Let's talk about Smurfs: Do you have one? Should you have one? Why?

Having ranked be the default screws over new players during calibration and makes an already hard game even harder and more stressful. People play ranked to see where their skill level is, throwing in people who have never played before and nudging people to try stupid shit in ranked makes this metric inaccurate, and ruins the game for people trying to play seriously.

A "fuck around in this match because there is no mmr of any kind" option is also kinda pointless, we have custom games for messing around in dota, and stupid strats can be run in unranked fairly easily since pub games often have lower coordination, allowing sub optimal but well comminicated strats to succeed.

Just because fucking around in Dota isn't the same as it used to be where you could smash people in MM because you were better doesn't mean it's a better system. I'm sure many people on the opposing team were not having fun playing against someone way better than them. I doubt a third option would be supported either, if people want a fun match they will mess around in unranked, since it doesn't matter if you win or lose. Sure you have a number to help find games that don't make the game fucking miserable for players of vastly different skill levels, but if I only play unranked drunk, then it will reflect my drunken skill, meaning I can still end up having a 50/50 shot at the game even if I'm drunk.

/r/TrueDoTA2 Thread Parent