I'm playing ranked with friends and solo too, but it's obviously harder to play solo if and when you can't reliably communicate with others. So far, I'm only in Bronze, but it seems like getting out of it is often times harder because of incompetent players in ranked than because of the enemy is simply more skilled.
I'm watching videos, guides, learning from pro plays and from my own experience, learning map layouts, agent skills, honing my mechanical skills, anything that can help. But at least 5 or 6 times out of 10 we lose because of one or multiple of these reasons (this is the experience of at least 20-30 ranked matches on Bronze):
- My team not communicating at all, not replying to my call-outs, not calling out anything, not even in writing despite me communicating with them at all times and asking them to do so.
- Players not even knowing how to play their heroes and testing it/experimenting DURING ranked instead of unrated or practice
- People not even using their skills OR using them complertely wrong
- Some of them can't even aim and miss every shot from 20m or closer (with the enemy not being tricky at all, just casually moving)
- Situational, but happens: bomb being planted in either site and as defenders, they stay on the site they were defending, in spite of me calling out where to go and them knowing it's not the site they are on; even going for the WRONG site in some cases
- Seemingly, people not even wanting to accept the rules of ranked, not wanting to learn how a ranked match goes, not wanting to get better and/or help their team, no sense of teamwork
- People playing Sage or any other defensive utility hero and rushing out and dying in the first 5 seconds, leaving our team not only a man down, but down a healer
It seems to me that a lot of Bronze/Iron, and even Silver players just don't even want to improve and learn the rules of playing in a team and playing ranked. Now, sure, I'm NOT a pro either, but how am I supposed to rank up if, say, 3 or 4 of my team mates are like this, and the other team can at least coordinate their strats? I'm feeling like I'm stuck here because other players actively not giving a damn and not wanting to play as they are supposed to in ranked. No matter how good I get (relatively to the other team or in raw skill), I cannot win a fight against the enemy team AND my team at the same time (with all seriousness, I cannot possibly carry a 1v4 or sh*t like that)
Why are these people even playing ranked? They are ruining the fun and experience for those who really do put in the effort to try and get better and get more and more metagame knowledge and improve every day. Are there people who I could team up with to play actually seriously? Who want to improve and are actively working on it as I do? I'd be glad to get at least a trio where we are willing toi communicate, learn and play as a team, because these experiences discourage me from continuing the game sometimes. Sure, we also win a boatload of matches, but when we lose to something like 2-13 just because players on my team are unwilling to cooperate really drills it in my head that I'm not going anywhere near out of Bronze anytime soon.
