They didn't really say this in that post, but my impression from playing HL was this:
"Four is the new Five."
Basically, if you wanted to dominate HL without going into TL, you queued with 4 for best results. Back before the patch, queuing with 5 was obviously the best. But now that 5's have been segregated off, that made 4 the default "best choice." And hence the "Four is the new Five" mentality.
This fixes that.
But it also breaks playing with friends in anything other than QM. Let's say me and two buddies want to try to raise our rank together. Now we cannot do that. Which sucks.
They didn't really say this in that post, but my impression from playing HL was this:
"Four is the new Five."
Basically, if you wanted to dominate HL without going into TL, you queued with 4 for best results. Back before the patch, queuing with 5 was obviously the best. But now that 5's have been segregated off, that made 4 the default "best choice." And hence the "Four is the new Five" mentality.
This fixes that.
But it also breaks playing with friends in anything other than QM. Let's say me and two buddies want to try to raise our rank together. Now we cannot do that. Which sucks.
I guess this is why they preemptively said "three is the new four" and took it out too. Cause it was inevitable.
+1
Options
cptruggedI think it has something to do with free will.Registered Userregular
So now groups of 3-4 have no option for knowing which map is coming, etc. This makes the gap in features between QM and HL even more pronounced.
Whatever problems you think are involved in a 4 stack are there in a 3 stack. Sooooo those reasons.
A four stack can only get matched with a solo. Not so for a three stack.
I'm aware of math, yes.
They cited a big concern being that solo players were not able to play with their team when it was a four stack because the communication was between the others and not them. I don't see the same thing applying to three stacks. It's also one less player to create the "skill gap" issue.
So no I do not think they are the same problems, which is what I was implying with my post about math.
The same problems still exist regardless if it's a three or four stack, they might be lesser but the problems are still there. The skill gap issue is still an issue. Hell, it's still an issue with two-but that's probably where they see a steep drop off and it's an allowable limit.
0
Options
Inquisitor772 x Penny Arcade Fight Club ChampionA fixed point in space and timeRegistered Userregular
The best part about being solo queued with a group of 4 is when they blame you for their loss even though you picked a healer because none of them would and still led the team in siege damage (yes, this happened).
0
Options
The Escape Goatincorrigible ruminantthey/themRegistered Userregular
The best part about being solo queued with a group of 4 is when they blame you for their loss even though you picked a healer because none of them would and still led the team in siege damage (yes, this happened).
Well, Malf specced into Moonfire can reasonably do that anyway while maintaining strong heals.
I expect the next change to Hero League matchmaking will be to limit duo queue pairings based on rank. For instance, you can't duo queue with anyone more than 20 ranks above or below you.
I expect the next change to Hero League matchmaking will be to limit duo queue pairings based on rank. For instance, you can't duo queue with anyone more than 20 ranks above or below you.
I expect the next change to Hero League matchmaking will be to limit duo queue pairings based on rank. For instance, you can't duo queue with anyone more than 20 ranks above or below you.
That would follow. League does that too already.
That seems to be one of the issues with large stacks in HL from the blog.
jaina has some nice combo burst buuuut KT is better at blowing shit up. will probably hold off on both anyway since they are so ubiquitous
what are some zagara builds? I tried banelings but it was kind of boring. the long cast time kills it
The other major deviation you'll see from what was posted is that some take endless at 7 instead. It adds a huge amount of creep per tumor which makes it easier to move around to either reposition or flee.
Grooved Spines vs. mutalisk has some considerations that aren't spelled out in the tooltip. Well, grooved spines is straight forward due to just being numbers but mutalisks both can chase over terrain that blocks hydralisks and lasts longer if not killed.
Well, grooved spines is straight forward due to just being numbers but mutalisks both can chase over terrain that blocks hydralisks and lasts longer if not killed.
