[2021] I would GLADLY wait longer for a more balanced game

I was just about to get some sleep, after staying up way to late playing games(man it's rough, I really need to go to bed earlier). But I saw this post and really wanted to comment.

I think there is a perception going around that matches aren't fair, which I totally understand. When you see a bronze on your team in gold, it feels unfair. At the same time, the match maker is pushing them there because that player has shown a drastic increase in skill to belong there. That being said, I think that creates more issues of how meaningful your forward facing rank is, match making quality, etc.

I definitely want to tackle match fairness first. We have not changed how match making works, from the previous episode. When you queue it's using the exact same rules/math that would have been used to put you in matches last season. If we were to flip the client back 2 months, and you were to queue, you would get the same players in your matches as you would now. The only thing we changed is how you progress your forward facing rank.

I understand it sucks, seeing a ranked disparity in your games. So even tho you are getting the same match making, you FEEL like it's unfair. It doesn't matter if you have the perfect system, if it doesn't feel good. We have some fixes planned to help with this, these fixes just take time to get right. I think it's crazy to think about, but remember Valorant hasn't even hit 1 year released yet.

I do think this issue is more complicated then just blaming forward facing rank tho. We are aware of the AFK complaints, next patch we are rolling out AFK penalties - this is just the start of us combating AFK in ranked. Having an AFK player could lead to a loss, and a feeling that the system isn't working.

I think there also has to be acceptance that sometimes people get tilted, or some players are just having a good night. Just today I had one of the best games I've ever had during our playtest, topping my teams scoreboard, while going against devs that are diamond, immortal, and radiant; the catch being that I'm only Plat on live(incoming Dev is only plat comments). While I understand there is a concern of smurfs, or boosted players, realistically players can very from match to match pretty wildly in performance. I've personally never seen a player that is playing at their actual MMR/Skill that are match MVP every game(altho you might be able to argue about some pros). You will have games where you are the best on your team, and games where you are the worst.

Ranked can be a very hard topic to talk about, people get very passionate and it can be extremely frustrating to feel like you are losing to forces outside of your control. While I do accept that we have fixes we need and want to make, I do have faith that ranked is good at figuring out where you belong. You can't climb rank, and improve, without actually climbing ranked and improving - everyone has their own ranked journey. We will always be trying to make the system better, I hope even through frustrations I can convince the community of this.

I've been around quiet a bit, I also try to answer questions when I can. I hope we can alleviate some of the frustrations around ranked, and hopefully you don't get this Plat scrub on your team :P(Just kidding, I love running into you guys in my ranked games).

Sorry you've been having a rough experience in match making. I definitely think us getting rid of AFK's, and battling toxicity more, will really help a ton in queues. Right now I think people feel like they can AFK freely, and just take a queue timer hit(which doesn't matter if you are logging off for the night).

Hopefully by improving those things you'll see a better queue!

I do want to say there are lots of people, and we know this through feedback and surveys, that feel like there isn't anything wrong with queue.

So I think that's the hard part is figuring out why some players feel this way, while others don't. I would be lying if we didn't think some of it comes down to just frustrations with matches. I'm sure not having a good match, a toxic player, afk, a player that is lower rank then you not performing, etc. can all make you start to blame the match maker. We get feedback that's "Match Making is unfair" then when we investigate we see that they actually are having close matches, they just want to blame losses on another player or the match maker. So I think having open conversations about why players feel that way may help us find other solutions. I'm not saying our match maker is perfect, but I find it interesting that nothing has changed for this act and we are seeing an increase in complaints about it.

We don't show MMR not just because it makes it easier to find exploits, but also because players focus too much on it(just like ranked currently). In most Elo systems it takes 1000+ matches just to get close to your true MMR. In the last season your rank was tied more to your MMR and players complained because they would sometimes swing hard up or down - you saw this in posts that said "Why am I getting demoted twice for a few bad games?".

Our MMR system, while I believe one of the best I've seen on any game I've worked on, is matching you where it currently believes your rank may belong. Our match maker doesn't know if you are having a good day, or a bad day. It doesn't know that Bind is a map you struggle with, or someone picked your main Jett and you aren't good at any other agent open in your match. Maybe these are points we can improve on. My main point about this is that those small differences can really make or break a player, especially in lower ranks. In Bronze/Silver not getting an Agent you know how to play or not getting a map you are familiar with can be a death sentence for your performance. But that's part of the reason that player may be in low ranks. This is part of the reason I think people blaming how well a player is doing on the match maker, and maybe not the crazy amount of reasons that player may be under/over performing.

Sorry, this was sort of a round about way to answer your MMR question. We don't show it because it wouldn't change the perception of what's going on right now. Instead of blaming their rank, there would be complaints over their MMR without understanding how their MMR is calculated, the math going on in the back end etc. We also open ourselves up to players getting upset when they have a few matches that really swing their MMR.

That's the reason the system was changed to begin with. MMR is meant to test you at a Rank and consistency in your performance pushes your rank to match your MMR. I have some ideas in how to maybe improve visability on MMR, but it's early and I haven't even thought or built it out yet. Hope that helps!

Yes! Altho you still have to at least win 9 games to fill your Rank Act Badge. So essentially, you still have to win 9 games but your highest win will be your Act Rank.