Just to be clear, this is not whining about smurfs, how bad my teammates are or anything related.
I've reached Immortal for the first time back in 2018, peaking at about 6500 MMR iirc. By that time I was at the first year of highschool. Except for the years 2018-2020 I never liked playing by myself, enjoying Dota the most by playing with my friends.
I also like to climb, learn about the game and be better, I dreamed about reaching as high as I could in the ranks. But at some point I figured out things were just getting worse.
I just felt punished the more I climbed, because there were more cons than pros of grinding through the ranks.
I could not play with my lower rank friends and even the few Divine or early Immortal ones got left behind at some point.
Immortal draft was introduced, narrowing even more the chances of playing with a friend.
The matches naturally got more and more demanding, which was kinda fine for a teenager, but less fine as I got a job, degree, girlfriend etc.
Im from SA but at some point playing EU or atleast NA was mandatory and that means 120ms+ latency.
I mean, I had several insane matches, with very skilled players. The problem is that in the long run, playing with no friends, demanding matches and high ping just got me tired.
Nowadays I play about 10 matches a week with (some) of my friends fluctuating between 6-7k MMR. I just play all roles and all heroes that come to mind, and sometimes recalibrate MMR just for the sake of it.
I miss higher level games, although I probably wont be able to perform well since im in "retired" mood for about 3 years now. And its not worth it for me dedicating to the game because life happens.
I dont think there is an obvious solution, but I think it would be cool if there was a rework and reset of the ranked. Adding more ranks, dunno. It just doesnt feel right that a retired scrub like me is in the same medal as the pro players, I used to be prouder about being Immortal and I think the final rank should have more prestige.
What do you guys think?