You can sign up to get a daily email of our articles, see the Mailing List page.
We do often include affiliate links to earn us some pennies. See more here.

Valve continue to do some pretty big tweaks to the matchmaking system in Dota 2, with another blog post and update talking about all the improvements they're implementing.

This is following on from all the other changes recently like the ban waves and sounds like they're really pushing to make the Dota 2 community and gameplay better for everyone.

Ever played a game of Dota 2 by yourself and get matched against an entire team of people? I have, it sucks. They're all forming a strategy, while half of your team are telling each other they're going to report them. It happened for a lot of others too and Valve have finally put a stop to it. In the latest blog post, Valve said that now a five-player team will only be matched up against other five-player teams. For Solo players, they will now only be matched up with a party maximum of two, so Solo players will either now be against an entire team of other Solo players or possibly three solo players and one party of two.

That's not all though of course. Valve also adjusted the post-game screen to show the average and max queue times for players in the match "to help you determine if we formed a bad match too quickly or not", there's also a behaviour category summary for the match to help players see if the matchmaking was doing a bad job. The post-game survey they had a long time ago has also made a return with a similar feature, giving some players a chance to rate the match experience to help Valve see where they're doing badly.

Naughty players are in for a shock now too. While they've banned the most terrible players, they're also now tweaking in-game features for players who are still a nuisance but not enough to be banned. If your behaviour score is below 3,000 you can no longer use chat or voice chat until the behaviour score rises. Valve think this system "will be valuable for both protecting the larger population from outliers and as a warning system for players who are moving in the wrong direction".

Sometime soon Valve will also be revamping the new player experience, which it badly needs. Dota 2 is a very complicated game and the interface is pretty noisy when you're new to it. Seems they're waiting to get matchmaking properly sorted and dealing with smurf accounts first to give new players a better start in their first lot of games. Nice.

See the full blog post here for the rest and find Dota 2 free to play on Steam.

With all the changes Valve are doing, that I genuinely like the sound of here I might just start playing it regularly again.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: MOBA, Update, Valve
14 Likes
About the author -
author picture
I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. Find me on Mastodon.
See more from me
The comments on this article are closed.
13 comments
Page: 1/2»
  Go to:

TheSHEEEP Oct 11, 2019
View PC info
  • Supporter Plus
How is this behaviour score calculated?
I can only imagine it being based on other players' ratings.
DamonLinuxPL Oct 11, 2019
My behavior score is still at 10 000 points :)
Geppeto35 Oct 11, 2019
I found the 3 last weeks CS:GO danger zone unplayable considering the number of cheating players (most of them clearly know where you are when viewing the replay, one shot-one kill), while I felt preserved from those plagues before. Some even speak about their cheats with no decency: ezfrags, lethality, etc. for which they pay ~50€

I don't understand how regulating those type of players can be managed but I imagine that it can be automated even without other player reports?

That's why playing more confidential games may be better but not too confidential games to have players

Do you know games like CS:GO danger zone without this mass of cheaters?
Liam Dawe Oct 11, 2019
Quoting: Geppeto35Do you know games like CS:GO danger zone without this mass of cheaters?
All massively popular games have a lot of cheaters in them, sadly. They constantly ban accounts but more keep coming.
TheSHEEEP Oct 11, 2019
View PC info
  • Supporter Plus
Quoting: Liam Dawe
Quoting: Geppeto35Do you know games like CS:GO danger zone without this mass of cheaters?
All massively popular games have a lot of cheaters in them, sadly. They constantly ban accounts but more keep coming.
Does anyone have an explanation for this?

I just don't understand it.
Why play competitive games with cheats? If you win, you know you only won because of cheats. It's hollow.
And you don't even gain any money from it - I do understand grinding bot accounts for MMOs, someone's gotta farm that gold to sell online.
But maybe I'm just too much Klingon and Ferengi to get the point.
14 Oct 11, 2019
View PC info
  • Supporter Plus
With my WoW Classic buddies not available this weekend, maybe I'll give Dota 2 another try.
Liam Dawe Oct 11, 2019
Quoting: GuestAh yes Dota....its a good game. Till you get some trolls who Teleport you onto a rock where you cant get down from. Yeah....fun times.
Oh jeez, I remember someone doing that to me every single time they saw me and they were on my team. Some people really are just out to piss others off online thinking they're funny.
Naib Oct 11, 2019
View PC info
  • Supporter Plus
Good!
I play DOTA solo so being paired against a 5,4 or even a 3 can be a surefire gee-gee ... DOTA has enough players where this doesn't impact 5man teamup's or the 3 or 4 (HoN tried this and it never had enough)

The ranking is purely opinionated and aspects of it have been in the game for some time. At the end of the game you can vote up or down players... problem is people will vote you down because you didn't do what they wanted when they wanted...
Duckeenie Oct 11, 2019
Quoting: TheSHEEEP
Quoting: Liam Dawe
Quoting: Geppeto35Do you know games like CS:GO danger zone without this mass of cheaters?
All massively popular games have a lot of cheaters in them, sadly. They constantly ban accounts but more keep coming.
Does anyone have an explanation for this?

I just don't understand it.
Why play competitive games with cheats? If you win, you know you only won because of cheats. It's hollow.
And you don't even gain any money from it - I do understand grinding bot accounts for MMOs, someone's gotta farm that gold to sell online.
But maybe I'm just too much Klingon and Ferengi to get the point.

That's because you're a well balanced individual. Sadly, there are people out there whose sole purpose in life is just to make others feel like S***.
TheSHEEEP Oct 11, 2019
View PC info
  • Supporter Plus
Aha. So it's getting satisfaction not from your skill, but from being able to ruin other people's experience with little effort.
I guess that does make some kind of sense if you are a pathetic person.


Last edited by TheSHEEEP on 11 October 2019 at 10:30 pm UTC
While you're here, please consider supporting GamingOnLinux on:

Reward Tiers: Patreon. Plain Donations: PayPal.

This ensures all of our main content remains totally free for everyone! Patreon supporters can also remove all adverts and sponsors! Supporting us helps bring good, fresh content. Without your continued support, we simply could not continue!

You can find even more ways to support us on this dedicated page any time. If you already are, thank you!
The comments on this article are closed.