Yesterday i had a nice 3 games where i hard stomped all three as support, promoted to archon. today i woke up, decided to watch a dota video to get myself in the dota mindset, and i saw this video, logged into dota, lost 3 games in a horrific and drawn out manner and am now coming back to watch this video. Truly a great case of foreshadowing.
Dota is designed in a way you win few lose few and stays in the same MMR forever trying to get 1 rank up in like years and then after a reset you go back down 1 level I was legend 3 for crusader 4 climbed back now archon 3
@@unknownplayer95If this were actually true, why do the better players end up in sub 1000 immortal, not just once but on multiple accounts? Are just these people immune to this overall design?
Helping people is the main goal of the channel! Especially with my limited time to play, I don't think I can aim for high MMR's right now anyhow, so it works out that I can help others
I totally agree with the effect of playing below your actual capability due to fatigue. The problem is, as this a video game, it is sometimes difficult to discern or even realize that you are actually too tired to play, because at the core of it, we all play video games to relax. Therefore, perhaps more than any other form of sports, it is much harder to identify when you have fallen off your peak performance cliff as opposed to your more typical physical sports where your body will let you know very quickly. Obviously, if you only slept 2hours then should probably shouldn't be playing ranked, as your physical and mental fatigue would be impossible to ignore. But many people, myself included, hop online for some ranked games straight after work. Not feeling physically tired, but perhaps oblivious to how much mental HP we still have in the tank. And this is where the grey area is, because some nights you stomp every game, whilst other nights you wonder why you even bother playing anymore.
True, I should have gone into more ideas on that. For example, if my eyes ever un-focus in a game, that means I'm too tired to be playing my best. I guess it's a very personal thing anyways for people to understand about themselves, but definitely worth thinking about so that we can identify it because like you said, it's not always obvious where we are at
@@ZQuixotix yeah that's one tell. Another would tell would probably be reaction time but the margin on that are so small. I suppose if you notice yourself constantly missing last hits, or not reacting fast enough with spells them its probably an indication of fatigue as well.
Thanks Zach, as someone who has also recently dropped a fair bit of mmr - from Crusader to Herald - this was a good watch (mainly due to playing a lot of party queue). It's been a slow grind back up due partly to my playing a lot less these days with more going on IRL and I've realised I am OK with that. I'll try hard and if I climb back, I climb back. If not, you know what, no worries at all. Thanks also for your session with Grubby today, it was a lot of fun and I learned a lot (I main pos 3 and 5). It also reminded me to come check out your channel again after a hiatus (one of your early coaching videos on support play is still something I use as a template whenever I play pos 5). Good luck in your climb!
I want to get that feeling back where even when I lost the game, I don't care about that -30MMR, I look back at the mistakes I made, and I still feel excited to que up straight away.
Man it feels like you made this video just for me. You correctly identified so many weird parts of my thought process during my latest slide. It was also very soothing to hear that +/- ten games is within bounds of normal MMR variance.
Thanks Zach, just dropped from 5.1K to 4.4K in 1 month due to doubledown and obsession of getting back what i've lost. This is a true reminder of what should have been. Dota is a game to have fun with.
I just wanna say, you have a wonderful way with words and do a great job at explaining things! Much love!❤ thanks for the all the help since I started playing a couple weeks ago
Besides what you mentioned, take into account the "dark pools", which can either be the "smurf", the "pre-low/toxicity", or the "wrong pick" ones. I've noticed that losing streaks come after a difficult game where it was likely that someone reported you (for one of those 3 reasons), or by the contrary, you had a very long winning streak (in which case the algo believes you are a smurf). And you will notice you are in a pool because you will start to get either the same types of players in a game, or even the same players one game after another. And it all comes in streks of the same type of actions taken by those players: a)you get griefing players constantly, b) you get people with completely random picks for their pos, c) you get paired with people that are either way above or way below the skill bracket. Usually it takes around 5-10 games to get out of there and start getting the regular randoms as before, but if during those 5-10 games you lose your shit, you are for a dark long ride :). It also helps to have a 1-2 week pause from the game to get out of there, seems that it lasts for a specific time aside the number of games. The last time I had one it was very obvious: suddenly every single match I had (literally 6 straight games) at least 1 player in my team was randomly griefing for no apparent reason since the beginning of the game; and as a pos5 winning a gainst a team of 6-7 players was impossible. I just stopped playing for 2 weeks, and when I came back everything was back to normal and I resumed my previous winstreak :P. Ps. I got familiar with the "smurf pool" from a friend that earns a life boosting accounts (I always report his accounts btw, hate what he does) and that he had to let accounts "rest" for a couple of months to play them again because he just felt that something was very odd with the teammates he was matched with after a long winning streak.
It's so accurate. I see this in my games too. After a win streak, I can definitely see how the algorithm thinks I'm a Smurf. I can clearly see the gameplay level between my team mates and the opponents. If you were to compare position by position, they'd all beat my team by far. The problem is that I'm a casual player, and after realizing this is happening, I tilt and the next games are just shit. It also takes a day or two after you start losing to get back to normal. Btw, I have also realized when I have behavior score as 10, the gameplay of my team mates is actually worse. So it's better to have some 9.9~ behavior score.
