Yea, if you want UD to have more ppl playing it, make it more appealing instead of removing the most popular PvP mode, which is the most popular for a reason.
Personally, I think they should just use a modified ARAM blind pick screen in QM.
You can select up to 3 heroes (or only 1 of course) that go into the pick bubbles. When your team loads up into the match, you have a chance to “improve” your team.
You don’t get to see the opponent’s team, no doubles on the same team.
Adding a 30 second pick screen will still be a “Quick match.” It normally takes 10-15 minutes to draft.
That’s not QM then, if you want any kind of draft, go play a draft mode.
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Which ruins the whole point of ‘pick what you want to play’ when you suddenly need to change your pick because your team would lack a crucial role otherwise.
If you want to change picks to improve your team, play draft.
Then just put one hero into the bubbles. Your team knows there is no possible way you can change your pick, while others who are happy to improve everyone else’s match quality can do that.
It is 1/20th of the average time it takes for the “industry standard” of pre match tasks. That’s a “Quick” way to get in a “Match” in my books.
It’s not a draft, rather a second chance at choosing who you want to play when you see what the map and your allies are up to. More like a 30 second huddle between single-serve allies before the fight.
If you wish to only play one hero, only put one in the bubble. Then you have no obligation to anyone - you can’t change your pick regardless.
I’m not sure if I got your point but this is what I assume you mean: Before you queue in QM, you can check pick like 1-3 heroes. And once you’re queued up, game gives you 5 seconds/a very short time to alternate between your picks if you had checked more than one hero, before the loading screen starts. But wouldn’t that get in the way of the current restrictions Karabars mentioned exist?
How is that fair on the other players that might want to play a certain role or Hero? ‘No, you need to fill tank instead of what you wanted, I refuse to play anything but this’. At this point you’re just the selfish jerk that instalocks in draft without even discussing with their team.
If you actually want to play a specific Hero that badly, just going QM is a lot cleaner. There you’re not hindering others. No need to force your teammates with such an ugly ‘adapt to my pick or be screwed’ ultimatum.
It’s really not that complicated. If you are willing to change picks to improve comp quality, go to draft. If you are not, go QM. Don’t expect others to fill for you if you’re not willing to do the same.
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It’s almost exactly like the ARAM screen - the whole team has 30 seconds to lock in their pick together.
I would say the matchmaker will look at your choices and give you an estimated role.
Merging the two modes in some fashion to improve player density is not a bad idea. The problem is, there is no ideal way to appease both ends of the spectrum in a single game mode.
Overall, showing the map you get and offering a blind pick is probably the best mixture of both (without requiring the matchmaker to do things that won’t reasonably work). You’re going to end up with upset people one way or another though.
I think switching to blind draft is a good compromise, but Blizzard likely won’t do it since it would create too much churn. Would certainly help in some of the smaller regions though (Asia for example).
If you are the type to regularly play the tank/healer roles (and their secondaries) there won’t be much change for you.
The current QM isn’t “cleaner,” it’s just giving you a scapegoat for your own selfish picks. “Oh, it’s the matchmaker.” “I chose a hero that is useless in 50% of the map pool - that darn algorithm.” “We got 4 mages, oh man that matchmaker” (not “why did I queue as a role that tends to fill half the QM queue?”)
The people that will complain about a single pick would find any other reason to do so (I got yelled at once because my skin didn’t match my mount.) If your main concern is “I, uh - I mean other people - might get called out for my/their selfish actions,” then maybe you should think hard about why that is.
You’ve got it totally wrong anyway. The 1-3 choices are your own, that you pre-select as the ones you really want to play in the coming match. If you want to play tank, put a tank in there. If you don’t want to, leave a blank, or grab a different hero. The matchmaker will identify you as an assassin anyway. If nobody felt like playing tank, then blame the matchmaker.
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Other than being vastly limited in my options? I don’t mind filling, but UD already does that much better than your system.
And while I don’t mind filling, every now and then I do also want to play some specific Heroes I like. QM allows to me to do that without disadvantaging my team. Your system does not.
