now
LOL
Matchmaking has been terrible for years now, not only with hero balancing but also individual skill level.
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Almost every game I’ve played in since the introduction of exp-globes has ended with a 3-level advantage, and 4-level leads have gone from exceedingly rare to merely uncommon. I even saw a literal 5-level advantage for the first time ever last week.
Exp-globes are definitely a major player in this.
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If the better team is supposed to be determined in the first 2 minutes then why make the game nearly 20 minutes long? Why not just make it so that the nexus dies instantly when someone hit’s level 2 if that’s the intention. Seems like a ham handed way of dismissing the problem at hand to just say ‘either way the better team wins’
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Not all heroes can safely retrieve xp globes.
It also corresponds to winter holidays in NA so many ahem less experienced and casual players have time to play. So quality goes down. Wait till about January 6th for the vacation schedules to normalize.
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Can you elaborate?
…
Yup, losing a really close game is almost as good as winning, but in quick games it’s like you said, stomp or be stomped. It’s not fun, for either team.
And it’s not because of the latest patch, it has been like that for a long time already. Best games i had was with mandatory tanks and healers, sadly, it’s no longer live.
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With the xp gloves, people who do not soak xp are adequately punished again.
Then again some people managed to come and complain they were getting rolled over even with the previous xp changes so it may not be that.
Alternatively, and I want you to follow me on this one, rather than Deathwing being the case of matchmaing screwups, the holiday season causing an increase in normally weekend only hyper casuals is what is causing incredibly lop sided matches.
Its been that way as long as I have played 80% of the time.
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Because:
- Come-backs are possible
- Even a loss can be fun if it turns into a good game
- No one would learn anything that way
(And, I already mentioned that “2 minutes” struck me as hyperbole, for the most part.)
If one team is better at playing the early game, but the other is better at playing the endgame, then it should be a close game where both teams have a good chance at winning, not a stomp in favor of the first team.
Depends. Think of a curve on a graph representing performance. The first team has a really strong start, then the curve dips to zero over time. The second team has a really weak start, then the curve sky-rockets over time.
In theory, it ends up being a balanced game, perhaps even favoring the second team. In reality, in HotS and other things, he who strikes first often need not strike again.
You MUST have a comparable early game – or the opponent needs to royally mess up – for the second curve to have a chance to kick in…
If the second team didn’t have a comparable early game, they wouldn’t have been matched with the first team to begin with. But when the team who wins the first objective wins the game in an overwhelming majority of cases, it begs the question: why make the game 20 minutes long?
Demonstrably false. 
All the algorithm knows is individual player level and MMR, with some fuzzy notion of averaging things out. It clearly does a bad job of drawing up teams.
We have yet to establish that winning the first objective (“2 minutes”) actually determines the game. It doesn’t. I would say that by the second or third, the shape of the game is known much of the time.
Because:
- Come-backs are possible
- Even a loss can be fun if it turns into a good game
- No one would learn anything if the game ended after 5 minutes
Not bad enough to have almost every game end with a 2 or 3-level disadvantage. This level of snowballing is unprecedented.
It does, actually. When a won objective leads to a significant level lead and puts the losing team behind a talent tier, the game is usually lost.
Then they need to be much more frequent. I play this game specifically to escape games like League of Legends where comebacks are a rarity.
If it’s a close game, yes. So, we need more close games.
In the current state of the game, the early game is by far the most important phase of the game. So 5 minutes gives you plenty of time to learn how to play the only phase of the game that matters.
I think the OP and a few are just not very good at comebacks, maybe rooted in the mindset that because a side has a slight level lead they should dominate the rest of the game? 
You know, just saying.
I have never played LoL, but I hear that games there typically take much longer than HotS. This is a tangential point, but perhaps Blizzard is trying to cement the difference between HotS and LoL by experimenting with the sweet spot between “comebacks possible” and “short matches”.
lol agreed. For this, I fear the only answer currently is draft. Evidently people are SO HELL-BENT on rapid queues that they would rather complain about the clown fiesta than wait. (That’s not to say that it is not possible to improve the MM algo, but this game is fundamentally in maintenance mode, at least for now.)
The early game is indeed critical. But what about those games where you find yourself evenly matched, and not smashing or being smashed after the first objective (admittedly more likely in draft, and in higher level play)? If you or your team have no “stamina” for the mid-to-late game, no consistency, then it is during those phases that you lose. All it takes is a blunder by the opponent – which is more likely if all anyone knows is the early game – but if you can’t capitalize…heartbreaking!
Well, League of Legends is still more snowbally than HotS, but due to a number of factors (Like the much larger map size and the lack of impactful map objectives), it tends to take much longer for a match to actually be resolved. Which is why the game gives you the option to surrender at the 20-minute mark. You have little chance of victory against something like a fed LeBlanc or fed Rengar, but it’ll take a good while before the game actually ends.
League has also recently been trending towards shorter matches that are even more snowbally than before, supposedly to appeal to Asian audiences that want quicker games.
I don’t think the issue lies with matchmaking, as I recall that before XP globes, snowballs were still a thing in QM, but 3-level disadvantages were the exception and not the rule. The 2019 gameplay update took several important steps to address snowballing (You can read about it here):
But EXP globes seem to have taken the game in the opposite direction, and caused a marked increase in snowballs.
Sure, but I think the game is more fun in general when every phase of the game is close to equal in importance. If the early game doesn’t go well but you know what you’re doing in the mid game and late game, you should have a good shot at winning.
In my experience the globes increased both the level gap and means to close it. I’d been 3-4 levels behind as a team when I chose to exploit the enemy’s laser focus on pushes and objectives by farming the other lanes non-stop. It took only a few minutes to close the gap to almost equal range. That being said we still lost because I played QM and my team was not handling the other well but I can’t say I had a bad experience.
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