SanKakU

it's been about a couple of months since my last blog about the global mute system, and here's another one, in the same format as the last.

"This post is perfect evidence the system is only being abused and use as a way of vengeance rather than as stopping harrassing people. Hopefully this will show as proof to the devs this community can't handle this mute system, as it is only being used as a tool by the evil, the ones its supposed to be used against, to ban regular players. Bad sportsmanship is the definition of the internet and something that one needs not care about until they actually have a name to defend. This is an online game used for people to knock of steam, if after a 1 hour slugfest one gets punished for using one word playful mudslinging then the system is severely broken. Sad part is, the people that are "offended" stop caring the second they hit the "Find Match" button, meanwhile the player with 200 commendations and 2k hours and games played gets banned for 24 hours.


System is only being abused, and its by the worst offenders in our community." - dan_legend

"Ah yes and where is the moral authority and thought police that decides when we need to shut up?" - obro

"I think your numbers are off but you are correct in your general analysis of the situation. They are performing some sort of communication genocide where they are killing all who would get the commendation for 'Teaching' along with all the 'Communication Abuse' players.

I propose a test, see how many there are that are having more 'Commends' for 'Teaching' than 'Forgiving' and are being muted. It must be significantly higher than the reverse. This new system is adversely affecting an important part of the DOTA 2 population. The very players that would likely make very effective coaches for the Coaching System that has still not been implemented yet are prevented from Teaching or in some extreme cases purportedly, from even Leading." - hoveringmover

"ALL non-self-inflicted censorship is bad censorship, there has been a mute feature in dota 2 for well over a year, USE IT, if you don't like foul language or something or another, MUTE THEM. Don't fore draconian censorship on others, free speech only needs protecting when someone else does not like what you are saying. You can turn off your TV, turn off your radio, leave if you hear someone preaching what you don't like, there is a mute button, USE IT. But do not ever force censorship on me.

Not to mention the blatant abuses this system has been subjected to. I have a KoTL who was trolling me with his ult, bringing me into team fights that were lost when I was farming as a hard carry, and I disabled ally assist and told him "too bad you abused your ult too much," him and his friend reported me for chat abuse and I was banned from comms the next game. I was perfectly civil the entire game and even after it was blatant that he was abusing his abilities I didn't curse him out and I WAS STILL CHAT BANNED BY A TROLL." - addyftw

"The communication ban feature has utterly ruined my ability to play support
It's hard enough to rally random strangers to complete an objective or listen to you when the ability to communicate is available. People who play this game tend to take advice as pure criticism of their ability and overreact while throwing out your words entirely. If someone can at least hear me, something will change.

Earlier today I became quite flummoxed with a player who refused to listen and cost us the game. This got me a few reports and now I can't communicate with anyone.

Support heroes rely entirely on their ability to communicate, they call the shots early game and control how the entire game will play out. Without a mouth, I have to sit there and hope the dominoes fall the right way. Because of my recent ban, I have to watch teams fail and die horribly because they make simple and correctable mistakes I could have prevented with a quick word or two. Telling a teammate to use one of his abilities, reminding teammates of valueable items needed for defeating the specific group of foes, being able to organize people around you for smoke of deciet or so you can plant wards in neutral or enemy territory: all these abilities, Gone.

I can't help any newer players, I can't teach anybody how to be better, I can't lead teams to victory, I can't even show friendliness or kindness to people. Instead I feel like I've been bound, gagged, and forced to watch my squad get butchered before my eyes before I get killed.

The worst part (and I've been guilty of it too) is that when you try to ping frantically to people in hopes your point might somehow get across, do you know what they say? 'Use your voice moron, I don't speak ping' 'Dammit, talk to me and stop pinging' 'Communicate you bastard or we can't get anything done with that fucking noise all over the place' and as a result, they progress to the point of flaming and start throwing the blame to everybody. I then have to report them for the same thing and the cycle continues.

A brief fit of anger because a player caused my ban, the ban continued it to this point, and the games I've tried to play have caused others to get angry and possibly banned. You've created a cycle of anger and have ruined many people's games.

It's utterly ruined my fun and desire to spend any money on the dota store in the future.

I'd seriously rather be in low-priority.

