Patch 7.5 Discussion Thread

[Scintilla]

it doesn't matter if you care if there's no crawling up once the placements are on-lock, and they lock-in REALLY damn fast now

The game has not long begun. Your team has had a bit of a slow start compared to the other two, with everyone still on BH0 while your enemy teams are around BH2 or 3 already. If they kill you, they're only getting 6 points for doing so. They'd have to kill you 4 times to move up a BH rank. If you manage to kill them, you'd only have to do so twice before you're up to BH1.
You'd be getting twice as many points than they would and progressing twice as fast.

The change has not made it easier for good players to gain BH. The only part of this change which has helped them is that they no longer lose it - exactly the same privilege you also have.

What I do agree with, though, is that games do seem to have become a bit more fast-paced and chaotic than they were, particularly in certain maps and as the evening wares on (in EU, at least) as a greater proportion of regulars start to queue and a more aggressive and brash approach is taken now that loss of BH is no longer a threat. While I can understand that not everyone would like this change of pace, personally, I prefer it - more of a challenge and more rewarding should we win. If we lose, did we fight a good game and hold our own? Is there anything I could do differently to maybe help swing it a bit more in our favour next time? If it wasn't close, there's very clearly a strong ability difference between the teams, but why is this blindly labelled as a 'cancerous premade' fault, rather than considering your own teams performance?

Completely unrelated scenario:
I'm entering a race/match/competition. I've practiced really hard for months and worked to improve my ability ready for this event. Many of the people I'm vs haven't really bothered to practice at all, they just want to get it over with. Event day comes: I try my best, I win. My competitors then begin to complain that it's unfair and I only won because I'm a 'try-hard' who's dominating. They claim that the whole process was a fix in my favour.

Sound familiar?

I've had games where ALL 24 PEOPLE INCLUDING MYSELF HAD BH0

If a whole team is stuck at zero BH, it usually points to huge flaws within the teams approach to engagements. It may be they're spread out all over the place rather than focusing their damage on a single target/push, hence they're killing no-one. It may be that they're heavily avoiding PvP, running from objective to objective and retreating the moment an enemy comes close, again, they're killing nothing. It may be that they're not using initiative and taking advantage of opportunities to flank their enemies while they're preoccupied fighting another team - again, no kills.

No kills = No BH.

The excuse used to be that these 'premades' would continuously wipe less good teams, making BH very hard for those teams to get and keep, making it harder to counter. That excuse no longer exists.

I completely get the frustration when you're stuck in a team who seems to be getting nowhere, but the blame for that does not lie on regular players, as is the usual default excuse. There is only one way that the system will change from what it is now and that's if more casual players began to push themselves in PvP, not just in ability but in keeping a competitive, improvement-driven attitude.

Defaulting to 'premade's fault', 'why bother?', 'who cares' after losses is a self-fulfilling prophecy.