I will start this off by saying I am not the best player by a long shot but I am a dedicated player.
I love this game, I enjoy the crap out of it and I play ranked queue more so because I do want to take the game more seriously than just playing for casual fun. Now first off isn’t that what ranked is for? It is for the player who takes the game more seriously than your average player, correct?
My reason for making this forum post is because in my opinion ranked queue like other games with ranked mode is becoming increasingly less fun. I just today got into a match with a player who hasn’t played in 3 years, it was his second game back and he was on a level 2 hero, and yes we lost BAD. Why is this even allowed? I know half of the responses will say something about alt accounts and w/e, but the simple point is that this game has always had an edge over the other online competitive games and when they made ranked mode so easily accessible to anyone, any level account, any level hero it severely increased the frustration and lessened the fun.
I am but one voice and one opinion and I do not have the answer for a magic fix to both keep the game overall accessible to everyone and still make ranked feel like it is for the more serious players but there has to be something better than this.
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Naw, you’re right. Game badly needs fresh blood into Ranked. And reverting the change allowing people to play a lv1 hero they’ve never played in their life in SL.
SL is supposed to be where you do your best with your best heroes. Not this current mess.
Also, if someone has been away for years, lock them from Ranked for at least 10-20 Quick Match games so they get familiar with new stuff like weather effects, lack of tower ammo, new heroes and objectives, etc.
Hots in 2016 or 17 has almost nothing in common with the hots in 2020, even most of the heroes play completely different and have different kits or even heroics. A player like that is practically on the same know-how level of current Hots as a total beginner.
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Then again that would mean something like 70-80% less “new” accounts which would be terrible statistic for dev team which is why they’ll never do that. By “new” I obviously mean smurfs. It would take ages longer to level up 16 heroes to level 5 compared to current play 35-40 games to get account level 50.
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I feel ya, and these are true words. I get that they have to be open to not alienating people because they are trying to get numbers up BUT at the same time they have to keep the sanctity of what ranked mode actually is.
I would love to hear a blues thoughts on this topic.
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Ya I have no delusions about that, that change to lower ranked play requirements was made in a desperate attempt to get more players into ranked, and make smurf entry faster.
Just don’t like to play with a persons lv1 hero he has absolute no experience on.
But what can you do, the engine allows them to pick it…
I knew this type of comment was coming and I did say that there is no easy magic fix but there has to be something. I for one don’t think smurfs should be so strongly impacting the game that many more suffer to allow them to create alt accounts but at the same time to play fairly to both sides there has to be a better way to keep ranked more prestigious and separate from quick match or random casual players.
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I hope whatever problems you have get resolved and you gain some happiness. If you need any help, please reach out and stop spreading the negativity you live with. I sincerely wish you the best of luck.
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Just calling someone out for making another QQ post. They lost and blame someone else for it, kids, new players, tlv, murky, whatever helps them with their inner struggle. The QQ doesn’t help the community.
The player pool is dewindling. The queue times are too long. We need new players. But imagine this:
A new player excitedly runs to the forums hoping to see information about their favorite hero and instead sees QQ after QQ post about how newbs are ruining veteran’s games.
Not helpful.
this game isn’t in any dire straits. they’re hiring HotS developers, if you didn’t notice. in any case, we don’t need to censor what we discuss here in some vain attempt to attract fresh blood.
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Ok hold up with the exaggerations. Dire straits? Censorship? Really? And vain attempt? Coming from left field with some nonsense .
Yes they hired new staff and released a new hero. Things on the horizon are bright. Let us keep the positivity going forward. Kinda the point of my response to this dude’s negative post.
Again Dark, I am sorry for whatever you are going through. Reading your history and seeing your comments it is clear you have some source of pain in your life and this is how you decide to get control of it. I personally see your point of view and can appreciate a level of conversation on topics, but you have to learn how to communicate properly and not try to dominate a conversation by setting your view as above others and then assume the other persons intentions to validate your side of the conversation.
You need to take a step back if you wish to have progressive communication to possibly fix things, not belittle others to form some toxic thread in which you get a level of personal gain for that dopamine kick. Your history of replies proves you have some anxiety or negativity in your life and you are only putting it back out into the world.
Now please try to have a constructive discussion. This topic has appeared in the forums many many times and at least 3 times by myself alone. Many others feel that the old way Blizz treated ranked was more ideal, and as I stated above I understand there is no simple fix BUT this is why I post to see what other may come up with so that perhaps a moderator see’s this and maybe the idea trickles up the ladder to someone. Nothing positive comes from assuming people are complaining, this narrative is based on an open ended desire for feedback on the ranked queue algorithm.
