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Before you judge, this isn't an OMGMATCHMAKINGSUX0RS thread, just a bit of frustration venting.
For those who don't follow my blog, I've been on a mission to play 20 games with every support hero. I'm pretty much there with only a handful of heroes left to learn. However, my MMR has dropped back to noob levels and it had completely killed my desire to play.
A few months ago I got placed into my first Very High match and I was ecstatic that I had finally reached that level. I hovered around the high/very high boundary for a while, occasionally dipping down into normal after bad streaks but always jumping back up after shaking it off. The the tutorial and compendium games were introduced. I played my 10 tutorial matches (before they changed it) and a bunch of compendium matches before they were popular, going about 50/50 because, especially as a support, it can be hard to influence the outcomes of those games. I noticed that it was taking 7-8 minutes to find matches and I was playing against really bad or new players pretty constantly. I posted my experience here back when people were complaining about it. My theory is that losing half of those low-mmr games really sunk my own MMR to a place that I can't get out of. I don't think it's bad matchmaking anymore. At the point I think my MMR is legitimately very low, and it has upset by balance so much I can't crawl out.
Here's the thing- I really like playing hard support. I like having control of map vision, having powerful spells, and figuring out the most cost-efficient ways to spend my gold, levels, and mana. I think of Dota mostly as a puzzle, and I enjoy the challenge of fitting myself into my team as best I can. So when the rest of my team doesn't adhere to the normal 'serious' elements of the game, it puts me completely on tilt and I don't know how to respond.
For instance: a few games ago I was mid as Silencer just because two other teammates randomed supports- KotL and Dazzle, both extremely able to play as 5s. No courier of course... ok, I guess I can buy a courier. No upgraded courier... well I really want my treads asap so I can start ganking so I guess I'll just wait. No wards. Ah, so it's going to be this kind of game. Already I am on the verge of giving up, because I know my teammates don't actually care about playing as a team. I refuse to upgrade the courier just to see how long it takes our supports to do it. At EIGHTEEN MINUTES it finally happens. I check my supports' inventory to see what was so important. Dazzle- mana boots and soul ring, ok that's not too bad. KotL- brown boots and bracer? Surely he hasn't died that ma...omg he has 4000 gold. 4. 1000. Gold. I point this out him. He says something along the lines of "lol nerd" and buys a Dagon. My will to play immediately wilts and dies. I started out a solid 3-1-2 with decent farm, but ended up 5-9-7 because I just didn't care anymore. Of course this is a bad attitude to have. I should just play the game the best I can and not let my teammates affect me. But I really have trouble staying motivated when the rest of my team obviously isn't.
And then there was the game I just played that inspired this post. I pick Silencer and say "I'll support." Medusa wants to ancient farm instead of safelane farm (ended up with 188 gpm). Timbersaw wants to off-lane against PA because she trashtalked at the start (ended up 2-8-4 while PA farmed 6 chrystalyses). I tell all this to one person who hasn't picked yet... so he picks Jakiro. So I think "well I guess I'm farming safelane then" despite having completely bought out in support stuff. Right off the bat Jakiro starts pushing the lane with liquid fire and *bam* I give up. I know there is no way it will be any sort of normal game, so I pretty much just autoattack the lanes until I get ganked over and over. Again, I realize this is not a useful response. I should have just rolled with it and tried to do my best to help my team win, or at worst ignore my team entirely and just try to roflpubstomp snowball. But I get so instantly frustrated that my brain turns off.
I think at least some part of the problem is how seriously I am taking 'learning' the game. I feel like if my game doesn't at least have some semblance to a 'real' game then I am just wasting time. I'm starting law school next month, so I feel a lot of pressure to reach my support goal, and if I'm playing these dumb games I don't feel like I'm making any progress. The same thing happened with my SC2 play. I guess the answer is to just figure out how to let go an enjoy a bad game of of Dota.
Thanks for reading. I think writing this all out helped me sort things out a bit.
 
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United Kingdom14103 Posts
What you described about bad supports is what made me go support every game, I learnt several of them quite well and it's been one of the best things I could have done I think to start dota, I'm no longer afraid to pick a support if the rest of my team grab carries or whatever.
I started out a solid 3-1-2 with decent farm, but ended up 5-9-7 because I just didn't care anymore. Of course this is a bad attitude to have. I should just play the game the best I can and not let my teammates affect me. But I really have trouble staying motivated when the rest of my team obviously isn't.
I think I've done this one too many times as well.
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On August 12 2013 04:20 Targe wrote:
What you described about bad supports is what made me go support every game.
Exactly! I don't mind that much if our carries have less farm than the enemies. That's going to happen in half the games anyway because that's essentially the point of Dota. I don't mind if mid loses, because everyone has tough games and is going to lose sometimes. But when supports don't support, that is an intentional neglect and it drives me insane.
