Communication Breakdown: Life Without All Pick
For a brief period, All Pick mode was removed from Ranked Matchmaking, funneling every MMR climber and competitive player into Random Draft and Captain’s Mode. The temporary change was a welcome respite from the usual routine of ranked DoTA—game after game facing Invoker, Spectre, or Outworld Devourer—and a way to try new modes that would for a moment have less than 10 minute wait times. One of the highlights of these modes is that by nature they encouraged more teamwork, more planning, and more incentive to win, especially when you can no longer spam pick your favorite hero.
Picking in Dota presented every player with a social dilemma, where a decision that best benefits the individual can harm the group. Yes, our team really might need a support 
Lion, but what if you really, really want to just play your favorite hero, Elder Titan? There’s always that familiar situation where a team beckons the last player to pick a support, as he’s hovering over the two or three heroes he really wants to play. If you’re the captain, you’re tasked with balancing the best picks against what your teammates want or can actually play. Without a captain in RD, the responsibility of picks is shared across the team. RD and CM pressure that decision towards one that will benefit the group. It also helps that we’re playing “ranked matchmaking”, where ideas like “having fun” are thrown out the window in the name of competition and +25 MMR.
Raising Your Game
We’ve written plenty of posts about strategy, roles, and picks. But ultimately, how much is it possible to employ these tactics in your standard pub game? The highest level of competition is played in Captain’s Mode, where the outcome of nearly every game can be traced back to decisions and errors made during the drafting phase. It helps for professional captains to have a keen sense of the game and the meta. What about the average 3-4k pub player, who has only an approximate knowledge of the complexities of Dota?
The issue in your typical All Pick, ranked game, is that everyone has a say in the matter, or at least feels like they should. Everyone is approximately the same skill level, so who is better fit to make decisions as each person clamors to dictate the best course of action? Fractured groups lead to fractured decision making.
And on the opposite spectrum, group cohesiveness can also lean towards groupthink, where unanimity prevents an objective evaluation of the situation. This is where the role of captains and leaders come into play. It’s no coincidence that many successful captains are support players, as is the case for Secret.Puppey for Team Secret,
PPD for Evil Geniuses, or
xiao8 for LGD-Gaming. Their roles require them to constantly evaluate the game’s situation, dictating where they and their teammates should be. They direct action, but they also delegate and seek outside opinion. Drafting can be a group process, but there’s still an organizational structure on who has the last say. And in late game situations, sometimes the carry should be the one making the calls. The process is fluid and collaborative, and it’s something that pub players can seek to learn from.
Spamming a strong meta hero, learning its intricacies and timings, is one way to climb MMR. But for a moment, players couldn't always play their comfort heroes. All Pick has been Dota’s version of a pick-up game of basketball. Everyone plays with their own agenda, while winning almost becomes secondary. Random Draft and Captain’s Mode raises the bar of competition, by introducing a drafting phase and compelling players to function more like a team. Even in RD, which is still very close to All Pick, the limitations push players to deliberate more on their picks, organizing them into the best possible strategies and lane combinations. Each game of CD presents unfamiliar situations, forcing players to collaborate to survive. It’s a high order to ask a group of five strangers to be a well oiled machine, but why not try? We pick our favorite heroes to try to mimic pros. The next step would be to play like them as well. These modes push us to elevate our game, only if there were more people to play with.
Image sources:
First!!! love the article
1st ez
Fuck u @:
where ideas like “having fun” are thrown out the window in the name of competition and +25 MMR.
im fan of this quote
@alyss I am always first :3
wut??????????
@alyss your ember spirit sucks lol
@raizoh youre a savage....be my friend
it would nice if they keep it up
Somewhere along the lines of the first dozen
I assume this is how I get people to like moi?
dota rip
At the MMR level I'm at (low) "all random" picks better teams than the average captain.
Good idea
I like your eggs man !
The problem with Dota (or competitive gaming in general) is that often people go into a lobby, thinking "well I have to not only outplay the enemy but also play such that my team doesn't drag me down". This makes people all think that they HAVE to pick last, all the while their team is losing gold because 3-4 of the players on the team have their hero as Abbadon still and they haven't said a word even though the game is literally played on a keyboard.
They should add a number 1-5 that indicates what position they want to play. Its incredibly frustrating picking first because no one says anything and I don't want to lose gold, and then everyone either picking 4-5 heroes or 1-2 heroes with no thought of laning synergy.
Also that would help especially when I am playing a game and I am the only one that speaks English. Its hard to win when your team doesn't even understand your language or vice versa.
I'd say ranked Dota was a much better place without all pick...seriously
Remove mode all pick at mmr or change with mode single draft its better i think..
Why doesnt Elder Titan has an hyperlink like Lion? I find this racist! Kappa
@Hyatt. I tell my team that if they force me to pick first I hit the random button. That usually helps the scenario your describe.
Guy rushes to pick captain, doesn't listen to teammates suggestions, everyone gets stuck with shit heroes, -25mmr. gg
if you cannot balance heroes, remove All Pick so OP heroes get banned LMAO
What if Valve just set a game mode with positions 1, 2 , 3, 4 and 5. And pre-select heroes that are suitable to fit these positions?
