SL should have 5man prereq to queue - Change My Mind

General Discussion
1

As I’ve been mentioning in a few threads lately, I believe that SL should only be for Full parties.

Pros:

  • No more trolls/afk/ragers ruining games in SL
  • No more “solo” players ignoring their teams and always picking Medivh/Murky/Azmo/Abby/Butcher regardless of map/team comp
  • Better match quality
  • Playerbase Skill goes Up**

Cons:

  • Antisocial Players will not like having to talk to people to play SL
  • Matchmaking Times go up? (Maybe it actually takes less time if the MMR used is the highest on the team rather than the average?) Auto match with the closest acceptable MMR Team in time ranges as they do currently. Expanding ranges every X seconds, but using average MMR after Y time to prevent chaos and impossibly long queues at the extremes of MMR ranges.
  • Low pop servers?

Imagine being able to, as a community, decide who gets to play SL? Kinda like in school, work, etc., if you were a pos, you had no friends and sat alone at lunch. You could no longer be part of the group. Having that would be a pretty good detriment to pos players from being a pos. They can still play Unranked (where solo’s should go… like really…) and QM/ARAM. Make friends there and then go into SL. Idk why this is not how the game is designed in the first place, haven’t designers learned yet?

I propose a Group Finder like in WoW as well as Guilds/Clans. No more random Matchmaking. 5-man only for Ranked. Unranked can still have 1-4 mans, QM/ARAM/AI too.

** Average player skill in SL would naturally rise up because of the non-random aspect of matchmaking. Increased Communication will lead the community to learn faster and as a consequence all players will become better players. They will share more and learn from others, eventually figuring out how best to play. Right now it’s very hard to get better as a solo player because the game does nothing to explain strategy, macro and the importance of timings and objectives and how to use them to their fullest extent. All of that you learn from other players and experience. This would be even better if you were actively communicating with your team in and out of games. IMHO, player skill would rise and I strongly believe this is the best way to make that happen.

Thoughts? Did I miss any pros or cons? Anything that needs to be changed to work?

2 Likes
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No. SL is fine as it is.

The only feature I miss in SL is hero level restriction. I hate those level 3 hero player from f2p rotations.

7 Likes
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No thanks, I hate it. The kind of person who would want “control” over who can play or not, is almost always the very worst person to be in charge of such matters.

Currently far more people play ranked solo or in groups that aren’t a full five stack. While Guilds, Clans and other community socials should have been added at launch, it is doubtful they will be implemented now in Hots life support state.

All that is merely supposition. I’ve been with 4 man stack players as a solo and they have trolled each other, played badly or gone “solo” as you say. While playing as a group will of course improve the skill of some players, it won’t help all as there is a reason the majority of the Hots playerbase has always been in Gold and under and it’s not because they weren’t forced to group as five.

Ranked isn’t popular as it is, your suggestion would more likely just increase queue times and drive many players away from it.

I do think they should change the grouping rules so that players can’t group more than one rank apart, to help prevent boosting, while still allowing higher ranked players to more easily find matches and play with friends.

That would be a welcome change, especially for those in Bronze - Gold as that’s where the smurf/new accounts rank into.

**Edit: I forgot to mention. Team League was the least played mode until they allowed players to group solo or as parties of any size and gave out a free mount to every rank. Your idea while it might have good intentions, is far too late.

6 Likes
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It’s true, but if the game is dead as many have said, what’s there to lose? SL is a clownfest and I refuse to play it without my premade because all it takes is 1 person to be a moron for the whole game to be ruined. At least if someone is clowning hard, I just remove him from my party and block him so I never will be subjected to them again. Also, people will behave if there are social repercussions to their actions or bad mood.

I do have issues with this though:

This is simply not true because no 1 single person can actually control someone else. But not having that person be able to be in my games (on my team) would be the best thing ever.

What I mean by “Imagine being able to, as a community, decide who gets to play SL”… I mean WITH ME. They are free to make their own groups and troll those other (enemy team) players. But I want to have some sort of safety when I play, so I 5man.

Playing with a group you know and actively communicate with has always lead to better games for myself and many others. Everytime I solo queue, it’s a clownfest, nobody on the same page, no leadership, no communication, no strategy… it’s NOT what HotS is supposed to be about… Teamwork… Imagine wanting less teamwork in a Team based Competitive MOBA? It baffles me when some people say this. Usually they are those selfish players themselves (Not you, just people in general) wanting to not be forced to interact with others or compromise.

