Why the system sucks

"Crawling painfully" so visual, I like it. That is the image that comes to mind when I think about my struggle for learning how to carry in games where people don't know what a ward does xD

Great to see this thread rocket off and staying so civil! :D The discussion around the quality, functionality and necessity of the MMR system is interesting, not only from a gamer's perspective but also as a display of human psychology, the perception of "fairness" and statistics. Let's keep up the good trend!


Hehe, yes it was. No offence taken, but I was not in the mood for cheap rejection of my arguments.
Which, you sort of do once again... If my response is full of "incorrect statements" and "lead-fallacy arguments", please point them out! I am not one to reject opposing arguments, as long as they are reasonable.

For some players they can, for others they may simply provide a less accurate ranking (However, we seem to have different experience in this area - mine is mostly negative).

A very straight-forward way of putting it. And completely correct.

But, here you are, complaining...?
You're losing because your team, you included, played worse than the opponents. I say again: KDA does not equal contribution. One or some games does not prove this wrong, you have to consider the big picture.
And just to lower your hope: At every level, players view their bracket as being abnormally full with "toxic", "******ed" and "corrupted" players. Any level is the same, because people don't change. So all we can do is accept that douchebags exists and ignore them to make the best of it ;)

The definition of douchebag = that game where you and your partner pick Windranger and Phantom Assassin first and the team proceeds to pick Necrophos, Bloodseeker and Terrorblade, only for you to find out that Necros spends the first 20 minutes of the game farming the jungle with his aura (exclusively, no right clicking, just standing there), dies a few times ganked in the process by a Clinkz, proceeds to "rush" his Radiance with no teamfight contribution at all, and when Phantom Assassin tries to farm "his ancients" at around minute 30 accuses her of "stealing farm" and "wanting to lose the game" (these are actual quotes from the guy).

Meanwhile, Terrorblade walks the map always with only 20% HP convinced he could activate his ultimate before the Clinkz with Orchid Malevolence could kill him. After that, he purchases an awesome Shadow Blade, discovers they have bought a Gem of True Sight and points it out himself, but still wonders alone in the map and tries to escape everytime with it...

Welcome to hell.

A few notes from the OP of the thread..

I never said the system was broken, I said it was stupid. I stand by that. The system rewards using pubstomp heroes and the like more than it does teamwork or communication, simply because it can't measure those things. It only measures if you win, and at early levels you do that by being the best of your 5 carries.

I find it a little offensive that you dismissed my entire post by saying I gauged the entire system off of one of my losses. If that was the case then I would have done it after my first dota match however many years ago that was. This match was actually pretty exceptional, which is why I used it for my example. The matchmaking system blatantly put me with players who are not in my skill bracket (I don't know why it does this. Usually following a winstreak or good win/loss ratio, I get teammates like this almost like clockwork), I played well against a team who had better teamwork and farm, and I did literally all I could to motivate my team and help them with things like item choices, etc. So if I can do all of that as a single player on my team and still lose (regularly, because of teammates) then yes, the system doesn't make sense and clearly has a problem.

I don't know why Valve would go so far as putting people well below your skill in games with you just to balance your w/l.

Note about smurfs: They catch on that you're smurfing pretty quickly, actually, and match you with other smurfs. I created one a long time ago to play with lower level friends who were just starting Dota, and noticed after less than 25 matches that it was putting me with other smurfs. I asked a teammate about it and he said he was on his second smurf and that's how it happens, even if you select the "I haven't played Dota before" option on a new account. It uses things like KDA and stuff to figure it out, so it's probably a little easier for support players to sneak past this. But as someone who plays carries and gankers, I was sorted pretty quickly.

Not that I'm complaining about that part. I don't like the idea of smurfing, but I do think it's the best way available right now to get a more accurate MMR if there really is a high discrepancy between your true skill and whatever MMR you "earned."

