4Game

I'm returning to Dota after a break of 2 months and it's been quite the pain to play Dota. I'm from South America and don't know if it's a common problem worldwide but, at least here, there are a lot of griefer.

I'll say right of the bat, getting angry, being mean to someone is really common and I don't think it's necessarily a problem. I want to discuss griefing. Intentional actions that people do against their team.

1 – Why do people grief?
Well, because they're angry. Dota is a stressful game, but people get angry at the game, they get angry at each other. Usually blind to their (or our) own mistakes. I don't think I see anything to solve the problem here, except from, maybe a campaign about toxicity and winrate(?). Open to suggestions.

2 – Why muting is not a solution?
Because, as I said, the griefer is doing things, not saying things.

3 – What can we do after someone starts griefing?
Usually, from my experience, little to nothing. Mute is the best thing, but then again, doesn't solve it.

4 – Impacts of a griefer.
Sometimes it can range from blocking a camp to destroying their items and feeding down mid. But there's one thing that nobody seems to care about: it affects your teammates. They want to quit the game and play considerably worse. They're not having a good time. If you're about to say "yeah, then go play something else" you're absolutely right, Dota is about someone griefing and your teammates losing their shit, but it doesn't mean we have to always answer that. And this is what I'm trying to change. I mean, we don't have to accept that Dota is like this. Afterall, Dota games range from 30-50 minutes. That's a long time to have to be there playing while someone is doing some absurd shit. It's not funny and really frustrating. Some people may even argue that rankeds are like that and you should play casual, but that's not true. Same as before, you can do that, but people who want to compete should have a place to do it. I think it's an even worse argument to accept as it is, just try to imagine having a competitive play, preparing yourself, reading about the game, focusing, trying hard and someone just griefs because you or any other player lost a creep. It's not fun.

5 – Punishment and feeling the griefer will get punished
This is where I think we can change the game for the better. I don't think anyone feels the griefer will be punished. Even the griefer says he won't be punished. Going to low priority is okay for some people. Getting a low behavior score didn't stop anyone I met. Nor did it stop people with similar behavior scores to grief and offend each other for 30 minutes non-stop.

6 – Overwatch cases.
This was a hope I had and it died some time ago. Didn't impact the community enough. I don't know why.

7 – Other games.
I started playing FF XIV. Yeah, it's not a moba but it has a set of actions that bans you permanently. Their community is amazing! I never thought I could say that about a online game but, yeah! Feels really good. Maybe Dota could learn a lot from that.

8 – Rankeds need a phone number.
This is something good, but I don't think it stops anyone who really got their account banned (or on low priority) to start playing with a different account.

9 – Dota Plus.
Some people say to get Dota plus is to get rid of this problem. This is not true and even if it was, it's not cool to pay for something that should be free.

10 – Resolutions.
First of all, I don't have all the answers, and I'm really looking forward for you guys to help get this problem solved.
– We could implement a extreme version of the behavior score. Go really low when being toxic to someone and consider a report to be bad (instead of waiting for 3 reports).
– Ban accounts more frequently. There's tons of videos of smurfs having 30+ games before they get banned. Check BSJ herald on immortal videos.
– Banning people from playing Rankeds for increasing time until their behavior scores reset. This keeps a record for months so it can increase each time.
– Grow a better community online through Discord, Facebook groups, reddit, etc? Doesn't solve your pubs but maybe playing casual is cool?
– Implementing a new system that reads the chat log, searches for specific words.

I want to hear what you guys have to say about all this, I will not pretend like I'm right about everything, I just want a better game and I think none of you would argue that this is not a problem.

TL;DR: I played some games. People griefed in a lot of them. I didn't felt they would be punished at all. Felt pretty bad and not having fun at all. Remembered some experiences in other games and communities, and thought that Dota doesn't have to be that awful.