Dota 2 Matchmaking and You

Focus on the game, not the flame.

Lose the flame, Play the game

People don't typically like to lose. It feels good to win a game, like an accomplishment, but when you lose sometimes it can feel like time wasted.

That's why it's important to treat losses (and wins too!) as a learning opportunity. If you don't learn from a loss at least have a little fun. Remember, unless you're getting paid then Dota is just a game, not a job.

A positive attitude can turn losing games into winning games. A negative attitude can turn a game that might have been either a win or a loss, into a sure loss. And if you only have fun when you're winning, then statistically speaking and given two evenly matched teams, you're not going to have fun 50% of the time.

Your attitude and behavior can have a very clear effect on your in-game performance. Sure, you could spend the game raging at your teammates, wishing terminal diseases on them and their family and telling them what you think of their mother and their ethnic/national origin but in the end, blaming your team won't make you better at Dota and it won't make you win games. You can't control every player in the game but you your own actions and behavior are entirely your choice.

This guide contains a number of excuses, conspiracies and pitfalls that should be avoided along with tips on how to overcome these percieved injustices and how to be a better player.

It's not me, it's everyone else. (it's you)

Players will often fall into a pattern of blaming their teammates, the system and pretty much anyone who doesn't agree that it's their teammates' and the system's fault when they lose.

The Dota 2 Steam forums are full of players complaining that everyone they are matched with is complete trash. Dota 2 matchmaking matches players based on their numerical skill rating, or MMR.
If you believe that everyone you are being matched with is trash, terrible, hopeless, etc. then what does that say about the fact that you're being matched with them?

This leads to something commonly known as the Dunning-Kruger effect, of which the basic premise is that people tend to overestimate their own skills and the less skilled someone is, the more wildly they may overestimate their own skills while underestimating others' skills. This is especially true in competitive online gaming.

http://www.mweb.co.za/games/view/tabid/4210/Article/16790/The-Dunning-Kruger-effect-in-gaming.aspx

Even at the professional level, there are no players who never make mistakes, bad plays or have bad games so if professional Dota players aren't perfect then normal, casual players, including yourself are likely much less so. Give yourself and your teammates a break.

Rules for thee but not for me

When you die, a teammate dies or you lose a teamfight, some players have a tendency to want to immediately lash out and blame someone. No one wins these blame games.

When you lash out at your teammates, you lose focus on the game and create infighting with your own team. Remember, you already have five enemies in every game, don't make four more.

It's easy to point out others' mistakes but what a lot of players are unable to do is identify their own mistakes.

You likely won't make other players improve by flaming, raging or constantly calling them out for making what you perceive as mistakes. If you really want to improve then the real skill is being able to identify your own mistakes and learn from them. You can greatly improve by focusing on and mastering basic game mechanics, drafting/counterpicking/synergy, last hitting/denying, laning/farming efficiency, initiating/ganking/teamfighting, map awareness/warding and defense/push strategies.

Instead of flaming teammates for mistakes, failing to save you, giving you all of the farm, not laying wards at your feet every 10 steps, etc. try supporting and encouarging your teammates, even when they make mistakes. You lose nothing from being nice and having a positive attitude. Positive attitudes are infectuous just like negative ones.

Don't spite your own teammates and withhold support, saves, heals, stuns or pout and say "ggwp, end pls" because of some injustice that you have perceived against you. If you do these things then you have no one to blame but yourself when you lose.

The solo career

If you mostly or only play solo pubs (public matchmaking) then you are what many players refer to as a "filthy casual", although many who use "casual" as an insult don't realize that they are casuals themselves. There's nothing wrong with being a casual player.

There is little to no difference between two players with a similar skill rating and experience, in which one player insists that they are a "hardcore" player. I have seen players insist that they have played Dota for 10+ years and are "stuck" in a low skill bracket because the system is "totally unfair."

Because you played Dota 1/Allstars once or twice or heard about it from a friend who knew a friend who heard of a guy who watched a Warcraft 3 video on youtube...does not make you a veteran. /rant

If you do not like being matched with four random players then you should join or create your own party and you can stack your team as much as you want, within the MMR party requirements.

Many solo players don't like playing in a party or completely refuse to because they are simply not teamplayers, they don't like playing against players and teams who are or they insist that it's impossible to make friends* who are as good at Dota as they are.

Solo and even party pubs are not professional and competitive Dota. That's why they are known as pubs. As long as you choose to play solo only then you will always be at the mercy of the solo matchmaking queue.

The matchmaking system can't predict when another player on your team is going to have a bad game any more than it can predict when you are. And you do. EVERYONE has bad games.

*If you want to make more friends in Dota, simply play the game and when you find a player you enjoyed playing with, consider sending them a friend request. And instead of getting mad at a player who just roflstomped you, consider sending them a friend request too because it probably would have been nice if they were on your team in that game you just lost to them, right? Eventually, you can work up a pretty decent list of Dota friends this way. There are also numerous user channels in-game for players looking for ranked, unranked and casual parties by mmr brackets.

Valve is holding me back! (no, it's still you)

This is a conspiracy theory that has been floated around the Dota 2 Steam forums by players claiming that Valve is intentionally holding them back from achieving the MMR or rank that they believe they deserve or is keeping them from "going pro."

Dota 2 is one of the few rare moba games on the market that gives players access to the entire character/hero roster for free. You don't have to grind for years and you don't have to drop hundreds or a thousand plus dollars to unlock the basic features of the game. Dota 2 is probably also the most generous when it comes to giving away free cosmetics.

Valve doesn't make money when you lose a game and they have no reason to edge players out of the "pro scene." In fact, Dota 2 has open qualifiers for the Majors, The International and many other major and minor tournaments around the world. There is no MMR requirement and you don't even have to be a ranked player so it would make zero sense for Valve to force players to lose to keep them from going pro. The only thing holding players back from their own professional ambitions is their skill and themselves.

If you are interested in playing truly competitive and cooperative Dota then the best time to join a draft for an amateur league or team is now. RD2L, Faceit and Esea all have popular amateur league teams and you don't need 10,000 MMR and Immortal 1 to join or create your own team. All you need are the skills to beat the competition.

Note on Rank Medals:

Rank medals are cosmetic only. They are based on a combination of solo and party MMR and other factors that Valve has not revealed. Two players with the same medal may have very different solo and party MMR. Being matched with or against a player with a lower or higher rank medal than you does not mean that the system is out to get you. The matchmaking system is still based on players' actual numerical MMR.

Dota 2 Seasonal Ranking and You:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1208627755

It's (insert nationality/ethnicity)'s fault! (It's not)

Some players have a tendency to blame their losses on teammates' nationality, ethnicity and/or spoken language.

An entire country or race of people is not responsible for you losing a game. In fact, many of the players who complain about their teammates' race or nationality often tend to leave out the fact that they also get beat by players of that race or nationality on the enemy team.

Communication is an important factor in Dota 2, however the game gives players' many tools to facilitate communication between players who speak different languages, mainly the in-game chat wheel and context pings.

While it can sometimes be frustrating when teammates don't speak your language, there are very few things that need to be critically communicated in-game that can't be done with the chatwheel or pings.

Many of the players on the Dota 2 Steam forums who complain that they lose because their teammates don't understand them tend to have a history of bad behavior and profanity filled chat logs. Some of these players also believe that their profanity and insult filled rants are somehow an attempt to "help" their team and can't understand why they get reporting for "helping."

It is important to note that the in-game language preference is a preference only. It is not a guarantee. Dota 2 servers and matchmaking are not language locked. Many region servers are in fact home to a wide variety of official recognized languages. Europe for example, recognizes 24 official languages throughout the entire region, not to mention numerous dialects. Also, people speak who speak specific languages don't just live in one part of Europe but all throughout Europe.

If you have time to spend on long-winded rants aimed at your teammates in-game, then there's a good chance that you're doing something wrong and you should probably focus more on your own mistakes, paying attention to the map, pushing advantage or defending and farming, whether you're dead or alive.

The Forced 50% Conspiracy

Valve does not force a 50% winrate. There are many players who have a higher than 50% winrate and many who have a lower than 50% winrate. Some players would probably actually love to have a guaranteed 50% winrate.

Matchmaking does its best to create an even spread of MMR between two opposing teams. When two teams are evenly matched skill-wise then there is a greater chance that there will be a 50/50 probability of who wins the match.

Players who are practicing and improving will at some point see a gradual increase in their winrate but eventually once they reach their skill plateau, it will gravitate back to 50%. Players who spam "cheesy heroes" may get really good at one or a few heroes but will eventually be punished by higher skilled counters and players who know how to play with and against more than one hero, which can lead to a backslide in MMR and your winrate.

Every player will eventually reach a point where they are no longer able to continue increasing their skill. Even professional players who dedicate themselves to e-sports gaming, reach their own skill plateau.

Low Priority and You

To get Low Priority, you have to be reported repeatedly by multiple parties on a consistent basis or repeatedly abandon/afk games. Multiple reports from a single party will be displayed in your conduct reports but will only count as one report for the purposes of LP assessment.

Dota's report system accounts for "noise" so a few reports here and there won't land you in LP. You have to work towards getting enough reports to receive LP. Generally, this is due to players with a bad attitude who blame and flame teammates, point out everyones' mistakes but their own, spam personal insults and harassment, afk in fountain or jungle, withhold healing/help to teammates or otherwise engage in bad behavior.

Why you got Low Priority:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=625103077

If you feel that a teammates deserves a report then there is no need to inform them that you are reporting or shout "everyone report this guy ermagerds!" Just report them at the end of the match. Threatening to report other players only leads to in-fighting and retaliatory reports and it makes you look like the bad guy.

PSA: Save your reports for people who deserve them
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=610727487

Some players will insist that Valve, "the system" and every other player is part of some conspiracy that's out to get them. One player on the Dota 2 Steam forums with roughly 2000 matches of LP, his most played gamemode, repeatedly insisted that it was the system that was at fault and not him.

The more reports and LP you rack up, the lower your behavior score will be and the more likely you are to be matched with players with similar behavior scores to your own. You can probably guess what happens when you put two or more players with bad attitudes together on the same team.

To reiterate, unless you're getting paid, Dota 2 is just a game, not a job. If you find your temper raging at a video game then you need to take a deep breath and a step back and evaulate your behavior.

Remember, you choose your own words and actions. No one forces you to have a negative attitude and it will not help you win. If you find that you have difficulty controlling your temper in-game then here are some tips that may help you. It may sound a little cheesy but a positive attitude can actually increase your winrate.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=423565666

Be Nice

That's it. Just be nice. You lose literally nothing from being nice to your teammates and even your opponents.

There's nothing wrong with a little trash talk or friendly ribbing from time to time but if you're going to be straight up abusive, then at least save your gloating until you've actually won the game because there's nothing funnier than when someone spends an entire game talking trash and then loses.

Additional Resources

Dota 2 Quickstart Guide: (great for beginners or anyone who needs a refresher)
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=630339657

Coaching Tips: (tips for the TI9 coach's challenge)
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1739986627

How to uninstall Dota 2: (don't threaten to quit, if you're not having fun then just quit)
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1186776956

[BossGalaga]

@Asket, Flip a coin a hundred times. However many times it comes up heads or tails = "forced XX% winrate!"

[Asket]

Author is not paid by Volvo ofc, it's just a thin trolling.
Food is coming for free)

Sure there is no such problem as forced 50%, just a game where you play with Legends vs Divine or anyway win +14 and lose -30.

inb4 "elo working as intended, git gud"

[BossGalaga]

@Chef Goobery, Oh noes, you've exposed the deep dark secret! You know...your post and the 500 other posts in the Dota forums crying about "hurr durr forced 50%", now everyone will know and "no one will play the game" just like you said. Well good thing that I'm totally getting "paid by Dota2 to write this" as you cleverly deduced. How stunning and brave of you. Your last played Dota game was over a year ago and you haven't even used the Steam forums on this account. At least have enough guts to post on your main account instead of trolling on your multiple gamebanned and VAC banned alt accounts like a pathetic coward.

[TEGGIES]

The MMR system designed to force 50/50 games, which in turn means it DOES NOT MATTER how good you are. You will be forced up against a similar good player. Even the HIDDEN MMR.

If you are a better player than your rank, you will be forced to meet a enemy that is equally better than your rank to even out the scores. It will be 50% win and lose rate according to the MMR and also according to the HIDDEN MMR. If this information got out no one would play the game because everyone would realize that they single handedly cannot force their way up in the mmr bracket.

An immortal player ca 6k mmr got his hands on an 2.5k mmr account.
He could of course boost the account up since his skill level were so high that even the hidden mmr system couldnt hold him down. BUT, it was NO EASY TASK. It turned out he got matched against other smurfs to even out the score, a.k.a the 50% forced win/lose HIDDEN MMR.

The author of this article is obviously retarded or paid by Dota2 to write this

[RedWhite-]

"blaming your team won't make you better at Dota and it won't make you win games" this should be a chat wheel option

[Sunitka69]

as a 7k player stuck in 3k bracket I want to ask myself WTF!?

[BossGalaga]

@Blaze, There's a fair bit of difference between a fourth and a third. First you claimed your winrate was only 10%, then you claimed it was "a little above 25%" and from your last 40 matches, it's actually 35%. Your overall winrate from all of your matches is over 50%.

[Blaze]

And you seem to lack some serious reading skills, as I did not say 25% sharp. That's the second time you misread me, and the third time you are mistaken in 3 comments. Wow.

[BossGalaga]

@Blaze 14wins/26 losses, is actually 35% which is actually more than a third, not 25% or a fourth. You're undercutting yourself again.

[Blaze]

My W/L seems to be 14/26 in the last 40 matches. A little above a 25%.