This would fix so much. If one wants to play with friends, do QM. Otherwise, play Storm League for competitive – solo. This is the only way that rank can be properly determined. Otherwise, too many factors come into play. It also would largely address smurfing.
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We used to have “SOLO QUEUE Only” ranked. Nobody played it.
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The two ranked modes were combined for a reason, and given the probably reduced population of the game and the fact that Draft/Ranked is likely still the least played mode, getting more players out of that mode seems rather counterproductive.
People used to play solo queue, but iirc the playerbase jumped ship when Blizz added more rewards for playing team ranked, and at a lower requirement than to earn.
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The change for team league just nuked the usability of hero league really quickly.
Why play solo when grouping is easier and more accessible? In reality HL was so active it was literally the center of the attention for majority of games, that change alone for TL resulted in the consequence of people moving to the latter for many features.
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If they did this and removed forced 50% WR, it would be meritocracy and modern companies hate that.
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So this is called “matchmaking”, where you are put against players of a similar skill level so that you win around 50% of games.
lol
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theres 2 dudes i know that have over 90% winrate somehow, one dude was mediv, and other one dude was thrall, and they both have 90% winrate, they knew how to abuse the system
But… but… people are so convinced that forced 50% win rate is real.
Correct. I used to play Hero League during Beta. Made it to Rank 1 primarily playing Murky.
Hero League was great. Tons of players, super competitive, and as one ascended rank, one’s teammates improved as well. It added a special dynamic to the game to have a forced shuffle of the players. Even if one did see the same player again, the entire combination was different, which forced players to adapt to different playstyles and communication patterns.
Now? Almost every single game I play (I almost exclusively play solo queue) I play against a two or three stack, sometimes five. It’s frustrating.
Unfortunately, they can only keep one mode, and a team game is never going to forbid people from grouping up.
link to heroes profile? I know dudes with over 90% wr too…just in QM, and from abusing stacking.
Not true at all. Many people played Hero League. It was very popular until they made the Team League rewards better / easier to obtain.
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Frustrating, how? As someone who was there from the start as well, it just feels like massive scapegoating. Because you’re not allowed to have too wide a range in groups, the types of games aren’t really that different. MMR is the biggest determinant of the match quality, not groupings.
I mean the data is pretty consistent, at least for ranked (QM is different because you get to choose your comp), unless it’s 5 solo against 5 stacks, which is extremely rare, there might be ever so slight advantages to the 5 stack, but not enough to complain about.
5 solo into 5 stack isn’t just rare, it’s heavily avoided, there’s a very clear rule in the MM that avoids putting 5 stacks against solo players, but when it happens it’s the false positive percentage or a bugged replay (disconnecting mid game will detach player from a party such as duo).
Removing Hero League (solo queue) was one of the best things they did for this game. It was a terrible play experience. It took about 40 minutes to get a game going. Then you would have to deal with a lot of trolls and AFK players.
In HotS, you can’t carry, so your personal skill has little impact on the outcome of the match. It’s 10% personal skill, and 90% luck of the draw who you get grouped with. It was like playing a slot machine. And worst of all, how do you make friends and form teams, when you’re in a league where no one is interested in doing so?
When the change was made, I was able to make friends to group with, joined a NGS team, and had a lot of fun playing the game. I would have quit HotS a long time ago, if they didn’t make this change.
HotS is a great team game, but a terrible solo experience. Your social skills is critical to the enjoyment of the game. If players don’t want to add you to their friend list, then that might be telling of your character.
Agreed, you want to teamplay, there’s the team non-Ranked, or QP. Leave solo Ranked a solo player experience only.
“matchmaking”, where you are put against players of a similar skill level
That’s exactly what a 50% winrate doesn’t do, in the case of many wins, it will trip you up with weaker teammates to keep you at a 50% winrate.
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Indeed. When I started this season, my WR was very high was matches where I was paired with very competent and skilled teammates. In some games I was undoubtedly carried. But then little by little, the game began to deliberately throttle me by throwing teammates who were the complete opposite of who I was paired with, and the opposing team were playing significantly better. These matches would happen far more consistently to create far more losing streaks in order to bring my WR down.
I would know because for years, the game purposely Elo Hell’d me in Silver 4-5, at times even dropping me to low Bronze. This season I was able to be in low Gold for the most part, but now its derailing me again into bouncing between Silver 5-Gold 5.
So I didn’t suddenly get better to get out of Silver 4-5/Bronze bull—–. Its the dog—
matchmaker.
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How do you suppose that works if they’re doing that for every player on your team? What kind of byzantine matchmaking calculus would you have to do to calculate a team destined to lose full of players who have been winning too much on one team, and a team full of players who have been losing too much on the other which is destined to win?
There are definitely games where your team makes it unwinnable, but I simply don’t agree that this is “on purpose” nor that blizzard can guarantee it. I have gone on 20 game winstreaks before. Shouldn’t blizzard have put me in some doomed teams long before game 20?
“I win one game then i lose one game consistently” has not been my experience with heroes of the storm at all. My winrate is not 50% which alone proves to me “forced 50%” is not a real thing.
Furthermore, just from a player experience perspective, close games where either team could take it are generally much more enjoyable than a roflstomp followed by a game where you feel completely helpless. The matchmaker obviously isn’t perfect, but I really struggle to see what incentive blizzard has to force you to lose. It seems much more realistic to me that it works the way they say it works. Internal MMR increases when you win and decreases when you lose, and they do their best to make both teams have roughly similar average MMRs, occasionally expanding matchmaking parameters to improve queue times.
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