Internet Kraken posted:

Is there any good Dota streams to watch now or is everyone worth a drat still in the TI cooldown period?

gangnam reference posted:

I think people are too busy creating straw man arguments against elo hell to understand the underlying basis for player's complaints and give them any merit.

There is an obvious issue in the ladder of games that are outside of player's control. That is, games where even a higher skilled player has little to no effect on the outcome of the game. Sure, there have been 5.5k players who have played 2.5k accounts up a thousand MMR, but they never follow through with the entire experiment because of sheer frustration of the grinding. The people who do grind accounts for money are doing so successfully only on a handful of heroes where they are able to display their obvious skill differential only because the solo-potential skill ceiling on the hero is the highest (Earth, Invoker, Storm, etc.) They don't grind these accounts picking at random for the home stretch, the last 500 to 1000 MMR. That is all we are talking about here with 'elo hell', the last 500 or so MMR differential between what a player could be playing 50% at, but is actually not at yet nor getting close any time soon assuming a normal player's play schedule.

I think people's anecdotal experience with MMR really has more to do with describing that the underlying system of MMR is flawed in the first place; it is far too uncertain. It is not really indicative of proper skill levels. There is far too much mobility of players across the various 'skill brackets'. I've had accounts move as much as 600 points in a day, in both directions in a week's time. People would consider that a considerably different skill tier, yet, it is achievable in two weekend marathon sessions. Is it indicative of skill being at either extreme? Obviously no.

When I judge a player's skill level using my experience with the game I can usually boil down my opinion about their relative skill down to a simple question: How many heroes can that player play well at their supposed skill level? If the answer is: Slark, Prophet, BH, Doom - it is very likely that the player is what I would consider overrated for his skill bracket. If the answer is a much larger number, then the player I would most likely consider underrated by the system. I've watched many friends go from 5.5k down to 4k and back since the ranking's release, but with all of them I can say with certainty that some deserved the 5.5k and others deserve the 4.5k, but that is not what their MMR is going to dictate on a given week. It muddles them together. It is completely uncertain, +/- 1000 MMR. I really think it should be doing a much better job than than, inbetween 1-200, and see no reason why it couldn't be.

It's funny though, because Valve's system used to appear to judge skill levels in this manner. Your rank would move about based on your performance in a game on a hero based against other players average performance with a given hero at your relative rank. They used to display these bars in your hero profile, before changing it to a system based only upon your own heroes. It's very likely this is still how smurf detection is done today. Many tests have shown in the older systems that win/loss had basically nothing to do with your early MMR.

The other factor that was guessed often was the hero damage/building damage numbers. Many people would see how they would move up/down the page numbers on the view tab based mostly on how much hero damage they were doing relative to their teammates in their recent string of games. The remnants of this system lives on with the questionnaires you get at the end of games. If you pay close attention, these only come after games where your number is far off from the rest of your teammate's, or one team's is far from the others.

These are also two arguably decent measures for determining relative skill in a game. They of course should not be used for a long term system under too much scrutiny, but are generally good indicators of a widely unmatched game.

However, it is pretty apparent that these things no longer matter anymore by the time a player gets to unlock ranked games. Valve did not trust this system to do much of a good job afterwards. It's why they didn't make the number visible early on. Arguably, I don't think they've ever given it a fair chance. They've always had 'all pick' as the sole comparison system.

There is a very clear reason why these players will go bracket hopping back and forth at the higher skill levels. The ones who only play a few heroes effectively at the skill level their MMR gets up to are the players who usually stick to just those picks. They are more often than not playing what I call 'gamble strategies'. Heroes that will dominate a game if given a favorable match-up, but are a relative nonfactor in the game otherwise. However, given the inherent abilities of the hero, they are more likely than not to get into a favorable match-up. Heroes like Bristleback, Timber, Slark, BH, Prophet, Viper, Doom, Invoker, Storm. If you give these guys space they can go on and win a game alone, but if they are countered they are not rendered completely useless. The problem is, they all take a concentrated effort to counter, which goes against pub luck. One person's inherent pick versus three people's picks and synergy not being useless to counter.

