Why is qm so toxic

A real player will always learn more. Basically if you are not the number one player in the world then there will always be some things to learn for you. Just because someone is learning does not mean that person is an absolute beginner.

AI mode is for absolute beginners who need still need to learn the basics. Like how exp soaking works and what minions are for example.

In that sense QM is mainly here for learning and having fun. It’s basically a mode for players who still need to work on their hero roster before they can play ranked.

Some people who only play QM and take it too serious and they just missed the step to move forward into ranked mode. Probably they got told to go back to QM by some toxic players when they ruined their first draft. That’s what insecure players do, they keep playing QM so they can tell beginners to stay in AI mode lol.

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There is a difference between learning and practice. But regardless of that, we are not talking already seasoned players becoming better, but a guy that has no idea what’s going on. The fact that you wanted to make it about that just showcases how weak your argument overall is, sorry to be harsh but is true.

Thanks for agreeing that AI mode is for beginners, though. I appreciate it, since that’s what I’m saying. And sure thing, QM can help with practice (you are not gonna learn anything new there as a “grand master” or whatever you want to call it, though), but you will still properly compete (seek victory) on it while practicing (otherwise why would you even try to practice there then? If you don’t aim to win in a match? Something a new player will not properly seek after, since he would only want to understand what’s going on first).

Ranked mode is a chore for many, it takes forever to find a match, and IRL time is way more valuable than a rank in a game you not even play professionally (you can easily play 3 or 4 more matches a day by going QM rather than ranked); also you can’t always play with the hero/role you want to play and have fun with, in fact sometimes you have to play with stuff you don’t want to and have a bad time doing it (even if you win) 'cause you don’t want to play those, etc. In fact, unless you want to play professionally or are already in Masters+ league, a player bragging about “playing rank” is most probably just a delusional player that is even worse player than some QM players overall.

Now that I think about it, the only real toxic and troll people are the ones that take poor new players to QM instead of AI, where they could happily learn in peace, without having them to be feel bad by not performing well and losing, while being probably insulted by some team member by that; nor forcing others to lose in a total waste of time. All of that could be simply avoided by having the intelligence to help them learn in AI first, and once they get the grasp of things, jump into QM or Ranked. But you need intelligence and common sense to understand such as simple concept as that. Not everyone has it, though.

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Same reason anybody gets steamed enough over a bunch of virtual nonsense… presumably, whatever is left to compare to in their life isn’t doing the trick anymore and this is where they get their kicks… or take out whatever is eating them so badly.

I’m not always a walking example, but kill them with kindness as it were. Don’t let it get under your skin, and understand it’s generally coming from a place of lashing out rather than inherent malice. As players who can presumably rise above that, it’s better to do what you can with what you do have, and that’s to turn your ability to see beyond that into a disposition that will ideally help others to see beyond it.

That’s all you really can do… because trust, they’re already beyond unreason and being unreasonable with them is just walking into an L.

This would be a different discussion if you were talking Ranked, mind you.

I typically play every hero that interests me to level 10 before I set foot in QM, and 15-20 before drafting them. That’s probably overkill the other way, but I like feeling effective going in and I very rarely get flamed in matches.

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The point of ranked modes isn’t for bragging…Players should know that nobody cares about someones rank.
The point of the ranked mode is that there is a draft phase. MOBA’s are balanced by the draft and experienced players just don’t want to practice a specific hero in a random imbalanced setting forever. They just want to have a good quality match and not a clownfiesta. It doesn’t matter if i could play x more clown fiestas during that time.
Obviously players who only want to play a specific role/hero are not ready to play draft modes and it doesn’t make sense for them. These players have to stick with QM because they can’t draft.
I queue into ranked mode because i don’t know which hero to play. I get the inspiration from the map, what my team needs and counter the enemy team. I can enjoy playing all roles and I don’t play ranked because i care about my rank ^^ I just try to have enjoyable matches and the ranking process happens just passively.

When i play QM it’s for practicing a single hero i don’t feel comfortable picking in drafts yet.

