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There is always a constant argument about the current MMR system. Players will claim they are above it, lie about it, and do whatever they can to raise this number. To the general public of Dota, having a lower mmr means you are a worse or less skillful player than a player with higher mmr. Is it really as simple as a 4 digit number to determine skill? There’s an argument for that, as well as many others however I will talk a bit about this, just because I am 100% tired of giving speeches on it to players, and need a link that I can just hand people to explain my opinion on this topic.
Before the MMR system was introduced players generally had a few different ways to determine the skill of another player. Three of the common ones that I’m familiar with are: Actually watching the player participate in game and see how they perform, Checking Dotabuff for their performance in games (Winrate/KDA/Overall Winrate), or check pubstats to see what bracket they play in. Was this effective? Yes and no. The same reason it’s a yes and no with mmr. There are a metric fuck ton of variables in Dota 2 that a player encounters every game. Let’s talk about these and what they can show about a player.
Winrate shows the frequency in which a player wins games. Generally speaking, better players will win more often. This is a fact and a trending event with all players, from casual pub to professionals. The bar on which “Dotabuff regulars” generally range “good” to “bad” players is over 50%. Pre-MMR, if you had sub-50 winrate on DB, you were generally referred to as a scrub. Now like I said, there are a lot of variables in Dota to control the outcome of a game, so I will touch back on this after I give a little “Melody’s Dota History” lesson.
I started Dota 2 somewhat about 2 ½ years ago or something like that. A friend of mine had been asking me to play forever and well I was more caught up playing broodwar on east or just generally busy. I always said I was addicted to enough games and didn’t need another. Dunno what came over me but I eventually after about 3 years of suggestions from one guy, I finally downloaded the game and played. Seriously, the hell is this? I had never played a Moba before, let alone know anything about this game or how it worked. I just knew there were a lot of “characters” and I want to find the strongest one so that I can win. I had always been somewhat competitive, play to win and that mindset. Well, when you want to be good at something just turn to the internet. It always gives 100% correct accurate information right? ….Right?
Sure enough, hello google… “BEST HERO IN DOTA 2”. Yes, search acquired, now I can definitely start informing myself so I can play this game well from the get go. Antimage eh? I’ve always played casters in games, but this guy must be even stronger than those. Alright, I’ll play him. He’s the most powerful hero after all. About a week later I realize you can purchase items in game. How was I to know you could buy items, I was wondering what gold was for. Another week later, I find the secret shop. I now play sniper and morphling (Post shotgun nerf, Prebuff) because those heroes are talked about a lot too.
More or less, in short… I ruin games for about 7 months before I find Dotabuff, which was the overall most standard factor in helping me improve. I post a thread, about looking for friends to play with, except for some reason everyone is calling me bad. I think I have this game down and all, I’ve been playing for half a year now, and who are they to tell me I’m bad. This good friends, is now what I refer to as, “pub mentality”. It’s basically when a player believes that they are correct in their actions/plays and that they were not at fault in the situation. I was that way. I thought I was good. I finally found a few people to play with (They are now sitting at 4-4.8 k mmr range) and by this point in my Dota career I figured out that I want to be a support player. I loved the fact that I was required to play with less items, farm and exp than other roles (I read about the 1-5 system, god this shined a huge light.) and was expected to keep up with hard farm carries in mid to late game with these restraints. Anyway, I digress. We all play a game, I have a friend of mine with me, another support player playing tree while I take the 3 role enigma to jungle. My friend plays tree in safe lane with the Naix I met from Dotabuff and the Naix had a friend with him as well playing mid.
About two minutes into the game, tree goes to pull and realizes the camp is blocked. Naix says buy sentries, deward it. Tree can’t really afford it because he had purchased boots. So the Naix tells me to deward it, which I swiftly reply with, “It’s not my role, enigma plays three and gets a fast mek or blink to help in team fights”. We argued for about 2 minutes with him telling me I was wrong, but I was full of that “Pub mentality” I couldn’t accept for any reason that he was right, or even fathom the thought that he might know more than me.
