We are all aware of the hidden elo/mmr system Riot has in place to "benefit" the matchmaking experience, but the only thing it does is match players that are extremely higher or lower in rank, which puts someones skill level into question each match even if it is a win or a loss!

There is nothing more irritating than queuing into competitive in 110 RR Immortal to only be matched with Plat 1&3 one D1, and expected to carry as a controller because I believed that I was going to be matched with other competent players so I chose a support role, but I get teammates that dry peek, run through smokes and die at the beginning of every round. This happened because the person on the other team queued on his smurf with his extremely lower ranked friends so the matchmaking system gave me teammates that were matching in their skill level. This has happened to me so many times and it is completely unfair to me, and it is all thanks to the hidden elo!

There is no point to grind all the way to the top to only be matched with and against people that are such a lower rank than the player that it hurts the learning curve experience and creates bad habits for them as well, I am personally a player that constantly makes mental notes of how people are playing/behaving at my current level so I can be prepared for the next engagement/match, and if I'm constantly being matched against a slot machine equivalent of skill groups then I have no way to gauge if I'm doing something correctly or if I'm creating a bad habit because that player is nowhere near my skill level.

Everyone values their ranks and views that as a reflection of their skill level. However... when you are constantly being matched against players that are a much lower skill because some loser wants to boost his friends and you win, go to the match screen on your match history, and see the atrocity of the mismatched ranks and skill levels, it is confusing to say the least, it also puts your skill level into question... "Was I matched at this level because I am bad?" "Have I actually earned my rank?" "Was it just smurf accounts?" "What should I be doing differently?". The same questions are asked with a win OR a loss.

As a result, ranks are meaningless and carry no weight since we aren't matched against people that aren't our own or close to our rank.

I personally don't have a absolute end all be all solution to this, but I have ideas that can certainly make this happen a lot less than it currently does.

You should ONLY be matched with people in your rank tier in solo queue, no exceptions.

Golds will be only matched with Gold 1-3, Diamonds will only be matched with Diamond 1-3

etc

I'm sure queue wait times are a concern, I have asked everyone that I know that plays this game, me personally and everyone I know would rather wait and have a better competitive experience then to be thrown into a unbalanced match where one person on each team is supposed to do literally everything.

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"Only solo queue players will benefit from this fix! What about me and my friends from different ranks and skill levels?"

Here's an example to fix this as well, if a B3, S3, and a G1 queued together, they ONLY can be matched against/with people within their respective rank tiers! It's not an absolute fix but it sets a standard/expectation for what you will be guaranteed to experience in competitive.

Q: "What about smurfs/alt accounts??"

A: Only match with players within 20 account levels above or below you, this is just one example of how an account level can be used to prevent smurfs, however I'm sure there is a better way.

It is a pretty easy fix to not get smurfs as long as your account level is 100+ they generally range from level 1-40ish. (There is of course the losers that have several smurf accounts that are shared amongst lots of people that can be level 100-150ish, but you cant fix everything.)

Q: "So I have to grind 100 levels to not get smurfs??"

A: It is the only solution I can think of with every system that is currently in place.

Since smurf/cheater accounts are so blatantly spotted when you get ferrari peeked 1 tapped across mid on breeze by a level 3 account that already has 4 aces 6 rounds into the game, it really gets put into question as to why they aren't only matched against other very low level accounts.

If you read this far I truly appreciate it, thank you for your time.

Any suggestions or constructive criticism is heavily encouraged, this needs to be discussed!