A mutalisk harassed the enemy Zeratul and kept him from cloaking so I could swoop in and kill him last night. ++
what are some zagara builds? I tried banelings but it was kind of boring. the long cast time kills it
There's basically only one Zagara build, and morgan_coke posted it above, although I will mention that at 13 you can choose between Mutalisk and Grooved Spines (hydralisk gets +range and +dmg). IMO Mutalisk is better on tight maps where a lot of fighting happens over and around walls (Garden of Terror, Raven map) and Grooved Spines is better on more open maps (Sky Temple, Dragonshire), especially if you really need to kill a particular guy dead (i.e. the bounce damage is not as important).
what are some zagara builds? I tried banelings but it was kind of boring. the long cast time kills it
There's basically only one Zagara build, and morgan_coke posted it above, although I will mention that at 13 you can choose between Mutalisk and Grooved Spines (hydralisk gets +range and +dmg). IMO Mutalisk is better on tight maps where a lot of fighting happens over and around walls (Garden of Terror, Raven map) and Grooved Spines is better on more open maps (Sky Temple, Dragonshire).
I wouldn't go so far as to say there's only one build for her. A number of professional players favor corpse feeders or demolitionist at 1 and endless creep or battle momentum at 7. A coordinated team can provide better protection to go more for pushing talents. The build morgan coke posted is more of the standard solo Q build where being able to sustain yourself is big.
There isn't much deviation post 7 though. Maw, expansion, and bolt are all standard and even the mutalist/grooved spines choice is still about boosting one skill.
Yeah, it's official. Solo/Duo queue only, now. Paste in spoilers for those that can't access the site for whatever reason:
We made a few big changes to Ranked play with our latest Heroes of the Storm patch and, in the days that followed, saw quite a bit of discussion around the new maximum party size rule for Hero League. After reading through player feedback, we examined internal data in order to determine how additional party size limits might affect Ranked play, and have decided to further restrict Hero League to players who queue alone, or in parties of two.
When we look at the data for parties of three and four players in Hero League, we often see large skill gaps among party members. This is fine for players in a party of four, for example, who have agreed to queue together despite any differences in skill that may exist. However, the matchmaker needs to complete the team by pulling in a fifth player who queued up alone, and did not necessarily want to play with teammates of varying skill levels.
This can also create situations in which party members will discuss strategy with each other, but don’t end up communicating the game plan to their fifth teammate. On the other end of the spectrum, solo players may disagree with the party’s decisions, or show unwillingness to help the team. This can result in a friction for both sides if communication doesn’t improve.
What’s more, parties of three and four players appear in Hero League queues far less often than solo players and parties of two. As such we feel that large parties represent a small enough portion of Ranked games that we’re comfortable removing them from Hero League in order to improve overall match quality.
This change to restrict Hero League to solo and duo queuing players will arrive with our next game update. As always, we’re going to monitor how the new rule affects the Hero League experience, and will make further adjustments as necessary. Play a few Hero League games once the change has gone live, and let us know what you think in the official Heroes forums. Until next time, we’ll see you in the Nexus!
Not sure how I feel about this. Hmm.
This is terrible. Every attempt to queue with as close to the max team size as possible should be encouraged and lauded. MOBAs are a team game. You should not be punished because you have friends, which is exactly what this is.
I hate people who think just because they want to have the "perfect" solo queue experience, everyone else needs to be taken down a peg. MMR will already account for people who are "too good" because of any added communication or whatever.
Is it a capital offense if I ask try try Khara as a DPS spec in QM? I only want to know since I don't want to be dead weight if it's not any good.
Kind of? Cause of the way matchmaking works, there's a decent chance you are denying your team it's only real support vs their team which will have one.
Defintely doable if you get a 2 support game though and Khara can still do an ok job as healer as a DPS spec.
Yeah, it's official. Solo/Duo queue only, now. Paste in spoilers for those that can't access the site for whatever reason:
We made a few big changes to Ranked play with our latest Heroes of the Storm patch and, in the days that followed, saw quite a bit of discussion around the new maximum party size rule for Hero League. After reading through player feedback, we examined internal data in order to determine how additional party size limits might affect Ranked play, and have decided to further restrict Hero League to players who queue alone, or in parties of two.
