Relentless is right about the servers though, it makes a big difference where you play.
I only queue EU West for ping, and even when I try my hardest and stack with my friends, there are many times when the opponents stack are just better, even if I'm the best player on both teams.
A very good enemy team, or an equal game which is not that often at all. I rarely stack with more than 2 people and even this way it's hard to win a game if you get complete idiots on your team.
As far as Solo queue, I've only managed to get up to 54% win rate (and that's for a person who started playing Dota exactly 1 year ago) and 60 games difference between wins and losses.
Wins and losses comes in waves. I go on a winning streak of 6-8 games then the same amount in losing, back and forth. They pare you with tards on purpose if you win too much (unless you play with friends). I'm on a winning streak now so I know its coming very soon.
I think it is possible to reach quite good winrates even without stacking. You just need to be really good with the heroes you play. My Invoker-only smurf (http://dotabuff.com/players/126943640) has a decent winrate (and +50 difference). The settings used are AP, EUW, English and not ticking soloqueue. Sometimes you get matched with/against stacks, but they don't really matter. Once I even got matched with almost the whole Sigma.fr vs. randoms and look how it went :D http://dotabuff.com/matches/394011391
@Mathismight
However, even you still can't fight your teammate, if you solo queue too much, your winrate will eventually get close to 52%.
Me, for example, every time when I stomp opponents with Invoker, the next match my teammates will always get worse than last game, until I lose several in a row, then my teammates will get better. I found that out after picking Invoker for 100 games in a row, thus my invoker winrate is always around 50%.
So I think one cannot win much above 50% if he/she always solo queues, but it's actually quite possible to keep winrate up even close to 70% for several favorite heroes. The trick is to pick your them only when you see your teammates pick heroes to counter opponent lineups, that's when you know your teammates are not those "simple-minded" players. Another situation is when there're heroes that are hard-counterd by one of your favorite heroes (like PA/CK/riki counters sniper/drowranger, jugg counters invoker, doom counters weaver/storm)
Any ELO based match making system will approach a 50% winrate because you'll eventually pleateau and only play against teams of equal skill level. Valve's MM system is not "broken". Their engineers have been smart enough to build very complex things, I'm sure they know how to make a match making system.
Dota itself is just conducive to snow balling. This is why you think you have "retards" on your team (sometimes you do, which may be because team balancing is going to be inherently flawed whoever is designing it.), or you wonder why you stomp/get stomped frequently. A team that gets some early kills either through better coordination, getting lucky, or just having a better hero selection is going to end up starving out the other team, and the average player won't be able to catch up. This is why you may think a teammate x is useless when even if they timed all their ults/abilities perfectly you'd still end up losing the fight just based on the gold and level disparity.
^^
I mostly agree what you're saying. But only the MM system is not good enough. Every time I stomp opponents, the next game's opponents will always be stronger, this is reasonable; but too often, in the next game, my teammates are not on the same level with my opponents (I can see this not only from their deaths, but also details like not buying wards, warding positions, not buying or using TPs, not buying dusts/sentries, item choices, aggression timings etc.).
What I assume make that kind of situation happen is that MM system wants to balance the game by calculating the average of internal rating points of all players on one team, and match one team that is closest to that score. In this situation, there maybe a team with close skill levels but there also can be a team with one or two exceptionally high-level players and other low-level players. This will lead to a very hard game, because one or two players can only make so much impact that it's hard to even out the disadvantage the other four or three created (because of the lack of skill and experience to play against more skilled players).
Imagine Dendi + Puppey play against a lower-level pro teams (like posedon or flipsid3) with 3 new players who has only played less than 100 games. Even they can hardly win the game.
The more those kind of games there are the less entertaining games and less close battle that shows off each individual player's skills, and less good games there will be. And that, makes this game less enjoyable because it's not a fair game.
I usually don't mind losing. But what really grinds my gears is when I am in my lane, playing amazing, absolutely destroying and practically getting free farm and a few kills. But, somehow at the other side of the map, there are enemies not only getting a few kills, but they're getting fed horrendously. BUT HOW ON EARTH CAN YOU FEED A BLOODSEEKER 9 KILLS IN 10 MINUTES IS BEYOND ME.
Also, a couple of days ago I was playing with some... Russians, I was playing Templar Assassin mid against Weaver, hot damn, that poor Weaver got massacred and I was getting great farm! I was thinking "Wow this is great, I'm going to be able to get a few ganks off, really snowball out of control. But unfortunately both damn sidelines fed ludicrously. I had a Huskar go 2-17, a Slark go 1-13, an Ursa go 4-9 and a Riki go 1-8. (Yes, best team EU, their picks were nearly as good as their starting items...). So naturally, I didn't get any kills on the Weaver mid because of course Weaver is hard as hell to kill, but I managed to shut him down for a solid ten minutes until the rest of the team came to destroy me with their very sated stomachs.
