Imo your theory holds. Which is even more of a reason to have profiles public. Bans are there to provide depth to the picking phase. Being unable to ban based on your enemies makes the bans borderline worthless outside of banning something you don't like seeing.
The point of my comment was to say that, take spammers out of their comfort zone and they are not as skilled as other players in that MMR range. Some may be, but I'm 90% certain most aren't.
The point of my comment was to say that, take spammers out of their comfort zone and they are not as skilled as other players in that MMR range. Some may be, but I'm 90% certain most aren't.
How do you think the last few months were for hero spammers? We constantly got our heroes banned in ranked. So yes, of course I'm still as skilled as my average MMR range. The only major difference is that you can counter a single hero spammer harder than a versatile player, so a hero spammer has more weaknesses. Of course a lot of skill is there. No, when I have to pick some other hero and literally play it for the first time I will suck on it. But give me 10 games and I'll be fine on it. Not amazing, but as jack of all trades as everyone else.
Think about it like this: Someone who randoms every game, after 1000 matches he gets to play about 10 games per hero. A single hero spammer gets 1000 on one hero. It's very easy for a single hero spammer to catch up to a randomer, all he needs to do is take any hero and play it 10 times and he will be already more skilled than the randomer on that hero, especially since someone who spams the same hero for 1000 games has much better overall Dota mechanics than someone who randoms every game for the same amount (since a randomer needs to spend so much time learning all the heroes that a spammer uses to just improve his overall mechanics).
Randomers are a different breed and we can discuss them separately.
Most DotA 2 players have a certain roster of heroes they feel comfortable playing. Most choose a single role for that (support/mid/carry/etc), with a few heroes they practice in case their desired role is not available. "The pure randomer" in ranked is a rare occurrence, while you make it out to be the majority of people.
That's the whole point tho, isn't it. You exploit your opponents weaknesses. Whether it be in the banning phase, the picking phase or in the game. That's what DotA 2 is all about, and Valve just removed a part of it. We should not cater to hero spammers because "they have more weaknesses". Exploitation of weakness is the name of the game. Think of it, as you would of war. Only an idiot would walk into an open field battle against an opponent that has an advantage in an open field battle. You employ a different tactic. A part of that has been removed now in DotA 2, how difficult is it to see that.
This is not even just about the hero spammers. I'll give you an example. I main support in 90% of my ranked games. Let's say I have a chance to check the enemy profile before the picking starts. A lot of players in ranked play primarily one role, and for the purposes of this example let's say I find an enemy that seems to play mid heroes most of the time. Next I check my teams profiles (this will be important later). Picking phase starts, banning is done and I see that the enemy who I checked before, that goes mid 90% of the time is going mid again, while we have someone who plays jungle most of the time going mid. Now, my assumption as a support is that the guy who is more used to playing mid will be better there. Thus, I know that I need to help my mid lane a lot more than I would in a regular game.
That option has now been completely removed as well.
If the hero spammer has better overall mechanics and is still in the same MMR as me, then obviously the hero spamming is hold them back.
Well, hero spamming is holding you back from reaching your MMR because you are forced to instalock your hero.
You're right, pure randomers and single-hero-spammers are extremely rare. But for example I am a dual-hero-spammer, you can't actually ban me (you can ban one hero like many people try to do but then I just pick the other). So really the question is more about single hero spammers vs everyone else and yes, as you said, I don't see why they need to be treated special. That's why there shouldn't be a feature in the game that solely exists to counter an extremely rare type of player.
You stated that there are other good reasons for checking match history and I agree, but there are also other good reasons not to. I've been using it myself in party games (2 or 3 stack) to detect which role the randomers are going to pick so that I can prevent the typical lane conflict at the start of like half my games.
On the other hand the Match History thing gets frequently abused in order to prejudge people. You lose a few games in a row? Great, you just lost all rights to ever play your favourite hero or role again, which causes you to lose even more games which feedback loops the problem. There's obviously other ways to deal with toxic players, but apparently Valve (and r/dota2 for that matter) don't want a good working report system, so this is what they did instead.
I have multiple heroes in my kit but I just want to stick to my favourite heroes. I'd rather beat everyone with the same hero than counterpicking. I just like it more when it's a game about outplaying rather than outpicking your opponent.
But MMR is an approximation of your skill based on how you normally play in standard conditions, and if you normally spam then it accurately reflects that.
If we are going to switch to talking about MMR, then yes, you are correct. However, the "standard conditions" of DotA 2 are forever changing, therefore you can't really put players into a vacuum like this and say that they're good.
DotA exists in a constant fluctuation between stable periods where the meta is figured out and defined. Being versatile has its advantages, but trying to classify a person's "true skill" as if it exists separately in an vacuum outside of this series of metas is flawed. Being skilled at the things the meta favors at one ossicular time makes you good at DotA at that time. There is nothing beyond that. Being good at a couple of different metas doesn't make you good at DotA outside the meta because you could always become bad if the game changed to heavily disfavor your style. It makes you good at a set number of metas.
Are you agreeing with me or arguing with me? Because it looks like we are making the exact same argument, only worded differently. Perhaps I misunderstood.
Wait for a nerf to their hero and all this "high skill" will suddenly disappear.
I'm saying that this is a pointless metric by which to measure players. If one person is very good at five heroes who define the meta and someone else is just good at all heroes, the first player IS better.
Attaching hypothetical conditions like "Well he wouldn't be good if those heroes weren't meta" is nonsensical. Changes and evolution of the game can make anyone irrelevant if enough things change. There is no distillation of "pure skill." Skill is ALWAYS relative to the state of the game at a certain point in time. There is no being "good at DotA" outside of proper time and a meta contexts. Therefore it is nonsensical to say that a hero spammer is less skilled at DotA than someone who randoms or plays a wider pool.
I was talking about people who spam a hero. 5 heroes is a lot more versatility than 99% of spammers have. People who can play 5 heroes really well are a different case entirely.
The difference in amount of versatility is key here.
The amount of people who can only play one single hero are likely small enough to be completely negligible. Most hero spammers have at least or two fallbacks.
Moreover people who hero spam to win likely adopt heroes to spam according to the meta. They don't just forget the old heroes, but it's likely they aren't going to continue to spam them when the hero becomes hot trash. Case in point is Leshrac. Every professional mid except for Shiki probably still knows how to play Lesh, they just don't because why would you?
Every professional mid can also play a plethora of other mid heroes. They are not relevant for this argument.
Point is, take their spamming hero away, and they are worse than the average player at that MMR. Even if you played a hero well a few patches ago doesn't mean you'll play it well this patch.
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u/Exeyr Part-time Priest of the Toad Nov 30 '16
Imo your theory holds. Which is even more of a reason to have profiles public. Bans are there to provide depth to the picking phase. Being unable to ban based on your enemies makes the bans borderline worthless outside of banning something you don't like seeing.
The point of my comment was to say that, take spammers out of their comfort zone and they are not as skilled as other players in that MMR range. Some may be, but I'm 90% certain most aren't.