Valve have finally altered their much-maligned Dota 2 matchmaking system. After months of criticism, the developers have tweaked the system to pay less attention to a player’s ‘behaviour score’ when assigning them to a match.
We’ve tried to help out new players too – here’s how to play Dota 2.
For several months, Dota 2’s matchmaking system has attempted to make the game experience better for new players, looking to match players with less game knowledge alongside players who consistently played in a friendly, polite manner.
Unfortunately, the system somewhat backfired, with those same friendly players getting more and more frustrated by consistently being matched alongside new players who were less likely to understand the game. That frustration gave rise to the criticism Valve have been facing, and in some extreme cases led to players trying to deliberately lower their behaviour score in an attempt to be matched with similarly-skilled teammates.
In the game’s latest update, Valve have lowered the importance of behaviour score in matchmaking for the general population. However, players with extremely low behaviour scores will still be consigned to their own queue, in an ongoing attempt to contain the most toxic elements of the community.
Matchmaking for new players will now be based on the number of games that they’ve played. Smurf-detection will still exist, however, and accounts that haven’t played many games but have a high skill-rating will still be picked up by the system. The update also aims to improve detection of bots, exploiters, and deliberately toxic players, and will continue to issue bans against them.