Your initial choice won't put you into a higher MMR, you still have to play with noobs initially to find out.
As for your experiences; it goes roughly something like this - Normal MM tends to have bad players, but nicer people, as such team communication may exist. High MM tends to have people who think they're brilliant because they're in high MM, when actually they are still missing a lot of what it takes to be great but they can't see that, hence they're in high and not very high, players here will often quick pick carries and play selfishly. Very High MM should see good players AND good team complexion for obvious reasons.
This basically sums it up - http://puu.sh/3gm6I.jpg
However, that being said, there are ALWAYS exceptions to the rules, almost so many that the rules are redundant.
I think you do not understand what normal, high and very high matches actually are. They are NOT what most people believe (that games that belong to a particular bracket of skill). They are just labels used to describe the AVERAGE player level in the game.
For example, if you have a fresh account searching with 4 Na'Vi players in matchmaking, the game that is found is obviously going to be labelled as Very High. But the individual ranking of the fresh account is obviously going to be Normal.
So, now you understand that replay skill labels do not necessarily reflect your individual ranking, we can address your problem. Why is it that you appear to have worse players in games that are labelled High than in Normal? There are many possible reasons, I'll list some below:
1. As Lone Wolf above stated, mid-tier players usually have the worst behavior out of any other group of players. Their bad behavior could be skewing your opinion about their actual skill level.
2. Your win/games played count is increasing. From experimenting with various of my accounts, I know that Valve's matchmaking system over-prioritizes matching players based on matches played. This can lead to some games having large disparities between the skill level of players (this mostly occurs after long queue times). So while the average skill level of the game could warrant a labelling of High, there could be some horrible players and some great players in the same game.
3. You are improving as a player, and hence are able to identify the mistakes of other players at a much higher rate. This causes you to believe that people are much worse than they were when you started playing. However, if you had the same insight into a game of Dota 2 back then, you probably would disagree.
Just a note about point 2: if you're looking for balanced games, try and limit search times to under 5 minutes (or even lower if possible). The longer the search time, the more unbalanced and skewed the teams will be in terms of skill levels.
That being said, there isn't much you can do about under-performing players in a game. I suggest you keep identifying the mistakes of your allies and enemies, but it's very important that you do not blame these mistakes for your victory or defeat. Try and focus on improving your own play, and understand what you could have done better to win games. Trust me, if you continue just focusing on "why are my allies so bad?", you will never obtain a winning mindset. The winning mindset is key to improving as a player.
^all very good points
but there is another possibility as well...
Players in High and Very High are often there because they stacked with friends with much higher ratings. You tend to get much more stacked games in the higher levels. One consequence of the stacking is that you will get a mix of skill levels as the above post said in point 2. It is because of the choice of good players to play with their bad friends that both their team...and yours because matching balances the teams...both teams will have good and bad players. Almost every game I have played in High bracket was like that. Once you break through in Very High you get more and more games were everyone is really very good, but there are still stack disparities there as well.
In Normal games, if you basically know how to play you are going to be one the best players. But as MMR goes up eventually skill at doing the things you were doing before matters, how fast and how perfectly you can do them matters, out-thinking opponents matters...eventually...not so much in High bracket games. They are usually dominated by whichever nub feeds first causing a loss because people have just reached the point that they can really take an advantage and run with it.
@Lone wolf: I have similar thoughts, however I distinguish skill and behaviour. Having no idea about how to place wards or what iteam to get have nothing to do with flamming, whining, selfishness etc.
Still it is a good remark to analyse separately those factors (pure gaming skill and communiation&behaiour)
@831: I understand fully the concept of bracket as a label of average players skill. Thats why i said it concerns solo mm.
AD1. as above
AD2. possible but sad
AD3. Nope. I expirience the diffrence between games on a time distance od 2-3 weeks. (both times I went to high)
Stacking would make sense, still...
