New "Plus": Success, Counters, Synergy and more!

Photo by Alexander Saprykin

Apart from adding a Blog section to the web site, we have been working on providing some extra features to our most devoted players. So, without further ado - New "Plus"!

Success

When you wanted to boast your skill with a particular hero, the only thing you could show was Win Rate. And it did not necessarily provide the whole picture - there might have been a lucky streak on a hero, you might have been carried by your teammates, or you might have absolutely crushed your opponents in each and every of these games and the Win Rate alone would not be able not show your true awesomeness.

Because of that, we decided to expand the experience with a new metric: "Success".

It is a complex algorithm that incorporates a variety of different statistics, including both individual and global Win Rate for a hero, Risk (~# of games) and Game Impact (~KDA).

Simply put, it is a more accurate representation of your personal skill with a hero, that will allow for better assessment of your improvement.

Here is a quick comparison of yours truly and SingSing playing Mirana Mirana:

KawaiiSocks: SingSing:

As you can see, even though I have a slightly higher Win Rate, my Success on the hero is nowhere close to the one of SingSing. That is because my Game Impact and Risk are significantly lower.

And I can't even imagine the difference in Success if in his games SingSing was trying as hard as I did in mine...

Hero Matchups - Counters

Have you ever been so frustrated with an enemy hero that you thought it needs an immediate nerf? Most of us were. But since each of us has his own playstyle and habits in the game of Dota 2, these heroes are going to be unique for every single person. (Except for pre-patch Earth Spirit Earth Spirit - this guy was completely broken at 3.7k+ MMR)

We have decided to create a "Hero Counters" metric to show Players which heroes they are good at dealing with, and which heroes they still struggle to win against. This will allow you to improve as a player, providing some insights on how to be better at Dota in general and how to train efficiently if you are actively involved in e-sports.

It comes with a "Success" rating of its own, providing both the Win Rate you have against a hero and a more meaningful Metric on top of it.

Here is a quick overview of the feature as a comparison between me (4.1k) and my former teammate - ImLegend (5k+):

KawaiiSocks: ImLegend:

As you can see, there is not only a significant difference in the heroes we play best against, but also a huge difference in how much better we are at dealing with them. Even though my Win Rate against particular heroes is comparable or even higher in some cases, the Success against them is still on average ~3% lower.

The same can be said about the lower end of the distribution - the heroes we are bad at dealing with.

Also, I hope you have noticed the Win Rate against Pudge Pudge of a proper 5k+ Player. Something I was pointing out all along.

Hero Matchups - Synergy

In addition to the Hero Counters metric, we have added a Hero Synergy one - the heroes you play best and worst in a team with.

There are several ways to use this information. For most of us, uninvolved in competitive play, it could provide information on what hero your Skype-buddy should pick, if you have decided to lane together.

For the most hardcore ones it can give an idea of what heroes currently popular in the meta they don't play well enough in a team with, to stay up-to-date and remain competitive.

Apparently Na'Vi Dendi really benefits from having the infamous Earth Spirit Earth Spirit in his team... Well, at least he didn't play Earth Spirit himself - that would be a bit too unfair.

Player Matchups - Teammates

It is the list of players you have played with more than three times and the corresponding Win Rates. It includes not only people from your Friend list, but also people you have met randomly. If you see someone you don't know there with a high Win Rate, it will be easier to contact them and form a stronger Party.

I just hope it is not going to ruin someone's Friendship...

Player Matchups - Enemies

It is the feature for the best players in Dota 2. It will show every enemy you have encountered more than three times and would start making sense for the ones over 5k, where the selection of opponents is limited.

Unfortunately, it does not give me a lot of results - even at a relatively high rating of 4.1k. But the better you get, the longer the list of nemeses will become. The same friend I have mentioned previously - ImLegend has already started compiling his. While SingSing's list is full of other professionals.

Ever wondered how many times you managed to best [A]dmiral Bulldog? Then this feature was designed for you!

Closing Comments

I would like to finish today's Blog by saying that the reason we have "Plus" and "Non-Plus" membership is to be able to provide the features that are extremely expensive to maintain. They either significantly increase the server load, or require gathering additional information.

That being said, we understand that some of you were previously unsatisfied with the additional services "Plus" users were given, so expanding this experience was on our to-do list. But that doesn't mean we will stop developing the web-site as a whole.

We hope you will enjoy what we are doing and it will help you improve your skill and understanding of the game!

As always:

Thank you for your support!

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37 comments
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    This looks awesome ! Thanks for the work guys !

    lespaulio

      Great! Thanks!

      Manny Mammoth

        These are pretty neat

        0ldPlaY3R

          this

          amigo pool

            great !!

            1 foot forward

              oh well

              outta the hood for now

                I really like these metrics, however, I still don't know how i'm supposed to benefit from knowing who I play poorly against and how i'm supposed to use this information to improve. The only thing I can think of would be that it makes me more mindful about who i'm going to get rolled by.

                Relentless

                  At last! We can finally complain about how dotabuff defines Success! It should count MMR for a difficulty measure like the top 50 used to do with DBR. However, that is not possible at this time. Replacing DBR with this measure, although imperfect is nevertheless a great improvement.

                  The Hero counter scheme needed to be changed too.

                  Thank you to dotabuff staff for getting this done.

                  DeZs

                    Its probably quite a difficult metric to determine success - I think this mainly applies to non-core heroes, e.g. supports and ward bitches who usually trudge along with poor performance statistics combat wise - yet relay critical assistance to a team's success - its really quite subjective as to how to adequate determine a successful support - and measures formed that way will be based on textbook - buying supports, not dying, and minimal last hits. This might discourage a.k.a fresh play styles.

