Is there a difference in play per rank?

[Damocles.4908]

So I want to know if there is a massive difference in skills and gameplay in each tier of pvp? It is a bit of a broad question but if you had /have reached silver, gold, platinum, beyond that does that gameplay and skills change? 

[shion.2084]

So when I play true platinum regulars (folks who season after season end up in top 100) there is most certainly a play difference.  When I play against the semi-pro, pro, tier there's a change again. (top 25 regulars).

 I actually have more fun in gold games cause I can play loose and have some fun.  In games where the skill level is at mine or higher, I have to play really tight, work all the numbers, stick strictly to my role etc.   Those can be fun too, but they're fricken exhausting.  

When you play a doze, or a grim, or a shorts or a pumpX (forget who that is),  their 1v1 are awesome, but also their ability to be at the right place at the right time and to run from it, essentially their positioning awareness, timing, ability to understand all your classes cool-downs and when to hit you, will make most B+ tier players not know what hit them.

[shion.2084]

If it helps, watch some of the streamers narrate their decisions, and you'll see that where you play your class, they play their opponents class on top of it.  Their decisions are tactics and then individual combat.  Maybe check out some shorts streams.

[shion.2084]

Shout out to @jdawgie.1835 For fun last night.  We had a good B+ tier match where we came back from a 200 point deficit to win by 30 points or so.   I think he steamed that one... and it was a bit of a chaotic hot mess.  You'll see a difference between that and the sheer calculated precision that you get from some of the very top player streams.  However I really enjoyed the chaotic match and the ones where I have to play knowing I'm the weak link and basically spending my time trying not to die, while contributing, or tying up good players is far more nerve wracking.   There are some matches where my job is basically just to use up the focus of better players than me and not die.  If I do that my team wins since our better players can have more impact.   You need to know your relative capability and not be egoistic about it.

[vilesoldier.9826]

Skill level is different between ranks (within ranks too), and largely influences both the metas at those ranks and subsequent opinions about how classes should be balanced.

[jdawgie.1835]

1 hour ago, shion.2084 said:

Shout out to @jdawgie.1835 For fun last night.  We had a good B+ tier match where we came back from a 200 point deficit to win by 30 points or so.   I think he steamed that one... and it was a bit of a chaotic hot mess.  You'll see a difference between that and the sheer calculated precision that you get from some of the very top player streams.  However I really enjoyed the chaotic match and the ones where I have to play knowing I'm the weak link and basically spending my time trying not to die, while contributing, or tying up good players is far more nerve wracking.   There are some matches where my job is basically just to use up the focus of better players than me and not die.  If I do that my team wins since our better players can have more impact.   You need to know your relative capability and not be egoistic about it.

Ayyyy  my boy. I have the match on shadow play. Ill get it to you bro. GGs for sure. 

@Damocles.4908 One of the biggest differences is what @shion.2084 is talking about rings true man we did it last night is more common at higher play. In plat matches there comeback potential which is exactly what we did. Lower ranks its useually just "i give up lolz."

Edited October 2, 2023 by jdawgie.1835

[Multicolorhipster.9751]

It used to make a difference but with things like duoq and top 250 dropping way into gold, matchmaking seems a lot more random now than it ever has been

At least when I last played. Pretty sure the plat population is even lower now.

[Khalisto.5780]

yes, lower you are the mechanical skill, decision making, matchup knowledge, and toxicity are worse. Ppl will just run into each other and spam all their skill, often thinking their class is able to do everything, duelist, teamfight and roaming basically, even supports will run into a 1v1 on sidenode, usually with some level of success because ppl are very bad at doing dmg so he'll prolly survive 1v2 1v3 creating spacing for his team to snowball the game.

Up to 1300-1350 rating the team with most aoe spam wins cuz at least 50% of the matches 1 player is going to tilt afk cuz "my team sucks", so everyclass that is able to cover a node in aoe will have big impact like necro, guardian, chronomancer and revenants with gs equipped.

