List Of Reasons To Not Play Ranked

[Rosco]

Copy/paste of the review I left of this game. Purely for reference, I have roughly 4k+ hours played on this game across multiple accounts (which I was forced to make due to this game's ridiculous policy on dodging during pick/ban phase in ranked). Consider it a list of reasons why this game's ranked system is a complete ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ & total waste of your time:




"Would you recommend this game to other players?"

Are you a casual gamer? YES. Great game for casual players who want to delve into the MOBA experience.

Are you a grinder looking to sink 100's of hours into this game's ranked matchmaking & climb the leaderboard? ABSOLUTELY DO NOT RECOMMEND, & here's a bulletin list of reasons why:

• People aren't region locked, & more often than not you are a minority as an English speaker on North American servers. Add in the fact that it's quite rare to find people in the lower ranked brackets (Bronze-Gold) who can effectively communicate through the game's VGS, & you've got an endless supply of people to match with who you can't even communicate with at all...in ranked...on a MOBA wherein team coordination is vital for success.

• This game's skill floor is lower than New Orleans' sea level, & it's skill ceiling is as high as Snoop Dogg after a single bong hit of the world's weakest weed. The old MOBA edict "Win lane win game" means almost nothing here, as typically everyone in the game is max level with full build or near it by the 27-30min mark. So there's about a 15-20min window from the start of the match wherein the League of Legends brand of 1v9 carrying is even remotely feasible(it almost never happens). After that, the match becomes a game of "the team with the singlular weakest link loses". How good a single person on the team is means nothing without a competent team to compliment that person's own personal skill. This wouldn't be that big of an issue if it weren't for the next problem on the list...

• You can only que ranked with a 2 person party. Another way to translate that is to say that you can only guarantee that 1 other person on your team isn't someone with 200+ping, isn't someone you can't even communicate with, & isn't someone who is a fresh level 30 noob who will more than likely offer you a free loss in a silver platter (no offense).

• Dodging match ques gets your account suspended.
Imagine the following scenario: You just entered the pick/ban phase of a ranked game (match hasn't actually started yet), & you eventually realize that 3 of your teammates don't speak English, or your support baby raged for getting a role he didn't que for & then locks [insert troll pick here] & intends on building full damage, or your hard-stuck silver jungler locks Janus because he saw Weak3n do it on Youtube. Due to the nature of this game, either of those variables can & will reliably result in a free loss for you if the match gets played out, so you decide to dodge in order to avoid that outcome. Surprise, you're awarded with a 10min deserter penalty, which is effectively an account suspension. A 10min penalty is a pretty good trade for a free loss & hit against your rank, but the problem is that this is an incrementally increasing penalty. Before you know it, you're stuck with deciding to either play out free losses & take hits against your rank, or dodge & chain 24hr account suspensions. Sadly, the only reliable way to climb out of ELO hell on this game (Bronze-Gold) is to tactfully dodge ques and just live with the suspensions, because playing out those free loss matches can take 1-2 weeks worth of grinding to make up for.

All of these issues combine to make the ranked grind feel like one massive, cheesy lottery system, wherein the luck of the draw with regards to the team selection will massively overcome the effectiveness of your own personal skill level. You aren't going into every match thinking "If I just play perfect I can carry the team to a win", but rather thinking "How perfect I play means little to nothing if I didn't win the matchmaking lottery".

[Ragnoraok]

LOL, this post is 100% true, especially the skill floor component. IDK why Hi-Rez is so incessant on turning SMITE in a game where the only thing that matters is the late game. Early game is absolutely pointless since you get next to no exp for kills, and the general structure of the map and phoenix health/damage makes it nearly impossible to end games before 25 minutes unless your team is WAYYYY ahead. Hi-Rez completely homogenized the game in terms of skill and options starting in S4, and the game barely feels like a tactical MOBA anymore. It feels more like a Brawler with minor MOBA mechanics.

