The reason I don’t queue ranked is because I like to play with friends and I don’t care if I win or lose so I don’t want to ruin others experience with me throwing for laughs
Great video. I think you're circling around an important factor without naming it: Ranks are not currently accurate. I don't have numbers on this, and as far as I know, Hirez has never released numbers on it, but the combination of capped MMR, smurf accounts, and people dropping from ranked skew all of the ranks. Let's look at a hypothetical: There are now 102 Smite players in the world. They all queue at exactly the same time, so matchmaking is always as good as possible. For the purposes of this hypothetical, masters and GM are the same thing (since GM represents the highest MMR masters players). 17 players are in bronze, 17 in silver, 17 in gold, 17 in plat, 17 in diamond, 17 in masters/GM. They've all grinded to their appropriate level and matchmaking continues to be great. However, the MMR capped players start to smurf. Let's say that 6 start smurfing, and since they're messing around they don't get to masters, but are instead split between diamond and high platinum. 17 bronze, 17 silver, 17 gold, 20 plat, 20 diamond, 17 masters But with these wins, some plat/diamond players are going to be pushed down to plat/gold, and then the gold/silver players will get pushed to silver/bronze. 18 bronze, 18 silver, 18 gold, 18 plat, 19 diamond, 17 masters Including the smurfs, there are now 12 people at the wrong rank. This tilts the lower players, and a handful from bronze-gold stop playing ranked (let's say the 6 that are now at the wrong rank/MMR). Their accounts still matter for MMR though. So now we've gone from 102 players with 102 accounts being counted in MMR to 96 players with 108 accounts. And because GM level players are in plat/diamond, they're getting matched regularly with players that are silver/gold. With fewer silver/bronze players queuing, there's an even greater chance that low ranked players will be paired with higher ranked players in general, not just the GMs smurfing. The problem gets worse when you look at capped MMR accounts: If the worst bronze players get frustrated and stop playing ranked (as I believe is happening, but I have no evidence beyond reddit posts), then silver is really the lowest rank. Gold is no longer mid-tier. New players entering ranked are basically being thrown in to a pool of players that are *supposed* to be in the middle of the pack... But if MMR gets capped and bronze players stop queuing, then new ranked accounts are really getting paired with the worst of players. I believe this is the main cause of "Elo hell". 1500 MMR is NOT the average ranked player base. The average is closer to 2000 once you take into account MMR cap and lower ranked players abandoning the grind. Removing the smurfs and inactive accounts from the MMR pool helps this immensely. (Edit: There are also players who queue a small number of games, end up in gold/silver, and then stop playing ranked before their account falls all the way to bronze. Matchmaking sees them as gold/silver players, but in reality they are bronze level.) I have personally noticed a huge improvement in matchmaking 1-2 weeks after a hard reset, like at the start of season 9. I have also personally noticed significantly worse matchmaking after a soft reset that only affects masters players. You've suddenly got MMR capped players queuing with gold players. Again, I don't have numbers on any of this, only feelings from playing the game for a decade. However, you seem to be circling around this same idea without landing on it: the current system of MMR assumes 1500 is the average, but practically speaking it cannot be. My targeted solutions: -Lifting MMR cap (and not pretending that it's still 3500, as you suggest). Get those GMs as far away from gold players as possible. A new ranked player should never get Pandacat in their lobby. -Wiping inactive accounts every split. If you have less than X number of ranked games in a split, your account gets a hard reset. This will encourage players to keep queuing ranked even if they did very poorly one split. It rewards players who are active, and it removes the accounts that will continue to skew MMR late into the season. It also limits the feeling of "Elo hell", whether you believe that is a real thing or not -and we want players to feel rewarded for playing, not punished, right? I think that these 2 things alone will be enough to solve this problem. A third approach is to have the starting MMR (currently 1500) float and adjust based on active accounts. If there's more activity on the high end of the MMR scale, for instance, then you'll start queuing into higher level players.That way the average MMR is accurate. That last one would probably be a bit much for Hirez to code though. And it's probably not necessary with the first two solutions implemented. Thanks for reading this if you got to the end!
Role Queue would actually KILL twitch viewership because a lot of the highest viewed streamers play mid-adc-jungle. All of which having the highest amount of saturation meaning the longest queue times. So I absolutely agree Role Queue would do more harm than good for smite. Not even mentioning Overwatch who implemented Role Queue and drove the last nail into the coffin of their failing game.