I used to buy keys twice a month, once when the new crate came out and once before it expired. I will no longer be spending any money on dota 2 until this massive breach has been fixed. Dota is a game of communication and now I can't play it.



Also, steam community access doesn't work anymore from in game in dota 2. shift+tab does nothing now, get on it." - teddyras

"All my reports are false reports, so I would never report an actual flamer and only report someone who offended me in some other way. Last one I did was the very best invoker I've ever played with.

Yeah, assuming he's a nice guy I'm wasting my report, but it's my report to waste. If he shows a history of this kind of behavior, I guess he'll eventually get what's coming to him." - tehadambomb

"I was playing a game the other night and being Canadian was playing on North American servers. I join que and get into a game with 4 portuguese friends all speaking their own language. I asked them and I am going to quote myself here "Hey guys can you please speak English I don't understand you" exact words. They switched to English long enough to call me racist and to tell me they're going to report me and now I am muted for 24 hours..... WTF?!? For what asking them speak English which clearly they could?

This is the worst reporting system I have seen in my 18+ years of online gaming. I would rather have low priority then be completely alienated from my team and don't feed me that you have pings and chat wheel shit because it's not enough. So easily exploitable it's complete bullshit. Valve you need to start listening to your players because you are quite simply ruining dota and running it into the ground." - Dedone

"Not now, they fixed the fact that you could report people you never even met

but still you can get a player muted for thousands of non valid reasons:
- You didnt like him
- He mid and you wanted to mid
- He picked a hero you dont agree he should have pick
- He didnt make the item you think he should
- He plays like a noob
- He doesnt speaks english
- He speaks english but you dont like his accent (Obviously foreigner)
- He owned you (Enemy team)
- He called you "Feeder" once (When you had 21 deaths 0 kills)
- He asked you to buy wards because your hero is the only support in the team
- He told you that build sucks for that hero

and countless others



It also makes me wonder: If they didnt even THINK to limit the reports to people you have ACTUALLY interacted with....not until people made videos of them abusing the system like that and laughed at it in the forums....how well made could this mute system actually be?" - Shmendrich

"arosian, believe me, most of us are polite IRL. but in the game, just like IRL, some people deserve politeness, others don't. being polite with an ignorant who doesn't care about you is a waste of time (even though Valve clearly disagrees here). i'm not mother theresa and i didn't make a purpose in life from bringing love and understanding in this world. i don't have an issue with bad people as long as i don't have to suffer from their mistakes.

@nadaga: mate, every human being has a limit as to the amount of frustration they can withstand. IRL you will sometimes see colleagues who shout at each-other in the office, people who may do that in a public place, at home, anywhere you can think of. do you honestly think that the majority of the banned people here rage in every single game? if someone does something wrong and ruins your efforts from the past 40 minutes, or - even better - ruins them from the first minute of gameplay, how do you suggest i deal with that? people have different characters, i speak my mind. I don't have anything against a banning system, but this inquisition-like manner of banning people because they curse is not just stupid, it's downright abusive. sure you can ban people, but 1. make a difference between flaming as a reaction to a mistake and flaming for fun, 2. show the players how it happened (make it public if you want), 3. give them the option to appeal it, maybe (just maybe) the admin was wrong. This is a sound banning system, not the "thing" we call global comm ban in Dota 2." - CruxMatris

"Haha, that gave me a good chuckle man. They don't separate sht, what ever reports you get, you get. I report people for what ever I feel like and submit it as communication abuse (ex: someone picking jugg) and I get thank you notices LOL." - evilcloud5

"That self-evident truth is just a self-interpretation of the reality without proof, aka false accusation.
Tone is irrelevant my friend, since someone can call you something very big with a beautiful tone, even with a pretty smile
Main point is that you cant totally blame someone for something that you don't know he did and make accusations based in suppositions.

Oh, and you can apply it to every single member of the forum, but specially is something that a moderator doesn't have to do with the members on the forum where he does his functions.

But is all right, you can think different, people think and believe things all the time everywhere, luckily beliefs and thoughts doesn't change reality. " - Arcady

"-"Help!" Ping Top

-Ping roshan

I play in High, been muted 2 weeks, can't care less, you can play being muted, you can win being muted, you can communicate 90% of the time being muted, you just have to think how to do it, problem is most people don't care and just play carry all week

PS: btw I just lost 3 games in a row because one or more on the team were "doing whatever with no regards for the 4 other players on his team" and neither of them were muted" - knurlhelm

"Mute for no reason.

