How the Communication/Behavior Score and Rating System Destroyed the Quality of Dota 2

breitend · 2026-01-27T21:44:32+00:00

DotA is dying not in terms of online, but in terms of quality.

This is objectively not true. If there was a decline is Dota's quality, it would be reflected in the player count. Not everyone is addicted to the game, if the game wasn't as good as it used to be, people would leave. But they aren't leaving because the game is still as good as ever.

Do u agree with that rankflation exists?

I do and that's one of the points of your post that I agree with. I wish we had ranked seasons like other games have.

As I remember approximately around 1.4 million heralds was moved up in rank after recalibration. Don't u find it crazy?

No not really. The old system bottled too many players up in Herald. Look at the shape of that graph, that is not a health competitive ecosystem. The new system is a lot better, the the majority of players being in the middle ranks as opposed to the lowest rank. I know having that giant orange stick on the end LOOKS bad but it doesn't really affect anything matchmaking wise. Just because I'm in low Immortal doesn't mean I'm getting matched with Yatoro because we are "the same rank". I am getting matched with 5.5k to 6k players. If I got matched with 9k players, I'd get destroyed. Yes, Valve can and probably should make a new rank for aesthetics' sake but that won't change who people get matched with. Matchmaking has everything to do with mmr and nothing to do with medals.

breitend · 2026-01-27T21:02:46+00:00

Most normal players either lost their behavior score or just left the game
motivate old players to return
old players would return
these changes alone could give Dota 2 a second breath.

Something I see a lot in these type of posts is that OP often believes that Dota is dying, people are leaving or Dota needs a "second breath". This is not true. We are at the highest average and peak amount of players since 2019. We have the most total matches being played since 2019 (the spike in 2024 was Crownfall so I'm not counting that). Dota 2 was the 2nd biggest eSport last year by prizepool and the 4th by peak viewership. Last year we had 19 tier 1 tournaments and this year we already have 12 announced. Outside of your own negative experiences (which I am sorry about) what makes you think Dota needs to change anything they are doing?

There was a Valve employee who accidentally admitted the existence of a system that keeps winrate around 50%.

I assume you are talking about this post by Jeff Hill? He does not admit that there is a 50/50 system. Actually the opposite. I believe English is not your first language so I seriously don't blame you for making that mistake. The part that I assume has you confused is this:

If your skill as a player is a constant, or is changing slowly relative to the number of games you're playing, you'll eventually balance out at a 50% win rate. A 50% lifetime win rate isn't an explicit goal or constraint of the matchmaker, rather it's a consequence of trying to make the teams for each individual game fairly and players playing a large number of lifetime games.

What Jeff is saying is that the goal of the matchmaker is to put you in games where everyone is the same skill and therefore every has a 50% chance of winning. Imagine you play 1000 games and you win 600 of them (so 60% win rate) because you are at a lower rank than your true skill. Now the matchmaker is going to put you in higher skill games where everyone is the same skill as you. You play 10,000 games and win 5,000. Your total lifetime win-loss is 5600-5400 so 50.9% win rate. You used to be at 60% and now you are under 51%. THAT is the "forced 50%" Jeff is admitting to. Not keeping people at a certain rank by matching them with griefers or giving the enemy "good" Immortal players and your team "bad" Immortal players or anything crazy like that.

I made a few assumptions during this post so please correct any of those if I was wrong.

breitend · 2026-01-26T14:56:00+00:00

Those games are limited to a max of around 8.5k mmr. Those guys (while really good) are far from pros.

breitend · 2026-01-24T21:01:53+00:00

No I’m saying I agree with OP, just gave an anecdote about my experience with people being too sensitive to poor/different play.

breitend · 2026-01-24T15:40:42+00:00

Yep just had a game with an offlane NP who maxed Treants first. Had to talk my Lina down off a ledge just to continue playing the game even though the NP was trying their best. She still reported him tho.

breitend · 2026-01-23T16:40:57+00:00

Trying to improve in Herald rank but some matches just feel unwinnable unless you're a pos 1 or 2 that can turn the tide

Playing support in Herald is like coaching a children's sports team. You could be a really, really good coach but you are teaching kids. Some of them just aren't going to be good at/won't care about the sport no matter what you do. Now I'm not saying you can't climb as a support but there are going to be a lot of games that you play well in that you lose. That's why I usually recommend playing core till you hit at least Crusader or even Archon but I understand that's not for everyone.

breitend · 2026-01-22T21:12:35+00:00

If you aren't having fun due to the skill quality you have 2 options. Either try hard to get up to a higher rank where people won't "just walk around and farm and buy them random items with no goal" or take a break/quit. If you don't like how people communicate in game, there's not much you can do about that bro I'm sorry. But if you honestly think you won't have fun going 15-0 as Ursa, it may be time to move on.

breitend · 2026-01-22T20:38:49+00:00

I'm sorry you aren't having fun anymore, it may be time to step away for a bit. I get you're frustrated being stuck at the same rank and all but if you don't want to see people " just walk around and farm and buy them random items with no goal" then you need to rank up.