 

1350-1450 matches ppl are better over all at  those things listed above, the games are mostly decided by the team who gets  better player mechanics, depending on the time you play this matches could be over before they start because this is usually 1 to 2 average players on each team and 8 players from the lower bracket, wins who has the best build to exploit the noobs, the 2 commom strategies are play a high dmg high mobility build and farm ppl all over the map or play a duelist build and go far win every 1v1 and 1v2s  and survive 1v3 and 1v4

 

the tier above (1450+) you have better players that actually know what they doing who they focus and what they have to do in the map to win the game, if you not quite there yet in skill but you manage to stay aroud this rating your best option is to play something bunker and waste time from ppl that are far better mechanichaly then you are, really if you survive 1v1 for like 1 min+ against their best players it's usually a big win for your team. This is the duo q bracket, there'll be duos everywhere, sometimes your players are just worse mechanically and there's no way you win, the strategy to climb here is adding getting a duo if possible and q dodge these players are clearly far better than you by adding them to your friendlist and checking if they are already in another match, not doing it may result in a back to back matches with basically the same players but if you are 1450+ you most likely getting matched against the better players over and over. In this bracket everybody plays meta or counter meta builds, playing any meme like builds may result on insta losses cuz once ppl realize you're an easy target they gonna farm you over and over making the game an eternal 4v5 500-100 game

this explanation is over simplified, as you play the higher levels you get a feeling of what you should be playing to be the most impactful in the game.

 

 

Edited October 2, 2023 by Khalisto.5780

[Bast.7253]

There isn’t really a difference in rank anymore.

 

I’ve had multiple matches the past few days against 1 or more people that are or have been in the top 5. Two that are consistently fighting for #1.

 

Grim, Naru, whoever Pimap is, AGamer - I think they’ve been in top 5 haven’t they? Whoever JADEN is and was pretty high up there but I haven’t seen them that high up in previous seasons.

 

The population is so small there isn’t really a different rank anymore. I had someone friend me from my matches that had a rating of 980.

 

So uh… 

Idk. Depends on playtimes too. You’ll see the same 10 people often during certain times for a few hours, usually later in the evening.

 

Difference in play also depends entirely on who they’re against and the victor is often decided beforehand by a few people queue syncing or the matchmaking deciding you’ve won enough for the day and puts you up against top 10. 
 

Oddly enough I had much better matches yesterday than I’ve had in a LONG time. Even fought a dev on a bladesworn the other night. My team lost of course as we did not have a bladesworn. 🤣
 

 

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

2 hours ago, shion.2084 said:

Shout out to @jdawgie.1835 For fun last night.  We had a good B+ tier match where we came back from a 200 point deficit to win by 30 points or so.   I think he steamed that one... and it was a bit of a chaotic hot mess.  You'll see a difference between that and the sheer calculated precision that you get from some of the very top player streams.  However I really enjoyed the chaotic match and the ones where I have to play knowing I'm the weak link and basically spending my time trying not to die, while contributing, or tying up good players is far more nerve wracking.   There are some matches where my job is basically just to use up the focus of better players than me and not die.  If I do that my team wins since our better players can have more impact.   You need to know your relative capability and not be egoistic about it.

👀 

[shion.2084]

1 hour ago, Bast.7253 said:

There isn’t really a difference in rank anymore.

 

I’ve had multiple matches the past few days against 1 or more people that are or have been in the top 5. Two that are consistently fighting for #1.

 

Grim, Naru, whoever Pimap is, AGamer - I think they’ve been in top 5 haven’t they? Whoever JADEN is and was pretty high up there but I haven’t seen them that high up in previous seasons.

 

The population is so small there isn’t really a different rank anymore. I had someone friend me from my matches that had a rating of 980.

 

So uh… 

Idk. Depends on playtimes too. You’ll see the same 10 people often during certain times for a few hours, usually later in the evening.

 

Difference in play also depends entirely on who they’re against and the victor is often decided beforehand by a few people queue syncing or the matchmaking deciding you’ve won enough for the day and puts you up against top 10. 
 

Oddly enough I had much better matches yesterday than I’ve had in a LONG time. Even fought a dev on a bladesworn the other night. My team lost of course as we did not have a bladesworn. 🤣
 

 

I think when I face pimap, he was queuing with doze in the past

[Gotejjeken.1267]

4 hours ago, Multicolorhipster.9751 said:

It used to make a difference but with things like duoq and top 250 dropping way into gold, matchmaking seems a lot more random now than it ever has been

At least when I last played. Pretty sure the plat population is even lower now.

Basically this.  That and smurf alts throwing matches.

