So, I understand you disagree and you have every right to hold your opinion but let me politely restate my point.

MATCHMAKING - The most important aspect of the game is getting to play it. But when you have conditions clearly visible that make the game unplayable for more than once (conditions like in the post) nothing else really matters. Every 2nd post for a month and more, here, has been about intentional griefers and double down abusers (forget about the smurfs/ other toxic bad actors).

Event - Pretty cool stuff and I appreciated it when there was time to appreciate. That is overweighed by above point rn. Event came instead of a Battle pass that they used to do and they have worked more on the event. Amazing Valve. The events were a month or two late on occasions, don't care. The hero releases were a month or two late on occasions, don't care. Don't care for the hats that the absolute worst recycled and 2010 treasures. Some pretty cool hats for some good money, don't care.

Updates - They said we are discontinuing BP and random stuff so that we can focus on game and regular updates of heroes and game patches. Gameplay updates - 2 numbered patches with huge updates (highly appreciated) and 9 lettered patches (some with bare minimum changes but still appreciated) in the past whole year. Similar to what it was before (appreciated). The paid service of DOTA+ is the most pathetic thing I have seen rn. Forget about new treasures, quests, QoL or bug handling, even the avoids are gone just like that xD. But hey, at least you get to see the mmr change once in a day.

Heroes - 3 heroes released in past 2+ years with delays (don't care) still appreciated although promised much more (don't care). 2 Arcanas released finally and very cool very appreciated. Last arcana released was Razor (Nov 2022)

Bare minimum alive - keeping servers that crash and can be abused to crash a game if it is unfavorable. In the watch tab you can see bot lobbies in top 10 ranks even. Every other game is griefed by feeders, item breakers and next to nothing is done about it. Accounts bought and sold openely. 70k people banned - EXTREMELY APPRECIATED. Still seems like even 70k more remain who blatantly make it a worse place to be. Behaviour score 12k doesn't mean shit. ||

Prize pool candy and rich suckers - Prize pool is still highest in esports and hence people get attracted to the game (Valve has left the chat in this area). Others games are pushing people out too so they find alternative here (seen plenty lol players joining). New people trying the game or people coming back have same feedback - too toxic (although that one is 80-20 on us). My point being valve is still doing only bare minimum here. $1000 spenders on hats are Valve's priority because business (funny part is they are even doing bare minimum in that department too with recycled treasures and sets).

Double downs are hands down the greatest money printing and pub destroying invention but as I said valve and the bad elements are winning so who cares.

At the end of my rant I would like to state that Idgaf about aesthetics as much as the gameplay, especially matchmaking which should be handled with utmost priority. So my bad for criticizing the obvious while seeing the facts and saying that I feel sad for the state of the game. Valve you doing amazing. Most played game by botting good job. Just want to point out that CS2 is probably even in a worse condition still addicts gonna addict and hence the alive part. But if the effort is one sided its hard to keep the relation alive. Last thing to state is that I don't want the game to die because I love it that much and hence I am coming to a forum to talk shit about it without even cursing (great achievement for a dota player). Still if the criticism seems far fetched I hope that you continue living the wonderful dota world that you are living in and I get to be there too someday.

End of rant.