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Netherlands45349 Posts
The funny thing about playing supports at a decent MMR is that the enemy supports are quite often either not good at it(being forced into it) or not playing one at all, allowing you as a support to have a massive impact on the game(spend those 200 gold on sentry wards and deward the most obvious pull camp and deny ward runes). Secure runes etc, its simple but not many people do it. Moreover at a decent mmr most carries are oke-ish, think 15-16min Bfury on AM with freefarm or so which is quite acceptable.
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United Kingdom14103 Posts
On August 12 2013 04:31 pullarius1 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 12 2013 04:20 Targe wrote:
What you described about bad supports is what made me go support every game. Exactly! I don't mind that much if our carries have less farm than the enemies. That's going to happen in half the games anyway because that's essentially the point of Dota. I don't mind if mid loses, because everyone has tough games and is going to lose sometimes. But when supports don't support, that is an intentional neglect and it drives me insane.
In my games (where I don't have a 5stack) It's rare for a support to do more than buy the courier, they will still try to farm and everything.
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where can I see my MMR :D
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Why don't you find a few friends to play with, so they they the other roles?
that seems like a faster and more fun way to improve.
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I love playing support, and I think that if you play modes like CM and RD, you might be a bit more likely to get competent teammates. In fact, I've stopped playing AP all together because of that problem.
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I play support because thats what wins me the game.. if I pick carry, 4 people behind me pick carry too so we have no one buying wards/couriers and its just a lost game. Least when I pick support, I know wards/courier is bought, and I pick whoever needs the farm the most and go babysit them so they own later on (assuming they aren't braindead) - Support wins me games.
So thats why support is so important, and we may not get the KDA to brag, but true supports know that we win or lose the game. Loda can't win without EGM and Akke setting up him for success.
I mean, if support plays well, the carry should have an easy game.. I hate this bias that support is made for newbies and carries are the "skilled" players.. such BS.
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Yeah, MM is a frustation... but I've got to ask, how do you know which tier you are in?
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On August 12 2013 09:15 Slakkoo wrote:
Yeah, MM is a frustation... but I've got to ask, how do you know which tier you are in?
Recent games -> filter on your name and then by bracket, start with very high, no games found? go a bracket lower, etc until you see a trend where you got the most recent games.
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The thing is, you're coming into MM with expectations and assumptions. Until you become aware of them, drop them and understand that queuing alone is entirely a gamble in a game where teamwork is everything, you will be subject to all these negative thoughts and general poisonous mindset. You play support to win games, to make sure the backbone of your team is strong enough to destroy the throne, but when you don't know the people you're playing the game with, let alone when these said players have completely different goal than you do (not to mention not having a goal at all), you have to adapt - otherwise you'll end up tired and disappointed.
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You can't control what other people do. Either you find people to play with, or you focus on playing the best you can, and correcting your own mistakes instead of blaming others (even if it's justified). If you "give up" or "brain instantly turns off" when you have bad teammate, then you're not going to improve. If your teammates are consistently bad, your opponents should be bad too (unless MM has it out for you?) so go and exploit your opponent's badness.
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You could try playing CM or IXDL-O if you want more "serious" games. All pick no one is gonna really care about anything and just mess around. Even at high levels you'll get some clowny stuff albeit people do know how to play their roles.
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Gotta live with it I'm afraid. Yelling at people for their mistakes will just net you a report on pub games apparently, people on normal MMR pubs don't care about team composition, pushing, etc, all they care about is getting the hero they want, getting the lane they want and just somehow roll over the opposing team. If they fail to do so, they will rant like babies and threaten reports and blame one another.
So yeah, playing support sucks especially if even after all those wards you put down, all those kills you gave to your carry, your carry still fucks up and ends up losing the game, and then whats even worse is that sometimes they blame YOU for not supporting them well enough.
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There's no such thing as support until you're consistently very high bracket, sorry to say it. And believe me, any of the "hard support" players on even mediocre teams will get to very high extremely easily not by playing "full support", but by either getting kills or farming.
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Surely he hasn't died that ma...omg he has 4000 gold. 4. 1000. Gold. I point this out him. He says something along the lines of "lol nerd" and buys a Dagon. My will to play immediately wilts and dies.
This has happened to me countless times. Gladly I could laugh when I read that.
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I have eight RL friends who play dota and now I only play when at least three of them are online. Random pubs are morons.
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This is the reason that I feel I could never play Dota. I don't play (sc2) for "fun", I play to improve and I don't feel this can really be done (strategy wise) without having an equally serious team to play with every time.
Find some stable people to play with. If your RL friends don't play you can surely find some on the internet.
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I like the thill at very high at the beginning of every game. Will the offlaner buy wards? Will be request wards? Or will he just go without wards and lose the lane/probably the game.
Sad cases are: support instantly buys courier and wards but takes them to easy lane or we discuss until 30 sec before game starts then offlaner checks rune, walks uphill into 3 to block the pull and game was nice.
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EPT
