Changes to League of Legends Matchmaking are Resulting in Unbalanced Games

Some tweaks to the matchmaking system in League of Legends were made to let new players find games [...]

By Tanner Dedmon

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(Photo: Riot Games)

Some tweaks to the matchmaking system in League of Legends were made to let new players find games easier, but the changes have also resulted in some significantly different player levels being matched against each other.

While League players will occasionally see the occasional odd matchup that prompts players to ask their team what their rank is, usually when things aren't going well, recent updates seem to have made that situation more common. More players have been posting evidence of unbalanced games recently, but the player accounts have still been mostly anecdotal. However, if you're convinced that you're getting too many noobs in your games and something feels off, you'll be reassured to know that a Riot Games employee has commented on the issue to explain that you're probably right.

"We're looking into this," Riot SapMagic said on Reddit when a Platinum player claimed that they were getting matched with players who weren't even close to level 30. "We're testing some changes to improve queue times for newer players and we made matchmaking less restrictive when it comes to player level."

By changing the matchmaking to be less restrictive, newer players would hopefully find games much quicker instead of waiting for long queues. However, SapMagic said that the matchmaking might have been changed too much and now has a greater chance to match new players against higher levels.

"As a result, we can end up making more matches between level 30 and sub-level 30 players," SapMagic continued. "We probably made matchmaking too permissive and we're going to get together today to talk about how to tune it so it feels better for everyone."

Those matchmaking changes are currently just being tested, but after they're finalized, SapMagic said that the setting changes might still be noticeable, though they shouldn't be as profound as they are now. The Rioter also brought up another point about matchmaking that deals with the preseason change that'll remove the level cap entirely. With levels scaling up to endless heights, SapMagic said that there "might be some additional pain there" but added that they intend to keep an eye on whether the changes are healthy or not.

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