Lets say that the possibilty of having an under skilled player in normal or high is the same, or is it? <CONCERN 1> (stacking or not I would say - or maybe in high bracket stacking is much more often used?<CONCERN 2>). However not only the chance of having such a player is important but also the issue HOW MUCH underskilled he will be (in other word that is possibilty of having a player with skill X MMR points under match level) <CONCERN 3>.
But that is not all. Maybe the bigger diffrences in skill in high bracket then in normal are due to the fact that normal bracket consist of more players overall. The MM system has more players to match so the skill level in more constant. I dont know what is the distributon on DOTA2 players among the brackets <CONCERN 4>(yes, yes- label concept of the match level, but still you can put every player to a specific bracket although, he may not play all matches in those brackets) but seems legit.
With this being said, still remains my expirience that plyers in low part of high bracket are WORSE then those in high part of normal bracket. Not worse in the sense that the skill diffrence is bigger, but in the sense they are comaparably worse players. In high bracker chances of having such a player should be smaller then in normal and my expirience is exactly the opposite <CONCERN 5>.
How many High bracket games have you played? I think maybe you just got unlucky. I have played maybe 1000 of my games in High bracket 300 in Normal and 100 in Very High at this point. I find High bracket games are far more likely to have people who can lasthit, can ward, can chain stuns, know when to push and when to hide..than Normal bracket players. Any given game things can be off, but on average Very High>High>Normal and its a noticeable jump in average skill from one to the next.
I think stacking leading to overating of players puts a lot of people into High that should not be there. If they get overated playing with friends and then go play in the solo que...then they lose their games in the solo que.
If I remember correctly Very High is supposed to be the top 5% of MMR, High is top 6%-15%, and Normal is the bottom 85%. So yes Normal is huge and ranges all the way from total nubs to very experienced players who don't stack and have no exceptional talent.
I did not find big difference between high and top of normal bracket, but on very high the difference is quite noticeable in terms of carry players. Bad support players you can find in any bracket I've played so far, so don't expect much.
i don't know. i thought in normal level games all the people run around like headless chickens? i always play in very high..
When I stack, 95% of my games are in the High MM, when I solo 95% of my games are in the Very High MM. Yet my solo record is probably better because I stack with bad friends at times, this results in them normally feeding and leaving me to try and pick up the pieces. If you were to come up across my bad friends and I then you would think they are noobs and worse than high normal players, which they are, but I drag them into the High pool. The challenge for me is can I outplay a fed opponent?
@Lone Wolf
I fixed for ya your image http://i.imgur.com/wPunyp1.jpg
No matter how you could try, almost always |so bad team...muted|
http://dotabuff.com/matches/225422420 very high bracket
http://dotabuff.com/matches/225386261 very high bracket support left me lane vs bala&sven
http://dotabuff.com/matches/225608780 high bracket lina cant land stun properly and feeding getting ganked
http://dotabuff.com/matches/225538277 normal bracket, playing with friend on jugger.
No more words spoken, after these games iam muted for 168h.
So yes yelling for piece of shitheads is pointless, just type disconnect in console and search a new match!
Every "normal bracket" player sucks. You can't possibly find good players in there. Also, I can't believe you have a thousand games and still are in normal bracket, although I don't know if that's normal... High is just slightly better... at least you are not matched with players that are completely new to the game. In very high most players actually have an idea of the game as a whole, although the average is still bad in terms of skill. Also, don't expect people to buy courier/wards for you in pubs lol. I'm a very high bracket player and I rarely see people ward on my team unless they are a stack.
Every pro player plays some games in Normal bracket...as do you, Milk. So does 我是不哭鱼...and everyone else who plays dota. If you think you don't you are merely ignorant of your own reality. Go check your own games.
If you rarely see players in Very High games ward, its proof that you have terrible map awareness...or just don't really play in Very High bracket afterall. Warding is certain to be there in every Very High game, nearly always wards up in High games, and often the map is warded more or less in the higher Normal bracket games.
