My new 480 8GB card crashes alot. Just turns screen black, locks up audio and makes me hard reset entire computer. Annoying as hell. No clue how to fix it. Drivers have updated multiple times now with no luck.

Sounds like one of the memory chips on the card is going bad, sucks.

Hit plat finally this season.

This season is weird for me. Last season my peak was 2500ish then I hit an incredible streak of losses and ended up 2050 or so. I think I went 3-7 or so in placements and started 2400ish.

This season I went 9-1 in placements and started 2030! I've climbed quickly but I thought it was odd that I did so well in placement then started much lower than the first two seasons were my placements matches were awful.

KidDoc said:

---

Sounds like one of the memory chips on the card is going bad, sucks.

---

I think its because its a stock OC'd card. Its the Saph Nitro. I clocked it down to stock speeds for OW only and haven't crashed yet today. Found a bliz article that says OC'ing cards can do this.

I do get to thank the card for my first 10min ban yesterday. My last placement it decided to crash right after picking a character before the match even starts.

KidDoc said:

---

This season is weird for me. Last season my peak was 2500ish then I hit an incredible streak of losses and ended up 2050 or so. I think I went 3-7 or so in placements and started 2400ish.

This season I went 9-1 in placements and started 2030! I've climbed quickly but I thought it was odd that I did so well in placement then started much lower than the first two seasons were my placements matches were awful.

---

They flattened the bell curve because too many bad players made it to plat last year.

Quote:

---

They flattened the bell curve because too many bad players made it to plat last year.

---

Yo!

I guess I was one of those bad players! I was at Plat last season but this season I placed in silver and have climbed to high gold but then dropped and I'm currently back in silver. I'm sure I'll climb back up but man, the games are so bipolar down here. Some games you have competent teammates and others you have absolutely atrocious teammates and people who seem like they're trolling.

People at this level seem far more likely to get toxic the moment anything goes wrong.

Y'all are way ahead of me. I can't get out of Bronze. I think your previous ending score has a lot to do with it. I got to gold last season but dropped to 1700. I started at 1450 this time and can't get out. Went like 4-6 in placement.

The teams are TERRIBLE. I can get 3-4 golds every match easily. No teamwork. No one waits for the group and trickles in. No one stays on the point.

Best grouping I've had still was that 3v3 with you Kiddoc.

chigger said:

---

Y'all are way ahead of me. I can't get out of Bronze. I think your previous ending score has a lot to do with it. I got to gold last season but dropped to 1700. I started at 1450 this time and can't get out. Went like 4-6 in placement.

The teams are TERRIBLE. I can get 3-4 golds every match easily. No teamwork. No one waits for the group and trickles in. No one stays on the point.

Best grouping I've had still was that 3v3 with you Kiddoc.

---

Same boat here. Went 2-7-1 or 3-6-1 in placements and am stuck in the hell of bronze. Won my first match as an underdog team and got +100 score but have lost most since and am hovering around where I started. Only solution is grouping up I think, so anytime you'd like to play I'm in.

If the season resets are anything like other ladders, your old rank is averaged with a constant for everyone (somewhere in the silver range) and then your placements adjust that ranking up or down.

Often your first couple games in placements will have a much greater impact on rank than the later games.

chigger said:

---

Y'all are way ahead of me. I can't get out of Bronze. I think your previous ending score has a lot to do with it. I got to gold last season but dropped to 1700. I started at 1450 this time and can't get out. Went like 4-6 in placement.

The teams are TERRIBLE. I can get 3-4 golds every match easily. No teamwork. No one waits for the group and trickles in. No one stays on the point.

Best grouping I've had still was that 3v3 with you Kiddoc.

---

Hate to say it, but if you're in bronze and you can't hard carry your way to a win, you probably belong there or silver at the highest. At that level people on both sides are going to be making fundamental mistakes all over the place, the only play you can control is your own. That means that on average, your team will have less trolls than the other team.

Don't worry about the medals. Instead concentrate on the moments where you did something that directly led to your team winning an objective or team fight, and every time you die ask yourself if you could have done something differently and whether or not your death was worth it.

I'm a low masters player (3537 at the moment) and I make mistakes all the time. The biggest difference between me and you is probably that I realize what my mistakes are.

The thing is... no matter how good you are, you can't hold a point, push a load, or capure anything by yourself. If the other team is mildly competent, then it's just near impossible. You constantly end up in 3v5 or 2v5 situations where your team is just doing god knows what. Maybe a 1v5 master vs bronze might be able to win (hard carry), but I know I'm not at that level. Bronze is just very hard to get a team that works together and has an idea of what to do. It's always a slaughter. You are either on the winning team or not. Then there are the people who say "my score is so low I don't care". Ugh.

I've never been the greatest fps player but I think if I had a decent team I would be at least low gold. I do make mistakes. My biggest problem is probably counters and switching to an appropriate character if we get in trouble. I am also very aggressive. I push too fast at times.

Or maybe I just suck.