We flamed each other for weeks on forums. It literally took me months to lose this. I don’t know what broke it for me but this started it. It took me forever to realize that he was right. I was taking up for my friend, and myself. In short I learned a lot from this. Months later I bust up some nerve apologize and thank him. We are now pretty good friends I would say.
Before I had that epiphany I was sitting at about 48% winrate. I lost the majority of my games. After that event occurred my winrate steadily climbed and is now bouncing in the 51.5%-52% range. Now does that mean I am a good player? Lord no… I am still trash. However, it does show that I have improved as a player and that on average I win more games as such. So, it was more or less correct that winrate does show some level of player skill. Players that play better will win more often. However there are more factors that do tie into this. One of the most notable examples is that solo queue players in “all pick” tend to have a lower winrate than other game modes.
There are several examples I know of where know a player (which I will refer to as Carl) is 5k+, however has sub 50% winrate (49-50). So… that doesn’t make sense. In short I think pub mentality has a lot to do with it. Carl now sits at 5.5k (Highest gained being 5.8k) while still having 49.5% winrate. Now there is a difference with these scores compared other 49% players. His kda’s are far higher, and I mean vastly. He prefers to play impact roles (Safe lane carry/Mid), and Carl has 4.0-5.5 kda’s on his most played heroes… why does this other 49% player who plays the same role have lower kda’s? It really confused me how Carl wasn’t 55%+ like most of the 5k players have. So… on to KDA and what not.
KDA measures your performance in a game via team fight participation. How often do you participate in fights or perform well with that hero? Does high kda mean you are good? No, not really. There were always faults in the Pre-MMR era, where a player could sandbox abuse and smurf winrate and KDA, appearing that they are better than they are. (Mostly faded away since MMR exists, however still is around somewhat) Dying too much shows you are clearly out of position or over extending. Dying too little makes it seem like you’re a god, but is it that simple? Not even remotely in my opinion. From what I have seen and gathered (Lord do I spend a lot of time on Dotabuff). There is a trend of kda per hero/role/and mmr. It’s along the lines of this.
2k-3k mmr
Impact roles: (IE: Mid, Carry, Off lane): 2.5 - 3
Support: 1.5 -2
3k-4.5k mmr
Impact: 3-4.5
Support: 2-3.5
4.5kmmr+
Impact: 4.5+
Support: 3.5+
Now this all varies per hero, IE: It’s really easy to get assists for kda with specter, really hard to get that same result with treant protector. So is this a staple? Must I have this for this bracket? No, not at all however with that being said you can compare to other players in your bracket and see how they perform with that hero. Insight like this really helped me progress as a player. I learned a lot from it, and generally speaking, I fed less and played my role more cautiously and over extended less. However it’s sometimes needed to die as a support. Your “Yolo” blink in with disable or ult can be the sacrifice needed to win the fight, however this is all judgment and another variable in the vast world of Dota two.
I realized that Carl more or less was better than the other 49% player I compared him to. There were a lot of things I was still missing from this. MMR of which helped some.
MMR generally pairs you with players around your skill level. Everyone hears it all the time in dota that I deserve to be higher MMR, and all my teammates are holding me back. Pub mentality and Elo hell theories galore but is any of it true? I’m not saying that players will not hold you back in game. You very well might be better than the other players on your team. Here is a fact for you, if you are X mmr, you will get there eventually. Better players win more games on average, this is fact and with that being said the same is true for ranked. You will gain or lose mmr over time if you do not belong at the mmr you are currently at.
