Cover-Credits:
In competitive games such as Dota 2, fair play and integrity are the pillars upon which the whole game experience is built. However, recent revelations within the Dota 2 community have raised concerns about the prevalence of cheating and players are urging Valve to take action against the use of third-party applications. One that has caught the attention of the community is an app called “Overplus” which initially gained traction for its “skin-changer” feature.
It allows Dota 2 players to equip hero items without the need to own the item. Recently, it’s been receiving backlash since it displays showing personal player information during the drafting phase which Valve disabled in early 2023.
Several Dota 2 players and personalities have chimed in on the use of such third-party applications and also called out scripters, and hackers in Dota 2
Dota 2 Community Speaks Up Against Overplus
On 29th January, Alliance CEO and The International 2013 winner Jonathan "Loda" Berg took to Twitter to talk about Overplus. He said, “Overplus is a serious problem for Dota2 and should be banned. It’s a bad thing in the sense that people use 3rd party programs to find a lot of data on their opponents at match start."
For those who are unaware of the Overplus application, it is a paid third-party application that players can utilize to change in-game hero items. Overplus also gives drafting suggestions and grants an unfair advantage by showing other players’ most-played heroes. This means that there’s a high chance for players to get their best hero or counter-picks banned. Some users even claimed that even after turning off the “expose public match data” option, the application managed to show the player’s match histories.
Popular Dota 2 streamer and personality, Janne "Gorgc" Stefanovski also had something to say on the use of Overplus. During one of his usual Twitch streams, Gorgc said, “Especially when it comes to Immortal draft I think it's so unfair. You can just see like...Some people can see a lot of information. They can see who's a smurf, they can see who's an account buyer, they can see who's on a win streak, who's on a loss streak, and they can see all the previous games. It’s super valuable info when you're drafting players in Immortal draft right that's also a huge issue. So yeah, this needs to go.”
At the time of writing, Valve has not taken a stance against Overplus. But knowing Valve, a solution can likely be expected in the coming days.
Third-party applications have surely been hindering the gaming experience of Dota 2 players. Apart from Overplus, there were many cases of scripting and hacking reported in high elo games. Aliwi "w33" Omar also spoke up against this as he tweeted, “Cheating has become a serious problem in Dota and I see it in almost or more than half of my games, these people are everywhere. This is 1 guy only who is rank 200 EU btw.” He also shared multiple videos to back his words.
Unfortunately, it seems like the issue of Overplus is just the tip of the iceberg. There’s much more to be unraveled in the coming weeks as AFK Gaming dives deep into the rampant cheating and hacking problem in Dota 2.
