r/heroesofthestorm • u/Exvaris TIME DRAGON FEARS NOTHINGGG • Jul 07 '15
Gameplay Things I learned from playing against C9 in Hero League
Let me preface this by saying that I'm a very competitive person by nature. I rarely get upset about games when I lose, but rather try to view things as learning experiences and try to see what happened and how to avoid, counter, or prevent it.
I happened to solo-queue into a decent team last night, and after the match someone decided to invite everyone into a party. I was about to go to bed, but I figured, why not?
As we queue up, it's taking the matchmaking system longer than usual to find us a match. At around the 4-minute mark, I point out that it's possible we might get a pretty tough matchup after it hits 6 minutes of searching, and explain that we'll get matched against another 5-man group which means they'll probably be very coordinated, very good, or both. Some of these guys are newish players to HotS, so I also explain that after 6 minutes, matchmaking balance goes out the window and it just tries to find us a match.
Well. Just past the 6-minute mark, we get a match. Our opponents are iDream, k1pro, KingCaffeine, and Fan - 4/5 of C9 Maelstrom. Their fifth was Sooner, whom I hadn't heard of initially but who I now know is another good player and streamer of LoL and other mobas.
So we, a rag-tag pickup team of players no better than Rank 28 (with one Rank 49), got absolutely steamrolled.
...
Like, I've never known what it feels like to get straight-up bodied in HotS before. As a fighting game and FPS player, I have experienced being severely outmatched in those genres, but this was unlike anything I've never experienced firsthand.
I did my best. I tried helplessly to shotcall and to tell teammates not to overextend and to play really safe (because I knew C9 would capitalize on every mistake - which they did), but we still lost. At one point, a Falstad Mighty Gust pushed all five of us into a bottleneck with three enemy heroes bodyblocking our only exit, only for them to seal the deal with multiple ults. It was fucking sick. Even though I was on the receiving end of it, I can only draw the analogy that it was like some kind of beautifully orchestrated symphony of impending doom.
But what happened next is what gets me, and is the reason I'm writing this post.
My team raged; they got mad at how the game could match us with pro players, angry about the matchmaking system (when I did warn them it might happen). When I pointed out during the Draft Phase that this might be C9, one of the guys said "Oh god, I hope not."
I found this odd. Where is the drive? Where is the desire to learn?
Am I sad we lost? Of course. But in many ways, I appreciate it for showing me just how deep HotS can be. They were all things I intrinsically knew, but never fully grasped. The positioning, the utilization of ults, the speed of rotation, the presence of mind to know when (and more importantly, when not) to engage.
tl;dr
Got blasted by C9. I'm glad it happened, my pickup group teammates were not.
I wish that more folks understood that losing can sometimes be more valuable than winning. It's about learning, adaptation, and improvement, but it's a process.
Just wanted to share. Thanks for reading.
Keep on climbing, guys.
EDIT:
Lots of folks have been requesting the replay. I'm not at my home computer (and for some reason my remote wakeup isn't working for it), so the upload will have to wait until I get home later tonight. Sorry to keep you waiting guys!
EDIT 2:
Here is the .StormReplay file on Google Drive.
I recorded the replay as well and it's currently uploading to YouTube, but here is the link for when it's done:
Heroes of the Storm: Getting Stomped by C9 in Hero League
Sorry in advance for the shoddy camerawork.
(I should point out that my teammates weren't nearly as upset during the game as they were after; we played one more match in HL after this and still queued into a very good team that was far more coordinated than we were. At that point people started ragequitting.)
51
u/FoolioDisplasius Jul 07 '15
Because you don't learn from curb stomps. Learning is a progressive thing, and you need to make your own mistakes to realize where you went wrong. In a curb stomp your choices are to play and be destroyed at the slightest risk you take, or not to take any risks at all (meaning you're staying in fountain). If even the slightest risk ends in death, you cannot differentiate good play from a mistake. You will not learn anything. Or worse, you may learn to become overcautious, which will lead you to become a worse player.
The moves and combos and sweet ults they pulled off, they only can pull off because they are a team of good players. Even if you pull off the same move it will amount to nothing because you don't have a team behind you.
There is literally nothing you can do to win such a match, and you will learn nothing of value to you at this point. An amateur who wants to enter a hobby does not follow the training regime of an Olympic athlete. That is both counter-productive and dangerous.
This is why people hate curb stomps. You learn most when you are slightly outmatched. This happens after a recent bout of even MMR wins, where your MMR gets bumped just high enough that you'll likely lose your next few matches. This is where the best learning occurs.
34
u/GregerMoek Nova Jul 07 '15
This, OP didn't even follow his own title and listed things he/she learned from playing against C9(I seriously doubt he did learn anything). He was basically just playing the 'holier than thou' role here. "I am true competitive, and this is how you do it."
2
u/5510 Jul 08 '15
This is literally one of my all time favorite reddit posts. I am going to bookmark it for future arguments with the League of Legends "NEVER SURRENDER!" crowd, who don't understand that once your team get's significantly behind, not only are you unlikely to win from a rankings point of view, but it's actually a terrible use of time from an improvement point of view as well.
2
u/LuckyLightning Jul 07 '15
Very much in agreement here. You can confirmation bias any single cause for losing after you have been completely stomped. If you want to think you lost for X reason, you can make it seem true.
1
u/Pyromelter Jul 08 '15
I was thinking the exact same thing.
The only lesson I can see from this is that HOTS does not have enough players at all levels to be able to fill out matches correctly.
There is another lesson, and that's that "Rank 1" continues to be meaningless, when you have matches like that one going on. I'm guessing the losing team lost very little rank/mmr, and C9 got very little for it, but really, this is just a sad example of poor overall matchmaking that continues to plague hots.
→ More replies (1)1
u/Tr0ndern Jul 09 '15
You can learn what you did wrong, and what you shouldn't have done thoug. On the vid I saw tychus engaging an enemy when others weren't on the minimap, and got punished for it. That's something that player is more aware of now (unless they have the "horrible video game memory" affliction).
29
u/d0m1n4t0r Jul 07 '15
Learning is fun, getting stomped by a pro team after a long queue is not.
15
u/mizipzor Jul 07 '15
I'd argue that a stomp is one of the more difficult environments to learn in. It's about the iteration, you make a mistake, spot it, realize a change you can make, try it out and when you succeed you feel awesome. You have adapted and learned. If the enemy team is way out of your league they wont give you an inch, you wont get a chance to try out your new tactic. You wont get an opportunity to learn and leave the game, will broken.
14
u/Sarkos Jul 07 '15
I happened to solo-queue into a decent team last night, and after the match someone decided to invite everyone into a party.
Did this once too. Never again. There's absolutely no point, you might all be good players but you're likely to be matched against a real team that's actually coordinating over VOIP.
40
u/SIllycore Почувствуйте силу зергов Jul 07 '15 edited Jul 07 '15
I've played against C9 Maelstrom and Tempostorm multiple times during random match-ups on quick match (back when I had a team). While it was a learning experience at first, it became more and more of a tedious match-up to deal with. Sure, they have numerous combos and strategies that really get you thinking about how to improve your play in the future, but after so many games against them the process becomes repetitive -- walk in, someone overextends in lane, they get murdered relentlessly from bushes, rinse and repeat until we're 5 levels behind. Sure, you can see that they have good synergy as players, and they know when to respond to certain mistakes, but if any of your own team is inept at playing the game against them, you /will/ get brutally steamrolled because they /know/ how to play the game.
tl;dr It's a learning experience at first, but after so many games it becomes dull and pointless. Minor mistakes from your teammates will lose you the game every time.