To be brief, flat and blunt with this. Your teammates are irrelevant if you are grinding for mmr. In Dota, the only variable you can control is yourself. If you can’t control other factors, don’t worry about it. It’s like attempting to care about if a meteor will strike earth in the next 24 hours. Can you control it? No. Can you do anything to prevent it? No. So if you can’t have an effect on it, don’t worry about it. You are in control of the game. From Hero pick, to starting items, to regen, to stats, to skill build, to lane farm, to harassment, to denies, to rotations, to item choice, to engagements, to zoning, to vision, to positioning, to ganks, to runes, to buybacks, to objectives, to skill and item use, to any other variable in Dota and trust me there is a metric ton of them… You made a mistake. Somewhere in that line of 40 minute decision and action making, you messed up. You didn’t play perfect. No one does, not even professionals, and until you realize that you could have done something more effective you can’t really whine about other players, because you both made mistakes. You’re both equal. You need to accept that. Worrying about what other players did only takes your focus away from what you could have done to play that game better. That better line of actions or decisions you could have made could have changed the game. It might not have mattered that X player did X if you would have made better decisions. This is pretty much my Dota life style. Do whatever you can to boost team morale and keep spirits up, because Dota is a really crazy game and crazy things can happen. Calling GG, or flaming another player will do nothing for you but make your team play worse, have low spirits and thus not try as hard to win. Momentum is everything in Dota. Play with a good attitude and you’ll have better games. There is a vast difference in game knowledge and game execution. An informed player will not make necessarily make a better player however it will have a positive impact on your games. Execution comes with practice. They are two very different skill sets.
So if you understand that, and you are trying to play better to improve your mmr, and you’re not having the effect you might want consider your role. As a support player I find it somewhat hard to impact the game like I want to from that role (might vary per player). If you think like that, play a different role. See how you perform better than that feeding shadow fiend did. Take an impact role see if you can make that impact in mid to late game where you feel the game went slack and you lost advantages. Something I can tell you from experience is that good and bad players are in all brackets. You just have to try whatever you can to win. If you realize your mistakes and try to better them, you are improving as a player and that is what mattered. The player that blames others, and gives up is the player that stays in that same stale mmr.
With this all being said, to me mmr matters to an extent. It does show a general skill range of players. Players in 5k are generally performed better than players in 3k. This is fact. The same can be said for KDA and winrate alike. It is a trending event that the majority of players have these things in common however there are exceptions. What does it mmr mean to you? Do you think that skill can undoubtedly calculated as something like a four digit number? Where in this equation is decision making? Flavor of the month heroes? When to do counter picking and nerfs and buffs factor in? There are innumerable factors in Dota which in my opinion can’t be calculated with anything short of a mind reading device. MMR is your ability to win in public match making. That’s what it is, and that’s a fact. With this being said, competitive game-play such as amateur leagues or professional games are very different from public games.
In the end, what do you want from Dota? Are you trying to grind your pub games (Yes, friends… Ranked is still a pub game.)? Are you trying to have fun and play to win? Sure playing and riding the mmr train will most likely give you what you want from Dota. It’s a fun experience, and lots of ridiculous stuff can happen. It sets a common goal which is the finish line for fun in a lot of games.
Are you a (xxxx)k mmr try hard wanting to be (xxxx)k so you can be good considered good or show off some e-peen? So you can be better than all those sub 5k players? Do you want to go professional and go to TI8? Don’t play MM. You will learn nothing. You’re just a pub player, like some 2k kid… Sorry to break it to you. If you were as try hard as you are thinking you are, you would be listed for a league game somewhere tonight so you can study and improve with other players from your team to achieve a goal.
All in all, mmr is just a number. It does show some variance in success, but isn’t a measurement tool. 5k players are better than 3k players on a more frequent basis; however there is more to Dota than pub performance. You deserve to be at the mmr you are at, and you will rise and fall according to how well you perform in game. Imho, mmr is somewhat a usable tool to look at a players skill (Just like KDA/Winrate), however it’s not the “be all end all” which a vast number of players regard it as.
/rant.
Now, if there is in somewhat which I can help you IE: Replay study, support theory, or some random other knowledge fountain I have access too, please feel free to message me. I would love to assist the community in any way possible if you are looking to improve as a player. Also, sorry for the white wall of text, inb4 tldr.
~Mel.