No, there's definitely an ELO Hell feel to it. I'm sure that players in silver and bronze think that theyare better than they are, but I more than held my own for 2 seasons at a platinum level and now I'm down at 1700 and just can't make my way up again.

Anyway, if anyone down here wants to 2-3 stack shoot me a friends request. I'm BeansAndRice on the list.

you HAVE to play with friends to stay up. you simply can't count on randos.

VonDownByTheRiver said:

---

you HAVE to play with friends to stay up. you simply can't count on randos.

---

But in theory you should. It should balance out over the long run. But for whatever reason, it doesn't.

2-3 man stack is ideal. You avoid the full groups and you know that at least half your team will coordinate. When I was stuck in "ELO hell" in prior seasons, the way I eventually got out of it was to start playing the offensive classes. If you know which targets to prioritize when attacking, you are doing your team a disservice at those levels by playing support or tanks. IMO the biggest mistake teams at the low end make is not killing any one. This has been compounded greatly by the current 3 tank (or 2 tank + Mei) setup most teams are playing.

I suggest learning Soldier/Reaper and playing them as much as possible in the low level games.

I've noticed that. People just dont finish kills. And they dont target healers. They keep shooting away at that D.va ignoring the Mercy standing right behind her.

Also... jeezus... when you get flanked by one Soldier or Tracer, the whole dang team doesnt need to break off and go after them... I literally watched my whole team tonight, Reinhardt and all, leave the payload to chase after one Soldier.

Predmid said:

---

Quote:

---

They flattened the bell curve because too many bad players made it to plat last year.

---

Yo!

---

Are you on PC?

Does the pope **** in the woods?

Of course I'm on pc

MBAR said:

---

VonDownByTheRiver said:

---

you HAVE to play with friends to stay up. you simply can't count on randos.

---

But in theory you should. It should balance out over the long run. But for whatever reason, it doesn't.

---

You can absolutely make top 500 by solo-queue only, plenty of people do.

I've heard something described to me as the 40-20-40 principle:

In 40% of your games, they will be decided by your teammates being much stronger than the other team and there's not much that you do individually to affect the outcome of the game.

In another 40% of your games the reverse is true, the other team is so strong that you simply aren't good enough to will your team to a victory.

It's that 20% of games where the teams are evenly matched and you are the deciding factor in the match. How well you play for that match specifically will decide whether you win or lose. Over time, those 20% of games will lead you to your "true" skill rating.

The 40-20-40 ratio in reality could be something more like 33-33-33 or 45-10-45, but the concept is still true in my opinion.

Obviously by queuing with friends you will reduce the volatility of the matchmaker and maaaaaybe find your true skill rating sooner. Keep in mind if you find yourself losing more often than not when you aren't with those teammates, then that might not really be your "true" rating. No matter how much you want to blame the awful solo queue.

Predmid said:

---

Does the pope **** in the woods?

Of course I'm on pc

---

Well ****, add me. Same as my TA handle except all caps(no idea why, has something to do with when I created it for diablo).

So I went 1-1-8 in placement, and climbed out of bronze this weekend.

Won 4/5 games last night, and had a couple of 5 kill Dva ults.

Bronze has a certain charm to it.

Started my seasonal run to greatness this weekend! Of course, I lost the first game.

Christmas update out today. Some good skins and the Mei game type is pretty fun.

Loving the new symmetra!

It's live? Awesome. When I have a free night off...umm...next week...I'll have fun for sure.

Stupid Rehearsals.

Predmid said:

---

It's live? Awesome. When I have a free night off...umm...next week...I'll have fun for sure.

Stupid Rehearsals.

---

She is going to need a nerf, is pretty crazy good right now. The 2 meter range extension on her gun is very helpful. The shield generator needs to have a significantly lower radius is goes out a LONG ways right now and +75 shields to everyone is pretty awesome. Very good on defense and control point holds. I wanna try to put it on a payload too it takes a good bit of damage to take out.

She's definitely decent now. I'm still not convinced she's actually OP and it's not just that people were putting way too much stock in meta team comps before.

She's not OP at all, still squishy AF and easily manageable at range. Plenty of characters have decent means of destroying her turrets, it's just that nobody is used to having to counter her because no one was playing her.

I don't see her as OP but at least playable now. I like the D-Va changes but she is a favorite character of mine so I am biased. I tried playing Genji and I still stink with that char.

Holiday event is great but I think I'm about done with season 3. I've tried my best and can't get out of bronze. I was gold in season 2 and feel like I've actually gotten better as a player but I can't carry when the teams are so bad.

GarlandAg2012 said:

---

Holiday event is great but I think I'm about done with season 3. I've tried my best and can't get out of bronze. I was gold in season 2 and feel like I've actually gotten better as a player but I can't carry when the teams are so bad.

---

It's seemingly more and more important to play with friends, or at last a couple of the same players.

Solo queuing has rarely worked out for me.

I dropped down to 1600 but pulled myself up to about 2400 through mainly solo queue. Still, games seem rather random and its not all that fun to play a game and have **** comps and toxic players so I havent played as much over the past week.

I have an intense backlog on my PS4 so just started working on that.