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Oh I agree. The game knows how long it has been since a player has actually played. So pairing him with regular players doesn’t make any sense.
I had the same thing happen. The guy hadn’t played in 2 years. Whoever got him on their team was going to lose that game.
And it’s not like it’s those player’s fault. The game just puts them there.
(Though going in ranked for your first game in 2-3 years is kind of dumb)
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You ran to the forums to cry about losing a game by blaming blizzard as well as a new player. I called you out for it and your response is to double down on the BS. Spouting nonsense about post history and trying to make it personal with your pyscho analysis over a few lines of text. Come on dude. The hypocrisy here is incredible.
If you can actually add something of value to this post rather than more BS do it. Otherwise, take the L and move on to another match. Hopefully, new players won’t be matched with you for both your sakes.
You are unreal. Dude thinks he’s a doctor in a game forum. /facepalm
Please read your own words and then go back through this thread and see if anything you are typing makes sense. I believe you are wrapped up in your own conversation because there is no new player being discussed in this thread. Thank You!
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Why would I reread your BS a second time?
Take the L mate. No more QQ in these forums.
Nah i am right there with you. If you have not played in 3 years and join ranked on a level 2 hero, More likely than not you are gonna feed or troll or something. This is why to be allowed to play a hero in ranked, you should have said hero owned and be a min level of 5 or higher.
I do not understand why this and smurfing is supported so much in this game.
We can’t speak for the people who do this and yes the game clearly knows the hero level and the player history.
There has to be some way they could just add a checklist to pair accounts with similar attributes. Obviously, with a limited player pool, you’d eventually get those players bleeding into brackets with accounts that exceed those attribute settings as the timers scale up for matchmaking ques, but it would be a step in the right direction.
I know it is a thing and even my boyfriend who is much better has a lower level account he plays with me on BUT he himself agrees that it shouldn’t be that hard to add some additional boxes to check in their internal system that already exists because it looks at the rank level and your ideal class pick (ranged assassin/tank) which they use to help make better team comps.
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Level 50 players if they truly are new to the game are not gonna be ready for ranked by then, The people who are not new to the game can get lvl 50 in a day if they wanted to and bam into ranked and it screws up the match making so bad in this game.
Like the ranked requirements should at least be lvl 100 if not higher and it should be that you are required to own at least 2 heroes of each role, tank, bruiser, ranged dps, melee dps and healer. Then any of said heroes have to be level 5 or higher to be allowed to be used in ranked.
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Everything you suggested can’t be done.
The problem is the mmr system. This forum and reddit are flooded with posts asking blizzard to change or at the very least reset people’s mmr.
Sadly SL takes a players QM mmr rating into account if that player has no previous SL mmr rating. This is a huge problem for people with established accounts. Their true SL rating could be Platinum or even higher but because they goofed around in QM with new heroes or fun time with friends and murky, their account is placed in silver. Many players have found themselves stuck in silver or worse stuck in bronze hell.
And there you have the birth of smurf accounts. Established players wanting to play at their true potential in higher ranks but forced to make new accounts because blizzard refuses to address the mmr system’s faults. The smurf accounts end up in higher ranks. Their main accounts can’t achieve this ranks because of a poor mmr and a “rumoured” win rate fix by blizzard. I personally don’t support the tin foil hat win rate meddling. But the poor mmr system is a problem.
Remove the mmr system and then your suggestions of match making would work.
Thank you Dark for actually contributing to this conversation, and yes hidden mmr does count for a lot but there are other factors attached to your account. An example is when you select a preferred role, their system then adds that new attribute to their matchmaking algorithm and tries to place people in a queue where someone has the other roles or flexible selected so you have a balanced team. This being said there are ways to add metadata check boxes just like when you want to sort files in any program or when encoding. They have the ability to track data such as account level, play time, and hero level. I know this because the game originally wouldn’t allow you to even click ranked queue unless you had a specific account level and even when you got in you could only use heroes that were level 10.
Now how could Blizz know you are a smurf? It wouldn’t be cost effect to even bother, but as someone said above a good player could get whatever heroes they wanted to play up fairly quickly. I do agree that would be annoying for those players and would further frustrate them because they are already mad at the mmr system. However now that more people are contributing to this conversation maybe someone can think of something we are overlooking.