I think something that a lot of people aren’t taking into account is this:
Not everyone is capable of reaching Diamond+: Not because they aren’t willing to try and improve, not that they don’t put in the time, work and hours that it takes TO improve - but that everyone’s skill has its limit.
Some people have disabilities, some people are aging and just don’t have the reaction time that it takes to see those vast improvements. Hand-eye coordination deteriorates. A hard pill to swallow: ‘You just aren’t good enough to play the game’ - I’ve heard that one before as a reason why low elo players with those issues should just be ignored.
I think the game should be fun and engaging for everyone: No matter your skill. I can tell you right now playing against a Pharah after her buffs in sub 500 elo play is absolute HELL.. It’s easy to aim and get eliminations with her because no one on the ground can touch you. A body shot here and there if they’re absolutely lucky. Players in that elo have just come to accept if someone on the enemy team picks Pharah it’s pretty much game-over. (Is that really fun? She got buffed for higher tier players. She destroyed teams before the buff and now she ravages them without a Mercy pocket.
This is where a plethora of people will just say; “Learn how to improve your aim.” and “Git gud scrub.” The ‘problem’ isn’t really a ‘problem.’. To which I say: “It’s not a problem for you and I: But it’s a problem for them.”
This is like saying poverty isn’t a problem just because we have good jobs. It’s really an absurd ideology that somehow, we’ve all come to just accept in the competitive game market.
Anyone can tell you that in order to climb out of low elos you need to be able to get in and basically frag the enemy team to death and outplay 3/4’s of their team single-handedly. You can’t rely on your teammates because they are uncoordinated and their game sense is 5x worse than my own in plat. I saw someone mention in a post: “I can kill four of the enemy team and watch 5 of my teammates die to a soldier and a sombra.” - That sums up Bronze/Silver perfectly. Hell, I’ve been in a silver game where I killed 5 enemies and a solitary Zenyatta killed all 5 of my team.
I have played multiple games in bronze/silver where there are leavers on your team sometimes 6/12 games because of the salt and toxicity that picking Widow or Genji instantly creates. (They’re used to horrible Widows/Genjis in that elo). If I weren’t a plat Genji main, there’d be very little chance of carrying a team a man down to victory. It WOULD ‘almost’ force a 50/50 winrate on you. (Not Blizzard’s fault on leavers, mind you.)
Mind you I’m not saying players in Bronze/Silver all deserve to be plat, Diamond or higher: Obviously, if they belong in Diamond they’ll climb - because they can hard carry with their skill. I do think, however, that there’s a lot of people stuck in Bronze and Silver who can easily hold their own in mid to high gold who get stuck in Bronze/Silver due to really crappy RNG with leavers, throwers and smurfs. I can’t ignore their pleas for Blizzard to do something because I’ve seen it first hand.
There was another person who said that they lost 5 games in a row due to the same smurfs on the enemy team one night. The next day they were ‘super positive with their team’ and managed to win 5 games. I asked if they got back all of their SR from the losses: “Well no, I lost more than I gained.” - Because that system feels good or is even fair? Of course they lost more SR than they gained back because with smurfs on the enemy team you aren’t accomplishing anything and your game stats are going to be extremely low: So the game thinks you performed very poorly and makes you lose a ton of SR with each loss. That’s the thing that needs to be fixed. Hard to perform well when the enemy Widow has 42 critical scoped hits.