@@josecarlosribeiro2383 this is true. Some get reported for stating facts that one player is obviously playing bad and needs to improve. 10k behavior scores are usually mute all and play on their own terms and usually they drag teammates down by not communicating
@@josecarlosribeiro2383absolutely! 10k BS is the worst place. Its mostly smurfs boosting accounts with everyone on mute to avoid being reported, tryhards that tilt for the stupidiest of the reasons, new accounts, and account buyers that just got their mmr from the smurfs xd. 9.8-9.9 is the sweet-spot with people actually wanting to improve. The worst games are always with 10k BS at the X900-Y100 mmr range. Most of my losing streaks start in some game on those ranges. And they definitely fine tune it to keep us playing the most amount of hours and buying those shiny hats. Its a lot easier to resist tilting in bad streaks knowing that you just got Valve'd by the matchmaking algo. One has to either mute everyone and hope the hit doesnt last a lot of games, or just take a break.
Well, man. I am so glad to find your videos. I wish i encountered them 8 years ago when i was starting play dota 2 with highschool friends. Keep up great work!
Great video! This stuff has been on my mind recently, I've been asking myself how much dota I want to be playing and I think its probably best if I take a decent break and come back to it when I have more time. I've been super busy with IRL stuff, and I want to use the free time I do have to relax, which dota isn't really doing for me right now. i love dota and your content has really deepened my love of it, but if I'm not in a spot where I can climb I think it might be best just to avoid dumping my MMR and making myself feel worse with the little time I do have.
Im a Single Draft guy only. I've played around 2k hours and i have THREE ranked games under my belt. Crazy eh? I just love to play casually and try different heroes and roles, i never get tired of it.
I honestly realised I don't care about MMR, I want to play the best with the best vs the best. I've seen BSJ games and Purge games in immortal, both still routinely gets the most idiotic allies. Why would I stress about grinding out MMR if that's what's waiting for me? No thanks! What I'd really like is to form a regular team or teams, but that's hard.
Used to grind in ancient for years and worked my way up to divine 1. Barely stayed there. Stopped playing for 2 years, and got back during pandemic. Shocked that I calibrated archon. Now, I really have a hard time working my way up to legend. Maybe it's just me or just I have lesser time playing. Doesn't enjoy playing solo now and just play with friends who are in legend
Considering that mmr doesn't go below 0. 300 variance around 1-2k mmr is quite a larger deal. MM search players from the same range. So you can get really awful players, and it makes matches just a pain to be in. It's really hard on the mental when each and every game is played with people who know nothing about the game. I have enough of myself to worry about without having to coach an entire team.
Yesterday i lost 5 games and can clarify that the system want u to be in 50% winrate ,it is obvious when u play and team is good and u ezy win ,its also obvious when enemy is weak and u can do solo kills without spawning their full team ready to destroy u. But after some wins "the game" gives u 1-7 phoenyx , 0-22 mirana that will lose lanes they are attached to. At the same time enemy tank u under tower beggining with their 2 lvl ,come bh with orchid and boots ,fat pudge and u are fked. At this very moment enemy could have Luna that farmed 30+ min forest while u cant be farming because some major fights taking place always and ignoring them will leave u potential frags. Anyway sometimes u will lose up to 10 games and even praying wont help u
Found a way to game the system, after win streak, the moment you get a lose streak, stop playing the game for 7 days. The game wil then match you back to then normal pool.
I was 4k (Ancient 2-3) 2 years ago when I actually stopped playing game after going back to Archon 1. 2 years after that I decided to start playing again because I bought new ultrawide monitor and I was curious how game looks on that resolution etc. and I got addicted again. I'm playing from 2015 and I calibrated back then at 700 mmr (as I remember correctly, that was Guardian 2) and my only wish was to be at least 2k...just at least average player.... After I reached 2k I started playing more seriously and tried to understand some new aspects of the game that I didn't utilize earlier. Now, after 2 years of break, I'm better player than I was before. I understand everything a lot more without hardtrying (probably because I'm older and smarter - 25y) but I lost few games and I dropped to Crusader 5 (2100 MMR). Two weeks after that I'm sitting at 3000 MMR Archon 5 70% and I needed just 2 more wins for Legend 1. Then loss streak came. I'm currently 6 matches in deficit and I'm playing with worst kind of people out there. Impossible picks, very low skilled teammates that finish game with 200lh in 40mins and get stomped within 7 minutes counting losing a tower, bad behaviour etc... I'm so frustrated even tho 6 losses is not much at all but even before that it was like Win-Loss-Loss-Win-Win-Loss-Win-Loss. Because I'm mad I get also stomped by enemy so after this video and other similar to this one I will chill a little bit. Play 2-3 games per day till this nightmare goes off and spend more time in gym, reading books, watching some series or anime and putting more effort in some projects...
I've been enjoying game the game a lot more lately by not caring as much about mmr. When you think about it, mmr doesn't mean anything really. Even if you get to like 7 or 8 k mmr. Most of us probably won't make any money in competitive dota. We choose value of our mmr and it weighs heavy sometimes by making it that personal.
If valve see u have good skill and ur stomping the game they will pair u to noob players always happend to me After I got rampages good games Win streak. The following day is the red days. It's true they doing 50,%winrate so sad.
@ZQuixotix Valve should after every calibration give mmr close to the peak rank? We do deserve it as we had reached it? It can be applied till divine 5 level at least?
