heroes Ranked Play League Distribution

[Stan 5,240]

Lead Game Designer Travis McGeathy posted a breakdown of Ranked Play League distribution on Reddit earlier today.

Blizzard (Source)

We updated it after season 1 (or 2? ...a while ago). I don't have a pretty graph handy, but the breakdown by percentage of players is...

• Bronze: 7%
• Silver: 35%
• Gold: 35%
• Platinum: 15%
• Diamond: 7%
• Master: 1%

Edit: I should note, those are the targets. Actual numbers vary a bit as the season goes on (for example, hardcore players tend to place earlier than more casual players), but roughly fall in line with that over time.

[Dejo93 1,023]

huh, only 7% is Bronze 

[ArtVandelay 24]

That explains why so many idiots are in silver.  People who have like 6 heroes they can even play, granted all at a bad rate.

 

I would think bronze would be the same size as silver, get the total idiots out of silver and at least have people there that are trying.

 

They need to be looking at this like a pyramid, that people want to climb.  If you put most of the people in some middle ground, what you have is a toxic environment where people spend the whole game complaining about playing with people not on the same level as them.

Edited March 7, 2018 by ArtVandelay

[gamerk2 20]

Proving that Silver-Gold is where you DON'T want to be.

[SleepySheepy 41]

13 hours ago, gamerk2 said:

Proving that Silver-Gold is where you DON'T want to be.

Depends, someone would be content with such outcome. There is no such thing as universally what's good or bad. Ask some Master players, they'll say everything below Diamond is bad, ask Diamond player, he could say something else. For me, as long you are not last and you trying and improving you are doing good.

[Eldre 4]

So 77% of players are in gold or below. So... Diamond players are in the top 1/4 of all players. Maybe gold is a good place to end up after all.

[Laragon 269]

What I gain from this (I'm Diamond finally) is your rank isn't to be ashamed of. I struggled to climb out of gold into plat. It took me a season of 60ish% win rate from gold 2 to plat 5 over 150+ games. I climbed SUPER quick out of Plat into Diamond with voice coms I went went 25-3. I wasn't ashamed to be gold or plat, it was what it was. I wanted to learn, watched HGC, watched streamers that are masters and GM (especially bronze to GM challenges), and learned about the game.

Climbing out of any rank isn't impossible, but that doesn't mean to not be content with your current situation. If you don't play 200+ ranked matches a season, don't read patch notes, or don't go to people smarter and better at the game than you, then don't expect to jump leagues. Diamond, Master and especially GM SHOULD be reserved for the top 1-10% of the player base. It's an accomplishment. But having fun with the lower levels, wanting the competitive(ish) games and people all wanting to strive to climb is what makes this game great. Yeah, it should be more than 7% bronze, but at least the top seems split into proper amount.

[CyberDVonaven 82]

This makes me feel better about being silver/gold in ranked. And better about the majority of my HOTS friends I play with all the time that are all Plat and Diamond.

I'm constantly the weak link in our team and constantly feel like I've lost the game for us because of it. I tend to try to stay playing the tanks with them cause I usually survive better on them then other classes while playing with those friends. I HATE when they want me to play support/healer. Cause I know that almost every time I do they're all gonna die... a lot.

Just Wednesday night our last few games one of them that's mid tier diamond and usually acts as the team captain was getting so frustrated with me. I was playing different melee heroes and he was trying his best to get me to be more aggressive and get in there and kill the enemy team. And I would usually just end up running in there and dead within a second or two no matter what hero I was playing. He asked me switch over to support and to play Uther. That went even worse then the previous matches of the night. I was constantly being yanked out in team fights by the enemy and killed. Or if I wasn't I was doing a horrible job of healing cause I was so scaried to get too close and end up dead again. So they run in and I'm in the back and end up too far to effectively heal well and they end up dead followed soon after by me too. He was constantly yelling for heals cause I'm just simply not as competent a played at healer as he expects me to be (and wants me to be). I was so frustrated with myself and knowing that they had to be too I basically just gave up half way through the match and kept going afk for the most part since I wasn't being of really any use anyhow. Before the match was completely over he was already asking another of our usual friends if he was still wanting to play. Once the match was over he swiftly kicked me out of the party. I left without a word from Discord chat that night.

It's VERY painful to be in that position when you so strongly desire to play with those friends and struggle so desperately to be a cohesive part of the team and keep up.

I feel at least some solace knowing that I'm right around the middle of the majority of players skill level. Rather then the way it feels like I'm right at the bottom. And some comfort in knowing that they really are that my friends really are that above average skilled players. :)

Edited March 9, 2018 by CyberDVonaven

[Fliits 112]

So now people have even less reason to tell you to go back to bronze.

[Morcalivan 86]

Shouldn't those numbers be impossible? Or does no one start in Bronze to begin with?

[Fliits 112]

7 hours ago, Morcalivan said:

Shouldn't those numbers be impossible? Or does no one start in Bronze to begin with?

People generally start form silver to gold. Very rarely do people actually start at bronze, or platinum for that matter.

[ArtVandelay 24]

That really annoys me.  I got stuck in high silver last season, dropped to silver 4 fighting trolls all day.  I figured new season is a new chance to get out of hell.  Instead I go 9-1 in placements and still silver 2.  WTF?!?!?!?  I thought the max you could climb is 1 league.  So I could max go silver 4 to gold 4 with my placements.  So 1 loss is worth 4 divisions?  HUH?  If I went 10-0, maybe I would have been only silver 1?  Come on blizzard!  What else can I do to move up?

 

Reading these amounts of people in Silver and Gold explains it.  They WANT you to live in mediocrity.  

Edited March 11, 2018 by ArtVandelay

[Morcalivan 86]

15 hours ago, Fliits said:

People generally start form silver to gold. Very rarely do people actually start at bronze, or platinum for that matter.

Well, I started in Bronze 5 when I did my placements in December since I didn't know to do quickmatch and unranked beforehand to artificially boost my rank. It's pretty messed up to learn most people don't have put in any effort into ranking.

[Fliits 112]

1 hour ago, Morcalivan said:

Well, I started in Bronze 5 when I did my placements in December since I didn't know to do quickmatch and unranked beforehand to artificially boost my rank. It's pretty messed up to learn most people don't have put in any effort into ranking.

Not starting at bronze 5 isn't the same as not putting effort into ranking. Silver is just as bad if not worse to start off at, since it has more people thus more shitty players. I actually quit HotS for a while, since I had already played nonstop for a month and hadn't made any progress in hero league, in part due to my lack of experience and in part to my own teammates not knowing a single thing about the game.

[gamerk2 20]

On 3/11/2018 at 7:30 AM, Fliits said:

Not starting at bronze 5 isn't the same as not putting effort into ranking. Silver is just as bad if not worse to start off at, since it has more people thus more shitty players. I actually quit HotS for a while, since I had already played nonstop for a month and hadn't made any progress in hero league, in part due to my lack of experience and in part to my own teammates not knowing a single thing about the game.

Case in point: in my last Platinum ranked HL game, I got yelled out for suggesting to NOT fight for a tribute on Cursed Hollow level 8 against level 10 on a non-curse tribute.

Seriously, are people seriously THAT stupid?

[Fliits 112]

9 hours ago, gamerk2 said:

Case in point: in my last Platinum ranked HL game, I got yelled out for suggesting to NOT fight for a tribute on Cursed Hollow level 8 against level 10 on a non-curse tribute.

Seriously, are people seriously THAT stupid?

Yes, they are. Can't wait to make it out of gold.