[2021] Riot Evrmoar to a player on Rank, MMR, and most importantly your skill level

I think the hard part is if we showed MMR we would have the same complaints we had about the last system(which was more MMR based but just rounded off gains/losses to arrows).

If we did MMR you would have games where you went 30+ kills and you would get +3 MMR, then have a game where you bottom frag and get +30 MMR. Because the MMR system cares both about performance(depending on rank), and win/loss, but it's compared to the MMR of your opponents as well. So we would see the exact same complaints, just focused on different aspects of the system. "Why did I top frag and get +3 points" or the complaint we got most last system "Why did I get demoted for having 1 bad game, but don't promote from 3 good games?"

I think, overall, the current system feels much smoother and more enjoyable then a straight MMR system. I do think we have some things to smooth out, and can make it feel even better. That being said I prefer players being able to say "I need 5 wins to rank up" because they know they are getting about 20 points a win - rather then "I have no idea when I'll rank up" because they are seeing the exact match calculations that make no sense to the average user anyways.

At the end of the day we also have to think about the general mindset that "I'm below the rank I should be, the system is holding me back". Because players will often think this way, it doesn't matter what we do there will be some part of the system that will be the focus of blame. I'm not saying that's an excuse to not improve the system, or try and make it feel better, but we have to accept we can't make everyone happy. But I will try LOL.

Thanks for the discussion, and we got some stuff in the works!(As always)

This is true! Well it's true at lower ranks.

You have a performance, and a win/loss MMR, that makes up your total MMR. At lower ranks your Performance MMR is more important, and when you start to climb your win/loss MMR becomes more important. So, realistically, if you perform really well but lose you could increase your performance MMR even if your win/loss MMR decreased.

So yes, technically your overall winrate can mean one match is super small to matter in the grand scheme of things.

But because MMR is a ladder it really only cares about your recent consistent performances. I know I used that players overall winrate as an example, but I don't think the 130ish games they had was a TON of games(it was a decent amount don't get me wrong). Really what you need to do, to climb, is to have over a 50% win rate consistently. Because when you win, you move up the ladder and push other players down, you need to be doing that more then 50% of the time(in your recent matches) to climb the ladder. So if you were to shift your most recent games to a higher win rate, even if you have a ton of games at a lower win rate this season you are technically climbing the ladder - this is really hard to explain.

We do have some "Confidence" systems which shrinks your potential MMR match making pool after we have a higher understanding of where you belong - or what a good/bad game looks like for you. But if you start to consistently win we loosen that confidence because the system has to test you again on where you belong.

This isn't the best answer, because there is no "set number" of recent games that are more important. But lets say you play 100 games and have a 45% win rate, then suddenly you start to have a 60% win rate. Because of the ladder approach to MMR you will undoubedbtly climb - obviously it will take some games to push your MMR up the ladder but I would be surprised if you didn't see a shift within 10-20 games.

TL;DR - Yes overall winrate does give us a confidence picture of how you are performing, but if you start to increase your win rate in your recent pool of matches it also increases your MMR. You don't get hard stuck based on total games played.

Here is a the tweet responding to this, but yes as u/rocket1615 said he has to start winning more, or beating higher ranking opponents to pass the few people ahead of him.

https://twitter.com/RiotEvrMoar/status/1365777133520515076

There isn't a match making fix for this, that wouldn't be exploitable(like lowering RR loss if someone AFK's). It's also not solving the issue of running into Toxic/AFK/Griefing players.

That being said, we have a team dedicated to this space and they are constantly working to help combat Toxicity and issues like these. I'm personally excited about everything they do, and they will constantly be improving the space. It sucks to hear, but this is a situation of we are working on it.

TECHNICALLY, this isn't what you want to hear but you are the constant factor in your matches. If you are not Toxic, and are a positive force on your team, that means you have 4 players on your team that COULD be AFK/Griefing. Alternatively the other team has 5 players that could be AFK/Griefing. So statistically you should have them on your team less then the enemy team. That being said, with random match making and luck that isn't the case. That's also assuming a large amount of games played to sample size edge cases out.

