The Dota 2 team have updated the popular MOBA’s matchmaking system that will affect players playing the game’s competitive ranked mode. This update also reintroduces the ability to queue for games when you’re flying solo.
“Quality matchmaking is a core component of an enjoyable Dota session, and today’s changes work to address several issues that can affect the player experience when queuing for a game.”The way the system has worked up to this point is like this: if you leave a game prematurely or have been reported multiple times by team members, the game will put you in low priority mode. This means that you’ll only be able to join a queue with other low priority members, resulting in longer queue times for you. Low priority players also won’t receive trophy points and item drops. Furthermore, this system removes the ability to queue for anything other than an unranked single draft match.
This update introduces a time-based penalty for players who manage to find themselves in the low priority queue.
“Being marked for low-priority matches now results in a duration-based ban from the Ranked queue, in addition to the current game-count-based low priority requirement. The ban will start at a low threshold of a few hours, and increase up to four days for players who are very frequently in low priority.”Feeders (players who intentionally die to enemy players to spite their own team by buffing your opponents) will also be given less of a chance to ruin your game due to improved the game’s improved detection. If you get caught intentionally feeding or otherwise being a thorn in your team’s side, they will have to look forward to stricter punishments. The DOTA 2 team has also banned a large number of detected bot accounts.
Another way they’re making Dota 2 a safer place to play in, the devs have made providing a phone number mandatory if you want to play in the game’s ranked mode.
“There will be a two-week grace period from today during which players have time to register a number, but starting on May 4th, accounts without a registered number will no longer be eligible for Ranked play. If a phone number is removed from an account after registration, a new number can be added, but there will be a three-month waiting period before the removed number can be registered on a new account. This is to prevent using the same number on multiple accounts. Online services that provide phone numbers are not allowed.”This update also allows players to queue on their own again, with the matchmaking trying to set you up with other people who have also queued solo.
The game has also gotten some changes that affect how you and your party get matched with other teams.
“Starting today, if a player’s Solo MMR is higher than their Party MMR, queuing in a party will result in the matchmaker assigning a higher MMR to that player. Effectively, these players will search for a match as if their MMR were halfway between the Solo and Party MMR values.”This change has been made because the devs have seen an increase in unpleasant and “volatile” behavior in matches where your solo MMR is higher than your team’s MMR. The updated system takes into account your personal skill, as well as the combined skill of all members of your team and it will use this info to matchmake you with other players of a similar skill.
Lastly, ranked matchmaking will be removed from Dota 2 in countries with a low amount of players. The inclusion of a ranked mode in a region with comparatively little players means that the user base cannot support both casual play as well as competitive play. Players in South Africa, India and Dubai will have to make do with unranked matches until the player base has grown to a size big enough to support multiple game modes.
This new update is available right now.
What do you think of the changes to the matchmaking system? Let us know in the comment section down below!