So in a nutshell, my reaction after these games is usually... "Holy fuck. For once, can my team mates at least TRY to not feed when I have a good game?" I really can't understand the thought processes of these shitty players are they run into an uneven fight or when they decide it's a good idea to start with Tangoes and a Belt of Strength. JUST WHAT GOES THROUGH YOUR MIND? WHAT HORRIBLE PSYCHOLOGICAL EVENTS OCCUR IN THAT CRANIUM OF YOURS? DID YOU THINK... "OH, I KNOW, I'LL GO INTO THIS VERY UNEVEN 1V3 FIGHT AND KILL ALL OF THEM AND MY TEAM WILL LOVE ME!"- THE ONLY REASON YOU WOULD POSSIBLY FATHOM SUCH A RIDICULOUS THOUGHT IS COMPLETE AND UTTER RETARDATION, IF YOU GENUINELY MADE THAT DECISION THAT GOD FORBID YOU MAKING IT THROUGH LIFE.
Although, when you finally get that amazing game with a competent team, it is very satisfying. UNFORTUNATELY IT NEVER HAPPENS BECAUSE DOTA 2 IS ONE HELL OF A FUCKED UP GAME, EH? Only way to have fun in this game is to stack every match and try to just have a laugh with friends whether you're winning or losing.
Sorry, I got a bit emotional there, I'm sure some people can relate to me. *Wipes a tear*
i think your winrate depend on the server you play... here in SA if you have your winrate between 48%-52% i would think this is a normal player
and i try not to stack because most of my friends' friends are completely dumb... solo queue is an emotion (look my records and you'll see)
I love the semi pro players saying "its not hard to win 2 stack"
The disconnect of some dota players is astounding.
The truth is as a pub player going solo you will end up around 50% unless you are an exceptional mid player. Most of these guys with really high winrates just stack, and they often have one of their stacks as a bad player to bring down the skill level of their opponents.
^
I have no problem with players stacking. I really wish i had friends that play dota but I don't.
I just wish i could enjoy the game more. I end up conceding games early and setting a stop watch to get xp every 5 minutes while i read reddit or watch pro games.
When i first played dota1/HoN, i was taught by the community to never act like its all your teams fault for being in a low bracket etc. Playing dota 2 currently though, it just feels like i know so much more about picks, laning, warding, counters, positioning, rotations, jungle stacking/pulling, lane control... basically everything.
This is probably compounded because my preference is as support / jungle /offlaner roles. It is just awful to watch my "carry" have no clue how to even last hit and know i could do significantly better than said player with the kinda support i can provide. When i offlane, i actually know how to not die... its like most players don't understand the basic idea that in a 2v1, maybe you should play it safe and not feed their carry...
I told myself i would give it a real try on a new account, and try to find some players with skill to play with but its just not happening. i met 1 guy in 200 matches that i wanted to play with again. I think i'm just going to go back to my old account that i don't care about abandoning on or playing in LPQ.
Not for nothing, I'm pretty sure i just passed a huge state board licensure test today, and i came home to 5 loses and 1 rofl stomp win and it almost ruined my day.
Elmo makes good points but it's not just about snowballing, it's also about picks and pure randomness. For example, you get in random draft and the other team has last pick, counter picks your mid or something. Or maybe you do single draft and the players on your team get heroes they aren't good with. Or you do all pick and someone randoms something not good. Or you pick a good team but someone doesn't pay attention so the lanes aren't setup ideally. I had a single draft game where I had faceless, rest of team was batrider, nature's, pugna, dragon knight. Not ideal, but if you send bat mid, use pugna to babysit and let dk offlane or have np offlane instead of jungle it might be ok. But our retard batrider decides to jungle. So sometimes you might not have the worst players but lanes are bad or whatever.
dota matchmaking is retarded dont ever expect decent teammates, just assume all of them have down syndrome and try to carry their scrub asses
Game is tough, won't lie.
Relentless is right about the servers though, it makes a big difference where you play.
I only queue EU West for ping, and even when I try my hardest and stack with my friends, there are many times when the opponents stack are just better, even if I'm the best player on both teams.
I have many games where things like this has happened
http://dotabuff.com/matches/400668912
And that's stacking with Mr. Havoc. A well known forum-er, and talented EU-West player.
@Relentless, next time you're on EU-West, hit me up, I read a lot of your stuff and I'd be interested in playing with you.
