So I recently started playing role queue ranked, and I have no idea how I can get better, or whats the difference between lower and upper MMR players.
I used to play Starcraft, and I always knew in each league what was my problems, what went wrong in the game, and what I could do better in the next one.
In guardian level games I can see players stopping spirit breaker using charge of darkness with rod of atos in the blink of an eye, using tinker perfectly, starting and finishing every teamfight perfectly, and other plays that I don’t know how can get better. And still its only guardian, and can’t imagine what they do better in immortal.
But dota has so much more factors, like games can get decided during picking heroes, there are 4 other players in the team that I don’t always watch / know what they are doing. Is it even possible to judge a players skill correctly in dota?
In my current league (around guardian 2) 90% of the games are about one team absolutely destroying the other. I feel like whatever I do is pointless, because either the team is doing fine without me, or can’t do anything that will turn the game around, because of bad picks or that 1 or 2 players with 0-9-1 at 8 minutes.
I prefer to play soft / hard support. Not sure how much this sound like “everybody is bad except me”, but I’m totally open to the idea, that I’m just bad. But as I said, I have no idea what I’m doing wrong.
So I was wondering what could I do to get involved in better games. I don’t even dream of getting a high MMR (though it would be pleasing), I only want to play fun and close games where the team works as a team. My only guess / hope is that at higher levels games will get better.
You are certainly very bad. Don’t feel bad about it, though, being bad at something is completely normal, especially when you start out. The ranking algorithm is very accurate. So since you’re ranked in guardian 2, that means that roughly 90% of players are better than you.
Dota is probably one of the most complex games around right now, which is why it is so attractive to many. I’ve also played Starcraft 2, which indeed is also pretty complex, but compared to Dota infinitely less so. Just simply the amount of options you have to do different things is incredibly more vast in dota. Simply just to learn all the features of the game is basically a neverending journey, while you know pretty fast which units/buildings do what in Starcraft and are aware of all options of the game. Compared to learning all heroes, their spells, all items, all map features, all creeps around the map, all special interactions between items/abilities, it’s basically negligible. Everyone, even pros, are learning the game all the time, so you could basically say one of the main gameplay elements of Dota is learning.
And even if you were done learning all features, you’d still have to actually learn to use all these features, i.e. playing itself, to worry about.
What I’m saying is, essentially every player in Dota is “bad”. The game feels more punishing because you just sometimes feel absolutely stupid, even though of course you aren’t. You regularly have moments that feel like forgetting that you need to build a Cybernetics Core before you can build Stalkers, which sounds bad in a Starcraft context, but in Dota that’s just normal.
Also since you played Starcraft, you know very well that small advantages quickly spiral into larger advantages, i.e. snowballing. Theoretically, in a perfect Starcraft game, if one player falls behind early and both play well from that point onward, the one that fell behind will keep falling more behind and eventually lose. But of course, there’s also defender’s advantage, which allows to extend the game and allow the other player to make a mistake themselves, thus evening out the game again, which means that not every game where one player gets an advantage is always won by that player. It’s exactly the same in Dota, but it works completely differently, since defender’s advantage is not about rush distances, and in general, the gameplay is just completely different.
So what I’m saying with all of this is, what you’re experiencing is completely normal. Dota is very different from most other games and has very special knowledge required. It’s completely normal to feel completely lost and not even have an idea of where to start.
So, with that out of the way, let’s get a bit more practical: how you actually get better in Dota.
So first of all, what you’re doing here is the best thing you can do. Ask other people what to do better. You lack a lot of knowledge and experience, and in a game so complex that is incredibly valuable. Luckily, we humans have learned how to transfer experience, by talking about things.
The second most important thing is to just learn what all the things do in Dota. Whenever you come across something that you forgot, look into it again and make sure that you understand what’s happening.
The next thing is to actually play the game, of course. If you don’t play enough, you won’t be getting comfortable with how the game controls. This is the thing most people do the most of and which comes naturally.
As you probably know from Starcraft, watching your own replays is also incredibly important. In tandem with this, watching pro player replays and seeing what they do (and figuring out why) and thus learning new things to incorporate into your own game is also very useful.
And now finally, as the very last part, let’s get into actual advice for you on what you’re doing wrong and what you can do better.
I have no idea, and there’s just too much in dota to just give you general advice. The single best thing you can do is to post a match ID of yours and let me (+ others) look at it. I’m very knowledgeable about all stages of the game, but I’m pretty bad at playing currently since I’ve just not been playing the game lately, but I’ve been involved in the game since Dota 1. When I played more, I’ve been ranked ~top 10%. If you want, we can chat a bit about the game.
Thanks for the detailed answer(s) :)
Its good to hear these, because if the ranking is accurate and I’m bad, and its possible to make this big of a difference in one game then I can improve! I feared that skill levels in dota doesn’t really vary, so thanks for pointing these out. But I love to play competitively, push myself to a limit, and figure things out (just like in starcraft).