The biggest problem that keeps me from queuing ranked is the simple matter that getting started is bad you shouldn't start with silver/gold mmr and bronze ranking it makes it a default confusing system for people to go into they need to start people with matching elo and rank whether they keep the 1500 and you start in gold or make it 500 and you start in bronze there's just no reason for there to be the mismatch and removing it makes the ranked process feel more consistent
Small note for role queue, the support queue would be the shortest because a lot of people would be trying to get into games and missing supports, so anyone who would try to go for a support role queue would be queued right away with them. I agree that this would ruin the queues a lot because people would just queue and troll in a certain role and I feel like ranked should be of how good of a player you are, not how good you are in a certain role. Also as a potential reward, I really would like a skill kills avatar for gods, like yes you killed 60 people with ra snipes this split.
They might already do this but anyone who hasn’t made it past 2k mmr at the end of the season should b dropped all the way down to bronze. That might help most w elo hell bcs since season 7 when ps4 players came in and hard resets put you in gold, I feel it’s harder to win 1,500-1900mmr games than 2.3k+ plus games. Just more games to weed out players who shouldn’t even be in gold, those who were plat would play placements maybe get silver or gold and b able to push back up to there spot last season with a few games. I think starting everyone off at 1500 just ruins the ranked scene for first timers, let them play w bad players and grow in bad lobbies where everyone is learning but still trying
They need to spend their Smite money on SMITE and NOT stupid shit like Realms Reforged or Divine Knockout. We needed a Smite 2 years ago, and not this outdated buggy ass game. That's how you get more players.
okay, we all saw Role Queue absolutely shit on Overwatch, a game that had like 200% more players than smite at the time. CERTAINLY we arent asking for it in smite... right?
Toxicity is a big reason why I stay away from Ranked, but there's an even simpler reason: I am not, and probably never will be, skilled enough to try Ranked with any degree of success.
I honestly feel like this game should follow a similar rank system to Valorant. In Val you can queue solo, duo, trio or a 5 stack and i think this would make ranked more fun. It sucks ass that I can't queue with my 2 other friends and thats what deters me from playing ranked.
Don't think it would translate to Smite well because of how small the game is in comparison. Doing something like that either means one game mode and you can choose how many people you queue with, which would kill match making due to uneven teams/MMR, or have entirely separate game-modes which would also kill match-making because the playerbase is already too small
So for the incentive to play ranked i would like to point at League with their special "champion" skin line, a skin that is designed for everyone that hits atleast gold in a season. I would personally go for a tier 4 or 5 skin in the case of Smite because the ranked scène is lacking so much but whatever
I don't play rank because I always have more than one friend that wants to play smite. I mostly play with a five-man and we cant play racked. Except for that two-week stretch we could, and it was super fun.
Currently in ranked I have 2 good games out of like 10. I won 1 game out of 10. Randoms int so much that I worry about whether or not they are projecting their self destructive ways into the game on purpose or they really are THAT far gone. I want ranked to be good, but honestly it's just worse pubs. Longer ques for games where people are super toxic and you can't even play with friends.
The smurf accs are also often made because hirez bans people if ur game freezes in God selection and u get a 700 min ban, atleast it's that reason for me
Hirez has missed the window to fix ranked imo. Especially with the crossplay aspect. With predecessor coming out on console soon. I have a feeling a lot of people will be trying, and leaving smite for it. Smite might be a great game but doesn't stop a lot of people going to something new and shiny.
Friend said this about ranked way back in 2014. Why play ranked when the reward is a skin that will be meaningless next season and wait longer queue times for match making that was slightly better? The latter being the main reason I never played ranked. If ranked was significantly more challenging than casuals I might have had more interest in playing. I was content with missing out on ranked rewards, (I believe at this time the rewards were given out at the end of the season so you would always be bragging about last season) that would be old news when I receive them, in order to play more games. In the present even the prestige for hitting top ranks is gone because it's a numbers game not a skill game. There is a cap to how far you can go so you cant truly fight it out for #1. Match making is arguably better in casual play than ranked because there are skilled players that have no interest in ranked. Also playing smite with only duo or solo is unappealing. I want to play with my friends.
You think the match making is better in ranked? The player pool in casuals is many times larger than ranked, making casuals have better matchmaking for all but the best and worst players Edit: sorry I read the first paragraph, types a reply, then the second lol. You said this already
The feeling of prestige is subjective imo, it felt good when I hit masters/GM for the first time but now it feels meaningless, hence why I brought up un-capping the MMR. Ranked isn't for everyone, and casuals is much better when your friends are on imo
Big agree. My comment, I addressed how Ranked Joust has this, so why should Conquest be different? If your group qeued up in Joust and destroyed the enemy, would that not also discouraged players from the mode?
idk about crossplay . Im an assault main and when i get a player from console in my team it feels like im back to low elo games. Console players build and plays are terrible in assault. They never help team but still have enough time to cry about getting help from teammates . Mb in ranked they are different but i doubt it
I think this is just a common misconception, mainly because there would be an equal chance for you to be against controller players as well. But I've queued both KBM and Controller and found little difference until the top end of ranked. Bad players are bad players regardless of input.
