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Unfortunately, in any online game (especially a free one) you're going to get many forms of abusive behaviour. One such problem in Dota 2 is 'smurf' accounts and Valve are attempting to deal with it.

A smurf account is where an experienced player will make another account, to then stomp all over less experienced players and ruin their fun. It is a nuisance, it can completely ruin games and no doubt turns away plenty of potential fans. Valve are aware and they've blogged a few times recently about their plans to improve Dota 2's matchmaking and detection systems a lot of which is already live.

During this, they announced on Twitter yesterday that they have "banned over 40,000 accounts for players who were found abusing matchmaking" which will show "as game bans in Steam as well as being matchmaking bans in Dota 2". Additionally, on the official Dota 2 blog they announced that their 'smurf detection system' was being made more sensitive to go after more accounts. With all this, we could be seeing more regular ban waves coming in.

Policing online games as popular as Dota 2 is always going to be an uphill battle, at least it seems Valve are steadily trying to improve it for the majority of players.

You can play Dota 2 free on Steam.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Free Game, MOBA, Steam, Valve | Apps: Dota 2
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scaine Feb 12, 2020
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Can't think of a single valid reason to create a smurf account that doesn't reflect poorly on the person doing it. So this is great news.

I ditched DOTA2 after about 5 hours because of the 'community'. I wish Valve the best of luck, but they have a steep hill to climb with that title. And I don't think CS:GO is much better...

Some games should only be played at LAN parties or in closed groups of close friends...
ElectricPrism Feb 12, 2020
Quoting: scaineI ditched DOTA2 after about 5 hours because of the 'community'.

Yeah so the disciplinary reporting of DOTA puts bad players in "prison" where they have to earn their way out by fighting with other prisoners and winning X amount of games.

And also IIUC matchmaking differentiates as the player climbs in levels so the level 0 experience is going to be like "general admission" -- your choice to not stick with it but it does get better as you level up.
TheSHEEEP Feb 13, 2020
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Quoting: 14It's been a while since I've played Dota. Maybe it's time to try it out again. What pushed me away last time was players expecting me to play better than I am. Dota is not my life, so no I can't play as if it was.
Many competitive games have this problem, IMO.
You are just trying to get started, but even on the lowest ranks, the average skill level seems to be way above your own. That's not much fun, and no doubt causes a lot of people to leave.

I play card games often (currently Eternal, since Elder Scrolls Legends shuts down) and the problem is the same there. You're just getting started, have some beginners deck - and are matched against another player who has a high-tier deck full of expensive/rare cards. On the lowest of ranks. Sure, some of them might be whales, but not nearly all.
I suspect many are smurfing there as well - though I have no clue as to why.


Last edited by TheSHEEEP on 13 February 2020 at 10:15 am UTC
orochi_kyo Feb 13, 2020
You can see clearly that the problem is not exactly the smurfs, people will behave like this, even in real life, but the people who know the smurfs exist and they decided to get offended by anything.
"I don't play this game because of the community"
Come on, take a chill pill and just mute the voice chat for default and set a high resolution so the text chat will not catch your attention.

More than 1000 hours on CS:GO, 1500 hours on Heroes and Generals, 2000 hours on Starcraft BW, rarely ran into a hacker and when smurfs come, I just ignore and if they insist, I just report them.

Most of you are blaming the 90% for what the 10% do.

There are millions of Dota active accounts but you feel you must judge a whole community because of 40.000 accounts?

I could say most whiners are just "forum smurfs" who just like to whine and judge others.
Eike Feb 14, 2020
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Quoting: orochi_kyoYou can see clearly that the problem is not exactly the smurfs, people will behave like this, even in real life, but the people who know the smurfs exist and they decided to get offended by anything.
"I don't play this game because of the community"

If it's not fun, people won't play it. It's that simple.
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