How Does Valve Calibrate Your TBD in Dota 2?

First of all what is DOTA? DOTA or Defense of the Ancient is a MOBA type of game compose of 2 teams with 5 members which aims to destroy their enemy base and at the same time defend their base.

 

A lot of people are playing DOTA all over the world. In fact, DOTA is also consider a sports nowadays. They call it E-Sports or Electronic-Sports. Different teams around the world our competing for a trophy and of course a big cash prize. Many players around the world consider playing DOTA as a career that’s why some of them don’t have a job and just focus on playing so they can improve playing DOTA. Those are the professional players which we normal players idolize.

 

Personally, since I was in high school I’ve been playing DOTA. I can’t say I’m a very good player but I can say that I’m quite good when it comes to playing DOTA. I used to watch replays from the tournaments of the pro players so I can get some idea on how they play and somehow try to do it too. When I was in high school my friends and I used to join tournaments and luckily we won some of the tournaments that we joined. That’s all thanks to my teammates which are also passionate in playing DOTA. We keep on practicing everyday so we can improve ourselves.

 

But when we are already in our 2nd year College, a gaming company named Valve released a same game which is now called DOTA 2. The difference between DOTA and DOTA 2 is very huge. In terms of graphics, gameplay, items, heroes, abilities and a lot more. When they first release the game it was on close beta which means you need to have a beta key to access and play the game. But to be able to have those beta key you need to pay for it or if you’re a lucky one you might get one from a raffle which they are doing before. A lot of players around the world specially the pro players transfer from DOTA to DOTA 2 since it was on trend before. But sadly, we’ve tried the game but due to major changes we find it hard to play and at the same time we didn’t enjoy it. That’s why we stopped playing DOTA for awhile. And then we saw another MOBA type of game which is LOL or League of Legends. The mechanics of DOTA 2 and LOL are same but the gameplay is a bit different. League of Legends is much easier to play and a fast pace game. In a short period of time, me and my friends became addicted to League of Legends. But every MOBA games there will be always those toxic players who plays not to win and enjoy the game but to be a toxic player which cause the team to lose and make their teammates mood a bit off. Most of them are young child  who really don’t have a passion on playing the game but only playing just because the game is viral. Which eventually makes me want to quit the game.

 

And then recently, DOTA 2 in the Philippines is making a big noise in the E-Sports community. Just recently, one of the major event that Valve organized was held in the Philippines, the “Manila Major”.  And then in the TI6 or The International 6 which is a BIG MAJOR event that Valve organized every year, PH team made it to the top 8 and win $500,000+. The Philippine Team was an underdog during the tournament but they made a big noise when they defeat the 2 time defending Champion named OG during the tournament. Everyone was not expecting that they could beat them because when they first faced each other, OG defeated the Philippine Team twice. That’s the time I get inspired and excited to play Defense of the Ancient (DOTA) again. And luckily to be able to play DOTA 2 , you don’t need beta key anymore. It’s free to play for all now. When I played again, at first it was very hard since the gameplay is very different unlike before. The abilities and skills of the heroes are different too as well as the items.

 

At first, I was only allowed to play Normal Match until I reach a certain trophy level *I already forgot* before I can play on the Ranked Match. Playing in the normal match is a little bit easy. On my first games I was able to win easily. But the more I progress the harder it gets because I’m facing strong opponents a lot. And since I just recently play again I keep getting defeats the more I leveled up. And after a few weeks of playing I already reached the certain level to play in the Ranked Match. In the ranked match, your rank is determine via MMR or Match Making Ratio. The higher your MMR the better because in high MMR queues that’s where the passionate and good players play. Also in ranked matched you have Solo MMR and Party MMR. Solo MMR is your MMR when you plays solo and Party MMR is your MMR when you are with your friends *2, 3 or 4*. A lot of players are focusing on Solo MMR because it’s hard to increase your MMR in Solo since you don’t have idea on what kind of teammates will you have when you queue. That’s where I’m focusing too. On your first ranked match game your MMR is still TBD or To Be Decided. To determine your first Solo MMR, you have to play 10 ranked match games in order to calibrate what MMR will be given to you. In my first 10 match I only got 2 wins out of 10 which gives me 2.4k MMR. I’m kind of pissed off because my teammates are always toxic players. Almost all my games I have a team of all carry heroes and no support. Support is a very important role in DOTA but a lot of players don’t want to play support because they find it boring. Because carry heroes our the ones who brings the team to victory so they all want to play carry. It was so frustrating in this bracket it’s hard to get a win this kind of teammates. And that’s the reason that I decided to make a new account because a friend of mine said that they base your MMR in your GPM (Gold per Minute) and XPM (Experience Per Minute). He also said that it doesn’t matter if you Win or Lose the game as long as you have high Gold Per Minute and Experience per Minute record. So in my new account I focused on farming items fast. Which in my first account I didn’t prioritize. I’ve been also active when there is clash. So when I reached Level 50 trophy on my new account, I was able to play Ranked Match game again. But unfortunately the same thing happen. I got 4wins out of 10. But I make sure every game I got high GPM and XPM. Sadly I only got 2.6k MMR. So the one that my friend said is not really the basis of how they calibrate your MMR. And I think it’s a bit unfair.

 

I noticed that when are only in TBD, they will team you with players that already have MMR which mostly 2k MMR’s. With that, the most probable MMR you will end is around 2k MMR. I think it’s fair if they team you with players that are also TBD and then calibrate your MMR based on your performance in the game. If they team you up with 2k MMR with that gameplay and attitude then it will greatly affect your performance. Now, I feel a bit of down and don’t want to play again. The reason I made another account is to try to reach at least 3k MMR or better if I can get 4k MMR. I hope they change the way they calibrate players MMR. For now, I’ll just try to increase my MMR to 3k little by little.

 

If any of you guys are playing DOTA 2 and have any idea on how you can increase your change to get higher MMR on TBD please commend on this blog or message me. Thank you 🙂