Furion, for me, is pretty much a good choice, because you can make a difference regardless of your team. Rat doto ftw
I'm willing to agree with Relentless on his post about MM, I myself have the very same feeling. I will either get a retarded team:
http://dotabuff.com/matches/401860882 - Rubick afk bot lane for around 10 minutes of the game, then goes into Midas and no team cooperation at all;
A very good enemy team, or an equal game which is not that often at all. I rarely stack with more than 2 people and even this way it's hard to win a game if you get complete idiots on your team.
As far as Solo queue, I've only managed to get up to 54% win rate (and that's for a person who started playing Dota exactly 1 year ago) and 60 games difference between wins and losses.
So yea, you either stomp or you get stomped, imo.
Wins and losses comes in waves. I go on a winning streak of 6-8 games then the same amount in losing, back and forth. They pare you with tards on purpose if you win too much (unless you play with friends). I'm on a winning streak now so I know its coming very soon.
I think it is possible to reach quite good winrates even without stacking. You just need to be really good with the heroes you play. My Invoker-only smurf (http://dotabuff.com/players/126943640) has a decent winrate (and +50 difference). The settings used are AP, EUW, English and not ticking soloqueue. Sometimes you get matched with/against stacks, but they don't really matter. Once I even got matched with almost the whole Sigma.fr vs. randoms and look how it went :D http://dotabuff.com/matches/394011391
its not difficult to 2 stack and win a lot... back when i played with bananasinurface we'd win together 70% of the time just playing with each other
^^sigma feeder l2p nubs
I know some people do not like hearing this but sometimes YOU are the noob matchmaking puts on a team......
/\ that hurts
@Mathismight
However, even you still can't fight your teammate, if you solo queue too much, your winrate will eventually get close to 52%.
Me, for example, every time when I stomp opponents with Invoker, the next match my teammates will always get worse than last game, until I lose several in a row, then my teammates will get better. I found that out after picking Invoker for 100 games in a row, thus my invoker winrate is always around 50%.
So I think one cannot win much above 50% if he/she always solo queues, but it's actually quite possible to keep winrate up even close to 70% for several favorite heroes. The trick is to pick your them only when you see your teammates pick heroes to counter opponent lineups, that's when you know your teammates are not those "simple-minded" players. Another situation is when there're heroes that are hard-counterd by one of your favorite heroes (like PA/CK/riki counters sniper/drowranger, jugg counters invoker, doom counters weaver/storm)
Any ELO based match making system will approach a 50% winrate because you'll eventually pleateau and only play against teams of equal skill level. Valve's MM system is not "broken". Their engineers have been smart enough to build very complex things, I'm sure they know how to make a match making system.
Dota itself is just conducive to snow balling. This is why you think you have "retards" on your team (sometimes you do, which may be because team balancing is going to be inherently flawed whoever is designing it.), or you wonder why you stomp/get stomped frequently. A team that gets some early kills either through better coordination, getting lucky, or just having a better hero selection is going to end up starving out the other team, and the average player won't be able to catch up. This is why you may think a teammate x is useless when even if they timed all their ults/abilities perfectly you'd still end up losing the fight just based on the gold and level disparity.
^^
I mostly agree what you're saying. But only the MM system is not good enough. Every time I stomp opponents, the next game's opponents will always be stronger, this is reasonable; but too often, in the next game, my teammates are not on the same level with my opponents (I can see this not only from their deaths, but also details like not buying wards, warding positions, not buying or using TPs, not buying dusts/sentries, item choices, aggression timings etc.).
What I assume make that kind of situation happen is that MM system wants to balance the game by calculating the average of internal rating points of all players on one team, and match one team that is closest to that score. In this situation, there maybe a team with close skill levels but there also can be a team with one or two exceptionally high-level players and other low-level players. This will lead to a very hard game, because one or two players can only make so much impact that it's hard to even out the disadvantage the other four or three created (because of the lack of skill and experience to play against more skilled players).
Imagine Dendi + Puppey play against a lower-level pro teams (like posedon or flipsid3) with 3 new players who has only played less than 100 games. Even they can hardly win the game.
The more those kind of games there are the less entertaining games and less close battle that shows off each individual player's skills, and less good games there will be. And that, makes this game less enjoyable because it's not a fair game.
Dota becomes a whole lot more fun when you stop caring about your winrate, trust me.
idk tbh.
my tips is just play it and enjoy
i'm 99% solo queue
it's weird that when i queued with a friend i broke my losing record (previous 5, now 8)
I usually don't mind losing. But what really grinds my gears is when I am in my lane, playing amazing, absolutely destroying and practically getting free farm and a few kills. But, somehow at the other side of the map, there are enemies not only getting a few kills, but they're getting fed horrendously. BUT HOW ON EARTH CAN YOU FEED A BLOODSEEKER 9 KILLS IN 10 MINUTES IS BEYOND ME.
