Riot will implement a gradual, long-term overhaul of the ranking system, including MMR calculation.
League of Legends Ranked has always been the game’s staple. All the heated debates, the changes in response to reaction, champion balances – everything hinges on ranked gameplay. The rest of the game revolves around it. However, the ranked experience is also the most controversial topic in the game’s entire history.
The ranked debacle consists of a few key issues. Most of them have to do with players’ perceived fairness of the algorithm. One of the most infamous statements of League players is “I lose my game because of my teammates”. Other than the matchmaking, how the MMR is calculated and updated is often questioned. Riot usually doesn’t show your actual MMR and how it updates.
There are many theories forged by the enthusiastic community. However, one thing almost everyone universally agrees on is the fact that the ranked system is not balanced and does not capture a player’s true skill level. For example, u/Trick_Ad7122 points out in the r/leagueoflegends subreddit the fact that old league players, when opening a new ID, usually reach a higher rank than their old one in a much shorter time frame. This is a common phenomenon that exposes an underlying issue with Riot’s MMR system.
Then you also have the issue with Smurfs ruining matchmaking for regular players. Riot has finally shed some light on these matters and how they want to address them as season 2024 next week, including some long-term plans.
Read More: League of Legends Rank Distribution (January 2024)
Detecting ‘Actual’ Rank Faster and With High Accuracy
In order to reduce and discourage the smurfs and opening of new IDs, RiotIksar reveals Riot’s plans to implement matchmaking changes that detect the players’ actual rank so fast that they get placed into the appropriate matches very quickly. Doing so will indirectly reduce the number of matches required to play to reach your true elo. This discourages the Smurfs and others from opening new accounts to disrupt matchmaking for regular players.
The accuracy of MMR detection will also increase as the Rioter continues. So, you will not need to open a new account to get your true elo. Your original ID will see an improvement starting from the new season.
He also adds that reaching a negative LP state will be harder than season 2023. Negative LP state refers to the situation when your LP loss is more than your LP gain. Usually, this occurs upon losing a lot of matches relative to your winning; as such, your win rate drops further below 50%. Making a negative LP state hard to reach will reduce a lot of rank anxiety while also ensuring that reaching your true rank doesn’t become impossible once you improve after a lot of failures.
Long-term Plans with Trueskill 2
Riot currently uses the Elo rating system for player skill measurements. This is the same model that’s used in chess to determine a player’s actual skill level. However, one issue with Elo is that it was originally designed to measure skill levels between 2 players.
But League of Legends is a very complex game with 5v5. And for most of the gameplay, you are, in one way or another, dependent on your teammates’ skills to win the game. It doesn’t matter if you have the individual performance of Faker himself. If your team doesn’t join for a fight at Baron, you can do nothing but see.
League never really cared about individual performance metrics such as K/DA, CS scores, Warding, etc. Yes, we have performance ratings (S, A, B, etc.) that don’t affect rank at all.
That’s why Riot is considering a new system that was designed by Microsoft for games with more than 2 players. TrueSkill 2 accounts for absence in the game, pre-made factors, player statistics over time (individual performance such as k/da, cs, etc.), time played, and also your performance against players whom you have played before.
In the current Elo system, only winning or losing would determine your rank, but under TrueSkill 2, all the other factors will contribute to determining where you stand compared to others. It should be mentioned that Win/Loss will remain the biggest factor among others, even in this system.
Riot is still in the planning phase regarding whether or not to implement Trueskill 2 later this year. But even at the beginning of season 2024, players can expect to see a better ranking system with Riot’s modified rating systems.
Season 2024 Release Date
The highly anticipated season 2024 of League of Legends is set to release on January 9, 2024.
