It sounds like you just don’t like the idea of skill-based or team-based games. Plenty of people do. Its not an excuse to ruin it for others through smurfing, or to take it away from those who do enjoy the games.
Zero respect for any form ‘you just hate [blank]’ in any detailed discussion of [blank].
These are real problems. Valve is making a big show of dealing with them. But over two decades of tweaking and expanding this genre of games, with their absurd number of interconnected systems, nobody seems to have done anything to avert these systemic issues. They just label bad behavior and viciously punish anyone who does it.
It’s a video game. Unless someone is outright hacking, they can only do what the developers allow them to do. This specific genre - this competitive multiplayer game, distinct from all others - is a bottomless well of toxicity. That is no accident. It is an unavoidable consequence of the rules these games have chosen.
Modifying the rules is blase. It’s not some ruinous event; it happens every month. So modifying the rules to avoid the worst aspects of the community seems eminently desirable. Especially if it only applies to the low-stakes, newbie-friendly games where high-tier assholes want to lurch in and ruin it for everyone.
To be crystal clear:
This does not have to affect high-tier play, at all.
There is no reason whatsoever to handicap pros and wannabes playing at their absolute sweatiest.
This is about dirt-league players getting stomped by people committing bannable offenses. The fact anyone even wants to commit those offenses, is a systemic problem. It is shaped by the developers’ decisions, and different decisions would have different outcomes. Every system is perfectly designed to produces its observed results.
If you’re not willing to discuss systemic solutions then you’re not ready to address systemic problems.
Im not sure what you’re advocating then? A simplified “New Player Mode”? That already exists. Unranked mode? That exists too. SBMM? Already present. Or are you saying we need to tie accounts to people’s SSNs or something to prevent smurfing, because even ignoring account sharing, theres no way at all that that would backfire. As long as there are people to bully, someone will go out of their way to try and put others down to make themselves feel better. At least in DotA, they try and address it with fairly in-depth behaviour systems, unlike every other competitive game.
It’d be great if people stopped making up the conversation they’d rather be having. ‘These systemic problems should be balanced out in low-tier games.’ ‘So you hate high-tier play?’ Wrong. ‘You’re against tier rankings?’ Wronger. ‘You want players to submit a blood sample?’ Are you okay?
What I’m advocating is what I wrote. Twice. Namely: automatic handicaps based on the current match, using the grading the game plainly already does.
The SSN suggestion is the polar fucking opposite of what I’m on about - the game shouldn’t need to know who you are, to keep low-tier matches fair. Detecting higher-skilled play is normal. It’s how ranking works. And at low ranks, the skill ceiling is nice and low, so limiting the effectiveness of any individual player based on their performance over an entire half-hour of gameplay seems plenty tractable.
It’s not trivial - but these devs spent twenty years cranking out a metric buttload of characters, and all of those are at least roughly balanced. These people are capable. I worry they’re simply not trying to address these root causes. Possibly in part because suggestions along these lines make people ask ridiculous unrelated questions.
You’re basically suggesting that Valve turn DotA into Heroes of the Storm, a MOBA so lame it lived and died in just 7 years. Meanwhile, DotA has been going strong for nearly 20, despite the fact that anyone that’s ever heard of the game knows that it’s a toxic cesspool. Your “solution” to what you perceive as a problem is to make the game less fun, and that’s why Valve makes money by the truckload and you write sad opinion pieces and attempt to insult people on social media.
One, a game lasting “just” seven years is a fucking bizarre jab.
Two, ‘stop pretending disagreement means I hate your favorite thing’ is not an insult.
Three, if all criticism of an ongoing “toxic cesspool” lasting twenty god-damn years has you sneering in defense of the cesspool, I don’t think the details of that criticism have anything to do with your response.
But sure. How dare anyone point to a problem and say ‘they should fix that.’ I mean, where’s my billion-dollar franchise, right? It makes money so it can’t be wrong.
your meltdown is worse than my melt down. you’re spiraling harder than me. im barely even showing my ass compared to you.
I care about toxicity. So does Valve, apparently. And PC Gamer. The problems with this genre are newsworthy. And it’s been an issue for two straight decades.
But I guess ‘problems have underlying causes which change can address’ is an invitation for everyone to commit the attribution fallacy and attack whatever gurning projection they’d rather be dealing with.
Meanwhile, the game’s still a cesspool - in your own words - and treating the symptoms will not fix that. Maybe they should treat something else.
What you’re describing is not and does not in any way resemble a competitive game. “You hate competitive games” is not an opinion. It’s the only possible conclusion that can be drawn from your continued deluded hate fest on the core defining traits of the genre.
The second you nerf a player for doing “too well” in any context, calling your game competitive isn’t misleading or misrepresentative. It’s a lie. It cannot be described as a competitive game if rubber band mechanics exist at any point in any context. It’s the equivalent using lard in your food then calling it kosher. The instant it’s implemented in any context, using the word competitive turns into fraud.
Sure, why not. I’m a moustache-twirling villain who personally despises your favorite binkie. All the explanations are just a clever ruse to baffle and trick people, so they’ll think problems have causes.
Let’s pretend grading on a curve means everybody gets the same gold star.
Let’s pretend “competitive” means exactly what you think, no more and no less.
Why should the dirt leagues be “competitive” in your definition?
Why should the lowest rungs of that ladder be as cutthroat and merciless as the upper echelons? It’s fuckin’ little league. We’re talking about people who suck so hard that one guy with a fresh account can demolish them. This is what handicaps are for.
