Rank hard stuck at Initiate 1?

[hatsunearu]

You can also see a massive mean shift where at the long term average, ritualist was the center of the distribution, and now high alchemist appears to be the center of the distribution.

The high Initiate 1 match count seems indicative of the distribution being truncated (i.e. the ELO actually extends below I1, but they're all shown as I1). Perhaps internally the MM is working on the hidden score rather than the displayed I1. I'm also in I1, and the variance of player skill in I1 appears to be immense. Sometimes you get absolutely incredible teammates that are great at laning and sustaining SPM throughout the entire match, and then you also have people that needs to be taught what denies are.

Not sure what's going on, but I1 matches are truly just a crapshoot. I feel like it really doesn't matter what I do to influence the outcome of the game, so I just try my best and see what happens.

 

[jporter917]

Way back when the merged causal and rank, removed the time and match limit, etc. They had a decent setup, then and I can't remember when or why they made a major change to how ranks were calculated to some sort of 'named' style/system and ever since then ranks and matches have been going down hill and each patch it seems to get worse.

Best possible option here is to completely reset every players ranks, require 3-5 placement matches and start over with ranks. Also, cut them down from 6 levels per to 5 and from 11 to like 8 or something. DOTA's 40 seems reasonable enough, not 66.

*EDIT* - Went back and looked and couldn't find the patch notes. I swear they exist. But 11-21-24 was the merger of causal and rank. Before then rank matches felt good in my experience, but since that patch and every patch afterwards it has gotten worse and worse. TBH, for new players (myself included) if I was invited to play right now. Once, I got the first match stomp (within first 2-4 games) I probably uninstall and not play again.

Again, my experience. But when Overwatch came out (different game I know) I played with some friends who loved it. First game I was thrown into higher lobbies because of them. Went solo, but for some reason still got high lobbies. (Who knows why -was years ago - it is all fuzzy anyways - maybe I just sucked?) I uninstalled and didn't play again until a year before OT2 was launched and I loved the game then and was decent. Not great by any stretch, but I wasn't low rank - midish I think.

They need to do something now for deadlock either way. unfortunately the gaming community is not very forgiving anymore and this is the type of stuff that all it takes is 1 or 2 fairly popular "streamers" and a loud enough "squeaky wheels" to ruin the rep. (Now, it is valve. They are going to plaster this all over the main steam page for months and everyone major update too. But you all understand what I am saying.)

This is only a chance for MOBA shooters to be down right, but a chance for them to cross platform and to bring in a whole new MOBA type of community not just the 'overly' 'tryhard/toxic' cult. Sure they will be there too and probably in force. But this could really help MOBAs become more than a niche gaming type. And it won't be like OT1/2 or Rivals.... *ick*

 

[hatsunearu]

This phenomena is likely because of the recent influx of new and old players from the recent hero patches.
The suspicion is that old players' ranks have decayed to I1 (which, from a strict mathematical perspective, is NOT a good idea), hence I1 has a bunch of people that clearly aren't I1 that the MM thinks is I1, and this obviously causes major issues. This essentially degenerates the I1 MM because the average skill of I1 is actually quite good, but the variance is extremely high, so every match ends up being a crapshoot on who wins--it's mostly down to how many good players got picked in which team.

 

[jporter917]

This phenomena is likely because of the recent influx of new and old players from the recent hero patches.
The suspicion is that old players' ranks have decayed to I1 (which, from a strict mathematical perspective, is NOT a good idea), hence I1 has a bunch of people that clearly aren't I1 that the MM thinks is I1, and this obviously causes major issues. This essentially degenerates the I1 MM because the average skill of I1 is actually quite good, but the variance is extremely high, so every match ends up being a crapshoot on who wins--it's mostly down to how many good players got picked in which team.

That is probably the major of the issue. Maybe rank decayed needs to be changed to only 2 ranks over time without playing or simply removed and just use placement matches after XX time not playing.

 

[sherry.gfyy]

I believe my issue is similar. I have 154 matches and really shouldn't be initate 1, i'm not amazing by any standard yet having the rank never change once despite being around the same level as mid seeker friends. I've been using statlocker for the last 70 games to even have a rough idea of what my rank is around. i assume its a visual bug as i have been put in lanes agianst high elo players. (had a Emissary laning opponet once but that an unrelated problem)

 

[#1 Cool Veno Appreciator]

Rank Decay + Whatever is going on with rank changes is genuinely making this game miserable for most players.

You're stuck against people that are better than you, or worse than you, with most of a given rank being people who just aren't "allowed" to move up or wash out.

Allowing people to opt into a rank reset plus calibration period (no party queues, matches are weighted heavily for purposes of rank determination, etc) would probably do the game a lot more good than hurt.

 

[moldyharriet]

Rank Decay + Whatever is going on with rank changes is genuinely making this game miserable for most players.

You're stuck against people that are better than you, or worse than you, with most of a given rank being people who just aren't "allowed" to move up or wash out.

Allowing people to opt into a rank reset plus calibration period (no party queues, matches are weighted heavily for purposes of rank determination, etc) would probably do the game a lot more good than hurt.

this, but it needs to be locked to only players below like.. Oracle or Phantom or something. because with how terrible the rank system is right now, I feel like that could totally be abused.

alternatively, make it a one-time use option. everyone gets ONE rank recalibration to use or not to use, up to them. But the initiate 1 epidemic has to be stopped, lol.

ETA: abused as in, folks who are very high-rated could simply use the recalibration, throw for 10 matches, and then pubstomp for however long it takes to reach their original rank.

 

[gravitationification]

Bumping because all these replies are ridiculous. No one is talking about your 66% win rate at mid mmr. We are literally bugged and forced to play at initiate 1. I play in groups and solo and win basically every game and am still stuck at initiate 1 even though all my friends are ranking up.

 

[hatsunearu]

From what I can tell, just because you're I1 doesn't mean everyone is all the same. I climbed out of I1, but here's what I saw:
- the MMR score is likely much more granular than I1/I2/etc. you're still getting matched with the "right" people, even though it all says I1. i.e. not all I1 is the same.
- There's not a lot of people in the low ranks, so very often you do get a match with people significantly worse/better than you. It's time to call it for the night if your MM takes more than 1 minute to find a match.
- I1 is pretty easy to climb out of if you watch some youtube videos on what to work on. simply farming correctly and not dying to pointless teamfights will get you fed and sweep mid-late game. also watch some movement tech videos. play heroes that are good on their own. the game "clicked" for me and I had a 10 win streak and climbed right out.
- there's a bunch of people that seem like smurfs in I1, possibly because they just got into it, or got back into the game after a while so the game doesn't know their skill level.

 

[ExistingExpert]

This issue is getting worse. Emissaries are top 12.5% of players now.

Compared to data from the month preceding september 3rd:

And all time data where emissaries are top 36.1% of players (which is also pretty skewed due to the initiate spike, but it gives us an idea of how things used to be):