When we look at the data for parties of three and four players in Hero League, we often see large skill gaps among party members. This is fine for players in a party of four, for example, who have agreed to queue together despite any differences in skill that may exist. However, the matchmaker needs to complete the team by pulling in a fifth player who queued up alone, and did not necessarily want to play with teammates of varying skill levels.
This can also create situations in which party members will discuss strategy with each other, but don’t end up communicating the game plan to their fifth teammate. On the other end of the spectrum, solo players may disagree with the party’s decisions, or show unwillingness to help the team. This can result in a friction for both sides if communication doesn’t improve.
What’s more, parties of three and four players appear in Hero League queues far less often than solo players and parties of two. As such we feel that large parties represent a small enough portion of Ranked games that we’re comfortable removing them from Hero League in order to improve overall match quality.
This change to restrict Hero League to solo and duo queuing players will arrive with our next game update. As always, we’re going to monitor how the new rule affects the Hero League experience, and will make further adjustments as necessary. Play a few Hero League games once the change has gone live, and let us know what you think in the official Heroes forums. Until next time, we’ll see you in the Nexus!
Not sure how I feel about this. Hmm.
This is terrible. Every attempt to queue with as close to the max team size as possible should be encouraged and lauded. MOBAs are a team game. You should not be punished because you have friends, which is exactly what this is.
I hate people who think just because they want to have the "perfect" solo queue experience, everyone else needs to be taken down a peg. MMR will already account for people who are "too good" because of any added communication or whatever.
Whatever problems you think are involved in a 4 stack are there in a 3 stack. Sooooo those reasons.
A four stack can only get matched with a solo. Not so for a three stack.
I'm aware of math, yes.
They cited a big concern being that solo players were not able to play with their team when it was a four stack because the communication was between the others and not them. I don't see the same thing applying to three stacks. It's also one less player to create the "skill gap" issue.
So no I do not think they are the same problems, which is what I was implying with my post about math.
The same problems still exist regardless if it's a three or four stack, they might be lesser but the problems are still there. The skill gap issue is still an issue. Hell, it's still an issue with two-but that's probably where they see a steep drop off and it's an allowable limit.
That and they sort of "have to" allow you to queue with at least one other person due to the friend XP bonus.
Fake edit: Well, I guess if they didn't allow queuing with anyone they could just increase the XP provided by HL by 50% to compensate, but meh. I think HL participation would go way down if you could only solo queue.
This is terrible. Every attempt to queue with as close to the max team size as possible should be encouraged and lauded. MOBAs are a team game. You should not be punished because you have friends, which is exactly what this is.
It's a balancing act. HL is ranked, and as such it's not fair to stack the deck against people who don't have friends available to play. It should be every bit as possible to succeed as a solo as it is if you've got talented friends.
Which is another point - if you allow grouped HL then people can easily succeed beyond their natural rank by relying on the skill of their friends.
One thing it might be neat for them to do is to let you keep a team you played with in HL and continue to HL with them for as long as you're all willing to.
This is terrible. Every attempt to queue with as close to the max team size as possible should be encouraged and lauded. MOBAs are a team game. You should not be punished because you have friends, which is exactly what this is.
It's a balancing act. HL is ranked, and as such it's not fair to stack the deck against people who don't have friends available to play. It should be every bit as possible to succeed as a solo as it is if you've got talented friends.
Which is another point - if you allow grouped HL then people can easily succeed beyond their natural rank by relying on the skill of their friends.
One thing it might be neat for them to do is to let you keep a team you played with in HL and continue to HL with them for as long as you're all willing to.
