Valve bans DOTA 2 players with a lump of coal for Christmas

[Daniel Sims]

WTF?! Valve is notoriously persistent in catching and banning DOTA 2 players who break the rules, having kicked well over 100,000 in 2023. However, the company's latest campaign to keep the game fair is getting into the spirit of the holidays by transmitting bans through digital lumps of coal.

In a clip circulating online, DOTA 2 streamer "Masondota" can be seen opening a mysterious gift he received for the game's holiday "Frostivus" event, which turns out to be a lump of coal. The "highly toxic" item contains a message informing him that Valve banned his account for smurfing and other TOS violations.

The item is part of Valve's latest campaign during the holidays to ban players on the company's "naughty list." Valve is paying particular attention to "smurf" accounts – created by advanced players to circumvent matchmaking and terrorize new players.

This might be the funniest thing I've ever seen relating to Dota. Well played Valve. pic.twitter.com/v37jGXHQK1

– Richard Lewis (@RLewisReports) December 15, 2023

Mason denied smurfing in a lengthy Reddit post but confessed to paying for a service to boost his behavior score. The confession and many thumbnails on Mason's YouTube channel imply a habit of yelling at other players, which likely brought his score so low that he was forbidden from using voice chat, restricting his ability to coordinate with teammates.

TTo dodge the policy, numerous services offer to privately play DOTA 2 on a customer's account with good behavior to restore their reputations. It's unclear what triggered Mason's ban precisely, but he has asked Valve to reverse the decision.

The company has repeatedly demonstrated its seriousness regarding cheating and other bad behavior. When some players gained an unfair advantage by reading internal game data using third-party software earlier this year, Valve patched DOTA 2 with a mechanism to catch the cheating method, resulting in 40,000 bans. The company banned 90,000 smurfs in September and tens of thousands more this week.

Pro players began a conversation with Valve at The International in October regarding their smurf accounts, indicating that bans aren't the company's only method of combating the problem. Discussions are ongoing, and Valve said pro players agree that smurfing hurts the game.

Meanwhile, players on Valve's nice list can receive various holiday-themed cosmetic drops from the 2023 Frostivus update. The patch, updating DOTA 2 to version 7.35, also includes several quality-of-life user interface adjustments.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/101228-valve-bans-dota-2-players-lump-coal-christmas.html

 

[Mr Majestyk]

Poor widdle loser got caught out and thinks he should get a free pass. Ban them for life, if they have one.

 

[veLa]

I just don't have a problem with smurfing. Why can't I have multiple online personas that game under different context?

 

[envirovore]

I just don't have a problem with smurfing. Why can't I have multiple online personas that game under different context?

Pubstomping noobs is fine in a free-for-all death match game.
If you're playing something competitively ranked, stick with your skill level and let the noobs figure it out so they can work to your level.

Or are you a bully in real life too?

 

[Nobina]

I can see why people don't want smurfs in their games but I always saw it as a chance to test myself against someone good.

 

[loki1944]

Physical lump of coal would have been so much better

 

[Sir Sparkles]

Implementing game creation zones where you can open match or match only in your skill class could solve these issues. Yet again humans show they are terrible at managing humans, keep trying to control them rather than presenting opportunities for them to be free which are mutually beneficial.

 

[envirovore]

Implementing game creation zones where you can open match or match only in your skill class could solve these issues. Yet again humans show they are terrible at managing humans, keep trying to control them rather than presenting opportunities for them to be free which are mutually beneficial.

This is a fairly good approach imo.
Offer the option of both ranked, skill based match making servers and unranked, nonmatched, pub-lobbies where all skillsets can play together if they want.
The elites would still get to pubstomp for twitch views and feel better about themselves, the noobs get to test their skills against better players without being kicked from the server and observe techniques used by better players therefore learning more advanced game play.

 

[Bamda]

Bravo Value Bravo. Please continue to smite these **** into oblivion. I have zero empathy, sympathy, or any considerations.