heroes Climbing from Bronze 5 to Grand Master with Nostromia!

[Valks 2,377]

Ever wondered how difficult it might be to climb from Bronze 5 to Grand Master in HoTS? This Russian streamer has decided to undertake the task, while only solo queuing the whole way!

The streamer in question is none other than Nostromia, a Russian streamer that normally plays at the Grand Master level. She managed to grab herself a low MMR account and is attempting to show that it's possible to climb from Bronze 5 all the way to Grand Master. 

The Reddit post over on /r/heroesofthestorm which really highlighted her stream has described her progress as follows:

• She has a nearly 100% win-rate, with a score of 42-1.
• She is currently in the Silver leagues.
• Her main heroes played are Falstad and Zagara.
• While she has a limited grasp of English, she uses simple commands to communicate with other players that are not Russian.

If you're interested in watching her climb, you can always check out her stream at twitch.tv/nostromiagaming.

[Estelise 0]

Yeah, its possible because she's already a grand master skill level player.  It still isn't possible for a Bronze 5 skill level player to make it to grand master, that's the whole point of the mmr and rankings... 

[Valks 2,377]

  On 7/28/2016 at 7:23 PM, Estelise said:

Yeah, its possible because she's already a grand master skill level player.  It still isn't possible for a Bronze 5 skill level player to make it to grand master, that's the whole point of the mmr and rankings... 

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She's mainly doing it to dispel the myth that like.. "it's impossible to carry in HoTS because that role doesn't exist". These sort of things. It's also going to give us an average number of wins in order to level up through each rank and so on. It will be REALLY useful for collecting data in my opinion, data that will help a lot of players.

[mnime 17]

No one said it's impossible to climb from bronze to grand master when you can actually carry your team cause you have the skill, the problem is that a good player with good skills that can see where the team is failing but can't carry them is not able to climb the ladder, because he plays or matched up with players that can't see their fault

[HughJas 0]

Impossible! Even if you're a master you can't possible replace 3 noobs.

[greatCraft 29]

I highly doubt she can do this. However, I hope she does. It will give me hope. I have many Hero's friends that reach a rank and then just go down, down, down. I cheer for them, gain hope, and then lose it. 

 

 

And I have many proofs with words that 'prove' MMR hell. I hope to have doubt about my arguments with some empirical data. 

 

Sincerely, I am smiling and excited about her success. And I have been defending MMR hell vigorously. 

 

 

There may be a point however, after a single player's skill cannot overcome the lack of skill in his/her four teammates. Nonetheless, that record is impressive. 

Edited July 28, 2016 by greatCraft

[Valks 2,377]

  On 7/28/2016 at 8:58 PM, mnime said:

No one said it's impossible to climb from bronze to grand master when you can actually carry your team cause you have the skill, the problem is that a good player with good skills that can see where the team is failing but can't carry them is not able to climb the ladder, because he plays or matched up with players that can't see their fault

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This was actually one of the biggest criticisms of HoTS - it's not possible to carry because a carry doesn't exist, due to a lack of items, such as a heavily farmed ADC in LoL.

Not saying I agree with this, that is.

[mnime 17]

  On 7/28/2016 at 11:36 PM, Blainie said:

This was actually one of the biggest criticisms of HoTS - it's not possible to carry because a carry doesn't exist, due to a lack of items, such as a heavily farmed ADC in LoL.

Not saying I agree with this, that is.

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True, scratch that part where I said "no one".

It is possible but don't you think good players with high skill cap should play in high leagues even if they can't carry a team?

[Valks 2,377]

  On 7/29/2016 at 12:31 AM, mnime said:

True, scratch that part where I said "no one".

It is possible but don't you think good players with high skill cap should play in high leagues even if they can't carry a team?

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For sure. I think it's interesting to see her play in the lower leagues too though. Not only from a results point of view (25 games to go from Bronze to Silver, for example), but to see what really separates the players.

When you watch her play Falstad, the Bronze players have no idea what is going on when she jumps over the walls and gusts them straight into her team. You can see that those plays are what allow her to carry, regardless of her having items or not. Those plays can literally create a win for a team.