Fumbles16x, sorry for getting of-topic. I was actually answering Smuggels and his opinion the smurfs, more than your original post.

"The system rewards using pubstomp heroes and the like more than it does teamwork or communication, simply because it can't measure those things. It only measures if you win, and at early levels you do that by being the best of your 5 carries." = Totally agree. That's why you can't trust a number to tell your how good the person is, even if you can get a general idea of the differences in quality from a game with 1k to one with 5k. So why bother with that.

mmr is a miss-worded concept, its not "Matchmaking rating" rather "How far can I carry rating", this can change to a degree with higher levels of teamwork in higher skill level games.

Making a smurf can be a bit of fun and tells you a lot, but it only really becomes accurate after 100 games or so in the rank you calibrate at.

That's my thoughts on the topic anyways

Valve needs to integrate a recalibration. Not infinite ones, mind you, but let's say 2 recalibrations. That'd be fair right? You've gotten over your noob stage and you can now get a MMR representative of your skill level.

I think the system is broken because of:
1. MMR being solely based on wins. MMR should be based on a combination of wins, KDA, and role. If you are playing carry, you get a very good KDA, and you win, you get good MMR. If you are playing support, got a medium KDA, and win, you should get good MMR. If you are carry, get horrible KDA, and lose, you should lose MMR. ETC. you get the picture
2. The ridiculously small amount of MMR you gain ( yet large amount lost). MMR taken or given is 18-27 we'll call it 25. That means to raise 1k MMR you must have 40 consecutive wins. FORTY. That's with no losses. if you want to be realistic, let's say you have a 50% win rate. You won't climb. Every loss sets you back as much as every win. You need a 51%+ win rate to climb AT ALL. THATS NOT REALISTIC. most people have a ~48% win rate.nyou see what I mean?

Things I can confirm:

- I'm 4k+ having played support in about 80% of my games. You can have impact, you don't have to carry
- At 4k people are still hugely capable of making idiot decisions
- At 4k people are still routinely rude and ungrateful
- At 4k the average skill level is higher, and the egos are massively bigger to compensate
- Yes the process of gaining MMR is painful. Unfortunately the alternative to gaining more MMR per match would also mean that you had to lose more MMR to compensate.

Yes, you can raise MMR perfectly well by playing support. It's actually one of the best ways to slowly and reliably go up.
Because if your support play is 100 times better than the average support play in your bracket (it's not hard...trust me), then in every game with you supporting you reliably win your safe lane and mid every game. Winning your lanes...is a huge advantage.

Actually, what I consider some of the biggest tryhards in this game are people who abuse the imba supports in each patch and pick them every game. Lion pickers. Earthshaker pickers. Mirana pickers. Undying pickers. Winter Wyvern pickers...etc. Of course they always buy a Glimmer Cape because why not abuse the game completely while you're at it right :)



How is this unfortunately? That's what I want!
Right now there's no way you can be high MMR without having played 1000-2000 games.
The game rewards not skill but high number of games played.

Dota is just like MMORPGs or real time browser games, those games which are constantly criticized for being dangerously addictive and requiring a degree of commitment from the player to do anything in the game that's just incompatible with having a real life...
When you start playing dota there's no disclaimer "You may need to spend several thousand hours of your time playing this game to get anywhere in the rating system". if there were...maybe fewer people would play it.

I really wish it was even just this...the bar is even lower than that. There's no saying that your team will actually even pick 2 supports or a half way decent trilane, which can definitely limit your impact on those lanes.

Being better than most pub supports:

- Don't feed.
- Give farming priority and stack camps.
- Buy basic vision, detection and a fecking courier (flying @3 mins).
- Turn up at fights.

Advanced points:

- Run the lane properly
- Gank, roam and TP to mid and offlane for dives
- Use the jungle/other lanes to get more farm/xp
- Zone effectively and don't leech too much xp
- Do something good at team fights occasionally

That's pretty much your road to 3k+ support right there.