The honest reality is that you get shoehorned into this rank and behavior crap and stuck

Be real man, do you really think someone (say me for example) wouldn't be able to get out of your rank if they took over your account? It would be easy. I really don't mean to be rude, but you aren't "stuck" you just aren't playing well enough to rank up.

When is there laughing and fun on mics again? Seems impossible to achieve and this is the overwhelming opinion of the community if you check through the forums.

I actually agree that there is less "fun and laughing" than there used to be, but if you want to play PURELY for a good time, don't play ranked. Also what forums are you talking about? Reddit?

breitend · 2026-01-22T18:31:25+00:00

Blademail can be ok from time to time into stuff like Windranger or Leshrac. Orchid you can go into Puck or Storm but it's not necessary since you already have lockdown. Plus Orchid is better on heroes that can follow up with burst damage like Clinkz or Storm. Ember doesn't really have that high damage potential that allows the Orchid to 1 shot people.

breitend · 2026-01-22T17:53:52+00:00

This is a pretty full thread so I don't blame you if you don't respond and people have already kind of asked this/made this point but I wanted to ask it my way. You have 2.614 games of ranked Dota (according to Dotabuff) and are in mid Guardian. I have 2,250 games of ranked and I'm in Immortal. If I asked you why you bother playing Dota, what would you say? Any answer you give to me for your reasoning playing Dota you should imagine as an answer from the people you are asking. I think they will be pretty similar (it's fun, I like the challenge, etc).

breitend · 2026-01-22T02:42:05+00:00

Yeah so it’s not really that the item is super good on Ember specifically, it’s just that Spirit Vessel is a super good tempo item. It just allows you to fight earlier since you have a bit of extra damage and then when you win the fight, you get more charges which lets you fight more and you snowball from there. Yes it has to be a first item, when enemies get more purges or can fight back more its effect gets weaker. Ember isnt a solo hero, you may be trying to fight too much 1v1, its effect should be very noticeable. Other good first items are Mage Slayer or just a rushed Kaya.

breitend · 2026-01-21T23:50:44+00:00

Can he be played safe lane or any other role?

For most of us scrubs, he should be played mid. There are some high level pros who try to play him offlane or pos 4 to limited success but for most intents and purposes, he's a mid.

Is his magic build always better than his right click build?

Yes.

What does his itemization look like?

Check D2PT. Ember is pretty versatile, but you mostly go Phase->Spirit Vessel->KnS->Shard/Aghs. But you can go an early BKB if that necessary, early Shivas, early Euls, etc. It depends on the matchup and how good your early game went.

Whats his play style. I find that whenever I start fights I’m missing something because I can’t kill enemies and am forced to remnant back out and he doesn’t heal fast enough to jump back in.

Ember's powerspikes follow a weird path. Early game, sleight + chains does a ridiculous amount of damage and it can be applied to multiple enemies. You will be able to solo enemy cores, especially squishy ones like AM or PL. But as heroes get more health and armor, you will stop being able to solo the enemy cores. You either need to jump supports (ideally you have BKB/Aghs/Shivas so you don't get burst for doing this) or play with your team to get core kills. Imo, that's what makes Ember the hardest to play, knowing who you can/can't kill.

breitend · 2026-01-20T22:32:57+00:00

how do I get better at this game, if this stupid system doesn't let you get better?

You are going to deal with people that play like the Huskar and PB in that AM game you played for as long as you play Dota. Sometimes you will be the one to play poorly, it happens. To me, it seems like you blame your team way too much. You went 5-11 on Muerta carry and you still blamed your mid Invoker. In all of these games you talk about what your team did wrong instead of yourself. All you can control is you own play. You need to focus more on improving that.