Like why do people want to play the most competitive game mode, and not be the most competitive… why not play Unranked or QM over SL if all you care about is playing? Obviously, we like the feedback and see how we compare vs other players and we all “know” that SL is the only real challenge and the other game modes are just mini-games version of the real thing: SL. UR and SL are exactly the same, so why would you play UR? UR is for people who basically don;t want to be competitive, turns out this is the least played game mode. SO people DO want to be competitive, so then why do then not play in a competitive manner? It’s all very weird. Sportsmanship is also at all time low in SL currently outside of 5mans and knows friends. Why? Because of 0 social repercussions.

In WoW, this is why we came up with ways to get bad players out of our raids… people who contribute nothing and just bring the team down. We had Gearscore and RaiderIO for a reason… we don’t want to carry bads and we want to make sure you know what you are doing. Yes, I know you want to play with the elites and get easy loot and FINALLY beat that raid… but why do you deserve that? The others all put in time and effort to be there, why should you get to go and not be prepared and get a free pass? Why should you get to be randomly placed in a team where you have 0 repercussions for not performing to the standard of the team? This is why LFR was such a joke, all the sudden, everyone got to “raid” but Blizzard quickly realized that this type of content was NOT meant to be completed by randos so they nerfed every single mechanic to the point that all the challenge was taken out of the game and players just afk till they get Det stacks and kill the boss, it’s fool proof and people STILL fail… Why would I want such a player on my team? That’s why we came up with some sort of unofficial system to weed out bad players. They can start where we were and slowly progress till they are geared and have the knowledge, but that requires effort and time. We are not the same.

So HotS should have a similar system by default. Again, Random matchmaking with an Elo system in a 5v5 game just doesn’t work, just like LFR doesn’t work (unless you heavily nerf content). The hardest thing to accept in life, is that most people are really not smart and effective/capable as others, YOU must adapt to them, not the other way. You also have to accept your current skill and either quit or get good. Not have your hand held to give you the “illusion” of fun and doing well and getting rewarded for that.

Inclusivity only helps get numbers, not quality… for that you need Exclusivity. It just happens that the #1 cause of bad games is bad players, let us control that and game quality will go up. Better game quality = more players. Whoever thinks the game sucks because of a lack of player is wrong, the lack of players is because the game sucks. People think if a game has many players, it’s a good game, wrong. Look at all “WoW Killers” they all did well in the first month (maybe) then died, because why play a game that is just not as good as another? Specially if you already invested 10+ years into the better game?

If we made SL a better experience, people will play it. Turns out, nobody likes to play with randos, but also nobody likes to be social and get a group. They play Solo, have a bad experience and leave… that’s why the game sucks. Fix that aspect and magically this game would do better. But people don’t listen to good ideas, only the ones that FEEL good. Like yeah it sucks to say we need to exclude players from SL, but that’s what is needed.

“If you want to succeed, sometimes you need to be an ahole. You might not be liked, but you will be successful and respected for it” - Unknown

Some ideas feel good, others do good. The ones that do good often don’t feel good, but it’s what is required.

Ex: Kicking the hunter that keeps wiping the raid sucks for the hunter (even though he was given several chances), but I may have lost the entire group if I didn’t kick him. Not kicking ensures I will not succeed, but kicking him opens that possibility again.

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Team League was the go to mode if you wanted to 5 stack in the old days. But as always Team League died out casue the majority of the playerbase dont 5 stack but rather solo or play in duo teams. So SL now cater to both.

Not the games fault the majority dont like to 5 stack.

3 Likes
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It’s not that the majority doesn’t 5 stack, it’s that there’s no easy way to find a team other than spam chat (filled with toxic political BS from trolls and sad/lonely loser humans).

All they need to fix this game is to add Clans and a Group Finder like in WoW. Try that out and give double XP to 5 stacks who play more than 1-2 games in a row in SL to promote it or something. After people get used to it, remove solo queue and force 5s in SL. It would REALLY not be hard to implement this.

There is no real way to easily find groups other than to play the game and invite people AFTER the game. But you cannot ever have people on all the time on your friends list when you play. SO the Group Finder solves finding 5mans (Show roles like in WoW too). The 5 stack pre req solves trolls and ragers and bad players. Want to play with your duo friend? Join a 3 man or invite 3 more… Just like WoW Mythics.

7

Seems to no longer be viable. I tried queueing the other day during primetime and left it running for over 30 minutes with no match. Too bad, as it allows for drafting without the pressure/toxicity that comes with ranking.

