Talk:Elo hell

ELO doesn't account for team play

The system has always been designed for individual performance. When used for a 1v1 game, like chess, the system is indeed self correcting. You naturally tend towards your skill. But there are factors that ELO doesn't account for in a team game. If a team is kept together, and rises or falls as a team, then ELO works too, because how well the team works together. it is when you cant' choose and stick with your team, that ELO hell exists. If you are vastly below your rank you can raise it by carrying the entire team. When you are above th ELO hell range, everyone else near you also knows how to team with randoms, so you tend to have a fair win rate then too. But when you are below your rank, but can't carry the team, then is when it happens. In ELO hell, there's a great variability in the ability of players to work well as a team within the same ranking. because you never know if you will get team players or not, even if yo do know how to be a team player, you can still get a team full of lousy team players, be unable to make them work together, and lose. As the game goes on, people who do have that unique skill of being able to turn things around for a lousy team break out, leaving behind the lousy team players for new players to get stuck with. With each person who breaks out of ELO hell, it becomes harder for the next person to do so. People have tested this by starting over and being unable to break out even though they were able to before. That's because the true quality team players have already broken out, leaving the people who don't know how to be team players at their same rank, and with so many of them around, your skill doesn't make a difference and you still can't break 50% win rate, and thus can't rise.