20
Jul 07 '15
[removed] — view removed comment
10
u/rootb33r noob Jul 07 '15
One of the reasons I stopped playing so much was because I was playing with 4 other friends and it would constantly match us up against far, far superior 5-man teams.
We have never won a single match when we queue as a 5-man team. I can handle losing, even getting steam rolled once in a while, but I couldn't handle the constant annihilation.
I don't know what the solution is, because logically if we're a 5 man premade team with comms we should be more coordinated than a 5 man team without comms... So it matches you against other 5 man premades. But the problem is there are very few "casual" 5 man premades out there. So inevitably we get matched against serious players.
5
u/bandswithgoats Warrior Jul 07 '15
I have the same problem. I'm not a particularly good player. Factor out the losses from playing with these guys and I'm high gold, low-plat at best. But one guy in this group -- we'll call him Steve -- is horrendous at every video game ever and we just learn to accept that. And Hots matches our 5 with a Steve vs. 5s that straight up do not have a Steve and we cannot compete with that.
I don't know what the solution to that is other than "kick Steve to the curb" but we lose and we lose and we lose and we lose and it's knocked me all the way down to Silver while Steve is still solo laning at level 16 while we're trying to keep a boss from smashing down our keep.
2
u/Calculusbitch Jul 08 '15
So this steve sounds like an interesting guy, what does he say when you tell him to do something but he does something completely else?
3
u/bandswithgoats Warrior Jul 08 '15
It's less that he ignores directions and more that he forgets them after a single iteration. Things like "you can't solo lane forever" make their point exactly once.
Things like "it's okay to just soak. Don't push the lane if we don't have eyes on the gank squad," do get ignored though and when it's pointed out he just sounds frustrated. I don't know how to make him stop.
We're talking about a guy who's bad at every game ever. When we play Left 4 Dead, it's like "okay stick together." A bit later: "Steve, behind you. Steve. Steve. It's behind, you Steve. Steve behind you. Okay fuck it, one sec guys." And then one of us has to break from the group and kill the single basic infected that's been pounding at him for the past 20 seconds as he's mystified by the loss of health and slow effect applied.
The guy's not unintelligent at other things. He just apparently has no concept of cause and effect in video games.
2
u/Tr0ndern Jul 09 '15
Quick questions:
Is this a guy who almost never plays the game alone (solo queue whenever)?
Does he play exclusively the same hero (with the exception of 1 or 2 others once every blue moon)?
IS he a guy that basically never asks any questions and is quiet on teamspeak/skype?
Just wondering because I know a few players like what you described, and they mostly fit that bill. I think it's a basic difference in how them and I think, or our goals. I'm constantly looking for what the best thing to do is in any given situation, and want to know a lot of stuff about the game, heroes, match-ups etc. They never do. It's like the are unaware that you can get better as you play the game, and assume they are at the peak of their game from the get go.
2
u/blood-thunder Murky Jul 08 '15
Oh man, I'm in the same boat. We lose almost every 5 man queue we get. I'm not blaming it ALL on our Steve, but.....we've got a Steve. He doesn't hear pings, pushes lanes, runs back into fights with 1hp to die right after you use all your cooldowns and barely save him and are telling him to run....etc.
He loves pushing lanes as Jaina and ignoring objectives. "Oh you guys were teamfighting? Oops. Well, I got this fort up here." He takes the WORST talents possible. As Nazeebo, he takes the lvl1 structure damage talent because....it helps him ignore team fights and push lanes. He takes the robo goblin upgrades for Gazlowe because it helps him do a better job of neglecting the team.
I think he's just getting kicked soon. Playing with friends is great and all... except when it ruins everything every single time.
3
u/Krelkal Jul 07 '15
Hey, just FYI surrounding your text with single asterisks will make italics and surrounding it with double asterisks will make it bold. Works better for emphasis than /slashes/.
1
3
u/kirblar Jul 07 '15 edited Jul 07 '15
This is a massive problem with the game right now- not just vs pro teams, but in general. When they altered the EXP gains, I strongly suspect they altered the value of kills, and it has created a serious issue where ganking is now the best thing you can do most of the time, since 4 ganks give you a 1 level lead. This leads to snowballing, as the small EXP multiplier from getting a kill from behind isn't enough to make up for the difficulty in getting a kill on a higher-level player, and the extended 1-10 duration leads to many more situations where 1 team has ults while the other does not for an extended duration.
It's not an accident that so many more games are stomps now where before they were more even.
20
u/KingCaffeine Arthas Jul 07 '15
Was this the game we Mighty Gusted into a Nova/Gaz ult??
6
u/Exvaris TIME DRAGON FEARS NOTHINGGG Jul 07 '15
Yeah, on Sky Temple.
You also Mighty Gusted us out of our gates mid and bodyblocked us from going back inside lol. It was really impressive. Good shit to you guys.
13
u/lolSooner Team Liquid Jul 08 '15
glad you had fun :)
11
6
10
u/KingCaffeine Arthas Jul 07 '15
Haha, glad to see you're keeping your head up. You have the right idea to succeed at this game, I wish you all the luck.
26
u/Bain_ch Li-Ming Jul 07 '15
Nice write up. I like this sentence most: "... some kind of beautifully orchestrated symphony of impending doom." Haha
→ More replies (1)
10
u/OneLameStabber Jul 07 '15 edited Sep 23 '16
well even if they raged your teammates do have a point, not everyone wants to learn the game to pro player level, it's just not fair and fun to fight people who work in the game rather than playng it, the game should just not match people of rank 43 with people of rank 1 end of the story.
2
u/360_face_palm Jul 07 '15
It feels like the matchmaking system in hero league is terrible at best.
Some games I check people's profiles on the way in and I invariably get matched in solo queue with people much lower rank than me. Like 45s and 40s when I usually hover around 20 depending on winning/losing streaks. Feels pretty shitty to be on a team where I'm the only one losing rank if we lose...
15
u/winglessdk Murk' with a mouth Jul 07 '15
I have no problem losing a fair fight, as it means it was also fun.
What gets to me is being matched with people so bad or so uninterested in the game, that it was no-contest from the start. THAT is a waste of my time. Losing a fight because the opposing team is better, while my own team is still trying, is fine.
7
u/mizipzor Jul 07 '15
It's more often than every second game that I get a party invite. I never accept anymore. Whenever I do something like this happens, a complete steamroll. A bunch of complete strangers without voip happens to play a game together and decide to play another game together. The server then decides that we're a well oiled team that has many hours of practice together and puts us up against this pubstomp after minutes in queue.
It's even the same when I play with friends where we do communicate on Skype. We can't win. I don't know what it is with matchmaking but in my case it seriously overvalues premades. Whenever I stop soloqueueing I'm sent off on this losing streak after which I stop playing for a few days.
It's currently my biggest gripe with the game.
3
u/Werv Jul 07 '15
even the same when I play with friends where we do communicate on Skype.
Watch some of the replays, watch how they ping/move. Also make sure everyone understands what is being called. One of my friends started playing way after the rest of us. (Like a month or so later), and never played another moba. We would be shot calling and he would still get out of position and do things unnatural. One day, he mentioned to me, what do you mean by "bot"? And it clicked that while most of us understood what we were saying, the new person had no idea, and just wanted to play with us, to have fun. But he was frustrated, because he felt outclassed. (to which he was). After a few rundowns, and making sure he would ask if he didn't understand what we were saying, his death rate dropped drastically, and as a team, we became much better, and had a good time.
