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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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Ardje Feb 12, 2020
Would be nice if they can apply some ip matching to match the original Steam account with the Smurf Steam account, and address warnings there too. But then again, that might be a privacy issue.
Maybe they should ask the right to process your IP against fraud cases like this.
Liam Dawe Feb 12, 2020
Quoting: ArdjeWould be nice if they can apply some ip matching to match the original Steam account with the Smurf Steam account, and address warnings there too. But then again, that might be a privacy issue.
Maybe they should ask the right to process your IP against fraud cases like this.
Yup, fully agree. Perhaps this is part of what they're doing and how they're matching up already.
Maath Feb 12, 2020
I think it is a trust issue. New players to a game should start with a low trust value on their ability score. Longer time players who suck (I would be one of them if I ever played multiplayer games), shouldn't necessarily match often with new players whose trust is low and therefore the assessment of their ability is unlikely to be accurate.

Of course one could always game the system and play several games pretending to be bad. But on the other hand I think it would be useful for the players themselves to give a rating or trustworthiness value to others with whom they play. As you play more and more, I'm sure you get familiar with the other players, and so you can say, "yea, I like playing with that guy, he seems to match my abilities." And then this player-made trust network can emerge.
Geppeto35 Feb 12, 2020
Nice, now, move to CSGO Valve to do a deep cleaning
fagnerln Feb 12, 2020
I really hate smurfs, it's more inconvenient than hackers. The problem is that they receive views, just do a little search on twitch, you will see a lot of smurfs playing CSGO.

In the case of CSGO they should make more easier to rank up in the early levels, so a Smurf will have some trouble to maintain in low level
14 Feb 12, 2020
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It'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.
Kimyrielle Feb 12, 2020
Quoting: ArdjeWould be nice if they can apply some ip matching to match the original Steam account with the Smurf Steam account, and address warnings there too. But then again, that might be a privacy issue.
Maybe they should ask the right to process your IP against fraud cases like this.

There are legit cases of two people using two accounts on the same IP. Such as e.g. two siblings sharing a PC. IP matching is almost guaranteed to identify one of them as a smurf, when they're not.
Ketil Feb 12, 2020
I have played this kind of game occasionally because some of my friends like them, but they tend to get annoyed if I play with them because I am so terrible that I feed the other team too much.
M@GOid Feb 12, 2020
This kind of thing is why I completely avoid competitive multiplayer and play cooperative ones only with friends. Too much frustration for the fun you get.

Recently a old friend confessed to us in a reunion that he is a red handed cheater. His excuse is not even that he sucks (I know for sure he isn't bad), but because other people blatantly do it. So if he want to have the least amount of fun in a match, he has to do it too...

I abandoned CS a long time ago on the Source days, because of too many people cheating. And there are servers that didn't even allow voting to kick a player. So **ck that ***t, my time is better spent on single player games, where if I die, I know is because of me, not some low life cheater.


Last edited by M@GOid on 12 February 2020 at 5:12 pm UTC
ElectricPrism Feb 12, 2020
Quoting: ArdjeWould be nice if they can apply some ip matching to match the original Steam account with the Smurf Steam account, and address warnings there too. But then again, that might be a privacy issue.
Maybe they should ask the right to process your IP against fraud cases like this.

Banning by IP doesn't work so great. It detours some of the problem but creates others.
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