I don't even play ranked for the reasons above, but casual Conquest suffers from the same flaws. The only difference is that mm in casual is bad because rarely does the mm strive to equalize premades on both teams, and even rarer are the premades of equal skill, so nearly every game is decided by which premade had the worst player.

[Third3ye]

Casual is worse imo for lack of bans. Almost every game people pick S tier.

Idk about the 2 person party thing. I queue 3 man in ranked joust 24/7.

Ah, okay I see this is more of a conquest aimed post. I don't play conquest.

[Rosco]

Originally posted by Third3ye:

Casual is worse imo for lack of bans. Almost every game people pick S tier.

Idk about the 2 person party thing. I queue 3 man in ranked joust 24/7.

Ah, okay I see this is more of a conquest aimed post. I don't play conquest.

Sorry I should have specified. Yes, everything in this post is aimed specifically toward ranked Conquest.

[Grok 3]

most boring game modes are rank...

[The Grimm Reefer]

loved the part you complained about getting the different tiers of bans from dodging. Glad to know it works AS INTENDED.


lol.

[diegobrando]

Yeah you are right. Ranked is a complete ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. You need to stomp so hard you either win in 20 mins or the enemy surrenders, or the game draws out into these 40 min slugfests where everyone has items and you are just looking for that 1 fight to wipe them and end. In fact I just played a game like that. We even had a afk guy and just defended base. He comes back, we win 1 fight and just end.

Seasons 2/3 were the highlights as far as competitive goes. Worlds was hype aswell. Then idk what happened. They wanted to cater to Xbox pad players, or maybe they don't understand the game at all. But all changes since season 4 onwards made the game more and more casual. Damage went up, survivability down, abilities are made easier to hit, all items that do something else except buff stats get removed (fatalis, golden bow) and they just keep adding more stuff onto the map that doesn't really matter just to give everyone more gold. Like the totems and chalices etc. In my opinion it just clutters the map and makes it look terrible and inflates gold gain.

Most people just play arena, which is fine. It's a casual mode for a game that Hi-Rez themselves decided is a causal game. Nobody cares about ranked conquest or even e-sports anymore. If you go to reddit it's all about god designs and art. Then they release a blog post about adding a ward to your active slot, and reddit goes "yeeesss so amazing!! I love placing wards!!!" When in reality it doesn't really matter and nobody on reddit even understands or cares about ranked conquest.

It's fine if they want this to be a casual game, but idk why they are still forcing conquest. Eg. you get exclusive rewards just for playing ranked conquest and it's still the "main" mode when they have done nothing to make it more appealing. With appealing I mean competitive and fun and engaging. Instead they do constant random changes that don't matter and steadily casualize the gameplay more and more.

[Rosco]

Originally posted by Grim Reefer:

loved the part you complained about getting the different tiers of bans from dodging. Glad to know it works AS INTENDED.


lol.

So it's intended to be garbage?

This system makes perfect sense for people leaving matches that have already started, but applying this system to people who leave ques during the pick/ban phase is not only stupid, but self-defeating, as it reinforces the whole "Matchmaking Lottery" garbage that currently dominates ranked; it exists as 1 variable in a web of nonsense which aides in making ranked a genuinely trash-tier experience for anyone who wants to grind it.

A more reasonable approach would be to cap the penalty @ 20-30minutes for people who dodge during the pick/ban phase, rather than suspending accounts for 24+hours for something so trivial. That way, there exists both an incentive to not dodge AND a viable method for avoiding cancerous matches with cancerous teammates who throw games before they even start with troll picks.

[Erenussocrates]

MOBA games by their nature are cancerous in general, and often the people who play them become so too even if they weren't in the first place.

But the danger of losing a game at any point in the match is the thing that makes one MOBA better than the other, tbh. Not the "win lane, win game" mentality.

And as it's a team game, you exactly shouldn't be able to carry the whole game by yourself and should depend on the team effort.

