DOTA2 Skillgap solution

[Joose]

I was thinking earlier about what Pants said in the Friday Diary about there being a bit of a skill gap developing, and that could be a problem. I may have a solution. There are several stages, but its not actually as complicated as it sounds.

1) Skill rankings.

The first step is to rank ourselves on skill level. It doesn't have to be super accurate or granular or anything. I was thinking three tiers, which I have comedically named:

Newbs

Someone who either has never played DOTA2 before or is still in their first few dozen games. You are still getting to grips with the basics of the game. Maybe you don't know your Nukes from your Carrys. Maybe you don't know why you should be trying to last hit. Maybe you don't understand why people in your team are suddenly shouting "BOTTOM! BOTTOM!" and think they are just being puerile. Its not something to be embarrassed by, literally every DOTA player was there once.

Casuals

You understand the basics but haven't put in the time to get *good*. This is probably going to be the largest category. Maybe you know that you should be last hitting, you just are not very good at it. You might sometimes feed a bit, but you at least know that you are doing something wrong when you do. You probably still rely on guides to buy the right gear, but at least you understand why you are being told to buy the things you buy. You are rarely the best player in the game, but you are not always the worst either.

Pros

You might not be going to the International any time soon, but by 5punky standards you know your shit. You have put in a decent amount of time playing DOTA and are at least passingly familiar with all the characters available. You are usually clearly one of the best players in a 5punky game, and should probably be banned from playing as characters like Sniper.

Despite the silly naming scheme, this is not meant to imply that Newbs are worthless or anything silly like that. Its just a way to sort players. I would suggest that people set their own categories, but try to be honest about it. Don't say you are a Casual because you are too humble to proclaim yourself to be Pro. This whole idea only works if people are honest; excessive modesty or embarrassed exaggeration will bugger it right up.

2) Don't randomise teams.

I know we tend to stick everyone in a slot and hit shuffle in an attempt to be fair, but if we have people at opposite ends of the skill spectrum that is not going to work any longer. Shuffling and ending up with a team of new and less confident players against Roman, Bali, S2B et al is no fun for either side. This is where the above ranking system comes into play. My suggestion is to make the teams like normal, hit shuffle and then tweak it for balance. Ideally there should be the same number of people from each rank on each side. When there are uneven numbers of players, try to balance it by putting the least skilled with the most skilled. This way although there is still a skill gap between players, there is no skill gap between teams.

3) Pick lanes

I've not played for a while, so maybe we have gotten better at this, but we tend to start the game and just have everyone run for lanes. Theoretically this is fine, as someone will normally point out if three of us have gone in the same direction or if we have ended up with two carrys in one lane or something. I think it would be better if we organised this a bit before hand though. I would suggest the most experienced player on a team goes mid lane, then the top and bottom lane matches a Casual player with a newb. This way the best player is matched against the best player, so is more likely to have a fun challenging time and the least experienced players have someone to help them out and give advice.

What do you lot think? Obviously its not always going to work and it doesn't take into account anything after the lane phase of the game, but its better than nothing. Even if nothing else, I think implementing number 2 by itself would improve things a bunch.

[fabyak]

Sounds good!
I would put myself somewhere between casual and pro (in relative terms probably pro as if I get a good game, it can turn out very good (for me))

[Dr. kitteny berk]

Sounds reasonable to me, I'd also make a suggestion of trying to be fairer with our own character selections.

What I've noticed is that omgnoobs tend to find themselves rather stuck (as we all did) early on by going random, and not having chance to learn through all the frustration of a char you dislike, making single draft and the like rather painful.

I feel like casuals especially (myself included) are also somewhat gimped by going random, I'm sure we all have a few favourites who we're massively effective with, but that tends to leave newer players completely fucked, while making the casual/lolpro interaction more balanced, my suggestion there would be choose chars you get on with, but find challenging.

I'm not sure about lolpros, because they're good at everything, so I suggest we make them unplug their keyboards, so everyone else has a fair chance.

[Joose]

I'm not sure about lolpros, because they're good at everything, so I suggest we make them unplug their keyboards, so everyone else has a fair chance.

Just make them always play as Invoker. Whilst drunk.

[Dr. kitteny berk]

Pfft, eeeevil.

[Dog Pants]

I'm going to bagsy a Casual slot, albeit at the upper end. I reckon I'm about on par with Fab - I'm occasionally the best player, but not often. I have an idea what I'm doing but I still use guides, I do things wrong, but I know I've done it.

Doesn't the shuffle mix people up based on its mystery skill formula anyway for balance? Not that I'm saying we shouldn't give it a go.

I like randoming, but I think there's a little bit of inadvertent peer pressure for newer players to do it, even though we specifically point out that it's purely voluntary. Don't feel obliged, guys.

Lane picking is a good idea. It's a bit messy - depends on team make-up (no point putting two range supports in one lane and two melee carries in the other, regardless of experience). Maybe let the newer guys pick/random first and build a team around them.

[Joose]

Maybe let the newer guys pick/random first and build a team around them.

