Oh. My. Just had two of THE most enjoyable matches today that I have had in MONTHS. One I lost handedly due to teamates but enjoyed the challenge myself. One I won in a hard fought almost 40 min match. Almost everyone in the MM was a smurf in that match, both teamates and enemies, and I have not had so much fun since I started Vainglory a couple years ago. Idk how SEMC is gonna fix matchmaking but damn when you have teamates that actually match your skill is the game actually fun again!
Yeah, that’s the major problem with the matchmaker, as far as I can see: it appears to be tuned for the shortest possible queue times rather than anything resembling a balanced match.
I suspect (though with little to back it up) that the player base is just too small to get enough players of similar MMRs together in a reasonable amount of time.
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From what I’ve seen the MM has a different mode of operation during peak times than when less of the player base is on. At peak times it’s fairly accurate to the vst, at least for me. I always get ranked with my vst or lower, but a lot of smurfs, usually on the enemy team. At off hours I get matched with ranked 8 or higher more often. I’m rank 6 btw. It’s a weird discrepancy. I personally guess it has something to do with a combination of player base and mmr but jeez do they need to fix things. I think they try to match you with your vst more than your mmr too, at least that’s what I’ve concluded after the mm shenanigans I go through.
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I agree and also remember the times when the MM was tuned for more fair matches (and mind you, still not spot on as 3vs3 times where all the players were exact same tier/subtier and close in elo (but drop that, all the players were similar skill and it was obvious = enjoyable)). So, the matches were more balanced at 5vs5 start, but the wait times were 15-20m and dunno how big the player base is now, but I have the feeling back then it was bigger.
Especially when we trow in the duoq, trioq - rarely there is really a balanced match and the unbalanced positions as how important they are overall towards the victory - it’s underwelming to have a t9 silver at mid, 1 t9 gold at bot, 3 t10 bronze lows the other positions vs enemy team that got t10 silver at mid, t10 at bot, t10 as supp/jungler and gold and silver t9.
i.e. top is not equal to mid towards the match outcome and the difference is biiig.
Waiting for 4.0… hope it atleast somewhat improve the things. On the positive note, the new fun events modes are quite refreshing and nice to have.
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I am frequently matched in the less active hours with t9 bronze, silvers vs duoq t10 bronze (2500+ elo bronze, i.e. real) and 3 bronze/silvers. It’s really bad as they most of the times take both mid and bot while I am main support + fill = as noone want’s to play support, I am the one. Almost never won such a game, my teammates falls behind like no tomorrow no matter how much I help them, I literally should babysit one of them to be just slightly behind as they can’t really last hit too… 
Atleast as a carry you feel you do something, tho in a lot of cases even if you are really MVP - it won’t compensate 5 team mates. Still, you atleast can do semidecent in most situations. While as support it’s underwhelming when your entire team is weak and the enemy is not, you hear constantly how someone from your side died and see the gold diff bumping had one such game where not only I was forced to play captain, but also exactly who (phin, he is ok currently tho not overpowered, but into that enemy/my team comp phin was a clearly a bad choice). I wanted to cry that game as the enemy team got t10 silver at mid and 4 really high t10 bronze… my team had t9 bronze and gold and t10 lows - most likely duoqs were involved in both teams, but that doesn’t make it fair for me atleast.
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Post 3pm EST games are found so much quicker and I find games more balanced. When I play on my days off before that time, queues are much longer and games can have quite the discrepancy in skill.