Broken Matchmaker in LoL
I’m still playing League of Legends but it’s games like this that really make me question the matchmaking system Riot has put in place.
Here we have a match captured from LoLSkill.Com where it’s clear there are 2 people who are in their placement matches. My question is…how did they both end up on one team?
Master Yi is unranked and hasn’t won a single ranked game in placements so far, though I’m not sure how many games he’s played other than he’s lost a game as Yi in his placements. Ryze is also in placements and hasn’t won a game yet…and hasn’t played as Ryze yet either. How is it that the match maker has figured that these two ‘brand new to ranked’ players should be on the same team?
Now, there are 2 players on that same team with over 100 ranked wins this season but they’re playing champs and maybe roles that they’ve only played 2 games each.
Meanwhile, other than Jhin, the other team has players who’ve at least played 15 games as their selected champ and each has over 40 ranked wins this season.
As for Jhin, he’s in Bronze 3 with only 7 ranked wins. Now, considering I started in Bronze 5 after winning 8 matches while in placement, he must have started out much higher than I did and I was in Silver last season. So he’s at least a Gold level player starting in Bronze 3 to make his climb up the ladder.
So I fail to see how Riot’s match maker could possibly have figured it would put together a fair match by having these players distributed on teams this way.
LoLSkill points out that one team has a 57.6% chance of winning based on the experience and previous play of the players. How is it that Riot thinks this is an even game?
Or does it?
Is the algorithm that Riot’s matchmaker uses so bad that it thinks this is a fair match? Or is there some other purpose at work here?
I’m sure some people would gladly claim this is just a mistake of the matchmaker, but programs only make mistakes if they are programmed to. And Riot’s had years to perfect their match making algorithm.
I don’t have answers, only questions. And those questions make me wonder about how a competitive game can continue to attract so many players when the matchmaking algorithm is so flawed. Or it is flawed in an intelligent and purposeful manner that keeps people coming back?
In any case, this is only one example…I have more and I’m sure I’ll find more as I continue to play, but for now, I’m still playing and trying to improve and enjoying it for the most part.
When matches like this happen I don’t enjoy it and I write posts about how the game is corrupt.