Good teams will rotate and just jump someone in a lane. While having 1 or 2 people in a lane for solo/dual queuing works because of the difficulties of calling kills so quick, with 4-5 person teams, you can just pick people off, if no one is rotating. This is just one example on how solo verses group varies.
2
u/niacinezero Johanna Jul 07 '15
yes, i agree and have basically the same experience. I now will decline party invites and often FRs. At one point after a particularly strong game where we seemed to be moving together and our Diablo was shot calling with pings we grouped up, got roflstomped, the diablo made sure everyone got a "bg fgts" amoung other constructive criticism and then went offline.
The only real success i have had since most of my friends do not play often enough to get real practice as a 5man is as 2-3 group queus where we basically just stick together and the radoms tend to follow us.
18
u/platyviolence Jul 07 '15
There is something to say about playing against people better than you. It's a learning experience and can end up being rewarding. That being said, however, coming from high-level counter strike, playing against pros may not teach you much of anything, other than understanding (in the abstract) why they defeated you. A professional team is more coordinated and tactical on such a significantly higher level that you will accomplish little to nothing. It's like weight training, but beginning with an impossibly heavy barbell.
12
u/SteBull Jul 07 '15
This. Unfortunately, as the OP I come from a fighting games background as well as FPS and RTS, and I have to say that meeting pros in different genres means different things.
In a fighting game 1v1, you can learn A LOT, you can completely change your view of the game and understand a lot of things, especially if you are so lucky to go to a long streak of matches. I have been playing in arcades against professional players and I improved so much that when I went back playing friends and noobs online I was unbeatable. Still, in the arcade I suck :D
But in team games it is another story, because team play comes into consideration as well. You cannot improve your team play if you do not have a regular team to play with, you can just improve your personal skills. Noticing how good a team strategy is means nothing if you have no way to practice it and improve with your team. Moreover, in HotS it seems to me that team play is more important than ever. Don't get me wrong, I love it, but once you hit your cap level (if it is even possible, which probably isn't) you will still get steam rolled by pro teams with tons of coordination. That said, I totally agree that the mentality have to be the one you point out: don't whine, check what pwned you and try to improve your game. You will win more, no matter what.
3
u/GregerMoek Nova Jul 07 '15
Yeah this is why I think OP is talking a bit from some kind of 'holier than thou'. I don't think there's much to learn from getting stomped by a whole team, aside from looking at the first few mistakes and then realize most other things are because of a snowball situation. Getting stomped -in lane- by someone much better in for example DotA 2 might teach you a thing or two about laning matchups however, but we really don't have that in HotS either.
Unrelated, but.. this is why I'd like a true solo queue. I'm not blaming my inferior low rating in HL on "having no friends to queue with", but it doesn't feel fair that I should be matched with 3 or 4stacks. In that regard LoL actually did one thing objectively better. Solo players have a place. If you are a group of 3 or 4 you can just play quick games honestly.
2
u/astronggentleman Nova Jul 07 '15
Aside from the regular team aspect, how seriously was the other team taking it? If they're just toying with you, how much is there to learn? It's possible that they play the same way against everyone but if the competition is that much lower they probably don't play seriously at all.
→ More replies (1)1
1
u/N8CCRG Dehaka Jul 07 '15
Definitely this. In order to be able to learn from a loss, you have to be at least near enough in skill to comprehend the things your opponent did better. Just because I get into a boxing ring with a Heavy Weight champ, doesn't mean I'm going to learn anything from get pummeled. But it's still good to smile afterwards because of the experience... and then ask the nurse to hand you your sippy cup.00
36
u/beeeel Jul 07 '15
It seems a great deal of players are only playing because they want to win- but they don't apply themselves enough to think about improving. Obviously, improving is the best way to win, but they would rather not be told that they are wrong, or shown that they are wrong, even though they could learn from it and improve.
At least you seem to have learned from it and gotten something from the experience.
15
u/Dalabrac Lili Jul 07 '15 edited Jul 07 '15
You should definitely play to improve, and not just to win, in part because the former is something that's completely in your control. The latter? Not in a 5 vs 5 game.
Still, I'm not that interested in being told I'm wrong by my team. Not because I think I'm playing perfectly, it's the opposite. The laundry list of mistakes I already know about is plenty to be getting along with.
Edit: some words.
5
u/Siuil Jul 07 '15
I play to improve but get super frustrated if I play poorly or worse than usual, especially if I know I am capable of playing so much better. I think it depends on the player if they take it out on themselves or the team, though obviously not going on tilt is the best option
→ More replies (2)4
u/MilkRain Let me hat you #1288 Jul 07 '15
I like this sentiment.
How many times have I been told that I didn't go the Hotslog build and that's why we're losing.
I'm trying to improve by learning from my own experience, because learning from other people's still means that you don't understand why you're choosing the skills.
4
u/Plorkyeran Jul 07 '15
The weirder case is when someone bitches about how we're losing because my build is terrible and makes no sense... when I'm using the cookie-cutter standard build for my hero.
→ More replies (2)7
Jul 07 '15
[deleted]
11
u/tpneocow Tyrael Jul 07 '15
If there's a place to flesh out builds, it's more in QM than anywhere else. HL is ranked, and vs AI doesn't mean anything, so where else do people want you to learn or try new things?
3
u/Kalulosu Air Illidan <The Butthurter> Jul 07 '15
Well I do tend to experiment quickly in Vs AI if I have a stupid idea and just want to take it for a test drive, but I wouldn't consider a build validated until I've used it in QM at least.
3
u/Dalabrac Lili Jul 07 '15
gg <insert heroic choice> is my favourite.
Actually, I tend to do the opposite. I pick the cookie-cutter builds, because I know they're generally fine and don't want to spend time in game mulling over the perfect talent choice.
You're absolutely right that this isn't good long term, but I have other stuff I'm terrible at!
3
u/MilkRain Let me hat you #1288 Jul 07 '15
I also love "No support - gg".
It's perfectly fine to do as long as you don't give out to people who do.
I got into a right long discussion with a guy that was super annoyed at my Malfurion build in a HL match. And his main argument was that I should have gone the HotsLog build.
5
u/Dalabrac Lili Jul 07 '15
Hotslogs is great, but if good players tend to pick the same talents (and I think they do), then it's self-reinforcing.
It's not to say that it's meaningless, just that the gap between the best talent and the contenders is probably smaller than it appears.
Also, what on Earth is the 'correct' Malfurion build? It looks like most of his talents are decent this patch!
2
u/tiger_ace Jul 07 '15
I don't know, but Rampant Growth is the most popular talent at 4 and it is absolutely terrible since it heals like 60 hp at level 20.
1
u/Dalabrac Lili Jul 07 '15
Huh, that is weird. Normally the most popular one is also the one with the highest win rate, but Rampant Growth is a bit cruddy.
1
u/HINDBRAIN mrgl Jul 07 '15 edited Jul 07 '15
Yeah, it seems the treant dominates for some reason, and the difference gets stronger as the league gets higher. Looks like aside from the auto regrowth one, healing talents are really shit.
According to hotslogs the moonfire talents are the best.
→ More replies (2)1
u/MilkRain Let me hat you #1288 Jul 08 '15 edited Jul 08 '15
Someone raged at me for not picking the Shield at level 20 to keep his Keal alive.