Great content! 5k player here. Here is my two cents on how to improve in the game. The current ranked games you are in have a similar skill level to you, MMR is designed so that you win 50% of the games. In those games where you win, you will draw conclusions (biased and only applies to a certain MMR) as to what helped you win the game. I common example of this would be a 2k player patting themselves on their back for winning the game because they picked up first aegis at minute 30 and luckily win every fight as Huskar until victory. In divine/immortal ranks, the timing for first rosh should be 15 minutes and the rosh would be used to either farm more items and take objectives. The way I see Dota is that your team won because your team screwed up less than the other team. I would seek some external advice (watching replays, or get more rest/exercise or take a break) and you can bring something additional to the table in your next ranked game. I can compare MMR to a real life situation of mine where I grew up in a disadvantaged neighbourhood where many of them did not know better and they can drag you down as well. Dota can be a very toxic game with a bunch of players at the same skill level and all with a set way of thinking of what items to build and where to play on the map etc.
Great vid and thanks, but in reality, Dota 2's system is meant for you to lose by matchmaking and purposely making you lose so that you stay at 50% winrate. That's the harsh reality of Valve's matchmaking system. Specially when you play solo ranked, there's no future for you even if you play 10 hrs a day. The only way for you to win more is to have a fixed 5 man party but you'll be paired to enemy smurfs, making your winrate lesser too. So all in all, Dota's a dying game where they want you to spend more of your time playing and also consistently make you feel bad and lose.
Hey ZQuixotix, I recently found your channel and I'm liking it. I'm currently at Crusader 1 (1.6k) and I believe I'm better than my rank is. How do I know? Well, if I play carry/offlane role on my comfort pick, I could quite consistently get around 50 CS at 10 minutes while people at my rank normally only get 30-40. I love Dota but I don't really have time to play due to work. I really want to get better, but I have this rank/ladder anxiety that kept me from playing ranked for more than a year now. Do you have any tips for me? Thanks in advance.
I got that too. Then I let my rank at what is it (Crusader 2 when I was Archon in the past semester) Right now I restarted the All Hero Challenge, and also playing with 5-people stacks, with people both calm and fun. I know focus more on having pleasant games than tryharding ones. Also, with all cheaters, like smurf, boosted, griefing accounts, we really shouldn't focus on what Valve call its "Competitive rank" The only real competition are tournaments, with 5-premade stack, never forget that.
If you can’t climb, it’s because of you, not anyone else. Just because one aspect of your gameplay is better than your rank average, doesn’t mean you don’t belong where you are. I myself was stuck at divine for half a year, i was so done and couldn’t figure out what the fuck made me stuck at divine, because on average my overall gameplay was waaay above my rank, borh according to dota plus statistics AND according to higher mmr players who reviewed my gameplay. So why the fuck did i not get to immortal? Then i took a break for about a week ONLY analyzing WHY i can’t climb(after falling down to ancient 2). Then i realized; even tho my skillset was immortal or over, my mentality was probably around 2k mmr. I tilt way too easily, i rage queue way too much and it affected my gameplay. Then i started to discipline myself on my mentality alone. What happened? In 2 months i went from ancient 2 and now i’m 6.2k and 100mmr from getting my first ever placement rank(top 5000). If you can’t climb, it is because of YOU. Remember that, it will help you as it helped me, if you so choose my friend :)
There's been some good answers here already, but I do want to touch on ranked anxiety. I think I talked about this in another video (guess I should have one just dedicated and titled for ranked anxiety), but if you aren't playing ranked it's hard to know if you should be climbing or not in theory. My advice would be to spend some time thinking about what makes you anxious and trying to understand it. This is different for everyone and there are many 'solutions' that could work. For many people, it's the idea of losing MMR that makes them anxious. Changing to a mindset of always trying to play your best and improve can alleviate this. Even if you lose a game, you can still be improving. With enough improvements, MMR should naturally increase. So if I enter every game just trying to do my best, then I don't have to be stressed about the outcome. I can play well and still lose, but that would be a success. I can play poorly and win, but I would consider that as needing improvement. Or what really is so bad about losing MMR? It's not like it's gone forever. Anyone with high mmr player will be able to say that they've gone through ups and downs, got stuck in a trench for awhile. They've had times they jumped up or had to slowly climb and improve. There's no straight path upwards. Even a 90% win rate has 10% losses. So even if you lose MMR for a bit and drop, just continue to try to improve yourself and you will go back up right? I'm not sure what you are anxious about exactly, but that's the kind of thinking I think can help a lot with ranked anxiety. Figure out what stresses you and try to recognize some reasons why it's not really something that needs to be so stressful. Come up with some responses to deal with it. Having that plan helps to mitigate the anxiety I think. Hope that helps!
@@ZQuixotix Thank you for your response, and also thanks to the other commenters I guess I should really embrace the "you win or you learn" mentality and accept that losses are part of life. Considering that I only play at most 10 times in a week, I must also stop thinking that I must climb the ladder as quickly as I can. Maybe that's the root of my anxiety problem. Once again thank you for the encouragement, Z!
I'm always trying to improve and play my best, however I'm on my 8th losing streak :). I love getting matched up with new accounts on unranked or right click god on ranked.
