Match quality has gone up it seems

General Discussion
#1

Anyone else really enjoying storm league this season? I don’t play near as often as I used to, but every match i’ve gotten into has been a joyride. It seems the hardcore rank chasers have all left and its just people that really love hots.

Had two really fun matches yesterday. We lost the first one and then got put against the same people. They even tried to flex on me by taking my jaina to show me how its done. We ended up winning in 8 minutes against the same team that had smacked us around the game before.

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#2

Typical ‘‘I can do better’’ but fails at it.

#3

Well. The part I enjoy is being able to maintain 100% winrate with Tassadar, 3:0.

Overall 5:12 though, Jaina failed me twice, and really not enjoying any tank, bruiser, healer or support. So I basically autofill and autothrow. 11 fills, 6 picks. People complain about “two mages” or “need tank” so they get their loss. They only play assassins so they deserve the lesson.

At least smurfs are starting to comment on it, even if in a snide way. And thus it is a positive feedback loop: Tass gets carried, Anub throws, repeat.

People are surprisingly good in S4-B1, too.
So what happened two and a half year ago, doesn’t: fail to S5, stomp through opponents, have fun with fill heroes, gain momentum.
Problem is, I don’t want to, because I want my image: noob tank, likes mages.

On the other hand, while of course streaky as always, QM is fairly nice.

#4

There are so many “new player” accounts in those ranks, a great many of them are smurfs. I wish I could agree with Shadow that Ranked match quality has gone up, but I find it the opposite.

So many times I’m matched as another Plat trying to carry Silver 5’s. Sometimes they stomp as those Silvers are really far higher on their mains, sometimes they really are Silvers and the Plat player can’t compensate for them.

Even if people aren’t stacking like this to boost a player, the old refrain you once heard here was “If you climb you will play with players of the same rank.”, this is now no longer true. Storm League allowing for a two rank spread means you will often be playing with or against players two ranks higher or lower than your rank.

I get why this has to happen due to low player population, but I don’t think it leads to more consistent and balanced match quality.

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#5

I play Storm League once or twice a week now, for about 3-4 games in a row. I have generally had enjoyable games with few or no leavers and trolls.

I prefer to play ARAM, where game quality is about the same, but the amount of leavers has decreased a bit.
Still a few trolls and feeders in that mode though, but that’s always been the case. Especially since some people are in ARAM just to clear their leaver penalty.

Maybe it’s true, the only people left now are those who really enjoy HotS. Most trolls have given up.

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#6

There is a reason why people in a village or small town tend to be more trusting of one another than in a big city; people tend to know each other better, and the proportion of degenerate wainkstains is alot lower. I am glad to see this pattern applying to HotS as well, as a little silver lining to what’s happening to the game.

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#7

the quality of the games has not improved
If not the opposite.
I still play daily, although every time I enjoy it less
two years ago 7 out of 10 games were good.
now 7 out of 10 games are bad.
It is increasingly common to see the same names over and over again.
Although I stopped playing ranked a long time ago, and I almost don’t play qm anymore.
I almost always play aram

#8

Unfortunately I can’t say I have a similar experience to OP. I hadn’t played the game for several years until a couple of months ago. I used to be diamond most of the time, my highest rank was in masters in 2016. Neither in QM nor in Ranked do I get the feeling of the players being around a similar skill level. In QM I can kind of understand it because of the “exanding search” thing (which sets in waaaay to early imo, I would rather wait some time to get players around my level), but ranked mode is an absolute mystery to me. I got placed in low silver in both seasons after winning most of my placement matches. In this season I have managed to climb to S1. From then on, it was a downhill battle including afk players, troll picks, griefing, you name it. It’s also quite obvious that there are many smurf accounts in HOTS nowadays, you just see who’s really in a low rank and who’s not. So it feels like mostly a coin flip of which team gets less salty players that just do whatever they want to do.

HOTS is, gameplay-wise, still one of my favorite games of all time. I would really like to play in higher ranks again like I have a couple of years ago, but after my last 5 or 6 ranked games which all had trolls on my team, I feel highly discouraged to keep playing. The whole state of the game and what’s been going on around it is quite sad to me.

Happy for anyone who has a better experience than I do, though!

#9

The usual speech is, if you have the skill, you will climb, even if the path is a bit rocky.

I can’t tell what each rank means in ranked now, I pretty much maintain my position in QM despite playing random heroes, while … just to make it sound a bit more, rounding it: it’s a struggle to keep above bronze, whereas I’ve been almost platinum.
(Part of it is likely on me, however not that much.)

Overall I find QM better, even though I agree that a bit more waiting could be beneficial. I simply know what I’ll get, unlike in slave league, where you play what people want you to play. So in QM the default mental state is trying to make the most of it (or simply blame the unwinnability on the random setup), whereas in ranked it’s salty deference. (I have 20% winrate with tanks and they want me to tank. That’s literally asking for a loss.)