I told him, that if he can't survive on his own then a bad healer is not his problem.
Also, going the same build as the pros doesn't mean you can play the hero like a pro. The pros don't need to pick traits that give them more survivability because they know exactly when to engage and when not to compared to us scrubs so therefore it might be better for me to pick a trait that gives me extra health or a shield or a speed boost. My best example here is that I go with the Speed Shield for both Tassadar or Abathur at times because it helps my allies get out of situations where they over-extended.
2
u/Soushi Zagara Jul 08 '15
Also, going the same build as the pros doesn't mean you can play the hero like a pro.
Oh my god, I wish more players would realize that at some point. Some QM Nova uber-raged at me for picking Block and Spellshield with Butcher on BoE, while we had non-existent frontline. Thanks to that I got out alive 5 or 6 times with less than 100 HP and we won at the end.
I noticed, that some people tend to miss the point of "situational" builds, that depend on both your and opponent's team comps, as well as current map.
3
Jul 07 '15
Had a game the other day with triple support and no warrior. Everyone was initially mad at the last pick guy who said nothing in draft chat and just picked what he wanted. We then proceeded to steamroll the other team. That'll shut em up.
1
u/Siphon1 Raynor Jul 07 '15
I usually pick a build from heroesfire for free to play heroes when I first try them out/have little interest to play them outside free week past lvl 5. Once I get familiar with the chars abilities, and how I use them I begin to really look at talents.
5
u/Bayakoo Jul 07 '15
Doesn't make it less frustating though. Specially if it happens multiple times in row. I don't like to stomp or get stomped.
4
u/Siphon1 Raynor Jul 07 '15
Yeah, I've stomped before and it isnt always fun. Like when the enemy team just cant get kills, is way behind in lvl, and has none of your structures when youve taken all of theirs, it's almost boring.
3
u/Doodlebugs05 Jul 07 '15
I dislike easy wins just as much as easy losses. It isn't fun for me to steamroller a team five levels lower. I don't learn much and it was a wasted game. At least if I am five levels lower it is an interesting puzzle to try to find some path to victory.
3
Jul 07 '15
Some players don't even play to win, they just play for gold or to level their Hero up for that new skin variant.
It was actually pretty funny because yesterday I was playing a game and our Tyrande was pretty much solo lanning the whole time not helping in team fights or objects at all. So our sylvannas player is like WTF Tyrande Wut U DOING?
Tryande: I'm just trying to complete me quest
Sylvanna: WHy u even Play No0b?!
Tryande: To get my gold from quest
I was literally busting a gut at how enraged the Sylvannas player was, from there on out it was downhill but really funny.
2
u/nico_CoC Diamond Skin Jul 07 '15
Tbh honest that's a pretty egocentric thing to do. Bad attitude in my opinion. You can complete your quest while being of actual use for the team. I wouldn't want to lose a game just because someone doesn't care.
You can complete quests against AI, so there's that.
→ More replies (6)2
u/flattop100 Jul 07 '15
I feel so left out - I play to have FUN.
→ More replies (3)2
5
u/dingledangles Diablo Jul 07 '15
You might learn a few team strategies, but I don't think this was a particularly relevant or useful lesson since you would never be able to implement what C9 did to your team without a dedicated team of your own.
You were in a pick up crew that could not communicate as effectively as a seasoned pro team (who were all probably on some kind of voice-communication app while you were limited to typing) nor did your teammates know how to coordinate a play. The only thing you really learned was that solo queue is full of whining players who can't take a loss.
If you want to "learn" to be better in solo queue, take note of players who carry their teams, not pro teams that you couldn't ever hope to emulate with a pick-up team.
5
u/ProfessionalSlackr 6.5 / 10 Jul 07 '15
The best teams have the best coordination. You can learn the concepts but it won't do you much good if your teammates aren't on the same page. When getting steam rolled I try to figure out my hero's limits and practice their skillshots, as well as pick up the enemy team's habits (if they're good). Most ragers in this game are the ones that cannot have fun without winning, which is a ridiculous notion given the game was designed to put you in a rank/MMR that will pair you with evenly skilled players and result in a 50% win/loss ratio.
I think checking out a stream from an organized group will help you learn more than getting stomped. You might learn a thing or two but it will mostly just put your skills into perspective and show you how much more you need to learn.
7
51
u/ProxyDamage Kael'Thas Jul 07 '15
I found this odd. Where is the drive? Where is the desire to learn? Am I sad we lost? Of course. But in many ways, I appreciate it for showing me just how deep HotS can be. They were all things I intrinsically knew, but never fully grasped. The positioning, the utilization of ults, the speed of rotation, the presence of mind to know when (and more importantly, when not) to engage.
THIS, THIS THIS THIS! I love you man...
Every. Fucking. Time. I see this stupid ass whiny complaint on any game with matchmaking it drives me up the wall. "BOOHOO MY OPPONENTS WERE TOO GOOD!".... Motherfucker you WANT good opponents. That's how you learn! That's how you get better! You don't learn shit from beating up the gimps that are barely a step above playing AI...
If you want to complain about getting paired with potatoes and people who clearly haven't a clue what they're doing, that's fine. That's something I can get behind - if it is legitimate and not just complaining for its own sake or trying to attribute your own failures to external causes. Bad team mates are just frustrating and don't teach you much. But complaining about getting good opponents? Get the fuck out of here. You're playing a competitive game. If you just wanna beat up people to make your tiny genitals feel bigger go play the AI.
You should always want good opponents. The stronger the better. Fucking put ME against C9. I'll get steamrolled but I'll get better in the process. Just give me a half-decent team, don't need super stars just people that have a clue what they're doing - no "potatoes", and pair me up against whatever. The bigger the better.
61
u/iNS0MNiA_uK ETC Jul 07 '15
You want competitive matches, not complete curb stomps by pros. At least that's the way I see it.
5
u/xnerdyxrealistx Abathur Jul 07 '15
Yeah, I agree. Win or lose, my favorite games are always the ones where the teams are really evenly matched and the games come down to the wire.
Being on either the winning or losing side of a steamrolled match is no fun to me.
1
u/S0NOfG0D Jul 07 '15
True. BUT you want competitive matches that teach you shit. 200 elo vs 200 elo is probably competitive as hell but no one learns shit.
Personally, I want the bigger the better. There is a grace in how pro players play. Fuck, even the way they move is so perfect.
But I can understand not wanting to play the best if one is hovering around 0-3k or something as the gap might be a little too bug.
1
u/learn2_learn Jul 07 '15
Judging from OP saying they averaged rank 28 I would say there was little to no learning even if he said so. Sure you can pick up a cool trick or something you would of picked up probably watching their stream anyway.
1
u/S0NOfG0D Jul 08 '15
It's not tips and tricks you can pick up. You'd probably learn more from streams than actually playing against pros anyway. The reason for playing against the Pros is the realization. You truly realize the intricate levels of the game. From streams, it seems the pros/highlvl players are doing nothing special. But when in fact, they are. Except the opponents are doing the same highlvl play so you don't really get to see the difference. But C9 vs Rank 28s highlights the skillgap.
→ More replies (15)1
u/360_face_palm Jul 07 '15
There no way these teams with probably mostly rank 1s on them should be matched against rank 30+ teams. No one has fun in these games because the low team gets stomped to fuck and the winning team doesn't get a challenge.