I'd say there probably is a difference between bronze and silver in terms of play, but not really between gold and plat.  As any plat that isn't throwing, wintrading, or perma duo-Q right now is probably there by luck because of the matchmaker.

I know this because this season specifically I've had an inordinate number of naked alts show up as well as double duos where I'm the only single and some weird stuff always goes on there.  Even trying to carry matches it's hard because g2+ players know to just avoid me and kill the mid-zerger's and then I'm left in a 3+ on 1 situation which you can only just kite and that doesn't do much to win games (outside of not giving +5 score).

It's crazy, normally I wouldn't go conspiracy theory, but something now is actually wrong whether its low pop, the matchmaker, outside manip, or everything all at once.  I'm only at like 70 games but I'll get literal streaks of 10 good and 10 bad almost like clockwork, where before it was hard to pin that down.  

Edited October 2, 2023 by Gotejjeken.1267

[shion.2084]

1 hour ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

Basically this.  That and smurf alts throwing matches.

I'd say there probably is a difference between bronze and silver in terms of play, but not really between gold and plat.  As any plat that isn't throwing, wintrading, or perma duo-Q right now is probably there by luck because of the matchmaker.

I know this because this season specifically I've had an inordinate number of naked alts show up as well as double duos where I'm the only single and some weird stuff always goes on there.  Even trying to carry matches it's hard because g2+ players know to just avoid me and kill the mid-zerger's and then I'm left in a 3+ on 1 situation which you can only just kite and that doesn't do much to win games (outside of not giving +5 score).

It's crazy, normally I wouldn't go conspiracy theory, but something now is actually wrong whether its low pop, the matchmaker, outside manip, or everything all at once.  I'm only at like 70 games but I'll get literal streaks of 10 good and 10 bad almost like clockwork, where before it was hard to pin that down.  

Hard disagree there are a number of legit platinum single queuers I see season after season.   I seldom duo and am usually in plat at end of season.  It’s not luck, play long enough and I usually get back to the same ballpark place.

[shion.2084]

1 hour ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

Basically this.  That and smurf alts throwing matches.

I'd say there probably is a difference between bronze and silver in terms of play, but not really between gold and plat.  As any plat that isn't throwing, wintrading, or perma duo-Q right now is probably there by luck because of the matchmaker.

I know this because this season specifically I've had an inordinate number of naked alts show up as well as double duos where I'm the only single and some weird stuff always goes on there.  Even trying to carry matches it's hard because g2+ players know to just avoid me and kill the mid-zerger's and then I'm left in a 3+ on 1 situation which you can only just kite and that doesn't do much to win games (outside of not giving +5 score).

It's crazy, normally I wouldn't go conspiracy theory, but something now is actually wrong whether it’s low pop, the matchmaker, outside manip, or everything all at once.  I'm only at like 70 games but I'll get literal streaks of 10 good and 10 bad almost like clockwork, where before it was hard to pin that down.  

 I will say I get these doom streaks where nothing in the world would have let me win and I’ll plummet to low G3.  The weird thing is I typically have an easy time at that level, and as soon as the loss streak ends I have a pretty easy time climbing.   You’d think though that once I hit G3 top part I’d stop loosing consistently…. But it’s like it’s still matching me as my former rank when I started the spiral

[Gotejjeken.1267]

2 hours ago, shion.2084 said:

Hard disagree there are a number of legit platinum single queuers I see season after season.   I seldom duo and am usually in plat at end of season.  It’s not luck, play long enough and I usually get back to the same ballpark place.

Playing long enough is tantamount to luck as you can grind 500 games and end in plat or higher--that's not how a leaderboard should be working if it was healthy.

It's not uncommon either, a lot of the plat+ players on the leaderboard right now have records similar to like 130-140 or something crazy, which is actually below 50/50, meaning the only reason they are in plat+ is number of games balancing out the loss streaks.  

Just taking an actual example, grim at the moment is rank 6 on the leaderboard and 433-197 which is ~45% loss rate, so kitten near 50/50.  All this while Doze is number 11 at 198-86 which is ~43% loss rate, yet almost 6 ranks lower---all due to number of games and volatility on how many points you lose due to a loss.    

I don't know how much either of them off hour dodge, duo, or other leaderboard tactics either--so if they do partake in one or more than your average joe is really screwed, even if they have like a sub 30% loss rate but only close to the 120 required games...probably would still end up only like around 1480.  