2 Likes
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Yeah, at this point they should just remove it, but every game has an Unranked version of the Full game. But again nobody plays it because why play with non-serious players if it’s for nothing, might as well save 10-30 mins and just queue for QM, your experience will be pretty much the same but with less wait. Imagine you waited 30 min just to get an afk (extremely likely since people have 0 patience and would get booted out wasting 30 min for all or end up picking something bad that makes the game unwinnable.

People essentially just end up playing SL to “practice” with no real competitive mode. Just don’t look at your rank. SL just became UR and UR is a barren wasteland.

I essentially want SL to be what 5s Arenas is in WoW. Make your team, queue, win/lose, get points. Not just a button that puts me in a queue and a random clownfest ensues.

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I did an unranked game on EU server yesterday and que time was only 20 sec. But I was also playing in a 5 stack and got matched againts a 4 stack.

1 Like
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I’m certain that can happen if you are lucky, but every time I ever tried UR, I basically waited 10-15 min and cancelled queue and played ARAM.

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WTF? Why people want always sth. to remove?

I get it that this the least popular mode in the game, but it shouldn’t be removed, but rather changed to be different to ranked, because that’s the reason it suffers too much being too similar to SL. They should just allow custom rules like duplicate heroes for this mode and then it would be different enough and allow new strategys and then even I would give this mode a try. But currently I see no value to play it over QM or Ranked.

2 Likes
12

Interesting,
Here’s my idea for Game modes redesign:

Unranked: Preselect your role and secondary role, Game finds 4x people, you get assigned a role and can only pick one from a list of 3-5 random heroes of that list. Like ARAM works. Game starts!

This encourages players to try different heroes in that role without fear of losing overall rank, in this mode your rank is based on your role, so if you win as a Tank your Tank MMR goes up, this way you are not penalized for trying a new role, like healer. Also, as a bonus, after winning 3 games, you get a token that allows you to guarantee a specific hero in in your pool on your next game or 100gold! Making it VERY attractive for players who want gold to buy heroes for SL and will be acquiring experience in a specific role at the same time. This idea also ensures a team will always have a tank or healer. BUT, here’s the catch if you want to do off-meta stuff, you will have the option to request a different role from your team, all other players must vote yes, if they vote no, they can no longer change roles. If they vote yes, you may choose another role’s hero, so a 2nd tank or healer for example, maybe a Dps Muradin to ruin probius’s fun!, etc. This makes it fair and fun!

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I love this idea, I’d be quite onboard with a mode like this. Your idea makes it distinctly different from all other modes, as you noted, URD suffers as it’s ranked without a rank and requires long wait times outside the EU.

As I said, I appreciate your ideas and I have always maintained that launching Hots without Guilds/Communities was a terrible mistake in a game that is focused on teamwork.

I don’t know what rank you’re in, but people do take ranked seriously. The majority of players Diamond and above didn’t get there by accident, I’m pretty certain I can say most were competitive. Anecdotally the master players I’ve known have been very competitive, sometimes too much so as a few of them got silences because they would shot call too aggressively, that it came off as obnoxious to some players.

I’m in Plat, but I started in Silver and I’ve seen people play all those ranks casually, but I’ve also seen the opposite. People have posted on these forums many times who are Bronze rank and they take the mode seriously and are quite competitive, even when they are Bronze 5.

Hots isn’t WoW or Diablo 3, what works in those games to weed out “bad” players doesn’t apply to Hots.

If you’re playing ranked the repercussions are that you will lose rank points if you don’t pull you’re own weight. This is exactly how people climb, they are better than their current rank and can “soft” carry their way to higher ranks.

For bad or worse Hots has always had more solo players than full 5 man teams. Ranked has always been less popular than the casual modes of QM/ARAM and even VS AI.

Putting further restrictions on how people can play, will most likely result in even more players leaving this mode completely.

The only things I’d ask for to help to create more consistent matches, is to not allow players to group two ranks apart as they can now, restrict it to only one rank apart. As Yusuke said, add back the hero level restrictions so that players must have their heroes at level 5 and add back the account level to 100, rather than 50.

4 Likes
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As someone who had friends who babyraged, trolled or out of their control lost connection and went afk, this is a false premise.
Makes it more unlikely, more controlable, but impossible to prevent.

I also had friends and I were “that” friend who insisted to play an unwanted Hero. (We won btw.)

More controlable, higher chance, but not guarantee for it being any better, and it can also be worse.

How? If you play with the same 4 ppl, one is a shotcaller and the others might lose the ability to make their own decisions or never had it and won’t develope it due to convenience. They also might learn habits that are too group-specific. Those won’t perform well in new groups, but I think a good/better player should be that in every group. So how is this more skilled?
Not saying ppl will lose skill due to premading, but the possibility exists and the promise that “they’ll get better” is not guaranteed, again, false premise.

