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Thanks for posting this! I'm Josh Menke and I wanted to say feel free to ask questions or leave additional feedback on this change here and I'll read through them and answer ones I can.
Thanks for posting this! I'm Josh Menke and I wanted to say feel free to ask questions or leave additional feedback on this change here and I'll read through them and answer ones I can.
Is this now, or how it will be updated to? Because I'm emerald, and yesterday I was getting golds and masters in my teams (not at the same time, separate matches)
It is live now. If a Master parties with a Diamond, they will be matched as their average rank which can be Diamond. As an Emerald, you can match parties with an average rank of Diamond. Likewise, a Plat with a Gold can average Plat, which can also match with Emerald. Which is why the tweet says exceptions will happen with premades.
What are the rules for Solo Q and premades? If someone's in Solo Q is EVERY PLAYER in that match also a solo q? Or are duo/trio allowed? Just looking for clarity on grouping.
Thanks!
Matches are always mirrored. If you get a duo on the other team, you will also have one on yours. Both sides always have the same type of premades. 5s only play 5s (5s actually currently use a completely different matchmaker).
By the way, there aren't enough trios to only match duos and trios together. Duos wouldn't find matches without solos.
Is there any plan to remove the "above rank" badge for ranks over gold? I am yet to see a platinum ranked person perform even at the level of most emerald players when they get that badge, and they are generally against diamond players. Even though there isnt much of a difference across the ranks, there is a definite, noticeable difference between diamond and platinum for the vast majority of players.
If nothing else, is there plans to adjust it so that only platinum 1 can be in the pool of higher ranks?
Right now, Plat players can not match with Diamond players outside of being in a premade party where the party's average is at least Emerald.
A solo queuing Plat can't match with solo queuing Diamonds with this change.
You should see the "above rank" badge a lot less often if you are Plat+.
In general, gaps are chosen by looking at how wide they have to go to prevent unreasonably long wait times.
Can you expand upon how these changes will affect solo queue players? For example, if I am to understand these new regulations correctly a solo queue Emerald player should expect to now match with platinums, diamonds, or other emeralds. However, if a duo queue premade consists of a gold and a platinum, but there average is platinum, will they still be allowed to match with a solo queue emerald?
Yes, a high-Gold in a duo with a high-Plat will likely average to a Plat party. If an Emerald player is unable to find 4 other Emeralds, they can pull in a Plat party, which would include this duo. It wouldn't be the matchmaker's first choice, but it is allowable since Plat is only 1 step from Emerald.
But you won't see things like, a Plat pulling in a solo queue gold AND a solo queue Emerald anymore.
In addition, Gold/Plat duos do play better than their average would account for pretty consistently in the data, so you usually aren't going to be hurt in this combo.
Thanks for the update, personally I feel this has been an overall very positive change and a move in the right direction. My matches have consistently been of a higher quality and fairness this season because I can count on my teammates and opponents being of a similar skill level (I don’t mind the longer queue times). I understand the argument devs have made is that MMR is a better predictor of match performance, however I’ve always felt that the “plays above their rank badge” didn’t account for things such as micro/macro gameplay mechanics and knowledge that is acquired over time. For example, I had previously felt that someone with incredible micro/reaction times would bounce around from low to high elo with that “badge” because it’s easy to carry with good micro against lower skilled players, but they will end up feeding against higher skilled players with good macro. I feel that if these players are forced to build upon their macro skills via grinding ranks, overall match quality will greatly improve. That isn’t to say MMR based systems shouldn’t exist, if they didn’t smurfs would literally cause the game to collapse and implode upon itself. I think you’ve found a much better balance between MMR and ranked based match making.
I only have a couple questions:
- Do you currently have any estimates regarding current queue times for each rank and what you’d expect those to look like later in the season?
- For those who are unaware, could you explain why we experience increased queue times at the beginning of the season (specifically for high elo)?
- Could you expand upon and give us and indication regarding how you’d look “into smoothing this out in the future” please?
- Are these updates for all gameplay modes or just ranked?
Thank you for your time!
First, to clear something up about MMR: the matchmaker is allowed to dynamically increase the allowed MMR gap over time to make sure a match can be made. It can't do this with the Rank gaps. So in cases where you have a player not performing well, in the data, it is consistently because the matchmaker actually lowered the MMR bar in order to make a match happen. So it's actually not MMR matchmaking that's hurting you, it's a lack of MMR matching. This change is indeed a way to balance a hard requirement (rank) with the soft one (MMR).
Uh how long ago was this implemented exactly? I've still had many game with Grand Masters, Master, Diamond and Emerald all in the same game. Back in Emerald less then a week ago I encountered Challenger players. Most games I get stuck with one side going party of 3 and sometimes also duo and my team is all solo and on the other hand I'm in a game with a team of 3, 2 solo including me against a entire solo team.
This went live late last Tuesday PDT time. Note the exception when it comes to premades. Outside of that exception, we see zero fully solo queue matches with Master+ players that have anything but Master+ in them in our data since the change.
It will be great if dia 1 can be with master q, coz u can already pre made with dia 1/2 as master player, and i think this will make q faster and dia1/2 players can compete well enough with master elo from my experience.
See my comment on smoothing above.
While it is not strictly related to MMR, I would like to know about AFK & Int detecting, as well as player reports. I have been matched with the same AFK or inting players in short succession, making it clear that they are being allowed back in queue. What is the matchmaking team doing about player behavior / reports?
We actually have a separate team specifically for player behavior and they are actively working on those issues.