If you don't see them you are not looking at the map..."don't expect ppl to buy a chick? what?" Only the absolute lowest skill Bronze level games don't get a chick. Maybe that's where you really play? Or more likely you are just very selfish and ungrateful to supports not even noticing their contribution.
someone posted another stat site that showed how many % of your games was vh, high, normal
i forget the site though
@ LUXON, open the Dota 2 client, click watch, then recent games, then filter, type in your name and mess around with the three bracket options, the games that appear will be dated and will show where your more recent games are.
@ Murs, sounds interesting, please post if you do remember it.
@OP I do OK in normal bracket (depends on team), usually lose in high (team usually sucks) and win a lot in very high (team is good, i am good too even if I carry).
So I agree with high being bad.
@Murs if u remember, post it
Those are nice figures...but there has to be something wrong with the last one. Winrate for Dire 78%, winrate for radient 21%??? That can't be right.
Others are also suspect...
What do you think of the accuracy of the other ones? 0% of games in High, doesn't that seem odd? And the first says you have 88% Very High, then the third indicates 92.4% Very High.
murs get on my level with ur normal games half of time
hmm, well there are clearly errors on everyones data from this site so far. I get a user has not allowed stats error, which obviously I have. It looks like they still have a lot of work to do to make their site work correctly.
How do we know in which category we're playing (normal, high, very high) in ? Is it past a certain number of games played ?
Here are my stats:
http://iforez.olf.sgsnet.se/dotastats/92737767/
Nice thread though :)
ah, now your stats look realistic
One way to check is to search your name in the dota 2 client and specify normal, high, or very high. Normally this works quite well, but I've found a few cases where people had the same names...which I don't think is supposed to happen. But apparently two players can share the same name somehow.
I tried this and I only see high level games I played :D (I checked, even if a few guys have the samenick as me, these games are definetely mine). So my 25% normal might be from my beginings at dota2 or when I play with low prio friends (?).
One way or another, every player I have investigated, include all the pro players end up in Normal sometimes. Sometimes its obvious this is from queing with new friends or with smurfs, but sometimes I have idea why a game goes to normal.
A week or so ago I play 4 games in solo only que, won all 4. First 3 were in Very High, yet the 4th went to Normal. Who knows why?...the system seems to have some odd behavior.
As for the dota2stats website I have low confidence that its correctly collecting the stats since almost every who has posted them so far has some errors.
its because solo queue has a seperate rating and replay search function is using normal mmr
and if you have decent MMR chances you end up in a game that's not very high is like <0.1%
there are games where people abandon really early on and don't get registered in the stats at all and these games end up labeled as normal
"there are games where people abandon really early on and don't get registered in the stats at all and these games end up labeled as normal"
This might be a good explanation, thank you.
"solo queue has a seperate rating and replay search function is using normal mmr"
Ok, I see :-).
If u think of it, all brackets would have noobs (in ur POV), with different noobness lvls
If u r in normal MMR, then u would meet similar skilled players, thus the skill lvl would be near, some might be lower than urs (the noobs in ur POV), some might be slightly higher (the gd ones in ur POV, might be terrible in higher bracket players POV)
If u r in high MMR, then u would meet similar skilled players, thus the skill lvl would be near, some might be lower than urs (the noobs in ur POV, those might be gd in normal bracket players POV), some might be slightly higher (the gd ones in ur POV, might be terrible in higher bracket players POV)
Same issue with very high MMR
@relentless two players can't have same name
it changes to for example Vaikiss(1) when someone gets name Vaikiss
I used to think that. But I've found examples where multiple players had the same name.
The guy who used to post as "casual" for instance. He stole his name from someone else so he could pretend to have good stats. Both had the name "casual" and their games were mixed together on searches. However, you could manually see which belonged to which account by steam ID.
private lobby games are registered as normal games as well so it messes with the stats
If you consider the stats on that site, I'm pretty much a bronze scum (very poor Kills/Deaths & last hits / denies). Also, I don't have any game on Very High.