In pub games, when you have 3-4 players in a game picking these 'gamble strategies', games work against the players who are playing other heroes and using their '500 mmr difference' in skill level to try to edge out the victory in the game. It becomes a crapshoot. When you get to certain skill levels, at whatever MMR it is for your server, you can't just 'solo gank' to victory anymore. There is counterganking and 5 man roaming that prevents any sort of one person strategies to guarantee a win anymore. You don't win by picking SF mid when the other team is camping both runes on you and smoke ganking you constantly, without losing their sidelanes because the rest of your team had weak lane match-ups. You're helpless to solo out of those games. It comes down to teamwork and team synergy, and countering the 'gamble strategy' heroes that aren't easily countered effectively. There is a hero or two every patch that might go against this general trend, like the recent Alchemist, but it is otherwise true. This is why its really only a problem towards the top and bottom of the brackets, where teamwork becomes to trump individual skill of the players in terms of the outcome of the game. That's just DotA and the game shouldn't have to change into LoL to fix it.

However, the people who employ these 'gamble strategies' get much farther up the bracket than they really should be getting. They do not get forced to play other roles because they are freely able to pick these strategies game after game. This, I argue, is what undermines the ability for MMR to separate the players effectively into their proper skill brackets. They are not being forced to play different roles or different heroes in any of their games if they so choose.

The difference between good and great players really is how much experience they have with the game and how much of that experience they've put towards actively learning more. You aren't going to understand the intricacies of playing with teammates on certain heroes unless you have a good understanding of how to play the hero yourself. You need to play the different heroes and roles in the game to be able to understand these little things that does make the real 500 MMR difference amongst players. And yes, if that means you lose games learning to play those heroes or roles, that means you really do deserve to be at a lower MMR relative to the other players who wouldn't drop by changing things up. It is what makes one Bristleback better than the next one, but the more clear way to determine this is to have that player be guilted into playing those other heroes they may not find to be optimally fun every so often, rather than having them duke out more and more Bristleback games much to the woe of anyone else wanting to play against a different sidelane match-up.

But with All Pick being the one true mode, this will forever be a problem. No matter what they do, there will always be the battle between the players who understand a gamble strategy well enough to win with it at a higher MMR but not really do anything else at that skill level if the picks in the game dictate they should be trying something else. They will have an unfair percentage of being able to try the strategy again because they have a 50% or so shot at it, whereas there are 9 other players in the game who are equally at stake for rank movement.

The change to how the timer countdown only made these things worse. The only way to effectively win games and bracket grind, if you were truly only 500 MMR better than the other players, without playing a small handful of heroes like Invoker, Storm, Earth Spirit, etc. where their skill ceiling is so high you can blow people out of the water with them alone if possible, is to be able to counterpick properly. However, counter picking was punished with the changes. Many players sit on their small handful of gamble strategies and pick them instantly at the last second, giving the other team, who might have marginally better players, little to negative chances to react to the gamble they chose. The intention is good, and I understand they don't want to punish AFKers completely, but in practice, it was possibly the worst solution they could have come up with. Arguably worse than it was before.

If players are forced to pick in order, there becomes a necessity for teamwork to be employed and players are not able to employ their gamble strategies at the same frequency as before. There is no reason to completely take away strategies from a player, since they deserve the MMR boost when they can achieve it, but the frequency of it should not be condoned. Even better, forcing players to pick within a limited pool every so often, but that's a step I would merely enjoy more than I think is really necessary for a noticeable improvement in rank uncertainty.

However, the only alternative to all pick right now is captains pick. This, in many player's minds, undermines their ability to play to the few strengths they do have outside their comfort zone. They can't pick the support hero they are most comfortable with given that they've already given into the fact they should pick a support next in order to give their team the best chance to succeed, but they are forced to play somebody else's choice for you. Of course nobody players these modes. They go completely against the feelings of the players before.