[Ragnoraok]

Originally posted by Erenussocrates:

MOBA games by their nature are cancerous in general, and often the people who play them become so too even if they weren't in the first place.

But the danger of losing a game at any point in the match is the thing that makes one MOBA better than the other, tbh. Not the "win lane, win game" mentality.

And as it's a team game, you exactly shouldn't be able to carry the whole game by yourself and should depend on the team effort.

Except that SMITE does everything in its power to keep games close by making early-game kills give negligible rewards and making Phoenixes do insane damage until you have full build.

SMITE holds your hand more than any other MOBA that I have played, and each new season doubles down on this.

[Ragnoraok]

Originally posted by diegobrando:

Yeah you are right. Ranked is a complete ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. You need to stomp so hard you either win in 20 mins or the enemy surrenders, or the game draws out into these 40 min slugfests where everyone has items and you are just looking for that 1 fight to wipe them and end. In fact I just played a game like that. We even had a afk guy and just defended base. He comes back, we win 1 fight and just end.

Seasons 2/3 were the highlights as far as competitive goes. Worlds was hype aswell. Then idk what happened. They wanted to cater to Xbox pad players, or maybe they don't understand the game at all. But all changes since season 4 onwards made the game more and more casual. Damage went up, survivability down, abilities are made easier to hit, all items that do something else except buff stats get removed (fatalis, golden bow) and they just keep adding more stuff onto the map that doesn't really matter just to give everyone more gold. Like the totems and chalices etc. In my opinion it just clutters the map and makes it look terrible and inflates gold gain.

Most people just play arena, which is fine. It's a casual mode for a game that Hi-Rez themselves decided is a causal game. Nobody cares about ranked conquest or even e-sports anymore. If you go to reddit it's all about god designs and art. Then they release a blog post about adding a ward to your active slot, and reddit goes "yeeesss so amazing!! I love placing wards!!!" When in reality it doesn't really matter and nobody on reddit even understands or cares about ranked conquest.

It's fine if they want this to be a casual game, but idk why they are still forcing conquest. Eg. you get exclusive rewards just for playing ranked conquest and it's still the "main" mode when they have done nothing to make it more appealing. With appealing I mean competitive and fun and engaging. Instead they do constant random changes that don't matter and steadily casualize the gameplay more and more.

Well spoken. Ironically, the meta now is much more team-deathmatch than last season despite everyone getting a rechargeable ward. Almost every match you see rotating death squads of 3-4 people typically around 10 minutes. Laning is almost nonexistent anymore.

[MeatSlinger3000]

Originally posted by Erenussocrates:

MOBA games by their nature are cancerous in general, and often the people who play them become so too even if they weren't in the first place.

True

Originally posted by Erenussocrates:

But the danger of losing a game at any point in the match is the thing that makes one MOBA better than the other, tbh. Not the "win lane, win game" mentality.

And as it's a team game, you exactly shouldn't be able to carry the whole game by yourself and should depend on the team effort.

You're missing the point.

A MOBA can't be wholly dependent on teamwork in the manner that Smite is while simultaneously barring you from having any effective & meaningful way of deciding who to have on your team. As the OP stated above, you can only que ranked with 1 other person, & attempts to decide who you do not want to play with via dodging matches during the pick/ban phase result in account suspensions.

What you're left with is a ranked system that is completely dominated by matchmaking lottery, making wins & losses more about RnG than individual skill. Having your wins & losses in a Ranked playlist be primarily dictated by RnG is The Premiere Example of what it means to take flattening differences in skill to the extreme. This is beyond stupid and beyond absurd.

[Ragnoraok]

Originally posted by MeatSlinger3000:

Originally posted by Erenussocrates:

MOBA games by their nature are cancerous in general, and often the people who play them become so too even if they weren't in the first place.

True

Originally posted by Erenussocrates:

But the danger of losing a game at any point in the match is the thing that makes one MOBA better than the other, tbh. Not the "win lane, win game" mentality.