Conclusion: no listed pros.

No one need to talk to anyone to form groups in HotS for SL.

Considering that you lose SL players without gaining news (considering premading already an option so nothing new to this, but every other partysize and solos are unable to play), yes, obviously.

What’s the point?
Servers become low pop? You mean for SL? Because there are other modes. Isn’t this the same as Queue Time?
Wow, this was a really bad list!

Low empathy. Pretty jerkish. Elitist.

They would indeed. Most already does, more would.

Why? Because it’s vip now and some ppl want to be included for being included?

Cool idea. (Was asked for countless times tho.)

Ppl are not bad because “wow it’s random, I need to be able to adept to many, different circumstances”. Being forced to adept improves performance.
Also ppl can still just form random groups because having one is a must.

Premading =/= communication.
Ideas spreading faster =/= improvement.
Echochambers and false information exists.

Most of it.

1 Like
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I was wondering when you were going to step out of your nest to say my idea is bad, like everything anyone posts on the forums that are not “everything is great, no new ideas are needed, hots is good as it is”. I’d love to argue back, but you’ve already shown me that you will never be swayed by any idea regardless of how good it is… you are basically a contrarian. Love to disagree with everything, never proposing anything himself or changing a part of it to make it better, just NOPE NOPE NOPE from you. No gray area, either an idea is 100% perfect or it’s bad and needs to be dismissed. With that said, thanks for reading my post. Throw me a bone, how do we increase match quality in a way that is not artificial and forced?

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  1. I’m not naysaying to everything. Also not naysaying to naysaying. I explained in detail why you are wrong.
  2. I agreed on posts that are against the “HotS is flawless and stuff are great”, but nice try at discrediting me, lol.
  3. I proposed many suggestions myself how to improve the game. Some of it was in your threads, but you either don’t read, don’t remember or just actively ignorant to suit your bandwagon.
  4. I changed my mind on the forums before. But others need to be right to do so. Just you are not right here but instead of realising this, you just assume ppl are beyond convincing because that’s easier.
  5. Glad you waited my coming :slight_smile:
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please make this real

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You explained (not really) why you THINK I’m wrong. Like I said, I actually can argue back, because, well your counters are pretty weak tbh and I could go on and make a counter counter post, but I know nothing I say will change your mind from previous exchanges and other posts I read that you participated in.

According to? you?

I know, anytime anyone has any idea, be it whataver, Karabars comes to find holes to disagree. If even 1 thing is wrong with the post and the rest has great ideas, it’s all wrong and everything must be dismissed.

Your classic counter points

  • Player pop too low, idea won’t work
  • People won’t like that (I won’t like that)
  • I’m right you’re wrong
  • Assertions with 0 evidence or explanation such as:

I can EASILY prove this wrong, but I don’t need to. Just because you can think of a specific scenario that is on the fringe of data where Premade =/= Communication, you would be a fool to actually believe that premades have LESS comms than non-premades, and I know you are not a fool… Which is why I call you a contrarian, if the idea is not 100% true in every case, it’s not good. Even though 90-99% of the times it’s true, you will argue for the ~1% exception and cater to them, even though an idea is good and true for the 99%.

Gotta stop that black and white thinking man and try to come up with better ideas or improve the ideas of others, not just say NO to everything because it’s not perfect… nothing is perfect nor will it ever be, there will always be fringes, there will always be cheesy comps, there will always be smurfs, ragers, losers, stoners, drunks, etc. Why would you be against finding a way to offer a more consistent/meaningful experience in the highest competitive mode of the game? I think you are high diamond/master, so you probably have a very different experience than most of the population. If you are good and you are matched with the top 10% of players, I can see how the game is fine as it is. But for the rest of us, we have a horrible time. We cannot learn how to play because no game is ever consistent. We cannot establish a baseline for our own skill (except for our rank with is meaningless in a 5v5 game). Which is Why I want role MMR in UR and 5mans in SL.

Edit: Fk it, lets have fun with your “detailled explanation” since I’m in a good mood.

Anecdotal, irrelevant, fringe.

So you agree it’s better, Just not 100% so it’s bad (see what I mean?), moving on…

Anecdotal, irrelevant, moving on,

Again, you agree it would work, just not 100%

Contrarian, you agree in your own words, but cannot say so because you can think of a situation where it might not be good.

Assumption, I will play your card here, what if people loved it and it made the mode more popular?

Pseudo-intellectual, Contrarian, Snobbish

Huh?

