Valve is putting steps in place to make Dota 2 ranked matches a better experience for all.
In a new update rolled out today, the company is bringing some changes to the game to help streamline the Dota 2 experience. First, Valve is improving the Solo Queue experience by allowing players to search exclusively for other Solo queue players. This is to prevent being queued up with players that are in a party, which provides an advantage for the opposing team.
Starting on May 4th, Valve will require players to have their phone number attached to their account to queue up for ranked matches. This is to prevent the use of players using multiple accounts to effectively cheat the system. Players are told that they can remove their phone number from an account at any time, but there will be a three-month waiting period before the number can be re-added to another account.
“Players using multiple accounts create a negative matchmaking experience at all skill brackets, so our goal is to add just enough friction to this process that the number of players doing this will be noticeably reduced. Having more players using their primary accounts will have a positive effect on both Ranked and Unranked Matchmaking.“
Ranked multiplayer matches are also changing how the Solo MMR affects a Party MMR, by queuing up players with higher skilled players depending on the level of their solo experience.
“Starting today, if a player’s Solo MMR is higher than their Party MMR, queuing in a party will result in the matchmaker assigning a higher MMR to that player.” Valve says in a blog post. “Effectively, these players will search for a match as if their MMR were halfway between the Solo and Party MMR values.”
All of these changes were implemented to improve the experience of ranked matchmaking games, which are usually filled with toxicity and aggressive behaviours. If you are an avid Dota 2 player, what do you think of these changes? Be sure to let us know on Twitter @InformedPixel or sound off in the comments below!
Dota 2 is available for PC via Steam.
