

1. It's preseason so it's possible that the matchmaking for Flex queue is being tweaked or it's bugged or both.
2. You matched up with weaker opponents in your placements, so winning the matches did not increase your rating by much.
3. Since this is a new queue the system has very high uncertainty in when determining your ranking. So your true ranking might be Silver 3-4, but Bronze 2 is still within margin of error given your uncertainty.
4. The mapping between your rating and division is different between the ladders. So even if you have the same ranking in both ladders, in the soloQ you will be in Silver 3-4, but ranking X in FlexQ you will be Bronze 2.

Unknown said...

I think they fucked up something during the way. After 10 games in Flex I was put into silver 2, the same division I was in solo-duo, so it seems to me reasonable. But then Riot told me they have to "fix" matchmaking and forced me to play one more matchmaking game (few days later) which put me in the bronze IV.

But I dont think this is problematic at all. First of all, this is a preseason. So everything gonna change anyway. This is the time, You should give up on ranking and focus on improving as a player. Mostly this means adapting to new changes.

The fight over ranking will start in season 7 and starting position is just a minor setback. If You was Silver 2 and You are as good as Silver 2 players, You will climb there.

maxim said...

The reason people reset the ladder every season is because over time the current position of players becomes untrustworthy. The ladder needs to represent people's skill at the game in general, not their skill at metagaming their current group of players.

In that light, it makes a lot of sense to have people play against the extremes of the ladder in that process. By measuring the extent to which you crushed those who can be reliably predicted to be newbies and were crushed by the established powerhouses, your position on the actual skill ladder can be restored.

Consider the fact that you placed significantly lower than you were an endorsement of your meta gaming skillz.

Anonymous said...

In the patch notes it said something in the lines:
You are likely to end up lower than you were before.

Similar stuff happens in the beginning of every season when they do ranked placements.
I think it works so that your previous placement gives a certain range which has the likelihood to put you lower and to which you will end up, no matter what.
As an example let's say that if one was in G4 his range after the placements might be S5 - G3. Ie. if such player lost 10 games he would not still get lower than S5. And only with 10 wins would he get to G3. But under no circumstances any higher.

That is partial guess based on previous seasons. I don't know the exact details, odds are Riot keeps adjusting them year by year.

Gevlon said...

But why isn't my solo ranking is pushed down or reseted and made me run the same preseason games? This all make no sense.

So either their hair is on fire and do stuff randomly, or they are up to some manipulation. Considering that they are the #1 game developer now, I'd run with the second option.

Anonymous said...

One possible theory:

If actual ranked seasoning happens with a range which depends on your previous placement
=> It is essential that you previous placement is from the same style of play (ie. solo queue)

Thus currently there was a risk that someone had gotten to Platinum by playing with 4 friends even though he as a solo player is bronze.
=> His range for next season would be based on Platinum even though he has bronze skills.
=> He might get to ~G5 with 10 lost games. This might seem unfair to many
=> Easy solution, let's reset the current queue!

Unknown said...

Well, they lower rank so people have to grind up their rank again. Isnt every other game developer doing basicly the same? (f.e Blizzard rising max lv rank)

Preseason is a time, where Rioto do crazy shit, test new things and -force- players to test it for them. This is the time, when they can try to alter the meta of the game, without breaking the balance of power during the ranked season.

So I would say, if they are doing anything "shady" Gevlon, is that they make their playerbase a free beta-testers for like 3 months and we wont even get free RP for it :)

As for solo/duo, it should be unlocked in like a week or two for us.

Chris O. said...

Oh it's totally bonkers.

I am a silver 5 solo queue. I have never ended a season below silver, and always get placed in silver. I lost 8 out of 10 games because almost every single game had gold and above players in it. One game I faced a diamond 2! I got placed in bronze 5. The pros are having this problem too, I saw screenshots of Challenger players being placed into silver. They tried to fix it in a patch, and bumped me up to bronze 4 after another placement, which I stomped lol. I'm just not planning on playing flex since it is clear they don't have it down yet.

Unknown said...

they will soft-reset the ranking anyhow again, when season 2017 starts.

i was also tilted, when i was placed on my alt in silver4. i climbed back to silver1, and after that patch, i was set to bronze2 :D
now i will just wait for season to begin, and test things out on the account. would not to this with my main now.
too many changes.

as all player got demoted by a good chunk, it is actually ok. and for a win you get many points, if your MMR is consideribly high. you can also skip leagues. like silverV to Silver III. it is possible if your MMR in background is high.




BUT i was also upset. and the way RIOT do this, is unprofessional. They could just reset everything again, or even make a pop-up. i first thought it is a bug.

Unknown said...

I think they might just lower everyone's rank to allow them progress after initial placement so you wouldn't think you're stagnating too long.
Though it makes sence only for average players, because lower skilled players might get no hope of staying anyway and higher skilled players are hooked up enough already, so it's those in the middle, who need some cheering over time.

Darkgold said...

You're always placed lower than you were last season. It's to force you to "reprove" your elo; like if somebody was diamond they'd have to prove it by getting diamond each season.

Gevlon said...

Again: I understand why my Flex is bronze. I don't understand why my solo is NOT EQUAL.

Unknown said...

Its because, they didnt do anything with solo/duo yet. They are going to and after placement matches there, You are propably going to be in lower division again xP

Smokeman said...

Gevlon says:

"So either their hair is on fire and do stuff randomly..."

There you go! I think they just roll dice to load people up in the "scrub" sections of the ranking, then let them duke it out in the season to get to Challenge and above.

Their business model is to sell champions and skins to people who suck. Can't very well do that by making people that suck feel bad.

Unknown said...

Everyone got demoted to hell. Your flex and solo ratings are not the same thing so I don't see why they would be equal? I guess you could argue the flex one should start at the same level as your solo one but that's simply not the system they are using. Essentially, it's "everyone grind your way up from scratch, because fuck you that's why".

Anonymous said...

I figured it out. Since flex ranked has nothing to do with actual ranked ranks or mmr it is normal draft with a different name. Case closed.

tweell said...

Remember, never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

Hanura H'arasch said...

Well, it seems it was indeed stupidity.

Anonymous said...

@Gevlon
Your Flex is not equal, because you played just 10 games (in a different environment), simple as that