                    Then we have odd ones, pseudo supports, like a Lina (made more possible from the current patch) who could somewhat semi-carry or a Zeus who isn't purely support but could go either way - I wonder if there is an automated way to gauge these kind of heroes, or maybe if it is possible to determine their efficiency with their skills maybe? Then again its subjective.

                    Still - something I'd look forward too - I've been holding back on Plus for a while, but maybe this might make me part with some cash - maybe :)

                    Edit: Having said that - I wanna see the MMR matchups for each game hahaha - It seems kinda true the socialist matchmaking theory thing - ever since I started ensuring search times are no more than 1 min, I've been getting more reliable and "better-straight-thinking teammates" who actually do consider the composition of the team/roles.

                    This comment was edited
                    Strongmind

                      Nice !

                      Safe Base

                        Woot Woot!

                        Jojo (☞゚ヮ゚)☞

                          great ideas guys. however player matchups isnt working !!
                          its not loading for me.

                          KawaiiSocks

                            @[LEB] Jojo - we are looking into it. Sorry about the inconveniences.

                            lxdr

                              @KawaiiSocks - I really enjoyed the new features, some really useful and more reliable information for us to try and improve ourselves. But every single time I try to see my "Player Matchups" I get a page with the following message: "Request Timed Out - Sorry but we couldn't deliver the page you wanted in a reasonable amount of time. Please try again later.". Could it be I have played with so many people more than 3 times that it's causing data volume issues? Nah, I don't think that's the case. Maybe my statistics just haven't been computed/stored yet. That seems more likely.
                              Anyway, I would really appreciate it if you guys could take a look at this issue, as I'm quite eager to check these stats and there are probably more people out there experiencing the same thing.
                              Pardon for my bad English and keep up with the good work. :)

                              This comment was edited
                              KawaiiSocks

                                Hi. We have just fixed the issue - should work fine for everyone now.
                                Again, sorry for the inconvenience. Do not hesitate to comment here if some of the features are not working properly for you - we will try to fix them asap.

                                lxdr

                                  Thank you. It's working now.

                                  Benny

                                    I dotn see the point in only doing 5k+ for the ''nemesis'' tab in players matchup

                                    as a 4k rating I would like to know if I get placed against the same people.

                                    I just dont see the point :(

                                    TheTRactoR

                                      Once again, great work Dotabuff.

                                      KawaiiSocks

                                        @Cold.Benny - it works exactly the same way for everyone - if you get matched more than three times with the same person, you will have him in the Opponents tab. The problem is, even at 4.1k rating there is a really huge selection of opponents, so the chances of getting the same one three times is very low. The higher you climb up the MMR list, though, the more limited the list of possible opponents becomes. Hence it makes more sense for people over 4.5k and such. And makes a lot of sense for 5k+.

                                        Benny

                                          @KawaiiSocks - Oh I get it, thx ^^

                                          Nice update :P

                                          Good Game GLHF all :-)

                                            Excellent work.

                                            Good Game GLHF all :-)

                                              More ingenious than most dota 2 updates... Great understanding of what the community wants!

                                              This comment was edited
                                              The Authority on Life

                                                Please add "sort by games played" by players for particular heroes (as opposed to winrate by players)

                                                This comment was edited
                                                亞季亞的孤兒

                                                  I don't feel like the comparison of success between players are fair, the examples in this blog says the story it wants to say, but when I look at some pro players profile sylar for example has a 16% success on weaver. Does that mean I am a better weaver than sylar? I doubt it. But anyhow when success is used to compare with myself its a really good feature and improvement can be tracked :)

                                                  WinterborN

                                                    THANKS FOR LISTENING TO FEW OF MY DEMANDS... thanks dude ... u proved that u care for ur supporters :D

                                                    dut

                                                      Thanks guys! Subscribing to Plus!

                                                      Derby

                                                        Hi the upgrade to plus page keeps showin as not found.

                                                        crimsonSoldier

                                                          ......apparently I'm 100% with Magnus as my teammate or Magnus as my enemy.

                                                          Grimorum

                                                            Interesting

                                                            LegendarY

                                                              still think the sub fee is a bit pricy.. otherwise would've purchased it long ago

                                                              This comment was edited
                                                              Gustaphos

                                                                I would buy into it if it was a bit cheaper. Maybe think about package deals for gold if you buy a year its less than the per month price. + I don't like having something pull funds from my CC every month. Just a thought!

                                                                MushiTakatsumiLVL2

                                                                  Need DotA 2 Ranked Match Making (MMR Rating) stats.

                                                                  Player 56792501

                                                                    BTW, using hero damage instead of KDA is much better in my mind. For example, jungling ursa and intentionally dying in jungle to return to base is viable in some scenarios and that would skew the sucess negatively.

                                                                    Hopeless

                                                                      Seems to me like the risk variable (number of games played with a hero) has a rather disproportionate weight on the success variable.

                                                                      BIG SHAQ

                                                                        Totally nice but I would like to see the Hero Score of all my heroes.
                                                                        Would like to know how close I am to the top 50 with some heroes.

                                                                        Mlem

                                                                          Damn, seems like a lot is dependent on Win Rate, but still cool. Timber is my main and I have about 13% success with him because 45% win rate, but on Nyx I have just over 50% because I have about 87.5% win rate lol

                                                                          Bill

                                                                            How do I view my Success with certain heroes?