6 games lost in a row with pos 5 4 3 or 5 4 and 2 or 5 4 and 1 griefing with these scores: 0 11, 0 12, 0 13. No matter the role i play, the help i give, the kills i do, the words i write to try to communicate, the wards i buy, the wards i deward, the smokes i buy, the split push i do, nothing works, it's all about luck the rest is all rhetoric cope. Dota is build like a slot machine, and it works like a drug, it's all an illusion
lol I agree, it's crafted to work exactly like a drug, to get you hooked. people losing their lives in this game some have 3k+ games and still at herald 3 it's an actual joke plus its insanely toxic I'm done
dota 2 is super hard game, normally on mid game, it turn to joke drastically..carry suddenly become super confident chasing enemy team, trap in gangbang and dead. how to avoid from carry like this? is there any button not in a team with ppl like this? i have drop from 400 mmr to 200 something, and win the match..touch 300 and start to lose again. i can only play with 1 hero.
Keep in mind that being on a losing streak as a core and as a support is not the same. If you drop from 6k to 4k as core, you're a shitty core, but if you drop as a support, it might not be entirely your fault. Every support player knows what I'm talking about. How many games have I lost just because my cores are same bracket as me but nowhere near the skill level required for it. How many games have we supports lost because our cores won't buy bkb or dive t4 to get that worthless kill. I mean Zach is the obvious example if you don't believe me. He was 6,9k now he's 5,6k (that's even lower than my mmr, and I'm nowhere near as good). You can't tell me his skill deteriorated that much in matter of weeks. I'm 100% sure if he checks all the games he lost during the drop, most of them were lost because of bad cores. No matter how good of a support you are, you just can't carry a late game as underfarmed Lich. Even if you pick some heroes like Shaker or Enigma, you can solo win maybe 1 out of 100 games. Put Puppey in team with heralds and he will lose at least 25% of his games, put Ame with heralds and he will have 100% winrate.
I was support player mainly 2 years before but after 2 years break I'm playing mostly offlane because I can have biggest impact actually.. It doesn't work always but majority is important. I really got mad when they changed Dazzle so you cannot heal your whole team effectively like before where you could just spam your spells and save literally impossible fights and games.
I lose 7 games in a row all with positive score like 14/5/20 as offlaner. I win the early game but every game my carry even with 30 m + free space is underfarmed
I had that problem but I won a lot of games playing CW offlane. Only thing you will need is decent pick that is better in late game than opponents and you just need to build right items like Crimson Guard, Pipe or something else that can significantly change the game and make your whole team tankier but it's not really possible to win every game, especially in lossing streaks after huge win streaks and when you feel like last shit on this world....
holy shit, nearly perfect timing. I was just feeling dreadful about 32.5% WR over 40 games as pos1, was wondering if I'm actually terrible because no one could be that unlucky right?
@@Lololol9877 Just had an 8 winstreak and 5 MVPs, so... no! Just lost a close game we'd have won if we didn't have a toxic griefer who called gg at 10 mins with 8 kills both teams. What I did stop doing was picking anti mage though...
I love when players try to explain how random the matchmaking is.... It is a lie, if you win 10 match you will get toxic players and you will lose 15 match, after that you gain very ez mathces, griefers, feeders on the enemy team, you got teammates who can speak englis etc, but after that 10 win streak, you will get again 15 match with russians, noobs, toxic players, you cant do always 150% in tha matches, everyone has bad matches, but this shithole is not random, it is does not matter how you mentaly relaxed or any bullshit, the matchmaking is suck even in this new patch. No hope to enjoy it if you play solo, you are in this circle forever. Delete dota2, exit from the prison, and go outside live your lifes folks
. Dota is not worth playing. Lets talk about algorithm that will make you miss each second last hit, that will make ebemy to last hit ewerything on auto atack.
Yesterday i had a nice 3 games where i hard stomped all three as support, promoted to archon. today i woke up, decided to watch a dota video to get myself in the dota mindset, and i saw this video, logged into dota, lost 3 games in a horrific and drawn out manner and am now coming back to watch this video. Truly a great case of foreshadowing.
Dota is designed in a way you win few lose few and stays in the same MMR forever trying to get 1 rank up in like years and then after a reset you go back down 1 level I was legend 3 for crusader 4 climbed back now archon 3
@@unknownplayer95If this were actually true, why do the better players end up in sub 1000 immortal, not just once but on multiple accounts? Are just these people immune to this overall design?
@@twistednapkins they party with other stupid high mmr friends and stomp everyone. they are not solo like the rest of us plebs
I feel like your the only Dota streamer who really gives a fuck about helping people improve 💀
Helping people is the main goal of the channel! Especially with my limited time to play, I don't think I can aim for high MMR's right now anyhow, so it works out that I can help others
@@ZQuixotix why do u have no time to play bro?
@@yihungteoh9632 school
I totally agree with the effect of playing below your actual capability due to fatigue. The problem is, as this a video game, it is sometimes difficult to discern or even realize that you are actually too tired to play, because at the core of it, we all play video games to relax. Therefore, perhaps more than any other form of sports, it is much harder to identify when you have fallen off your peak performance cliff as opposed to your more typical physical sports where your body will let you know very quickly.
Obviously, if you only slept 2hours then should probably shouldn't be playing ranked, as your physical and mental fatigue would be impossible to ignore. But many people, myself included, hop online for some ranked games straight after work. Not feeling physically tired, but perhaps oblivious to how much mental HP we still have in the tank. And this is where the grey area is, because some nights you stomp every game, whilst other nights you wonder why you even bother playing anymore.