It is entirely fair, for several reasons:
a. Anyone can do it. It doesn't need to be RL friends, I generally play MOBAs with more PAers than RL friends. It makes no sense to say that communication is part of one's skill, but only in the context of between draft and score screen, whereas any planning, coordinating, being friendly, etc. outside that ought to be useless. That's a very overly specific goal to want, and probably not super useful. Also, relevantly, everyone realizes it is garbage for serious play, hence why no (or very few, I'm sure a counter example exists somewhere in the world) tournaments work on the "Pick 160 good players, sort them into teams randomly, and the winning 5 people who have never met before are the world champions!"
b. Kinda with the above, "individual skill" is a bad metric in 5v5 games. Given a very, very large number of games, someone will eventually play so many games that all factors other than their own skill balance out, but that only applies in the long run, and the vast majority of every games' results are out of the hands of any single player, as it should be, particularly as HOTS has no hypercarries. It's not even a coherent goal to say "only my skill should matter to my rank!"
c. Also, any matchmaking and rank system that isn't perfect is often so flawed it doesn't mean anything. A good example is the recent rank reset without MMR reset, which means that some players have to be able to consistently win against top 1% players to gain ranks, and others merely have to have a pulse. Also, "learning" systems generally brutally punish an early string of bad luck in qualifier rounds, ranks aren't tied directly to a MMR range, etc, etc. The entire rank is artificial and unfair in the first place.
The only reason why ranks even exist here is because a while back Blizzard decided to adopt the philosophy of "people love to fill bars" which is a philosophy popularized by Call of Duty.
And because people love filling bars, we have a meaningless rank system.
It's funny, because a lot of the pro team players spend so much time in custom games that much of the top talent in the world actually has really terrible rank and MMR, because those things are not adjusted in custom games.
a. 'Anyone' needs to first find people to do it with. Yes, joining a community is probably not too hard. I haven't tried outside PA so I don't know. The communication that's possible (voice communication) is not realistically possible with randoms and is a huge boon. The trust in each other, the leadership gained from a group, etc. It's all very useful and relevant.
b. Do you have an alternative? Just have an unranked mode? I mean, I understand the criticism but is there a different solution? I think there could be one if they mined the match data for more detail than just wins and losses, but I don't expect this to happen.
c. I had a bad string of luck with just horrible teams in my early HL and according to hotslogs I lost hundreds of points to my MMR that I'm still recovering from and will continue to recover from for another month or two. I agree it's stupid that if I were to create another account and play HL I'd probably advance much, much faster. I think that is a sign of a broken ranking system. But it's what we've got and I don't see it going anywhere.
One of their big points was that it was difficult to find an appropriate match with a team of 4 because player rank/mmr tended to vary wildly once they got to groups that large. So do you match them with a group of randoms with similar ranks? Maybe a group of randoms with slightly higher ranks to adjust for the team bonus? I dunno. Maybe that would have been a good solution. But to some people rank matters and it's not fair to them to put them up against or pair them with inappropriate groups.
Let's at least see how life is under the new system and find out if it gives us better matches.
It's funny, because a lot of the pro team players spend so much time in custom games that much of the top talent in the world actually has really terrible rank and MMR, because those things are not adjusted in custom games.
Heh something like this happened to me in iRacing. I raced exclusively with leagues (custom races) for years and so my iracing rating was still quite amateur. Then I wanted to join an endurance league that required a certain rating so I had to do a bunch of open races to get it up.
Tournaments are the equivalent of team league, so I don't see the relation to HL. If you want to practice for a tournament you should be playing custom games or TL.
one of the things about HL is that it is a game mode without mirrors which means avoiding the common QM scenario full of novas and zeras
I guess unranked draft mode is a solution but I'm not sure the game is big enough yet for another mode
+2
Options
FiggyFighter of the night manChampion of the sunRegistered Userregular
That is so, so dumb. So no ranked if you're a 3 or 4-man group. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb.
This is going to blow up in their faces. I wouldn't be surprised if they backpedaled after seeing the response.
Basically, our matchmaking is complete and utter shit, so we're restricting how many people you can play with so that our matchmaking will hopefully skew better.
Have they forgotten there are other (far more popular and older) MOBAs out right now that do not restrict their players this way? Exodus.
That is so, so dumb. So no ranked if you're a 3 or 4-man group. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb.
This is going to blow up in their faces. I wouldn't be surprised if they backpedaled after seeing the response.
Basically, our matchmaking is complete and utter shit, so we're restricting how many people you can play with so that our matchmaking will hopefully skew better.
