Does Ranked All Pick Need To Change?
Imagine instead of gaining extra gold for randoming a hero, you instead started with extra gold, and then would pay to pick a hero. Would that change your likelihood of going random? That was the difference back in Dota 1, when playing what you wanted or your team needed had a cost.
All Pick in Dota 2 has gone through several iterations, at one point it was an experimental hybrid with random draft, where 25 of the heroes would be removed from the pool before the match started. Welcome introductions to ranked play include an augmented draft and ban phase, migrating a competitive portion of professional play to pubbers.
Because of the lack of popularity of Captain’s Mode and Random Draft, Ranked All Pick has become the choice for competitive pub players, even if the mode only approximates how pros play Dota. The greatest differences being how players enter the game. Two of them are small but have large consequences to how a Ranked match unfolds.
The Second Pick
The pick and ban order of Captain’s Mode has been restructured several times throughout Dota’s history, balancing the advantages and disadvantages of picking first and having the counter-pick. The order matters. In CM, the first pick can be advantageous as a deny-pick against a team’s favored heroes, or if there’s a particularly strong hero in the meta that the team can use well. But in All-Pick, the advantage of choosing first is largely wasted.
The meta is balanced and wide enough that there isn’t a stark benefit of getting that first pick. Gone are the days of Leshrac, Lina, or that one time when a level 2 Invoker with Alacrity and no items had near 90 base damage. Now there’s also the ban phase for any potential imbalanced heroes. Being able to counter-pick is far more valuable in pubs, and that advantage continues to add when it’s the same team that gets to always pick second.
Valve has experimented with All Pick modes before, changing the format in brief periods. This fault seems easy to address. The pick/ban order could easily follow what it’s like in Captain’s Mode, without any difference in the time it takes to get a game started. It would add another element of competitive play to both teams, and if a player couldn’t make the right counter-pick, he could always random.
Random Gold Advantage
Being able to random is a feature carried over from Dota 1, and it was sort of a necessity. Sometimes you simply couldn’t find the hero you wanted, all split into different grids hidden in different buildings. And sometimes you’d just be struck with analysis paralysis. Picking a hero means having an idea of what you want to do in this game, what your team needs, and what’s best considering the opposing team’s composition. It’s a meandering decision tree, compounded by the depth of knowledge required to navigate it. There’s rarely a perfect answer, but rest assured someone on your team will have something to say about it.
Random removes choice, removes the anxiety of having to know what to do—the psychic burden of making a strategical mistake before the game even starts. You couldn’t help that the game’s algorithm chose the worst hero of the meta. Or even better, random your hero ahead of your teammates and saddle the counter-picking and strategy to them.
The idea is that the extra 200 gold is a reward for taking the risk that you may not land on a hero you’re great at. But that’s not always the punishment. You can swap with a willing teammate and still retain a gold advantage (100) in your lane. You can reroll your pick, though at a cost.
The truth is that being able to random is a necessary feature, but it has the chance of hurting both teams. The random gold is perhaps marginal to lower levels of play, but it can make the difference between winning and losing your lane for everyone else. For your own team, choosing to random can be interpreted as a method of griefing, as if to say you don’t care about the outcome of this game, and you just want to do your own thing with that extra bit of gold. It’s not uncommon for the last player on the team to random that final pick, at the behest of their own teammates to choose a hero that best fits the situation.
There’s already incentive for players to random, without the reward of additional gold. Our brains already tend to get addicted to games with intermittent rewards. Whether you random a good or bad hero is just spinning another roulette wheel. And in Dota, you can spin it again if you don’t like the results.
Damnit thought I was first, but I guess thats what i get for typing more than just that.. I like ap, but what about making it so that each player gets to select and ban a hero
ii miss dota 1 :(
i dont miss dota 1 but i miss wc3 custom games ^
1. What if, instead of getting bonus gold, you got a high chance of picking a hero that countered those on the other team and also didn't fill a role or position already occupied by a pick made on your team? I have experienced randoming has almost always given me a good or atleast decent counter to enemy heroes, but not alwsys, and I also tend to get a hero that fills the core position when they're already picked. This would justify randoming for people who don't know how to counter, but instead of rewarding them with extra gold that they probably don't know how to use, have the added pressure of possibly having to play a hero they may not know, which has always been there.
