Addressing Toxicity in DotA 2.

[Ragnart]

Valve's decisions to reduce the toxicity inside the game over the past few years have Been poorly implemented.
They are aware of the problem, early on they probably were benevolent to this type of activity given the need to increase the player base and make the e-sports scene what it is today.

At the present date, DotA 2 have stablished a high volume of persistent players. It is time to stop being benevolent; it is time to put the toxicity as a priority and to take concrete decisions and stop band-aids and half-assed efforts to solve this complex problem. Let’s see around us first, Blizzard have managed toxicity in their games with an Iron fist. Regarding this issue and a more closely model to our game, LoL is much more developed than DotA 2. Their community has also a high amount of toxicity, in contrast to ours, at what degree? I don’t know. However they have a Code of Conduct, which applies to competitive play, and who does not follow these rules can be penalized.

Given that a Code of Conduct doesn’t exist in our game several problems arise. For example it is a fact that casual players, advanced players and beginners, emulate the behavior of professional players at different degrees. This is why when professional players behave and embrace toxic behavior, it cause serious problems. The fact that you are a professional, or have a high amount of MMR doesn’t give you the right to disrespect anyone, for any reason. If they are professionals they need to take responsibility, they are role models, and maybe now the community is supporting professional play with money. But in the long term if the toxicity keeps growing the average skill based players who Support you, Will not play this game anymore and the Professional Market will be affected.

The bottom line is that pro-players need to think twice of what they do in public when they embrace toxic behavior. What a Monkey see, Monkey do; we need a Code of Conduct, if we don’t act now, and we keep letting the toxicity monster to grow, casual and average players will not play the game in the long term, and the professional e-sports scene will stop growing. It’s time to stop the band-aids, and half assed efforts, is time to place this as a priority and act now, Valve the ball is on your park.

[VqaK7S8efTN]

Valve's decisions to reduce the toxicity inside the game over the past few years have Been poorly implemented.

Suggestion to have an official Code of Conduct is good.

But it's of no use, when it is not backed up by an executive force. CoC should be backed up by a proper report system, with manual reviewing (!) and bans up to 1 year.
With warning messages like "Your bahavior has been manually reviewed and confirmed to be disrupting. A communication ban has been applied for: xxxx hours. Next violation will result in increase of penalty to xxx hours (days).". So that assholes know, that their next trashtalking can result in much harder punishment.

Current report system is garbage, let's admit it. It needs heavy rework, a way to give correct punishments, with precision as close to 100% as possible.

[Ragnart]

I posted my suggestion on reddit, as you can expect downvoted to hell, if you read the comments you can see a reflection of the state of the community, I think if this go on, It will become a serious problem.

[Shmendrich]

Suggestion to have an official Code of Conduct is good.

But it's of no use, when it is not backed up by an executive force. CoC should be backed up by a proper report system, with manual reviewing (!) and bans up to 1 year.
With warning messages like "Your bahavior has been manually reviewed and confirmed to be disrupting. A communication ban has been applied for: xxxx hours. Next violation will result in increase of penalty to xxx hours (days).". So that assholes know, that their next trashtalking can result in much harder punishment.

Current report system is garbage, let's admit it. It needs heavy rework, a way to give correct punishments, with precision as close to 100% as possible.

+100

[zitapis]

It's sad to see systems that work fine to other games not being implemented here. ( tribunal,overwatch). What sadder is that all it would take for Valve to implement this, is a big request from the community just like with diretide. Why cant we do that?

[VqaK7S8efTN]

Why cant we do that?

This is the part noone has ever heard Valve say anything about. Why make something that's bad, better?

Could not help but think of this:

[zitapis]

It's not that imo. Maybe something like "we thought this was more important than that so we did it first" just like diretide incident

[Shmendrich]

It's not that imo. Maybe something like "we thought this was more important than that so we did it first" just like diretide incident

Nah, its not that they think its more important. Its what they think will make more money.

Its really sad because valve used to be a company that cared about quality. With DotA2 they seem to be going the candycrush/EA way: Monetization over quality

[zitapis]

Nah, its not that they think its more important. Its what they think will make more money.

Its really sad because valve used to be a company that cared about quality. With DotA2 they seem to be going the candycrush/EA way: Monetization over quality

Every company's main goal is profit. Valve is definetely the least money-hunting from the top companies but ofc they still hunt them. No other game gives so much free content so what makes u say that?

[Shmendrich]

Every company's main goal is profit. Valve is definetely the least money-hunting from the top companies but ofc they still hunt them. No other game gives so much free content so what makes u say that?

DotA2 makes me say that
Yeah. valve's past and all other projects have always been among the best in the gaming development Environment. but with DotA2 I feel they are going to the dark side.

They are making millions each year with very little investment (Which is cool! Thats what business is about). But they are investing little to nothing back in to it. Some of the biggest problems of the game have been abandoned for years now. And even although the game is already out of beta, we still dont have all the heros of the original (Which i actually consider a minor point compared to smurfs, matching system, report system, useless commend system, account boosting and cheating.)

But my point with that small thing is that with the platform they already have, adding 1 hero should take very little work unless their framework is stupidly bad designed. And they havent even bothered to invest in that, no wonders they dont invest on the more complicated things that would improve the game.

And again, I really love the way they found to get an awesome game like DotA and make it profitable keeping it free. But from what I see they are going "Meh, its making money, who cares? just keep adding arcanas and shit, and make people pay 400 USD to level up their compendium and get an aegis keyring" (I got a friend who did it @[email protected])

[zitapis]

How can you say they dont invest back? They are working one whole year now to bring us free custom games and better performance, they remade the whole game if im not mistaken. Arcanas are their only income, since from all other items they take a small %, and they have released 5-6 all these years. Only scary thing that has happened is this year's beast event. What i dont get is why they dont increase their personel

[Shmendrich]

Remaking the UI is not remaking the whole game.
Custom games and map editor IS a nice addition, thats where DotA was born from in W3C. That is indeed a good investment
They dont invest in fixing problems that have existed almost since DotA2 came out. There are HUGE issues like boosting and they havent done anything about it.

Arcanas are their only income

Er...you do know in this year's event ALONE they have made
$55,288,839 of pure profit
And thats compendium sales ONLY
Not taking in to consideration:

• Arcanas
• Other hats
• Chests
• Tokens to level up the compendium
• Sponsors for the international

I would not be surprised at all if their profits for this year's event alone are somewhere around or over 100 million...They are approaching evil villain numbers!

since from all other items they take a small %

An small percentage that adds up per thousands of items and thousands of players buying said items without them having to do anything about it as the community makes them for DotA

What i dont get is why they dont increase their personel

Thats kind of my whole point, they could get more people to work on the stuff that is needed, but they are being greedy about it "nah! We can add that pitlord in 5 years! no worries!" (same with a good report system, better MM, preventing boosting)

[zitapis]

(yeah forgot to mention TIs) Can this really be the reason? They are not generally greedy so why would this be the case here? My point is, i really need someone to make the devil's lawyer and say some other reasons.

[Shmendrich]

Same as people, companies change.

They have always cared more about quality than anything else. But with DotA I just keep seeing time and time again decisions like this that make it seem as if DotA was being ran by Valve's evil twin. And like Saga from saint seiya, I fear good valve might eventually be corrupted by its evil twin running DotA

And one of the few last good game developers will have moved to the dark side...and the jedi will be no more.