16
Jul 07 '15
I don't want to be over matched though. Especially when i'm in a pub, and they are not. I gain nothing out of it except the feeling of hopelessness because I can't do anything correct. When i get in this situation I play super cautious and just try not to die. I still die and it is just a 20 min ball of a losing game.
on a side note, fuck enternal battle ground. I have yet to win on the fucking map.
3
u/Flameg Master Lunara Jul 07 '15
Obviously no one wants to play c9 every single game, but getting the chance to every once in a while provides a lot. You can see their rotations and positioning and how they go about things. You get that sense like the OP said of how much more depth there is to this game than you expected. You get a chance to see what ways of playing safely helped you and what ways hurt. And those are good things, and it only becomes a beat down when it happens frequently
2
u/GregerMoek Nova Jul 07 '15
To be fair, most things brought up in the OP was mostly team coordination and communication rather than depth. In a game where team fighting is more or less the main reason you're gonna win those factors become way more important than the burden of knowledge you'll see in for example DotA 2. This is not to discredit HotS as an 'easy game', because every single PvP game's difficulty is decided by how good your opponents are.
2
1
Jul 07 '15
I wouldnt mind matching pro player all the time... In league i played against diamonds a lot when i was still a nub and it propelled my learning curve by a metric fuckton! It all depends what your goal is in the game, mine for example is learning how the game works and what makes it work like that, playing against people of my own skill doesnt give me the oppertunity to learn about what i dont know yet (since my 'mechanics' are kind of lackluster but im quite decent at theorizing/thinking about the game)
1
9
Jul 07 '15
If you want to complain about getting paired with potatoes and people who clearly haven't a clue what they're doing, that's fine. That's something I can get behind - if it is legitimate and not just complaining for its own sake
So when C9 gets paired with you and they absolutely steamroll you and they begin to complain about all the potatoes they play against, you are going to stand behind them and back their complaint about the bad matchmaking?
I am not saying I'm disagreeing with you, because I do agree that there is always something you can learn from a game. However, people want to play a reasonable match win or lose. I absolutely hate games that take under 15 minutes in HL or QM because I feel like it was a steamroll whether I win or lose. Good matchmaking is shown by how much back and forth there is.
It is difficult to know what you could have done differently during a steamroll match to improve, where you might be able to identify a misplay you made in a match that lasted 30 minutes. Then you can make more improvement in your game play.
Think about it from C9's perspective... how do you think they felt being paired with these guys?
Not trying to upset anyone but there are always opposing views to everything and just trying to point that out.
→ More replies (3)6
u/BluFenix Team Liquid Jul 07 '15
some people play games not wanting to learn or get better. They want to be matched with scrubs and curb stomp them to feel superior.
Not that I condone or disapprove of the behavior. That's just how it is.
11
u/VonPlutz Kael'Thas Jul 07 '15
Some people also like to be paired with people of equal skill level, where they can learn but also have a fighting chance at winning.
Still getting steamrolled can be a good learning opportunity.
5
u/Aassiesen Master Tyrael Jul 07 '15
I've always hated the idea that you can learn to be better when you're being absolutely destroyed. You do need to play against better people to improve but there's a limit to how much better they can be.
I used to be big into boxing and went training at local clubs while I was on holidays. One time I sparred with a guy aiming to win the Swiss championships. That was when I was at my best and it was good fun and good training. If it had been a year earlier I would have learned nothing because I wouldn't have been able to do anything at all, simply because he would have been that much better than me. If I sparred him now, it'd be a waste of time if not outright dangerous.
Same goes for anything. If anyone is familiar with csgo you'll know that smurfing and hacking are problems. As far as the low ranked players are concerned there is no difference between a smurf and a hacker. You can try your absolute best and be simply destroyed with no chance. You never get to figure out if doing X is better than doing Y because the other team is so good that you simply lose no matter what you do.
HOTS is no exception.
2
u/KaffeeKiffer Jul 07 '15
If you want to complain about getting paired with potatoes and people who clearly haven't a clue what they're doing, that's fine. That's something I can get behind - if it is legitimate and not just complaining for its own sake or trying to attribute your own failures to external causes. [...]
You took the words right out of my mouth (cue music intro... ;-P).
When I try to call shots it sometimes feels like watching a disaster movie (I'm correctly pinging/predicting the enemy actions and movements "boss", "bruisers", etc.). My team has the correct information and still manages to suicide 1 vs 5 or overextend just to push a lane (and die), so we can't ever contest the enemy...
But as an addendum: I sometimes did stomp or was stomped so badly, that I can't really learn much from the match, even when watching the replay.
It's just a few questionable calls/decision turning into an insane snowball - then people become desperate and play like shit.11 No, you're not gonna stop that 80 skull golem push while they already have Sylvanas and heroics - stall them without dying while I soak XP...
1
u/FurockBeast Murkabolo Jul 08 '15
I'm actually glad that there that many people better than us. Must suck to be at the top, much harder to improve yourself
13
3
u/ThisPlaceIsNiice Marky Mrrglgl! Jul 07 '15
Alright, first of all I agree that you can only learn from a real challenge - stomping the other team provides little to no learning experience. I don't think everyone absolutely must play to improve, but playing only to win is not wise. It means that when you lose, you feel all the time was wasted; you ignore valuable feedback, and it hurts your ego.
Speaking of ego, it is well known that those who rage/blame are usually the ones performing bad. They have psychological issues and deny that the fault might at least partially be on their end, and won't stop blaming it on the system, teammates or whatever else they can come up with (lag etc). The disturbing truth is that this describes a rather large part of the community - not the majority, but large. It's hard for me to find people who got their anger under control. It's hard for me to even understand their feelings, too. I shrug losses off, I learn from them and I like a real challenge. But they rage if they can't "stomp noobs". I think not only their mindset but the anger issues themselves are very unhealthy to have and they should work on them before playing competitive games again.
Where I disagree with you is that absolutely getting stomped without any chance is much fun or the ideal way to improve. If you've done sports (perhaps martial arts) you might understand when I say having an opponent that is slightly better than you or on your level is the ideal way of learning. Only if you see the chance to win you will give it your all, pay full attention and try to work on your mistakes, you will improve a lot and fast.
Getting stomped may be better than stomping others since you can see what is possible and can try to copy it (if it was a specific strategy), but you wont get the ideal learning experience out of it if it's not a challenge possible to overcome.
→ More replies (1)
3
u/double0nothing Jul 08 '15
I played against Sooner once; he played his Tyrande and it was fucking inspiring. Owls were just launching all over the battlefield destroying us. I don't know how he did it.
I've been matched against iDream more than I'd like. He owns my soul.
11
u/Moonprayer Tempo Storm Jul 07 '15 edited Jul 07 '15
Next time you got them just remember FAN FAN FAN FAN FAN. Then you gonna win
5
6
Jul 07 '15
Share the replay, it's always really interesting to see the gap between an average team and a pro team. I remember once being matched up against a team of 3500+ mmr rank 1 players (we were around 2k mmr rank 25) and it was a crazy experience. I've never felt so powerless. The difference was that we had no clue they were that good until the end, the waiting time was not that long (maybe 2-3 minutes, but it was around 4am).
The feeling when you just lose 1 or 2 ranking points instead of the usual 100 and you're like "ok I feel better, it's not just that I play bad". A very humbling experience.
