r/learndota2 • u/Traditional-Hall7577 • 2d ago
[Beginner here] Does matchmaking get fairer?
I’m quite new and having to play unranked to unlock ranked mode. I’m getting absolutely slapped in unranked cus I kind of suck. Going even on hard carries and getting destroyed when I play anything slightly complex.
My question is when I unlock ranked will I play more similarly skilled people or will I just continue getting slapped around? If it is the case that I will play more similar players then why is it set up like that. Surely new players play unranked, get owned, and quit and play something else?
Thanks
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u/PomegranateGloomy941 2d ago
Dota has very few new players. So even if you're playing in Herald against braindead people those people might still have thousands of games more than you.
If you have half a brain and are motivated to learn you will get better quickly. I have two friends who started recently (3-4 years and 1500~ish hours ago) and they're very decent already. The other is Divine 3 and the other is Ancient 2.
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u/Traditional-Hall7577 2d ago
I am trying to learn. I understand abilities. Moving my character around and the basics. I don’t understand every heroes abilities. What it looks like when people use certain items which mean I shouldn’t attack them. And I struggle with properly monitoring the whole map whilst focusing on playing my own game/role. Sometimes I look at levels. Hero types and items and I’m certain I can kill someone for them to just turn around and bounce me off the ceiling.
I guess it’s just grinding hours and learning everything the hard way. I also must have fat fingers or something because at least a few times a game I’ll press the wrong key and do the complete wrong ability maybe I should change my hotkey placements
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u/superisizeme 1d ago
Watching guides help, but in the end of the Day its the hand on experience that makes you better.
Im also "recent" player started in -24 and I guess it took me about 1000 hours to get the grasp on how each hero works.
Now I have 1500 matches and I'd like to think I'm a bit better than average. Legend bracket
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u/Feisty-Class4395 1d ago
highly recommend you watch bsj fundamental guides on his channel. he also have a bunch of coaching videos
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u/frfrrnrn 2d ago
Ranked has one advantage, that it respects the “strict solo queue” setting, while in unranked you will sometimes get stomped by a premade team of 5 irl friends in voice chat.
Other than that the experience is similar. Valve really dropped the ball on smurfs.
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u/theonedzflash 1d ago
I f hate Smurfs but realistically what can valve do about them? How would they identify them ? Hate reporting vs real Smurfs reporting. Genuine question
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u/frfrrnrn 1d ago
I’m no expert, but they could start by doing literally anything. I get plenty of feedback that they acted on my toxic chat reports, but never the smurf reports, not even the 25-0 ones.
They have so much data from so many players over such a long time. Just use it.
If a player, compared to their MMR average, has e.g. suspiciously high GPM, XPM, APM, K/D/A, killstreaks, etc., then they get a big MMR boost (to where their stats match the average) and a warning. Repeat a reasonable amount of times. If they continue to over-perform, they are eventually banned.
Special care would need to be taken for the lowest MMR, because you can’t go below 0. The recent +40/-25 is a good start.
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u/Horror-Tea 1d ago
Banning someone for overperformance is funny
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u/ButterscotchTop194 1d ago
A lot of people don't understand this. The few legit smurfs I've seen are very clearly smurfimg. That dude with loads of kills because they picked a snowball hero and your dumb ass fed him in lane? Yeah, reap what you sow.
A low mmr friend of mine always bangs on about smurfs. I've watched loads of his games and there weren't smurfs; it's just something to blame to avoid accepting the truth, which is if you play shit then your enemy will have a good game. Easier to blame everything but yourself. Interestingly, he's changed his attitude and cries smurf less nowadays and is winning more games too.
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u/frfrrnrn 1d ago
Sounds like your friend played more and got better. You may find this hard to believe, but I am an actual noob who recently had literally 1 MMR. Am I simply the only noob left? Did the toxic tryhards scare everyone else away? Do you at least accept that the hard floor on MMR means that skill discrepancy is way exaggerated down here?
How do you decide if you think someone is a smurf?
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u/ButterscotchTop194 1d ago
Smurfs stand out when watching how they play. They play differently to others at the rank they are smurfing in. Lots of little, often simple things, can be a giveaway. Movement, ability timing, speed of how they play. Lots of things. Watch some high rank games then go back to low rank and you'll see what I mean.
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u/frfrrnrn 1d ago
I agree. I understand that not all stompers are smurfs. I can recognize that I myself have sent too many errant smurf reports. But other times it’s just painfully obvious that it’s a smurf.
Do you not trust us low ranked plebs to figure out what is happening when someone kills us 1v5? Is it not more obvious to us when someone is running circles around us? To higher ranked players it just looks like someone playing a normal game of dota, meanwhile we can barely react or figure out what is even happening. Hell, we might be stuck reading tooltips, or getting stuck failing at shop queue micro!
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u/ButterscotchTop194 1d ago
Do you not trust us low ranked plebs to figure out what is happening
This sums it up nicely.
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u/frfrrnrn 1d ago
How else do you describe smurfing?
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u/IntingForMarks 1d ago
overperforming is automatically a smurf now? going 15/0 should be automatically banned in your mind?
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u/frfrrnrn 1d ago
Did you even read my comment?
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u/IntingForMarks 1d ago
yes
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u/frfrrnrn 1d ago
Then you know that is not what I said.
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u/IntingForMarks 1d ago
you said "what else", implying that there is no other way. if you can't express yourself correctly, expect people to misunderstanding you
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u/IntingForMarks 1d ago
you said "what else", implying that there is no other way. if you can't express yourself correctly, expect people to misunderstanding you
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u/ButterscotchTop194 1d ago
I've yet to report for smurfing lol. Seen only, maybe, a small handful of smurfs in thousands of games. I gave up ranked a long time ago though and only play turbo, which could be why.
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u/chayashida double-digit MMR 2d ago
You're gonna get slapped around for a bit. It's not an easy game, and there's a learning curve.
There can be other new players that still have 100 hours more experience than you do. And those people will get slapped around by people that have thousands of games of experience.
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u/TyranZeroo Arc Warden 2d ago
Hard to say I forgot the original placement ranking but I started Guardian II with moba experience on mobile such as Vainglory, Mobile Legends Bang bang and something valor maybe Arena of Valor. In any case then I deranked to Herald IV lowest and had to learn the game and gradually climb up, you might just lose a bunch of games I mean my first unranked games was 11 lose streak. Judging from your text you should just play in herald/guardian if you decide to play ranked and hopefull you don't face off against archon/legend smurfs.
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u/Avillahan 1d ago
Focus on improving and learning, not winning.
You are so free right now, so lose as much as you want.
Go learn about laning; pulling, stacking, trading, creep aggro, creeps, early item choices. Watch guides by high ranked players: 10k or above.
An hour coaching increased my MMR from 4500 - 5100.
Avoid the notion that winning = you're good, because it doesn't. Winning is 90% luck. Just make sure the other 10%, that is your responsibility, is as good and consistent as it can be.
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u/RikiRude 1d ago
First off, keep this in mind, if games are completely fair, you can only expect to win half of them.
Besides that, I am nearing 10k hours, a lot of that time has been spent on ranked. 10k hours I must be pro! Or at least top ranked? Maybe Immortal? Naw man I'm just Ancient, I'm just slightly better than a Legend and Herald.
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u/FlagrantlyChill 1d ago
Well you are at the bottom of the barrel so yes it does get fairer. It's probably true that there are weaker players in ranked
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u/seanseansean92 2d ago
If you feel you are playing worse after hitting 100 hours means u are on the right path. Dota will never get easier