Quick match mid level ELO - skill level seems to be very inconsistent

As I understood, ELO reflects how good we are in the game, but somehow playing at ELO 1050-1100 it feels like the opponents skills vary significantly (based on aeo4world the opponents have really matching ELO around 1080 ± 10).

In some games 1080 ELO players feel like they are significantly better, following some optimised build order, or have very good micro skills. Then in other games, 1080 ELO players seems like having no chance against me, just doing my thing usually.

So it’s actually very rare to have a tight match somehow… I have a winrate of 50%, so the system is “working”, but the matches can feel quite unbalanced in either way. It’s ok at the end, most of us are causal players, not pros, so consistency cannot be expected probably, but I find this still very strange.

Do you have the same, or your match ups are rather balanced?

There are lots of players in team games that get their ELO a little higher than it should be by players with stronger friends.

As a 1300s player that often observes the 1000s players in my games, I can say that half of them play on my level and the other half are like you’d imagine one to be.

I’m coming from Overwatch competitive where the bulk of players hover around the mid tiers as well and it’s the same thing where skill ratings can be pretty mismatched. I think it may be because the middling players often have enough skill to get past the lower ranks but then are missing some vital skills require to advance.

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It depends.
At this elo a lot of people are starting to figure out the meta, build orders and how to play specific match ups.
So a lot of people will have the knowledge and be very confortable playing certain match ups, but then they have no idea what to do against some other civ.

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I had a guy fighting me in Silver 1, he was english, he made about in total 30 Lbows and nothing else, I pushed his base and won, then i Lost a game after, I went back into silver 1, this guy somehow came at me round about the same time i attacked the other guy with about 30 MAA’s and 50 Lbows, the same rank, 2 completely different people, 1 of them i steamrolled and then the next time i go steamrolled, both british both same rank, both dont completely different things.

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Same for me. I am almost on the same elo. And I feel the same.
One thing i noticed is that superior player have most often several hundret games played (compared to my 70+ games) it seems as they drop elo on purpose from time to time. But it is also true what @StatedOregon5 said… I myself are uncertain on some maps and civ match ups on others i am more confident. But still there are only very few games where it is a close match.

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Is it because everyone starts at around 1000 elo so sometimes you get actual solid 1000 elo players who know the game vs sometiems getting people who have only played 20 games? I’m 800-850 elo myself after 200 games and have struggled to make that next jump but also notice this sometimes I just get destroyed for 5-10 games in a row and other games are way too easy and I end up steamrolling my opponent when it’s obviously their first game or two and feel bad.

Granted when I lose to actual 1000-1100 level elo players it’s probably simply because they’re better then me and do things more efficiently in a way I haven’t figured out yet even though I try to watch replays of my games and watch how pro players play games.

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I think it’s because the game tried to place them in a higher skill level where they didn’t succeed so they ended up back in a lower elo range where they proceed to dominate. At least that’s what happens to me I’ll win like 8 games in a row against very easy opponents and t hen get crushed and lose 8-10 in a row when the game tried to move me up to the next level and I just end up back with the lower players again which isn’t very fun for either of us.

unfortunately i was paired sooo many times to quitters and drop hackers that my elo rank sank to the bottom and theres no way to climb up now… its soo frustrating… im condemned to playing with quitters, hackers and noobs for the rest of my days since i dont have friends to connect with to play together consistently…

I think in games with ranked matchmaking in general, you’re always going to get a lot of skill variation around the starting ELO, because of the impact of new players. Once you improve to top 5-10% kind of standard, the skill level becomes much more consistent because you can’t get to that level by getting lucky and matching up against new players near the starting ELO.

It’s interesting in team games… After a certain level, I started to win more often and have more fun in the game… It’s mostly not because I got better, but because you get more serious teams, where people don’t quit after they spot an enemy unit. But unfortunately, I don’t have any tipps how to get there, fingers crossed only that after 10-20 games it gets sorted out and you come to the player base where you have fun to play with.

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I just wish there was a way to play with players of a similar elo to you and games played rather then having 200 games played myself and being matched against someone with only 20 games played or less simply because we’re both the same elo. I’m guessing if it happens in a lot of games that use this system it’s just something you have to deal with when using a elo ranking system though.

On the other hand, number of games is not always indicative of how good the skill is… I had matches with people with 20 games who were significantly better than me. And on my level, I think it’s quite unlikely these were Smurf accounts.
But, yes overall this might be one aspect of this.