That doesn’t really change that QM is the cleanest way get picks. No questions or complications, just pick the Hero you want and play it. Simple as that. I don’t think it’s selfish to pick the Hero you want in QM. Being able to do that is the one big benefit of the mode. Even if you can get awkward comps (no healer etc.), this is balanced out by both sides having the same disadvantage.
I also don’t really blame matchmaker for it as much as you seem to do. Awkward matchups happen, sure, but that’s just the normal price for not having to adapt your pick to the circumstances. If you want balanced matchups suited to your pick, go draft.
I think you don’t really understand the problem. The issue isn’t people blaming other people for their picks. The issue is that matchups without mirrored roles are not balanced. In your system, players can be forced to choose between ‘fill even if they don’t want to’ or ‘play what you want, but at a severe disadvantage for lacking an essential role’. Neither option is fun if you just want (for example) to play or practice your Kael’thas for once. While QM comps can still be awkward, they don’t have that problem.
Ok, I misunderstood that part. I thought you meant to just select 3 Heroes and random matchmaking, I didn’t realize you wanted matchmaker to also account for roles.
That actually sounds somewhat useful as a QM upgrade, assuming you mirror roles and don’t sacrifice UD for it. It would be nice to have the ability to (for example) pick ‘TLV, just not on Spider Queen’. It still seems rather (too) impractical to implement though.
Problem 1: Queuing as multiple roles will just run into the same issues as Varian. If someone queues as ‘tank+other roles’ the matchmaker needs to assume they are tank, otherwise they can be matched against a no-tank team and have an unfair advantage. And once they are matched as a tank, they need to actually pick tank so their team has the tank matchmaker assumed they’d have. Same with healer. It gets even messier when someone queues as ‘healer/tank/assassin’. The whole ‘wasn’t planning to, but fill a role to get a better comp’ scenario is never going to happen, if you queue as tank you will have to play (and be matched as) tank, your other picks might as well not exist.
Problem 2: If people can just queue one Hero anyway, you’re still going to run into the exact same issues as people have with QM. You’ll still get all-squishy comps, 4 mages and things like that. It wouldn’t change anything in that regard.
Problem 3: Unfair advantages. If one side can shift picks to adapt to the situation (because they queued multiple heroes) and the other doesn’t, their side has an unfair advantage. And again, if you do have multiple heroes queued you get forced into the awkward ‘I really wanted to play X, but not picking Y will handicap our team’ dilemma.
Problem 4: Avoiding duplicates. Instead of just matching 10 unique picks, matchmaker now needs to find 10 people with up to 30 different picks and no overlap between them.
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Problem 5: People including a tank in their options with no intention of playing said tank, because it gives them a shorter queue than picking just an assassin.
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Other than number 4, these are all issues that are already in QM now (including Hoku’s 5th point.)
1 & 5. Some players already choose to go damage build when tank is needed. I don’t think we should stop fixing things because of a couple bad apples - especially when it’s a problem that’s been here since day one. Queueing as a tank will most likely mean you are playing as a tank, but the matchmaker has placed multiple tanks together before (with admittedly mixed results.)
One possible solution to 5 is if you queue as tank/healer, there must always be at least one tank selected in the team. You will not be able to switch hero unless an ally has the tank role covered.
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So if you don’t use the system, it won’t make a difference. Sounds about right, and perfect for when you play heroes that are all-around good on every map.
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In QM you have pre-mades free to pick their combos before queueing up. That’s an unfair advantage already in the game. If you allow more flexibility to the solo players, this is actually more fair than the current system. The pre-mades will have a chance to select several combos instead of just one, but the solos have a better chance to make the same or stronger combos on the other team.
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The solution is already in the game - the original brawl select screen didn’t allow duplicates. If you were hovering on a hero, nobody else could pick them. Put your most wanted hero up top, nobody can take them before you move away from them. So the only true limiter on duplicates is the top row. (You can have duplicates on lower rows because it’s just a race to whoever can pick it - like pre-mades do already. If it’s on the top row then someone automatically starts with it hovering.)