So know that our goal is to combat the players ruining ranked, and not trying to create more odd rules that players can exploit. We've already reduced AFK and Dodging amounts and I can't wait to keep reducing those encounters.

This is difficult because if we don't push you down to your MMR you could out grind the system. Because we have things like Demotion Protection, and we favor the player in Ranked Rating(instead of punishing) we already are combating RR inflation.

No matter how we simulate various Ranked Rating settings, without convergence players end up getting to a Rank they don't belong in if they were to play enough games. Convergence is how we prevent that - because ranked is not a grind to climb it's about finding your true skill.

Unfortunately we need a way to push you were you belong, and it may feel bad but the alternate would be putting up a wall and saying "You can't promote until you raise your skill/MMR" which would feel infinitely worse. I do have some ideas to help smooth how this feels, but they will take time and we need to make sure the changes won't break ranked.

It seems like you got, some how, your rank above your MMR. In low immortal and diamond, performance MMR exists(just very small in relation to your overall MMR). So either you win streaked up, but you didn't increase your performance MMR so it's holding you back. Alternatively if you grouped up until you hit Diamond 3(solo/duo) you could have essentially boosted yourself up. There is a chance you some how got ahead of your MMR, and it's increasing it just can't keep up with how much your winning. But that's extremely rare and you would need an extremely high win rate for this to happen.

Unfortunately, a lot of things could make this happen. But at the end of the day you need to keep winning consistently, and performing, to raise your MMR so you can increase your ranked rating gains. Right now the system thinks you aren't performing at an Immortal level yet. Good luck!

You're just a beast!

Honestly it might just be an increased player pool allowing us to have more strict match making?(players often come back at the beginning of the season. It could also just be a break really helped ease your nerves and you're just playing better.

We also rolled out AFK and Dodge penalties and have been combating toxicity and those issues. We have seen reductions in AFK and Dodges so maybe you're just having a better experience!

Honestly tho, only being two days in, you're probably just having a good streak of games :) - keep it up!

The report system actually being meaningful would help dramatically. I'll admit that I don't know it fully and correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as we know players that get reported for toxic behavior enough times don't receive more than a short chat ban correct?

No, there are players banned for toxicity all the time. I don't know the details of how we message this, why we do this, legal issues in some countries with how this is handled etc. I'm not on the team that handles these issues, or a part of player support. But I do know we ban people.

Yes you can say that doling out heftier bans can be exploitable, and it can. But the benefits outweigh the potential negatives don't you think?

I actually don't think bans are exploitable, unless we some how automate them. Again not my area, but I was talking about exploits in the sense of Ranked Rating manipulation. I was pointing out that we are focused on combating AFK, Toxcity, and Griefing - because your initial response seemed like you wanted a Ranked Solution for those issues.

Again, I'm not on the team that handles this. We have a team, a team with quiet a few people on it, focused on these very issues.

Such could be adding an honor system that achieving enough points in can award a skin or a gun buddy.

They would be the one that would do an "Honor System", and that idea is a cool one! But that's for them to decide, and also takes time for them to work on. There are other things that also need to be done, like improving player support tools, reporting tools, discovery of how we can fight these issues, then lastly implementing and designing those features. Valorant is young, but I can promise these are things that team thinks about, and works on, and more is to come.

"make them be nice 4head"

I never intended for my response to come off this way. I just wanted to point out that there is a team that works in this space, and they want to combat the core issue. How they combat it, and what they do, is up to them. We've already implemented AFK and Dodge penalties, because we know we can't tell players "just be nice"

Remember Valorant is still pretty young. We are learning a ton, gathering data, and still building foundational systems to the game. I know you're frustrated, but we are definitely working on a lot of things that take time. Hopefully you'll see changes that help alleviate some of your concerns in the future.