Honor of Kings: Are the developers turning a blind eye and reducing penalties to suppress the exodus? (Part 2)

Pre-selected lanes and matchmaking algorithms, along with multiple blocks, seem to guarantee a good gaming experience for players, emphasizing skill and rank parity. Before entering a match, the average strength of both teams is displayed, similar to a high-level ranked match. Solo players can clearly understand their skill level. After the game, have you noticed any differences compared to the past? The difficulty of ranking up has actually increased.

The start of the season was a bad experience, and the teammates were even worse.

Honor of Kings is constantly being reformed, and the rank inheritance is getting lower and lower. This means that if you successfully challenge and rise to a higher rank in one season, you will drop the most in the next season. This is especially true for the highest rank, King of Glory. After the S42 season resets your rank, you will directly return to Diamond III or IV. At the beginning of the season, the gap does not seem big, but playing feels like a supernatural event. Your teammates play worse than the AI. After entering the Star Diamond rank, you thought the experience would improve, but you continued to drop.

Arriving here, on the forums, you'll likely hear experienced players offering advice, pointing out that the early season is a mixed bag, with professional players, boosting services, top-ranked players, and even those from the highest tier all vying for dominance. If you can't keep up, losing is inevitable. The problem is, after the new season starts, the environment worsens. There's no such thing as being favored by the system; in every two games, you're guaranteed to encounter a player who intentionally throws the game, feeds kills, deliberately plays passively, or manipulates the opponent's mentality. Afterwards, if you report them, the official only "severely" deducts 4 reputation points, practically no punishment. Playing a few more games fills this gap, while serious players fall into an abyss, inevitably leading veteran players to eventually retire.

The new season is bustling, but the actual number of players lost is...

Magnificent and extravagant, the game promised a major overhaul with a host of mechanics reforms, hero redesigns and adjustments, but in the end, the core balance of power—strong against strong, weak against weak—remains unimplemented. How can veteran players continue to invest their time in a game that wastes their energy? Why not play console games, casual games, or world-exploration games? At least those have a clear ending and an engaging storyline. Skill-based games like Honor of Kings involve endless repetition and cycles of pushing towers, breaching the crystal, and enjoying the sense of superiority of victory. The key is knowing that your opponent is a real, flesh-and-blood player. Unfortunately, the game seems to be secretly manipulated by data, and the people you encounter don't have the mood for the game.

Image source: Internet