It's true, I used to flame and get mute, but I got tired of not being able to tell people to take courier, or choose my lane or guide them to come and gank.
So yes I'm being honest, I used to insult, but I didn't ever since the last mute, and now I'm getting annoyed by the fact that this time I did nothing and I have 168h of mute on my account..." - Thaz

"i gave fb, blamed the guy on my lane for not participating properly in the fight that caused my death.

i flamed him whole game, trolled in fights he took part.

game ended, and i reported him.

and valve thanked me for making the community a better place for the rest of us. *clap*" - smurf

"yeah the mute system is pretty broken

me: gank mid pls
me: be more careful pls
him: fuck you you are in the safelane. report this cunt. he needs a muzzle

next game - im muted. cool valve" - Mudblood

"Sometimes I just can not understand what developers thinking are ???
I assure you that at ALL games from Russia and EastEurope regions there are VERY MUCH swearing !! (suppose from USA and Latin regions too)
And for some players it is no importance is there are a reason for swearing or not - they just swear and violate other players all the time.
Underside of this is absence of ingame possibility to tell/announce to really bad players (stupid noobs) to stop spoil the game or feed enemies - only possibility is a swearing.
Also only 2 reports per week is really fkng potetic, you can read more about it at those threads:
http://dev.dota2.com/showthread.php?t=90638
http://dev.dota2.com/showthread.php?t=90380

So all this reveal in game problem with ChatBan system - there are not enough reports to ban all swering players but also there are no another possbibility to tell noobs how they fkng stupid that just chat swearing.

I hope developers not so stupid as fkng noobs and can realise that.

So I suggest to DISABLE CHAT BANS AT ALL. Just add easy option for ingame personal voice disabling - to also disable text chat from this player (except auto teammates text)!!! This easy option solve all problem !!! Who dont want to hear/read swearing - he will not !!! So its no need any chat bans including many wrongful bans any more !!! Each player can easy decide whom he wants to hear and whom not !!!" - Femidion

"Even Gandhi would've been muted under this absurd automated system." - Cataxu

"Got rage mute on 48 hours after 21-1 kills

Hi Developers. I want say about mute system. Its not good solution because if people in rage sent report and good players have ban chat. I with my frends play today on riki. And have 20-1-6 stats

In mid game i have message from other team like "Report on riki" i ask why reason and hear answer - something like "because u play on imba hero". After this match i have mute on 48 hours. Previous ban i have for same reason. Yes i play to much time on Riki but people, its not my problem if u cant buy wards and gem with dust.

U can watch replay if u not belive me. I upload screenshot with this match ID and u can check replay. How i can at this moment communicate with my friends in game? Need use other soft for this action, its very stupid.

Please remove ban if possible and make changes in report system. Its not right if good players have punishment." - OVERIX

"I was just muted for the first time

Previously I mostly laughed at the other post about a lawsuit that made the rounds on reddit, and thought no this guy must be a giant dick bag. Recently I have noticed about 30% of my friend list is muted, many of whom are not people who are verbally abusive in game.

I have 70+ friendly commendations, nearly 50+ leadership commendations.

I'm sure it was for the last game I played, we had a silencer and NP go carry with no support as the last two picks. Silencer was in the wrong lane based on what our comp was and not responding to any communication, ie: "go top", he was last hitting creeps denying farm to our hard carries, and refusing to purchase support items, and then did not use his ulti the entire game. He may well have been muted as he did use the macro wheel, to suggest I as lycan buy wards. And to use "well played" as a troll whenever anyone on the team died, but even if he was muted he was just trolling our team.

The entire team raged at him, and the other team reported him as well for functionally ruining the game.

I definitely cursed some but I believe one has to be 13 years old to have a steam account which would make everything I said acceptable in a PG13 movie, I definitely wasn't polite, but here Valve is basically telling me I'm not allowed to be angry at someone who has wasted an hour of my life and 8 others. I've spent about 1,000 dollars on DOTA 2 todate, and just quit my 12th game ever out of 1,600 games because muting makes it unplayable.


