ENT - current skill level

[plzbanruiners]

Im inspired to due to recent discussions to have this topic. People have this belief that because ENT is in its "dying" days the players that remain are the worst ever and that the skill level is its lowest its ever been. I STRONGLY disagree with this sentiment and will even make a bold claim that its the most competitive pub scene ENT has ever seen. I believe this, because of the following

1. No map update for years now

In dota 2 the map gets updated frequently, its now at version 7.35+. We however have been playing on the same version 6.83 for many many years now(if someone can tell me the actual years ty).
So lets ask ourselves why dota 2 gets updated so frequently. The answer is quite obvious, the strong heroes and playstyle gets figured out quickly aka the "meta". To keep game fresh and exciting, there are regular changes to heroes, items, map etc. We however have had all this time to figure out what is the strongest, what works, what doesn't. Even the worst of the players can tell you that bara, slark, sniper are some of the strongest heroes of the patch. So in summary we have the "meta" pretty much figured out and hence why you see the same pool of heroes played each game.

2.Higher Skill floor

There's this concept in competitive games called skill cieling and skill floor. Dota by nature is one of the most complex games ever made and even 10k hours of gametime will not guarantee you're an expert. While we in ENT may never reach the skill cieling of this game we so much love, we have increased the skill floor of the playerbase dramatically. Let me again compare to dota 2, 8 or so years back being 5k mmr (elo version of dota 2) was considered to be really good for pub standards. Nowadays those same players are 3k mmr if their skill level remained exactly the same as 8 years ago. The same can be applied here. (myself went from 2.5k elo to 1.7k elo currently) point being the worst players years ago cannot even compare to the "worst" players we have today. The worst players today would simply crush the worst players back then. For example people back in the day would simply not ward at all. Nowdays its rare to see a game where a team does not ward at least once. The skill gap between the worst and the best is much closer than before.

3. Tight-nit playerbase

In dota 2, in the highest echelons of pubs (high immortal 10k mmr+) most games include players that know each other. There simply arent that many super high mmr players and the match making system in place, pits the same players vs each other all the time. What this does is let players figure out each others playestyles/preferences. This adds another dimension of strategy. Not only do you now have to counter their heroes, but also their playstyle. The same can be applied to ENT. After we have played with the same small group players, we have figured out how many of us prefer to play the map, our hero picks, etc. Its why the game is ever so more difficult to just 1v9 than before. I have players like MIKE dewarding my uncoventional wards which at times may seem like mh to some buts its just a result of learning from ur oppents/teammates from so many games together.

In conclusion the pub level of games in ENT is the highest its ever been before and id like you to convience me otherwise.

[EdteOfChaos2]

In terms of not being able to find lobbies full of trash to farm, yeah. But there aren't any actual good players on the server anymore who play regularly besides Astros and Kunkka. Best players here now were 1500-1600 on ENT in the past. We used to have smoker, yaphets, saint, and flowersnow playing here. Not to mention a bunch of pretty unimportant players who still got into the 2500-3000 range and would still destroy anyone here. It's hard to even describe the skill gap between those players and the players on ENT today.

[plzbanruiners]

I'm not sure if you're saying because the better players left the overall games are worse. We never had matchmaking in ENT pubs, the best version of that was vote balanced games but that was short-lived. The good players back then were playing with much worse bad players whether it was on their team or against them. Just to be clear the IH games cannot compare to the pub games back then or today, I'm not making that argument. My use of "competitive" is directly referring to the skill gap being much closer overall. The best of players improving has diminishing returns, sometimes the things you may have gotten better at don't even apply to easy mode dota. Once you're already at the top, growth opportunity cannot compare to the growth of the bad players.