Riot is once again targeting the rank gap between League of Legends players at the top of the ladder.
League lead gameplay designer Mark “Scruffy” Yetter informed fans today that high-ranked matchmaking is being tuned to the “strictest” it’s ever been. This should limit the range of ranks seen in high MMR lobbies at the expense of a longer queue time.
We just pushed another tightening pass on high MMR matchmaking. This should be the strictest we've ever had matchmaking tuned in terms of favoring match quality over queue times. There may still be a little more room, but we have to see the data before we tune it again. (1/3)
— Mark Yetter (@MarkYetter) July 15, 2020
“Overall we think the tradeoff is worth it for the highest competitive tier of the game,” Scruffy said. “We get the feedback from high MMR players that they would prefer longer waits for better matches pretty consistently.”
Even though high-ranked players may have to wait in a queue longer, the payoff will be a fairer, high-quality match.
Riot devs began working on this issue last week after Fnatic jungler Selfmade tweeted a picture of his solo queue lobby, which had players ranging anywhere from Diamond One to Challenger. The large discrepancy in skill creates unfair lobbies and forces players to compete with others who may be more or less experienced than them.
Scruffy said there might “still be a little more room” to make matchmaking even stricter. But the devs will have to look at the data before tightening the MMR range again.
A couple of weeks ago multiple solo queue players complained about the poor quality of games. In response, Riot Games tuned in the systems.
“We’re rolling out a matchmaking fix that should address the wide spreads we’ve been seeing in high MMR games today,” Scruffy said. “Thanks for reporting and being patient with this.”
The issue was first reported by Fnatic jungler Selfmade, who tweeted a picture of his solo queue lobby this morning. The Polish pro’s match consisted of players with MMR between Diamond One and Challenger, with some Master players sprinkled in as well.
The large gap in MMR and skill can adversely affect matchmaking, especially if one team is unlucky enough to have more lower-ranked players. But Riot’s fix should solve the balance issue.
It’s unclear if players in lower ranks were experiencing a similar problem. There are far less players at the top of the ladder, however, which makes finding a balanced match more difficult and can often lead to longer queue times.
Going forward, the solo queue gap problem should be fixed and players should no longer find themselves in lobbies where there is a difference of a few hundred if not one thousand LP between participants in the game.