True, I should have gone into more ideas on that. For example, if my eyes ever un-focus in a game, that means I'm too tired to be playing my best. I guess it's a very personal thing anyways for people to understand about themselves, but definitely worth thinking about so that we can identify it because like you said, it's not always obvious where we are at
@@ZQuixotix yeah that's one tell. Another would tell would probably be reaction time but the margin on that are so small. I suppose if you notice yourself constantly missing last hits, or not reacting fast enough with spells them its probably an indication of fatigue as well.
Thanks Zach, as someone who has also recently dropped a fair bit of mmr - from Crusader to Herald - this was a good watch (mainly due to playing a lot of party queue). It's been a slow grind back up due partly to my playing a lot less these days with more going on IRL and I've realised I am OK with that. I'll try hard and if I climb back, I climb back. If not, you know what, no worries at all.
Thanks also for your session with Grubby today, it was a lot of fun and I learned a lot (I main pos 3 and 5). It also reminded me to come check out your channel again after a hiatus (one of your early coaching videos on support play is still something I use as a template whenever I play pos 5). Good luck in your climb!
I want to get that feeling back where even when I lost the game, I don't care about that -30MMR, I look back at the mistakes I made, and I still feel excited to que up straight away.
“+- 300 MMR is normal”
Me at 200 MMR : Oh okay!
I like that going back in time and changing things, I think about that all the time.
Man it feels like you made this video just for me. You correctly identified so many weird parts of my thought process during my latest slide. It was also very soothing to hear that +/- ten games is within bounds of normal MMR variance.
Thanks Zach, just dropped from 5.1K to 4.4K in 1 month due to doubledown and obsession of getting back what i've lost. This is a true reminder of what should have been. Dota is a game to have fun with.
I just wanna say, you have a wonderful way with words and do a great job at explaining things! Much love!❤ thanks for the all the help since I started playing a couple weeks ago
Besides what you mentioned, take into account the "dark pools", which can either be the "smurf", the "pre-low/toxicity", or the "wrong pick" ones. I've noticed that losing streaks come after a difficult game where it was likely that someone reported you (for one of those 3 reasons), or by the contrary, you had a very long winning streak (in which case the algo believes you are a smurf). And you will notice you are in a pool because you will start to get either the same types of players in a game, or even the same players one game after another. And it all comes in streks of the same type of actions taken by those players: a)you get griefing players constantly, b) you get people with completely random picks for their pos, c) you get paired with people that are either way above or way below the skill bracket.
Usually it takes around 5-10 games to get out of there and start getting the regular randoms as before, but if during those 5-10 games you lose your shit, you are for a dark long ride :). It also helps to have a 1-2 week pause from the game to get out of there, seems that it lasts for a specific time aside the number of games.
The last time I had one it was very obvious: suddenly every single match I had (literally 6 straight games) at least 1 player in my team was randomly griefing for no apparent reason since the beginning of the game; and as a pos5 winning a gainst a team of 6-7 players was impossible. I just stopped playing for 2 weeks, and when I came back everything was back to normal and I resumed my previous winstreak :P.
Ps. I got familiar with the "smurf pool" from a friend that earns a life boosting accounts (I always report his accounts btw, hate what he does) and that he had to let accounts "rest" for a couple of months to play them again because he just felt that something was very odd with the teammates he was matched with after a long winning streak.
accurate
It's so accurate. I see this in my games too. After a win streak, I can definitely see how the algorithm thinks I'm a Smurf. I can clearly see the gameplay level between my team mates and the opponents. If you were to compare position by position, they'd all beat my team by far. The problem is that I'm a casual player, and after realizing this is happening, I tilt and the next games are just shit. It also takes a day or two after you start losing to get back to normal. Btw, I have also realized when I have behavior score as 10, the gameplay of my team mates is actually worse. So it's better to have some 9.9~ behavior score.
I hate the matchmaking, and I can definitely tell that they implement it to addict people, not to be fair. That's the truth.
@@josecarlosribeiro2383 this is true. Some get reported for stating facts that one player is obviously playing bad and needs to improve. 10k behavior scores are usually mute all and play on their own terms and usually they drag teammates down by not communicating
@@josecarlosribeiro2383absolutely! 10k BS is the worst place. Its mostly smurfs boosting accounts with everyone on mute to avoid being reported, tryhards that tilt for the stupidiest of the reasons, new accounts, and account buyers that just got their mmr from the smurfs xd. 9.8-9.9 is the sweet-spot with people actually wanting to improve.
The worst games are always with 10k BS at the X900-Y100 mmr range. Most of my losing streaks start in some game on those ranges.
And they definitely fine tune it to keep us playing the most amount of hours and buying those shiny hats.
Its a lot easier to resist tilting in bad streaks knowing that you just got Valve'd by the matchmaking algo. One has to either mute everyone and hope the hit doesnt last a lot of games, or just take a break.
Well, man. I am so glad to find your videos. I wish i encountered them 8 years ago when i was starting play dota 2 with highschool friends. Keep up great work!
I wish I had been playing and making videos 8 years ago to be there to help!