It's a different kind of entertainment from watching top players I think. It's going to be one-sided for sure. On a normal day, I definitely think GMs should play GMs, Gold should play Gold etc., but I definitely want to see this played out. 

[mnime 17]

  On 7/28/2016 at 11:13 PM, greatCraft said:

I highly doubt she can do this. However, I hope she does. It will give me hope. I have many Hero's friends that reach a rank and then just go down, down, down. I cheer for them, gain hope, and then lose it. 

 

 

And I have many proofs with words that 'prove' MMR hell. I hope to have doubt about my arguments with some empirical data. 

 

Sincerely, I am smiling and excited about her success. And I have been defending MMR hell vigorously. 

 

 

There may be a point however, after a single player's skill cannot overcome the lack of skill in his/her four teammates. Nonetheless, that record is impressive. 

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I also believe in MMR Hell, 

Because matchmaking greatly depends on "Luck", if you're a lucky guy, you get decent players, if you're unlucky like me, you play your placement, start in D4 and then you go up to D1, but then you keep getting afkers, troll pickers, ragers. The question is why is it just me that gets trolls in my team? and the answer is Luck! I'm unlucky.

And this MMR hell affects all of blizzard's games, even in Overwatch I tried solo queue, got placed in rank 61 after placements and now I'm 35... and I swear to God half of my loses are because of leavers and people who keep playing Ana with a bad comp or Genji without any skill, even if you beg them to change, they don't.

 

And the thing that frustrates me more than anything is that, is my skill cap really this low? I can vividly see where the team is failing but my teammates can't, how is it that I'm teamed up with them?

Edited July 29, 2016 by mnime

[Valks 2,377]

  On 7/29/2016 at 3:41 AM, mnime said:

I also believe in MMR Hell, 

Because matchmaking greatly depends on "Luck", if you're a lucky guy, you get decent players, if you're unlucky like me, you play your placement, start in D4 and then you go up to D1, but then you keep getting afkers, troll pickers, ragers. The question is why is it just me that gets trolls in my team? and the answer is Luck! I'm unlucky.

And this MMR hell affects all of blizzard's games, even in Overwatch I tried solo queue, got placed in rank 61 after placements and now I'm 35... and I swear to God half of my loses are because of leavers and people who keep playing Ana with a bad comp or Genji without any skill, even if you beg them to change, they don't.

And the thing that frustrates me more than anything is that, is my skill cap really this low? I can vividly see where the team is failing but my teammates can't, how is it that I'm teamed up with them?

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I feel like MMR hell is often seen in the wrong way. People seem to think MMR hell is like, OMG IF IT WERENT FOR THESE SHIT PLAYERS I'D BE GRAND MASTER EASY.

That's not what we're saying. I'm not saying I'd be a GM, BUT I am saying that I could comfortably pull my weight in a team that is a few ranks above me. I just can't reach that level because I'm not good enough to carry those that can't pull their weight at my current level. 

I agree about OW too. Ana shouldn't have been allowed in this season of comp IMO. 

[ghostdeini 12]

  On 7/29/2016 at 11:27 AM, Blainie said:

That's not what we're saying. I'm not saying I'd be a GM, BUT I am saying that I could comfortably pull my weight in a team that is a few ranks above me. I just can't reach that level because I'm not good enough to carry those that can't pull their weight at my current level. 

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This, 100%.  It's nice to see someone looking at it this way, because I feel like that is exactly where I am.  I am by no means a GM, but can definitely pull my weight when I play with teams above my hero league rank.  The thing is that when I play HL, yes I can see the mistakes that my teammates are making, but my personal play isn't good enough to completely make up for them.  Just because I play well and don't make those mistakes doesn't mean the other players are the only thing holding me back.  Maybe someday I'll get good enough to carry teams and make amazing play after amazing play, but until that time I'll keep up the grind!

[Skund 0]

No doubt, it is possible to climb, but:

1 game with afkler/troller/feeder/etc , trades with another game you won. So 2 matches and about 40-60minutes game time is lost. If it is a uprank or downrank game you lose an additional game you won. 60-80 minutes game time lost and 3 matches wasted.

