Hello Team 4,
I’d like to talk to you about your Drives event. First of all: a good event with a clearly defined reward that anyone can achieve within the runtime. But your system is being gamed, and apparently to the sole detriment of the metal lobbies, which completely calls into question the “fun factor” of the event.
About me: I started in Season 1 as Silver Support. Over the seasons (I skipped many of them, so I didn’t play comp every season), I worked my way up to Gold. In season 15, I finally reached Plat. I then participated in the Drives event for the first time at the end of season 15… and lost two ranks in two days. I dropped from Plat 5 to Silver 5, thus experiencing my very own Elo Hell, as it took me literally three seasons to get back to Gold on my own, which I did in Season 18.
About the problem: What happened? In seasons 16, 17, and 18, I paid more attention to what was actually happening in my lobbies during the Drives event. What apparently wasn’t entirely clear to me at the end of Season 15: From the start of the event until Sunday evening, I was surrounded by smurfs — Diamond and Master players who weren’t playing their already rated roles, but were all playing roles that were either unrated or even lower than all other roles. This means, for example, that the opposing tank, who supposedly was Silver, was Master in Damage and Support according to their own public profile; Silver Damage players who, according to their own profile, were Diamond in the other two roles; and so on.
Everyone wants the signature, but above all, to score points, but ideally not to lose divisions or ranks at the end of the season. So, many players have apparently decided not to play their main roles. This leads to those very players with an otherwise unrated role playing the placement matches during Drives. Since placement matches and regular ranked matches aren’t separated, these players end up in Silver and Gold lobbies during the event, where they massively influence the game. But that’s not the end of it: why climb during placement matches when you can easily farm the points after the placements by climbing from Silver or Gold to the actual rank? Yes, what I’m getting at is that high-ranking players in the metal lobbies during the event not only influence games through unfair wins, but also through strategically placed losses for their own purposes.
For a while, I also thought this was nonsense, until in season 16 and beyond, I encountered more and more players who openly admitted all this when confronted. Unashamedly. “What’s the big deal?!” (When in doubt, you explain that you’re just completing the Battle Pass for your boy-/girlfriend, although I do wonder why this has to happen during Drives in Comp.)
The solution: … would actually be quite simple.
a) Ban placement matches during the Drives event. Honestly, it’s the very last weekend of the season, so if you haven’t played comp by then, you don’t need to be aiming for it by the end of the season. Why play Comp when you can earn the points in this totally crazy and intentionally unbalanced Stadium mode?
b) Expand your “rank-based” matchmaking to include additional aspects, such as comp play time measured in seasons. Should be actually quite simple… I’ve been playing since Season 1, but out of the 18 seasons so far, I’ve only played about 9 competitive seasons (that’s the amount of seasons my profile lists). So, I would (currently) classify myself as a gold support with 9 seasons of experience. ([Rank]-[Class] with [ X ] seasons of experience.)
Why should I necessarily play with or against players of the same rank, but with significantly more or even less experience, when there are currently players in the pool who would be closer in experience? Seriously, I thought Elo Hell was a joke, but after trying to leave Silver for two seasons while complete newbies or veteran smurfs were messing up your games, it’s something that has taken a massive toll on my resilience, my mental health, and my overall well-being. I’m not sure if I should carry games in the lobby as a silver support. There have been quite a lot games where, focused on keeping my team alive, I ended up being the one who killed the opposing team the most, and we still lost. Something like that tells me that more than one thing went wrong.
My current experience with Drives? The first few days of the event, probably until Sunday evening… ideally none at all. From Sunday evening/Monday morning onward, you’re relatively safe in your own territory again. For one thing, most people have already gotten what they wanted, and for another, many have to go back to work.
That’s … not fun.