It sounds like you just don’t like the idea of skill-based or team-based games. Plenty of people do. Its not an excuse to ruin it for others through smurfing, or to take it away from those who do enjoy the games.
Zero respect for any form ‘you just hate [blank]’ in any detailed discussion of [blank].
These are real problems. Valve is making a big show of dealing with them. But over two decades of tweaking and expanding this genre of games, with their absurd number of interconnected systems, nobody seems to have done anything to avert these systemic issues. They just label bad behavior and viciously punish anyone who does it.
It’s a video game. Unless someone is outright hacking, they can only do what the developers allow them to do. This specific genre - this competitive multiplayer game, distinct from all others - is a bottomless well of toxicity. That is no accident. It is an unavoidable consequence of the rules these games have chosen.
Modifying the rules is blase. It’s not some ruinous event; it happens every month. So modifying the rules to avoid the worst aspects of the community seems eminently desirable. Especially if it only applies to the low-stakes, newbie-friendly games where high-tier assholes want to lurch in and ruin it for everyone.
To be crystal clear:
This does not have to affect high-tier play, at all.
There is no reason whatsoever to handicap pros and wannabes playing at their absolute sweatiest.
This is about dirt-league players getting stomped by people committing bannable offenses. The fact anyone even wants to commit those offenses, is a systemic problem. It is shaped by the developers’ decisions, and different decisions would have different outcomes. Every system is perfectly designed to produces its observed results.
If you’re not willing to discuss systemic solutions then you’re not ready to address systemic problems.
Im not sure what you’re advocating then? A simplified “New Player Mode”? That already exists. Unranked mode? That exists too. SBMM? Already present. Or are you saying we need to tie accounts to people’s SSNs or something to prevent smurfing, because even ignoring account sharing, theres no way at all that that would backfire. As long as there are people to bully, someone will go out of their way to try and put others down to make themselves feel better. At least in DotA, they try and address it with fairly in-depth behaviour systems, unlike every other competitive game.
It’d be great if people stopped making up the conversation they’d rather be having. ‘These systemic problems should be balanced out in low-tier games.’ ‘So you hate high-tier play?’ Wrong. ‘You’re against tier rankings?’ Wronger. ‘You want players to submit a blood sample?’ Are you okay?
What I’m advocating is what I wrote. Twice. Namely: automatic handicaps based on the current match, using the grading the game plainly already does.
The SSN suggestion is the polar fucking opposite of what I’m on about - the game shouldn’t need to know who you are, to keep low-tier matches fair. Detecting higher-skilled play is normal. It’s how ranking works. And at low ranks, the skill ceiling is nice and low, so limiting the effectiveness of any individual player based on their performance over an entire half-hour of gameplay seems plenty tractable.
It’s not trivial - but these devs spent twenty years cranking out a metric buttload of characters, and all of those are at least roughly balanced. These people are capable. I worry they’re simply not trying to address these root causes. Possibly in part because suggestions along these lines make people ask ridiculous unrelated questions.
You’re basically suggesting that Valve turn DotA into Heroes of the Storm, a MOBA so lame it lived and died in just 7 years. Meanwhile, DotA has been going strong for nearly 20, despite the fact that anyone that’s ever heard of the game knows that it’s a toxic cesspool. Your “solution” to what you perceive as a problem is to make the game less fun, and that’s why Valve makes money by the truckload and you write sad opinion pieces and attempt to insult people on social media.
One, a game lasting “just” seven years is a fucking bizarre jab.
Two, ‘stop pretending disagreement means I hate your favorite thing’ is not an insult.
Three, if all criticism of an ongoing “toxic cesspool” lasting twenty god-damn years has you sneering in defense of the cesspool, I don’t think the details of that criticism have anything to do with your response.
But sure. How dare anyone point to a problem and say ‘they should fix that.’ I mean, where’s my billion-dollar franchise, right? It makes money so it can’t be wrong.
gg go next
I haven’t touched DotA since 2014. I couldn’t care less what happens to it. But you clearly do. Just in a way that nobody cares about.
@dril:
I care about toxicity. So does Valve, apparently. And PC Gamer. The problems with this genre are newsworthy. And it’s been an issue for two straight decades.
But I guess ‘problems have underlying causes which change can address’ is an invitation for everyone to commit the attribution fallacy and attack whatever gurning projection they’d rather be dealing with.
Meanwhile, the game’s still a cesspool - in your own words - and treating the symptoms will not fix that. Maybe they should treat something else.
MOTHERFUCKER ACTUALY HIT THE PIPE AGAIN AND MADE ANOTHER COMMENT LMAO
What you’re describing is not and does not in any way resemble a competitive game. “You hate competitive games” is not an opinion. It’s the only possible conclusion that can be drawn from your continued deluded hate fest on the core defining traits of the genre.
The second you nerf a player for doing “too well” in any context, calling your game competitive isn’t misleading or misrepresentative. It’s a lie. It cannot be described as a competitive game if rubber band mechanics exist at any point in any context. It’s the equivalent using lard in your food then calling it kosher. The instant it’s implemented in any context, using the word competitive turns into fraud.
Sure, why not. I’m a moustache-twirling villain who personally despises your favorite binkie. All the explanations are just a clever ruse to baffle and trick people, so they’ll think problems have causes.
Let’s pretend grading on a curve means everybody gets the same gold star.
Let’s pretend “competitive” means exactly what you think, no more and no less.
Why should the dirt leagues be “competitive” in your definition?
Why should the lowest rungs of that ladder be as cutthroat and merciless as the upper echelons? It’s fuckin’ little league. We’re talking about people who suck so hard that one guy with a fresh account can demolish them. This is what handicaps are for.