I know that you are doing quite a bit of heuristics on new user data to determine the success of your muting policy. I hope you also take a look at what muting a customer does to their buying habits because you just lost any potential future income from me.

One really really pissed off customer, who used to have nothing but positive things to say about valve." - sourbrew

"This. This is what happens when you get stuck with 4 egotistic people who think everything belongs to them. They claim lanes even when there are better lanes to work with, they claim runes are theirs, they swear and insult you when you take the runes and then report you, they mess with the courier so you can't use it and drop your items from the courier somewhere else, they don't help you and wait until you die before using their spells because you took one of "their" runes. Then what happens? You end up being the one muted and banned even though you didn't do anything in retaliation, or at best nothing happens to you but nothing happens to them either and they repeat the same thing with others.

Face it, Dota 2 has one of the worst moderation system I've ever seen. It has one of the worst community as well and they bring it with them to Dota sites and forums. Makes it very unenjoyable." - Wrolf

as you can see, there is a lot to be displeased with in regards to the mute system. sure, valve claims they are trying, but it is obvious that they aren't trying hard enough. there might be some good things to come about in regards to this mute system, but it is surely annoying at times, and we're in need of a lot of fixes. they fail to realize fatal flaws with their mute system and pass the results off as acceptable while they are completely unacceptable. the facts stand against valve as lazy and incompetent workers, and that's being nice.

the global mute is ridiculous. even after their fix after a week/halfweek of nonsense, it's still crazy:

"I've been playing 5+ games a day. Believe me, I have some really good games, and some really bad games.

Today, I got muted. For what, I don't know.

I didn't swear. I didn't use racial slurs. All I did was tell my team when I was ganking, to defend, to push, etc.
I criticized inefficient and stupid builds like a wraithband, tangos start. Mind you, I normally play in High MMR.

Nothing out of the ordinary.

And yet, I'm muted for an undefined period of time.

Often, people simply report you, and swear at you afterwards.
But because I've already used all of my reports this week since I've played easily over 15 games, I can do NOTHING.

The mute feature is there for a reason. These mute bans are an outrage.
And the forums have not had this kind of outcry to an update in ages.

This is a sign of Valve turning the wrong direction.
This policy is entirely against the consumer.
There are no appeals and there is no vetting.
You literally can pick up Dota 2 invites for a rare a piece, create three accounts, and just report people you don't like.
Within 12 hours, you'll have them muted.

For what? Only Valve seems to know.

If this is some campaign against 'cyber bullying' then I can't help but think that Valve has its priorities completely out of order.
The Dota community is centered about a game that gives a player extremely high and low valence emotions.
It's natural to be angry and to express that.

This system promotes an artificial politeness.
It is unnatural, it is fake.

People who are muted cannot communicate effectively in any high level match, especially if they are solo queuing versus a coordinated via voice stack or small parties.

You cast your ulti in a teamfight late because of the cooldown? Too bad, your team doesn't know that.
Reported for throwing. Enjoy your mute extension." - daed

"The chat wheel does not solve any problems. If you are in a very high skill game then you typically need to type an in depth description of what you are about to do during a gank or teamfight.

People are getting complacent because the mute bans are being enforced less frequently.
That does not keep mute bans from being a terrible system that simply does not improve the game!

The only reason people accept the mute ban system is because they think that Valve should have the right to police their players.
Well guess what? Dota is a community made game, and if Valve wants to cash in on that community then they should respect it." - mcheeawai

"im just amazed how some people can be this incompetent just because they did not get muted or reported. First of all, what you guys need to understand is that some people are more passionate then others, and some get stuck with different players and have different personalities.

For instance, if someone comes out and calls me something like a newb or any other offensive name, i would not report him because i feel like first of all that is super childish because i chose to play an ONLINE game with no RATING meaning that you can swear and do all sorts of crap, which is what i agreed to by playing online.

Second, you are playing with 9 strangers in a long 5v5, this is a competition of-course people will talk trash, of-course people will get mad and butthurt and brag and do all this stuff, this is how the world works. Look at any sport, take NBA for example, you see players openly talking trash every time after a basket, assist, some are even encourage to show emotion to get their team playing better, EMOTION is what makes us human.

