'Hacking' Riot's Matchmaking System
I discuss a strategy to trick Riot's sadistic matchmaking system into giving you favourable games. In reply to the idea that "The game forces you to lose ~2/3 of your games". I struggle to see how this makes mathematical sense. This rule would apply to all players, yes? So in a game of two teams with equal numbers of players, everyone losing ~2/3 games could not be possible. However, there are variables that could make things not as simple as everything adding to 50% win/loss. Some players are much better (smurfs) or worse (boosted) than others in the same elo, and their inflated/deflated winrates impact others in their games. Given the nature of climbing from low to high and the cost of boosting, there are likely to be many more smurfs than boosted overall, therefore it might not be too surprising to find slightly sub 50% winrates for the general population of players as a tiny minority take more of the wins. Out of interest, I had a quick look on League of Graphs for winrates of all champions in the game, iron+ (so that should be all players). The average winrate was 49.71%. If everyone was losing ~2/3 of games this would be ~33%. The numbers of games people play is likely to also have a big influence, Some people play a lot and are therefore more likely to approach 50% winrates, whilst those who don't play much may experience more variance simply through sample size effect, but things like experience (lots vs few games probably increases player skill), tilt (being tired and angry probably decreases player skill) etc. are other factors. A smurfing or boosted account playing lots of games would likely also compound this effect. The existence (or not) of different matchmaking populations such as smurfQ or prisoners island would further complicate things by potentially removing outlier players from mainstream circulation whilst simultaneously keeping them in an inappropriate elo in a longer time frame. I'm sure there are many other variables that could be important. Ultimately, it is clear that the majority of players approximate a 50% winrate over 10s or, more usually, 100s of games. The variables in the system make it difficult to analyse the influence of matchmaking dynamics with confidence, especially if trying to identify patterns in small samples of sets of 3 games. However, the capacity and incentive of Riot to manipulate matchmaking (through systemised optimal engagement algorithms) for maximum player engagement, and how that would manifest, is entirely consistent with the shared experience of millions of players worldwide.
I discuss a strategy to trick Riot's sadistic matchmaking system into giving you favourable games. In reply to the idea that "The game forces you to lose ~2/3 of your games". I struggle to see how this makes mathematical sense. This rule would apply to all players, yes? So in a game of two teams with equal numbers of players, everyone losing ~2/3 games could not be possible. However, there are variables that could make things not as simple as everything adding to 50% win/loss. Some players are much better (smurfs) or worse (boosted) than others in the same elo, and their inflated/deflated winrates impact others in their games. Given the nature of climbing from low to high and the cost of boosting, there are likely to be many more smurfs than boosted overall, therefore it might not be too surprising to find slightly sub 50% winrates for the general population of players as a tiny minority take more of the wins. Out of interest, I had a quick look on League of Graphs for winrates of all champions in the game, iron+ (so that should be all players). The average winrate was 49.71%. If everyone was losing ~2/3 of games this would be ~33%. The numbers of games people play is likely to also have a big influence, Some people play a lot and are therefore more likely to approach 50% winrates, whilst those who don't play much may experience more variance simply through sample size effect, but things like experience (lots vs few games probably increases player skill), tilt (being tired and angry probably decreases player skill) etc. are other factors. A smurfing or boosted account playing lots of games would likely also compound this effect. The existence (or not) of different matchmaking populations such as smurfQ or prisoners island would further complicate things by potentially removing outlier players from mainstream circulation whilst simultaneously keeping them in an inappropriate elo in a longer time frame. I'm sure there are many other variables that could be important. Ultimately, it is clear that the majority of players approximate a 50% winrate over 10s or, more usually, 100s of games. The variables in the system make it difficult to analyse the influence of matchmaking dynamics with confidence, especially if trying to identify patterns in small samples of sets of 3 games. However, the capacity and incentive of Riot to manipulate matchmaking (through systemised optimal engagement algorithms) for maximum player engagement, and how that would manifest, is entirely consistent with the shared experience of millions of players worldwide.