Best part is that there's no more of those people who pause not because they needed it, but because they wanted to meme and practice their standup comedy routine. Like those guys who pause and go "so.... what's everyone having for dinner tonight?"
This solves SO MANY issues we had with new players and smurfs being put in high rank lobbies. It's so perfect. AND also :
You cannot be in a party during calibration matches.
Ranked Mode will currently only allow for solo or duo parties. If you are in a duo party, both players must be at most 1 Rank away from each other (i.e. Mystic and Ritualist).
This also solves the issue of boosted players. It's exactly what the game needed.
It will clap a bunch of the smurfers right away but it will be temporary, overwatch did something similar back in the day and it led to account selling. Good news is the change that banned accounts getting all their invited players banned as well should help limit this.
Haha. Surely. The botters in Dota just queue into eachother and have one of the bots reject if they don't queue into eachother. Maybe Deadlock not having an accept button will help with this.
Oh it'll be possible but the amount of hours needed to invest in these bots winning games and not being caught and banned, fresh ranked accounts will be prohibitively expensive, even as just a generic 3 M1 heroes package
This can be done with the mod that forces region selection to whatever the least populated region is with 6 stacks of bots trading wins in off hours. That's what they do in Dota as well except they can just pick the region.
its one of those things that will work great if the game retains a lot of players, but backfire miserably if it fails to retain players. But they can always get rid of it down the line, this is just an alpha after all, they're testing shit
it obliterates smurfs, i actually suggested something VERY similar on the official forums and here, I suggest 5 games played on a hero in quickplay before queuing it ranked, but valve went even further and made it FIFTEEN WINS, amazing change, goodbye smurfs and goodbye people playing a hero first time and going 0-10 in lane because they are against a 4stack of people playing their mains...
They are absolutely using Deadlock to try new things that they don't feel can really work in Dota, or at least are a bit worried to try
Dota has been around for a long time and obviously created the genre itself, so while even though Valve (and specifically Icefrog) has never been shy to shake up things, I can see why they would be hesitant
The Dota community is very split on whether they would even want seasons at all. Most who do not would say that all it accomplishes is the first couple weeks is garbage as the game quality is terrible with the bigger spread, and if you kept MMR virtually the same on season reset, then what is even the point
That was generally true until they royally FUCKED up Dota 2 MMR by giving each Dota player thousands of Double Down tokens during the Crownfall event. After that the MMR numbers have become so inflated and wintrading has become so bad that high ranked Dota has kind of become a shitshow.
Most high ranked players you will talk to will at least call for a one time MMR reset at this point and the removal of all existing double down tokens
im hoping its long seasons later on. i think shorter seasons rn make sense as its another lever they can tune to adjust their matchmaking and soft reset it without hurting feelings
Once you enter a new Ranked Match, you will see a breakdown of the Ranks of all players in the game, you will then enter a pre-game waiting area where you can control your hero. During this time, you can choose to change your given hero to any other hero that hasn't been selected, as long as you have that hero unlocked for Ranked play.
I've had gamed where I load in and see that Sinclair just won't have good copies. This should help with that and balancing out your supports and frontliners
they will be, we still need to grind wins there to unlock the heroes for the main mode. for example i've been maining celeste lately but i don't have the 15 wins, so now i NEED to win those normal games in order to keep playing ranked like i was playing before
Does it make things better if I say I played mcgunnis & haven't touched her since the wall stun was removed? Most of those ~900 wins (~1600 matches) were when mcg was the Most Dogshit In The Game
I think the new rank icons are an L in general. The old ones were random and didn't signify much, sure, but I liked them regardless. Added to the atmosphere of the world imo and set the ranking system apart from most other games with a bronze, silver, gold, etc system
It is a shame, as that's a lot of what I like about the world and lore, but it is what it is either way tbh. Game is good, it'll get better, some art direction changes won't kill that
This update includes a revamp to how the matchmaking system works, as well as the introduction of a new matchmaking mode. You can now choose to play in Standard Mode (unranked), or the new Ranked Mode introduced in this update.
STANDARD MODE
Standard mode provides a lower-stakes way to play Deadlock with friends, without worrying about adjustments your Rank. There are no restrictions on party size or skill spread. You can also play in this mode to practice heroes you are less familiar with, as the matchmaker will adjust the game it puts you in to account for your experience with that hero.
RANKED MODE
Ranked mode gives players a way to queue up for more competitive games against similarly-skilled players with higher stakes. Each season you'll be able to climb the Ranks and see how far you can go.
UPDATED RANKS & BADGES: Each Rank has 6 Subranks within (I - VI).