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Doesnt matter the game or mode , people are just acting like that because there is zero consequence to flaming .

Also , it does make them feel good by “justifying” what ever is going on and removes any liability if they were actually playing bad.

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That has really improve my quality of life in-game. Or at least, my perception of it.
My teammates now are just bots that communicates with me via pings, and that makes my life easier.

You’d like to assume this but no, as nice as VS AI players are like they can still flame you over inconsequential or inane stuff. For example let’s say some are part of the group who wants to end the match within 5 minutes. You get ping-spammed and then flamed if you don’t play like they want you and just 5-man push your way to victory. Quests can also cause stir and then there’s my favorite… being flamed for no reason at all.

So ultimately it’s more of just this:

I never saw an AI flaming/pinging someone :smiley:

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Ive seen those jerks b step before

I don’t know if AI can ping (99.9% sure they cant), but they definitely did B step once (for no particular reason). Some of their behavior probably emulates player patterns from real replay files.

But after the recent few patches they have stopped doing anything interesting at all, they’re just meat bags that follow you brainlessly (or sit in spawn if unpinged).

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It often comes from people who only play QM exclusively I think. Come to think of it, the attuide is quite polarized between those who take QM too seriously and those who feed double digits and say “It’s only QM bro…”

Also too, it’s an online game, online is often toxic.

This is a feature I’ve been requesting since launch. I want the ability to have the AI trash talk me. At least if you got stuck with an AFK in a match you might get some funny lines, they could do hero personality themed trash talk. I want to hear Diablo telling me off for being inferior. What? :angel:

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AI is generally better for teaching people who are completely new how to utilize the basics of the game since bots in this game aren’t super great. There are quite a lot of quirks and general differences that HOTS has between other Mobas that would be better learned in an environment where you don’t really risk making the game less fun for your teammates. On top of that, you underestimate how many games people lose because they had someone on their team who didn’t even know how to play HOTS at a basic level, something that is never really fun.

Carrying a friend might seem fine to you but to other people on your team, you two might be more liabilities than anything else since you can’t always carry your friend. As an aside, there are a lot of toxic duos who jump into QM and unranked that play bad and reject literally all forms of criticism or team strategy and there’s no doubt in my mind that some of your teammates probably got those vibes from you two, even if you weren’t actually toxic. I’ve definitely made some snap judgements against some premades because some of them were playing bad and not listening very well initially.

Technically… no. Practice mode, custom games and AI are the game modes that are more designated for actual learning as they take away the element of bad MMR matching and the stress or a random, human enemies. Even pro players technically use practice mode in order to learn how certain things work for new heroes or reworked heroes, new talents, etc.

QM is more for practice (aka you already know the basics of your hero and want to practice against real players or you’re good enough at the game where you know you’ll pick up the hero fast). It doesn’t help that a lot of scrubby players in QM who claim they are playing it to “learn” are often some of the worst players in HOTS, making games very lopsided since they suck AND aren’t willing to really try all that much. It isn’t hard to see where this quickly becomes a hostile environment.

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You are either contradicting yourself here, or admitting you are not an experienced “masterful” player (and therefore you really shouldn’t think yourself better than QM players), but oh well. Whatever the case, you end up agreeing with me, since you said it yourself, practice because you already understand the whole game and its maps and heroes, so you are not learning the very basics (the whole point). That’s how you do it, well done. so thank you.

And just to share thoughts, actually a MOBA is not balanced by the draft, is balanced by the characters stats and numbers, and what they can do with their abilities. Your particular ranked match, though, it can be affected by the draft, but that’s a very different story, since you are not “balancing” it, but you are trying to make it a controlled match (aka make it your safe-space), which, ironically, is contradictory to an actual competition, IMHO, but what do I know, I’m just a dude.
However, I will say draft actually makes it less exciting (and a bore of wasted time meanwhile, mind you), since you are demonstrating to either be incompetent, or at least afraid, to play against something (the best character/strategy in turn for the season), where you have to ban it so you can perform well and not get stomped by it, or simply 'cause you are trying to take advantage over the other team the more you can, so you win not by your own skill alone but by the involved handicaps (the opposite of balance), but I guess they can do the same to you, so that’s that, which is cool. Don’t get me wrong, being pampered is nice, removing the stuff that makes it difficult to play for you surely makes it easier for you to enjoy in return.