Great video! This stuff has been on my mind recently, I've been asking myself how much dota I want to be playing and I think its probably best if I take a decent break and come back to it when I have more time. I've been super busy with IRL stuff, and I want to use the free time I do have to relax, which dota isn't really doing for me right now. i love dota and your content has really deepened my love of it, but if I'm not in a spot where I can climb I think it might be best just to avoid dumping my MMR and making myself feel worse with the little time I do have.
Im a Single Draft guy only. I've played around 2k hours and i have THREE ranked games under my belt. Crazy eh? I just love to play casually and try different heroes and roles, i never get tired of it.
I honestly realised I don't care about MMR, I want to play the best with the best vs the best. I've seen BSJ games and Purge games in immortal, both still routinely gets the most idiotic allies. Why would I stress about grinding out MMR if that's what's waiting for me? No thanks!
What I'd really like is to form a regular team or teams, but that's hard.
Used to grind in ancient for years and worked my way up to divine 1. Barely stayed there. Stopped playing for 2 years, and got back during pandemic. Shocked that I calibrated archon. Now, I really have a hard time working my way up to legend. Maybe it's just me or just I have lesser time playing. Doesn't enjoy playing solo now and just play with friends who are in legend
Considering that mmr doesn't go below 0. 300 variance around 1-2k mmr is quite a larger deal. MM search players from the same range. So you can get really awful players, and it makes matches just a pain to be in. It's really hard on the mental when each and every game is played with people who know nothing about the game. I have enough of myself to worry about without having to coach an entire team.
Yesterday i lost 5 games and can clarify that the system want u to be in 50% winrate ,it is obvious when u play and team is good and u ezy win ,its also obvious when enemy is weak and u can do solo kills without spawning their full team ready to destroy u. But after some wins "the game" gives u 1-7 phoenyx , 0-22 mirana that will lose lanes they are attached to. At the same time enemy tank u under tower beggining with their 2 lvl ,come bh with orchid and boots ,fat pudge and u are fked. At this very moment enemy could have Luna that farmed 30+ min forest while u cant be farming because some major fights taking place always and ignoring them will leave u potential frags. Anyway sometimes u will lose up to 10 games and even praying wont help u
Found a way to game the system, after win streak, the moment you get a lose streak, stop playing the game for 7 days. The game wil then match you back to then normal pool.
Take breaks between matches is so important, cuz take one match after another is a fucking blackhole... Clean your mind helps alot.
I was 4k (Ancient 2-3) 2 years ago when I actually stopped playing game after going back to Archon 1.
2 years after that I decided to start playing again because I bought new ultrawide monitor and I was curious how game looks on that resolution etc. and I got addicted again.
I'm playing from 2015 and I calibrated back then at 700 mmr (as I remember correctly, that was Guardian 2) and my only wish was to be at least 2k...just at least average player....
After I reached 2k I started playing more seriously and tried to understand some new aspects of the game that I didn't utilize earlier.
Now, after 2 years of break, I'm better player than I was before. I understand everything a lot more without hardtrying (probably because I'm older and smarter - 25y) but I lost few games and I dropped to Crusader 5 (2100 MMR).
Two weeks after that I'm sitting at 3000 MMR Archon 5 70% and I needed just 2 more wins for Legend 1. Then loss streak came. I'm currently 6 matches in deficit and I'm playing with worst kind of people out there. Impossible picks, very low skilled teammates that finish game with 200lh in 40mins and get stomped within 7 minutes counting losing a tower, bad behaviour etc...
I'm so frustrated even tho 6 losses is not much at all but even before that it was like Win-Loss-Loss-Win-Win-Loss-Win-Loss.
Because I'm mad I get also stomped by enemy so after this video and other similar to this one I will chill a little bit. Play 2-3 games per day till this nightmare goes off and spend more time in gym, reading books, watching some series or anime and putting more effort in some projects...
10:50 couldn't be more true than this
A coach for the game and the brain 🧠
I've been enjoying game the game a lot more lately by not caring as much about mmr. When you think about it, mmr doesn't mean anything really. Even if you get to like 7 or 8 k mmr. Most of us probably won't make any money in competitive dota. We choose value of our mmr and it weighs heavy sometimes by making it that personal.
winning is my pride
100/100 win thats feel greatest in the world and i will feel it
now the only way to repel a badluck is do ritual to repel a curse of 7th that pour all shit around me
Keep it PMA, keep it ZQuixotix :D
If valve see u have good skill and ur stomping the game they will pair u to noob players always happend to me
After I got rampages good games
Win streak.
The following day is the red days.
It's true they doing 50,%winrate so sad.
@ZQuixotix Valve should after every calibration give mmr close to the peak rank? We do deserve it as we had reached it? It can be applied till divine 5 level at least?
Great content! 5k player here. Here is my two cents on how to improve in the game. The current ranked games you are in have a similar skill level to you, MMR is designed so that you win 50% of the games. In those games where you win, you will draw conclusions (biased and only applies to a certain MMR) as to what helped you win the game.
I common example of this would be a 2k player patting themselves on their back for winning the game because they picked up first aegis at minute 30 and luckily win every fight as Huskar until victory. In divine/immortal ranks, the timing for first rosh should be 15 minutes and the rosh would be used to either farm more items and take objectives.
The way I see Dota is that your team won because your team screwed up less than the other team. I would seek some external advice (watching replays, or get more rest/exercise or take a break) and you can bring something additional to the table in your next ranked game. I can compare MMR to a real life situation of mine where I grew up in a disadvantaged neighbourhood where many of them did not know better and they can drag you down as well. Dota can be a very toxic game with a bunch of players at the same skill level and all with a set way of thinking of what items to build and where to play on the map etc.