That makes a lot of sense.

Apparently the shuffle is supposed to be clever, but the clever doesn't work very well.

[Dr. kitteny berk]

I think it's moderately smart, but I suspect it goes off your rank.

[Dog Pants]

Ooh, not topical here particularly, but can people set their replay profiles to public? That way I can watch 5punky replays (from bot/pub games (while I masturbate)).

[fabyak]

If I can figure out how then certainly

[Dog Pants]

It's just a setting in the options somewhere. I'll have a look tonight.

[fabyak]

I figured that too but couldn't spot it! It was quite early in the morning though so I'll use that old chestnut as my defence against incompetence

[Dog Pants]

It's one or both of these options.

[Roman Totale]

I like this idea, and I certainly don't mind playing as support. The occasional game as something more meaty would be good though.

I'll investigate the replay thing when I get home.

[Dr. kitteny berk]

A list of if you like playing AXE, you may also like playing X, Y, Z.

Would be fucking cracking.

[FatherJack]

While these are great ideas as we have a range of skills even among the players that have been at it for a while, I'm not sure how you'd balance out an odd number of very new players - but it would be great to find a way to attract more of them.

I can't speak for the other new players, but I put my own team at quite a disadvantage - while I try not to die and try not to have too much gold when I do, the other team having a medium bot instead (of me) have quite an advantage. Perhaps the other team should have an easy or passive bot to balance me out, although that's probably not an ideal solution as players might be less likely to take pity on the bot and farm the shit out of it (unless that would be considered poor form) and it probably wouldn't run away quite as much as I do.

I'm still enjoying our games and don't mind getting murdered all the time as I can usually work out why I got murdered and try to avoid it. The guides everyone has posted, plus chat in-game has really helped, in particular Bali with his guide (and in-game patience). I initially thought it was way beyond my level, but it contains some key information that I'd completely failed to grasp about the game in the opening paragraphs - all of it's a very useful read, but I confess he lost me when it came to the wards as I got distracted trying to visualise a join-the-dots cock from his map.

I've tried less than a dozen of the 9,001 heroes, so it's a little early to pick a favourite but any similar to the ones I've liked would be of interest. I liked robbing the special powers with Rubick, and really enjoyed the power of a char (who?) I had in one game which made Pnut (as Riki) un-invisible when he least suspected it and got me my first assist. Ranged characters also seem to suit new players better as they are less likely to get bashed by enemy creeps.

[Dr. kitteny berk]

I feel like this needs a bump.

I just spent a game being bitched at for playing sniper, despite playing him pretty shittily, in a lane I don't enjoy, because I wanted to test a build I've been fiddling with against bots while my shoulder has been fucked.

Maybe it wasn't the fairest, most considerate thing to do, (Incidentally, the game was set to all pick ) but I don't play games with 5punkers to be bitched at, not just for one game, but in the lobby before the next, that's a fucking cunts trick.

I like randoming, but I think there's a little bit of inadvertent peer pressure for newer players to do it, even though we specifically point out that it's purely voluntary. Don't feel obliged, guys.

[Dog Pants]

Problem with 5punkers being nice and fluffy is that nobody likes to speak out when something bothers them, so it kind of escalates behind the scenes without anyone realising. Lets just take a breather and chill out, put the handbags down. Everyone's cool here, there's no reason this has to be a problem.

I don't think artificial house-rules about who can pick and who should random are good for us, and I don't see any need to be announcing who you're playing or banning certain characters. I think we can navigate around it without that. So I still agree with my statement Berk quoted; play what you want, random if you like that. On the other hand though, randoming is something of a handicap and the point of this thread is to give the less frequent players a bit of a leg up against the guys who play more often. Thing is, that's relative. In a game of Berk Vs Bits, Berk will need the advantage of familiarity because Bits is a good player. If it's Berk Vs Pnut both picking or both randoming would probably work better. Problem is, Dota isn't 1v1, so if Berk picks a character he's good with because he's faced off against Bits and Roman he might also meet Pnut, who has randomed, and the handicap has swung in the wrong direction. It's not intentional but is no doubt frustrating. Dota is that kind of game, and we've just got to roll with the punches. On the other side of that though, if people are not having fun because you picked a character you're good with and everyone else is randoming, then you probably don't need that advantage. I only choose Slark in 5punker vs bots/random games because I know him very well, even though I'm relatively shit.

In conclusion, nobody here does things deliberately to piss other people off. Give the other guy the benefit of the doubt, and play to have fun.

[Pnut]

I think its about time I admitted defeat with this game. Not because of last night but more for the fact that I cant actually remember the last time I enjoyed playing a round of this. I have tried over the past year or so but I just don't seem to be able to get to grips with it. To be honest this game has me losing my temper more than any other game I can think of because I'm not enjoying it. To anyone I have had a go at whilst playing this I apologies, the last thing I want to be doing is losing my temper with any of you lot so I think it will be for the best if I just stopped playing it.

[Dog Pants]

I don't remember you ever losing your temper with anyone but your character, let alone having a go at anyone.