And as it's a team game, you exactly shouldn't be able to carry the whole game by yourself and should depend on the team effort.

You're missing the point.

A MOBA can't be wholly dependent on teamwork in the manner that Smite is while simultaneously barring you from having any effective & meaningful way of deciding who to have on your team. As the OP stated above, you can only que ranked with 1 other person, & attempts to decide who you do not want to play with via dodging matches during the pick/ban phase result in account suspensions.

What you're left with is a ranked system that is completely dominated by matchmaking lottery, making wins & losses more about RnG than individual skill. Having your wins & losses in a Ranked playlist be primarily dictated by RnG is The Premiere Example of what it means to take flattening differences in skill to the extreme. This is beyond stupid and beyond absurd.

Can you dodge matches in DOTA2 with impunity? I havent played in like 3 years so I do not recall if this is possible.

[Erenussocrates]

Originally posted by Ragnoraok:

Except that SMITE does everything in its power to keep games close by making early-game kills give negligible rewards and making Phoenixes do insane damage until you have full build.

SMITE holds your hand more than any other MOBA that I have played, and each new season doubles down on this.

Tbh I don't like crazy tower dives in every match, in a way I'm kind of glad that they do a ton of damage. Otherwise meta game turns into a matter of building a team of who dives best.

Also I don't necessarily agree with hand holding though, as there are almost no auto-targeting damage in the game and you have to land all of the shots by your own skill. And you don't have an omniscient consciousness on the visible map, so you'll always have to pay attention to the minimap and communications more than ever.

I don't know about the ranked queue system though, I haven't tried that yet, that might suck, so no comments there.

But from what it feels like, a lot of the problems mentioned here potentially could be rectified by the game being more popular and played by more people. Which is sadly not the case.

[Ragnoraok]

Originally posted by Erenussocrates:

Originally posted by Ragnoraok:

Except that SMITE does everything in its power to keep games close by making early-game kills give negligible rewards and making Phoenixes do insane damage until you have full build.

SMITE holds your hand more than any other MOBA that I have played, and each new season doubles down on this.

Tbh I don't like crazy tower dives in every match, in a way I'm kind of glad that they do a ton of damage. Otherwise meta game turns into a matter of building a team of who dives best.

Also I don't necessarily agree with hand holding though, as there are almost no auto-targeting damage in the game and you have to land all of the shots by your own skill. And you don't have an omniscient consciousness on the visible map, so you'll always have to pay attention to the minimap and communications more than ever.

I don't know about the ranked queue system though, I haven't tried that yet, that might suck, so no comments there.

But from what it feels like, a lot of the problems mentioned here potentially could be rectified by the game being more popular and played by more people. Which is sadly not the case.

LOL, tower diving does happen in this game as early as level 5. In general, towers and especially minions deal FAR less damage than they used to in S3. The phoenix should not have that much health and power considering that the map is so large; this makes comps designed to win through early game pressure not feasible because you would need to win several teamfights before the entire team has enough of a lead to end the game early. This is why all matches (that are not complete blowouts) last until everyone has full builds.

Nearly all of the best characters have large hitboxes or big AOE targeting. Danza and Cthulu are one of the newest and greatest offenders of this. Characters with line abilities generally do not have enough damage to compensate for their kits being harder to land. Thanatos' 1 comes to mind as an ability that is not easy to land yet does a lot of damage, but that is only after his recent rework; characters like Ne Zha and Serqet do pitiful damage considering that their entire kits rely on landing critical line abilities. Meanwhile, Danza can deal 75% of your life at level 2 with his taunt money bag combo which is guaranteed to hit at a certain range. Combine this will the absurd amount of cc, and landing abilities are very easy to do.

[Erenussocrates]

You are playing carry so you want to end the game while it's early before your teammates ruin the rest of the game, by nerfing the phoenix to ground. Well too bad, a MOBA is a team game.