2. The problem with first pick is that it always makes the team who gets it suffer from being countered every step along the way. Even last pick goes to the enemy team, which makes no sense, since this is dealt with in CM. Either the pick sequence should be changed to match exactly that of CM (except for the bans) or, Dire should always be awarded second pick, seeing as there is a universal disparity in winrate between the dire and radiant sides. It's almost as high as 5%, and since it's something that can't be solved in a single patch, it's reasonable to give the 'worse' side that slight edge.
Thank GabeN they no longer allow the last pick to random. When last pick randoms into AM with a Dusa and PA already on the team -_-
Randoming is fun
The article failed to mention you can't random the last pick in all pick ranked games.
Seeker,Flecher.Brood,Nyx,Weaver,Pa,Shadow fiend,Terrorblade,Spectre,Venomasner,Viper,Meepo
Wc3 CustomGames was thousands and Thousands of times Better than dota2 custom games
mid or random
remove the random feature unless its 6k mmr+
Remove random button from ranked pls.
i see no problem with random
I think you're trying to find depth in a puddle.
i think randoming in unranked is fine but in ranked its not bcuz if u get the hero no one in the team can play its an immediate lost
All matchmaking system needs to change, all player level and attitude system needs to change.
Also there should be a system which player picks hero before entering player pool so that role wars in draft picking inside same team stops.
Also there should be player rewarding system, really nice rewards for progressing players and some daily questing systems should be integrated.
Cosmetic item creation and more cosmetic items for all heroes should be designed and allowed.
It would be an awesome game if these happen in 3 months or else I see a Moba garbage incoming.
@kavinzaza : From my experience (scrub 2.5 k), 9/10 a randoming teammate is an easy -25 MMR because they refuse to talk to teammates or they instantly expect to swap.
Personally, randoming is OK in pub games (trying to learn the hero pool etc. etc.) but in ranked most players are trying to hone their skills with a few heroes. It is especially annoying when at times you gruel through a 60min game to get the +25 MMR and then the next game is completely ruined in <30mins due to a randomer.
Similar to being an individual against a 2/3 stack (clear disadvantage), Randoming should be removed from ranked or a non-randoming variant of ranked should be introduced.
im just want SINGLE DRAFT on MMR Mode that will be fun
pls dont random
As for me, Dota needs such changes:
1. Change report system: the player should have more available reports and should never appear in the same team with the reported player.
2. Make solo MMR to not rely on winning or losing the game but have complex individual calculation. If player wins the game then he can get, for example, from 0 to 30 points, based on his activity. And if the player loses, then his mmr will be reduced by 0 to 30 points.
3. Add possibility to select the role (1, 2, 3, 4-5 position) before finding a match. And then the team you will get will have all needed roles. Of course it will last much more to find such match, but at least there will be no line wars.
^ Why dont you play lol if you like it so much?
Noone wants you Here.
^ agree with #3
Yesterday I had a teammate 3rd pick random Meepo, he didn't know how to play Meepo.
EZ 25 minutes of everyone in the game's lives wasted since he wouldn't just abandon.
EZ -25 MMR for everyone on my team
I would say, just make only one MMR. Party is basically bullshit. Remove random.
Remove all pick..only random allowed.
As i live in Kazakhstan i can play on both perfect world servers and eu west with ping ~100, and i wanted to mention in china everyone is playing random draft only
"Division of labor is the separation of a work process into a number of tasks, with each task performed by a separate person or group. Division of labor is essential to economic progress because it allows people to specialize in particular tasks. This specialization makes workers more efficient, which reduces the total cost of producing goods or providing a service. Additionally, by making people become skilled and efficient at a smaller number of tasks, division of labor gives people time to experiment with new and better ways of doing things." This is exactly why you should limit yourself to a certain position and a limited hero pool and avoid randoming.
the new all pick is fine
just remove the random button from ranked games...got a random am who died 21 times and started to get a ring of health, claymore and then began to build a yasha for "faster farm"
What a shitty article coming from a 3k player. You can't random lastpick anymore.