Next time I should get a queling blade and some branches instead of that courier & sentries. And that carry that farms on my lane, should learn that he must compete with me for last hits. And if he needs wards to farm safely, he should buy them himself.
lolwat supports always have the higest assists in game (except for spectre and zeus)
+ u get farm from pulling
Yeah, and that carry should farm just fine against any double-stun/nuke combo. I'm there just to leech xp from him.
The mentality that supports are only good for wards and assisting is purely wrong.
The game now favors the aggressive starters and quicker aggression should lead to an early victory for you team. Aggression early game is lead by the supports. If you watch pro-games they have one support pegged on a carry who meets up from time to time with a puller or a roamer to get some early kills.
Example: http://dotabuff.com/matches/226625786
By all rights and reason we should have lost that game due to the lineup, if you are around kill then you can get quite a large stack of gold that should enable you to get the right items to tie you over till late. Constantly stressing about wards and protecting a carry who is hellbent on farming can lead to a loss in the long run if you are uncareful about it.
Jakiro, Disruptor & Wisp are among the best for early game kills and pushing carries to play a lot more aggro and get out of the "I must get this last hit". Try a Slark/CM combo as that is the bee's knees and can win him a load of kills and you a ton of assist gold and even accidental kills.
I do agree that supports are under-appreciated but if you have amigo's who like to carry (like I do) than they really do appreciate the support and have an understanding of your play style and it pays off in the long run.
This kind of support doesn't get last hits either. And kills is better to be taken by carry, if possible.
Putting all your eggs in one single carry basket isn't always the best. Kills are kills carry or otherwise as long as you don't purposely steal or you pick up ones others can't.
>This kind of support doesn't get last hits either. And kills is better to be taken by carry, if possible.
nope, supports getting fast items can win games especially if carry is getting farm anyway. getting fb on support may lead to much faster manaboots which allows for easier pushing, ganks, lane control, farming and so on. that 300g on carry won't be much but on support it can be gamechanging.
Sure! And an early force staff can save your life (and other's)many times, and also can help you secure kills when chasing!
Будь ласка, увійдіть до системи для написання коментарів.
Yello!
I would like to share an expirience I had and ask you if u got a similiar feeling...
THIS REGARDS PUB SOLO MM (AP, RD)
Few weeks ago I went back to high bracket (for a second time last year) and I must say it is hell.
I had a really good expirience when I was playing in the high MMR of normal bracket (i.e. still normal but almost high). Players were good. Picks, communication, laning, supporting really fine. We had curier+wards on start in 90% of the games.
I got promoted to high and what happends? Feeders, noobs, no idea about picking (4 carry); no idea about builds, no support, no understanding of the game mechanics, whining, no idea about pulling or stacking, no idea about WHERE TO PUT WARDS ON THE MAP... I was pretty shocked after few games.
So the question is WHY? Why on higher skill level the skill is lower then in the high part of normal bracket?
Here is my idea, tell me if it makes any sense...
As I understand brackets are just a way of seperating players accordingly to their MMRank.
Lets put some random numbers to MMR:
0-1400 - normal bracket
1400-1800 - high bracket
1800+-very high bracket
You can change your MMR by winning/losing. However you initialy get a MMR based on your skill selection when u start the game for the first time i.e. if u pick EXPERT (or sth) you go straight to high bracket with 1400 MMR.
If so it would make sense that people with MMR 1300-1399, that was set accoring to their performance on many matches, are much more skilled then people that select EXPERT and went to high bracket but their skill is not good for it. They will get degraded after few matches but till then, if you are MMR just over 1400 (to be more precise - around 1400), you will have to play with them. And cry.
Result? Players from high part of normal bracket are better then players from lower part of high bracket.
Thoughts?