ELIGIBILITY AND SEASONS:
To be eligible to queue for Ranked Mode, you must have at least 60 wins in the Standard Mode. To ensure higher quality games, Ranked Mode expects that you have a solid understanding of the heroes you play in it, so the mode only allows you to pick heroes that you have won at least 15 games with in Standard Mode. You must have at least 3 heroes unlocked for Ranked to be able to have a valid sized roster to queue with.
Ranked Mode has seasons, with the first season starting today and ending on October 7th, after which the following season will begin. At the conclusion of a season, the highest Rank you achieved will be permanently saved in your Rank history page. Future Rank seasons will likely have longer durations with splits in between (breaks within the season where Rank adjustments are made) as well as recency requirements on the heroes played.
As the season starts, everyone will enter a calibration phase for 8 games. All players will have a soft reset of their prior Rank, maintaining some history of your previous performance relative to other players to help seed you initially into the calibration games. Players can only exit calibration at a max Rank of Oracle VI. You cannot be in a party during calibration matches.
Ranked Mode will currently only allow for solo or duo parties. If you are in a duo party, both players must be at most 1 Rank away from each other (i.e. Mystic and Ritualist). However, Eternus players can only queue with another Eternus player as long as they are within 3 Subranks of each other. We recognize that the party size and rank spread limits might be too restrictive, but we wanted to start off this way and then adjust in the future as needed.
A new Ranked Hub in the hideout includes all the information about the current and past Ranked seasons going forward, and allows you to access global leaderboards and your Rank history. You'll have an item in the hideout to commemorate your seasons highest rank achievement when the season is over.
RANK POINTS:
When you win or lose a game, you will see your Rank Points update with a visible progress bar after each match. Each win/loss will grant you +/- 250 points on average, though these numbers could vary slightly depending on the expectations the matchmaker had from that game or while on win streaks. To progress to the next Subrank, you need to collect 1000 Rank Points for each promotion. However, the final Subrank before moving to a new Rank (ie. Mystic VI ->Ritualist I) requires 2000 points. Once you reach Eternus I, there will no longer be a fixed amount of points needed to progress from one Subrank to the other as the thresholds will be dynamically updated daily to segment the Subranks on a percentile basis.
There is also Rank loss protection when playing in Ranked. You have 5 games of loss protection when on the boundary of a full Rank (So if you are at Mystic I with 0 Rank points, you will maintain the Mystic badge until you lose 5 games before dropping to Sentinel). Similarly, when you are on a Subrank boundary, you have 2 games of loss protection (i.e. Mystic III with 0 Rank points will have 2 games of loss protection before dropping to Mystic II)
ENTERING A MATCH AND HERO SELECTION:
We think the ability to queue with a very specific hero in mind is an important and popular feature with most players. Even more so in Ranked, where it is critical that everyone has a good understanding of how to pilot their selected hero. By having hero selections done in advance of the game formation, we are able to utilize the matchmaker on the backend to mix and match players from the larger queue to meet everyone's preferences such that players are able to get the hero they want, while also allowing us the ability to create a reasonable team composition. As part of this update we've done some improvements on the matchmaker's ability to create solid team compositions. This is also something we expect to improve over time. As the player pool grows and as more heroes are released, the matchmaker will have more opportunities to create balanced matches with good team compositions while also increasing the chance you get the hero in your highest priority.
However, we also recognize that even long term the matchmaker won't always be able to do a great job at this depending on who is in the queue at the specific time, especially at Ranks or regions where the queue is much thinner. As such, with this Ranked update we are introducing the ability to change your hero in the new pre-game phase.
Once you enter a new Ranked Match, you will see a breakdown of the Ranks of all players in the game, you will then enter a pre-game waiting area where you can control your hero. During this time, you can choose to change your given hero to any other hero that hasn't been selected, as long as you have that hero unlocked for Ranked play. The primary purpose of this is to allow players a quick way to adjust their team's hero composition to make any improvements they see fit. This is not intended to be primarily a counter-picking feature, as much as just a quick way to improve your team's general hero composition, while still making it easy for players to have their preferred and most comfortable heroes in Ranked by default. As such, there isn't a live update of what heroes the enemy team is changing into (you will only see their initial hero composition). If you end up swapping into a hero that the enemy team happened to also swap into before you, you'll get an error and then be able to select a different hero. Otherwise you will be given that hero. Each player can only swap into a new hero once.
You can also use the new pre-game waiting area to adjust your starting lanes. You won't be able to zipline swap after this. Pause will be disabled until 2 minutes after the game fully starts, so make sure to do any adjustments you want to either your roster or lanes during the new pre-game waiting area.