This report system is the dumbest system ever made, how someone can think that this is a good idea is beyond me, in no way shape or form is this remotely helpful EVER. You shouldn't be able to report anyone, at-least not with few simple clicks without going in GREAT detail on what happened and when(which then should be reviewed by a person to see if its true or not).

Reports solve nothing... If a guy is griefing you and decided to buy 1000 cur's to feed to another team, then what is you reporting him going to do? He will go to low pro? Cool and his buddies will report you too and you will meet him there in 15 minutes? Its just pointless, it does nothing but start more problems then it solves.

The best idea is to take it out completely or as ive always said make it alot more informative as to what you are reporting people and alot more complicated process that requires you more then 3 simple clicks to affect someones game play experience." - TomTomNT

"Lucky. My friend got banned for playing Medusa. No he did not flame. The guy said in chat he reported him for playing Medusa.

I personally don't think I deserved mine, as I was trying really hard to be nice, but some things I said were in a bit of a gray area.

I dunno, but alot of people are really not getting banned fairly. I just think Valve should give power to players to deal with people who ruin games, and fix the problem for themselves if possible. If not, make it reportable. We do not need this system. We have a mute button." - 4o4Hellfire

"Everytime I report someone, they get muted. But I usually only report the people who rage or start fights on the team.

Only 1 report left. Not muted yet myself. This is interesting. I see two problems with the system:

1- Amount of reports per week is too low if you play a lot. Otherwise it's fine.

2- Abuse. It seems like people can report me for simply not liking me. Sure, people generally won't report me, but if they decide to gang up and do it because I didn't build a certain item build, they can. Where are the measures against that?" - KitsuneSefam

"The problem is people are not getting muted for 'raging' as you know it. They are getting muted for 'raging' by being ignored by people. In other words their allies are merely being incompetent and they try to communicate 'how to do it better' and then they are simply ignored. At some point they might decide to tell opponents, 'bad game' for no cooperation and the opponents in their fit of pride in feeling like it was a 'good game' even though clearly their opponents let them win will report people for simply being honest." - SanKakU

"So much for their Fixpatch, ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dfz51XYmZ-o

The muting is absolutly sick as is!" - 3qual

"I get the ''Thanks for improving the community'' very often and 90% of the people i report didnt do anything that is a reportable offense." - iamVo0dO

"Played 1600 games of Dota 2.
Held a 'teach a new player how to dota' group with 80 members actively learning.
Never been in low priority, never had any bans.
Only 3 abandons out of those 1600 games due to power shortage.
Don't rage, don't flame. Just some occasional F and C word, not directed at anyone particular.
Tried my best to be as polite and helpful in PlayDota as possible (check my history).

Got chat-muted because I got matched into a 4 man stack of Russian players in captains mode and they disliked my picks = 4 reports." - Chaqu

"Kids using their 4 weekly reports for minor things like "easy" instead of using them on real flamers who make this community toxic. If you can't accept a bit "trash talk" that happens in every competitive game/sport, something like "easy" then god damn it you are one little wuss.

I never do offensive gg, easy and similar... hmmm, I can't remember last time I used /all chat but it never bothers me when opponents do a little "trash talk" after they win." - Rainheart

"For people wondering if I berated my team, no I didn't.

In that game, I recall saying 3 nuggets of wisdom to my team.

I told DK to get a Mjollnor and BKB to deal with Meepo late game.
I told Storm Spirit to stop dying, and made it explicit that he should avoid getting stunned and should focus all his damage onto Lina.
I told Rubick to stop eating stuns.

What happened late is the enemy team said 'push in, we don't def'. I went to push the t3 tower (with Aegis in hand), and they all jumped me and popped my Aegis. They lied on all chat in order to try and comeback. After double raxing, I said "no def", then "but def?", then said "easy" to tease them for trying to win in such a low brow way." - Straylian

"Then you would be abusing the report system which is why no part of it should be automated. The communication abuse report option is for things like death threats, walls of text spam, severe racism, etc, not for reporting someone because they hurt your feelings by saying the game was easy" - Jones

"I report everyone that says easy, no matter how "easy" the game was." - TheWilder

"you know what's even better, you're not even good enough to have programmed in a legible timer because I'm apparently banned for %s1 hours. Valve time right? If you were any other company you'd have all been fired for poor quality workmanship and undelivered promises. You know who else used to be a big successful company? Creative Labs." - 8087h3d1n054ur

well, i guess that's enough for now!
i'll write another blog later if i see some more good stuff.

it's been almost a year since my previous blog directed specifically at new dota 2 players, so i figure why not write a new one?

