A new player, disappointed

General Discussion
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Hello, I’m new here and I’d like to share my experience of “HotS” in these 2 months of ranked as a new player. After calibrating with a friend in “underworld” rank xD, thanks to the fact that in all the calibration games and when I say all of them, they were literally all, we played with afk players or dirty trolls, and even so we tried to keep playing a while longer since it seemed like a good game to us. After 2 months of learning, 500 games and nights in which more than enjoying yourself you just got upset, today we decided to quit the game. In bronze at least 30% (being quite indulgent) of the matchups are with completely afk players or who launch themselves against enemy towers, which makes it extremely difficult for an average player playing alone or with a friend to get out of there, you need a full team to avoid trolls. I’m not writing this post to mourn the community, I’m writing it with the “no hope” that Blizzard will be able to permanently sanction accounts, accounts that are easily identifiable, because their games last 10 minutes and have histories of less than 30% winrate, accounts that contribute nothing only end up sinking their game in the MOBA swamp where they are. I come from Dota 2 and there, for doing half of what a player does here, you lose your account for at least a week and here they ruin your experience over and over again in the same night and nothing happens, reporting is useless, the system doesn’t work.
Now they want me to do their job, well here it is:
List of afk or suicidal players:
-WorstPlayer (I’m fresh in my mind, a great son…)
-Fenrrir
-iddqd
-Player (there are several with this name that do the same thing, it’s their problem to identify them)
-No!
-noooot
-Чалдонище
-USmustEndCCP
-browncow
-xXXOliviaXXx
-I’ve got some others left out, but these are the ones I’ve been writing down.

I’d really like to say goodbye by saying that it was a pleasure to be here, but it wasn’t. Thanks for nothing.

PS: Pro players, what are you going to tell me, if you can get bronze! Bro, I’m not interested in your opinion. I’m interested in the health of the game and the poor management of Blizzard.

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This game is extremely harsh to newcomers these days, nothing can be done until the game leaves maintenance in which Blizzard has abandoned and completely kept in this state, previously this wasn’t the case but now its more prominent with the declining population.

I can recall one of them as they were mentioned here, and on Reddit but because of harassment rules on both forums the only thing that can be done is to report through their reporting channels which are “working like charm”, if these people would be continuously griefing for many years to come.

I am sorry that you have to get such experience, I started playing ranked from 2021 on EU to reach masters but I can understand the exceptional frustration to deal with throwers as I’ve had my own share until I escaped Silver where games became playable, bearable and throwing isn’t a norm, just bad plays.

My only suggestion is to avoid SL and stick to QM/ARAM because in those modes you won’t see these absolute psychopaths doing that.

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I am a player who enjoys competitive play. I think I will be out of the game at least until the season is over and maybe I will try to recalibrate again next season. If I see that I cannot get out of the bronze category, which is full of these players who do not play and do not let you play, I will definitely leave the game. Because there is no point in trying to improve as a player if you do not see yourself rewarded.

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People always love to blame their losses on someone or something other than their own skill, while it has been proven lots of times from various streamers doing bronze to GM runs that if you actually are a good player, you can get to GM even with really hard stuck to bronze account by just solo queueing in a few months. Yes every now and then you will lose a game because of someone being afk or constantly running into towers, but it doesn’t happen THAT often.

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Fan’s match history down in Bronze/Silver is not any special either. He has the same match history as any other normal player. he revealed it once some years ago and it had 5 loses in a raw down in Silver 5.

Good players will climb while bad will drop. But thats not really the point the OP want to make here. He talks about new player experince in ranked. Getting matched vs smurfs while his team is sub 30% winrate trolls that brings nothing to the table. Thats not really an experince any new player would accept.

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OP, I’m sorry you had a rough time as a new player, but even when Hots was in its prime, I had a rough time as a new player as I was in Silver rank. Much like Bronze rank, many players in Silver were trolls, or simply bad.

For years, myself and others here have asked for a more robust system to deal with players who deliberately troll games by going AFK or dying intentionally. Blizzard made changes to the report system in 2018, but the major changes were focused more on Abusive chat, over other categories. We were told here, by a former CS rep, that players underreport for all categories save for abusive chat. You’re not wrong when you say that Blizzard should have a system to automatically detect the worst offenders (people with 25% lifetime win rates) without the need for user reports, but Hots is basically unsupported, so I expect little to change.

That noted, I have had a friend who was suspended for dying too much in ARAM games, so reports do work. However, had you reported them, you would not know they were punished as players who are punished for AFK/INT, have their accounts suspended. You won’t see them in your matches with a prominent silenced icon, as you do with players who have been punished for abusive chat.

I would urge you to listen to the advice of others, and give ranked play a miss and try out your luck in QM and ARAM. Despite that fact you’ve played 500 games, unless you’re blessed with superior micro skills, you’re still new to Hots and you probably have much to learn, and so jumping into ranked might have been premature.

The good news is, by playing QM and ARAM, you might make more friends who you can group up with, if you want to try ranked again in the future. Playing as a group, is the very best way to avoid being matched with trolls, and usually the company makes Hots more enjoyable, win or lose.

Best of luck out there.