Have they forgotten there are other (far more popular and older) MOBAs out right now that do not restrict their players this way? Exodus.
Like I said, it works fine for Riot, so there's something to it.
Edit: It's also strange that you argue bad matchmaking is a reason to not get rid of something that contributes to bad matchmaking.
That is so, so dumb. So no ranked if you're a 3 or 4-man group. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb.
This is going to blow up in their faces. I wouldn't be surprised if they backpedaled after seeing the response.
Basically, our matchmaking is complete and utter shit, so we're restricting how many people you can play with so that our matchmaking will hopefully skew better.
Have they forgotten there are other (far more popular and older) MOBAs out right now that do not restrict their players this way? Exodus.
I thought someone was saying LoL already did this? I dunno, though.
That is so, so dumb. So no ranked if you're a 3 or 4-man group. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb.
This is going to blow up in their faces. I wouldn't be surprised if they backpedaled after seeing the response.
Basically, our matchmaking is complete and utter shit, so we're restricting how many people you can play with so that our matchmaking will hopefully skew better.
Have they forgotten there are other (far more popular and older) MOBAs out right now that do not restrict their players this way? Exodus.
Like I said, it works fine for Riot, so there's something to it.
Edit: It's also strange that you argue bad matchmaking is a reason to not get rid of something that contributes to bad matchmaking.
No, that they're giving up on fixing bad matchmaking by removing what needs to be fixed.
Like getting rid of your roof because it keeps leaking.
Are people not working together in certain team comps? Maybe the problem lies in game mechanics, maybe it's the way communication works, or a wide range of other things they could address. Instead of simply removing the feature for certain players.
I can't speak to LOL and how it works there, but HOTS is a more casual MOBA, and I don't think removing the ability to play casually in the only draft-based mode is the answer.
That is so, so dumb. So no ranked if you're a 3 or 4-man group. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb.
This is going to blow up in their faces. I wouldn't be surprised if they backpedaled after seeing the response.
Basically, our matchmaking is complete and utter shit, so we're restricting how many people you can play with so that our matchmaking will hopefully skew better.
Have they forgotten there are other (far more popular and older) MOBAs out right now that do not restrict their players this way? Exodus.
I have trouble even imagining how you would make a good match with a team of 4 with a large variance in ratings. What rating are you looking for in that 5th person? And you need to match them against another group of 3-4, but again what rating are you looking for? Is a team of 5 people all with 2000 ratings a fair match against a team with 2 people at 3000, 2 people at 1000, and 1 guy at 2000 (both average to 2000)? Really, I don't think you can do good matchmaking with a team of 2 if those two people have very different ratings.
I often queue with a friend who's got a much lower rating then me, and the matches we get are pretty crazy. It's a weird group of people at his rating, people at my rating and random extras in between.
Are people not working together in certain team comps? Maybe the problem lies in game mechanics, maybe it's the way communication works, or a wide range of other things they could address. Instead of simply removing the feature for certain players.
Part of the problem was that people made teams with their friends that it was very hard to match against because friends don't always make groups based on their MMR.
Posts
"Four is the new Five."
Basically, if you wanted to dominate HL without going into TL, you queued with 4 for best results. Back before the patch, queuing with 5 was obviously the best. But now that 5's have been segregated off, that made 4 the default "best choice." And hence the "Four is the new Five" mentality.
This fixes that.
But it also breaks playing with friends in anything other than QM. Let's say me and two buddies want to try to raise our rank together. Now we cannot do that. Which sucks.
I guess this is why they preemptively said "three is the new four" and took it out too. Cause it was inevitable.
The same problems still exist regardless if it's a three or four stack, they might be lesser but the problems are still there. The skill gap issue is still an issue. Hell, it's still an issue with two-but that's probably where they see a steep drop off and it's an allowable limit.