Great vid and thanks, but in reality, Dota 2's system is meant for you to lose by matchmaking and purposely making you lose so that you stay at 50% winrate. That's the harsh reality of Valve's matchmaking system. Specially when you play solo ranked, there's no future for you even if you play 10 hrs a day. The only way for you to win more is to have a fixed 5 man party but you'll be paired to enemy smurfs, making your winrate lesser too. So all in all, Dota's a dying game where they want you to spend more of your time playing and also consistently make you feel bad and lose.
so if i pretend to be noob i will get carried and win by team?
Hey ZQuixotix, I recently found your channel and I'm liking it.
I'm currently at Crusader 1 (1.6k) and I believe I'm better than my rank is. How do I know? Well, if I play carry/offlane role on my comfort pick, I could quite consistently get around 50 CS at 10 minutes while people at my rank normally only get 30-40.
I love Dota but I don't really have time to play due to work. I really want to get better, but I have this rank/ladder anxiety that kept me from playing ranked for more than a year now. Do you have any tips for me? Thanks in advance.
I got that too.
Then I let my rank at what is it (Crusader 2 when I was Archon in the past semester)
Right now I restarted the All Hero Challenge, and also playing with 5-people stacks, with people both calm and fun.
I know focus more on having pleasant games than tryharding ones.
Also, with all cheaters, like smurf, boosted, griefing accounts, we really shouldn't focus on what Valve call its "Competitive rank"
The only real competition are tournaments, with 5-premade stack, never forget that.
With all due respect, laning is only one of the many aspects in dota
If you can’t climb, it’s because of you, not anyone else. Just because one aspect of your gameplay is better than your rank average, doesn’t mean you don’t belong where you are. I myself was stuck at divine for half a year, i was so done and couldn’t figure out what the fuck made me stuck at divine, because on average my overall gameplay was waaay above my rank, borh according to dota plus statistics AND according to higher mmr players who reviewed my gameplay. So why the fuck did i not get to immortal? Then i took a break for about a week ONLY analyzing WHY i can’t climb(after falling down to ancient 2). Then i realized; even tho my skillset was immortal or over, my mentality was probably around 2k mmr. I tilt way too easily, i rage queue way too much and it affected my gameplay. Then i started to discipline myself on my mentality alone. What happened? In 2 months i went from ancient 2 and now i’m 6.2k and 100mmr from getting my first ever placement rank(top 5000). If you can’t climb, it is because of YOU. Remember that, it will help you as it helped me, if you so choose my friend :)
There's been some good answers here already, but I do want to touch on ranked anxiety. I think I talked about this in another video (guess I should have one just dedicated and titled for ranked anxiety), but if you aren't playing ranked it's hard to know if you should be climbing or not in theory. My advice would be to spend some time thinking about what makes you anxious and trying to understand it. This is different for everyone and there are many 'solutions' that could work.
For many people, it's the idea of losing MMR that makes them anxious. Changing to a mindset of always trying to play your best and improve can alleviate this. Even if you lose a game, you can still be improving. With enough improvements, MMR should naturally increase. So if I enter every game just trying to do my best, then I don't have to be stressed about the outcome. I can play well and still lose, but that would be a success. I can play poorly and win, but I would consider that as needing improvement.
Or what really is so bad about losing MMR? It's not like it's gone forever. Anyone with high mmr player will be able to say that they've gone through ups and downs, got stuck in a trench for awhile. They've had times they jumped up or had to slowly climb and improve. There's no straight path upwards. Even a 90% win rate has 10% losses. So even if you lose MMR for a bit and drop, just continue to try to improve yourself and you will go back up right?
I'm not sure what you are anxious about exactly, but that's the kind of thinking I think can help a lot with ranked anxiety. Figure out what stresses you and try to recognize some reasons why it's not really something that needs to be so stressful. Come up with some responses to deal with it. Having that plan helps to mitigate the anxiety I think. Hope that helps!
@@ZQuixotix Thank you for your response, and also thanks to the other commenters
I guess I should really embrace the "you win or you learn" mentality and accept that losses are part of life.
Considering that I only play at most 10 times in a week, I must also stop thinking that I must climb the ladder as quickly as I can. Maybe that's the root of my anxiety problem.
Once again thank you for the encouragement, Z!
I'm always trying to improve and play my best, however I'm on my 8th losing streak :). I love getting matched up with new accounts on unranked or right click god on ranked.
