Dota 2’s summer update brought with it massive changes to the game’s client including a reworked behavior score system, but the strict restrictions applied to misbehaving players has Gaimin Gladiators’ Quinn Callahan worried for the future of high-MMR ranked.
Quinn discussed the mass changes in a Sept. 4 Twitch stream, suggesting the report system in Dota 2 is broken and that, without a limit, the bulk of the high-ranked players will be restricted from playing ranked until their score improves.
The issue is as much an abuse of the system by players as well as an oversight on Valve’s part, with the two hand-in-hand seeing Dota’s best and brightest pop up on the naughty list. “Whenever players are losing games, they report everyone in the entire game,” Quinn says, admitting he’s begun doing the same. As a result, the entire lobby—and not just the one griefer—sees their behavior scores plummet quickly.
While this wasn’t an issue with the old system, under Valve’s new setup, any player with a behavior score of 3,000 or below cannot actually queue ranked—and Quinn believes the behavior scores of the entirety of the top one percent in Dota are in freefall.
“[In] every game, everyone is reporting everyone else, and collectively behavior scores are going down,” Quinn said, believing in about two weeks’ time, most pros will fall below that critical 3,000 score threshold.
He also pointed out that, after testing, commending isn’t solving the issue either. Every 10 games of Dota a player has their behavior summary updated, and the sheer number of reports each player is receiving is negating any effect commending has.
Without a maximum limit for reports or anything stopping players who report en masse, the system is being heavily abused.
Quinn then showed his recent reports, all of which were actioned—despite half of them being for no reason. The client now displays when any report you make is actioned by Valve’s system. “I reported these people for nothing and they all got punished,” Quinn said.
The issue as a whole seems to be limited to players at the very top of Dota, but nevertheless, restricting the game’s best players due to many false positive reports definitely warrants another pass by Valve.
At the same time, it’s hard to sympathize with Quinn and the pros affected as reporting players out of spite and abusing the punishment system should most certainly be frowned upon, as highlighted by fans in a Reddit thread discussing the changes.
Losing the ability to play ranked just months before The International would be quite significant, but player attitudes have got to change if Valve doesn’t make adjustments to the system. Mindlessly reporting an entire lobby for the actions of one or two undesirables makes zero sense.
Here’s hoping either Valve or the Dota player base makes an effort to reform, but I’m not holding my breath for either.