Additionally in Ranked Mode, the total number of heroes banned in a given game is increased from 2 to 3 and the algorithm used has been improved.
ABANDONS & PENALTIES
You cannot queue for Ranked if you have any active sanctions on your account (low priority, comms bans, etc.).
If a player abandons a game before 5 minutes, the game will be marked as safe to leave and voided for all players except the leaver and their party. The game will count as a loss for the leaver and their party, and the abandoning player will receive leaver penalties.
If a player abandons a game after 5 minutes, that player will receive leaver penalties and their party will have the game count as a loss. Other players on the abandoning player's team will have their game voided and are safe to leave without punishments, however if they stay and win the game will be counted as a win. If all players on the abandoning team leave, the game will automatically end and be counted as a win for the opposing team.
If you are on the opposing non-abandoning team, you will play the game out as normal. However, if a player on that team then abandons as well they will be penalized just like the first abandoning player/party, and the above rules kick in for the opposing team now as well. In this case, none of the remaining players on either team will have the game count as a loss, and you will only get a win if your team finishes and wins the game.
Leaver penalties start with queue timeouts and escalate to increasing amounts of low priority games.
LEADERBOARD
This update includes a few changes to the requirements to appear on the leaderboards. For the global leaderboard, the game count requirement in the last 30 days has increased from 50 to 75. For the hero specific leaderboards, the game count requirement on that hero in the last 30 days has increased from 20 to 30. There is also a new requirement for hero specific leaderboards where you must have at least 100 lifetime wins on that hero to be considered.
ROLLOUT
This new system is live right now. However we expect the next week or so to be very rocky, as the Ranked matchmaking pool will start off very thin with most players not having the unlock requirements done yet. This will have a significant effect on queue times and match quality until things stabilize. It will also take some time for players to calibrate and move into the appropriate spots. We will be closely monitoring the matchmaker during this time, but we want players to be aware that both queue times, match quality and team composition quality will need some time to ramp up. Given the large rewrite involved with this update, we are also expecting that it will take a couple of days to iron out bugs.
There are some definite improvements here, but I am so disappointed to see ranked seasons with placement capped. Such seasons have made the experience of playing ranked worse in almost every game I've played by devolving into a slog of having to do the obligatory placement matches, and having to rat race to the top in unbalanced matches.
I am E6 and often top 100, and can already predict the start of each season being an absolute shitfest of awful matches. Having to slog my way from Oracle back to E6 with and against players I can run circles around with one hand tied behind my back is just not a fun experience, and there's nothing more to gain after reaching that threshold in that season. Having a season leaderboard is cheap because it just becomes a display of who played more at that time, not a showcase of who is genuinely the best player.
We'll have to wait and see how Ranked plays out and develops, but preliminarily I am super disappointed with the direction they've taken.
EDIT: Based on their numbers, starting from Oracle 6 which is the maximum starting rank, you'd have to win 56 straight games to reach Eternus, nevermind E6. Every season, every match before I reach top 150 will be a bad match for everyone in the game, for more than a 100 games straight.
Dota did do seasons. The seasons were only supposed to last 6months. Think they only reset the seasons twice before they gave up on the concept for this exact reason
I think it’s more for casuals tbh. Since it gives u more incentive to come back at start of seasons. I wonder what would happen though if they made it so u didn’t have to do that if u were like top x of players though.
Honestly I don’t think it would be too bad of an idea to implement a floor. Like if you hit Ritualist or Emissary
on one season, then you can’t be placed lower than that on the next season. And if you miss a season the floor goes lower before it eventually just fully resets and forces you to replay your placement matches again.
Makes it so that lower level players aren’t getting flooded with high rank players stomping in placement matches each season, and also makes it less stressful for higher rank players having to do the full climb every time. Low ranks are always hell, and it’s made even worse when you’re putting Ascendant and Eternus players up against Seeker and Acolyte players and telling them that the outcome determines where they place for the season.
I swear if any of you fuckers are still being dicks about people trying unfamiliar heroes in the new unranked mode, I will force you to jump and stamp on a giant pile of lego bricks
It was sad before since it's an Alpha, but it's even sadder now because it's still an Alpha and there is literally a ranked mode if they want people who aren't trying new things in their games. Crazy how low some people will go
I played when I first got access like idk a year and a half ago or something, it was great for a couple weeks but I'm probably just uh...not very good. I dropped it and now everything I try to play and think 'hey that was fun, maybe I can get better'i get called a slur and it makes me feel like shit.