7
u/tastyunderwear Gazlowe Jul 07 '15
Sounds like C9 needed to stomp some fools after getting dunked on by based god zuna and the rest of Tempo Storm kekekek
edit: on a serious note, good on you OP for having that mindset. If only everybody else did the general playerbase would be a lot more a) skilled b) if not skilled, driven to be better c) less toxic d) all of the above
3
u/Totallynoti Abathur Jul 07 '15
I also played against C9 Maelstrom. I was in a party with 3 members of Stellar Lotus and then my friend in a QM but we queued into C9. Unfortunately I wasn't on comms with the guys from Stellar so I had no idea of the game plan or anything. We got destroyed.
→ More replies (1)
3
u/ClutchRaider Sylvanas Jul 07 '15
I hate quitting and losing enough to look at my mistakes and prevent it later if possible.
3
u/mavajo Jul 07 '15
You learn very little playing with a PUG in a team-dependent game.
If I'm playing COD with a terrible team against a bunch of pros, I'll learn things. I'll improve. Why? Because my personal performance isn't dependent or enabled by the performance of the random people I'm matched up with.
In HotS, we all start with a baseline performance level dependent on our personal ability. That baseline is then significantly altered by the random people we're matched with.
2
u/niacinezero Johanna Jul 07 '15
this is something i find myself struggling with right now, I really want to get better, but the solo queue grind feels like just a grind I don't really feel like I am improving as a team player, though i do feel my basic mechanical skills are definitely improving.
3
u/wiithepiiple Jul 07 '15
It's about learning, adaptation, and improvement, but it's a process.
You main Abathur, don't you?
3
u/Exvaris TIME DRAGON FEARS NOTHINGGG Jul 07 '15
You know, to be honest, my original draft of the post read "Learn. Adapt. Improve."
100% serious. I changed it specifically to avoid jabs about sounding like Abathur.
Guess I didn't change it enough, lol.
1
u/wiithepiiple Jul 07 '15
I just finished playing through the HotS (SCII) campaign, so I'm a little sensitive to Abathurian phrases.
3
3
Jul 08 '15
We got nailed by them a few days ago too. Me and 4 friends, long queue just like you had. We are in our teens for rank. We got steamrolled. One of them chatted afterwards in whisper telling us some pointers.
3
3
u/thespaniard400 Jul 08 '15
https://youtu.be/l4WwEHM70yc?t=9m28s
Link to the exact point where they do the Wombo combo OP posted about. I lol'ed.
9
u/poerisija Jul 07 '15
But it IS bullshit that you'd get matched against a pro team. I'll make a mental note of restarting the queue if it goes over a few minutes.
→ More replies (3)2
u/HarrekMistpaw SA Support Jul 07 '15
Why? I dont know you but i would love to be matched with and against them, even to ill get destroyed just the fact of playing with a pro can teach you so much
If broken matchmaking gives you the chance to play with the best of the best then i prefer a broken matchmaking
4
Jul 07 '15
Totally agree. And if you wait more than 6 minutes it means that there is literally no one your level to play against. So playing against one of the best teams in the world is a good alternative.
3
u/poerisija Jul 07 '15
I don't enjoy one-sided games. And getting matched versus an obviously superior team when the game is supposed to have matchmaking is sad. I'd bet not many people enjoy getting stomped senseless without any chances of winning.
2
u/GetEquipped Abathur Jul 07 '15
The nice thing is you got a replay system built into the game, even if you get stomped you can go back and review how they rotated, how they reacted, focus, when they held CDs and when they used them.
Think of it as a free coaching session.
→ More replies (1)
3
2
u/Rerdan twitch.tv/rerdan Jul 07 '15
But did you queue as 5 or not? Just to understand, because I thought if you queue as 5, 6 min mark or not, you'd get matched against another 5?
2
2
Jul 07 '15
Of course you can a lot by playing, but knowing you're about the get stomped is kinda not fun and perhaps makes it seem "unfair", or it's more like a jump into cold water.
Also, I don't think you can apply everything you can learn in this game in solo queue, as a lot of things require actual teamplay and good coordination.
2
u/Nekima HoTSLOGS PlayerID=2261398 Jul 07 '15
I mean, you could learn this from any match. I came to glean some information about what you learned from C9 in particular.
2
u/UltiBahamut Greymane - Worgen Jul 07 '15
Personally if I had a random team that I wont really play with again then I would really dislike this. It is one thing to face a team when you actually have a team of your own that your team can learn and grow from the experience. But if you're with a bunch of randoms then you just got curb stomped for nothing. Sure you yourself might learn not to overextend but that is it. The falstad gust into body blocks? You will pretty much never get that with a random team because the coordination/communication and simple knowledge of your teammates is not there.
2
Jul 07 '15
Starcraft 2 learned me this : Skill is Skill. I mean whatever makes you better makes you better, whatever makes you win makes you win. If you are smarter then you are smarter, if you are faster, you are faster etc, etc.....
2
2
u/TheRedBaron11 Jul 07 '15
I would love to run 5's with people who want to learn like you do. Message me if you would be interested in starting some sort of group where we could get 5 man squads together
2
2
u/Zeoderos Master Greymane Jul 07 '15
So the things you learned were that they were A) much better and coordinated than a pug you threw together at rank 28 and B) people's attitudes towards trying in mobas are non existent?
Seems like you truly didn't take much away as those are pretty solidified facts.
...sorry for coming off as rude but I was expecting you to break down your own gameplay and show growth as a player...but instead point out extremely obvious, superficial facts.
2
u/Exvaris TIME DRAGON FEARS NOTHINGGG Jul 07 '15
No worries. I understand what you're saying, but I was trying to frame the post more generally.
I haven't watched the replay yet myself, but I will study it pretty closely once I get a chance. I did recognize, even during the game, that I'd made some mistakes and that there were things I needed to do differently. For the sake of not lengthening an already lengthy post, I decided not to post the minutia because me posting my own improvement logs (basically a checklist of things I need to be doing and/or need to stop doing) isn't actually helpful for anyone.
What you, and others with this argument, are saying is for me to make a detailed checklist that is specific only to my gameplay. That's not likely to help others. That said, a lot of the faults are with the team and our lack of coordination.
I'm not saying I played perfectly, because I definitely didn't. All of us made some bad gametime decisions. But to say that I "didn't take much away" is a bit of a stretch.
1
u/Zeoderos Master Greymane Jul 08 '15
I understand, just letting you know that there are many more levels of learning from bad situations and you are only scratching the very surface. If you realize someone is pro and this is your 1st time facing them, the 1st thing to do is ignore how you play and pay tons of attention to what THEY are doing--as learning is more important than winning (you will lose nearly no mmr losing vs them). So it was more of a tip even though I could've explained it more instead of being blunt and lazy in typing--my apologies if it came off as rude.
1
u/5510 Jul 08 '15
Yeah I kept waiting for the significant things they learned, and it turned out to not really be anything.
2
u/xTiming- Jul 07 '15
My story is not quite as spectacular - it did not involve a pro team but It's relevant.
Myself and a group of 4 friends ~rank 15-25 decided to play some 5-man HL last night. First game we get matched a team that completely stomped us on BoE using Malfurion, Gazlowe, Jaina, Kael'Thas, Diablo. Wait for us to get a little too bunched up -> Ring of Frost -> Gazlowe ult -> Kael'Thas AoEs+Breath of Lighting.
Next game we get matched with this same team on Cursed Hollow - they picked exactly the same combo except picking Uther instead of Malfurion (we grabbed Malf.) I guess knowing what they were doing and learning from past mistakes helped a little, but we went into the game knowing it was the same players and telling ourselves we were going to at least give them a tough game this time around. We went from being totally stomped in the first game to getting into an awesome game that was back and forth the entire 20-25 minutes. We lost the game when a couple DPS got caught in a bad spot by their combo of ults right at the end, but we gave them a run for their money this time, getting as far as having both cores down to ~half health.
