TLDR: Skill level of the average player has fallen, and too many have entitlement issues/bad attitudes. Gall, as a bot, is better than 99.9% of them, and is much more preferable.
After taking a break for a few months, I came back to the game in late March, and after playing a few hundred games, found that the quality of the average player had DRASTICALLY decreased.
I strongly suspect this is in large part due to the anti-smurfing measures Blizzard began adding with the December 2020 patch: players grouping now all use MMR = to the highest player. The result is that many of the better players did not want to carry other people’s friends, just became fed up with it, and quit.
The biggest grievance I have had (other than the leavers/afks), since returning, dealt with the entitlement of these “other people” and their friends; they expect you to be GRATEFUL to carry them, they think its “fun” to die 10 or 12 times, if you aren’t having fun-- because they are feeding-- that’s YOUR problem, if we don’t win the game it’s YOUR fault for not playing better… The solution most often recommended is to play with your own friends, but the trouble is, the friends I used to play with have long since quit…
SO, in trying to find a solution to the problem I was having this season, I stumbled upon a few different threads on reddit from a few years ago… They suggested an alternate solution: play Cho’Gall on two accounts, and when the game starts, simply have Gall leave the game.
Now, that probably sounds crazy to you-- it did to me, and on top of that, I had never played Cho before, and the only tank I ever enjoyed playing was Anuberak prior to his AA nerf… But THE RESULTS WERE PHENOMENAL!
Gall, as a bot, is STATISTICALLY better than 99.9% of the player base. If HotsLogs and HeroesProfile are to be believed, the bot, or the account anyway, should easily be top 100 in the world for QM once their leader boards update.
HotsLogs Profile for Gall: https://www.hotslogs.com/Player/Profile?PlayerID=16475778
HeroesProfile Profile for Gall: https://www.heroesprofile.com/Profile/?blizz_id=10963639&battletag=ChoGall®ion=1
The bot seems to have its own preset talent builds-- so its talent selection is less-than random-- and while it can be a bit too aggressive with shove and ogre rage at times, the difference in game quality has been ABSOLUTELY INSANE. I cannot stress that enough.
That said, there were instances where it felt like the game was REALLY intentionally dredging up the lowest levels of scum it could find in order to force 50%. In one such instance I got saddled with 3 bronze 5s (ACTUAL Bronze 5s). But for the most part, the games were a TON better-- not JUST because Gall was so amazing, but because by having him, it reduced the number of possible potatoes I could end up with on my team.
To conclude, “I quit” posts kinda make me cringe, but with how bad the player base has become, I don’t see the game recovering from this, not when the AI-- something we all used to make fun of-- makes mince meat out of most of them.