 

My badest streak was 5 matches with afkler in a row and in addition 2 matches with troll picks.

A week or more of hardwork totally wasted and loosing 2 ranks.

 

Can you carry with a bot/feeder/troller/afkler on silver? I doubt it MMR hell stands for running in circles, the good old "Hell League"

[Valks 2,377]

  On 7/29/2016 at 3:29 PM, ghostdeini said:

This, 100%.  It's nice to see someone looking at it this way, because I feel like that is exactly where I am.  I am by no means a GM, but can definitely pull my weight when I play with teams above my hero league rank.  The thing is that when I play HL, yes I can see the mistakes that my teammates are making, but my personal play isn't good enough to completely make up for them.  Just because I play well and don't make those mistakes doesn't mean the other players are the only thing holding me back.  Maybe someday I'll get good enough to carry teams and make amazing play after amazing play, but until that time I'll keep up the grind!

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It's the biggest misconception about MMR hell for sure. It happens in both HoTS and OW, but it seems the only way to fix it is play in a party. It sucks.

  On 7/30/2016 at 12:33 AM, Skund said:

1 game with afkler/troller/feeder/etc , trades with another game you won.

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This is always terrible. I hate it when someone refuses to play properly and just feeds because your team doesn't want them to first pick Nova, or pick a hero into a counter. It's really annoying. 

[mnime 17]

I think there is a workaround for this, there is a very good skill rating measurement system in overwatch, and blizzard keeps telling the community that they like the idea and they want to add it to heroes too.

Let's say it happens. It's not that hard to figure out the skill of a player, am I wrong? I mean in Overwatch you're either helping your team by doing damage, blocking damage, healing or taking objective. The same can be done for HotS. In heroes you're either doing damage which involves poking and team fights or pushing lanes, as a tank you're taking damage and also dealing some, as a support you heal, and all can participate in objectives, someone who does very low damage, doesn't help much on objectives, die many times and maybe afk once in a while to type and flame teammates :D MUST be in the lowest MMR among players, this player MUST lose MMR regardless of his team's defeat. because he's just bad and toxic! This way not only you see players of same skill level after a month, but you also know that if someone flaming or trolling he will lose MMR and eventually end up in lower leagues. 

This way you know if you wanna rank up, you need to stop feeding (which makes players play more safe, is awesome!) you need to help objectives at all times unless you're helping your team more than that by pushing lanes (Like Abathur, although every time I play abathur I always hide in a bush near minions to get the xp for team, locusts push passively and I help objective with symbiotic, I hate Murky players who ignore objectives completely!!) , you need to deal enough damage, heals to help your team (You can say doing huge amounts of damage is way easy with Nazeebo compared to Murky, but the system can give more value to that amount of damage you deal when the enemy dies within 5 seconds. Or landing a very good CC can be a big score too.)  Just like in Overwatch when you see a D.Va with a perfect ult which kills 4 and wins the match for her team and gets the play of the match, This can happen in Heroes, the engine sucks but they can work on it.

 

TL:DR - We need a system that can rate your skill after each game based on your damage dealt, healing done, damage taken and objective time. And this system's score should affect your MMR directly. If you Troll you lose MMR regardless of the outcome of the match.

Edited July 30, 2016 by mnime

[Valks 2,377]

  On 7/30/2016 at 1:57 AM, mnime said:

I think there is a workaround for this, there is a very good skill rating measurement system in overwatch, and blizzard keeps telling the community that they like the idea and they want to add it to heroes too.

Let's say it happens. It's not that hard to figure out the skill of a player, am I wrong? I mean in Overwatch you're either helping your team by doing damage, blocking damage, healing or taking objective. The same can be done for HotS. In heroes you're either doing damage which involves poking and team fights or pushing lanes, as a tank you're taking damage and also dealing some, as a support you heal, and all can participate in objectives, someone who does very low damage, doesn't help much on objectives, die many times and maybe afk once in a while to type and flame teammates :D MUST be in the lowest MMR among players, this player MUST lose MMR regardless of his team's defeat. because he's just bad and toxic! This way not only you see players of same skill level after a month, but you also know that if someone flaming or trolling he will lose MMR and eventually end up in lower leagues. 