Role queue would ruin the game. Overwatch only has 3 roles and probably 10x the players right now and it still takes 15 mins to find a game. Best idea is to add ranked cross play
If there were incentives outside of merely climbing I would probably play ranked more. Truth be told I know for a fact I'm not a Master's player, so I don't feel a need to grind. I just play whichever conquest is on a lower timer, which ends up being ~20% ranked, 80% casuals.
i feel like a significant part of what makes me queue ranked is seeing myself improve. i played smite for like 5 years and really never got much better. just sat at a mid level of play. started seriously queing ranked this newest season and I've seen my play improve by leaps and bounds just from being forced to really understand what each roles job is and how to accomplish that job effectively. i never really picked it up in casuals cause there's no incentive to care really if you win or lose. but in ranked I get to see number get bigger if I win. which activates monkey brain and makes me want to get better so I can get the bigger number.
I disagree on the solo/duo que part. Controversial but I honestly believe you should be able to que up to a 5 man. 2 man, 3 man, 4 man, 5 man, all viable parry sizes. Its basically the same as if you solo qued and all 5 players had mics. Why the heck do I have to leave things to chance for a toxic player to screw everyone when I can roll up with the squad? Joust, you can go as the whole team, so why not Conquest? After all, this is ranked, if you're able to beat a 5 stack with a team of randoms, than by God I say you deserve that win.
If Smite were a bigger game then I'd agree. For this you'd either need to change ranked to have it be 5-man only, or add a completely separate mode for that. In both cases there are more negatives than positives. If ranked is changed to 5-man only, tons of people would be turned off because gathering 5 people can be difficult for a lot. This would probably reduce the playerbase and make matchmaking even worse imo If another mode was added for pre-made 5-mans, that would split the ranked playerbase even more and make match-making worse. Smite just isn't a big enough game for this imo :/
Yeah i have no proof but i am one of those... (Barely play ranked cuz tilted) Played this game for 5 000 + hours and on a hype new god release day i can have known ppl in my casual games like Incon, Hurriwind and Genetics. But like 90% of my casual game are me with my 4 inflated ego toxic noob and the other team has similar setup or 5 better player than my teamates but worse than me... (I feel like PTS lack of matchmaking is better: teams are often more balanced there cuz it's mostly good players the diff can't be that big till someone leaves ofc) "hypercarry or lose" if i am not 20-3 or something like that it's L in lobby... So i go try ranked again and now it's about who got the pro player duo q and who got the toxic bronzie duo q ? Max 5 game im tilted into oblivion... (Even wins feel like shiit) Im sure it's a lot of fun to duo q when you consistently have someone you can play with, but for the solo players it's just ridiculous how little we can do: I just roll the dice knowing i can troll as much as i want and it does not matter 9/10 game are such ridiculous matchmaking diff that it's win or lose in lobby... 2 Player that trust and work together is massive: 2 ppl calling the same things and carrying together often make a team follow them and leads to W. The opposite is also a thing the 2 bronzie that ONLY work together and troll the rest of the team is an ez L for everyone. That one time i found a decent player in ranked... We won 11 games in a row then lost one he removed me from friend list without a word LMAO. It's so ez when you have a duo q, ridiculous unfair advantage.
The hard reset is honestly one of the worst things that happen in this game. Why? Because the skill gap from bronze to gm is INSANE! I'm a masters player and it's very depressing losing games because of bad low mmr mistakes from bronze to play. Next, people throw rank games WAY too much and too easily. They make smurfs to purposely throw games for others, they throw after 1, 2 or 3 deaths. And what boils my blood is losing games because you got into a argument with someone from a past game OR you beat someone in a 1v1 in your lane and when you get that person on your team, they throw out of spite. It's atrocious Edit: 7:20 I want this. Overwatch 2 has it. Yes role que does have longer games, HOWEVER how many people in Smite purposely throw games because they get support? Exactly. True support mains can que support and they will he given unlimited amounts of coochie since they deserve it. I will GLADY wait longer que times just so I'm almost guaranteed my support won't throw for getting support. Sadly my adc will still throw for dieing 3 times in a row from ganks when they refuse to ward
Hard resets are necessary when the game experiences huge changes imo (new season, ranked crossplay) People throwing games isn't a ranked issue, it's a support issue. Regardless of what you do to ranked there will still be people that are toxic or throw games
@@biackeyesmite6438 bro please the hard reset is not needed😭 being held hostage because of the massive skill gap is depressing. Also I agree about the throwing but most of the throwing happens in rank. Smurfs purposely throwing to keep everyone "out of my rank", people getting support when they don't want it, high ego adc mains throwing after 2 or 3 deaths because they don't ward, solos and mids taking junglers camps and buffs out of spite because they are behind AND junglers refusing to gank because "not my job"