Two times captain die nothing, so no bans all random. After trat I stopped playing ranked...
@Salty McSalterson I'd rather just give you a random
1-rd heheeh
@0n3.Eternal. Better hope it's not mid hero, since you're probably dying to go there.
Good
why ?
badman ?
the 3k mmr and 4k scrubs who spam to got higher mmr
so badman cant pick spec
and the scrubs cant pick OD
this is good balance from dota
thank you
Heh, who needs ranked when you have unranked?
And it was beautiful to play RD again without 5-8 minute wait times. It cetainly weeded out the dregs for a brief time. I saw a VERY nice mmr bump during RD only games.
love it support player myself was 26/30 game in the patch of CM love it , now gone 3/15 game since the return of the AP , need a return bak to CM so i don't play with dipshit carry or afk jungler
I think all pick should be removed straight up from ranked. It's a team game yet no one communicates and everyone focuses on themselves
@Laxus or listens too much to suggestions... I once had a guy pick 5 cores cause teammates were spamming suggestions for which core to pick next and he really wanted to last pick himself jungle lc...
I still massively preferred the old RD, 24 heroes in the pool meant that you had to almost always change up the hero you played. It made the game more fun for players that play a wide pool of heroes.
u Ruin dota 2 if u delete ALL PICK mode becauce ppl s cant spam OD or spec or fuckin slark...... only good for in low mmr idiots dont go jungle but not need delete all pick PUB=all pick. PRO tournaments=CM
dont remove ALL pick remove fuckin MMR system. lose= -25 win= +25 LOL. Some ppl s can play 40 0 25 Invoker and lose game cuz 4 feeders. and this perfect player lost 25 mmr.))))) REMOVE MMR SYSTEM. KDA healing damage warding dewarding. its a total idiotic mode lose -25 win +25 and ultra total reatrd 0 80 0 can goted +25 because have TRYHARD carry or midder. REMOVE SYSTEM not all pick
@~Hyatt Well the problem with that is you're splitting up the players into positions they feel more comfortable in. That means more queueing times, more difficult for lower mmr players to raise their mmr (since all they do is carry no matter what).
League of Legends does something similar and it's going well but League of Legends is also easier to learn.
There's a jungler, support, carry, mid and tanky top laner in LoL. DotA is a lot less one dimensional and it could confuse lower mmr players to think that the game can only be played one way. Which is untrue. I'm not sure what the solution to the Ranked games is. Maybe your idea would make it a lot better but I just can't see Valve making that decision.
Since AP was disabled, I was forced to play in Cap Mode (I use 30% of heroes, so random didn't worked for me) and I loved it. I'm 1k mmr and in this MMR, toxic players are forced to play with the captain choices (always asking them first which heroes they use well). From that day I've start playing CM in all my solo MMR games. I've won 6 games in a row by now.
keep all pick but allow each player to ban 1 character.. That might actually be fun
Thank you Dota for doing this to me. - 500mmr
If the rage of a dota 2 player when all pick was removed will be turned into a dollar, I'll just go buy a lambo.
1st lol ez mmr
I remember on RD, whenever Spec is Available... Player on either side AUTO 1st PICK... And it is SHIT...
I only enjoy RD when Spec is not available.. seriously...
I love to play Captain's Mode on 1k: All these noobish heroes playing: Chaos, Pudge, Ursa, Shaman, Warlock, Drow... It's like: Noob Heroes Mode. And there's nothing to do on it. UNLESS, you have a really good support. The one's that gonna win are the luckiest one's, or the one's with more steam at the moment. There's not much a hero like this can do by yourself to outstand other one's. ONLY CLICKING CLIKCING CLIKING RIGHT FUCKING CLICK AND STUPID CLICHE COMBOSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSssSSSsss
I doubt there's anyone in South America, with MMR 2K or Higher.
Some SEA players.. In 4.5k bracket.. They say "noob captain"..noob pickings.. "Ban this hero"..pick this hero.. "Let me mid"..its hard to communicate with those players ..blaming you as their captain.. Hahah.. Lol
So, wht's the deal to play with OD? Why does he gets that much Mana so fast he can Infinite Arcane Orb attack? It's like he doesn't need any items to own, the items are just bonuses consequence of its Arcane Orb attack. It's like Sillencer right click one but way more overpowered. Imagine, it's like having Enchantress Impetus infinite, it would be just so OP.
So Wtf?! I just played a game in Captain's Mode, with players way skilled than I am, I mean higher MMR, and we won and I get 11?!?!?! MMR. Why? If I play with very noobs guys I get 25 mmr!!! So, what's the deal? I made a decent game. I played as a support and managed to have a 4.9 kda, which it's not so bad for a support. And I get 11 MMR? Kinda like charity mmr, they "donate" to me, almost nothing.
How many mmr do u lose by leaving a game (abbandon)
love your article, thinking 6k+ should have more CM.