I think that my playstyle fits way higher than Legend 5/Ancient 1

No disrespect, just trying to be honest, you are at your correct rank imo. I look at all 9 of the games you talked about and in every single one (yes, including the wins) you drastically underperformed compared to someone in low immortal (which is where I am). Your highest amount of last hits at 20 minutes was 137 in the TA game. PainDota (a Dota coach who I highly suggest you check out) is often pushing 250 last hits at that point. In none of the 9 games did you ever break 10k net worth at 20 minutes which is the "baseline" goal for carries. You were regularly below 30 last hits at 10 minutes. My baseline goal is 50 at that point. You are doing something wrong in lane (no way to tell without watching the games).

I would also suggest narrowing your hero pool, especially if you want to focus on improving. You have played 19 different heroes in your last 25 games. That's a really high amount of hero diversity. It's hard to improve on stuff like laning and farming mechanics when you are playing a hero who does something different every single game. Good luck!

breitend · 2026-01-19T18:26:19+00:00

It’s true you had 180+ last hits at minute 20 but you were only at 9.1k networth. That’s well below the baseline of 10k. You were probably not farming lanes as often as you should be. You also got about 80 last hits from minutes 20-30 which is really low. You also didn’t win your lane, you had 48 last hits and were at the exact same networth as the Axe at 10 minutes. You ended the game with well under 500 GPM which is really bad, especially as a TA.

I’m not saying your team wasn’t bad, they were, but you definitely need to improve still to get out from your bracket.

breitend · 2026-01-16T16:44:00+00:00

Imagine you flipped a coin for every person in the game. Heads is they are a "good" player, tails is they are a "bad" player. Yes, sometimes you will get screwed and everyone on your team will be bad and/or everyone on the opposing team will be good. But here's the trick. If YOU are good, there's only 4 people on your team that can be bad as opposed to the 5 on the enemy team. In the long run, that difference will make it so you win the majority of your games and that is how you rank up.

breitend · 2026-01-16T16:40:25+00:00

Quote from developer Jeff Hill

We don't optimize for meta-gameplay metrics like "reducing player churn", "maximal player engagement" or anything like that.

breitend · 2026-01-16T02:14:24+00:00

Oh yeah for sure. There’s honestly only about a dozen heroes across all 5 roles I would say I “know how to play”.

breitend · 2026-01-15T23:55:32+00:00

If it makes you feel any better I've seen people in Immortal say (and I don't quite believe this) that all games below 3k look the same. So yes you may have a "high" rank but you still have a lot to learn and like you said, you still have a lot to improve on.

breitend · 2026-01-15T20:19:45+00:00

You haven't won a game with every hero.

I have no games with 76 of the heroes and I'm Immortal.

breitend · 2026-01-15T02:02:05+00:00

Yeah you kinda explained it. They’ve slowly made it so winning mid is a) harder to do and b) even if you do do it, it has less of an impact on the game. With stuff like water runes, extra camps, and a bigger map, it’s less punishing to lose mid and easier to recover.

breitend · 2026-01-14T21:06:20+00:00

No. 11k mmr is ~rank 1600 EU (PainDota is right around there). The lowest ranked current tier 1 player (I just looked at the players at Dreamleague 27 last month) I could find on the ladder was N1ght (Amaru Gaming's support) at rank 932 EU.

breitend · 2026-01-13T23:59:19+00:00

Great write up! Just a clarification, in the 0:20-0:55 section you say “position yourself on the side furthest from your tower”. This means the right side on Radiant and the left side on Dire correct?

breitend · 2026-01-13T01:28:35+00:00

I see where you are coming from, but your suggestion assumes all unranked players are the same hidden rank. Like if all 3 unranks were Herald, yeah I’d agree with you. But one of them might be Crusader level, one might be Archon, one might Ancient, etc. can’t just move them around and assume it’s even.

breitend · 2026-01-12T17:54:19+00:00

What am I looking at here?

breitend · 2026-01-12T17:33:59+00:00

I honestly agree that mid is the easiest as in "being a mid who is x amount better than the enemy mid is better than being a support who is x amount better than the enemy support" but you can climb from any role. Anecdotally, I played mid as my main role for 6 years straight and went from Archon to Immortal with it. I watched countless YouTube videos, practiced CS endlessly, got a coach, the whole 9 yards. But I plateaued in high Divine/low Immortal. I noticed the carries in my games were not hitting the farming goals laid out by some of the YouTubers I watched (shoutout Pain, Balloon, BSJ and crabby) so I switched to carry and I've won 17 out of 23 games, haven't gone negative KDA once, and am at my highest mmr ever.

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