Is it worth playing ranked matches in Dota 2 in 2021?

Author: Hawk Live LLC

Last updated: 05:46, 22.12.2025

Kingslayer, gpK~, taiga, Miracle-, Yang, Quinn, Limmp, NothingToSay, w33 - all of these nicknames are familiar to many. These players have achieved considerable success in esports and have taken pride of place at major tournaments more than once. But how did they get into esports?

All of them are connected by a long way through the rating table. It's no secret that eSports organizations, at different intervals, look at the rating of the strongest players and some of them may be lucky enough to be in the top team. But lately, getting to the top of the leaderboard hasn't been easy. Lingering games, smurfs, boosters, buyers, long cooldowns - this is not a complete list of what pushes the average player away from ranked games.

So why has Dota 2 turned into a game that is fun to watch and uncomfortable to play?!

It's interesting to watch, but impossible to play

Dota 2 tournaments are watched by hundreds of thousands or even millions of viewers, but every month people are less and less interested in playing the game.

Valve has been assuring players for a long time that the company will begin to devote more time to both the game and to its users. Recent actions by the company have shown that Valve still doesn't give a damn about their product, but it's definitely not enough to get their audience back.

At the moment, when a new player enters the game, he faces many difficulties on his way.

The lack of training guides forces the player to often make gross mistakes in the game.
A toxic community only takes away the player's desire to master the game.
The length of the session negatively affects the desire to keep playing.

And these are just the most basic things that turn new users off.

New Hero, Diretide, Overwatch System, Big Patch! Is this not enough?!

New mechanics, a new hero, and the return of the legendary Diretide mode have had a small short-term success in the circle of players, but globally nothing has changed.

The new Patrol system was supposed to enable conscientious players to help fight a toxic community and clear the expanses of rated games from boosters and buyers, but the result is zero.

Yaroslav «NS» Kuznetsov, an analyst and commentator, shared his opinion on the «Storm Snail» podcast on the performance of the new system.

I have received replays from the Patrol only three times. People just report that someone played badly, and there is no button like “Played bad''! You cannot report someone for playing poorly. You can report for the fact that someone played badly on purpose - that is, feed, ran and died. I haven't seen anything like it. People tried to play, they just didn’t succeed, and they were reported.

And since the new Overwatch system did not solve the set tasks for controlling the quality of the games, social networks and Internet sites began to replenish with complaints from players about the uncomfortable play in rating matches:

Boosters, buyers, smurfers kill Dota, of course, I'm playing somewhere in the 6k rating, well, in every second game someone bought an account, you can see it straight. Someone boosts from 6k to 7k, someone bought 6500 and systematically merges back to their 4000, someone went down much lower from 8k to relax, and so on. As a result, you seem to be playing on the same rating, but in fact there is some kind of salad in the game, then some boosters kill everyone for you, then vice versa. And after all, the situation is such it is + - from 4k to 7k there is, i.e. somewhere with 4k already and boosters and buyers and smurfs well, and up to 7k it all does not end. How do people play here at all?

And this is said by players with extensive experience in the game, who still devote a huge amount of time to Dota. Obviously, the changes with new heroes, Overwatch and new mechanics have a positive effect on the game, but Valve does not do the most important and certainly difficult things:

Attracting new players to the game

It can certainly be called the most important problem. Valve is not taking the time to get new audiences interested in their project. A few years ago, the game had a training mode for new players, which offered beginners not only familiarization with the game but also rewards for completing it. Valve should consider creating a training course for newbies with the support of professional players in-game. For example, many new users would like to start playing a game in which the TI winner explains the basics at every position in the game. This could be done in the format of simple videos or small tutorials, similar to learning in Single-player games. Dota itself is a tricky game, but teaching new users the basics and mechanics will increase their motivation to learn more about the game.

Involvement of players

New players quickly lose interest in ranked matches due to lack of progress. This problem is tracked in the project from the very beginning of the game. Initially, Valve took the risky move by investing a hefty $1,600,000 in 2010 to host the first The International. In doing so, the company has given great hope and incentive to the players. But such a decision cannot keep the public's interest forever. And in 2021, Valve should start thinking about user engagement in their games. One of the options for resolving this issue may be the free extended Dota Plus, which will primarily be aimed at acquainting newcomers with the game.

In addition, after the introduction of the rank system into the game, the players no longer feel their progress. The privilege to track the rank relative to others now has only players with Immortal title, and then only those who have passed the 6-7k rating mark, and this is only 1.1% of the entire audience of the game. If each Anchor or Crusader could track what position in the rating they occupy among all players, there would be more motivation to play. After all, it can take many months, or even years, to reach the top 1000 in Europe without understanding what place you have in the table, it will be quite difficult to do this. You can also make a system of rewards for getting a rating in the form of unique sets or UI in Steam since dry numbers and stars do not motivate players very much. In addition, the rejection of the forced reset of the rating completely erased the value in the ranks.

There are ways to fix it all, but Valve does nothing, because if they just zero and flatten everything, then how many people differ from the fact that they grind their 10 thousand rating. Every second professional player will whine.

Enjoy the game

One of the main tasks of the game is to enable the user to enjoy the pastime. But how can you enjoy the game when the duration of one session drags on for several tens of minutes, and the cooldown of most of the heroes' abilities can reach several minutes. Many heroes simply have nothing to do on the map for 2-3 minutes, since there is not enough farm for everyone, and they do not want to go to fight while their abilities are on cooldown. So it turns out 2-3 minutes where you just click on the map with the cursor and press 1 button every 20 seconds, which is not the most interesting gameplay for any moba game.

And who is interested in playing now?!

Clement «Puppey» Ivanov - the captain of Team Secret, in an interview for RuHub studio, said that he became bored with playing as support. According to him, in the game, as a support, there is nothing to do.

Now all the supports are the same. They stand for carry, wait for something, give some kind of empower or buff. It's not that much fun, it's very boring to play now.

In addition, Valve, over the past few years, began to artificially tighten the gameplay for players, increasing the skill's cooldown of most heroes and severely limiting the number of wards on the map.

Another important problem was the lack of motivation among the players to take action in the first 10 - 20 minutes of the game.

Samuel «Boxi» Swann, offlane player of Team Liquid, said that his position is not as interesting as it used to be.

I think the offlane has ceased to be a position with which you can seriously influence the game. I wouldn't say I want to be a star of the lineup, but it was fun to be able to build up an advantage in early fights, kill everyone right and left on the hero with Blink Dagger. And now people take Spectre first pick and farm ancient creeps for 20 minutes.

Will players be able to enjoy Ranked Matches in 2021?

At the moment, even the broadcasts of the professional DPC leagues of the season are going through a difficult period. The interest in watching matches is significantly lower than it was a year ago. It's all the fault of the lack of any action from players in the first 10 minutes of the game. This problem can be seen not only in professional championships but also in rating matches.

For a long time, the gaming community has been waiting from Valve for changes in the game economy and mechanics for positions 3, 4 and 5. Although the company promised to devote more time to the game and its users, in the end the players remain in the dark a great while.

It will be a shame if Valve does not listen to the requests of the players. But they ask a little: