4Game

I've seen many reactions to the post about 3rd party tools, being unable to click on profiles, and pregame overwolf targeted bans. While overwolf has implemented a blind pick phase, this update will do nothing to stop other devs from creating a similar program. And it's completely legal from valves perspective.

To preface, I dislike how overwolf warps pick phases, but i don't strongly feel about it one way or another. This post isn't a justification for or against overwolf, but a clarification on misconceptions.

The only thing the recent update did is prevent you from clicking on players profiles in the client during pick phase. This does not touch the method overwolf uses to get player data.

Overwolf is not "reading data it shouodnt" Overwolf gets its data from the GSI/API, which provides a bunch of data from the game. This data is provided, supported, and endorsed by valve themselves, with documentation on how to use it.

Overwolf is not bannable, and a ban on it can't be enforced. Valve has no way to detect overwolf, as it doesn't actually "hook" into dota in any way. Overwolf is as connected to dota as Google Chrome is. You can even run overwolf on a different pc without dota installed on it.

The overwolf "problem" is not gone. While overwolf has removed their pick screen ban recommended by choice, there is nothing preventing someone creating a program that does the same thing. In fact I think this will happen very quickly.

The only real way to stop overwolf and its clones from functioning is to anonomize players entirely during the pick phase, in such a way that there is no steamid information given at all until the pick phase ends. This is a change that would have to be made on Valve's end.

Enjoy your days/weeks without targeted bans, but they will return unless a more substantial change is made to the GSI/pregame data