During a recent live stream, prominent Dota 2 streamer Janne "Gorgc" Stefanovski reacted to Anathan "ana" Pham’s tweet about playing Dota 2 with friends and the recent developments around smurf accounts. ana took to X to question Valve about how he is supposed to play the game with his friend if he can’t play unranked and if he can’t smurf. Reacting to this, Gorgc said the solution for this is to “complain about the queuing system and the matchmaking system.”
Gorgc’s Solution To Playing Dota 2 with Friends
Valve has been reinforcing its no smurfing policy actively, banning any accounts associated with smurfing or accounts with any involvement in activities that go against the Steam Terms of Service. This includes account sharing, MMR boosting, and behavior boosting amongst others.
In his tweet, ana complained about not being able to play with his friends due to the recent wave of smurf bans and him not being able to queue unranked games. “How can we play Dota 2 with friends if we can’t find normal matches on a main acc and we can’t smurf?” ana questioned.
Gorgc chimed in to add a few thoughts of his own and said that smurfing is not supposed to be the solution to playing with friends and that the matchmaking and the queuing system should be made better. Complaining about the matchmaking system should be the simplest solution, opined Gorgc.
He then talked about the old system which included two separate MMRs: A party MMR and a solo MMR. “I did like the system where there was a party MMR and solo MMR. I don't know why they removed that. I thought it was pretty good. Some people abuse it a bit. But I feel like it was pretty decent. I feel like they could re-add that. I don't know why they would remove it, to be honest. I feel, like personally, that would be better,” he said.
Party MMR and solo MMR systems were abolished more than 4 years ago and to replace that system, two new MMR systems — support MMR and core MMR — were implemented. Based on this, players would get matched in games. Valve implemented this change “to allow for bigger changes and better analytical capabilities.”
ana’s concerns were not baseless as the recent measures from Valve have gotten many players banned from Dota 2. In September 2023, over 90,000 accounts related to smurfing were banned, and most recently, with the release of patch 7.35, Valve included a surprise Frostivus gift to toxic players. It was either a “toxic lump of coal” or a “highly toxic lump of coal” which, upon receiving, issued a warning or a permanent ban for accounts associated with smurfing or other unauthorized activity.