1) How to get good.
hopefully you did the things recommended in the first blog, but you're probably still struggling to be any good. here's a few things to keep in mind:
a) ALWAYS watch replays. review replays where you lose and where you win, watch at least 1 replay every day that you play.
b) spectate OFTEN. if you are feeling a little sick or for whatever reason can't play a full game, why not spectate? it doesn't have to be a full game, or maybe it should be! either way, you might be able to learn something, if not from the game itself, from the other spectators. and don't forget to turn off and back on directed camera when you need to, which normally should probably be often.
c) make solid friends. find good players and stalk their channels. my home channel on dota 2 is "potato chip dota". while it can be fun to stalk guys like sunsfan from dotacinema, you are not likely to get any better at the game by hanging out with them.
d) don't forget to practice! whether it's just a game vs bots, a custom 5v5 match, or even a 1v1 solo mid, practicing is important and should never be neglected.
e) (this one is optional) play war3 dota sometimes if you have the time for it. yeah, it's got some annoying quirks, but learning the heroes that haven't come out yet could be good for you.

2) Cosmetic Items Discussion.
the cosmetics items are getting to be more and more a part of the game. there's a lot to be said for them, and i'm not sure i'm the one who knows enough about them to tell you all you need to know, but they're still worth commenting on.
a) FREE items events. there have been 2 events that have come that have been interesting little side games and they have both left the scene. during that time they were dropping for players cosmetic items every game rather than every level up or whatever in the battle points. in this case, there have been no wins or losses recorded. this is a good time to learn heroes you are unfamiliar with, or to try new tricks with heroes you are familiar with. just try not to let your obsession with extra items cloud your rise to a higher skill level. there's a balance that needs to be achieved. if you're running around with 0 items on all heros in all your games, other 'new players' might assume that you haven't bothered to learn such a hero. grabbing some free HQ items for trading in these events can give you an edge when it comes to trading. don't neglect it if at all possible.
b) cosmetics to WIN? there is no such thing as buy to win in dota 2. however, there is a popular game that is such a thing. as a result, you might bump into players that think because they have some special item(s) they deserve some special treatment. whatever you do, don't give it to them. the way to winning is teamwork, and whether you have a good cosmetic or not, you're still you. do not let cosmetics influence your choice of hero for a game. work on your inner qualities of a person and a player, and you might be surprised by how often a player might feel like rewarding you for being a nice person with a free item. if valve can give away free items, so can other players.

3) How to continue enjoying the game.
a) report. win or lose, report players that tried to make the game not fun. try to be detailed.
b) commend. try to remember to commend players that were fun to play with. realistically you won't always be able to do this, so if nothing else, offer up a friend request and see what happens next. you can always delete them later.
c) find the fun. find favorite heroes, watch games of your friends, try to arrange custom 5v5 games, form a team, even enter tournaments or leagues if possible, but whatever you do, do it because it is fun.

i've taken to figuring out how streaming works and as a result i'm going to start streaming the matchmaking games and broadcasting those. i'll most likely stick to captain's mode games since those are the most interesting IMO. but you can expect i'll probably do some AP games if i get requests on broadcasting tips about various heroes.

the main reason i have a fascination with CM games at the moment is that i'm trying to form a team so i'm looking at how other teams look, amateur teams that could very well be what my team might look like. i want to try to keep an open mind about how realistic i should be in my expectations, while at the same time having some good and bad examples of teamwork shown.

with all that mentioned, feel free to add my channel, 'potato chip dota' in the dota 2 client if you want to chat and possibly either get added to a team or get some advice on how you can step up your game, or even just to do some solo mid sparring or private games together with either full teams or testers for bugs.

http://www.twitch.tv/dcttr66
http://www.youtube.com/user/iNsOmNiAcAnDrEw