Edited October 3, 2023 by Gotejjeken.1267

[Multicolorhipster.9751]

2 hours ago, shion.2084 said:

Hard disagree there are a number of legit platinum single queuers I see season after season.   I seldom duo and am usually in plat at end of season.  It’s not luck, play long enough and I usually get back to the same ballpark place.

Just saying, that so long as they have the minimum games played to be on the leaderboard; they will be, and if they're in plat they probably do, so you can physically count how many there are. It's not pretty.

[Dickinson.7368]

I can only talk about EU since i never played in NA.
Silver - low plat the only difference i noticed is that people use CC skills & a lot more premades.

Other than that pretty much the same, trebuchets, lamps, chasing thief's, abandoning points to 4v1 on sides, meta classes losing 2v1 to UP classes etc.
The only positive difference i noticed is less massive egos.

I live for the moment tho that devs finally remove duo-q tho, I'm positive that the population at 1.5k>will shrink dramatically.

[deathdealer.2197]

Whenever I hit g3 + matches feel more gamba as to who's got the best meta setup low g i can meme around one homebrew builds and still do well

Oh and ppl are way more chill in low g

Edited October 3, 2023 by deathdealer.2197

[WingSwipe.3084]

In mid/low gold in EU.

You start seeing the same people on repeat but its usually pretty random. Only difference when you start climbing is that you start having people focusing on keeping points capped and not chasing kills... usually.

If you have some sort of team cohesion its pretty easy to win games most of the time. Usually done even need to run the "Meta" builds and have a lot more freedom, its nice.

The salt levels  in high silver -> low gold is absolutley amazing though. 
Last night we had someone running an off meta ranger build, got critisied once by a team member, and went afk for the rest of the match. Its bizarre how people act when faced with the slightest of inconviniences.

[Gamble.4580]

Watching streamers they reach top cus they really understand the meta and skills what to dodge when to leave and what to play with what they got and vs.

If u are playing the leaderboard over playing your game then make friends duel speak about pvp and watch streamers. Watching others play who explain what they are doing will move u from gold to plat

[Rhailex.2513]

Just adding my experience here...

I've been PvPing in this game quite a bit more than ordinary casuals... I am a casual too but my first account (release to 2 years after release) had thousands of hours of pvp, esp on Ranger alone. Today I am still PvPing but I only have 1.2k matches and rank 81. Win ratio is just above 50%.

So with that out of the way; I lean heavily towards playing what's fun and that's usually ranger builds that are a bit off-meta, so I never cared much about having high win ratio or getting to plat. I want to have fun 🙂

The huge threshold is Gold 2 and Gold 3 for me, depending on day and how far into season we are. At that point, you pretty much only see meta builds and people play very differently than what you get matched with while Gold 1 and below. It goes from being matched with just ordinary pvp players (conquest matches all day every day) to getting matched with people who take their time to duel, study other professions, knowing current meta-builds of all specs, etc. Interestingly, people get less toxic the higher rank you get. 

Some examples of stupid things I see people do at and below Gold 1;
Skill reading. You can usually just auto-attack a person or use a cheap, somewhat higher damage, skill and they will waste both their dodged just like that. You can also just use a gap closer skill and the automatic reaction is to dodge.

Zero reactiveness when attacking. I can literally activate a 50% damage reduction skill and if possible put protection on myself and just stand still while someone is whacking me with their burst, because they have no idea about how to read the situation from the first moment when their attack hits with 500 damage instead of 2-3k. What happens then? They are running away while I'm bursting them to death.

Zero reactiveness when defending. Same as above. Most players try to guess when they will be CC'd, usually wasting their stun breaks when it was an extremely short CC or they "think" they will be CCd. Some skills apply CC on you repeatedly, which means a stunbreak without an evade frame won't help you because you'll get instantly re-CCd.

Very low map awareness. I can't explain this... Isn't it common sense to zoom out so you can see the whole map (i.e. all 3 points)?

Roamers/side-noders thinking that the only responsibility they have is running around fighting outside points and refuse to adapt to the team they have. The typical "What the kitten are you guys doing, I'm kiting 3 people at their point". Most somewhat good players can kite 2-3 people for half a minute maybe, heck, I've done it on untamed for a whole minute, but it doesn't mean it's useful if the team doesn't know about your plan. If the other 2 opponents are picking your team off one by one, there is no point in this tactic.