This way you know if you wanna rank up, you need to stop feeding (which makes players play more safe, is awesome!) you need to help objectives at all times unless you're helping your team more than that by pushing lanes (Like Abathur, although every time I play abathur I always hide in a bush near minions to get the xp for team, locusts push passively and I help objective with symbiotic, I hate Murky players who ignore objectives completely!!) , you need to deal enough damage, heals to help your team (You can say doing huge amounts of damage is way easy with Nazeebo compared to Murky, but the system can give more value to that amount of damage you deal when the enemy dies within 5 seconds. Or landing a very good CC can be a big score too.)  Just like in Overwatch when you see a D.Va with a perfect ult which kills 4 and wins the match for her team and gets the play of the match, This can happen in Heroes, the engine sucks but they can work on it.

 

TL:DR - We need a system that can rate your skill after each game based on your damage dealt, healing done, damage taken and objective time. And this system's score should affect your MMR directly. If you Troll you lose MMR regardless of the outcome of the match.

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Problem is, these things aren't always useful. Let's take two scenarios, both in the same game.

1. Bastion is on defense and does nothing but fire straight into Mei's Ice Wall and Reinhardt's shield. He kills nobody, but has 5 times more damage than anyone else on his team. 
2. Tracer is on attack, she barely kills anyone, but she manages to keep overtime going continuously, but dies very quickly on the point. It's enough to let her team get back onto the point and fight though.

By damage done, the Bastion is doing loads. In reality, he never touches the point and pads his damage constantly. Tracer will be shown by medals and numbers to be doing less, but she is way more useful to her team. 

I think it's a lot more difficult to make it work than we think. In HoTS, a warrior could sit there, suicide 15 times and take loads of damage. So by the warrior stat, he's doing well, but he's not contributing. What about a warrior that takes less damage, but doesn't die? Is he better or worse? What if the 15 deaths are instead incredibly important, allowing his team to win the team fight?

I really think it's insanely hard to calibrate these systems properly to discern between good and bad players, especially when the metrics measure a good and bad player in the same way. Loads of deaths could be a terrible player feeding or a good player sacrificing themselves to let their team win.

[mnime 17]

  On 7/30/2016 at 12:32 PM, Blainie said:

Problem is, these things aren't always useful. Let's take two scenarios, both in the same game.

1. Bastion is on defense and does nothing but fire straight into Mei's Ice Wall and Reinhardt's shield. He kills nobody, but has 5 times more damage than anyone else on his team. 
2. Tracer is on attack, she barely kills anyone, but she manages to keep overtime going continuously, but dies very quickly on the point. It's enough to let her team get back onto the point and fight though.

By damage done, the Bastion is doing loads. In reality, he never touches the point and pads his damage constantly. Tracer will be shown by medals and numbers to be doing less, but she is way more useful to her team. 

I think it's a lot more difficult to make it work than we think. In HoTS, a warrior could sit there, suicide 15 times and take loads of damage. So by the warrior stat, he's doing well, but he's not contributing. What about a warrior that takes less damage, but doesn't die? Is he better or worse? What if the 15 deaths are instead incredibly important, allowing his team to win the team fight?

I really think it's insanely hard to calibrate these systems properly to discern between good and bad players, especially when the metrics measure a good and bad player in the same way. Loads of deaths could be a terrible player feeding or a good player sacrificing themselves to let their team win.

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Very good point. 

Giving more value to the damage heroes deal within 5 seconds of a kill or assist is a good idea for the first scenario IMO. Nazeebo's poke, Bastion's wall/shield damage are not completely wasted but an assist is way more valuable and could get a multiplier.

Dying in HotS more than a few times just hurts your team no matter what. I remember someone suggested for tanks that if the death was within a few seconds of team fight (atleast 4 members of team are dealing damage to heroes) or objective battle (atleast 4 members of the team presence near the objective), it means he died for a reason. This way tanks who just jump in and engage 1v5 and die without waiting for their teammates or their healer to help them are considered feeders.