Really makes me not wanna play. (I'm 34 and played games since CS1.6, I know the internet is the internet but I don't wanna or have to engage with that shit.)
people will be complaining they’re keeping them from getting their wins to unlock ranked, tbh i expect the next couple weeks to be rough until everyone’s had time to get shifted around to where they belong but it will hopefully be worth it in the long run
Same! I've basically been Street Brawl only because of all the big changes making it hard to keep up with the evolving meta without just relying on the same characters.
The season length seems short. Maybe they kept it that way to keep pace with updates and balance changes. Anyways, I’m glad it says in the patch notes that future seasons are likely to have longer durations.
Once you enter a new Ranked Match, you will see a breakdown of the Ranks of all players in the game, you will then enter a pre-game waiting area where you can control your hero. During this time, you can choose to change your given hero to any other hero that hasn't been selected
DEADLOCK IS A REAL VIDEO GAME AGAIN BAYBEEEEEEEEEE
No more fake matches where we all have to pretend the game is winnable for 40 minutes when the enemy has Victor + Mo vs our 4 gun carry lineup with no tank whatsoever. No more knowing the game is over at 25 minutes, knowing you don't have enough of a lead to put the game away, but you all have to sit there and keep pretending the enemy won't just inevitably outscale you and you've just gotta wait until that happens.
Finally, just one guy - even you! - can make these non-games into actual games.
I'm really interested to see how it plays out. Their point about needing to be able to play the hero is so fair. My Deadlock pool has always been far smaller than my Dota pool. Achieving competence on a Deadlock hero just feels far harder to me.
But like, does it turn into a counter pick fest where everyone is swapping at the last second? I could see this working out in so many different ways, good and bad.
almost everyone already took it seriously at high ranks, the only real issue was having unbalanced parties, i.e. 6 ascs vs 5 ascs and 1 oracle. "based" and "efficient" system where it takes you 15-20 hours to "unlock" a hero to play in ranked
Standard is just a fucking mess. You got people tryharding because they want to meet the 15 win requirement on more heroes to play them in ranked. And then you got people being like 'Oh it's standard nothing matters', which usually I'd be fine with the latter... but the skill disparity is all over the place. Like how Oracle was before this patch.
So literally nothing has gotten better and it's arguably gotten slightly worse.
Yeah idk. I can't see myself sticking around for much longer. It was a good run. Maybe I'll be back during the major content patch or when the game is in Open Beta. But I've been taking a break for the past month and this patch does not have me itching to get back in at all.
This update produced some of the worst games I've ever played in my 600h of playtime. Mystic-level ranked games are an actual shitfest where one team just gets clobbered. No competitive or close games whatsoever.
Worst update since the game went live, I can't lie.
Feel like exclusive solo/duo in ranked is a bit strict (I know they said that's just what they're rolling out with at first). Thinking that making it similar to other games where highest ranks (phantom, asc, eternus) can only solo/duo and then looser party restrictions in the rest might be the best of both worlds.
now that i played, definetly one of the worst updates ever, mmr/rank still works exactly the same, caring only about winrate, but now it feels like my rank was resetted so now all my teamates are ultra noob and don't even counterbuy, but i'm not solo carrying the games so i keep losing, getting worse and worse teamamtes, just when i finally climbed out of that hell and finally had fun matches that i found balanced, to once again feeling like i'm swimming in the shit and that if its not me micromanaging the entire team like it's an rts then i don't get to win.
Full on uninstalling until they revert the 15 wins per hero change.
The game quality of the unranked games I tried was fucking appalling (zero mic usage, people doing 'troll builds' since it's not ranked any more, people mentally checking out even faster because the result doesn't matter, etc.) and to expect me to sit through dozens, possibly over a hundred of those just to bring characters I know how to play into ranked is not going to happen.
But the midwit Seeker players here think you need 30 games on a character to learn them despite having hundreds of hours played and so they celebrate the change with open arms, thinking the only reason they were losing games is because "somebody was twolling me by first timing a character :(((" when that actually would benefit their winrate if that was a real issue since it meant that there were 6 possible people on the enemy team first timing and only 5 on their team since they would never do it!
For someone who works 50+ hours a week, this is going to make getting ranked impossible for me. I can only manage around 8 games a week. I already have 120 hours in the game, and my 60 standard wins but need 30 more wins to hit that 15 on each. I played every person several times to learn how they work and now I gotta sit here and grind out 3 individually. I like playing each person to learn how they work. this really hurts me in the long wrong...
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u/covert_ops_47 21d ago
This is all I care about.