People not understanding that holding 2 points is in majority of matches BETTER and EASIER than running to FAR and trying to hold that. Most often it results in getting wiped and the enemy taking over all points. It's mostly enough to DECAP their far, becuase this will bait one of the opponents to go cap it, putting them out of the team-fight at mid, giving YOU time to pick off their support before the capper joins at mid...

ETC

ETC

ETC

[Rhailex.2513]

7 hours ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

Playing long enough is tantamount to luck as you can grind 500 games and end in plat or higher--that's not how a leaderboard should be working if it was healthy.

It's not uncommon either, a lot of the plat+ players on the leaderboard right now have records similar to like 130-140 or something crazy, which is actually below 50/50, meaning the only reason they are in plat+ is number of games balancing out the loss streaks.  

Just taking an actual example, grim at the moment is rank 6 on the leaderboard and 433-197 which is ~45% loss rate, so kitten near 50/50.  All this while Doze is number 11 at 198-86 which is ~43% loss rate, yet almost 6 ranks lower---all due to number of games and volatility on how many points you lose due to a loss.    

I don't know how much either of them off hour dodge, duo, or other leaderboard tactics either--so if they do partake in one or more than your average joe is really screwed, even if they have like a sub 30% loss rate but only close to the 120 required games...probably would still end up only like around 1480.  

RIP Math

Grim: 433 wins | 197 losses | 630 matches; 31% loss rate or 69% win ratio

Doze: 198 wins | 86 losses | 284 matches; 30% loss rate or 70% win ratio
 

[shion.2084]

3 hours ago, Rhailex.2513 said:

RIP Math

Grim: 433 wins | 197 losses | 630 matches; 31% loss rate or 69% win ratio

Doze: 198 wins | 86 losses | 284 matches; 30% loss rate or 70% win ratio
 

@Gotejjeken.1267  I don't really see the issue,  I play Grim earlier typically in the night than when I see doze.  So when your pretty high rank (top 25) you risk a lot more for a loss than a win if you fight people who are much lower ranked than you (escalating with how much better you are than your team average).  So if one plays a lot when there are more good players, his wins will be worth more and losses less painful.  

 

And you'll say... ah but they have harder matches, it's way better to play off hours against a team that is far lower average than you in terms of likelihood to win.... I'm not so sure, with low player pop, your average will get you silvers on your team vs 5 G2's....

[shion.2084]

12 hours ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

Playing long enough is tantamount to luck as you can grind 500 games and end in plat or higher--that's not how a leaderboard should be working if it was healthy.

It's not uncommon either, a lot of the plat+ players on the leaderboard right now have records similar to like 130-140 or something crazy, which is actually below 50/50, meaning the only reason they are in plat+ is number of games balancing out the loss streaks.  

Just taking an actual example, grim at the moment is rank 6 on the leaderboard and 433-197 which is ~45% loss rate, so kitten near 50/50.  All this while Doze is number 11 at 198-86 which is ~43% loss rate, yet almost 6 ranks lower---all due to number of games and volatility on how many points you lose due to a loss.    

I don't know how much either of them off hour dodge, duo, or other leaderboard tactics either--so if they do partake in one or more than your average joe is really screwed, even if they have like a sub 30% loss rate but only close to the 120 required games...probably would still end up only like around 1480.  

Playing long enough when you are generally above the average of the match MMR is disadvantageous actually.  Your wins net you much less than your losses.  So folks I tend to play with literally win 3 matches, lose 2, and then end up with a lower rank.   A good player who is high ranked is generally dis-incentivised to play.

[Gotejjeken.1267]

6 hours ago, Rhailex.2513 said:

RIP Math

Grim: 433 wins | 197 losses | 630 matches; 31% loss rate or 69% win ratio

Doze: 198 wins | 86 losses | 284 matches; 30% loss rate or 70% win ratio
 

That's great; now explain why Doze is six ranks lower than Grim

1 hour ago, shion.2084 said:

Playing long enough when you are generally above the average of the match MMR is disadvantageous actually.  Your wins net you much less than your losses.  So folks I tend to play with literally win 3 matches, lose 2, and then end up with a lower rank.   A good player who is high ranked is generally dis-incentivised to play.

This is a huge issue because it is what fuels all of the alts and also gaming the system through decay (only playing once every 3 days).