In QM, on the other hand, there is no such luxury and pampering, you get it rough, QM is chaos itself, QM is not for the faint of heart, it can end up being a horrible comp or a fantastic one on both sides, where the thrill of the unexpected is always present and in the end, all you are always left with in order to prevail is your own skill and understanding of the game itself. No handicaps, no fear of something, just a bunch of dudes supporting each other the best they can. Nothing beats the satisfaction of facing the most OP stuff, the ban-worth stuff, and succeed with your far from optimal, nor carefully nitpicked, comp. But not everyone will ever understand it, 'cause they will never dare to face it by their own will and instead they would’ve banned it to avoid facing it.

But to each his own, if you like rank for the sake of playing rank, cool for you. And for the people that likes to play QM for the sake of playing QM, cool for them too. Both have their highs and lows, and that’s fine.

Have a good one.

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I wouldn’t go so far but it shouldn’t be possible to play a new hero in any mode than against ai until Hero-Level 5. And you should not be able playing this Hero in unranked/ranked draft until Hero-Level 10.


If you want to teach a friend how to play the game in the first place there is always the possibility to play Co-op vs ai. It’s the safest mode to learn all the basics.

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This is how I’ve done it for the most part, just vs ai until level 5, but it definitely isn’t necessary for QM. You’re not going to learn all the necessary skills for PvP modes in ai. It’s really only good for the basics. Not to mention it can be really painful for certain heroes.

All you absolutely need to do is explore your hero fully, assuming you’re familiar with the game already. That means knowing what your abilities do/how they play in an actual match. Same goes for talents. Even if you can’t remember all the talents, being familiar with their functions before going into QM helps a lot.

As for you OP, my response depends on what exactly you’re doing. If your friend is completely new, QM isn’t appropriate. Vs AI would be best until they are familiar with the game.

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This is the reason why I made a smurf (despite highly against it).
If I’m playing with my gf, our allies notice that we’re in a party and see that I do well and she doesn’t, so they flame her and write stuff like: “teach your gf in vsAI” (even tho they’re right about my partymember being my gf, they kinda jumping into conclusions there) or worse.
But we still do Brawls and UD on my main, because Brawls has no mmr and my UD mmr is not that high since I barely play it.

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And this is the point why I would prefer my solution. I’m playing mostly QM because I like the randomness and I get sometimes players who act like: ”hey it’s only QM I do this just to goof around” or ”to try out something”
I also use it to play unusual Heroes or try new builds, but I tell my teammates in before, what I’m up to and don’t let my teammates in the dark.

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Look i played thousands of QM and Draft matches and the quality of the matches i experienced between those modes is very different. Your passive aggressive arguments for why i don’t prefer QM are just wrong. Selling the randomized setting as an extra difficulty doesn’t seem right because it also makes it much easier for the other side. QM is just gambling the matchmaker. Winning because i got the better composition for the map is just lame. As a premade group you can even abuse the matchmaking rules if you know how it works and keep on stomping. It’s not that i don’t get stomped in draft modes - it happens but at least all players had a fair chance to influence their composition.
Even in draft modes you can play very unorthodox combos and win. I drafted some matches without tank or healer on purpose and it’s much more satisfying to win like this against a real team that had the chance to adapt to our compositors.

Drafting has nothing to with safe-space mentality. All the competitive matches in a tournament settings involve a draft phase. With your logic they afraid of a real challenge? xD I would say they rather prefer not to gamble and play a mode that involves more skill based outcome.

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They’re either mind readers or you told them she’s your GF. I’d keep that stuff private if you don’t want to be flamed about it. It doesn’t excuse your teammates rude comments, but still.

I play with my wife a lot and our names are reversed which makes it easy for the enemy to know we are friends/partners in real life.