Damn, I can see why you do this now, it’s fun to disagree without adding anything, and I get to walk away with feeling of superiority and pseudo-intellectual prowess… amazing!|

So are we going to do this again now, or will you come up with a better idea? I have a feeling with you it’s not about the idea, it’s about “winning” imaginary internet points.

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Then do so. In theiry takes only as much effort as this reply.

Oh, right, classic. The “I can I promise but won’t”. Lol.

Logic.
A = A. A =/= B. A + B → C. You know.

I already knew you either don’t read or choose to be ignorant because just in this thread:

I wrote this about one of your points.

What stops you?

“Thinking” that A =/= B won’t indicate that anyone thinks that A + B < A + C. I never claimed premades have less. All I said that it’s not an automatic or guaranteed plus.
You know, in logic, the debunk of “every” is “exists one not”. So even a single scenario where your premise is not happening disproves it and shows that colleration =/= causation.

You know this whole 99% vs 1% is an:

I’m not debunking your arguments to attack the idea itself. I just show you that what you’re saying is not true. Could be noticed from debunking not just the pros but the cons as well.

Your idea is still bad because there was a time when HotS was more popular/played than now and TL was 5men exclusive and the deadest gamemode, plus nothing stops ppl from forming 5mens if they don’t want solos, so your idea only removes ppl instead of adding them.
History and data supporting your antithesis.

Mine is gray.

If your claim to see my posts would be true you would know that to be the case.
But what’s to improve on an idea which forces ppl out of SL or into premades when the complain is solo Allies, not Enemies, so ppl can just form premades already?
If somebody is cool with rando allies why not let them play like that? You won’t face them if you run a 5men!

If an idea is not inherently bad like this one I bring up my own ideas. Or even make my own suggestion threads. Go check them out!

I was, but I stopped playing SL because QM was always my fav mode and I’m not motivated by the Ranked rewards anymore.

In QM I face ppl from Bronze-GM and had a few bad matches in the top percents.
I don’t have a horrible time. Sonif you have a horrible time, instead of forcing me to play the way you want how about you play the way you want? Just form premades!

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I didn’t include things that were obvious, irrelevant or already agreed upon from other sources.

Hence why, you are just disagreeing to disagree. You could have phrased it like this: “Not all the time”, agreeing but acknowledging the fringe, but it doesn’t FEEL as good I guess.

But you then use this to somehow imply that because it will not eliminate it 100%, it’s no good.
The minute someone pisses you off, you remove him/her from group and get someone else. Most people would not be jerks if they had a good group and wanted to play SL. They are jerks BECAUSE then can be at no consequence… Oh oh, you gonna say report them? Ok, they get banned and hop on their 19th other “other” account and they are right back at it. So even though you agree that this would reduce toxicity by a pretty good (just not 100%) amount, it’s bad because of what and why should it not be implemented if Blizz could/would?

This isn’t a logic class man… It’s ideas, it’s a conversation… not a friken thesis… see this is why… ima shut up now.

Show how? I’m not making an absolute point… If I have a cure that cures cancer in 99% of the human race, I guess I should just destroy it because it’s not 100% effective? You understand logic, but you need to understand that we don’t live in the “perfect” world, nor do we make decisions based on absolutes. Therefore, we should make the “BEST” idea and use it even if it has flaws. Ideas are not logical equations. Not Black and White. The discussion is in the grey areas.

For example in my first point. I agree with you that it will not eliminate trolling/ragers/afks completely. But I’m pretty sure that it’s an improvement over the current situation. Does that mean it should NOT be implemented? See where I’m going with this. You literally are only after imaginary internet points. You’re a smart person, but you need more wisdom to use it properly. You even make lists of sentences I wrote that you can say literally anything about and you count that as a “point”? Then you end your comment with a very smug “no points were made” after you literally “disproved” nothing, just random pseudo-intellectual bs. Like the Brian Griffin of HotS General Chat. Is “masters” but not really, knows stuff, but not really, “proves” everyone wrong to feed his ego but can’t actually come up with any original ideas himself. See the picture?

VERY sus… everyone I ever met in any Moba that stopped playing ranked after they got a high rating did it because they were carried and know they won’t last long at that high rank. I remove your title of “Diamond/Master Player” If you have not ranked last season. You are just a “QM hero” now.

If you don’t even play SL, why do you even CARE??? See, you are just a contrarian… I have proven it over and over now… Nothing you say is going to be of value and I hope others see this now too. You have over 12k posts ffs… There is literally post upon post of you doing this… what do you even get out of it? I’m actually more interested in this than this post’s topic right now lol

Of course not… you are probably the one playing troll heroes lol