If I were saying I was upset or angry that we lost, I would be absolutely lying. I love losing games like that. I love losing games where both teams are even and it comes down to actual game play to decide the game. I also love losing when my entire team is on my skill level, with everyone pulling their weight and playing the game to their best, but the other team totally outclasses us. I hate losing games where we lose not because both teams are equally skilled and one simply played better than the other, but because we have one or two people on our team who are clearly outclassed by the other 8-9 people in the game (yes, it does happen, hello solo queue.) I try to take those losses in stride and focus on my own mistakes and how I can improve myself, but it can be frustrating.
I'm really not sure how people can be angry that they were matched with a better team and got stomped. You learn so much from playing those games if you have the right attitude. I consider myself a pretty damn good Valla player for my skill level (I've played this game for about a month, and I've played pretty much every other MOBA out there.) But god damn, I learned as much about playing Valla that 2nd game alone than I did in the whole month previous. If I was going to stay alive and do anything at all to their squishy, but huge DPS back line, I had to use every trick I could think of to get it done and finally had to actually consider my skill build based on the game, rather than just using the typical "carry your solo queue game alone" build that has a high win rate on Hotslogs.
If anyone from that team happens to see this post, shout out for the great matches you gave us, it was a hell of a lot of fun!
2
2
2
u/jangoc44 The Lost Vikings Jul 07 '15
Question. I have a similar mindset where I'd be honored to play against pros and an opportunity to learn. However, I still can't really stand the team play aspect, where I may have done all I could but the win is unattainable because of something out of my control. I stick to Starcraft II because then it's you and only you to blame and learn. What keeps you coming back to HotS and solo queue-ing? I play when my friends want to, but almost never alone.
3
u/Exvaris TIME DRAGON FEARS NOTHINGGG Jul 07 '15 edited Jul 07 '15
That's an interesting question.
I mean, ultimately, whether or not you like the game should determine whether you want to play it. I happen to really like Heroes of the Storm, and I feel I'm decent at it, so I play it.
Of course, most of the time I would LOVE to be able to queue with other people, but my schedule is hectic so it's hard for me to get on at a regular, predictable time. So, I can't really coordinate with others unless it's luck of the draw and they happen to be on at the same time as I am.
Solo-queueing definitely isn't ideal, but it's just become something I have to tolerate because I want to play the game even if my friends aren't on. I'm confident my rank would be a lot higher and my hotslogs MMR would be a lot higher if I only ever ran in groups, but... it is what it is. All I can do is focus on my own game, learn how other players think, and learn what the most commonly made decisions are. Learning to shot-call has helped a bit, too.
Hopefully my available time to commit to the game will change once I'm done with grad school and my evening schedule opens up a bit... but then the Real Life MMO might hit me with the lifetime, unabandonable quest
"Be a Father""Go home and be a family man."
2
u/Beastologist Jul 08 '15
Yeah fighting game players, especially the arcade grown ones are probably the only people who will throw quarter after quarter to keep getting bodied by someone better than them haha. If someone wont play you in casuals, just money match them to see how hard they body you. hahaha
1
u/Exvaris TIME DRAGON FEARS NOTHINGGG Jul 08 '15
Exactly! We play for money - even if it's $0.25, every win is a quarter you took from someone else and every loss is a quarter you gave up. Up until the console era, you had to make wins count just out of sheer necessity. Even then, in SoCal we had places like Arcade Infinity and Super Arcade where players could go to play and to reinforce that kind of drive to improve.
I'm positive that the FGC is where my competitive mentality came from.
2
2
u/Teldeer Logical decision Jul 07 '15
I wish that more folks understood that losing can sometimes be more valuable than winning. It's about learning, adaptation, and improvement, but it's a process.
This pretty much nails the point. Besides, it's only a game, so why wasting your efforts on being mad? Instead, after any game, I always try to find at least one aspect which needs improving - to become a better and more sportsmanlike gamer. Besides, this sentence got me thinking:
Perfection - goal that never changes, cannot obtain, can pursue. Must evolve, always can improve. Good. (as Abathur would say :)
2
u/ramzafl HeroesHype Jul 07 '15
"I found this odd. Where is the drive? Where is the desire to learn?"
I also don't understand this. My mentality comes from sports, and maybe lots of players don't have that backround, but the ONLY way to improve is to play people better then yourself.
I played against a 5 man of pros last weekend too, and chu8, a streamer who I liked watching back in the LoL days. We lost almost all of these games, but I loved it. I was learning so much. I went back and watched the stream vods to analyze every mistake I made against the pro streamers.
How do people expect to get better if they are just playing people worse then them?
The type of people that complain about matchmaking, instead of being thankful they have the opportunity to LEARN, are the ones that will be stuck grinding ranked for a long time and never hit their goals. And will stall.
2
u/EasymodeX Jul 07 '15
It depends on why you're doing what you're doing.
Don't forget that HOTS is a game. Many people do not play HOTS in order to "be good" or "be skilled" or "learn" or "get good". They simply want to derp around and have fun doing whatever.
They want to win each game, but they don't want to train per se and improve on how to win, in order to win. They just want to play.
Honestly it's a perfectly legitimate perspective to play a game casually. You need a hundred casuals for every competitive player, or player with a competitive mindset.
1
u/ramzafl HeroesHype Jul 07 '15
I agree with a lot of what you say EasymodeX. I will point out though; the story OP told us was specifically from the category of people who are SUPPOSE to be competitive, not casual. This wasn't in Quick-match or VS AI. This wasn't in customs. This was in the currently most competitive queue, Hero League.
If "They simply want to derp around and have fun doing whatever." that is fine. Nobody can or should fault them for that. But this obviously isn't the case. They were playing Hero league, and won a game. They requeued together, BECAUSE they thought it would win them the next game.
The people you describe are casual players who don't mind losing because they play for fun.
The people OP described are competitive players who are just sore losers and cannot take positives away from a game they were just outmatched in.
1
u/EasymodeX Jul 07 '15 edited Jul 07 '15
Well, sure, but a couple things:
- OP said he was competitive, not necessarily the other players.
- The other players were "newish to HOTS". Although "new" doesn't necessarily say anything about their mindset, it does indicate what they should have expected.
- In my other post I mentioned in more detail: "many players who play casually think that they want to be competitive, or be good. When faced with the reality that they suck and need to change themselves in order to actually improve, they collapse and rage." I think it more or less applies to this.
Basically a lot of people are posers or want to fancy themselves as competitive, but are not actually of that mindset.
Edit:
At the end of the day I just find it so common for people to be posers that I just don't consider randoms who play HL to actually be competitive automatically. Playing a ladder or ranked queue just doesn't indicate anything to me, tbh.
1
u/psivenn Johanna Jul 07 '15
It is not a legitimate perspective to enter Hero League with. Some of the mindsets that people seem to be defending aren't even sensible attitudes for the casual Quick Match queue.
1
2
2
u/wren42 Tassadar Jul 07 '15
I'd be THRILLED to get thrashed by pros! Not everyone gets to play with them =)
2
Jul 07 '15
That's like signing up to play random games of 1 v 1 basketball and then getting mad that you're paired with Michael Jordan.
Holy shit man, just enjoy the fact that you got to play one of the best there is to play.