Also, a couple of days ago I was playing with some... Russians, I was playing Templar Assassin mid against Weaver, hot damn, that poor Weaver got massacred and I was getting great farm! I was thinking "Wow this is great, I'm going to be able to get a few ganks off, really snowball out of control. But unfortunately both damn sidelines fed ludicrously. I had a Huskar go 2-17, a Slark go 1-13, an Ursa go 4-9 and a Riki go 1-8. (Yes, best team EU, their picks were nearly as good as their starting items...). So naturally, I didn't get any kills on the Weaver mid because of course Weaver is hard as hell to kill, but I managed to shut him down for a solid ten minutes until the rest of the team came to destroy me with their very sated stomachs.
So in a nutshell, my reaction after these games is usually... "Holy fuck. For once, can my team mates at least TRY to not feed when I have a good game?" I really can't understand the thought processes of these shitty players are they run into an uneven fight or when they decide it's a good idea to start with Tangoes and a Belt of Strength. JUST WHAT GOES THROUGH YOUR MIND? WHAT HORRIBLE PSYCHOLOGICAL EVENTS OCCUR IN THAT CRANIUM OF YOURS? DID YOU THINK... "OH, I KNOW, I'LL GO INTO THIS VERY UNEVEN 1V3 FIGHT AND KILL ALL OF THEM AND MY TEAM WILL LOVE ME!"- THE ONLY REASON YOU WOULD POSSIBLY FATHOM SUCH A RIDICULOUS THOUGHT IS COMPLETE AND UTTER RETARDATION, IF YOU GENUINELY MADE THAT DECISION THAT GOD FORBID YOU MAKING IT THROUGH LIFE.
Although, when you finally get that amazing game with a competent team, it is very satisfying. UNFORTUNATELY IT NEVER HAPPENS BECAUSE DOTA 2 IS ONE HELL OF A FUCKED UP GAME, EH? Only way to have fun in this game is to stack every match and try to just have a laugh with friends whether you're winning or losing.
Sorry, I got a bit emotional there, I'm sure some people can relate to me. *Wipes a tear*
i think your winrate depend on the server you play... here in SA if you have your winrate between 48%-52% i would think this is a normal player
and i try not to stack because most of my friends' friends are completely dumb... solo queue is an emotion (look my records and you'll see)
I love the semi pro players saying "its not hard to win 2 stack"
The disconnect of some dota players is astounding.
The truth is as a pub player going solo you will end up around 50% unless you are an exceptional mid player. Most of these guys with really high winrates just stack, and they often have one of their stacks as a bad player to bring down the skill level of their opponents.
^
inb4 stackers will bash on you
^^^
http://dotabuff.com/matches/404533928
same shit.
Bs had 10 min radiance ffs
^
I have no problem with players stacking. I really wish i had friends that play dota but I don't.
I just wish i could enjoy the game more. I end up conceding games early and setting a stop watch to get xp every 5 minutes while i read reddit or watch pro games.
When i first played dota1/HoN, i was taught by the community to never act like its all your teams fault for being in a low bracket etc. Playing dota 2 currently though, it just feels like i know so much more about picks, laning, warding, counters, positioning, rotations, jungle stacking/pulling, lane control... basically everything.
This is probably compounded because my preference is as support / jungle /offlaner roles. It is just awful to watch my "carry" have no clue how to even last hit and know i could do significantly better than said player with the kinda support i can provide. When i offlane, i actually know how to not die... its like most players don't understand the basic idea that in a 2v1, maybe you should play it safe and not feed their carry...
I told myself i would give it a real try on a new account, and try to find some players with skill to play with but its just not happening. i met 1 guy in 200 matches that i wanted to play with again. I think i'm just going to go back to my old account that i don't care about abandoning on or playing in LPQ.
Not for nothing, I'm pretty sure i just passed a huge state board licensure test today, and i came home to 5 loses and 1 rofl stomp win and it almost ruined my day.
what server you play on?
Relentless response was right on the money. Yiu have to delete bad friends, friends that only want mid or onlybplay avfew herors
Elmo makes good points but it's not just about snowballing, it's also about picks and pure randomness. For example, you get in random draft and the other team has last pick, counter picks your mid or something. Or maybe you do single draft and the players on your team get heroes they aren't good with. Or you do all pick and someone randoms something not good. Or you pick a good team but someone doesn't pay attention so the lanes aren't setup ideally. I had a single draft game where I had faceless, rest of team was batrider, nature's, pugna, dragon knight. Not ideal, but if you send bat mid, use pugna to babysit and let dk offlane or have np offlane instead of jungle it might be ok. But our retard batrider decides to jungle. So sometimes you might not have the worst players but lanes are bad or whatever.
well to have nice % u have to win games, thats it, gl with my advice.
Play 1 man armies, like meepo or magnus. :D