There really is no good excuse why the middling mode, All Draft (not in DotA2), or Random Draft, which will force players to diversify their play, and thus display their true separation in skill better, is not an option. They've already split the brackets into a casual mode an a competitive mode, defining that there is a difference between the two. I can rationalize that if they only care about making a majority happy, and a majority likes to only play Rikimaru running around with huge stomps, followed by games of uselessness inbetween, is how they derive excitement from the game as being the right way to be having fun with the game, then that's great. However, once they split the brackets, they put that mindset into the wrong spot. It's not meaningful the way it is setup now. Like another 5k player said in the thread, the only way to have fun in the bracket while keeping your sanity is to not play the modes allowed in Ranked play anymore. They are the absolute worst modes to solo queue on. You're always in a constant battle between players who have 1 stratted their way to 5k and random death stacks that will stomp your uncoordinated overrated players silly because they've never seen the next level of game before, nor they ever will because they won't branch out to try it.

DotA solo queue was much more fun when the large majority of games was 7/10 players randoming and going with whatever they got because they didn't have a number and didn't care if they win or lost because their relative performance on whatever hero they played kept their rank high. You don't see that anymore. The queue has been given all the tools to let people strive towards the lowest common denominator playstyles and it has sucked the fun out of too much of it. Better hope you like the current metagame, its either that, or games full of headaches, since so few players are in it for the fun now in those modes. The most frustrating part about it is knowing it doesn't have to be this way and its just a series of little decisions causing it all to go awry.


tl;dr
Three nukes and Riki's ulti is still the most fun moveset in -RAD that I've seen. Is there a better way to clown out a disorganized passive picking team?

(USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST)

stoutfish posted:

i won six ranked games in a row, gg mmr

JollyPubJerk posted:

You know 90% of the 'pro players' barely make enough to pay their parents for rent (NOTHING) and have sacrificed years of their lives putting them far far behind in their potential careers and usefulness in society over video game dreams and the only thing you guys can think about is piss testing everyone.

goons got their priorities straight

I hope EE finishes school. Honestly.

The REAL Goobusters posted:

Ee is more successful than you will ever be lmao

JollyPubJerk posted:

You know 90% of the 'pro players' barely make enough to pay their parents for rent (NOTHING) and have sacrificed years of their lives putting them far far behind in their potential careers and usefulness in society over video game dreams and the only thing you guys can think about is piss testing everyone.

goons got their priorities straight

I hope EE finishes school. Honestly.

The REAL Goobusters posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOGedmE0SBc

Interview with the team director of Secret. I'm only 5 minutes in but this dude seems alright.

gangnam reference posted:

did you finish school because what the gently caress are you typing LMAO

that being said piss testings stupid abusing adderall isnt happening u loving retards have u ever actaully taken it


he bought 1.5 million twitter follower slol

gangnam reference posted:

did you finish school because what the gently caress are you typing LMAO

that being said piss testings stupid abusing adderall isnt happening u loving retards have u ever actaully taken it


he bought 1.5 million twitter follower slol

FlyinPingu posted:

I just got a prescription for Adderall does this mean I'm going to be good at dota

gangnam reference posted:

jokes on you it just makes you do nothign but hit creeps and get the number up

steakmancer posted:

TheQat posted:

code:

Antimage.

CraigK posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wt67kGDO_3U

steakmancer posted:

Craptacular! posted:

Craptacular! posted:

steakmancer posted:

Vasler posted:

Does he just really really hate ppd or something? What's up with ixMike? I always thought he was a chill guy or is this some sort of meta thing where he pretends to be a dick for some reason?

FlyinPingu posted:

I just got a prescription for Adderall does this mean I'm going to be good at dota

CraigK posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wt67kGDO_3U