But that brings another problem - matching assassin as top, tank underneath to cheese the hovering selection (these bad apples are smart.) Seems simple - make the tanks/healers always float to the top.
I believe the positives outweigh the negatives.
I mean, even if you don’t want to tank/heal, picking 3 assassins can make you really excel at any map -
- Azmodan for strong lane presence and zone/point control.
-Valla for immortal racing or if the team needs AA damage.
-Falstad if you need a global presence on the big maps.
You will still greatly increase the chances of your team “working” on a given map, even if you pick 3 assassins.
Then go play ARAM instead of UD and leave QM alone.
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I play QM to play whatever I want to play and I blame no MM for any inconveniences.
I just like to play certain Heroes in certain moods/moments.
I mean… I believe for a lot of ppl this game’s biggest appeal over the other MOBAs is playing the Heroes they know. So tho I gladly fill in SL whatever the ppl want (be it role or Hero), I’d appreciate if ppl wouldn’t try to destroy the most popular PvP mode just because they don’t like how QM works but despite claiming to be willing to wait for better matches refusing to play UD because long queues…
3 Likes
Strict QM comp rule and prepare for Priority Pass like OW.
4-5 assassin game is dump and ruins this game.
Im diamond and have under 30% win rate on qm if i play sup, for example… if i pick suport, or a weak hero that i cant carry, my teamates will have a bad experience, why this? I never agreed with that. Or the system should show in real time your mmr, so, at least people could understand why got stomped in the match.
Sure, but people know more than one hero. We also know that due to the map pool, some heroes will have an easier time on any given game. People really enjoy being impactful and contributing positively to their team.
People play more than one match/hero each session. There’s a good chance you will play all 3 of the heroes you set up throughout the session, in maps that actually suit them.
When people queue up the really niche heroes, they know there is a chance 10 players will have a bad time, because it doesn’t match the map or ally comp.
I personally don’t see this destroying QM. It will give players a chance to improve their match quality. The “just ready up whatever” worked when there were 4 maps and 40 heroes. We have triple the maps, double the heroes now - it’s fair to need triple the options to keep quality of matches up.
How does this matter in anything? (Also, not everyone, did you ever see OTPs?)
Ppl can also enjoy having a harder time, testing limits, learning.
Or just the ability to play The Hero, the One, they feel to play atm, without any kind of restrictions or pressure from others cuz “meta comps, dude”.
But I want to play them “today”. Not X times through the years. I want to play them as many times as I want.
That’s what QM is for.
QM is not about the illusion of match quality.
“Meta comps” =/= match quality. You can have perfect comps in Bronze and it still won’t be “quality”.
Quality comes with skill. Not with comps.
Because you ignore the common desire in humans. To just play the things they like. To have “freedom”.
Even the ocmplainers… They don’t do anything for “quality”. They just want to get it. They want others to fulfil their dreams.
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Players will play more than one game “today.” There’s a good chance the map will suit your preference at least once in your daily play time.
If you just want to be that one hero, then only pick one hero. I’m fine with that.
(Removed a paragraph here because it isn’t very civil or needed to the conversation.)
Quality in this regard comes with feeling like your hero choice contributes to the team.
Since I’ve come back to playing, the vast majority of my QM games have been with tank/healer. I do that to improve the matches. I still end up with 4 mages and Kharazim (myself) on immortals.
On the Singapore server it’s nearly always a 3-5 minute queue at all hours for QM. When in the match, there’s a higher chance you face at least a 3 man pre-made, on a map where your hero is very disadvantaged. It goes beyond “being a challenge” into “well, let’s practice skill shots and think about which hero I’ll try next match…” I have tried changing preferred server to North America - I get a fast queue but 200ms lag - it’s not fair for my allies to have to deal with that. It isn’t their fault I’m halfway around the world.
Wait, I think I had another brainwave -
So you put 3 heroes in your bubbles - a primary, and two “expansions.” If the queue pops very early, you go with your primaries, just like live is now.
If the queue takes longer (and has to expand search criteria), you also get the option of expanding your hero selections by two. The system knows you may have a rough game coming up, maybe this is an option to buffer it.