It would be a really complicated code. But since I remember, any game that had a matchmaking system suffered from this exact problem. The code needs to be smart and there are a lot of workarounds, I think Blizzard developers are smart enough to write it, don't you think?

[Valks 2,377]

  On 7/30/2016 at 11:43 PM, mnime said:

Very good point. 

Giving more value to the damage heroes deal within 5 seconds of a kill or assist is a good idea for the first scenario IMO. Nazeebo's poke, Bastion's wall/shield damage are not completely wasted but an assist is way more valuable and could get a multiplier.

Dying in HotS more than a few times just hurts your team no matter what. I remember someone suggested for tanks that if the death was within a few seconds of team fight (atleast 4 members of team are dealing damage to heroes) or objective battle (atleast 4 members of the team presence near the objective), it means he died for a reason. This way tanks who just jump in and engage 1v5 and die without waiting for their teammates or their healer to help them are considered feeders.

It would be a really complicated code. But since I remember, any game that had a matchmaking system suffered from this exact problem. The code needs to be smart and there are a lot of workarounds, I think Blizzard developers are smart enough to write it, don't you think?

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If anyone can do it, I hope Blizzard can :P It would make me so happy when playing both OW and HoTS

[Lakecide 0]

  On 7/30/2016 at 12:32 PM, Blainie said:

Problem is, these things aren't always useful. Let's take two scenarios, both in the same game.

1. Bastion is on defense and does nothing but fire straight into Mei's Ice Wall and Reinhardt's shield. He kills nobody, but has 5 times more damage than anyone else on his team. 
2. Tracer is on attack, she barely kills anyone, but she manages to keep overtime going continuously, but dies very quickly on the point. It's enough to let her team get back onto the point and fight though.

By damage done, the Bastion is doing loads. In reality, he never touches the point and pads his damage constantly. Tracer will be shown by medals and numbers to be doing less, but she is way more useful to her team. 

I think it's a lot more difficult to make it work than we think. In HoTS, a warrior could sit there, suicide 15 times and take loads of damage. So by the warrior stat, he's doing well, but he's not contributing. What about a warrior that takes less damage, but doesn't die? Is he better or worse? What if the 15 deaths are instead incredibly important, allowing his team to win the team fight?

I really think it's insanely hard to calibrate these systems properly to discern between good and bad players, especially when the metrics measure a good and bad player in the same way. Loads of deaths could be a terrible player feeding or a good player sacrificing themselves to let their team win.

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I think the way around this in terms of coding and understanding would be to perhaps divide role stat by death, to assess true value of a player.  For example:

Player 1. Dying 10 times and doing 100, 000 damage might be made to look like a great player cos of the high damage but like you say,  those 10 deaths could mean that to get that 100, 000 damage,  the team have suffered missing objectives and such and lost the game

Whereas,

Player 2. Someone who did 70, 000 who died 3 times technically did less damage would be possibly judged as the inferior player 

Now for some basic maths 

1. 100, 000 divided by 10 is 10, 000

2. 70, 000 divided by 3 is 23, 333

With this we can now see that player 2 performed a lot better even though the role was less.  This is incredibly simplified however I think it's a starting point for a new approach. 

 

Same goes for xp

Take the xp and divide by deaths and you can find an effectiveness statistic

 

You can even go one further to combine these two statistics 

 

Role ÷ deaths + experience ÷ deaths = X 

Then divide x by 2 because you quantified 2 different stats 

 

With enough thought you could find out so much about the value of a player from this method alone

 

Ultimately its a team game that's won or lost on decisions but we already have systems in place (MVP),  we could just make them more sophisticated 

[Valks 2,377]

  On 12/22/2016 at 2:38 PM, Lakecide said:

With enough thought you could find out so much about the value of a player from this method alone

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The issue is, as soon as deaths become important as a stat, people will play differently. It's why they currently aren't ranked for medals.

There are times when I would rather have someone swap to Tracer and suicide 5 times, but reset the Overtime timer 5 times, as opposed to a Widowmaker that gets 2 kills, but watches as we lose due to not resetting the timer.