Well, Malf specced into Moonfire can reasonably do that anyway while maintaining strong heals.
what are some zagara builds? I tried banelings but it was kind of boring. the long cast time kills it
This is pretty generally friendly, just remember ABC, always be creeping
[embed=/hots/talent-calculator/zagara#oAkK]
EDIT: http://www.heroesfire.com/hots/talent-calculator/zagara#oAkK
Battle.net: morgancoke#1589
Titan's Creed: Jump first, don't ask questions, punch everything
ABC is important, as stated above. The build morgan_coke posted is almost the one I use, only I sometimes take grooved spines instead.
Mutalisk is a great fuck you to stealthies though
/join heroes of the wang
Battle.net: morgancoke#1589
Titan's Creed: Jump first, don't ask questions, punch everything
That would follow. League does that too already.
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
That seems to be one of the issues with large stacks in HL from the blog.
The other major deviation you'll see from what was posted is that some take endless at 7 instead. It adds a huge amount of creep per tumor which makes it easier to move around to either reposition or flee.
Grooved Spines vs. mutalisk has some considerations that aren't spelled out in the tooltip. Well, grooved spines is straight forward due to just being numbers but mutalisks both can chase over terrain that blocks hydralisks and lasts longer if not killed.
Steam Profile
3DS: 3454-0268-5595 Battle.net: SteelAngel#1772
A mutalisk harassed the enemy Zeratul and kept him from cloaking so I could swoop in and kill him last night. ++
Switch: 6589-6405-3399
but it is so good
I wouldn't go so far as to say there's only one build for her. A number of professional players favor corpse feeders or demolitionist at 1 and endless creep or battle momentum at 7. A coordinated team can provide better protection to go more for pushing talents. The build morgan coke posted is more of the standard solo Q build where being able to sustain yourself is big.
There isn't much deviation post 7 though. Maw, expansion, and bolt are all standard and even the mutalist/grooved spines choice is still about boosting one skill.
Steam Profile
3DS: 3454-0268-5595 Battle.net: SteelAngel#1772
This is terrible. Every attempt to queue with as close to the max team size as possible should be encouraged and lauded. MOBAs are a team game. You should not be punished because you have friends, which is exactly what this is.
I hate people who think just because they want to have the "perfect" solo queue experience, everyone else needs to be taken down a peg. MMR will already account for people who are "too good" because of any added communication or whatever.
Kind of? Cause of the way matchmaking works, there's a decent chance you are denying your team it's only real support vs their team which will have one.
Defintely doable if you get a 2 support game though and Khara can still do an ok job as healer as a DPS spec.
But like, do it if you wanna cause it's fun.
naw dog try it out!
If it's such a team game, play Team League.
It's in the name, man.
Fake edit: Well, I guess if they didn't allow queuing with anyone they could just increase the XP provided by HL by 50% to compensate, but meh. I think HL participation would go way down if you could only solo queue.
It's a balancing act. HL is ranked, and as such it's not fair to stack the deck against people who don't have friends available to play. It should be every bit as possible to succeed as a solo as it is if you've got talented friends.
Which is another point - if you allow grouped HL then people can easily succeed beyond their natural rank by relying on the skill of their friends.
One thing it might be neat for them to do is to let you keep a team you played with in HL and continue to HL with them for as long as you're all willing to.
Switch: 6589-6405-3399
It is entirely fair, for several reasons:
a. Anyone can do it. It doesn't need to be RL friends, I generally play MOBAs with more PAers than RL friends. It makes no sense to say that communication is part of one's skill, but only in the context of between draft and score screen, whereas any planning, coordinating, being friendly, etc. outside that ought to be useless. That's a very overly specific goal to want, and probably not super useful. Also, relevantly, everyone realizes it is garbage for serious play, hence why no (or very few, I'm sure a counter example exists somewhere in the world) tournaments work on the "Pick 160 good players, sort them into teams randomly, and the winning 5 people who have never met before are the world champions!"
b. Kinda with the above, "individual skill" is a bad metric in 5v5 games. Given a very, very large number of games, someone will eventually play so many games that all factors other than their own skill balance out, but that only applies in the long run, and the vast majority of every games' results are out of the hands of any single player, as it should be, particularly as HOTS has no hypercarries. It's not even a coherent goal to say "only my skill should matter to my rank!"
c. Also, any matchmaking and rank system that isn't perfect is often so flawed it doesn't mean anything. A good example is the recent rank reset without MMR reset, which means that some players have to be able to consistently win against top 1% players to gain ranks, and others merely have to have a pulse. Also, "learning" systems generally brutally punish an early string of bad luck in qualifier rounds, ranks aren't tied directly to a MMR range, etc, etc. The entire rank is artificial and unfair in the first place.
