Matchmaking question

If my friends who I play with are all level 10-12, am I being pulled into higher level match making? I feel like if I am, I'm doing something right, cause I do really well most games. (I'm level 4)

I guess you could say that but the level gap isnt quite different and it doesnt effect it that much if the gap is this low.

Leveling up doesn't mean anything except what I suspect to be fewer item drops...

It takes 10-20 games for the MM to figure out how good you are, assuming 100BP/game you're already 40 games in, then you should have a pretty accurate ELO score.

Considering you're doing 3-4-5 man party, it will mostly match you with better players because at low levels there aren't many people who play together.. so the matchmaking has to match you against another party.

It's situational. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure it tries to match you with a similar party. So if you have two high level players and one low level player, it will try to match you up with another party with two high level players and one low level player. Valve has a pretty complex system. It's not really based on your level s much as your Matchmaking rating, which is a measure of personal skill. It takes into account who you beat, so if you queue with high level players and win against them, you'll likely be in a higher bracket for matchmaking.

I'd have to disagree with you there, the system is rather broken as the game tries to keep you to a 50% win ratio, unless you become apart of the 1% bracket which some other method goes on in there.

The DotA 2 and LoL may follow the same "system" since we know that before DotA 2 came out, clans back on wc3tft had their own rating for individual players, based on number of wins and losses. So i doubt it is accurate.

Tell me why 50% win ratio is broken. You do realize that if someone is 70% win rate, there's someone else with a 30% win rate. The system tries to balance things out by giving winning players harder games.

The system doesn't seem to be doing so well recently, probably due to the increase in the number of players. Personally I'm not sure if it does try to keep you at 50% deliberately - that should be naturally occur if everything comes out right and you find your level. I'd rather it just matched me with 9 other people of the same skill every time and let us sort it out. If you win, you move up until you find your level and start losing more.

Personally I've moved over to US east recently as I'm a bit sick of getting stuck with 4 stacks who don't speak my language. It's been a much more pleasant experience.

I also noticed that. I was paired with a lvl 4 and 5 player. But atleast their dotabuff was on at they played good supports.
Although i was also paired with 2 drow rangers who are by definition useless. One of that games we still won becouse we didnt need 5 players and the other one we lost becouse loldrow with just crit and shadow blade.

The reason 50% ratio is broken is because if i am to advance up a skill bracket there is a chance i will be paired with an individual who may not be as skilled to play in the same bracket i'm in. I've encountered this many times. You don't need to point of the obvious, that's rather logical and anyone can see it. It doesn't balance things out by giving a team a player who lacks the skills to co-operate in a higher bracket. Therefore your logic is rather flawed.

The 50% ratio seems more logical as we can see there are many individuals with a 50% win ratio with the exception of a few who are 60% plus. Like Sando mentioned, i too would like individual players of my equivalent skill to have a fun game rather than a frustrating game.

With parties now things become a little more complex as a individual with experience may party with an individual with less skill, and since the game tries to keeps the individual at a 50% ratio, it may try to find a equilibrium of both players and merge both of their " skill brackets " together to find that equilibrium even though it is extremely hard to find.

Also "The system tries to balance things out by giving winning players harder games." is completely wrong, that's not the system at all. Well you may be right in a sense as the game does keep the individual at a 50% win ratio, and it's practically hard to leave that hidden bracket since they game does make it harder to win since the system does partner you up with individuals of a lower skill bracket, but that would make it illogical because the purpose of the game is to play with those of the same skill bracket to have a more competitive and a sense of urgency of playing as a team rather than making it tougher and frustrating. Yes as the individual proceeds to get a higher skill bracket the game does get harder but less frustrating as the individual knows they tried their best with their team as they are capable of playing their roles.