But you're ignoring not only a huge chunk of the playerbase by looking only at Master+, by your own admission you're ignoring the actual problems of pre-made teams. That fix doesn't do or mean anything since there's almost no true full 5 solo vs 5 solo. You guys need to actually look at the entire data and playerbase and not just a percentage less then 1%
This change affects Gold+ as stated in the details. It also affects all those premades as well, acting directly on the average rank.
This change overall impacts well over 90% of the players.
I would like to quote your own words, keep in mind you've told others the same: Note the exception when it comes to premades. Outside of that exception, we see zero fully solo queue matches with Master+ players that have anything but Master+ in them in our data since the change.
This heavily implies a huge contradiction, either you're looking at gold+ pre-made only or master+ pre-made only. Even so you're still ignoring other programs facing rank this season.
This change overall impacts well over 90% of the players.
I would like it if you could provide the data for this claim. As a Riot official a claiming like this, especially when contradicting yourself and other players experience, it would be of significant help to see that data and figure out why it feels and seems the opposite. Sorry if this comes out offensive or anything like that as that's not my intention, just there's too many contradictions.
If you read my previous comments in this thread in their entirety you will see there is no contradiction.
Thank you for your reply. I'm not sure how much you are able to communicate with that team, but if it's possible to encourage them to give players an update regarding their efforts, like you have here, I think the player-base would appreciate it. There doesn't seem to be anything at all in place regarding player behavior except for some threadbare automatic AFK & chat detectors.
A question that is definitely up your alley: Have similar changes to allowed skill range in Matchmaking been applied to unranked, or is this only a ranked change?
Only Ranked since there's no Ranks in Unranked. Unranked uses its own MMR since people treat it differently.
Have ranks gotten easier to climb? I’m just as bad as I’ve always been and struggled to get to top levels of Emerald in season 2 and now breezed through to make it to Diamond (though hard to get out of Diamond IV)
There were a few updates we announced last season that helped players get to ranks they were supposed to get to before, but weren't.
Hi, I am currently GM 270 points, I'm just wondering how do you classify how much points a player gets? All of my friends receive +20 after reaching master till they reach challenger while I receive +15 or +16 since reaching master.
Thanks in advance!
It means they have a higher MMR, which in turn means they have been more likely to win matches against harder opponents.
Hello Josh. Thank you for taking the time to do this. I would like to hear your opinion on a small thing I have in mind.
How hard do you think it will be to implement a system where if one role in your team is an auto fill, the enemy in that same role will also be an auto fill. We desperately need a system like that this because I can not express how infuriating and sad it is to see your E4 Lux main JG auto fill get smacked all over the map by an Ex GM D4 JG main who lives and breathes objectives. It simply doesn't seem fair. You just cannot expect an auto fill JG to match the macro and micro of a JG main. And just because of this one simple mismatch, your whole team pays the price.
Maybe it can never be implemented for all roles since it would be too complex or increase Q times by a lot, but can we have this for JG role at least? It would be a very-appreciated change for the community.
Also, ignore the trolls and negativity that you probably keep encountering from tilted players and keep improving the game. Have a nice day!
We are actually investigating this exact type of thing. I can't speak to the difficulty of the implementation yet though. It would also have wait time implications.
We actually have measured exactly how much of an impact having a mismatched autofill JG has on winning, and while it does have a measurable impact, it is orders of magnitude less than the overall skill difference between teams. Which means in practice, despite the noted disadvantage, it is consistently overcome by teammate skill in the data.
That said, like I said, we are still looking into it because we agree the feel of it is disproportionate with the actual outcomes.
Is there an MMR for PVP or is it just random? I swear (Master MMR in Ranked) get matched with people that just installed yesterday when I play PVP with friends.
PVP uses MMR only, however that MMR can expand as needed to get you into a match quickly.
Hey Josh, thanx already to answer so many questions, especially given the controversial topic.
I got 2 questions regarding what i believe is the biggest frustration atm: the difference between actual rank and actual skill:
- any plans to implement ELO for plat and emerald? This way it's easy to give everyone fair matches while still allow people to climb if their skill is higher than its current rank.
- don't you think it would be better of there are more people in the lower ranks? I know this would be a controversial thing, but if people are more evenly spread across ranks it would reduce skill difference within ranks, no? That way you don't need to hard constraint rank difference
Plat and Emerald still have a back end MMR that is used to matchmake and balance teams. The gap that is allowed within a team for that MMR is dependent on who is available when you play. The closer to peak hours you play, the better your teammates will be.
Hi Josh, do you guys factor in a player's historical rank into matchmaking? At emerald me and my friends often run into opponents who are currently diamond but historically master/gm/challenger
A certain amount of past rank is baked into their current rank because it determines how far back we will roll a player when a new season starts. Outside of that, no, because we have found historical rank to be much less accurate than a combination of current rank and MMR.
It's possible to run into situations like yours if the system needs to expand the MMR gap enough to find matches, however the team balancer will always make sure that your team has just as much MMR as the other team does.
Plat players are not supposed to see diamonds anymore. You either get matched up or down but not both. I'm emerald and I'm mostly matching with emeralds but I noticed myself matching with all platinum players ones and all diamond players once. Which was weird. I don't think the game is hard enforcing the rules with premades though. I'm sure you can get unusual match ups still but they are just less common.
It does enforce the rules with premades (outside of a full 5q) by using the average rank of the premade. If the average rank of a premade is Emerald III (e.g., Emerald IV with Diamond IV), then they could match with Plats if needed, so in that case you can have a Diamond in with Plats. It will still balance the teams on MMR though, so both teams will have an equal shot at winning.