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You don’t understand the point because you’re not suffering from it, yesterday I made the decision to write this article, something I never do because I literally wasted 3 hours of my life in pointless queues, with people throwing themselves against towers to intentionally lower their rank, why they do this I have no idea, I suppose they are smurfs lowering ranks or people whose mother didn’t give them enough love as a child. It really doesn’t matter, what matters is that they are scaring away the little community the game has and destroying the hope of getting this game out of the hole it is in. If there is no entry of new players and the few like me who give it a chance are disappointed not by the game but by the poor management of the company, in a while you will have to go play Fornite. And as an important fact, you have to know that the queues in that range at some times last longer than the games, 15 or 20 minutes, I literally spent more time yesterday in queue than playing and when I played I found people ruining the game. Bro, do you really think your answer is correct, I think not. The correct answer is we need to improve the experience for new players, not fill my mouth with meaningless things for them.

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The peak of this game was in year 2-3 and even then, it was still a mess

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Yeah, this comment definitely proves you T rolling

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If he is not interrested in what pro players have to tell then I wonder who he want to listen to.

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Complain about AFK toxicity while being toxic :stuck_out_tongue: I’m sure that’ll work :stuck_out_tongue:

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Okay so you come from Dota and started playing ranked relatively early in HOTS I didn’t play Dota but from what I know in Multiplayer online games if youre new even if you have expirience in the Genre you are gonna start in Bronze and most games have Trolls in Bronze. Overwatch had them when I started playing Ranked (and got in to Bronze) and it was quite the grind to get out but Match quality got better overall
Now Tips that helped me In Ranked:

  1. Avoid Weekends more Trolls are playing on weekends
  2. Learn the Game/Heroes first before diving into ranked (when to do Camps when to Soak and so on)
  3. Get Comfortable on Heroes in each Role (you can Ignore the Support Role) mainly talking about Tank, Bruiser and Healer as Bronze Players will often just pick whatever Hero so it is up to you to be the change you want to see
  4. Stop playing when loosing being frustrated or feeling like “I have to get my Points back” makes most players play worse than usual also turn Chat off if it tilts you
  5. Ban Noobfarmers in draft like Kael’thas, Butcher, Garrosh, Alarak
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I considered that, too, but some people just have a chip on their shoulders, or a blind spot when the subject of personal skill comes into play. There is also a huge difference between a casual player and someone dedicated to climbing ranked.

Yet, they said they jumped into ranked as a new player, so as I and others have pointed out, it wasn’t really a wise decision and their expectations should align with their lack of experience with Hots, let alone ranked play.

In case they are a new player and simply feeling frustrated, I didn’t want to discourage them, Hots needs new blood, even if that blood is sometimes a little thin when it comes to fair criticism.

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I think a lot of people are cherry picking that this is just another one of those threads, the people who are written in the OP have been reported on Reddit and here before for continuously throwing the game, I’ve seen the vids with players going throw picks and then walk into towers or very much into a position where they never get kicked.

This isn’t “I’m unable to climb out of silver” thread this is “prominent blatant throwers not being punished” thread.

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As we discussed in another thread, I didn’t realize just how bad things were for new players (this also applies to new players in SL) until I made an alt account to play with friends.

So many players will do as you say, either walk out into towers, or take Abathur and sit in spawn hatting a minion or putting down mines so as not to be kicked. This is why I cut the OP slack, Bronze SL probably has even more troll players than new player queue in QM.

I still think the OP should have gained more experience before playing ranked, but eh, these pest players would still be there, and they would have to contend with them at some point. Hopefully the OP can find some friends to group up with, they should probably check out some Hots Discords, or post on Reddit, or join a LFG channel in Hots.

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Exactly, there is always some user who assumes that I came here to cry, I don’t care what those kind of people think, I have enough experience in this genre because as I said I have played Dota 1-2 competitively for 15 years, Host is a game that has its own very funny mechanics that once I understood, watching enough videos of professional players, I am able to apply, having days in which I win practically all my games and others in which I literally have to go to sleep because you can’t play, because there are a couple of trolls on guard, and you play when you want, not when the game (the trolls) allow you. It’s okay for a day to pass, but when you’ve been playing daily for a week and the same guys you’ve reported 50 times come up, it goes from being fun to frustrating. I know this has happened to a large majority of new players trying to get into the game lately, ruining the flow of new players and that’s where my concern lies. At this rate the game will eventually die, because an efficient reporting system is vital to the health of a game that has a lot of social and teamwork components.

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It’s getting more difficult to differentiate between a player and a NPC these days and once the gap has been fully closed then the assimilation into the matrix has been completed.

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One tip I found useful for avoiding the obvious trolls: Once the match is over, bring up the stats screen. In the row for the troll, there will be an option to whisper them. Don’t actually say anything, just make sure you see their name in your chat window. Once you leave the match, you can click down by your chat screen to see people you have recently whispered, including their current status!

You can then wait until they either get in another match or go offline before queuing. I hope that helps a little!

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Oh!!! what good advice, thanks, I will try to apply it.

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I don’t blame you. I would love for this game to get a big influx of new players, but if I was a new player myself, given the state of the general population and the game itself, I would not stay when there are other Moba’s with larger communities that take strict stances vs. trolls and afks.

If you do decide to stay, I suggest trying to find a party of 5 so you can completely avoid being griefed and just focus on the game itself.

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