And because people love filling bars, we have a meaningless rank system.
It's funny, because a lot of the pro team players spend so much time in custom games that much of the top talent in the world actually has really terrible rank and MMR, because those things are not adjusted in custom games.
b. Do you have an alternative? Just have an unranked mode? I mean, I understand the criticism but is there a different solution? I think there could be one if they mined the match data for more detail than just wins and losses, but I don't expect this to happen.
c. I had a bad string of luck with just horrible teams in my early HL and according to hotslogs I lost hundreds of points to my MMR that I'm still recovering from and will continue to recover from for another month or two. I agree it's stupid that if I were to create another account and play HL I'd probably advance much, much faster. I think that is a sign of a broken ranking system. But it's what we've got and I don't see it going anywhere.
One of their big points was that it was difficult to find an appropriate match with a team of 4 because player rank/mmr tended to vary wildly once they got to groups that large. So do you match them with a group of randoms with similar ranks? Maybe a group of randoms with slightly higher ranks to adjust for the team bonus? I dunno. Maybe that would have been a good solution. But to some people rank matters and it's not fair to them to put them up against or pair them with inappropriate groups.
Let's at least see how life is under the new system and find out if it gives us better matches.
Switch: 6589-6405-3399
Heh something like this happened to me in iRacing. I raced exclusively with leagues (custom races) for years and so my iracing rating was still quite amateur. Then I wanted to join an endurance league that required a certain rating so I had to do a bunch of open races to get it up.
Tournaments are the equivalent of team league, so I don't see the relation to HL. If you want to practice for a tournament you should be playing custom games or TL.
Switch: 6589-6405-3399
I guess unranked draft mode is a solution but I'm not sure the game is big enough yet for another mode
This is going to blow up in their faces. I wouldn't be surprised if they backpedaled after seeing the response.
Basically, our matchmaking is complete and utter shit, so we're restricting how many people you can play with so that our matchmaking will hopefully skew better.
Have they forgotten there are other (far more popular and older) MOBAs out right now that do not restrict their players this way? Exodus.
http://us.battle.net/heroes/en/forum/topic/18706415574
Get your treasure goblin kills on before then!
Like I said, it works fine for Riot, so there's something to it.
Edit: It's also strange that you argue bad matchmaking is a reason to not get rid of something that contributes to bad matchmaking.
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
I thought someone was saying LoL already did this? I dunno, though.
I know doto doesn't.
XBL: InvaderJims
Bnet: Pudgestomp#11153
No, that they're giving up on fixing bad matchmaking by removing what needs to be fixed.
Like getting rid of your roof because it keeps leaking.
Are people not working together in certain team comps? Maybe the problem lies in game mechanics, maybe it's the way communication works, or a wide range of other things they could address. Instead of simply removing the feature for certain players.
I can't speak to LOL and how it works there, but HOTS is a more casual MOBA, and I don't think removing the ability to play casually in the only draft-based mode is the answer.
I have trouble even imagining how you would make a good match with a team of 4 with a large variance in ratings. What rating are you looking for in that 5th person? And you need to match them against another group of 3-4, but again what rating are you looking for? Is a team of 5 people all with 2000 ratings a fair match against a team with 2 people at 3000, 2 people at 1000, and 1 guy at 2000 (both average to 2000)? Really, I don't think you can do good matchmaking with a team of 2 if those two people have very different ratings.
I often queue with a friend who's got a much lower rating then me, and the matches we get are pretty crazy. It's a weird group of people at his rating, people at my rating and random extras in between.
Part of the problem was that people made teams with their friends that it was very hard to match against because friends don't always make groups based on their MMR.
Switch: 6589-6405-3399