The AP mode needs a change for balance the picks, I think, valve needs implement the method ABBA.
Thoughts on only making the random selection available immediately upon load in, a separate like 10 second window or such, where everyone who intends on randoming will have to random before the rest of the picking stage begins?
Instead of buying a hero, option to buy a new type of building.. a mega barracks that pumps out units that can farm the trees and build more buildings, which can build units that can fight. rts?
love when all the roles are chosen then someone randoms cause they don't want to support..
You putting this drivel out is going to enable retardation from excrement players. They'll point to this article to defend their decision to random. Let me put it bluntly. You shouldn't random in ranked, not if you want to win. Randoming as a 5th pick is probably the most idiotic thing I've heard. Perhaps doing it in 1st position is acceptable if NOBODY on your team is willing to first pick, but the tail end of the draft is for counter and synergy picks.
what about that : ??
The idea is pretty simple: Just as you select the game modes you are up to playing, you get to mark the positions/roles you are willing to play.
So, if you can only accept playing mid, the matchmaking won't put you at the same team as someone with the same restrictions.
As soon as the game lobby is up, the roles in the map are pre-set, so everyone knows the roles each of them are expected to develop for the team.
It's not that one can't change the pre-set positions. It's just a way to separate the teams in a balanced way strategywise.
That should minimize the occurance of the likes: - two guys fighting for mid (or any other role) - nobody wants to play support for the team - nobody wants to/feel confortable playing mid... - etc
I believe that's very simple to apply and would only improve the playing experience in ranked matches, by avoiding miss-compositions and fights before the picks even occur.
so, what's your thoughts on that?
=- ps: sorry about any language issues
ty
I personally liked it when all pick was removed from the ranked game mode options a few years back, forcing people to play Captain's Mode for ranked solves all of these issues. The new issue being the need for a competent captain, someone can easily grief as a captain.
mmr is just a number
I think that you can't swap in either sd or rd mode unless it was fixed recently? That's why I stopped playing this mode back in the day after transitioning from dota1. Nowadays it would be hard to change established trends.
@"Ganz
Nice idea but not practical because of some reasons. First of all there is a deficiency of support players. Secondly it makes match making super slow.
What if both teams picked a hero at the same time? Each pick phase lasts 1 minute, each team/player on a team chooses a hero. The hero panel would be blanked out for the other team so neither team knows what is coming. Then when the 1 minute is up or when both teams have picked their hero, the panels are then shown to both teams. Then after, I don't know, 10 or 15 seconds there is another pick phase, repeating until 5 heros are picked for each team.
^What if both teams choose the same hero? Is it banned and it all starts over again?
And mmr system is not fair. "IO win = 25mmr" "Necrophos win = 25 mmr" this is not fair. The mmr system does not give mmr according to the talent. You can up your mmr with only 1 hero...
Please remove the option to random in ALL PICK. If you want to random go play ALL RANDOM mode. Randoming does nothing but tilt people before the game even starts. Dota is a strategy game not a casino gambling game.
1. Maybe re-random should not exist, so it is REALLY risking to random!
2. Looking for balance, it should have a gold loss progression for each random of each team:
1st random pick = +200 g (and no re-random allowed anymore)
2nd random pick = +150 g
3rd random pick = +100 g
4th random pick = +50 g
5th random pick = already not allowed
Another idea that I have, is just one unique MMR with different points won or lost. I think this division makes people avoid playing in party with friends.
Maybe, again, a progression idea:
+24 MMR for solo queue
+21 MMR for party of 2
+18 MMR for a party of 3
+15 MMR for a party of 4
Party of 5 is not ranked.
Why should people be discouraged from playing in a party? Isn't that the whole point of dota? its a team game dude lol. If you play solo and dont want to queue into teams, turn on solo queue option in the options. People shouldnt be penalised for playing a team game in a premade party
Remove random gold; it incentivizes bad play.