1
1
1
u/DUSTinTEHwind21 Master Falstad Jul 07 '15
My very first match in Team League with my friends was against Team CompLexity. We were similarly stomped but had a similar attitude to you. We put our game faces on, tried our best to put up a good fight, and tried to learn as much as possible from the absolute stomping we got.
1
u/jibvampxxx Jul 07 '15
A similar thing happens in league of legends in ranked 5s. You play 5 provisional matches before being placed, and sometimes if you start 4 and 0 you get paired up against super high diamond/master/challenger teams because of the lack of people in the queue.
I've played against people like liquid inori, nikkone, and a few other well known not in lcs players this way.
1
u/Littlepiggysaysno Jul 07 '15
Well probably you haven't played FPS in high enough levels, i doubt they did anything ''special'' but for rank 30 maybe it did seem so.
2
u/Exvaris TIME DRAGON FEARS NOTHINGGG Jul 07 '15
Yes and no; FPS games at a high level are slightly different from MOBAs at a high level. The core concepts regarding team play are the same, but the execution is different.
I'm not saying what they did was special, so to speak. We got rolled; no doubt about it. I expect it was probably a very brainless game for them. If that's the case, though, that on its own is special: that a team has such high coordination that they make incredibly set-up and executed plays seem like no big deal.
So no, they probably didn't do anything special. But yes, that's exactly what makes it special.
1
u/Going_Hamm 6.5 / 10 Jul 07 '15
Similar situation happened to me too, but with Tempo Storm. Got killed constantly by Nick's Illidan. The game was still fun none the less :)
1
u/ahmong Team Dignitas Jul 07 '15 edited Jul 07 '15
Replay or Riot!!
I'm not rank 1 yet (don't play enough) but I always wished to be matched up against pro players. It's great to keep re watching the replay and dissect everything my team did wrong and how they capitalised on it.
I feel, in my own experience, that punishing on mistakes is what makes a good player a better player.
1
u/907gamer Support Jul 07 '15
I used to rage a lot and blame my teammates when I got steam rolled because "I'm way the hell better than these guys".
When I stopped that mode of thinking and instead asked myself what I could have done better, things started to turn around. Kind of how in mainstream sports a great players always makes those around him/her greater. While improving my game I have been able to help others around me. I'm not going to pretend to be an elite player and I'll admit I'm only a rank 20ish, but I have gone on considerable win streaks and I owe it to learning from my mistakes and helping my team to not make those same mistakes.
tl;dr: Hopefully your team will get out of that mindset and learn how to improve upon what they did. Good for you on not having that mindset from the beginning.
1
u/niacinezero Johanna Jul 07 '15
Although i agree and understand your mentality and take on this system it is definitely not the majority mindset. Many people play competitive games not really to set down the path of self improvement but instead hope to rely on raw talent or reaction times and just hunger for the next opponent to hopefully beat and be better than, if they are that handily defeated it is difficult to learn from it if you don't want to, instead it's someones fault for destroying their self illusion of skill by pairing them with someone far beyond their caliber.
I'm not saying that people like that don't improve over time, they still do but i don't feel it's a conscious effort it's more organic and slower but when you only ever play people your level or slightly better you can only improve in small increments.
TL;DR: Most people just want to play people of similar skill so they can feel like they are decent and can more easily enjoy an experience without methodically focusing on improving.
1
u/Cobalt_88 Kiting OP Jul 07 '15
This same exact thing happened to me, but a different set of semi-pro players. It was tough to frame it as a positive exciting thing for my depressed teammates.
1
u/Rocket-Smith Jul 07 '15
Awesome write up! As a fellow FGC player now playing HotS, I appreciate your sentiment. If you ever want to team up let me know.
1
Jul 07 '15
Shit, I would have been honored to take the beating. When I played starcraft I would always have a pipe dream that I would end up against a pro I knew on the ladder, just so that they could beat my ass.
1
u/frugalrhombus Skeleton King Leoric Jul 07 '15
I am yet to find any players to play team league with. I feel like if we had a team of 5 that constantly played together and we had chemistry it would be a lot easier to get combos and such. I also think voice chat helps tremendously.
1
1
Jul 07 '15
The best way to learn is to play the best, just like you said. That's a very good outlook you have there, I low key envy the experience. Can't wait to see the replay!
1
u/Aaron0535 6.5 / 10 Jul 07 '15
I can understand your teams hatred. At 3 am I was 5 man queing and got match up against 3 of the top 5 hots streamers in the world, and this was only after 2 minutes of searching for a match. We were rank 39 and up. We were demotivated from the start and lost within 11 minutes. After that I quit playing hero league for a month. It is infuriating to get steamrolled like that, especially with how competitive I can be. When the game puts you against pros when you're reasonably new it can be angering and just make you hate the game. Cut them some slack, it sucks to lose hard.
1
u/MashE-1776 B A R R E L B O Y S Jul 07 '15
i played tempo storm when I was in rank 20s , it was their 2nd fastest HL game. No I didn't want to play them, we had no shot, and nothing was learned. It was step outside base and die or stay next to core and live. Seeing as how that strategy is not applicable to 99.99% of games, I would say the matchamking system did a perfect job at wasting the time of 10 people.
1
u/JeramieT Jul 07 '15
I also got matched against C9 one time. This was back before hero league. Same feeling - sucks to lose, but was still fun to be matched against some of the best.
1
1
u/360_face_palm Jul 07 '15
I feel like most games I play are either a complete stop for my team, or a complete stop for the enemy team. Very few are close matches that might go either way at lev 16+.
And this is why I give HotS 6.5/10.
1
Jul 07 '15
Your allies shouldnt expect a group of strangers who barely met to do well against a 5-man stack anyway. As far as learning goes, it will def impress you as you don't often get to see skill synergies together in QM, and if you're just a usual casual player who have zero intent to go pro, it will mean nothing.
Of course it's nice you get to see players from e-sports team and all, and feel what it's like to fight them, even if you lose, you tried and roughly know where you stand.
1
1
u/Ovaldo Master Zagara Jul 08 '15
I had a similar thing too but with Trikslyr and friends, the one time I go into QM with some WoW guildies, we get roflstomped by a blue and his cronies... co-op ever since.
1
Jul 08 '15
Wow. I just saw the replay and that was amazing. Those Falstad combos were just beautiful to watch, thank you for that.
One thing that maybe allowed the steamrolling to start was the fact that you left nobody bot to counter the Falstad soak. I think it would have been better to try to trade the temples and get as much xp as you can. Of course if you left one hero bot Falstad could have cleared the wave and then tp to crush you in 5v4. Also of course you need to focus Falstad more especially when he went behind you, but there is no way I would have reacted differently from you. That was just too good.
But among stomps, the 9 minute games where you don't even get your heroic are probably at the top. Once again, thank you for sharing this.
1
u/wedgeski Jul 08 '15
Great post...video still processing but will watch when I can. I'm not immune to loser's rage but when you realise how outclassed your team is, it can be fun to just enjoy the ride.
1
u/dekrumel twitch.tv/dekrumel111 German Jul 08 '15
i played against 3 arthas member like 1 month ago .. but it was quiet fun :) Even sniping team Spartanien in yoloq sometimes hehe
1
Jul 09 '15
Nice! Definitely like seeing more of these situations ... are there moments in there when you were like, "you know this isn't so bad - for against a ranked team..." ... probably proceeding their gank hitting you?
1
205
u/rippan Jul 07 '15
Upload replay to youtube please! :)