Hey guys, I have recently seen some people spreading the myth that playing in a party makes you perform better in ranked. I will go here through all aspects and explain why it is not so simple at all.
As an example we can take player A ( solo) and player B ( group player). Both players play at 1600 MMR for example and go into unranked to practice their skill. Player A tries to improve his positioning and ability to land skill shots while player B works together with his team to improve their coordination and team play. As you see both players, when they go back to SL will perform better. How much better depends on how much time they spent practicing and how effective it was. Has player B any clear advantage over player A at this point? Not really. Both players have to practice to get better in this case no matter in which field.
Are you maybe somehow cheating the system than?: many think it gives you some unfair advantage from the start, so let’s look at this. Our two players come back to SL and as it happens, the practice of both was similary effective. They landed both at 1800 MMR . But was the way up easier for player B? Kind of. Player B needed roughly 400 games ( getting +10 MMR per game, and needing a surplus of 20 won games) with a 55% winrate to finally achieve his rank. What about player A? While player B eliminates the ability of getting leavers and afks in his team( considering it’s always a 5 men party of the same people playing together), player A can’t do this. So if we assume that in 10%( it’s a pretty high number for dia/ master but let’s still go with it) of the games player A should have won, he gets a leaver or afk making him loose the game , he would need in total 44 games( 22 extra loses + 22 extra wins he needs) more to achieve the same rank as player B, adding up to 444 games or a winrate of 54,5%. But what if player B has a diamond player for calls and a bronze player to bring the MMR down, is this giving them an unfair advantage? Short answer is no. The matchmaker takes the highest MMR on the team and everything 2 leagues below it. That means in our case all Bronze, silver and some gold players won’t be counted and the overall team MMR would be around platin. But now I’m coming to the biggest down side: party’s get their MMR artificial increased. That’s right. Blizzard has a system in place that will nerf party’s depending on their size ( source: heroes developer AMA April 4) . That’s why you should keep in mind that just grouping together gives you a disadvantage MMR wise. You not only should but you have to communicate and you have to show some level of coordination to keep playing on the same level you have been playing solo, otherwise you are in a disadvantage.
To sum up: party’s give you a disadvantage from the start if you don’t show a certain level of coordination. They make you dependent on playing always with other people to keep the same level of play( our player A who increased his positioning skill can always use it, while player B can use his coordination skills only in groups of certain people).
On the other hand party’s of people can reduce or eliminate the chance of getting afks and leavers, making you have less frustrating games. But what matters in the end? Well technically nothing of this because skill is skill and it will bring you in both cases to a certain rank no matter what you prefer, solo or team. Just decide where you want to put your time in and in which field you want get better.