6 games lost in a row with pos 5 4 3 or 5 4 and 2 or 5 4 and 1 griefing with these scores: 0 11, 0 12, 0 13. No matter the role i play, the help i give, the kills i do, the words i write to try to communicate, the wards i buy, the wards i deward, the smokes i buy, the split push i do, nothing works, it's all about luck the rest is all rhetoric cope. Dota is build like a slot machine, and it works like a drug, it's all an illusion
lol I agree, it's crafted to work exactly like a drug, to get you hooked.
people losing their lives in this game
some have 3k+ games and still at herald 3
it's an actual joke
plus its insanely toxic
I'm done
dota 2 is super hard game, normally on mid game, it turn to joke drastically..carry suddenly become super confident chasing enemy team, trap in gangbang and dead. how to avoid from carry like this?
is there any button not in a team with ppl like this?
i have drop from 400 mmr to 200 something, and win the match..touch 300 and start to lose again. i can only play with 1 hero.
thanks i still losing non stop
now i'm doing ritual to repel a badluck cuz i was losing non stop
i am really tired of loosing all the time when i try hard...i goint to play to lose mmr ,because is really impossible for me to advance
Keep in mind that being on a losing streak as a core and as a support is not the same. If you drop from 6k to 4k as core, you're a shitty core, but if you drop as a support, it might not be entirely your fault. Every support player knows what I'm talking about. How many games have I lost just because my cores are same bracket as me but nowhere near the skill level required for it. How many games have we supports lost because our cores won't buy bkb or dive t4 to get that worthless kill.
I mean Zach is the obvious example if you don't believe me. He was 6,9k now he's 5,6k (that's even lower than my mmr, and I'm nowhere near as good). You can't tell me his skill deteriorated that much in matter of weeks. I'm 100% sure if he checks all the games he lost during the drop, most of them were lost because of bad cores. No matter how good of a support you are, you just can't carry a late game as underfarmed Lich. Even if you pick some heroes like Shaker or Enigma, you can solo win maybe 1 out of 100 games.
Put Puppey in team with heralds and he will lose at least 25% of his games, put Ame with heralds and he will have 100% winrate.
I was support player mainly 2 years before but after 2 years break I'm playing mostly offlane because I can have biggest impact actually..
It doesn't work always but majority is important. I really got mad when they changed Dazzle so you cannot heal your whole team effectively like before where you could just spam your spells and save literally impossible fights and games.
Got from herald 1 to crusader 1, lost all of my mmr in 2 weeks and now im herald 5. I only played pos 5
Thanks to your vids im going to try and improve my mindset along with my skill and get and even higher mmr
What region do you play?
I lose 7 games in a row all with positive score like 14/5/20 as offlaner. I win the early game but every game my carry even with 30 m + free space is underfarmed
I had that problem but I won a lot of games playing CW offlane. Only thing you will need is decent pick that is better in late game than opponents and you just need to build right items like Crimson Guard, Pipe or something else that can significantly change the game and make your whole team tankier but it's not really possible to win every game, especially in lossing streaks after huge win streaks and when you feel like last shit on this world....
Invoker mid life man feels bad but your right
Thank you!
i was 5k 11 days ago now im 4230 mmr and i tried my best evry game ...10k conduct i cant win 1 game
holy shit, nearly perfect timing. I was just feeling dreadful about 32.5% WR over 40 games as pos1, was wondering if I'm actually terrible because no one could be that unlucky right?
We are going through some losses, but we will both recover!
Stop playin core
@@Lololol9877 Just had an 8 winstreak and 5 MVPs, so... no! Just lost a close game we'd have won if we didn't have a toxic griefer who called gg at 10 mins with 8 kills both teams.
What I did stop doing was picking anti mage though...
well i just lost my 23rd game in row ... 4800-4300 something rank ...
pretty sure with a sample size that big the p value means it's certain you just don't belong at that elo
Great outlook on Dota. Helping the toxic ppl in game does NOT come easy 😂
MMR pressure and cavern crawl fuckery.
thank i'm still losing and never get win
watch more dota when you recover.. not after you lost 10x in a row coz I hated dota2 even more.
maybe because i dont have a talent of killer so i cannot win 1 v 5 forever
and then another lose my team so weak and enemy is a world class skill player like topson himself dive fountain til 99hour
5k to 4.3k :))
I’m getting a lot of account buyers at 4k it’s killing my mmr
i want my win back not losing
17th game in row lost, over 400mmr gone.. This is not true and 90% teamplayer are just the worse bad players on the pool.. Core cant do shit.
and another lose streak 18 per day
maybe cuz i has a 10000+ behavior score so they send shit team to me and force losing
losing is fun yes only my teammate
it's rng valve dollhouse gates gamers
and still losing and losing and losing
you cant unless dota algorihtm starts to pity you.
I love when players try to explain how random the matchmaking is....
It is a lie, if you win 10 match you will get toxic players and you will lose 15 match, after that you gain very ez mathces, griefers, feeders on the enemy team, you got teammates who can speak englis etc, but after that 10 win streak, you will get again 15 match with russians, noobs, toxic players, you cant do always 150% in tha matches, everyone has bad matches, but this shithole is not random, it is does not matter how you mentaly relaxed or any bullshit, the matchmaking is suck even in this new patch. No hope to enjoy it if you play solo, you are in this circle forever.
Delete dota2, exit from the prison, and go outside live your lifes folks
Too late. I already uninstalled the game.
It's called alt+F4
. Dota is not worth playing. Lets talk about algorithm that will make you miss each second last hit, that will make ebemy to last hit ewerything on auto atack.
way ayo
Let's all take a guess how many months before Grubby has a higher rank than ZQuixotix. I say 10 months.
Haha if Grubby wants, he can pass me in less than 1000 games I bet
swito pildi man lage ko kapila
I had a loss streak but it wasnt cause I play bad, I just had toxic people who feed and destroy their items in all those games.
If u want to get a life dont play that game. You'll be tearing your hair out
lane was broken before even 4 min by chinese crying baby died while pulling